Alterman on Chomsky

[Justin Schwartz]

Brad, if you think athat Chomsky is a holocaust denier--either with respect 
to the Nazi Judeocide or the KR--you are losing your grip on reality. You 
may not be satisfied by the way he has handled his ideologically motivated 
critics. Mayhe you think you would have done better. Maybe you would have. 
But if you had an infinitesmal fraction of Chomsky's track record 
forstanding up with awe-insoiring bravura,a t graet personal cost, to the 
good and the true, then you might be in a better position to carp. I don't 
denigrate your work, except when you are shilling for the Clinton gang; no 
one here, perhaps no one in the country except for Ralph Nader, in his 
different way, is remotely comparable. Not me, for sure. Now, there is 
simply no chance that any honest person who is familiar with a reasonable 
fraction of Chomsky's writing and work could possibly construe him to 
believe what you say you are coming to believe. That leads to theconclusion 
that you are being (a) dishonest, (b) unreasonable, or (c) are unfamiliar 
with the bofy of his work. Because you claim to be familiar with it, and 
because I am reluctant to ascribe dishonesty to you, I conclude that you are 
being unreasonable. As Cromwell said to Parliament at one point, I beseech 
you by the bowels of Christ, think that you may be mistaken.

What's this about White? Personally, I don't believe it about Hiss either, 
but I suppose reasonable people can disagree about that. I'm not a 
fundamentalist on the subject: I was persuaded by Verona that Julius R 
actually did commit espionage.

jks

jks


>From: Bradford DeLong <jbdelong at uclink.berkeley.edu>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>Subject: Re: Alterman on Chomsky
>Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 20:20:38 -0700
>
>>In a message dated 6/18/2002 6:45:22 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
>>delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU writes:
>>
>>>Can you give me an alternative interpretation of Chomsky's final
>>>paragraph--why in God's name he wrote it?
>>>
>>>
>>>Brad DeLong
>>>
>>
>>
>>What for?  Seems you have made up your mind.  The bottom line of this 
>>discussion is, to paraphrase Doug, to discredit any of Chomsky's work by 
>>painting him as an Anti-Semite/Self hating Jew/ holocaust denier.  It 
>>won't work for anybody who has read or listened to Chomsky.
>>
>>Sergio
>
>
>I do change my mind, when the argument and evidence are overwhelmingly and 
>incontrovertibly against me. Why, in the past six months alone, I have 
>changed my mind on whether Yasser Arafat is a possible partner for peace, 
>and on whether Harry Dexter White was a Soviet agent.
>
>I really would welcome an opportunity to change my mind in a leftward 
>direction on *something*. But that ain't the way things are working. Right 
>now, for example, I feel my mind changing on Chomsky. I used to take 
>Hitchens's account at face value (yes, often a mistake): I used to think 
>(mendacious as I find Chomsky's history of the Cold War, his running 
>interference for Milosevic, et cetera) that on Faurisson Chomsky had been 
>smeared by Dershowitz and company--that Chomsky had set out just to defend 
>free speech, had fallen into a trap jointly laid by American Likudniks like 
>Alan Dershowitz (who wanted to paint Chomsky as an anti-semitic nutboy to 
>neutralize his critique of Israeli policy) and French holocaust deniers 
>(who wanted to paint Chomsky as one of them to add his authority to their 
>cause).
>
>But now I don't think Hitchens's account can be sustained. Chomsky's claims 
>to have been concerned only with freedom of speech seem to be impeached by 
>his own writings, which show a desire to defend Faurisson that seems to me 
>quite extraordinary when coupled with his attacks on historians like, say, 
>Lucy Dawidowitz as "Stalinist-Fascists".
>
>There's something else going on here...
>
>
>Brad DeLong

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