06-09-2009, 03:03 PM
Dawn Meredith Wrote:Good thing Chomsky wrote this bs prior to JFK and The Unspeakable, where the evidence is overwhleming that JFK would end the Vietnma war. Of course if one has an agenda, as Chomsky clearly does on the issue of the assassination, picking and choosing from the record can be done to support any case. SInce JFK was planning one strategy in secret- (end of the war, detente with Russia, Cuba)- while making hawkish statements to appease his national security state, Chomsky, like Posner, can pick and choose his "evidence" with complete impunity. It's not like the MSM is going to advocate for the truth here.
You're right, Dawn, within the context of the time, Kennedy had to talk tough, and Chomsky inevitably finds some easy pickings in such speeches etc.
But we, as an opposition to the intellectual secret policemen, bear a deal of responsibility for allowing Chomsky and his ilk to get away with it. For, in truth, he is every bit as vulnerable as Kennedy. How so?
We have ignored for too long the clear and unequivocal contemporaneous critique mounted against Kennedy by the Right and its pundits who saw Kennedy talking war and acting for peace, and excoriated him for it. Here is an example of what I mean:
Quote:Henry J. Taylor, “Where’s the Bloody Horse?,” The Washington Daily News, Wednesday, 15 November 1961, p.45:
“Our public is not reacting happily to the laterals, back-tracking, and occasional fake passes which emanate from Washington in the face of our perils.”
The press of the period is littered with such examples - all assiduously and necessarily avoided by Chomsky - but we've done a poor job of assembling them and making them known.
I include myself in that critique, and would broaden it to suggest we have too often not done - let me see if I can find a suitably American idiom for this - the hard yards in terms of basic research.
It's a massive collective failing.
Paul