>I don't think Chomsky says that the Left is to blame for the tea party.
he says that, if we don't do something, then we will be to blame. he also says that they are dupes of a rightwing that both caused their problem and is organizing the protest - BECAUSE we haven't been offering alternative analysis.
clearly, this is not the case. we have a million and one different ways we have provided an alternative - including chomsky's own work! what more could you or he possibly want?
> What he says - causing consternation - is that the tea party arises
> from legitimate grievances.
i call bullshit. i certainly think they have grievances. what i object to is the idea that we need to work with the tea party or its supporters. other people have grievances and express them too. i think the ideology the tea party espouses, the fact that it is just a continuation of conservativism (which is, duh!, a response to its grievances with the system it advances!), is a serious problem and that we can look elsewhere for groups who don't advance that ideology to find plenty of people hurting and aggrieved.
this conversation took place at an organizing meeting awhile back. all these guys are older, veterans of the 60s - antiwar, anti-racist, civil rights, and deeply pro-labor. we're talking serious commie pinko reds.
Joe, veteran of pro-labor and civil rights and direct action movements says, "I won't write off the tea party. At least they're in the streets."
Allen: "The KKK was in the streets too. You didn't write them off, Joe, you fought them."
>He objects to a response to the teapartiers that is simply ridicule. The
>Limbaughs and the Palins offer plausible but false answers for real
>economic distress - "crazy, but extremely dangerous" answers. It's the job
>of the Left to counter those answers, not just dismiss them.
really? I had no idea that was what I was supposed to be doing. Thank god someone finally explained what the job of the left is. Quick: we need a job description in case anyone forgets!
my problem is that this excessive focus on action is a set of blinders. when action is the sign of the subject of history, we exclude a whole shitload of people who aren't "doing something" in the ways we want to see.
e.g., the student protests in california. is there a problem with advancing those actions, helping them to radicalize their views? or is just so fuckall important that we care about the poor forgotten white guys and the primary contradiction of class?
e.g. the recent erruption of immigrants reported by doug onthis list.
it's a real problem when you have your sites so narrowly concentrated on one particular group, on the group that's the loudest and the nastiest, because you can't see around the corners of your own theory and notice all the people doing the same sort of complaining and howling, but in ways we refuse to see as protest, as resistance. it ends up placing all the emphasis on a particular kind of political voice and action.
feh
>Of course the administration and its supporters are working hard to
>convince us that all their critics are just crazy racists - an interesting
>example of Walter Benn Michaels' notion of the substitution of race for
>class. --CGE
>
>
>On 5/9/10 11:32 AM, shag carpet bomb wrote:
>>what is it with the "blame the left" crap?
>>
>>in this interview, (and in a few others), Chomsky says that the left is
>>to blame for the tea party: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWs6g3L3fkU
>>
>>and in another interview, he intimates that, if we don't get it
>>together, we can be blamed for the rise of fascism.
>>
>>WTF! how on earth do you engage in all that analysis of the media
>>ideology machine, yak away about powerful interests, etc. and then
>>actually blame the left for the Tea Party and, possibly, fascism.
>>
>>he says he "wouldn't ridicule the answers that are being given to" the
>>Tea Party by the right - Limbaugh, Palin, etc. Instead, those answers
>>are understandable and he assumes they are "sincere." (referencing
>>Limbaugh interviewing Palin back in dec 2008). "If Limbaugh says, 'what
>>do you think about this junk science elitist liberals are trying to
>>foist on us?' and if she (Palin) says, 'yeah, just look out the window,
>>you can't see any palm trees growing in Alaska.' (as refutation to the
>>junk science)
>>
>>then he says that the "answers they *are* getting are not only crazy but
>>extremely dangerous. so the *right* response is to ask *ourselves*, why
>>are we failing to organize these people."
>>
>>so, don't ridicule their ideas - except when you do(and call them crazy)?
>>
>>
>>it's as if chomsky tremendously admires the idea that you merely need
>>give really simple answers to make an impact. be more like Sarah Palin,
>>I guess, and point out the window at a "fact" - a palm tree is not
>>growing in Alaska - and, voila!, the people will get it and be moved to
>>your position.
>>
>>how do you trace the duplicity of the press - where lies and truth are
>>told on the exact same page (figuratively) speaking - revealing the
>>stronghold capitalist ideology has on people, talk about the massive
>>propaganda from the business class and then think ideology is so easilyl
>>undone. if the propaganda requires so much effort to implant and sustain
>>itself, relently shaping hearts, bodies, and minds to keep people in
>>line, adhering to that ideology, how it is that it just melts away at
>>mere exposure to the facts.
>>
>>Later, the interviewer asks him why, if there are shared ideas about the
>>bank bailouts, etc on the left and right, why can't unify them since
>>we're going after the same targets. Chomsky's answer: "because we have
>>not succeeded in unifying them. it's our fault."
>>
>>this is really strange. it's as if all you have to do is yak it up with
>>people, talk away about the facts and the way it is, and --voila! -- the
>>left/right will be unified against the common enemy of capitalism.
>>
>>and where does he get the idea that the left hasn't been giving people
>>answers for a damn long time, in all kinds of venues, in all kinds of
>>ways, through all kinds of media, in easy-to-understand phamplets (like
>>his!), in activist organizations, in their participation in various
>>groups (like antiwar, feminist etc. - that's where i first encountered
>>marxist analysis -- though no one told me they were marxist or
>>identified what they were saying as a marxist-inspired idea.)
>>
>>feh!
>>
>>how do you write about this huge propaganda machine and then turn around
>>and pretend that getting a hearing in the face of the machine is pretty
>>difficult. but it isn't the fault of a capitalist system that rejects
>>and viciously puts down those ideas, it is, rather, the fault of
>>leftists for not making their views sufficiently clear.
>>
>>yeah yeah i know. but chomsky's your hero. whatever.
>>
>>
>>--
>>http://cleandraws.com
>>Wear Clean Draws
>>('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)
>>
>>___________________________________
>>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
>--
>http://cleandraws.com
>Wear Clean Draws
>('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)