Thanks to Hugo Chavez, Noam Chomsky’s book Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance (The American Empire Project) is now number one at Amazon.

Chomsky has always bothered me … a lot …. He’s a good linguist, a foolish economist, and a terrible social scientist / political commentator. Ironically it’s only the last two topics where Chomsky gets any attention and he’s an expert in neither.

He’s the the guy who suggested back in the 70’s that the regime of Pol Pot was not a great threat to the people of Cambodia. When it became clear that Pol Pot’s communist government, the Khmer Rouge, had murdered by many accounts over a million Cambodians Chomsky’s tune changed to suggest it was American destabilization of the region that was to blame.

Although this latter argument has some merit, clear thinkers will note that Chomsky’s failure to hold ruthless Communist regimes accountable while at the same time holding America “overly accountable” for virtually all the bad in the world is a very suspect political philosophy. Here’s a good critique of Chomsky’s hypocrisy.

However, I should caveat all this by pointing out that in a world where so many people and countries are challenging GW, Dick, and the Neocons imperial vision of the USA it’s very important to have more points of view out there than our commercialized media allows. Chomsky is one of the most articulate spokesman for an intelligent radical vision of the world and I’d like to see more of him rather than the inane ranting of intellectually lobotomized right wing radio talk show hosts.

Perhaps careful consideration of many points of view will lead us to some answers. We sure need them.

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