10-11-2012, 04:03 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-11-2012, 04:25 PM by Jim DiEugenio.)
Good one Phil.
Actually two.
In his Nation article, he said that the Ponchaud book, Cambodia Year Zero had an "anti-communist bias and message". See, how could an anti-communist write something like that?
And never forget, Chomsky was wrong here! And even when he had two years to sift through even more evidence of the atrocities by Pol Pot, he still went after the Ponchaud book--even though he was dead wrong and Ponchaud was dead right!
He finally tried to diminish his shocking defense of a Marxist totalitarian regime that killed hundreds of thousands--not by finally admitting he was wrong; but by concentrating on the East Timor slaughter and saying it was worse than Cambodia! And by the way, this was also false. Chomsky used indefensible figures that have since been exposed as being vastly underestimated in order to juggle the figures to rig the game.
THis is what I mean. The guy is not an historian. And his work cannot be trusted or used in any real scholarly way. Because like any polemicist, he reasons not from the evidence and data, but from a predetermined conclusion.
In this particular essay I critiqued, the predetermined conclusion is that the USA was somehow "trying for hegemony" in the Missile Crisis. Which is nutty. The Russians were trying for hegemony and Kennedy was trying to get a first strike capability out of Cuba, where it would be extremely effective since the travel time of the missiles and bombers would be minimal. But this is the kind of nonsense one gets into when one argues history with a polemicist.
Chomsky should retire and go fishing. His work never had any real historical value, and its now been impacted I think by his old age.
Actually two.
In his Nation article, he said that the Ponchaud book, Cambodia Year Zero had an "anti-communist bias and message". See, how could an anti-communist write something like that?
And never forget, Chomsky was wrong here! And even when he had two years to sift through even more evidence of the atrocities by Pol Pot, he still went after the Ponchaud book--even though he was dead wrong and Ponchaud was dead right!
He finally tried to diminish his shocking defense of a Marxist totalitarian regime that killed hundreds of thousands--not by finally admitting he was wrong; but by concentrating on the East Timor slaughter and saying it was worse than Cambodia! And by the way, this was also false. Chomsky used indefensible figures that have since been exposed as being vastly underestimated in order to juggle the figures to rig the game.
THis is what I mean. The guy is not an historian. And his work cannot be trusted or used in any real scholarly way. Because like any polemicist, he reasons not from the evidence and data, but from a predetermined conclusion.
In this particular essay I critiqued, the predetermined conclusion is that the USA was somehow "trying for hegemony" in the Missile Crisis. Which is nutty. The Russians were trying for hegemony and Kennedy was trying to get a first strike capability out of Cuba, where it would be extremely effective since the travel time of the missiles and bombers would be minimal. But this is the kind of nonsense one gets into when one argues history with a polemicist.
Chomsky should retire and go fishing. His work never had any real historical value, and its now been impacted I think by his old age.