You tell us Dan

I never saw the appeal of Chomsky. For some reason, he also seems to be into white-washing the atrocities of Assad's regime in Syria:

https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/co...e-whitewashing

This gets deep into the weeds of the Syrian chemical weapons attacks, but it's instructive as a reminder that the far left are just as susceptible to conspiracy theories/confirmation bias as the far right even if the right is far more problematic at the moment.

The reaction against Chomsky or Greenwald or anyone who goes too far in criticizing the US is pretty remarkable. Chomsky goes too far in criticizing the US, corporations, capitalism, the military etc. That's like 99.99% of what he does. Someone who is mad about that finds this or that where he quotes some MIT professor who they claim is a conspiracy nut.

Or another thing from 1977 where people immediately 40 years later bring up to discredit him:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-0...homsky/2779086

I really don't get it. It's at least as accurate for me now to go on about how 13ball is really unsure about climate change. Here he is in this thread attacking anyone who has a problem with the GOP's attacks on the environment. That would be wrong, huh? You know as well as anyone that Chomsky is not cool with ruthless murderous dictators.

Chomsky's whole point about Assad or Pol Pot or Stalin or whoever is reverse whataboutism. We do it too. Our allies do it too. Our media reports the atrocities of enemies and virtually ignores the our atrocities or those committed by allies. That's an important take and should not be defensively attacked as support for enemy atrocities. It's important because, if we really do have any democratic power, not only do we have some responsibility for what has been done we have a lot better opportunity to influence our actions than those of others.

< 13 minutes showing the appeal of Chomsky

I didn't say he was cool with dictators, but I guess "white-washing" was a bit extreme because it suggests intent. This was my point:

Whatever his motives, spreading junk ideas like Postol's has the effect of minimizing Assad's crimes. And Chomsky should know better. He should certainly know better after having Postol's flaws pointed out to him.

I emailed Chomsky and he replied. It wasn't about this and it turned out very brief and not interesting. I know this is a lame post, but I think permission before publishing emails is important in his circles.

at least your trying to be somewhat active :-)