[thechat] Chomsky, was Michael Moore's message

Erika Meyer emeyer at lclark.edu
Mon Sep 17 13:06:48 CDT 2001


The thing about Chomsky soundbites is they freak people out.

But no one stays around to listen to the wall of evidence he has behind him.

I got so frustrated the other night, watching McNeil/Lehrer.  For the 
"Final Thoughts" section (or Concluding Thoughts or whatever they 
call it) they rounded up an incredible group of folks to discuss the 
situation, and gave them just a few soundbites in order to give a 
reasoned, intelligent, thoughtful response.  Then everyone gets cut 
off just when the discussion gets a bit interesting.

Turn the channel to CNN and you get the same repeated WAR WAR WAR rah 
rah rah WAR WAR WAR and let's watch those planes hit the buildings 
again, shall we?

It makes me sick to my stomach.

Apparently the human life-span is too short.  We have no memory, we 
have no long term thought forwards or backwards.  History means 
nothing.

I am an American.

Aggressive US military action in Afghanistan is absolutely and 
completely unacceptable to me.

But no one asked me.

Erika

>  >But Chomsky isn't as good at theatrics or sound-bites, and so has
>>less of a popular appeal.
>
>Maybe not theatrics, but he has some pretty nifty soundbites:
>
>"If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war
>American president would have been hanged"
>
>"The freer the society the more well-honed and sophisticated
>its system of thought control and indoctrination"
>
>"There is an unpronceable 5-letter word in the United
>States - 'class'."
>
>"It's extremely important to make other people, the
>rest of the population, believe that there's no
>such thing as class. We're all just equal. We're all
>Americans. We live in harmony. We all work together.
>Everything is great."
>
>Of course, it's far too easy to dismiss Chomsky because
>he looks like Woody Allen...
>
>Cheers
>Martin

-- 




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