[lbo-talk] lefty on futbol

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Fri Jul 2 18:06:38 PDT 2010


Dennis Claxton wrote:
>
>
> Now, can someone tell me how Chomsky on sports in America is moralizing?
>

I'm more or less agnostic on the original exchange between Dennis P & Eric, but I would be a bit wary of applying the term "moralizing" to Chomsky. He _does_, I think, too often invoke moral premises, BUT he has always had a focus on stemic issues that too many who bring moral criteria to their political judgments don't. I'm thinking in particular of all those whose reactions to u.s. military adventures have mostly taken the form of hating Nixon or hating Bush. There is a tilt towards this sort of moralism even in asking whether a given war was LBJ's war or Nixon's war or whateer. (We have a record of a conversation between LBH and Russell that the coming war was a bad deal left them by Kennedy, BUT now tht 'we' were in it, could we afford the loss of prestige by bugging out. Does that make it Kennedy's War? Well, the future of Vietnam was really peacefully envisaged after the Geneva Conference. Thee wuld be a temporary line between south and north to allow for the efficient gathering and removal to the respective areas of the military. Then after two years their would be all-Vietnam elections, which Ho would win by over 90% of the vote (Eisenhower's estimate.) But the Eisenhower Administration sabotaged the agreement and set up a puppet regime in the South. That regime began heavy repression of any dissidence. War waa inevitable. Was it Eisenhower's War? Personally, I think it started when Admiral Dewey steamed into Manila Bay, & McKinley prayed all night and decided to stay there. So the Vietname War was McKinley's War.

Now the current war in Afghanistan is definitely Eisenhower's War, but that is only because he won the '52 election; otherwise it would be Stevenson's War.

So blaming presidents for their wars gets a little bit silly, and is one of the fruits of taking a moral perspective on politics. You need personal villains or you can't really get heated up enough over it.

Carrol



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