Noam Chomsky Praising America

Noam Chomsky Having A Discussion With An Idiot

This is more about current events than usual with me.

Patrick Bet David talks to quite a range of people. But he is incapable of listening, partly because he 'thinks' there are two sides, Democrats and Republicans, in the United States today. I stumbled on the above after listening to a discussion with David Pakman, in which Pakman responds at one point with something like, "Some of those words mirror some of what I said." When Pakman explains that some of those who support Trump were previously non-voters, disengaged and disaffected, who do not care about policy, Bet David responds by asking if some of those who voted for Obama voted for him solely because he is black. Since Pakman is on the other side, he must have been insulting Bet David and needs to be countered with a tu quoque fallacy. Bet David asks Richard Wolff, "Why do you hate rich people?" He cannot fathom Roland Martin who tells him that activists came up with the idea of "defund the police" and, generally, such activists dislike both the Republician and Democratic parties.

For another podcaster, consider Lex Friedman. He conducts himself with more seriousness, sometimes a bit too ponderous for my taste. He has something to talk to Noam Chomsky about other than politics.

One view I disagree with is actually existing capitalism is not real capitalism. Crony capitalism and monopoly capitalism do not count. I find that propertarians will sometimes argue this. Chomsky says something like the same in talking to Bet David. I agree with Chomsky that Adam Smith was not advocating for something like the United States economy today.

Anyway, I like to point out Chomsky has written the following:

"We live entangled in webs of endless deceit, often self-deceit, but with a little honest effort, it is possible to extricate ourselves from them. If we do, we will see a world that is rather different from the one presented to us by a remarkably effective ideological system, a world that is much uglier, often horrifying. We will also learn that our own actions, or passive acquiescence, contribute quite substantially to misery and oppression, and perhaps eventual global destruction.

But there is a brighter side. We are fortunate to live in a society that is not only rich and powerful - and hence, as any student of history would expect, dangerous and destructive - but also relatively free and open, perhaps more so than any other, though this may change if the reactionary jingoists who have misappropriated the term 'conservative' succeed in their current project of diminishing civil liberties, strengthening the power of the state, and protecting it from public scrutiny. For those who are relatively wealthy and privileged, a very large sector of a society as rich as ours, there are ample opportunities to discover the truth about who we are and what we do in the world. Furthermore, by international standards the state is limited at home in its capacity to coerce. Hence those who enjoy a measure of wealth and privilege are free to act in many ways, without undue fear of state terror, to bring about crucial changes in policy and even more fundamental institutional changes. We are fortunate, perhaps uniquely so, in the range of opportunities we enjoy for free inquiry and effective action. The significance of these facts can hardly be exaggerated." -- Noam Chomsky, Turning The Tide: US Intervention in Central America and the Struggle for Peace 1985.