DeLong wrote:
> A more general point: in looking at Chomsky's argument--incoherent as it
> is, and false in its underlying facts as it is--I would like everyone to
> note that the rhetoric is profoundly anti-internationalist, and the
> argument is at its root at least pseudo-fascist in the strict sense of
> "fascism."
>
Chomsky's premise is to identify how the power structure really operates. In this case the corporate/business sector, both dominating and dependant on the state, made the decision to rebuild Europe by resupplying the existing industrialists, some on the side of the Nazis. This decision was made without public input. Incedentally the US stood ready to smash the anit-fascist movements in Northern Italy and Greece, which had thrown out the Nazis, in its effort to maintain the pre-war industrial order.
The US working population did benefit from this arrangement. Whether they would have benefitted from a different type of social spending (ie. education, health, transportation, etc.) is not addressed.
Since Chomsky has written extensively about these topics it should be easy to find a reference to support the ad hominen attacks shown in the first paragraph and below. This was not done.
> We've seen this rhetorical pattern--good,
> hard-working people who play by the rules and pay their taxes on the one
> hand; sinister shadowy figures who don't look like us, talk funny, and live
> by manipulating symbols in ways honest folk can't understand on the
> other--in the past. We are seeing it more and more on all sides of the
> political debate--right, center, and left--today.
>