Left-wing activist and author Noam Chomsky is in the New York Times today:
The American linguist Noam Chomsky, a prominent source of intellectual inspiration for President Hugo Chavez, made a new appeal on Wednesday for the release of Maria Lourdes Afiuni, a judge arrested two years ago by the secret intelligence police.
If you find it a little surprising that Chomsky’s views on international affairs would be reported in the Paper of Record, and if you’d be inclined to believe the Times finds his views newsworthy only because Chomsky is criticizing Chavez (which they’ve done before)… well, you might not be the only one. Here’s what Chomsky said about it to the Guardian:
Despite his appeal for Afiuni’s release, Chomsky has been critical of the media’s coverage of the case. On Wednesday he suggested the case had received so much media attention only “because Venezuela is an official enemy” [of the United States]. “I am involved in these appeals all the time but I get no calls unless it is an enemy of the U.S.,” Chomsky said. “This is more a comment on the media than on the case.”
Chomsky is correct in noting the media’ preference for the sensational. Merely by scrolling down through the postings at this site one can see that again and again the TV moderators of the major networks chose guests with nut-ball political opinions to discuss obvious nonsense rather than interview well-informed economists, diplomats, and other experts who may disagree about subjects of real significance.
“[A] prominent source of intellectual inspiration for President Hugo Chávez” …
What’s a corpress quoting of Chomsky without a little redbaiting?
I guess the answer to that is, “Pretty damn unlikely.”
Gee, anyone who wants news has to go to BBC.
Note that the item came from Romero, a reliable opponent of the Venezuelan government.
The only American medium that lets Chomsky speak is C-SPAN. I’ve never heard or seen him on PBS or NPR, let alone on any commercial medium.
Noam has been called everything in the book. I find his views the most conservative. Bad financial policy and bad foreign policy isn’t left, just the truth. Us true conservatives know that we need a viable middle class for us to survive or else all the will come tumbling down, IMHO.
Mark, I may be confused, but since when did libertarian socialism become conservative?
In addition, to C-Span, I have seen Noam Chomsky being interviewed by Bill Maher on HBO.
In addition to Chomsky, let the networks and cable news channels have in depth interviews (no soundbytes, please) with people like Christopher Hedges, Webster Tarpley, Glen Greenwald, Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzalez (Daily News and Democracy Now), Professor Wolf, Naomi Klein, Jeremy Seikel and the like.
The media derides Chomsky for being a fool (because of his liberal activism), yet they basically agree on the importance of his academic work. Hence, the reporting on Chomsky is schizophrenic. If he’s brilliant, he must be crazy to hold these views.
Also, by the way, Chomsky is not known as a linguist, but rather for his linguistic research, no?
If that’s the case, The Times has that wrong too?
Chomsky’s views on Afiuni were written up in the Guardian a few months ago. For once, Chomsky is not well informed. Afiuni is just another one of the corrupt judges that Venezuela is stuck with, and she went too far in letting a crooked business man out of jail in a way that made it easy for him to escape to Miami. She never did anything political at all, but the opposition pretends it is a case of Chavez persecuting her. It seems that a think-tank with Samantha Power, among others, persuaded Chomsky to get involved, and he was suckered into going along with their campaign to let her off. In fact she is lucky to be treated as leniently as she is, in house arrest rather than in prison. It is typical of oligarchs to expect to be treated with kid gloves rather than to be given the same treatment as any other criminal.
For the full story of what Afiuni did, go to the excellent website venezuelanalysis.com and search for her name.
The idea that there is a lack of “judicial independence” in Venezuela is a joke. Actually, the judiciary’s independence has been a problems ever since Chavez was elected. After the failed coup d’etat in 2002, for example, the courts set free the people who had kidnapped the president and threw out the constitution. The whole judiciary in Venezuela is a big problem, because it is full of holdovers from before Chavez’s presidency, and he has been scrupulous in respecting their independence. But this is typical of the lies that Romero of the Times has been telling right along. Simon Forero of the Washington Post and NPR is even worse.
Responding to Michelle Ognjanovic: Chomsky is a professor (emeritus) of linguistics, and it is customary for people in that field to be called “linguists.” The word also refers to people who speak several languages, of course, but it is correct to call him a “linguist.”
Peter, thanks for the intelligent and informative info on the Afiuni affairs. Chomsky should be aware that anytime he is on the same page as Romero there must be a problem with the facts.
A small correction: it is Juan Forero of the Washington Post and NPR, not Simon Forero.
And a note to Robert Grant: a couple of years ago someone did a survey of all of the BBC’s notices about Chavez in previous years. Out of several hundred they found only four that had anything positive to say about him. Back when Bush and Blair were lying us into attacking Iraq the BBC reported on the fact that Blair’s people had been supplying fake evidence of WMD’s. The head of the BBC was forced to resign, and the BBC has become even more of a propaganda agency than it was before that.
While it’s true the NYT applies double standards in covering countries the U.S. perceives as their enemies, it still doesn’t change the fact that Hugo Chavez is a dictatorial megalomaniac. We can’t deny that.
Hugo Chavez has been elected again and again in elections that have been more closely watched than any other in the world, and those election have been praised by the Carter Center, the EEC, the OAS and others as models of transparency and fairness. While it is obviously true that Chavez is given to grand gestures and forceful actions, he has been scrupulous in following the constitution of Venezuela, respecting (to a fault) the independence of the judiciary and the laws passed by the National Assembly.
The oligarchs consider consider Chavez a dictator because he doesn’t allow them to get away with robbing the country the way they did for many years, and he puts the welfare of the people ahead of the interests of the rich. The Empire calls him all kinds of names, and in fact Obama has just recently started laying the groundwork for demonizing him in preparation for some kind of aggressive move in the future. But to throw around the kind of insults in the previous post, without any concrete evidence or factual information is just to play the same game as the right wing ideologues in Miami who want to turn back the clock on Latin America.
Venezuela has cut poverty and unemployment in half in the years that Chavez has been president. There is now free health care, subsidized food, free education at all levels, and a handful of very effective social programs that are improving the lives of what Venezuelans call the ‘popular classes.’ It is the only country that has actually met the UN’s millennium development goals, and independent polls, even those that are run by opposition pollsters grudgingly record that Chavez’s favorability rating ranges between 60 and 80 percent, even after twelve years in office. Juan Forero and Simon Romero certainly foster the illusion that Chavez is a dictator, etc., but those of us who have actually gone to Venezuela and seen things from a leftist perspective have a very different opinion of Chavez and the movement he leads. The idea of participatory democracy is hard for North Americans to grasp, but it is a serious program there.
The freedom that the opposition has to organize and publicize their views goes far beyond what our left movements even dream of. All you have to do is read the big, powerful daily newspapers like El Nacional and El Universal (easily accessible via the internet) to see that the oligarchs have complete freedom of the press.
The opposition, called the MUD, are getting ready to have their primary election in February, and with all the support and publicity they get from the big commercial TV stations and major newspapers they still are getting dismal poll numbers, because people are overall supportive of Chavez based on their experience rather than what they are told by their media. It is interesting to compare the influence that the oligarchical press has in the US to their influence not only in Venezuela but in other countries such as Honduras, where there is a very vigorous resistance movement. Our brainwashed compatriots accept the propaganda they are fed far more uncritically. Latins seem far more capable to consider the source and see through the bullshit.
// tishado Says:
Mark, I may be confused, but since when did libertarian socialism become conservative? //
Chomsky’s Inner Conservative
Charles Glass Taki’s Magazine, August 3, 2010
Peter, just because people go to the poles and elect a politician doesn’t make him/her a just person. Look at Bush and Obama, both menaces to the world but elected by a majority (however slim) nonetheles! I stopped liking Chavez when he started supporting the bloodthirsty regime in Iran.
Dear FreeSpirit,
Of course one is free to like or dislike a political figure for whatever reason, that is your personal choice. But the reason people elect and reelect Chavez is that his government actually has improved the lives of ordinary people in Venezuela. When we elect a president we don’t really have much in the way of alternatives–Obama or Romney, is there really that much difference? On the other hand, in Venezuela the alternatives a starkly different: Chavez versus a representative of the oligarchy who frankly intends to return the country to the old relationship of colonial dependency. The opposition travel to Washington for advice, accept money and moral support from the US, and make it clear that everything that has happened in Venezuela in the last twelve years would be reversed if they are elected.
Chavez’s foreign policy has been based on trying to unite the global south to defy the domination of the Empire. I don’t especially admire the current government of Iran, but I am also a little wary of accepting the demonization that is being peddled by our Imperial leadership. Do you suppose things would improve if the US managed to install a color coded revolution in Iran that would open the country to neoliberal domination? Maybe a “liberation” of Iran, the way Iraq was “liberated”? Chavez has taken the position that countries like Iran, Iraq, Libya, etc. should be left alone to work out their own destinies, that the Empire has no business taking them over as has just happened in Libya. Would you have him encourage the Empire to subvert and/or to conquer them? Or just stand aside without comment, while the Empire does its dirty work? Do you support the way Israel and the US are moving toward war with Iran? To pretend that being neutral, or saying “a pox on both of them,” is not de facto supporting Imperial conquest is to delude oneself. You, as a private person, have that luxury. Chavez does not. The world is like the song about Harlan County: there are no neutrals there.
By the way, have you forgotten? Bush was not really elected, he stole the election.