Do you wish Noam Chomsky had a blog?

So is he saying that serious activist movements should ignore elections? I'm confused.

x-post

(nb: i am NOT equating chomsky w/ coulter!)

Also, WTF is self-indulgent about a well-known writer having a blog? I suppose it's much better to be like elitist Nation writers and never talk to real people.

Which ones? Eric Alterman and Barbara Ehrenreich?

"Activist movements, if at all serious, pay virtually no attention to which faction of the business party is in office, but continue with their daily work, from which elections are a diversion -- which we cannot ignore, any more than we can ignore the sun rising; they exist."
This comment is funny to me, since one of the "if you don't vote you're a bad person" types tried to club me over the head with some Chomsky quote in that thread.

(not to mention that he'd then get slammed as being a "slummer" if he did live in either of those [or similar] neighborhoods.)

Plain-Folk Argument - Accusing your opponent of being an ivory-tower dwelling elitist because they don't watch Nascar or listen to country music, or because they do enjoy lattes, wine, and classical music. Arguments about personal taste and their unimportance in polictical debate are not a valid comeback. (Philip Pangrac)

and conservatives are poopy-pantses.

take it easy, Eisbar. You can be an elitist and live in the fucking slum. Or in my house, for that matter ;)

Actually, he lives on the Upper West Side (or used to.) The thing was, I couldn't remember offhand, which is why I asked. The only reason I knew was from an anti-Alterman piece that I couldn't find at the time when I shot my mouth off. Never fear, it's right here for ya.

His total misunderstanding of the "column inches" discrepancy between Cambodia and East Timor coverage turned me off to him completely.

I've heard this charge of being an "apologist" for the Khmer Rouge before, but the documentary that I saw about him recently claimed that he didn't condone the Khmer Rouge in any way; he was just attacking the press for focusing on a politically safe issue when there were other atrocities out there being committed by US allies that were going relatively unreported-- which would seem to be true, yes? What exactly did he say back then that makes people think of him as such a horrible person even today? He makes a lot of sense to me.

irony to thread

At least Chomsky gets his stuff out in all sorts of media outside of the 'proper' Ivy League 'leftist' channels. Z, for example, is a grassroots-oriented magazine that talks about stuff that is going on in people's communities.

As for Ehrenreich, I used to like her work, but I feel alienated by Nickel and Dimed. "OMG, the working poor sometimes have to eat dog food!!! Can you believe it?" Sorry - my mom was a Sears cashier, and I knew a number of people who worked retail when I was growing up. Obviously my family and people from my community are not part of the intended audience for that book.

what nation writers are you talking about? katha pollit seems really bothersome, at least her column does.

chomsky, well, i disagree with him more than half the time but he is an important gateway for a lot of people (i had my howard zinn/noam chomsky phase). and in fairness he can't really be blamed for the cult of personality that surrounds him, although perhaps he could make sure people don't publish books of interview transcripts anymore, that gets annoying.

on the other hand their more modest articles, on local union struggles and events in countries that the mainstream media has momentarily forgotten (until the next coup or massacre) is very welcome

but the british press does a better job of that kind of stuff without seeming as shrill or indifferent to good english.

The whole project presumes that the reader has no familiarity with the subject matter. I'm tired of people recommending the book to me as if it has things in it I don't already know.

There are plenty of first-person narratives out there about living in poverty or near poverty. Believe it or not, some children of poor and working-class people do get an education and go on to write fiction and memoirs and such. Some people who work at Wal-Mart can even read and write rather well!

It's alienating and [rest of grrrrrrr mercifully deleted].

I don't get the point of your ire, other than "I already knew that!" - well, yeah, so did I, so did a lot of people.

The best an election result can do is ameliorate the worst of the current problems. Trading President Bush in for a President Kerry would be a small shift in the correct direction. Being small doesn't make it worthless. But if you let the election dominate your thinking and actions, you'll succumb to short term thinking and daily tactics without a strategy.

By all means, vote. It takes almost no effort. And work for any candidate you think will represent you well. But, if you want to see change at the root, you'll have to take a much longer view and plan accordingly.

jesus i'm so sick of this line of argument

Kerry can't (and won't) do squat to change the overall dynamic in DC. The Pentagon budget will still be crammed with $100,000,000,000 of waste, while the country will still be vulnerable to terrorists. The USA will still plant its flag in military bases all over the world. The oil, insurance, banking, pharmaceutical, and chemical industries will still make their own rules for Congress to rubber stamp. The tax structure will remain regressive. The federal deficit, SS bancruptcy, and underfunded private pension system will stay right on course to make the biggest economic train wreck the USA has ever seen.

So, yes, small. Whether you are sick of the argument or not.

Happy Birthday, Son!

90!