Ah yes, I love listening to Noam. I often find myself sitting at work, immersed in his mp3's and youtube videos. They are wonderful history lessons for myself, considering I didn't pay much attention in school.
To the contrary, I think WFB wins. The final remark is telling: "If you can't distinguish between the nature of our interventions in Guatemala and the nature of the Communist interventions in Prague..." I didn't catch the rest, but he's right. Anyone alive at the time would have understood exactly what Buckley meant.
Chomsky's use of history is marvelously selective. At one point he says, "At least according to..." and goes on to cite someone. But citing one person does not make for accurate analysis. Chomsky's arguments are consistently supported by people whose claims supported his point of view, and history has since shown him to be wrong. The problem with much of Chomsky's arguments is that they depend on a Communist society's being transparent, which never happens.
By contrast, Buckley's description of the need to protect peasant farmers from Communists armed with bayonets, so that they could then receive the food aid that Chomsky claimed was acceptable, was dead on. Anyone remotely familiar with current events at the time, and the history of the previous decades, would have understood what he was saying, and would have seen Chomsky's arguments stripped bare. Subsequent decades have merely played out the same role.
A simple example: who killed more people, General Pinochet, or Abimael Gúzman?
Likewise, why does no one seem to know the name of Gúzman, while most people recognize Pinochet?
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Ah yes, I love listening to Noam. I often find myself sitting at work, immersed in his mp3's and youtube videos. They are wonderful history lessons for myself, considering I didn't pay much attention in school.
Even though I like WFB, I think Chomsky takes care of him rather handily in this debate.
To the contrary, I think WFB wins. The final remark is telling: "If you can't distinguish between the nature of our interventions in Guatemala and the nature of the Communist interventions in Prague..." I didn't catch the rest, but he's right. Anyone alive at the time would have understood exactly what Buckley meant.
Chomsky's use of history is marvelously selective. At one point he says, "At least according to..." and goes on to cite someone. But citing one person does not make for accurate analysis. Chomsky's arguments are consistently supported by people whose claims supported his point of view, and history has since shown him to be wrong. The problem with much of Chomsky's arguments is that they depend on a Communist society's being transparent, which never happens.
By contrast, Buckley's description of the need to protect peasant farmers from Communists armed with bayonets, so that they could then receive the food aid that Chomsky claimed was acceptable, was dead on. Anyone remotely familiar with current events at the time, and the history of the previous decades, would have understood what he was saying, and would have seen Chomsky's arguments stripped bare. Subsequent decades have merely played out the same role.
A simple example: who killed more people, General Pinochet, or Abimael Gúzman?
Likewise, why does no one seem to know the name of Gúzman, while most people recognize Pinochet?
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