Chomsky on Free Speech

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>	Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>>  When Chomsky wrote of Iraq, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, etc., he
>>  generally included obligatory denunciations of Hussein, Milosevic,
>>  Serbian atrocities, Stalinists, etc., presumably to prevent confusion
>>  as to where exactly he stands politically.  Why did he find it
>>  unnecessary to do the same in the case of Faurisson, East European
>>  dissidents, etc.?  Isn't it a better political judgment to defend
>>  Faurisson's right to freedom of expression & other civil liberties
>>  while denouncing or ridiculing his conclusions than to defend it
>>  without doing so? 
>.
>Maybe Chomsky omitted a denunciation because he knew that no one in their
>right mind would ever mistake him for a Holocaust denier. You'd have to be
>one of those ultra-paranoic Jewish nationalists who sees swastikas in
>everybody's eyes to think Noam Chomsky secretly sympathyzes with neo-Nazis.
>Whereas you'd only have to be very misinformed to think he's a Stalinist.
>
>Seth

There has been some discussion of the reception of Norman 
Finkelstein's work in Germany on this list.  I think Johannes 
Schneider has a good point as to the need for caution.

On the other hand, though, the culture that demands obligatory 
denunciations -- be they of Hitler & Stalin, Hussein & Milosevic, 
etc. -- is an impoverished political culture with a narrow range of 
political freedoms that insults the intelligence of the people, so I 
understand Chomsky's annoyance as well.  Why do we need to prove that 
we are not fascists, Stalinists, etc. every time we speak in defense 
of civil liberties, in opposition to imperialism, etc.?

Yoshie