Vlad Reacts: Chomsky on Ukraine
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@newstatesman interview with Noam Chomsky
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@newstatesman interview with Noam Chomsky
czcams.com/video/tJGYmfTaFRw/video.html
Do you think that Putin has much thought or places much weight on leaving Russia set to succeed after he is not leader (assuming he dies of old age/natural causes in power). Or do you think he believes his legacy will be set even if Russia itself falls shortly after his demise?
Was going to ask where this main channel you constantly refer to is to be found....
Answered before I could express my mild impatience, thanks Vlad.
@@dontsupportrats4089 its a good question...like many things about Putin, the answer to that would be only speculation...but its a good question
Dear Vlad;
shortly
- I generally have a little intellectual respect for people using 'obvious' as any token of substance, I'd argue that besides 'self-authority fallacy' ('because I, the daddy, say so') such rhetoric delegitimises the very idea of deliberation. 'Which is obvious', I suppose. (I actually tend to put a 'F' on my students' works for such an archivement, cruel me).
- I'd say that, besides romanticised ('that's obvious', ofc.) views of everything which is not the Evil US of A there is that tiny itch pushing me into understanding why the Putin's project of destroying 'the West' may be enjoyable for someone like Chomsky. If the Capitalism (and capitalists which are, at the deeper level, in fact the puppets of the Capitalism itself, and that makes Chomsky mental works quite hegelian, indeed) is Western vermin then destroying said Evil is preferrable.
Cynically - in common sense - speaking, I get it. He will never have to actually live in the 'multipolar world' ruled, harrassed and devoured by Putin/Xi/[...]/-alikes. So good to be old turd.
Chomsky, completely ignoring the genocidal intent of Putin is revolting.
With best.
A.
Chomsky has always upheld the Lubyanka's line, simple as.
Well, as an Iraqi and actual eyewitness, the American military didn't bomb our cities to oblivion and hit only the infrastructure and the strategic military targets, not apartments and houses, back in 2003 and when they mistakenly hit a house, they sent an apology and a compensation and even offered jobs at their military bases or immigration opportunities to the affected families
Their most horrible atrocities were committed later during the two battles of Fallujah, Abu Ghuraib Prison and some separated incidents here and there like the video that was leaked by Wikileaks later, but nothing that can be compared to the scale of systematic destruction by the Russians whether in Chechnia or Georgia or Syria or Ukraine
Thank you for this testimony!
Thank you !
Thank you and God bless you
there is a very simple reason why USA doesnt bomb civilians - its a waste of resources. why drop a million dollar bomb on a civilian building instead of a military radar?
Abu Graib involved a relatively small number of victims, but it was the response of the GOP rank and file, i.e., my fellow Republican friends and neighbors, that caused me to walk away from the GOP. Abu Graib sparked a debate about torture, and while some sparred over whether “enhanced interrogation techniques” counted as torture, and there were arguments about justification of torture. But I frequently came across a pro-torture attitude that was in favor of torture for the sake of torture that at its heart was a virulent Christian/White supremacy. The approved of what went on at Abu Graib. And what also disturbed me is that even those not making that argument were silent when the arguments were made. They didn’t speak out or correct the prejudiced narrative that dehumanized Muslims, Iraqis, and Arabs.
I was aware of strands of racism and prejudice woven into the GOP. I sometimes felt it. But up until Abu Graib, I felt that it was on the decline and I could help change the party, cure the racism buried in it.
I am sorry for the invasion. We bear responsibility for the deaths attributable to the militias and factions, too, because we created the conditions that allowed them to arise.
Now I hope I don’t anger you if I say the U.S. coalition was morally wrong but legally justified in invading Iraq. We often blame Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld for the big lie about WMD’s, but Sadam could have revealed the lie by allowing the UN weapon inspectors, AS HE WAS LEGALLY REQUIRED TO DO. The agreement that ended hostilities in 1991 required Iraq to submit to inspections. This doesn’t mean that the invasion and occupation was moral or wise. It just means it had legal justification.
People should have stopped taking Chomsky seriously back in the 1970s when he was busy denying the cambodian genocide. He never apologized for that by the way
More that just denying, he wrote letters, some twenty pages long, to editors and publishers to try to stop press coverage of it.
"We do not pretend to know where the truth lies amidst these sharply conflicting assessments; rather, we again want to emphasize some crucial points. What filters through to the American public is a seriously distorted version of the evidence available, emphasizing alleged Khmer Rouge atrocities and downplaying or ignoring the crucial U.S. role, direct and indirect, in the torment that Cambodia has suffered.[14]" - Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman
*If you want to be famous, don't ever let not knowing where the truth lies restrain having an opinion*
Same with the Bosnian genocide. He spread misinformation and lied about what sources said in order to push his narrative
Wow add that to Serbia.
I stopped listening to him over a decade ago. Will I try to silence him? NO, I will not. But if people stop listening to him he will shut up.
Chomsky is a talented linguist, and an extremely intelligent man. However, he falls prey to the common trap that many very intelligent people do, in that he is convinced of his own intelligence in all things, even when there are things he speaks on which he knows less than nothing about. His conception of the world is perversely America-centric to the same degree that flag waving nationalists are, merely in the opposite direction. His foundational assumption that America is the eternal villain of the narrative that we live in completely denies agency to the other 95% of the world's population. The United States, and every other nation on Earth, is equally capable of doing wonderful and despicable things. To do what Chomsky does by comparing everything to the "evils of American empire", is, in my opinion, the most reductive, and banal understanding of the world possible. When we speak about the crimes committed by Putin's Russia in Ukraine, we speak of them as they are, and to compare them as being "less bad" than something someone else did at a different time and place in history, frankly makes my stomach churn. I will never fully understand Chomsky's repugnant world view, and frankly I think he slides by too much on his academic achievements.
EDIT: Removed a slightly hyperbolic adjective
Many westerners seem to overlook that Russia IS an empire and uses imperial aggression against its neighbors. 😮
Well said!
I think his reputation as a linguist is not as great as you believe. I worked in a Linguistics Department in a British University and the consensus was he has a cohort of zealots who shout loudly but no one takes much notice of him now.
I was going to put it in measurably less polite terms but yes, I concur with everything you say.
America is absolutely culpable! For being dominant during objectively the greatest golden age humanity has ever experienced, launched largely due to American technologies, encouragement of democracy, championship of secular rational thinking, and promotion of liberal trade. Also since their fingers are in literally everything they are eternally to blame for everything also, I guess.
For me it is interesting that during war in Vietnam, Chomsky advocated for complete withdrawal of U.S. troops, no ceasefire or negotiation.. But somehow when it comes to Russia and Ukraine, his position differs.
And just to give the source, its “After Pinkville” essay(1970) by Chomsky. Mostly this fragment:
"These demands, however, had always been beside the point. As to negotiations, there is, in fact, very little to negotiate. As long as an American army of occupation remains in Vietnam, the war will continue. Withdrawal of American troops must be a unilateral act, as the invasion of Vietnam by the American government was a unilateral act in the first place. Those who had been calling for “negotiations now” were deluding themselves and others, just as those who now call for a cease-fire that will leave an American expeditionary force in Vietnam are not facing reality."
Then again the US never invaded North Vietnam. They bombed it (with strict limitations on which targets), but US boots never crossed the DMZ.
@@Hairysteed The US realised the mistake that MacArthur was allowed to make by crossing the Yalu river. He called China's bluff & they invaded as they said they would & the UN nearly lost the whole of Korea. Thus the USA listened to China when they said they would intervene if N. Vietnam was invaded.
Oh, & there was fighting in the DMZ but it was artillery & raids.
One of these days, we are gonna find out that the Kremlin pays a lot of Westerners for their loyal services to Mother Russia. From leftists like Chomsky to fascists like Cucker Carlson: there are far too many traitors in the West these days.
Time to clean house, folks. Sh*t is getting serious.
@@hakunamatata1880 well if we do go to war with China memories of French colonialism or the Vietnam war wont help us in cooperation with a Vietnam that is as suspicious of Chinese imperialism. And do you remember the war ? ! Remember the worthless corrupt puppet governments we supported ?
Comparing US or Russian war crimes, someone once told me, "It's wrong when the Americans do it, it's wrong when the Russians do it, end of story".
However when the Americans tell the Russians to stop doing war crimes, everyone thinks America's being hypocritical. This is one of Chomsky's points. Then you end up asking who's worse with videos like this.
@@nathanbanks2354 The problem is that no country is a monolith. Different regimes have different levels of imperialist ambitions. Biden, Trump, Obama, and Bush all had different foreign policies, while this has been Putin's modus operandi for decades. If you believe nations cannot actually change and must have continuous moral viewpoints to not be hypocritical (i.e. holding them to standards of consistency of a current individual human being), every nation is hypocritical. But I do not think anyone will buy, for example, China saying it should have chattel slavery just because the US used to.
I agree with you that America is being hypocritical here, but that does not mean that what Russia is doing is good. I believe this is a fallacy many like Chomsky fall into. One can oppose both Western imperialism and Eastern imperialism alike; is that not what it means to be anti-imperialist?
@@andrelee7081Well said. America changes policies with every new administration. Still, Bush and Cheney sure opened up the whataboutism channel with the fake WMD war and "extraordinary rendition," fancy talk for torture.
@@nathanbanks2354 if the US does the tiniest thing, everyone freaks out, and the person responsible is usually held accountable. Meanwhile, the russian guy responsible for shooting down an airliner over ukraine was never held accountable, and protected by russia from the ICC. It's just sad. Russia gets away with so much.
@@nathanbanks2354 US is still responsible for the protection of vulnerable countries like Iraq. Iran is already trying to copy Putin’s narrative so they can grab Iraq. US doesn’t have unlimited resources to support every defender. This is the most documented war in the history and totally irrefutable. Public knows things far better than their governments. This means politicians who don’t condemn what russia is doing will end up getting their reputation damaged for life. Public doesn’t forgive.
Kraut laid out clearly why Chomsky is not taken seriously in Europe any more.
I certainly don't take Noam as a moral thoughtful or intelligentia source. I'm very disappointed with his totally uninformed about Putin's life goals or his modus opperandi to achieve his goals totally uninformed about ruski mir or russian history.
@@flash7355 He lies about genocides all the time as long as the government doing them are socialist.
My respect for Chomsky has been obliterated faster than Russian T-72 is blown up by a Javelin.
He never was taken seriously. Even as a linguist he is overrated.
Still, he is regarded by many as a ”truth speaker” and a cult figure.
Thank you Vlad. I 100% agree with you. I saw that interview myself too with NC. Upset me very much.
I am from Hungary, I am a Central and East European person who was touched- luckyl just a bit at my youth - by russ communism and imperialism. Comparing Iraq and Ukraine and blurring the scale and magnitude of the horrors russ does on Ukraine is borderline evil and supports a genocidal regime. This is terrible distortion of history, it will have a very bad influence on many people in the future unfortunately.
Slava Ukraine from Hungary. Glory to the heroes of Ukraine. Never bow to sick dictators. 🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦
Well, given that you're from Hungary and that you suffered a lot under the Russian/Soviet boot, how do you explain this obvious pro Russian and anti NATO agenda and politics coming from Victor Orban? And before you tell me it's just his views, you guys vote for him,. knowing his view on Russia. On the other hand we've seen a massive support to Ukraine from Poland, Baltic states and even Chechia and Slovakia.. What's wrong with Hungary? Do you guys want to join Russia after receiving billions upon billions of euros from EU? What's going on there?
Thank you from a 2nd generation Ukrainian American! My grandparents emmigrated from Ternopil Oblast as poor peasants but their 2 sons became physicists and electrical engineers one of them going to Harvard Graduate School. Slava Ukraina! Heroiam slava. 🇺🇦 🇺🇦 🇺🇦
Quite often when someone says something controversial and insists that it's obvious, it's an attempt at intellectual intimidation, something akin to "if you don't agree with me you're an idiot".
Hmmm...good point.
Chomsky called out leading French intellectuals (Foucault et al.) for being sophists and charlatans for precisely this sort of thing.
And he was right about them. Seems he has forgotten his own standards 🤷🏻♂️
Noam Chomsky is the prime example of the ivory tower academic, who has been heaped with so much praise in his field of expertise and who has gotten so full of his own infallibility, that he has ended up in Dunning-Kruger effect territory on many issues where he has only a superficial understanding.
What?? So Chomskys point about the US agreement is wrong? Really? Please explain
I'm from Finland. I had to check the source interview to make sure that I heard right. We joined NATO mostly emotional reasons: Russia cannot dictate or intimidate us. To show Russia that invading peaceful neighbours will backfire. When Putin threatened us not to join NATO, the popularity of NATO soared just to spite him. Chomsky fails to see the human side, even though he likes to play a humanist.
I wonder if Chomsky would even acknowledge that Finn’s have the agency to make their own decisions. He’d probably say that the capitalists manipulated the Finnish public into joining NATO.
Whilst I agree that the reasons were emotional as well as rational, I believe the primary emotion was fear not spite. Putin’s full scale war against a neighbor triggered a massive intergenerational trauma response here.
Chomsky doesn't play a humanist. He _is_ a humanist. But that doesn't prevent him from being increasingly wrong-headed, arrogant, and suffering from ever worsening cognitive decline.
Russia could crush you like an egg , you mistake luck for real strength
@@johncooper6073 Oh Yeah - and Russia would not exist anymore! By the way are you a Russian Troll?
You can be a genius in 1 field and a crazy lunatic in another.
Ukrainian here. I studied Chomsky while I was in university. I still have some of his books on my shelves.
But when it comes to politics, dictators, regimes, economics - he should sit it out.
It's funny how I remember almost idolizing him in university, reading the "manufacturing consent" with my best friend, and then gradually seeing more videos of his interviews on CZcams and thinking that he's a madman.
Which interviews made you think he's a madman? I'm curious
@@FloatingErgonaut Probably the Srebrenica interview.
Or his take on NATO intervention in the Yugoslav Civil War
I too read ‘ manufacturing consent ‘ , and found it well reasoned, but find his dogmatism increasingly disturbing since the Bosnian conflict and the Iraq war- which I did not agree with.I now find his analysis absurdly biased
Isaac Newton was something of crank in his later years.
A far-left individual is just that - a communist. They scare me even more than far-right.
I lived in Prague for over 30 years...I've spent a lot of time in both Russia and Ukraine and have a lot of feelings and thoughts about this subject...in fact I was speaking about this with my Partner (who is Czech) and she and I came to same conclusion and observations about the likes of Chomsky and Mearsheimer. We both find their observations and theories both naive and somewhat offensive...most Eastern/Central Europeans do. Intellectuals like Chomsky and Mearsheimer always leave out facts that dont fit into their bias. In regard to Ukraine...they seem to dismiss Ukrainian agency entirely.
Thank you for this excellent explanation of this situation. Nice if we could hand over Chomsky an Mearsheimer in a prisoner swap and let them experience "Russkiy Mir" for themselves, might open their eyes and minds up a bit.
I couldn't agree with you more Larry, particularly in regard to their dismissal of Ukrainian agency. You can't talk about this conflict as geopolitical conflict between the U.S. and Russia, and Ukraine being mere U.S. pawns. This war is between a country run by a greedy, self-serving, sociopathic dictator who is fearful of yet another modern western style democracy on his doorstep, and a country trying to rid itself of corruption, oligarchs, and become part of the E.U. as a modern western style economy and democracy. What Russia or the U.S. wants is an irrelevance. All that matters is what Ukrainians want. From memory a survey since the war started showed 93% of Ukrainians wanted E.U. membership, 87% wanted NATO membership and 70% would settle for nothing less the defeat and expulsion of Russian forces from all of Ukrainian territory including Crimea.
I also feel both Chomsky and Mearsheimer are naive in believing Putin will stop moving westward should he successfully conquer Ukraine.
Reminiscent of the Falklands war, when a lot of people were happy to denounce British imperialism and accept undigested Argentine views of what were in reality an obscure sequence of small-scale landings and settlement building efforts by various nations over centuries, whilst remaining doggedly oblivious to the only historical reality that was pertinent, viz that the people living there want to be British.
Well said! Eastern European here - I 💯 agree.
@@timtowers7997Great statement!
Noam already retreated into the cyclical thinking of an old man whose worldview was wholly cemented decades ago. He has nothing to share anymore.
I have to agree. I’ve read many of chomskys books in the past and his analysis of political power and hedgonomy was fascinating. But over the years I found his arguments have not advanced or been as enlightened. The interview that vlad is referring to I didn’t even finish as Chomsky doesn’t want to tackle what Russia is doing but simply wants to argue that American power is bad. Worse than Russia?please! Would u want to live in russia today?
Maybe not entirely: implying unvaccinated Americans should be segregated and starved was surely a departure from previous world view, no?
Chomsky is a smart guy but his opinion is always predictable: USA bad, opponent of USA good, or at least not as bad. I do not really care what he thinks
That's the thing with leftist. They hate liberal democracies.
USA and Russia are both capitalist oligarchies. Big Business has a lot to answer for in this fucked up world.
So the US agreement doesn’t matter? Do you really believe that? That’s sick.
I wished Chomsky had travelled a bit more recently after 1989 throughout the world so that his theories could have been put to the test by the people of central and eastern Europe
Closest thing to his theories being put to the test would be Rojava/AANES (Autonomous Kurdish Region in NE Syria) and even then they are more ideologically influenced Bookchin.
All he cares about is the US. But it's easier said than done to be an American and see the world through non-American eyes. Travelling and especially learning foreign languages would help. It's far too easy for an eastern European (I'm one) to have a different view from Chomsky's. -- I bet most Americans that attack Chomsky are doing it because they also care only about the US but hate Chomsky.
Chomsky doesn’t like the conduct of US hegemony.
The Privilege, pleasure and blessing is definitely ours Vlad!! Slava Ukraini!🇫🇮❤️🇺🇦
My thoughts too
Oh no, it is mine! 💛
Barnes discussed the Khmer Rouge with Chomsky and "the thrust of what he [Chomsky] said was that there was no evidence of mass murder" in Cambodia. Chomsky, according to Barnes, believed that "tales of holocaust in Cambodia were so much propaganda."
In fairness, even once one hears the details of the cruelty in Cambodia they're hard to believe. The Khmer Rouge had signs that said, "No screaming during torture."
Chomsky has a history of denying the genocides and crimes committed by non-Western power.
He's openly stated that the Killing Fields of Cambodia didn't happen, and then when irrefutable prove of it came out; he claimed the evidence was exaggerated.
His opinion hasn't moved on since 60s when he was well known for his actually very good work in linguistics processing.
In the early 90s I visited Cambodia and went to one of the killing fields outside Phnom Penh ( Choeung Ek ). Bone and rags ( clothing ) were still visible. Visited again ten years later and the while area was basically grass. Became a tourist site.
I have heard this quite reflexively mentioned whenever Chomsky comes up, but it seems to be a lie, he absolutely did not do that.
look up "Noam Chomsky - The Atrocities in Cambodia" on youtube, you are doing good faith discussion a disservice.
Does not mean anything about his other statements, and my ears certainly start to bleed from the sheer amount of negativity and logic chopping he crams in an hour of talking, but you do not help your case with this sort of smear campaign.
Where is your Wikipedia page?
@@Trash0815 Perhaps you'll prefer his other enlightened views which classify the Srebrenica genocide as not a genocide and the concentration camps as not concentration camps
What America did in Iraq is immaterial to what Russia does in Ukraine, and I say that as someone who in 2003 vehemently opposed the Iraq war. Also, even if the US invaded Iraq to benefit its oil companies, it did not actually steal the oil, nor deny that Iraqis existed as a people, nor weaponize food supplies to African and the Middle East, nor threaten the world order.
Cheney promised to steal Iraq's oil to pay for the multi-trillion dollar war. I resent that he fooled us and Halliburton still made so much money.
I was against that war also but I don’t blame bush fully for the disaster. He didn’t start the sectarian rivalry and discrimination. He didn’t tell terrorist groups to make a muslim country…muslim while fighting his army stationed there temporarily with 0 interest in land grabbing.
That wasn’t Chomskys main point. His point was about the agreement made between HW Bush and Russia.
Do you not think that agreements should be kept?
The other point to make about Iraq is that the Bush administration doesn’t rule the USA for life. It was one administration from which not only the world learned from their errors, but as well the American people largely objected to the steps then taken … Do we have such possibility in Russia today?
From around 1965 until around 2007, I was part of what one could call the boomer/woke crowd. We didn't use those terms then, but that is who we were. I enlisted in the U.S. Army in 65' as a still photographer to avoid being drafted into the infantry. I felt that our involvement and behavior in Viet Nam were criminal. In 1987 I helped to organize a team of veterans to go into the war zones of Nicaragua. I felt then that our involvement in Nicaragua could lead to another Viet Nam-type quagmire, and I wanted to do what I could to stop it. On 911 I was not surprised and felt that our response to it would be a disaster for the U.S. and Afghanistan, so I wrote essays against it and the invasion of Iraq. Throughout all of these years, I read and appreciated Noam Chomsky as someone who had his finger on the pulse of what was true about what the U.S. was doing in the world. I didn't consider myself an anarcho-syndicalist or libertarian socialist as Chomsky does, but I did feel that the U.S. had lost its moral compass since Viet Nam. Then, as I matured and became more aware of history, politics, economics, and all of their many facets, I realized that my previous attitude toward my country was hamstrung by my disillusionment and disappointment at our having behaved so poorly and failed so miserably to live up to our professed ideals and standards. Now, since around 2007, when we pulled out of Iraq, and finally, with the invasion of Ukraine by Putin's Russia, I have come to see that nothing is as simple as I once thought and that our helping Ukraine now is not more of the same, but is the U.S. finally returning to its true value as a country that supports a righteous fight for democracy in the world. Folks like Chomsky, however, appear to be locked into the old far-left, anti-war, as well as anarchist and libertarian ideologies that believe so-called U.S. exceptionalism and democracy are a lie, and that the American experiment is more about selfish capitalism and war profiteering than about true freedom. Well, Noam Chomsky is on his way out, and the world is turning into a new era that will determine its direction - a direction that will finally be up to those who want it and fight for it with the most courage, moral character, determination, and dedication. Let's hope that will be the West and its allies. Slava Ukraini!
Thanks for this. As an Australian that now has a house in Ukraine and saw Ukraine flourish under Zelenskiy, I cried for the first time in maybe 10 or 15 years when Russia started bombing Ukraine. It reminded me of a beautiful woman that left an abusive lover and finally found herself and was happy and then the bastard ex threw acid on her face
Noam Chomsky: The left's answer to Jordan Peterson...never met an area of expertise that he was not an expert in...
accurate
If that is the case, then the right are winning.
So true 😆
With the difference that JP actually seems to know about the field he graduated on.
at least JP became well known because of what he got a doctorate in. Before he got involved in political crap, all of his most watched videos were college courses of him teaching psychology stuff. I miss when JP used to talk primarily about psychology. He had some very interesting theories.
Chomsky’s approach to any situation is to start with the conclusion “America bad” and figure out his opinion solely based on that.
Thank you for this. As a left-leaning person, it is incredibly frustrating when I hear leftist figures like Noam Chomsky talk about Ukraine.
Unfortunately for Chomsky, he has the typical case of "US bad, Russia oppose US, therefore Russia good" brainrot that is all so prevalent in leftist circles.
I suppose one has spent decades of their life taking the contrarian, anti-establishment position, it is not a surprise Chomsky ended up the way he did. I think it all just goes to show that just because you are an intelligent person, it doesn't mean you are immune to the intellectual pitfalls that plague others.
Left has a lot of varieties. Left on the left on the left are some very unpleasant opinions.
You cannot view politics unidimensionally
I have noticed anti-Ukraine rhetoric in the US from both the left and right.
The Chomsky ingredients are leftism + total Americanocentrism. The last amounting to an upside-down imperialism.
@@jimroth7927 as an Australian i have had similar experience.
Leftists can become cynical at US intentions.
Right wing actually are rather attracted to Putin.
Weird times.
Following the US invasion of Iraq I recall that Chomsky would often say something along the lines of: The US has no rights in Iraq, but an obligation to (1) leave Iraq and (2) pay reparations for the damage caused.
Does Mr. Chomsky say that now about Russia in Ukraine, or following the annexation of Crimea almost a decade ago? If so I've yet to hear it from him. Perhaps I missed it.
Thank you for mentioning the inter generational consequences of war, I do think they are not widely appreciated. My grandfather was gassed in the Somme, became an alcoholic, probably had PTSD. My mother, as a consequence, had a terrible childhood and became a malignant narcissist. She was very difficult and caused much misery. She died 106 years after the war started. Only now is the cycle broken in our family. Wars have many, many consequences long after they end.
Malignant Narcissism refers to
conniving, destructive Machiavellian, aggressive, pre-emptivelyattacking, more callous and Sadistic pleasure behaviors stemming form Narcissistic solipsism.
Vulnerable narcissists, on the other hand, may be even extremely biting, but are Defensive in orientation.
Survey to yourself, you mother once again. She may not at all fit the former diagnostic, thought traits blend, especially if she took dementing, disinhibiting relief through alcohol ingestion.
Alcohol ingestion alone can cause malignancy in personalities, as well as vastly exacerbating low self-esteem AND defensiveness resulting in seeming narcissism.
@@briseboy thank you- sadly the former, malignant, version applied. She was also physically violent, even in her 90’s . The diagnosis came from a medical professional, who had been on the receiving end of some of her machinations, not me. Once I knew what was happening it made sense of everything that had happened my whole life. It was a very sad business. I blame her unfortunate childhood and the impact the war had had on her father.
There are many consequences. For example Chomsky mixes methodologies. For his figures for Iraq he will claim a longer period, different way of calculating the casualties, etc. For Ukraine, as said, the conflict is not yet even over. And let's face it, Russia claims that Ukrainians are brothers and Ukraine is a pearl in the crown, they have for example many holy sites in Ukraine, so would one expect them to be as callous as Americans, and not saying they were here. Still the Yanks did go into the war too quickly. At the time I opposed it. The Polish Pope opposed it. The man who lived through WW2 and narrowly avoided death there and later capture by Communists and a Soviet assassination. Anyway he mixes methodologies and time lines. It's a simple mistake to make.
@@peterc.1419 US doesn’t wage no limits warfare. Russia does and it is being caught on camera. People just know too much this time. Chomsky is over just like those who criticized US for contributing to the war effort of Soviet Union against Hitler. I hope he lives to see Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan right inside Russia. Those countries were broken from the abaseed caliphate and taken over by diff mercenary groups mistakenly considered loyal to the empire that mistakenly weakened itself by choosing to act like Putin!
@@briseboy my mother was a moderate drinker - however she was violent throughout her life, even in her 90s. Not only that afterwards she would explain that she would have happily done worse to me. The diagnosis of malignant narcissist was from a mental health professional.
Chomsky is a living proof of the proverb "The good die young, but a-holes live forever".
Epic :D
There is a kind of self-centered intellectual who makes his (generally his, not exclusively, but often his) mark early, but then appears to get frustrated that the world is not, in fact, submitting to his genius. And then that person starts catering to those who do suck up to his genius, whoever they happen to be - and they become a kind of useful genius (by analogy to useful idiot).
Jeffrey Sachs is another who has, in the last decade or so, gone completely off the rails. He was celebrated as a younger man as a prodigy, a genius, someone who could bring enlightenment to the world. He was given quite a bit of rope to allow him to demonstrate his ideas in practice - they didn't work, at that stage the Powers That Be started to lose interest. This seemed to frustrate and anger Sachs. And so he's another who continues to perform for those who do at least nominally bow down before him and that has allowed some pretty terrible people to use him in pretty awful ways.
Kraut took down Chomsky pretty well a year or three ago - his video is worth watching.
🙄
Thank you. I find it concerning so many left leaning people in my world( North America) have avoided the truth about Ukraine , by citing other adventures in war, by the U S. I eagerly await you video on the subject. I live in an area of Mennonites, many from Ukraine, who have chilling stories of Stalin murdering Mennonites. They are flying the Ukrainian flag at the end of their farm driveways. Twice in the 1900 to 2000 , Ukrainians have been murdered by Russians. Deep memories!
Twice? Bro, you are so wrong on this. It's one continuous endless slaughter that had been going for about three hundred years with minor breaks for russians to catch their breath in the process.
That’s pretty interesting. The Mennonites are not far from the American Friends wrt to their beliefs about pacifism, no? And I don’t think they’d demonstrate support for a combatant if to do so was out of line with their pacifism.
I’m no expert. What little I know about Mennonites comes down from family history. It involves a Mennonite couple that aided us before, during, and after WWII, when Japanese Americans were having a hard time of it. They befriended my grandmother when in the 1910s.
The Jansens. That was their name. When I heard about them, my mother referred to them as “Grandma and Grandpa Jansen”. That just came back to me, so thank you for mention Mennonites and triggering my family history memories.
@@MarcosElMalo2 I had a Mennonite professor who described how the Mennonites worked to help the people of Vietnam during the American assault on Vietnam. They are aware of evil deeds. A friend of mine ‘s Motherwas a small child during the murder of Mennonites in the twenties. When the Mennonites in the U S and Canada realized Stalin was murdering Mennonites, they convinced Stalin to” sell” those lives . They paid a head tax to Stalin for every Mennonite he would allow to leave Russia/ Crimea. She was shipped with with relatives by cattle car on a train to Denmark after the head tax was paid. Then loaded on a ship which was denied entry to both Canada and the U S. Only Mexico would allow the ship to land the the people to settle there. There is a large population of Mennonites in Mexico. Many later moved to Canada. I think they name the evil, see the evil and try to mitigate the evil. They certainly would shoot in self defence or to defend others. They would try to avoid those situations but they would not shrink from an immediate need to defend lives. Canada( Ontario) has many Mennonites whose families left the US to avoid being part of the the revolutionary war of the 1700’s. Kind of like a Judo class I once took where the the first defence is to run. They stay very active in helping people from war torn parts of the world. I was part of the anti war movement of the 1960’s . The Mennonites ran a large organization to help war resisters settle in Canada. They helped me.
I really don't understand how disconnected from reality you have to be to compare anything the US did to Ukraine. The US did not invade Iraq / Afghanistan to steal and annex territory, and basically delete an entire culture/national identity. Afghanistan did not become the 51st US state. Last I checked nobody from Ukraine tried to crash a plane into the Kremlin. Second, WW1, WW2, Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War, and other smaller ones were all defensive wars on the side of a force that was invaded. Hardly wars of conquest, like Ukraine is for Russia.
It seems like many on the left are more concerned about not looking like they are siding with the West than actually standing up to the principles they claim to stand for.
I think you are too forgiving of NCh. His early work deserves respect. But his political interventions are perverse and destructive. He is playing with real lives for reasons unknown. He needs to be counteracted not justified or excused.
Ever since he whitewashed the Khmer Rouge he should have been totally cancelled
What do you mean by "reasons unkown"? He made his allegiances very clear.
He's always been like that. I can't stand his writings, too polemical and full of needless rhetoric and considering this is one of the best linguists of this age and an incredibly competent individual I'm not convinced he's not just being manipulative. I think its probably because of the era he's from- he used to spar with actual liars and ghouls like Buckley and probably ended up perpetually hostile as a result.
Chomsky is a man that outright stated that Srebrenica was not a genocide. He has the moral authority of a potato for all I care
I think Chomsky is smart enough to understand that answering "it's obvious" means positive answer to the question as it was worded. If he had not liked the word "humane", he would have pointed that out.
Why do people even bother about the political opinion of a 100 year old far-left linguist?
He has been highly influential for a very long time. A lot of his material is pro anarchy and there a couple an-caps that still regard a lot of his work with respect.
@@brettmcclain9289 an-caps or an-coms?
Because bolshevism is a mental disease that spreads quickly
@@PobortzaPl An-coms I'd say, thats probably a spelling mistake.
@@PobortzaPl most an-caps have the same (evil and wrong) opinion as Chomsky
Chomsky absolutely has a right to voice his opinions. Equally I have a right to switch off.
A lot of tankies try to draw the equivalence between recent US conflicts and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, the Taliban, ISIS, Slobodan Milosevic, Ghadafi, all top everyone’s list of worst tyrants, terrorists, and war criminals. There’s a big difference between taking military action against those people and Russia invading Ukraine because they want to expand their empire.
That's fair, although Saddam didn't have weapons of mass destruction. His neighbors wanted him gone and the Cheney administration obliged.
@@AstroGremlinAmerican so why did Saddam act like he did have weapons of mass destruction?
Exactly. And Putin does not even consider Ukrainians to be a real nation. He calls them "little Russians"
Money talks in the world of Big Business.
Thank you. I am a Leftist who has said for 14 months now that I oppose Putin's invasion and occupation of Ukraine for the same reasons that opposed W Bush's invasion and occupation of Iraq.
For this I have been kicked out of or highly restricted from posting in 7 large leftist fb groups.
I have the same principles and values as I did 14 months ago. What happened??
They are not like for like 'invasions' so how can your viewpoint upon them be the same? I don't understand.
They’re not the same.
@@couldbe8348 under international law they are identical.
@@videobyredjade law? How about the agreement that the US made with Russia that was violated.
@@couldbe8348 what 'law' did the 'US make with Russia'? do tell us.
Chomsky made his intellectual career on the idea of Deep Structures in language. They don't exit as he claimed they did. Since then, he has simply transferred his faith in "deep structure" to politics, once again with little concern for whether they actually exist.
You really don’t understand linguistics. It’s best to leave that alone.
@@pamcam4385 It is big logical jump to say that someone who does not agree with Chomsky does not understand linguistics. There are lots of other schools of thought in Linguistics besides Chomsky.
Listen, I am certain, absolutely certain, you know no linguistics. So much so that you cannot agree with Chomsky or disagree with him either. So, just cut it out.
@@pamcam4385 What are you basing this claim about my ignorance of linguistics on? Simply calling me ignorant is not an argument, it is just an insult. For your information I speak several languages and studied, among other things, linguistic philosophy at the doctoral level, under the supervision of Rom Harre at Oxford. Epistemologically I would call myself an adherent of Wittgenstein who said "nothing is hidden". In terms of Chomsky's linguistics I am in agreement with Tom Wolf's hilarious critique.
apparently Chomsky missed the part where Russia has obliterated several cities in the last year and a bit never mind purposely attacking the power grid leading into winter, or threatening to nuke everyone if he didn't get his way or threatening to Chernobyl Enerhodar. I also have to point out that if chomsky is getting his civilian casualties in Ukraine from wikipedia then civilian casualties have been approximately 8k since the second month of the war. Yes I looked at it back then because i was curious. I find it unlikely that with all the shelling and urban fighting, especially in mariupol, that civilian casualties are still only 8k after a year of war.
I am old 77 and the problem that I've often come across in older people like myself is an unwillingness to question their own views, take a fresh look and so on. You might say that this is understandable because to question your own views is to risk undermining the whole of your previous life and work, the result comes to "I am what I've said, my whole life is predicated on this..." Chomsky like Putin is an old man who has long since lost the ability to question and explore issues and alternatives, whatever Chomsky was, today he is intellectually atrophied, inflexible and inconsequential.
very wise words.
Chomsky is waaaaay past his best days. Haven't heard a lot of sense coming out of him for quite a few years now.
😂 Chomsky is correct this time.
@@couldbe8348 duhh NATO bad uhhh
Slavia Ukrainia ! Herojam Slava ! So happy to see you ! Hope your health improves !
Thanks so much
America's war in Iraq was a brutal and obscene mistake, but the equivalency (or moral inferiority) that Chomsky suggests is true only in the narrowest sense. All nations have factions ranging from constructive to benign to self-serving to evil. America was (and still is) sufficiently captured by the delusions (or evil) of the Right to be able to perpetrate such atrocities on the world and on itself. However, a goodly portion of the American population has never bought into those delusions, and here's the critical difference: We can and do say so, and say it loudly. All through the years of the Iraq war, Chomsky and many, many other Americans spoke and acted out against it in innumerable ways, and we lived to tell the tale.
Today, the Russian state apparatus has been totally captured by the Putinists who subscribe to the Alexander Dugin school of Russian neofascism. But try to be a Chomsky or even an average citizen over there who doesn't buy it. You will be whisked off the street instantly and made to disappear. So, Chomsky's moral equivalency (or inferiority) only goes so far. And that is why all of those countries in eastern Europe that were once in the Soviet orbit, having experienced for decades what Russian domination really means, have no doubt at all in their minds about which world they would rather belong to. Nobody held a gun to their head to force them to join NATO. Russian brutality was all the recruiting that the West ever needed.
One problem when it comes to your premise. You equate being on the right is evil. There's also evil on the left. Unless you acknowledge that, you come from a bias left leaning stance. Extremism on both sides are dangerous
The interpretation is also wrong. Bush wanted to shake the status quo, in essence triggering an Arab Spring through war. There are multiple errors in that thinking, but 'advancing the interests of capital's is not one of them.
When America does evil it's okay because some people are against it. When Russia does evil it's bad because Putin.
@MasterBlaster
Who says America is okay? And what is the relevance of what America does with regard to terroruSSian war crimes? Fock off with your ridiculous comparisons.
It's interesting how West focuses on an irrelevant person like Dugin.
And i would say that it is much more damning when relatively free society like US starts a criminal war. In Russia you will be arrested and possibly jailed for public opposition to war. In US you won't, yet Americans still allowed their war to happen.
"Some empires are more benign than others and some problems can only be solved by benign imperial interventions. Interventions by empires that might not in every other aspect be benign" Indeed. Thank you Vlad. That summarizes nicely the messy reality that some of my left colleagues cannot or will not see. Please rest well. ♥
Thank you so much dear you.
This is such a good quote. And my favorite example of this is the Marshall Plan after ww2. Europe could have ended up similarly to post ww1, but the US actively pushed to counter communism by rebuilding so many nations (especially also including the axis powers, instead of crippling them more with reparations). This brought so much prosperity and peace to the world. I'm German and we could clearly see the two different sides of the coin. Which empire was more begin than the other.
Indeed. And in such a way Vlad has found himself upon a very slippery slope as his CZcams channels become primarily (albeit very sophisticated) pro-NATO war cheering. There isn't a truth in the world that won't cut you if you grasp it too tightly. He's only convinced me that 99% of people doing politics are making the world worse and that fighting evil anywhere other than your own door is as likely to spread it as anything else.
But the US isn’t benign, is it? Not even close. In what way has the US actually helped any of the countries it’s smashed to pieces? Even if we forget about the far higher casualty figures caused by the US, and even if we just assume that there were some good intentions among policymakers, where is any significant US reconstruction money for, say, Libya? How has Afghanistan been made better by the US jumping in and out? How do US sanctions on medical goods, that kill tens of thousands of people each year, help Iran or Venezuela? Why not ask them if US interventions feel benign? The Marshall Plan was eight decades ago - if the US had been doing something along those lines in the 21st century then at least it’d be something indicating benevolence, but they couldn’t care less. Is Russia even worse? That’s like asking which brand of anthrax is tastiest - except the US’s anthrax fills a cistern instead of an eggcup. czcams.com/video/jo5XaPTI540/video.html
I think you may be mistaking public relations messaging with reality. US foreign policy has just been them telling themselves that nobody respects life and liberty quite like they do so it's totally cool for them to kill anyone who displeases them.
Another excellent video. Thanks Vlad. Anybody who states 'it's obvious' (as Chomsky does) as a sufficient rationale for a position is arrogant and has gone beyond the point of engaging in debate.
And that I think is the crux of it. Chomsky now stands for the unassailable principles of his own towering ego. Not for the left, not for international justice, for humanism or for anything else.
It's not even about debate at that point. You're basically strong arming people and that's coercive when it works.
Thank you Vlad, a mature and intellectual look at some extremely hard to swallow moral gymnastics performed by Chomsky, still, to your point, an important conversation to be had openly in a broader society that benefits for open and free speech.
Noam has a simple mind. And its only getting simpler.
I thought the Title was Noam Chomsky on Epstein Island with CIA director William Burns for a second.
Trying to rationally explain Chomsky's opinions is hard though very interesting to hear one of the best analysises ever from Vlad. Who I could listen to all day long. I was at college doing a course (international politics) where the faculty were a Postmodern Marxist cell. And they were very clever, like Noam. But when faced with trying to explain the geopolitical world, they start with the Ideology, and then try to explain what they see, given their prior 'knowledge'. In Bayesian terms they have a fixed prior. And this is why they often resort to saying 'it's obvious that....' The problem with Russia & Ukraine is that the evidence (Russia's aggression, the torture & killing of civilians) directly contradicts the prior, that Capitalism is 'bad' and any 'ordered' system is 'better'. Which means that Noam is stuck in a closed loop disconnected with reality. The other thing that Kamil Galeev pointed out once is this - the Marxists are all 'autistic' in the sense that they start with the primacy of written words, rather than the totality of the evidence. Putting Bucha (Katyn) etc in words does not in any way capture Bucha and the regime that ordered it. Orwell caught this idea well, and Russia embodies this with its forms, its little bits of paper that can destroy lives. They all seem to kind of make sense, but in totality it's all a lie "They lie to us, we know they are lying ......."
The NATO didn't expand in E. Europe with tanks, Putin may do the same when the conditions are right.
We would all benefit if Ukrainians and ex-Soviet Eastern Europeans got to write in western news columns instead of these so called intellectuals who know so much about the world from news clips.
Stolen from elsewhere: "the western left have never forgiven the eastern-european proletariat for rebelling against the communists."
Noam Chomsky knows more about the World than a few News Clips.
Exactly op
@functhefucc5798 yes and no. Chomsky does still have bias.
Recommend anything by Toomas-Hendrik Ilves
It's "obvious" that Noam carries a heavy burden of hubris.
He's not shy about sharing his opinions on everything. Wouldn't it be cool to think you were always that right?
Chomsky also forgets that we’re only a year into this war and the carnage already matches Iraq which lasted what? 12 years?
Vlad you are a breath of fresh air. Your gentle eloquence goes hand in hand with your profound insight and wisdom. I am sorry you suffer, and I am sure you gain strength from your legions of admirers.
Thank you so so much. Grateful.
Thank you for talking this through, i didnt find it rambly at all. It was very helpful!
Like i understand what Chomsky says, but i just find the idea of not caring about ukraine "because the west did it too", so cold and bitter.
Dropped in to leave a comment and like. Have heard enough from him. Thank you Vlad. Slava Ukraine 🇺🇦
There's a fairly common quote for the "Conspiracy" outlook on foreign policy and many other things, that has several names in English and simply says "Never attribute to malice, what can be explained by stupidity."
In my social studies, I've been told and shown that Chomsky is a great thinker with a sharp mind. Sadly, anytime I've heard from him in real life, that image dissipates
Chomsky and his ilk rarely seem to ask themselves the question of what the post WW2 World would have looked like without the US or what it would have looked like under Soviet or Chinese domination. They are reluctant to acknowledge the nature of the existing power structures in regions where the US meddles or the instabilities and suffering that result from them. They don't seem to care about the marked differences in behaviour and attitude of the Russian and Western forces or the fact that the West seldom takes action to permanently occupy land or to deny autonomy to a state. I can recall him getting testy with people who don't accept the claimed obviousness of his position, which I think is symptomatic of an intellectual dishonesty or an inability to make a coherent argument.
One word summarizes the Chomskyites:
Bolshevism
Thanks Vlad, after listening I think myself and your viewers are blessed.
Thank you Vlad! I really don’t know what to believe lately….
Try not to make that a cause of stress.
All the jadajada about the war is just noise. Trust in what you can see with your own eyes. russia is trying to exterminate Ukraine. That is all one need to know and understand. I need the noise to keep my russophobia as high as possible.
Believe that it's 2023 and humans are still willing to murder each other because a dude with 'notions' says your religion/ideology/culture/grass patch/clothing/sexual preferences/skin colour etc etc is better than anyone else's. When really he's just a greedy lunatic with Daddy issues. Insert any leader who upsets the peaceful apple cart. Until Humans teach the smaller humans en masse that they should tell closed minded idiots to go f*ck themselves we're in this endless loop of doing bad sh!t to each other.
I think there’s a notion that Russia is restraining itself, when in reality Russia’s ability to damage Ukrainian civilians is being severely constrained by the AFU.
Shared on my Socials... * Keep up the good work Vlad (The Whole World Needs Your Voice!).
Chomsky is incredibly intelligent, I don't think anyone could deny that, but it's clear from him that intelligence doesn't spare you from being ideologically possessed the way he is.
He has the intellect to spin his arguments around on their heads, and argue the complete opposite with the same facts and could easily do so at any moment. He just selects what aligns with him beliefs - which is what a lot of people do, the difference is that he is so good at it.
Being smart is good but never being shy will get you famous.
Dear me ! Mr. Chomsky , as a brilliant linguist should talk about linguistics. Unfortunately he has wandered into fields in which he is totally lost ! As he’s demonstrated time and time again throughout his career .
But how he is wrong? The US agreement doesn’t matter? Should Russia just give in? Pleas explain.
.mr harry , you know nothing. Chomsky has a full rich long political life and hes informed. His career as a linguist is a wholly different career . I've never read his work on linguistics. Dont care. I know his understanding of history and politics is very good.
In comparing Iraq to Ukraine I see a few stark differences. The most glaring is that Iraq was not a benign peaceful democracy as Ukraine was. It had 2 invasions of other countries under its belt and at least 70% of the population lived as the Ukrainians in the occupied territories of Ukraine currently live - in fear of informers and with constant disappearances, killings and torture. The Iraqi people had lived this way for years.
One of the constants about gruesome dictators is that they kill off all credible opposition so that their demise leaves a vacuum that leads to chaos. This is what befell Iraq after the US removed Its gruesome dictator and his 2 psychopathic sons.
To say that the US invaded Iraq to suit the desires of capitalism is like saying Michael Moore made documentaries criticising the US government in order to make a fortune.
People often times perceive the fluid policy of democracies as some conspiracy, but its just a consequence of people changing their minds and shaping politics of their country. A majority of US citizens understand Iraq was a mistake, and they don’t want that mistake repeated, as simple as that. Hence they oppose a not justified war of conquest. Also, many people that say invasion of Ukraine is wrong also said invading Iraq was wrong, such as Vlad, or Bernie, or most people on the non-tankie left. The percentage of Ukraine supporters that are hypocritical and are still happy about Iraq is tiny.
Speaking of the Iraq war - folly is precisely the main culprit. That, coupled with ignorance buttressed by imperial hubris. It's patently clear that the US had embarked on a blind mission of nation building and democracy spreading, with a total disregard for the circumstances or the possible consequences. The fairy tales about oil and economic gain are laughable. This was a well-intentioned, albeit horribly misguided, attempt at pacifying the ME through forced top-down democracy.
As for the casualties, most of the non-combatant casualties were inflicted not at the hands of the coalition armies but rather by the local insurgencies (both Sunni and Shia) who went into an all out war with the "lid" of Saddam gone. In Ukraine, on the other hand, (almost) every Ukrainian casualty is the direct result of Russia's intentional (or unintentional but negligent) actions. The two wars couldn't possibly be any more different in terms of their moral "accolades".
Isn't it also a great injustice of implying some sort of equivalency between the Ukrainian state with Baathist Iraq by equating the United States' aggression to Russia's?
You do realise there was a CIA backed coup in Ukraine back in 2014? Imagine if Russia decided to do that in Mexico. The US would attempt to do regime change in a heartbeat.
A great blessing to hear from you Vlad! Keep going, we need you more than ever!
Vlad, your videos always make me think, thank you. I also like this style more than that of the main channel (although it’s great too)
Vlad, it would be interesting to hear your thoughts on why the far left and the far right are taking similar positions, but for different reasons on the invation.
Both of them are repeating Russian talking points. Remember, Russian propaganda is not consistent and doesn’t have to be. So the points can be tailored to meet each bias.
And maybe the far left and far right aren’t so different from each other.
It's called Horse Shoe theory, where both sides meet at the same place for different reasons/justifications. Anti-war isn't incompatible to Russia wins as both stops the war. It's dogma. They don't recognise or care about the consequences or who pays the cost of their position. It's the same with "We are going to get nuked stop the war!'. Maybe, but the Ukrainians who also don't want to get nuked are first in line and you're the last.
because NATO symbolizes capitalism/new world order respectively to these groups.
I switched the interview off at the Finland comments, too tidy and convenient, a Russel Brand perspective.
Yeah, I am Finnish and his claim that Russia was no threat to us (after Russia tried to control our foreign policy by wanting to prevent us from joining NATO) and that we joined only for the benefit of our MIC, these comments were insulting and showed lack of insight.
Thanks for doing this chat, Vlad. 👍
As valuable as it is to let people express their opinions, it's just as valuable to be able to prove people wrong when their opinions turn out to be incorrect.
It is amusing that even our communist party here in Norway now ops to support the military funding of Ukraine. Even if they are highly critical of capitalist realities in this process, they acknowledges that Ukraines survival is of greater, immediate importance. That may also be because Putins Russia is seen as a greater threat of two evils, although I will avoid going down that road to hell in any debate.
No Vlad, its a privilege and pleasure to hear from you. We all learn so much.
I loooooove your format it’s so relaxing and chilled.
As someone who used to be an avid follower of Chomsky, I think his biggest weakness is that he always operates in a paradigm and model that the US is bad in everything it does by definition, and now formulates his conclusions and then works backwards. That and I think and his lack of ability to look at processes and outcomes pragmatically. Ie you could look at the supply of weapons to Ukraine in a cynical way (e.g. it benefits the US to weaken Russia) but fialing to see that regardless of the intent in this case then outcome is positive and the action should be supported (ie Ukraine resists and throws back the Russians). His work and analysis of highlighting the wrongdoing of the US since WW2 is valuable, and may be of some value in maybe generating some self-awareness in the West as to why some countries feel ambivalent to Ukraine after having been maligned and wronged by the West (e.g. Latin America), but his mindset is far too rigid and idealistic at times, especially when we see this tilt towards democracy versus authoritarianism - sure the US has serious domestic and foreign policy issues to be addressed, but its better to be on their side with other democracies than the authoritarian states. Whilst I respect the man's intellect and work, he lacks the pragmatism or flexibility to think outside of his model of US hegemony to be in a case such as Russia and Ukraine.
I feel much the same way about Noam. I'm also finding things about him that people are bringing up that I was totally oblivious of.
This is also my feeling about John Pilger.
My growing distaste for Pilger however, far eclipses my disillusionment with Chomsky.
Pilger is far more calculatingly oppositional to Ukraine and far more pro Russian than Chomsky could ever be. Pilger, I've discovered as a result of this war, is an utter hypocrite, a piece of shit.
Many thanks Vlad. You managed to articulate clearly what was a crow ness of thoughts in me.
This was a wonderful breath of fresh air. You have an immaculate way with words and a express complex topics expertly. I look forward perusing your library.
Thank you Vlad, for your time and the work it takes to share your thaughts,, 👍🥰👍
I also do not agree with limiting public discourse, I just think Chomsky demonstrates by his positions either a lack of real intellect and/or he chooses to be a total contrarian for effect.
His effect attracts reporters and he doesn't deny them.
That was very helpful. Whataboutism always seems to me to be a kind of last resort argument. I listened to Paul Mason's interview on Silicon Curtain and despite his own whole-hearted support of Ukraine he couldn't give a direct answer as to why some of the left took a similar position to Chomsky.
Excellent. Thank you. Keep up the good work 😊
Nice one, Vlad; keeping it real.
I respect Chomsky for his earlier work but l acknowledge that he kinda sucks now. He’s a bad take machine.
Thanks for this Vlad. You really help me not to get worked up into a rage whenever Chomsky opens his mouth on this issue.
As another question for you, what do you make of Caspian Report's video and theory that Putin may try to formally annex Belarus into the Russian Federation, further demoting it from satellite regime status? It seems quite a risk while the fight for Ukraine is still going on. Cheers!
czcams.com/video/0cc8Lcbavsk/video.html
It seems that Lukashenka is walking a tightrope trying to retain some degree of independence
The threat of a nuclear armed Belarus is too great for Russian to not occupy it. 😉 By stationing nukes in Belarus as it is threatening to do, Russia has little choice. They’re being forced into it.
Well, spot on as always, thank you Vlad
Thank you. Watching from Alaska.
Chomsky is a mental lightweight. He knows how to use a few big words... more than someone of his small intellect would. His opinion should be dismissed easily... regardless of his opinion, which honestly is not his opinion.
So your opinion, which is completely in line with the mainstream media opinion, IS your opinion? LOL
What does this mean “mental lightweight”? NC is not dumb; that much is sure.
@pam Cam he may seem smart to some just as an illusionist can make people believe magic... magic isn't real and NC is definitely not smart.
Another insightful, thoughtful analysis about Putin's longer term aims and the role of the US which Chomsky can't see or more likely doesn't want to see.
more please, looking forward to the rest of this discussion.. I'm a little tired and not as eloquent as your goodself Vlad so I think with our empire dilemmas we are trying to do our best and pick the lesser of the evils,thanks Vlad.
🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉Vlad, i feel this is a very valuable message to relay to my ex-roommate from Far East Federal University in Vladivostok.
Thanks again Vlad.
"It's a widely known fact that East European dissidents suffered far less than their Latin American counterparts." - Chomsky in 2016 So what if the Soviets tortured and killed people? The Americans did it more cruelly. Disgusting. 🤮
Man the russians must be paying these guys quite a lot for them to stick their reputation on the line
Thanks for putting my thoughts into words.
That was helpful, thank you ❤
I've always been annoyed by people picturing Noam Chomsky as some sort of venerable sage and profound genius. My disgust with him goes back to when he viciously attacked the refugees fleeing from the horror's of Pol Pot's genocidal tyranny. He accused them of all being liars working for the CIA. Then, when the horrors of the Cambodian dictatorship were undeniable, he did everything in his power to distract from and cover up his complicity with genocide. I have never understood people who admire his ponderous, overstuffed and barely coherent books. And even his status as a genius in linguistics is pretty dubious ---- few actual experts in this field ever took him seriously, and he has spouted absurdities that even I can instantly recognize as crackpot nonsense. Chomsky has never been a friend of democracy or of human values. I could have told you ahead of time that his position on Ukraine would be devious and aimed at undermining justice and freedom. In fact, I predicted that it would be, and that prediction came true.
Great video. I want to start my response by saying that I have been very disappointed with commentary from various western Left groups and intellectuals in response to Russia's invasion full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Much of the criticism of American imperialism from the western Left is valid. It isn't always functionally correct, but much of the empirical observations are valid.
However, what I find extremely disappointing is when groups or intellectuals that define themselves as being opposed to imperialism seem to frame imperialism as the economic conquest of the United States over the world. First of all, this is basically parroting Russian propaganda. It's also just false. Russia's invasion of Ukraine is imperialism. When the Wagner group funnels weapons to a rebel general in Sudan in exchange for gold mining concessions, that is imperialism. When Russia and Wagner do the same thing in the Central African Republic -- supporting warlords with a private army in exchange for gold and diamond mining concessions -- that is certainly imperialism. Russia's invasion of Georgia and attempts to control the country's government are imperialism. Russia's continued occupation of Transnistria -- where the Transnistrian government nationalized the Cuciurgan power station, which supplies over 75% of the energy of Moldova, and then sold it to Russian Inter RAO UES so Putin's cronies at Gazprom can profit from the sale of gas to Transnistria and then also profit from controlling electricity in Moldova -- is CERTAINLY also imperialism.
As Vlad Vexler points out in this video, Putin has used genocidal rhetoric toward Ukraine on numerous occasions. Russian state-controlled TV is absolutely full of the most horific and deplorable genocidal rhetoric toward Ukrainians. There are countless examples. Russian TV hosts and guests openly call for killing all Ukrainians and invading and conquering all territory between Vladivostok and Berlin.
Russia is intentionally committing genocide in eastern and southern Ukraine. They destroy cities to make them uninhabitable for Ukrainians because they want anyone in Ukraine who opposes Russian occupation of Ukraine to flee the country, get deported or get killed. Before 2022, Mariupol was full of refugees who fled Russian occupied parts of the Donbas after 2014. Russia knew that Mariupol was full of people who opposed Russia's occupation, and it decided to destroy the city to either kill, drive out, forcefully deport, imprison or just psychologically crush the entire population opposed to the occupation. This was not just imperialism but genocidal imperialism.
Living in Chicago, I publicly protested the 2003 invasion of Iraq along with about ten thousand other people in my city. I believe that it is absolutely justified for the Left to analyze and criticize US imperialism. But when the Left frames Russia's invasion of Ukraine as some sort of Russian defense of its interests in response to AMERICAN imperialism, that argument is void of truth. It is a parroting of Russian propaganda. I would go so far as to say that framing Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a response to aggression from NATO is a de facto support of Russian imperialism and genocide.
Why do western intellectuals do this? I think there are a mix of reasons. Some people are just being intellectually lazy and conflate "capitalism" with "American capitalism" as if the United States is the one true capitalist force in the world. There are certainly some western communists who supported the Soviet Union of Stalin and Brezhnev and have made the illogical ideological leap to then support Putin's regime in Russia as the evolution of some sort of global champion state opposed to American capitalism. At times, I suspect that there may also be a small subset of this group that is in some way directly collaborating with Russian intelligence operations for one reason or another, but that's another subject.
One thing that I find troubling and at least a little bit suspicious is when western critics of American military aggression parrot Putin's own propaganda. One very common rhetorical response to criticism of Russia's military aggression is to always deflect the conversation away from this aggression and immediately respond with a criticism of military aggression from the United States, Britain or France. Putin does this. Noam Chomsky does this. Jeffrey Sachs does this. Also -- Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, ... Regardless of the reasons, this is at best intellectually lazy and dishonest.
Very good comment and observations. Thanks for writing at length.