Comments on: Chavez loves Chomsky http://blog.twowolves.co.uk/2006/09/26/chavez-loves-chomsky/ Toujours Le Meme Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:14:12 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Wolfie http://blog.twowolves.co.uk/2006/09/26/chavez-loves-chomsky/#comment-2638 Wolfie Fri, 29 Sep 2006 15:07:26 +0000 http://blog.twowolves.co.uk/2006/09/26/270/#comment-2638 You're quite right. I recall reading an unsavoury article in one of the Sunday-glossies some time ago which detailed corruption and intimidation of opponents but following Sophia's comments I did a bit of research on the internet and in all honestly I couldn't find much of any substance. So I'll admit that maybe I've been guilty of a little sloppy scholarship myself there, at least I'll put that thought to one side for now. Perhaps he has been slightly unfairly smeared? Sticking your thumb to the USA makes you enemies. Absolutely agree Sophia, an excellent synopsis. Some will reap what they sow. You’re quite right. I recall reading an unsavoury article in one of the Sunday-glossies some time ago which detailed corruption and intimidation of opponents but following Sophia’s comments I did a bit of research on the internet and in all honestly I couldn’t find much of any substance. So I’ll admit that maybe I’ve been guilty of a little sloppy scholarship myself there, at least I’ll put that thought to one side for now. Perhaps he has been slightly unfairly smeared? Sticking your thumb to the USA makes you enemies.

Absolutely agree Sophia, an excellent synopsis. Some will reap what they sow.

]]> By: xoggoth http://blog.twowolves.co.uk/2006/09/26/chavez-loves-chomsky/#comment-2637 xoggoth Thu, 28 Sep 2006 22:13:53 +0000 http://blog.twowolves.co.uk/2006/09/26/270/#comment-2637 I was going to rant on my blog the other week about Livinsgstone selling security know how to a ruthless dictator but when I came to search for a bit of background did not find anything about Chavez to really back up the idea. In a few respects,if you look on Wilkepedia, he could teach our government a thing or two about democracy. I was going to rant on my blog the other week about Livinsgstone selling security know how to a ruthless dictator but when I came to search for a bit of background did not find anything about Chavez to really back up the idea. In a few respects,if you look on Wilkepedia, he could teach our government a thing or two about democracy.

]]> By: Sophia http://blog.twowolves.co.uk/2006/09/26/chavez-loves-chomsky/#comment-2636 Sophia Wed, 27 Sep 2006 23:48:49 +0000 http://blog.twowolves.co.uk/2006/09/26/270/#comment-2636 I have more mixed feelings about the two men. In Linguistics, Chomsky challenged the field with his theory of generative grammar structure and he still have ardent followers, however he seemed unable to integrate new discoveries in the filed into his own theory and transform it. In this regard, his theory stays at an abstract level like philosophical theories. In Politics, I consider 'Manufacturing consent' as his major work. In which he explains very clearly how our democracies silence dissent and manufacture consent via the control of the media, becoming in the process totalitarian and authoritarian democracies. His position on the Isareli-Palestinian conflict was always puzzling to me and really ambiguous until I disovered that this was specific to all western leftists intellectuals having pinned many hopes on the state of Israel as an example of the realisation and the success of socialism. I like his way of building an argument and he is very talented in that, impeccable logical coherence. But an intellectual is a product of his time and we have to see Chomsky this way. He was a marginal in Politics not a long ago. September 11th, before Chavez, brought him fame because the space for debate in our global society was becoming virtually null. As for Chavez, I don't charcterise him as a dictator. He is a populist and he is the product of the US policies in latin America, so much criticized by Chomsky. You cannot blame the US for everything but you certainly can blame them for what they have done to Latin America and to what they are doing to the Middle East. I have more mixed feelings about the two men. In Linguistics, Chomsky challenged the field with his theory of generative grammar structure and he still have ardent followers, however he seemed unable to integrate new discoveries in the filed into his own theory and transform it. In this regard, his theory stays at an abstract level like philosophical theories. In Politics, I consider ‘Manufacturing consent’ as his major work. In which he explains very clearly how our democracies silence dissent and manufacture consent via the control of the media, becoming in the process totalitarian and authoritarian democracies. His position on the Isareli-Palestinian conflict was always puzzling to me and really ambiguous until I disovered that this was specific to all western leftists intellectuals having pinned many hopes on the state of Israel as an example of the realisation and the success of socialism. I like his way of building an argument and he is very talented in that, impeccable logical coherence. But an intellectual is a product of his time and we have to see Chomsky this way. He was a marginal in Politics not a long ago. September 11th, before Chavez, brought him fame because the space for debate in our global society was becoming virtually null.
As for Chavez, I don’t charcterise him as a dictator. He is a populist and he is the product of the US policies in latin America, so much criticized by Chomsky. You cannot blame the US for everything but you certainly can blame them for what they have done to Latin America and to what they are doing to the Middle East.

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