Noam Chomsky's statement on killing of Osama bin Laden

[Joseph Tracy]

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> Chomsky's gnostic tendencies shine through.  Not so much Bloom's American religion variety, but the old fashioned kind.  Chomsky's home is the Heights.  He wasn't created by that lesser God who created the lower material world but by the greater One who doesn't get his hands dirty with corrupt humanity below.
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> Chomsky's expertise is in Foreign Policy for Saints.
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> Of course he may be a very nice man when you met him.
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I agree that Chomsky errs in the  direction of an impossible moral purity.  And I find Michael Moore's comments on the killing of Bin Laden more palatable, but there are fundamental principles of law that we have agreed on as a society and one is that you don't shoot an unarmed person when you can easily capture and bring him/her to trial. The reason is obvious. The more a society tolerates this behavior in those representing legal or military process, the closer you move to establishing violence as the fundamental mechanism of social control.  This is the norm in Russia, Burma, China, Columbia, Israel as regards the Palestinians, and we can see it now graphically  in the greater middle east. We have moved much too far in this direction already , and rather than repudiate  or reserve extreme measures for people like Bin Laden, they have become the base tactics of our military, and the macho field of battle for politicians. Obama is a liar on this front in case after case, though the assassination of Bin Laden is the least of his offenses. 

The idea that Chomsky is the reverse image of Beck is laughably absurd. His views are flawed by his human  limits but they are reasonably comprehensive and in accord with a long tradition of ethical democratic criticism.  What saves him from  self righteous piety are 2 key strengths of his writing1)he  isn't calling for new moral standards but for standards we as a people have used and accepted like the Geneva Conventions and the US constitution. . And when we have ignored these for the sake of "realism", the real outcome has been bad both militarily and in the larger social consequences. 2) his research is thorough , his personal command of information impressive, and most of his factual materials are from mainstream and accepted sources.

The truth is that we are in the midst of a profound crisis for the US version of the democratic experiment and a larger global crisis of the limits of growth, combined with the end of cheap energy,degradation of the environment and global warming. No collection half measures and no military action abroad will meaningfully address this crisis. Obama is truly the very slightly lesser of of 2 faces of a system run amok  with personal greed at a time of global fever and resource wars.. Whether he is elected or not will make no important difference and he probably will be elected. The heart of the crisis is that Americans don't have the will to insist on political change. We are comfortable and lazy and don't really care how many innocent Iraqis or Afghans, Coal Miners, Haitians, Gulf residents, etc. die while a powerful elite becomes ever more expert in the  control of oil resources, the banking system, and whatever resources they want. As long as we are entertained and can drive to work and the grocery store we will hold our nose , be "realistic" and  decide who we find the least obnoxious among the meaningless choices.  The  powers that control America are not just people. People die. Or enterprises with a natural lifespan, but they are  undying entities designed for predation and profit . Most corporations give money to both parties. A vote for Obama is a vote for this system. 

Things have changed for the worse since the bi-partisan war in Vietnam.. Dick Nixon was more willing to compromise with popular sentiment, cutting military spending and passing key environmental legislation, than Obama. 






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