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                                             September 25, 2012
                                             September 02, 2013

A "Chris G" commented in the discussion
attached to this Brad DeLong post:

   http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/09/the-propaganda-model-son-of-noam-chomsky-and-ed-herman-in-counterpunch.html

   "I think that the underlying reason so many
   people get worked up about Chomsky is that       Delong followed up
   he doesn't give anybody a free pass. Read        with a really trashy
   his writings and one finds that he condemns      out-of-context smear
   pretty much every gov't that's existed on        job:
   the planet for at least the past fifty
   years. (I can't think of a more cynical             http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/09/noam-chomsky-on-how-the-great-helmsmans-success-was-considerably-greater-in-achieving-a-just-society-than-was-josef-stalin.html
   commentator/analyst I've read over the past
   thirty years.) There are some notable
   exceptions but I think accurate to say that          CHOMSKY_FREE
   he regards very few favorably. He has
   standards for what constitutes acceptable
   govt policy and behavior-- and, no surprise
   given his libertarian socialist
   proclivities, technocratic centrism doesn't
   pass muster. He criticizes govts which don't
   meet his stds no matter who they are. He                       Sep 2021
   also doesn't give govts a pass because they                            
   do good things as well as bad. That can give     Myself, I think Chris G is
   the appearance of not recognizing the            being too charitable. 
   good. My theory: People get worked up about      People get worked-up over
   his criticisms of the US and Israel because      Chomsky because he says
   they don't recognize that a) his criticisms      things you're not supposed
   are not specific to those countries and b)       to say, and patiently 
   his criticisms are directed at bad behavior      documents them, and rarely
   only and are not intended to be part of a        falls into the trap of
   'on balance they do [good/bad]' analysis."       going over-board and  
                                                    injecting a lot of opinion
                                                    that might be debateable.
                                                    He doesn't rant, he drones.
                                                                          
                                                    And yes, he doesn't   
                                                    give anyone a pass--  
                                                    like ignoring evils   
                                                    committed by a Democrat
                                                    just because they're  
                                                    not as nasty as the   
                                                    Republican ones.      
                                                                          
                                                                          
                                                                          
                                                                          
                                                                          





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