Noam Chomsky on Barack Obama

Yes, he's a smart man. Just not the end all be all.

See, I can parse him too.

From "Frontline USA" on Al-Jazeera, aired June 20, 2008. Host and interviewer is Avi Lewis.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Barack
• Obama
• Noam
• Chomksy
• hope
• unity
• change
• democrat
• election
• 2008

[AdamRainStopper]

Insightful, though he speaks from hindsight. I remember being ridiculed for being a pessimist when obama was campaigning on the platform of "change" and I told them he wouldn't actually change anything, wars, patriot act, etc. I had two heads every time I said it. Jaws hit the floor, awkward silence. I'm a young musician who lives in the margins and slips through the cracks, and the information from which I drew that conclusion wasn't hard for ME to find. Why do people WANT to be brainwashed?

[FreeTheWorker]

It is a powerful tool of propaganda, to present the people with a blank canvas, for their imaginations will paint whatever they wish and whatever they hope upon that canvas, and fight with fervor that rivals that of a religious mob, feeling wounded by every defeat, inspired by every victory, for they are fighting for their very hopes and dreams.

This is why Obama has been able to continue the same Policies as Bush, Clinton, Bush Sr, and Regan, all to the same function under a different canvas.

[partonace]

@AdamRainStopper so if i send you my email you will send me your album as mp3 files (since i am against booklets, cds and jewel cases) after i send you 6$ via paypal? not the best way to promote your music - but if you fear that you will get nothing in return by upping your music to jamendo (or what you have - since i only know this site for now) this way it's ok for me, too.

[AdamRainStopper]

@partonace I don't charge for what cost me nothing to make. CD's go for $6 locally, allowing me to buy another stack of CD's, more greeting-card paper, jewel cases, ink, guitar and bass strings, drum sticks, tubes, even save a little on the side to upgrade my recording setup. It's more than enough. The net is my way of sharing music globally and free. If you want to pay me for my music, donate food and blankets to OWS protesters on my behalf and get the songs off my channel. I got all I need.

[partonace]

politics will never change anything. it will always just lead to a decline of societies - since people loose time by listening to the politicians and watching what is going on in their lives. they're like sirens that sing tunes of false promise. it's more important for us citizens of this globe to connect over the web, start businesses and share things together.

[partonace]

@AdamRainStopper ...why don't you use a platform like jamendocom. i'd like to hear some of your music and pay for it. what would you have to loose?

[Strefanasha]

Obama, a blank slate or an empty suit?

I myself knew what kind of creature Obama was by his slimy and very fast distancing of himself from Jeremiah Wright in the campaign.

like all politicians he is a whore

such is a requirement for the job

[AdamRainStopper]

@townsendjean Yeah, no more cowardly than ....... AL QUEIDA?........ Now that sounds like a ringing endorsement for the U S A ....U S A ......U S A ......U S A.....

Like I said, I am not going to be jumping on this bandwagon. I don't cheer for genocide, whether committed by people who are willing to die to carry out their mission or by people who sit in a booth at an air-force base and fly drones over villages. Obam,a is doing everything I predicted in '08. He will continue. Don't be so naive.

[townsendjean]

@AdamRainStopper Cowardly? Hell, they´re cheap and effective, and no more cowardly than the way al-qaeda operates. And if you think gop intransigence isn´t real, then you are incredibly naive. Obama is being pragmatic, but in due course I expect he will pull the Truman card and best up the Republican Congress. They are impossible, unpopular and classically, 'do nothing'. He will do this, and he will tear into them in ways we have not yet seen and can hardly imagine.

[AdamRainStopper]

@townsendjean He promised to close gitmo. Still open. He promised not to use signing statements. He promised to veto any extension of expiring provisions of the patriot act. He signed "patriot act 2" and all the expiring provisions. He promised to end Bush's "illegal wars" immediately. It's been almost 4 years. He promised lobbyists wouldn't be allowed in the whitehouse. Day after inauguration, the place was filled with lobbyists. He's a liar and a hypocrite. He is Bush's 3rd term.

[AdamRainStopper]

@townsendjean We still have a global military footprint. Drone attacks are cowardly interventionism. Obama folded under GOP pressure because he wanted it to pass with "bi-partisan" support, he could have passed it with the dem majority. If we captured, tried, convicted and executed Bin Laden, we'd be the good guys. They killed him without even trying to capture him, because they don't want "sordid history" coming out at a public trial. We still funnel billions to the military industrial complex.

[townsendjean]

@AdamRainStopper Well we´re not in Libya, and no american lives are sacrificed and we´re not funneling billions into the military machine. Drone attacks are a much less costly alternative to interventionism, if the war on terror must continue. The radicalization of the islamic world and the cold war is sordid history. Bin Laden was asking for it. The public option fell victim to gop intransigence. Obama did pretty well, all in all, under the circumstances.