> Apologies in advance for the following two ... I find myself with a
> particularly short temper this afternoon
>
>
> Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 06:28:56 -0700
> From: Brad DeLong
> Subject: Re:lbo-talk-digest V1 #6332
>
> >You don't think it's really weird that on the one hand Chomsky wrote
> >Thion--the publisher--saying that he should follow his own judgment
> >in deciding how to publish the "Chomsky Preface", and that on the
> >other hand Chomsky's defenders work very hard to say that the
> >"Chomsky Preface" was included in Faurisson's book without Chomsky's
> permission?
>
> yahhh .... I live in Camden, mate, I can get ten weirder things than that
> delivered to my door with a pizza. It's no weirder than the idea that
> Larry Summers used to be in the habit of signing his name to memos without
> reading them, and substantially less weird than the idea that "improving
> tax collection" is a serious policy suggesting to get Argentina out of its
> present mess, both of which I've been asked to believe and haven't made a
> fuss about.
>
> It seems pretty obvious that Chomsky has a big mouth which gets him into
> trouble, and that he is bad enough at spin control that he talks himself
> into corners while trying to pretend that his mistakes weren't mistakes.
> Whether this is a venial or mortal sin is for God to decide; all that the
> present exchange is proving is that you've got your mates and Chomsky's
> got his. Personally, I've never read him, because anyone with that many
> uncritical devotees has to be a loony in my book. But for Chrissake, does
> anyone honestly think that either the Chomsky-supporters or the
> Chomsky-detractors are like teetering on the brink here, and are just a
few
> more email messages from slapping themselves on the forehead and saying
> "how could I have been so blind"?
>
> grrr, spleen, bile ...
>
> Wojtek wrote:
>
> >Is not the "struggle for Palestinian liberation" (which includes, inter
> >alia, blowing up school buses) overwhelmingly supported by the members of
> >this list?
>
> Which leaves me repeating my overused epithet of "Give over", after having
> considered and rejected a few stronger ones.
>
> This kind of rhetoric was fucking stupid when it was brought out in the
> Northern Ireland debate and it's fucking stupid in this context too.
> Anyone who ever tries to pin support for terrorist bombings on another
> human being had better do so with *very* good proof, and even then it is
> more constructive and more intellectually honest not to do so. Even
Martin
> McGuiness, who almost certainly drove a car and quite probably did much
> more, would have been ill-treated by someone who refused to address his
> political point and just shouted "murderer" at him.
>
> The analogy with Northern Ireland is exact; it is not possible to have an
> opinion on the Palestinian question at all without, one way or another,
> lining yourself up on the same side as people who commit utterly
> unacceptable acts. To treat a serious discussion of a difficult situation
> as if it were a competition to come up with the most florid descriptions
of
> massacres and broken bodies, is to make political capital out of other
> people's grief. Give over.
>
> dd
>
>
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