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Chomsky is a liberal? ever since when?
> that there's no deep value the world gets from US hegemony, crumbling though it may be.
Jesus effing christ, this guy actually supports US hegemony... Kissinger, is it you?
Noam Chomsky on the cruelty of American imperialism
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Re: Noam Chomsky on the cruelty of American imperialism
#22Just finished reading 'Blind Man's Bluff' - about the American submarine espionage stories since WW2. There are fascinating stories but it was also striking how so many of the stories were about how the US, the technically and economically superior country, spied on and harassed the Soviets near the Soviet territories.
I read somewhere that it's not entirely unlikely that the brand of socialism/communism in the Soviet Union became more extreme because of foreign attack. Socialism was considered, probably rightly so, a mortal threat to current political and social systems so the communist camp in Russia was under assault from day 1. For those that forgot, Russia was an ally in WW1 and once it withdrew from the war due to huge war fa…
That's an interesting angle, thanks for sharing.
The book gives an impression that many American submariners were driven by mission whereas the Soviet ones took it as a job. A memorable quote from a Soviet commander (Bagdasaryan) who's submarine has collided with an American sub and was reprimanded, was how he would like to "have a drink and think together how to avoid similar collision in the future" with his American counterpart. Unfortunately, the American commander had passed away by this time.
Re: Noam Chomsky on the cruelty of American imperialism
#23Re: Noam Chomsky on the cruelty of American imperialism
#24I respect Chomsky very much, and I have learned a lot from him. But I do wonder to what extent his views are based on a possibly over-optimistic view of the world's potential, and a refusal or inability to accept that the the universe might be fundamentally unjust and that life is not always dignified or sacred. I would like to share his hopeful outlook (hopeful in the sense that he seems to think there ought to be a…
Nature might be like this, but we can maybe build an artificial system which is not.
Re: Noam Chomsky on the cruelty of American imperialism
#25Just finished reading 'Blind Man's Bluff' - about the American submarine espionage stories since WW2. There are fascinating stories but it was also striking how so many of the stories were about how the US, the technically and economically superior country, spied on and harassed the Soviets near the Soviet territories.
Do recall that the Soviets for a good bit had a leg up on rocketry and were more or less neck-and-neck on thermonuclear weapons.
When your adversary has intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear weapons aimed at your cities, you do whatever you can to avoid those being used, including whatever espionage you can get away with.
Re: Noam Chomsky on the cruelty of American imperialism
#26I respect Chomsky very much, and I have learned a lot from him. But I do wonder to what extent his views are based on a possibly over-optimistic view of the world's potential, and a refusal or inability to accept that the the universe might be fundamentally unjust and that life is not always dignified or sacred. I would like to share his hopeful outlook (hopeful in the sense that he seems to think there ought to be a…
Think about how powerful it would be to make people believe that, though. Then, by deduction, since power desires to increase its capacity, necessarily its power must be overblown :^) semi-/s
Re: Noam Chomsky on the cruelty of American imperialism
#27[flagged]
Admittedly, I'm not someone who is very knowledgeable on the subject, but that is not what I got from the article at all. My read on it was that the US needs to be more diplomatic instead of forceful, and try to reach some sensible cooperation with China. That doesn't strike me as doing nothing? Also, as a non American, the "we're not special" narrative does resonate with me. American rhetoric is so often full of implicit superiority complex that does make the rest of us grind our teeth a bit. (The phrase that comes to mind immediately is public figures talking about "American lives" when what they should be saying is "human lives", another is calling for example, a black Englishman "African American" when he is neither African nor American). It's something that I suspect normal Americans are sometimes blind to, because it is so ingrained in the culture.
Re: Noam Chomsky on the cruelty of American imperialism
#28I respect Chomsky very much, and I have learned a lot from him. But I do wonder to what extent his views are based on a possibly over-optimistic view of the world's potential, and a refusal or inability to accept that the the universe might be fundamentally unjust and that life is not always dignified or sacred. I would like to share his hopeful outlook (hopeful in the sense that he seems to think there ought to be a…
I think it's a bit weird to talk of the universe being just or unjust. The universe is what it is. To me, an action taken by a person can be just or unjust, and a person can be said to be just or unjust based on a sort of average of their actions.
As for the nature of life, I don't think that we can go from, say, a tree casting shade and thus making life harder for other plants being natural, or predators being natural, to saying that compassion and cooperation in humans is unnatural. Quite the opposite. Human beings are, from birth, naturally compassionate and cooperative as well as the opposite. We are "capable of such beautiful dreams and such horrible nightmares". But a lone human is always a very fragile creature, in fact I'd even say that it is more unnatural than anything else. We are, most of us, social beings who not only benefit from but require the company and cooperation of others to function and flourish.
And of course, protecting yourself and your dependents from threats is natural. We are social, but also tribal. But when do we decide that another group is a threat? Why do we take from others, or harm them? To me, it seems the answer to that will usually be out of fear and or out of want. And while those might occur naturally, they can occur more or less, depending on circumstance and outlook.