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Ref. : Local Newsbriefs
Ref. : Letters to the editor
06.24 Mr. Holder, You Must Hold Torturers Accountable
06.29 Thinking about Climate
06.26 False Health-Scare Ad on CNN
06.25 Louella Learns the Limits of Medicare
06.23 The Simple Answer to America’s Health Care Crisis: Medicare for All
06.23 Tell ABC: Include Single-Payer in Healthcare Debate
06.23 Serving the Medical-Industrial Complex
06.22 Thinking about Recoveries
06.20 Obama's Health Care Waterloo
06.15 Obama, Like Clinton Before Him, is Blowing the Chance for Real Health Care Reform
06.11 Two Key Health-Care Numbers
06.10 Big Breakthroughs for Single Payer Health Care
06.10 Readying Americans for Dangerous, Mandatory Vaccinations
06.29 WP's Connolly Back, on Health Reform
06.17 Hypocrisy and Hope: Western Coverage, Iranian Courage
06.15 Excusing Outrages of the Right
06.11 Tying Obama to Bush's Budget Mess
06.30 Obama's Torture Hypocrisy
06.30 Court Circular: Annals of Imperial Continuity
06.29 Obama, They Want You to Fail
06.26 Who to Trust on a Truth Commission?
06.26 Tarnished Shields: The Morally Bankrupt 'Family Values' Republican Leadership
06.25 America's "Bases of Empire"
06.24 Twelve Angry White People: Jury Nullification in a Pennsylvania Coal Town
06.24 Touring Empire's Ruins
06.23 Employers are Undermining the Economic Stimulus Program
06.19 Criminalizing Dissent: Obama Pot Calls Iranian Kettle Black
06.17 Afghanistan's Operation Phoenix
06.16 Are You Ready for War with a Demonized Iran?
06.13 Where's the Anger as the Wheels Come Off Obama's and the Democrats' Recovery Program?
06.10 Waiving the Rules for Old Glory
06.10 Obama's Era of Openness Is Closed
07.03 Reviewing Marjorie Cohn and Kathleen Gilberd's "Rules of Disengagement"
07.01 Iraq: A Bitter Strategic Failure
06.25 It's All Good, Again: 'Uptick' in the American-Made Tides of Violence in Iraq
06.22 Obama Opposes Plame-gate Release
06.21 Dexter's Legions: The "Good" Killers of the "Good" War
06.18 Extending the Tradition: Proudly Taking American Torture Into the Future
06.15 New UN Report Denounces America's Human Rights Record
06.14 Fear Rules
07.01 Michael Hudson's "Super Imperialism:" The Economic Strategy of Imperial America
06.23 Obama's Financial Reform Proposal - A Stealth Scheme for Global Monetary Control
06.10 Cyberscares About Cyberwars Equal Cybermoney
07.01 Pirates of the Mediterranean
06.29 Color Revolutions, Old and New
06.25 Iran Divided & the 'October Suprise'
06.23 Astringent Corrective: AbuKhalil on Iran's Turmoil
06.20 Are the Iranian Protests Another US Orchestrated “Color Revolution?”
06.20 Through a Glass Darkly: Sifting Myth and Fact on Iran
06.19 Iran's Election and US - Iranian Elections
06.16 The Ir-Af-Pak War: Obama Looses the Manhunters
06.12 Israeli War Crimes Against Children During Operation Cast Lead
BACKGROUND:
Who is Noam Chomsky?
Chávez has a reputation as an edgy leader. Chomsky is equally considered edgy, though most are unfamiliar with his particular methods of rabble-rousing. While Chávez is a fiery independent socialist, Chomsky is a methodical and systematic doubter in the tradition of Bertrand Russell and René Descartes. In most respects, the suggested reading by Chávez was an unexpected and enigmatic presentation, and it was sufficiently noteworthy as to provoke the public into acts of purchase. It remains to be seen whether those who buy the book will actually read it.
As has been widely reported recently in the U.S. press, Chomsky is an icon in Europe, yet remains a controversial figure in America. This disparity is both easy and difficult to fathom. His body of work is enormous and spans disciplines and decades. His critics largely focus on his recent writings centered around criticism of the foreign policies of the U.S. and Israel. He is frequently described by the catch-phrase, “The world’s leading intellectual,” though most would not be able to explain why he has earned that title. Criticism that appears at street level and on blogs usually follow along the lines of, “he hates America,” and, “I don’t care for his opinions on society.” In the most unguarded cases, he is described as “the worst kind of Jew; a self-hating Jew.”
What can be said about Chomsky with little equivocation is that his work in linguistics, beginning in the 1950s up until the present, has been revolutionary. His theories on transformational/generative/universal grammar, syntactic structures, language competence and acquisition have become the bedrock of modern linguistics.
Chomsky’s life as a responsible intellectual, or, as he is often called, a dissenter, is not a separate identity from that of the linguistics professor and scholar. His identity, if viewed panoramically, is a logical extension of the Western and Talmudic intellectual traditions applied to the landscape of contemporary politics and active engagement. And at the age of 77, Chomsky continues to walk his talk.
For all those who oppose or iconically extol the persona and work of Noam Chomsky, the voluminous footnotes are there. Likewise, the reading recommendation by President Chávez is an insightful footnote as to what the world might be reading and the ways in which they may be thinking in the very near future.
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This story was published on September 26, 2006.
