Noam Chomsky

Editor's Note: For reasons best addressed in other analyses posted on this site (see for example here, here and here) we regard Noam Chomsky, despite his  well deserved prominence as an American dissident and renaissance intellectual, as an erratic critic of US foreign policy and even, at times (see below) a member of what some justifiably call the "controlled opposition".  Chomsky has always had an aversion to really existing socialist states and their leaders. From Mao to Lenin (whom the self-described "anarcho-syndicalist" has reviled as "power-hungry thugs"), not to mention lesser figures, he has measured and critiqued the actions and leadership styles of revolutionary and anti-imperialist figures by a Western ethnocentric liberal ideal more fitting of collaborationist Trotskyists and left anti-communists than a sophisticated public intellectual.  His positions on many crucial issues have aligned with those of leading Western "leftists" who always manage to be equally critical of Washington and its victims, which, naturally, in the disinformation wars favors Washington. In 2017, Alexander Azadgan, an admittedly onetime admirer of Chomsky, and later himself a member of academia, compiled a list of examples that cast doubt on Chomsky as a reliable or even sincere American oppositional oracle. Azadgan is certainly not alone in this. In a tightly argued piece, provocatively titled Is Noam Chomsky Controlled Opposition?, he advanced the following:

"And what about the fact that Chomsky has managed to keep his employment with MIT all along, tenured and now emeritus? It is a known fact that MIT is one of the most closely-related research universities affiliated with the Military Industrial Complex. If one is a true anti-war academic and what’s more a celebrity activist, could he ever really get tenured at such a college, especially at the height of the Vietnam War when Chomsky’s career was taking off at MIT?

Here is a list of other disgraceful stances that Professor Chomsky has been partaking in:

- Professor Chomsky opposes the peaceful Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement.

- Professor Chomsky supported the “no fly zone” and the subsequent utter destruction of Libya — a country that was the most prosperous African nation under the leadership of the crazy-yet-brilliant Mu’ammar Qaddafi which thanks to NATO is now a failed state run by ISIS savage gangsters and Al-Qaeda terrorist thugs.

- Professor Chomsky considers President Bashir Assad “an autocrat” and is somewhat comfortable with the continuous bombing of the resisting Syrian nation. The professor told Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now! Program: “Syria is a horrible catastrophe. The Assad regime is a moral disgrace. They’re carrying out horrendous acts, the Russians with them.”Democracy Now!  begins with the leading statement of “worldwide outrage mounts over an alleged chemical weapons attack in Idlib province, which was reportedly carried out by the Assad government…” No evidence is presented to support the accusation, and the accusers are also unnamed. What kind of journalism is this, Amy Goodman?! One would have hoped that a media outlet like Democracy Now! Which claims to be “independent” of the state and corporate sponsors would apply a higher journalistic standard. I guess not. It is now crystal clear that Democracy Now! Is in fact pushing the imperialist agenda for regime change in Syria.

- Professor Chomsky supported the US-led coup and the illegitimate installment of a corrupt Neo-Nazi government in Ukraine.

- Professor Chomsky claims that the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Bilderberg Committee, and Trilateral Commission are ”nothing organizations.”

- Professor Chomsky acknowledges the one-party corporate oligarchy, but then urges everyone to vote for the lesser of two evils — just like he did in 2008, 2016, and just about every election before that. Let us keep in mind that any endorsement of “lesser evil-ism” is in essence an endorsement to maintain the status-quo and hence a system of injustice that he claims to oppose.

Naturally expected, Professor Chomsky tends to run interference for the Democrats as always. He talks like an anarchist during off years, tucks tail and comes slinking back to the Democrat wing of the corrupt establishment during election years. This is the utter hypocrisy that Professor Chomsky is used to, but one which is now coming to full surface..."

Considering his status as an icon of independent, anti-imperialist thought, the above indictment is disturbing, to say the least. And in some ways possibly unfair: Chomsky is a man of many angles to begin with, and if he has characterological flaws and rigidities, it's only to be expected from a constantly evolving mind. His errors on Syria and Ukraine, however, and Libya, too, are hard to explain away. They are especially uncomfortable to those, like this writer, who once also learned from and admired Chomsky for his witness against shamelessly critical and hypocritical power. Keep these perspectives in mind as you watch this 2011 lecture, highly provocative and wide-ranging, as always, which, incidentally took place at the beginning of Obama's all-out underhanded effort to topple the government of president Bashir al-Assad. That was a time when the US and much of the West still had some liberals who could think straight about some important matters, as the general atrocious Trump derangement had not yet begun. The establishment media was, of course, already deep into abominable stenography. Since then, matters have only gotten far far worse.—PG