Speaking to the Observer last week, Chomsky has accused the socialist leader of amassing too much power and of making an "assault" on Venezuela's democracy.
"Concentration of executive power, unless it's very temporary and for specific circumstances, such as fighting world war two, is an assault on democracy. You can debate whether [Venezuela's] circumstances require it: internal circumstances and the external threat of attack, that's a legitimate debate. But my own judgment in that debate is that it does not." (1)
At the end of the day, Chomsky is a guy who has held comfortable tenure for decades and gets his money from the US military, via his employer MIT. He could have quit years ago and lived comfortably on book sales, but apparently the taint of a bloodsoaked MIT paycheck doesn't bother him. He's a pamphleteer who doesn't have a clue about how to win power from a global ruling class that would have us living on plantations. His esteem within the U.S. Left comes mostly as a reflection of its intellectual and political weakness.
People like Chomsky prefer the purists who lost, the Spanish anarchists, Allende, etc. But was it better for Allende to remain 'pure' (and dead) than refuse to take the measures necessary to defeat Pinochet ?
---
1' Noam Chomsky denounces old friend Hugo Chávez for 'assault' on democracy' - UK Guardian
No comments:
Post a Comment