I am not afraid to call Chomsky a fool

Jul 06, 2011 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Naom Chomsky was one of my heroes when I was a post-graduate student. I read all his writings at that time. Since then, I have become more politically matured. I don’t think I can say the same for Chomsky. Mark Benschop brought his latest book for me, “Hopes and Prospects.” After reading it, I think it is a waste of time.
Chomsky is one of the greatest intellectuals of the 21st century. He is a phenomenal mind when it comes to his work (in linguistics). But as a political analyst of world affairs, I don’t think he has excelled the way he has done in his philosophical work.
I am not and will not be deterred by his world status in calling him a fool. I think the same way of the Caribbean scholar, Norman Girvan. I believe both men are stupid to see Castro (in the case of Girvan) and Chavez (in the case of Chomsky) as great world leaders. They are not. They are oppressors. They are beastly leaders who should be removed by the peoples of Cuba and Venezuela respectively.
Girvan is a great economist. Chomsky is one of the world’s brilliant minds. But who told them that what they say about world politics is gospel? It is not. They both write nonsense when it comes to Castro and Chavez.
Chomsky is particularly egregious. In his latest book (mentioned above) his barefaced support for dictatorship in the Third World is particularly nauseating. All Chomsky can see are the wrongs of the US Government. Nothing else! This is foolish.
Yes, the US Government has done untold harm to the world since it became a superpower (so did the USSR and now it is China’s term to exploit the Third World and the Chinese are doing it shamelessly). The US Government was involved in the making of the Chilean coup in 1973. This is only one terrible indictment against it. But for Chomsky, the US is the world’s only bad guy.
His latest book ignores the imperialist trade of China and fascist developments in the Third World. Suddenly, the great Chomsky had his “Road to Damascus” moment. He told the London Observer (sister paper to the Guardian of the UK) that Chavez is wrong to detain a judge since 1999 and has accumulated too much executive power (see the July 3 edition of the online Guardian).
Chavez has been in power for twelve years, during which time he showed that he is nowhere near being the nice gentleman that Barack Obama is, but Chomsky found him to be one of his heroes while Obama, in Chomsky’s latest publication, is a puppet of the American industrial-military complex.
The great philosopher, Noam Chomsky, has become Christopher Columbus. He has an epiphany moment – his lovely, freedom-spreading hero, Hugo Chavez, now poses a threat to Venezuelan democracy. Chomsky uses the word caudillismo (authoritarianism) to describe what is taking place in Venezuela.
Chomsky fears that Chavez now has more power than the National Assembly. He has written Chavez about the judge (a mother) who is languishing in jail with cancer. Chomsky had some harsh words to say about what has happened to the judge, but it is people like Chomsky and Girvan who allowed dictators like Castro and Chavez to jail and kill their own citizens.
It is people like Chomsky who encouraged fascists like Chavez to consolidate their tyrannical grip on their nations.
People like Noam Chomsky and Norman Girvan could be accused of dishonesty. Despite their international status we must not be afraid to criticize them, and we should do so in harsh terms. Girvan is an unashamed apologist for Cuban tyranny. Chomsky embraces many Third World, totalitarian states.
Chomsky has enjoyed freedom in the US these past eighty years but that very freedom is denied to the citizens of Venezuela.
The judge was taken away and put in jail without any evidence of wrongdoing, only because she freed a banker that Chavez didn’t like. If Obama had done that, Chomsky would have traveled to Antarctica to denounce him to the penguins there.
Girvan lives in Jamaica and probably would be the first to protest at his workplace, UWI, if academics were hauled off to jail by the Bruce Golding Government in Jamaica. These two men could afford to sit in their armchairs and support the Cuban and Venezuelan devils, because they do not know what it is like to have your liberties taken away.
In closing, I heard Rupert Roopnaraine, in an interview with Denis Chabrol, say that the WPA is interested in relations with parties like Chavez’s in Venezuela.

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One thought on “I am not afraid to call Chomsky a fool”

mike December 22, 2011 at 5:52 pm

Fine essay. Certainly you should not be afraid to label Chomsky a fool. ..the worst sort according to some

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