From: harelb@MATH.CORNELL.EDU (misc.activism.progressive co-moderator)
Newsgroups: alt.activism,alt.desert-storm,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Gulf "War"&Chomsky -- final response (appendix 2)
Date: 24 Aug 92 03:36:16 GMT
Organization: misc.activism.progressive on UseNet ; ACTIV-L@UMCVMB

*Subject: Gulf "War"&Chomsky -- final response (appendix 2)

The following, the first non-administrative Topic in PeaceNet's
chomsky.views, illustrates the basic point about why there is little
point in expressing moral outrage about acts Saddam Hussein could have
prevented (outside the crucial points that the U.S. should not have
been and today should not be in the business of supporting and arming
dictatorships the world over), while the acts Bush and co. could have
prevented (of slaugher by far diminishing those of Saddam) are
precisely the acts that should engender moral outrage (and, crucially,
*action*) by concerned citizens.

In the maintream media culture, precisely the opposite is the norm:
"It has been demonstrated beyond any lingering doubt that what sears
the sensitive soul is the crimes of the enemy, not our own, for
reasons that are all too obvious and much too uncomfortable to face"
as Chomksy observes near the conclusion of _The Victors (part II)_
which is excerpted second.

Harel

################################################################## 

Topic 2 On Soviet Tyranny & Personal Respon 
harelb  Noam Chomsky (Activ-L, MAP, PeaceNet)   11:22 am  Oct  3, 1991 
(at mssun7.msi.cornell.edu) 

From: harelb@mssun7.msi.cornell.edu (Harel Barzilai) 
Subject: On Soviet Tyranny & Personal Responsibility (Chomsky, 1986) 

Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive 

[This is not a _Z_ or _LOOT_ article but is being posted as a first 
"article" to serve as an eloquent statement of Chomsky's philosophy] 

As Reagan's terrorist war against Nicaragua(*) was in full swing 
during the winter of 1986, blowing up bridges and murdering health 
care workers and literacy volunteers who were committing the crime of 
helping the Nicaraguan poor and thus cooperating with the Sandinista 
government, Noam Chomsky was invited to lecture at the Universidad 
Centroamerica in Managua, Nicaragua by the rector, and gave morning 
lectures on language and knowledge, and late afternoon lectures on 
political issues, resulting in two books. 

        [(*)Use the GET command (see bottom) with WHO-WERE CONTRAS ]
        [for documentation; see also the rest of the "Nicaragua    ]
        [Libarary" referenced there.                               ] 

The later lectures were published in 1987 in _On Power and Ideology: 
The Managua Lectures_. After each lecture there was a question/answer 
session, and what the translators could transcribe from the tape 
recorded Q/A is also found in the book. Following lecture 2, a 
Nicaraguan asked Noam Chomsky how, as someone who supported the 
Nicaraguan people against the U.S. slaughter, he could speak in the 
terms he did about the Soviet Union. 

        [Excerpt enclosed from page 51, _On Power and Ideology: 
        The Managua Lectures_, 1987] 

                 =================================== 
                 Lecture 2: Discussion March 2, 1986 
                 =================================== 

QUESTION: We feel that through what you say and write you are our 
friend but at the same time you talk about North American imperialism 
and Russian imperialism in the same breath. I ask you how you can use 
the same arguments as reactionaries such as Octavio Paz, Vargas Llosa, 
etc. 

ANSWER: I have been accused of everything and that therefore includes 
being a reactionary. From my personal experience there are two 
countries in which my political writings can basically not appear. One 
is the U.S. within the mainstream with very rare exceptions. The other 
is the USSR(*). I would personally not want to be associated with Vargas 
Llosa, Octavio Paz, and the rest. I think what we ought to do is 
to try to understand the truth about the world. And the truth about 
the world is usually quite unpleasant. 

        [(*) Chomsky was banned in the Soviet Union. See e.g. 
        introductory interview in _The Chomsky Reader_ --HB] 

One of the truths about the world is that there are two superpowers, 
one a huge power which happens to have its boot on your neck, another, 
a smaller power which happens to have its boot on other people's necks. 
In fact these two superpowers have a form of tacit cooperation in 
controlling much of the world. 

My own concern is primarily the terror and violence carried out by my 
own state, for two reasons. For one thing, because it happens to be 
the larger component of international violence. But also for a much 
more important reason than that; namely, I can do something about it. 
So even if the U.S. was responsible for 2 percent of the violence in 
the world instead of the majority of it, it would be that 2 percent I 
would be primarily responsible for. And that is a simple ethical 
judgment. That is, the ethical value of one's actions depends on 
their anticipated and predictable consequences. It is very easy to 
denounce the atrocities of someone else. That has about as much 
ethical value as denouncing atrocities that took place in the 18th 
century. 

The point is that the useful and significant political actions are 
those that have consequences for human beings. And those are overwhel- 
mingly the actions which you have some way of influencing and 
controlling, which mean for me, American actions. But I am also 
involved in protesting Soviet imperialism, and also explaining its roots 
in Soviet society. And I think that anyone in the Third World would be 
be making a grave error if they succumbed to illusions about these matters. 

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Conf? 

##################################################################

from _The Victors_:
##################################################################

The missing view also unveils a possible future that may await much of
Eastern Europe, which has endured many horrors, but is still regarded
with envy in large parts of the Third World domains of the West that
had comparable levels of development in the past, and are no less well
endowed with resources and the material conditions for satisfying
human needs. "Why have the leaders, the media, the citizens of the
Great Western Democracies cared long and ardently for the people of
Central Europe, but cared nothing for the people of Central America?"
the experienced correspondent Martha Gellhorn asks: "Most of them are
bone poor, and most of them do not have white skin. Their lives and
their deaths have not touched the conscience of the world. I can
testify that it was far better and safer to be a peasant in communist
Poland than it is to be a peasant in capitalist El Salvador."

        [Again, for an essay by Guatemalan journalist Julio Godoy,   ]
        [former Nieman fellow at Harvard, "Return to Guatemala:Unlike]
        [East Europe, Fear Without Hope," send the 1-line message    ]
        [GET E-EUROPE C-AMERIC ACTIV-L  to: LISTSERV@UMCVMB.BITNET   ]

Her question is, unfortunately, all too easy to answer. It has been
demonstrated beyond any lingering doubt that what sears the sensitive
soul is the crimes of the enemy, not our own, for reasons that are all
too obvious and much too uncomfortable to face. The comparison that
Gellhorn draws is scarcely to be found in Western commentary, let
alone the reasons for it.

As in Latin America, some sectors of Eastern European society should
come to share the economic and cultural standards of privileged
classes in the rich industrial world that they see across their
borders, much of the former Communist Party bureaucracy probably among
them. Many others might look to the second Brazil, and its
counterparts elsewhere, for a glimpse of a different future, which may
come to pass if matters proceed on their present course.
                                   
       __________________________________________________
      | Footnotes to this article are available from    |
      | Noam Chomsky, MIT Linguistics Dept.,            |
      | Cambridge, MA 02139. Please include $2 to       |
      | cover reproduction and postal costs.            |
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