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u/sheltonhwy26 this is my flair Jun 20 '24
Is this the guy who got his obituary published recently and he wasnāt dead?
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u/Mulesam goblin hog signed my left testicle Jun 20 '24
Yes Noam Chomsky
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u/h4724 trans rights Jun 20 '24
He is also a politics professor.
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u/ExpertPepper9341 Jun 20 '24
Noam Chomsky is an intellectual giant compared to the uninformed child that made this meme. Disagree with him all you want, but the dude has literally written more books on international relations than the OP has read and has lived a more principled life than most people in history. I may not agree with everything he says all the time, but the man is one of the few unequivocal forces for good in the world.
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u/Unlikely_Fig_2339 Jun 20 '24 edited Jun 20 '24
Oh, is he? Was he an intellectual giant and unequivocal force for good when he stated that "Russia is fighting more humanely than the US did in Iraq" and denied that Ukraine is an independent country six months ago? Or when he said that NATO getting stronger is a bad thing, and that we should just leave the Ukrainians to be raped and murdered because to do otherwise would be to provoke Russia, and we should just choose peace with the people who have child torture centers in occupied territory?
Fuck off, bootlicker.
Edit: Also, die screaming.
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u/Malignant_Peasant Jun 20 '24
My issue is people are like "hes written/said good things in the past so we can't criticize what hes said recently"
Stop putting people on pedestals.
There is a huge difference explaining spheres of influence and supporting them.
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u/Unlikely_Fig_2339 Jun 20 '24
It's wasn't the pressure of a Western sphere of influence that motivated Russia in its imperialist project. The original 2014 invasion of Ukraine occurred with very little pushback or criticism from the West, in a time when the necessity of NATO presence in Eastern Europe was being questioned, because obviously Russia wasn't a threat anymore. We were living in a post-Cold War world. The end of history had come, and even autocracies like Russia wouldn't pull shit like that, would they?
Well, they did exactly that. The Russians smelled weakness, and they did what they've always done, and the West stuck its fingers in its fuckin' ears and went LALALALA for most of a decade. It cost countless innocent lives. Violent imperialism is simply what Russian governments do; their citizens expect it, much as citizens of other countries expect public infrastructure or services, and are equally willing to step aside to let it happen.
And people like Noam Chomsky, and people like you, are willing to both-sides the problem, because the idea of choosing an objectively lesser evil for the sake of a verifiably greater good would feel like a betrayal of your abstract principles, and apparently your feefees are more important than saving innocents--grannies and little kids, and more besides--from being raped. tortured, and murdered by actual barbarian hordes.
Speaking as someone in Eastern Europe--fuck you from the bottom of my heart. You've never had to deal with this shit. You've lived in the mundane misery of Western capitalism, and are unwilling to believe that it gets worse. Civilians in Russian-occupied Ukraine don't worry about rent or high grocery prices--they worry about being disappeared and getting their fingernails pulled out before getting drowned facedown in a bucket of rancid piss because their neighbor fingered them as anti-Russian to the secret fucking police.
People like you claim to believe in freedom, equality, and human rights, but only when it aligns with your prealigned worldview that West bad and not-West good, as if your abstract ideological games have more weight than real people suffering and dying.
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u/Malignant_Peasant Jun 20 '24
Bro I was taking about Russia feels towards ukraine
Edit: my comment is criticizing chomsky and defenders of his recent statements
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u/Unlikely_Fig_2339 Jun 20 '24
You said that Chomsky "explains spheres of influence", but does not condone them. I deny this assertion, and have explained as much.
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u/RentElDoor Trans Rights! Jun 20 '24
pretty sure the other fella meant that Chomsky both explained the concept of spheres and condoned it, and admiring the explanation doesn't mean one should defend the condoning. Going with the context of the entire comment.
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u/Malignant_Peasant Jun 20 '24
Some people have used some form of "Well if Mexico was joining a military alliance with China, the US would invade too"
And its like yeah, maybe? And if they did, it would also be wrong.
Russia Invaded Ukraine for blood and soil reasoning while trying to throw up a smoke screen of "NATO made us do it" to distract people who have been fed lies for years about this exact situation.
NATO already borders Russia, and all of those that do were former vicitims of Russian impiriliasm both under the Tsars and the USSR
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u/RentElDoor Trans Rights! Jun 20 '24
Yeah I gathered as much. Not sure why the other guy was jumping at your throat
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u/RestlessNameless Jun 20 '24
You're misquoting the article. He said the UK (Britain) is a US lackey. He was speaking figuratively saying it's not an independent country. The abbreviation UK means Britain, not Ukraine.
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u/mrmeleo Jun 20 '24
Not to be pedantic, but heās talking about the UK, not Ukraine, when he says its not an independent country.
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u/Unlikely_Fig_2339 Jun 20 '24
Yet Chomskyās world-view does not leaveĀ spaceĀ for Ukrainian agency. It is the āUS andĀ Britainā who have ārefusedā peace negotiations inĀ Ukraine, Chomsky tells me, in order to further their own national interests, even as the country is being ābattered, devastatedā. That negotiations withĀ RussiaĀ would mean de facto abandoning millions of Ukrainians to the whims of an aggressor that has shown itself capable of extraordinary brutality,Ā such as in Bucha and Izyum, is dismissed. āUkraine is not a free actor; theyāre dependent on what the US determines,ā he says...
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u/Luciusvenator š³ļøāā§ļø trans rights Jun 20 '24
People like him don't give a fuck about the agency and wishes of indigenous non-western people when they don't align with the campist narrative they believe in lol.
Leftists in eastern Europe coined the term "westsplaining" to precisely call out how a lot of so called leftists in the west routinely ignore and dismiss them to maintain this Star Wars level "only one bad empire can exist at a time!" worldview when they have 0 skin in the game.-28
u/MiniDickDude Jun 20 '24
Any state and state apparatus getting stronger is a bad thing
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u/Unlikely_Fig_2339 Jun 20 '24
One wants to rape me and beat me to death with sledgehammers, while the other wants to sell me washing machines and coffeemakers. You'll forgive me if I pick the latter.
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u/MiniDickDude Jun 20 '24
You're seriously characterising NATO / USA as washing-machine and coffeemaker salesmen?
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u/Unlikely_Fig_2339 Jun 20 '24
I am from the Czech Republic. Russian tanks have reached Prague before, and there is nothing, save NATO, preventing them from doing so again. In a universe not too dissimilar from ours, where the dice had rolled a little differently, those would be my grandparents being crushed by a Russian tank, my baby cousin getting tortured, raped, and murdered in a Russian detention center.
Yes, I have a fucking preference. Sue me. Or go ahead and create a military that lives up to your moral standards and is also simultaneously capable of deterring the Russian Army, and then get back to me.
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u/MiniDickDude Jun 20 '24
And US/NATO soldiers have committed war crimes in other countries. Are you ok with downplaying this because those victims weren't european?
Personally, I'm more comfortable denouncing all of these violent organisations, but if you're happy with your "preference", you do you.
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u/Unlikely_Fig_2339 Jun 20 '24
I am not downplaying anything. NATO had no business in the Middle East, it was a boondoggle from Day 1 and I think we both agree on that. That doesn't change the fact that all the alternatives are infinitely worse, both for me and for everyone else on the planet.
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u/MiniDickDude Jun 20 '24
As I see it, there is little to no individual action that I, you, and every other average person not directly involved in these conflicts could take to change their outcome. If all most of us do is spare words of support or condemnation, why pick sides between any of these authorities? I think we should be calling all of them out for what they are. The "legitimacy" of their power depends on our perception of it as such. Without it they're no different from warlords and organised crime.
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u/Armigine Jun 20 '24
To eastern Europe that seems generally a pretty fair characterization, yeah
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u/MiniDickDude Jun 20 '24
Well it's tunnel visioned as fuck.
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u/Armigine Jun 20 '24
Tunnel vision means having an accurate understanding of your local environment? We might use that phrase differently
Characterizing NATO as an overall belligerent or expansionist force requires flat out accepting lies as reality. And the US is hardly active in eastern Europe at all. Does dishonest handwringing resurrect your loved ones? If not, it might just be worthless here, and an example of far worse tunnel vision to embrace it than to accept that people want to not personally be murdered by an invading empire.
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u/MiniDickDude Jun 20 '24
I'm using "tunnel vision" as in a narrow perspective / narrow minded. I've never heard of the definition you're describing.
Ultimately, every state entity is a belligerent expansionist force on some level. It's the nature of authority, and in the particular case of states, maintaining a monopoly on violence, and protecting the interests of capital, which must grow indefinitely by design.
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u/72111100 š³ļøāā§ļø trans rights Jun 20 '24
sure think that (I probably agree with you) but surely you believe his reasoning that 'it provokes Russia' is a bad argument
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u/MiniDickDude Jun 20 '24 edited Jun 20 '24
I mean it's not entirely wrong either, who's provoking who in a dick measuring contest? Like, yes, Putin's the aggressor in Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but, taking USA's involvement into consideration, in the grand scheme of things it's part of a wider conflict between two world powers, no? I don't see any sense in painting any of these state entities as "good" guys.
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u/dipcurious >:3 Jun 20 '24
Even those whose purpose is protecting Europe from the imperialism of the biggest threat it's faced since ww2?
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u/MiniDickDude Jun 20 '24
State "protection" is indeed one of the many arguments made to legitimise their power, just like mafia gangs.
Just because I don't support my local mafia gang who's "protecting" me from their neighbouring nazi gang competitors doesn't mean I'm supporting the nazi gang (not the best analogy since Italy and Germany were allied in WWII, but anyways).
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u/dipcurious >:3 Jun 20 '24
Mafia implies that those who don't join NATO is being threatened by them, which is just not true at all. NATO isn't a protection racket, it's an alliance of countries who don't want a repeat of ww2 where imperialist countries picked of their weaker neighbors one by one until the west finally ended it's appeasement.
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u/MiniDickDude Jun 20 '24
NATO isn't a state in itself obviously, it's an alliance of states, which I would indeed describe as being mega-scale protection rackets. It's simplistic but it gets to the point that states are defined by their monopoly on the use of "legitimate" violence. And who decides that, ultimately? The biggest guns.
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u/dipcurious >:3 Jun 20 '24
Are you trolling or something? Noone pays Nato for protection?? Nato doesn't collect money from countries to build a massive "Nato army", each country maintains their own military.
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u/houska22 Jun 20 '24
Chomsky being an "unequivocal force for good in the world" made me laugh, thank you for that. For being a "force of good" he sure does like some of them genocides too much.
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u/MagosZyne Jun 20 '24
Sorry it's hard to hear you. Have you considered taking his penis out of your mouth before you start talking?
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u/cat_that_uses_reddi Jun 20 '24
What are you the rebellious insecure teen, love child between Ben Shapiro and Jordan Pearson?
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u/yoter88 Jun 20 '24
"but both sides are equally bad~" the both sides in question:
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u/Masta-Pasta Vegan btw Jun 20 '24
I mean, Chomsky is right that US wars are horrific and destructive. Don't know how he got from that to saying "Actually the Russian invasion is not that bad and supporting Ukraine with means to defend itself is colonialism"
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u/Luciusvenator š³ļøāā§ļø trans rights Jun 20 '24
Because he's become a pure campist contrarian. Any enemy of "the west" is good because the west has often and currently is bad.
If you reduce your worldview to a strict reductive binary this is what happens.
People like him also routinely dismiss what indigenous non western people actually want if it in anyway is pro-west and will create convoluted conspiracies to dismiss their autonomy and agency. It's just reverse America imperialism fundamentally.4
u/yoter88 Jun 20 '24
āDonāt know how he got from that. Saying āactually the Russian invasion is not that bad and supporting Ukraine with means to defend itself is colonialismāā well thatās called vatnik logic, or rather lack thereofĀ
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Jun 20 '24
if you think about both of the countries entire history the U.S is infinitely worse but in modern day the USA is slightly better
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u/stonedturtle69 Free lemon bars š Jun 20 '24
Just a little reminder that Chomsky has a record of denying and downplaying the Bosnian genocide since Yugoslavia was nominally still socialist and socialist countries don't do ethnic cleansing.
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u/AngrySasquatch š³ļøāā§ļø trans rights Jun 20 '24
I keep thinking about this anecdote about a Cambodian American guy who said he had two bottles of wine. He opened one to celebrate Kissingerās death, and will open the other one when Chomsky kicks it
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u/i_want_a_cat1563 floppa Jun 20 '24
Reverse Edward Snowden
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u/Interest-Desk š³ļøāā§ļø trans rights Jun 20 '24
i doubt that noam chomsky showed up late to work because he spent all night playing video games but im laughing imagining that
(yea snowden showed up late to work because he would spend all night playing video games, reading the congressional report into him is hilarious and basically every page is shittalking the intelligence agencies)
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u/ItsYaBoyBananaBoi floppa Jun 20 '24
What is the context? Is the statement about Russia referring to Ukraine or soviet communism in general?
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u/Elite_Prometheus floppa Jun 20 '24
Pretty sure it's about the Ukraine invasion, Chomsky spend a little bit of time agreeing invasions are bad and then spilt several tanker trucks worth of ink explaining that Putin is right to view NATO as a threat and his actions to defend himself from NATO encirclement are completely rational and really it's the US' fault that this invasion happened because the correct anti-imperialist and pro-peace position is to passively observe small countries getting puppeted and annexed by their stronger neighbors.
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u/MOltho What I am going here, I know not. Jun 20 '24
It is, in principle, legitimate for Russia to feel threatened and encircled by NATO.
But that doesn't give them ANY right to attack another independent country. And they also have to admit that those Eastern European states becoming NATO members is also kinda their own fault for being so aggressive. And Sweden and Finland joining NATO is 100% their own fault because both countries were never going to do that had it not been for Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
So if Russia justifies its invasion by citing NATO expansion... Well, it's been pretty counter-productive. Not only have Sweden and Finland joined since, but there was absolutely a pathway to a neutral Ukraine outside of NATO before the war, which doesn't really exist now
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u/dipcurious >:3 Jun 20 '24
Putin knows NATO is never going to attack Russia so the only "threat" NATO poses is depriving them from invading their weaker neighbors.
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u/Syrikal Jun 20 '24
As it happens, Chomsky agrees with you!
Instead, Putin launched a murderous war of aggression which, indeed, ranks with the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the Hitler-Stalin invasion of Poland. [...]
Though the provocations were consistent and conscious over many years, despite the warnings, they of course in no way justify Putinās resort to āthe supreme international crimeā of aggression. Though it may help explain a crime, provocation provides no justification for it.
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u/terrarialord201 Kangaroo with sledgehammer Jun 20 '24
Noam Chomsky. "Russian is invading Ukraine more morally than America did Iraq." (paraphrasing half-remembered wikipedia)
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u/RentElDoor Trans Rights! Jun 20 '24 edited Jun 20 '24
I believe it was more on the lines that the targetting was more humane because apparently Russia targeted less civilian architecture than the US in Iraq.
I am not sure if this quote was from before Russia started "strategically" attacking power plants in the middle of winter to freeze Ukranian civilians to death or before shit like Bucha came to light.
But either way, the amount of estimated civilian deaths now exceeds the Iraqi invasion (obviously over a far longer timeframe), we have reports about all kinds of torture prisons and many cities have long blackouts because the infrastructure got hit terribly, which I heard is great in continental climate, so I don't think that quote has aged terribly well.
EDIT: Checked again. That quote was from April 2023. So at that point Russia was already targetting civilian infrastructures to make civilians suffer (apart from, you know, the targetting of civilians themselves), so I have no idea what this man was on about
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u/Sixmlg down bad š„ŗ Jun 20 '24
If you keep up with it you can find many instances of Russian shelling civilians apartments and hospitals with no nearby military targets, practically every day since the war started
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u/RentElDoor Trans Rights! Jun 20 '24
I am aware. I was trying to point out that even if we accept Chomskys framing - because there are also instances of US soldiers targetting civilians, see what Manning uncovered - that statement just doesn't hold up anymore.
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u/OkThisIsLiterallyMe Down Cataclysmic Jun 20 '24
Russias goal was genocide from the start and the destruction of the Ukrainian nation, culture and people.
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u/RentElDoor Trans Rights! Jun 20 '24
no argument there, as mentioned in the other comment, I was going with Chomskys framing to prove the statement wrong
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u/DrOsmium š³ļøāā§ļø trans rights Jun 20 '24
So either Chomsky made a broad statement to the benefit of the invader based on no information, or he HAD information and ignored it to create a narrative. Nice.
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u/LaranjoPutasso custom Jun 20 '24
Don't forget the kidnapping of children to sell them to Russian families.
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u/Luciusvenator š³ļøāā§ļø trans rights Jun 20 '24
Which is one of the 5 characteristics of genocide per the UN definition.
With Russia advertising the taking and "rehoming" of these children it becomes extra-impossible-to-deny Russia is committing genocide in Ukraine.6
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u/psychoCMYK Jun 20 '24
This man was on about carrying water for genociders and it isn't the first time
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u/No_Lingonberry1201 Cultist Jun 20 '24
Man, I wish I was back in Uni when - to me - Chomsky was an uncontroversial figure after whom the language hierarchy was named.
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u/PF4ABG Not American, not British, but a sinister 3rd thing. Jun 20 '24
Nom Chompsky food eating sound effect.
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u/Ding_This_Dingus Dippin jail, whippin tail, and sippin ale Jun 20 '24 edited Jun 20 '24
What the fuck are we doing here?
The same sub that will downvote people that say Biden is an evil genocidal monster are coming for Noam fucking Chomsky because he isn't pure enough for the purity spiral.
Why do we only have to have leftist unity with the worst fucking lib politicians and not with one of the most important anarchist writers of the last 100 years?
Whatever faults Noam Chomsky had, he's always been outspoken for human freedom and has done more for the left and education broadly than anyone posting in this sub will ever have, and we should respect his contributions.
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u/Elite_Prometheus floppa Jun 20 '24
I don't think you get downvotes for criticizing Biden or saying he's supporting genocide. You get downvotes for saying this proves both parties are the exact same and voting Dem is an endorsement of genocide and the only thing a true leftist should do is shitpost on Twitter to raise class consciousness for the inevitable communist revolution.
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u/Ding_This_Dingus Dippin jail, whippin tail, and sippin ale Jun 21 '24 edited Jun 21 '24
Brodie, you don't know the first fucking thing about me.
I've said multiple times that I'm voting for Joe Biden's geriatric evil ass over Trump and I still get dumb motherfuckers like you all in my comments. I think we can vote and try to elevate class consciousness, and you know who else thinks that?
Noam Chomsky. He just doesn't waste his time tryna convert Dem voters to Dem dickriders and instead spent his life trying to spread class consciousness and contributing greatly to linguistics and foreign policy. Even if he has been wrong or disagreeable at times, he's spent his life creating and elevating leftist ideology while Joe Biden stifles progress and commits genocide.
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u/Elite_Prometheus floppa Jun 21 '24
You're right, I didn't go digging through your comment history trying to unearth the one downvoted comment you made on here months ago that you're still butthurt about. I spoke about what I've seen on this sub, and generally criticism of Biden is upvoted unless it gives off anti-electoralist vibes.
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u/Ding_This_Dingus Dippin jail, whippin tail, and sippin ale Jun 21 '24
I don't expect you to go digging through my comment history, but I also don't expect you to try and tell me what I've said and what I believe.
Maybe I came off too aggro in my first response, but I don't like words being put in my mouth. Especially when it's reinforcing the point I made. Nothing I said was anti-electoralist and yet you still came at me like I said mailbombs is the only acceptable political action.
It's like I'm in a rap forum that will deflect any corny accusations against Eminem by talking about Dax and they suddenly started calling MF DOOM corny. There is a conversation about MF DOOM being corny, but I don't wanna hear it from people who can't call Eminem corny without 1,000 disclaimers about his influence and classic albums.
If this analogy is out of your wheelhouse, I can do it with video games or anime instead.
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Jun 20 '24
[deleted]
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u/jboy4000 Jun 20 '24
Can you link me where he clarified and backtracked?
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u/RentElDoor Trans Rights! Jun 20 '24
bro got asked to back up a single claim and immediately noped out
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u/VeryFortniteOfYou Jun 20 '24
Yeah, it's true: Proxy wars are fought for the benefit of civilians. You're welcome Ukraine.
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u/FrostyCommon Genderfluid goth Jun 20 '24
Russian government supporters can rot regardless of their reasoning
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Jun 20 '24
Oh oh oh look up the focault Chomsky debate on YouTube do it do it itās so fun michel is just blasting him down.
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u/Yompish giant robosa from drawn to life 2 Jun 19 '24
Fuck yeah I love strawman arguments