Noam Chomsky - America is not a Democracy

The Constitution is overrated.

I agree:)

prepper: We aren't a democracy. Replace democratic with Federation. That's what the USA is.

Name one debate he avoided. Name one significant falsehood documented. I say "significant" because when an individual has written scores of books over the last forty years, it's utterly impossible to have not made a mistake along the way.  One rule...you cannot take the quote you're trying to disprove out of context. You will fail. End of story.

@jeremybalfe- As one of the chief deniers of the Cambodian genocide of the 1970s, he attacked witnesses to the killings. He minimized the deaths, comparing those killed to collaborators. By 1980, when it was no longer possible to deny that 2 million of Cambodia's 7.8 million people had perished at the hands of Communists, Chomsky proposed that the underlying problem was failure of the rice crop! In 1988, he insisted that whatever had happened in Cambodia, the U.S. was to blame.

@katalatt The Cambodia part is also a smear. Chomsky's work on Cambodia focused on the media's treatment of it. He pointed out that the media would believe any allegation of atrocities in Cambodia no matter how little credibility it had. He contrasted this with the media's treatment of the genocide in East Timor, which happened at the same time. This was supported by the US and recieved far less attention from the media, in contrast to the genocide in Cambodia.

He also contrasted this to the US assault on Cambodia prior to the seizure of power by the Khmer Rouge, which killed hundreds of thousands of people, and with the period after Vietnam threw pol pot out of power, when the US supported Pol Pot. In each case, the media emphasized the atrocities of the enemy while downplaying or ignoring the atrocities of the US & allies. He said:

When the facts are in, it may turn out that the more extreme condemnations [of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge] were in fact correct. But even if that turns out to be the case, it will in no way alter the conclusions we have reached on the central question addressed here: how the available facts were selected, modified, or sometimes invented to create a certain image offered to the general population. The answer to this question seems clear,

and it is unaffected by whatever may yet be discovered about Cambodia in the future. - After the Cataclysm, p. 293

In the case of Cambodia there is no difficulty in documenting major atrocities and oppression p. 135

The record of atrocities in Cambodia is substantial and often gruesome p. 136

This article by Horowitz doesn't really attempt to refute any of his claims, it just calls him names, restates claims which Chomsky already attacked and adds in a few distortions.

@jeremybalfe That's a lot of nonsense Jeremy, and you know it. Chomsky is a master of selective reasoning and of confusing well-meaning but under-informed young liberals. I see you've learned the rudiments of the art of polemical sophistry from the object of your man-crush. I sincerely hope you can grow out it someday. Good luck!