As the latest bandwagon comes past us we can see the little scrurrying legs of good old Noam as he tries to jump on.

I would be amazed if Kerry has anything to do with Noam, he is a complete liability and his credibility in the US is zero. The only people still listening to him are 60's thowback lecturers who havn't lived in the real world since Woodstock and European lefties who think he makes sense because he agrees with their minority views

 http://www.johnpilger.com/print/133205

John Pilger on John Kerry.

Does anyone have a link to Chomsky backing Kerry? There is some romanticism amongst certain sections of the left for those who are essentially political liberals. Chomsky isn't the first - note how Michael Moore was openly backing Wesley Clarke in his presidential campaign.

What a choice between those two jokers. A has been and a never was.

Join the 21st century and ignore those wasted old farts

So can you point us to another critique of Kerry? You posited the choice, I pointed that article out because I'd read it and thought it pretty OK, pretty spot on. It's pretty acerbic as things go.

I don't see what being a 'friend' and anyone's age has got to do with anything either. This is some kind of bullshit one-upmanship.

Right on, Anti-Noam Chomsky! Noam and right-winger David Horowitz are mirror images of each other. Each of them a True Believer from the Left or Right field. You're right, some of these leftie stuffed shirt academics haven't lived in the real world since Woodstock; and the rightie academic windbags haven't lived in the real world since Goldwater lost the 1964 presidential election. Where one puts a (+) the other puts a (-). Both are (=ly) useless!

 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0320-05.htm

He is not 'backing' Kerry. He's pointing out that Bush and his cronies are so fucked that almost anything would be better. He's not saying that people should vote Democrat and then go home and wait for a better world.

Describing someone as a 'fraction' better than Bush is hardly a ringing endorsement is it?!!!

Why do people feel the need to have a go at Chomsky? He doesn't claim to have all the answers...but he does have a huge amount to contribute to the debate on a better world.

There really are better targets for your anger...

>>There really are better targets for your anger...

of course there aren't. chomsky (and pilger) threatens everything these people stand for.

you

can't destroy the argument, destroy the person making it.

Those that seek to diminish or sideline chomsky know only to well that they dare not attempt rational debate with the man, because they fear above all else losing face.

Best to have a swipe in safety over hersay and second hand reports.

Whilst I might not agree with the notion that a bit of kerry is better than a lot of bush, it is understandable that some - stuck under the suffocating nonsense of bin ladens favourite amerikan family - would prefer a change of scene.

I've yet to see these harpies and harbringers of chomsky's decline refute a single line of analysis of his - nor offer up a more accurate discription of life under the amerikan swastika.

Boring. Very boring.

kerry might not be great, but a fuck load better than bush...oh and chomsky rocks.

For links try  http://www.chomsky.info/.

What Chomsky actually said is that the Bush Junta is so dire that anyone (even Kerry) would be better. He said that small differences can translate into big effects. I am not sure exactly where I noted these comments but you may find them in the Audio & Video section of www.chomsky.info or on znet (www.znet.org). To say that he endorsed Kerry is a (disingenuous) misquote.

well said karen elliot,

I have not seen anybody refute chomsky's analysis of the media (propaganda model), US terrorism in latin america etc except to say 'it wrong' - he uses rigurously researched evidential support for his claims, unlike his critics.

Personally, i think gravity's a load of bollocks; capitalist repression if you ask me, keeping the working classes attatched to the surface of the earth! Newton, what a has been!

 http://www.nobodyforpresident.net/

Redkop sides with Chomsky! He wrote a message in which he mentions the name "Chomsky"! That's enough of a proof! He endorses him! He wants to spread the chomskiesque right wing, hippie propaganda!

Mmmm....mmmm.Just goes to show what a middle class web site this is with messages of support for Chomsky.No choice is no choice end of story.Chomsky and all his class will always stick together at the end of the day.Critical of government policy untill it realy matters and then full support for the rich plutocratic US government.

Traitors! Enemies! None of you are as pure as me! Die! Die! Die! AAAGHHH
(leaps out of window)

Chomsky On the US election

Kerry is sometimes described as Bush-lite, which is not inaccurate, and in general the political spectrum is pretty narrow in the United States, and elections are mostly bought, as the population knows.

But despite the limited differences both domestically and internationally, there are differences. And in this system of immense power, small differences can translate into large outcomes.

My feeling is pretty much the way it was in the year 2000. I admire Ralph Nader and Denis Kucinich very much, and insofar as they bring up issues and carry out an educational and organisational function - that's important, and fine, and I support it.

However, when it comes to the choice between the two factions of the business party, it does sometimes, in this case as in 2000, make a difference. A fraction.

That's not only true for international affairs, it's maybe even more dramatically true domestically. The people around Bush are very deeply committed to dismantling the achievements of popular struggle through the past century. The prospect of a government which serves popular interests is being dismantled here. It's an administration that works, that is devoted, to a narrow sector of wealth and power, no matter what the cost to the general population. And that could be extremely dangerous in the not very long run.

You could see it clearly in the way they dealt with, what is by common agreement, the major domestic economic problem coming along, namely the exploding health care costs. They're traceable to the fact that the US has a highly inefficient healthcare system - far higher expenditure than other comparable countries, and not particularly good outcomes. Rather poor, in fact. And it's because it's privatised.

So they passed a huge prescription drug bill, which is primarily a gift to the pharmaceutical corporations and insurance companies. It's a huge taxpayer subsidy. They're already wealthy beyond dreams of avarice. And that's their constituency. And as that continues, with significant domestic problems ahead, for the general population it's extremely harmful.

Again there isn't a great difference, so for maybe 90% of the population over the past 20 years, real income has either stagnated or declined, while for the top few percent, it's just exploded astronomically. But there are differences and the present group in power is particularly cruel and savage in this respect.

Interview by Matthew Tempest
 http://www.guardian.co.uk

I recently read 9-11 by Chomsky and I found it to be at least an interesting collection of comments about the situation, as it was last year. I am English and have had very little experience of his writing until "9-11". So I was trying to find out if this man was the messiah of modern politics or "a flag burning, anti-American nutter" as I have heard him described. Hence I find myself here in a discussion site, reading some of the most polar reviews I’ve seen in a while.
Despite the penchant of internet review pages to be like this (those in the middle ground can never be bothered to write reviews). The divide between wanting to burn this ageing professor alive and those wanting to sanctify him remains a good indication that this mans writings are pertinent in time where the media can be depressingly one-sided and increasingly biased. However the most interesting thing about the other comments on this site is the lack of any compelling argument, especially on the anti-Chomsky side. In fact the majority fall into the category of blind mud-slinging and uninhibited arse-kissing.
The comment which seems to have sparked this debate seems to have been misread either through ignorance or a deep dislike for Chomsky. He is, to use the phrase, choosing the lesser (in HIS opinion) of two evils. In this case the word choice is a little strong, more likely he is trying to get across the general disillusionment of many people (including it seems himself) about the choice facing Americans in the next election. Only Bush has come off a little worse (hardly surprising in a man that would lose an argument with a goat). This is a situation familiar to the English (have you seen Tony Blair?) with so little choice between the squabbling, pathetic and weak parties we have to choose from.
So perhaps some of you could realize that most people (even journalists and writers) are allowed to express their opinions in a respectable manner (which Chomsky certainly does) without too many jeers from those who disagree.

Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn have stated many times that they favor ousting Bush this election, even if John Kerry is “Bush-lite.” And that stand has been repeatedly used by progressives opposed to Ralph Nader’s campaign.

However, Chomsky and Zinn, both residents of John Kerry’s home state of Massachusetts, say they plan to vote for Ralph Nader.

This may come as a surprise to those who have trotted out Chomsky in an effort to blunt Nader. One example is Jeff Cohen, the founder of the media watch group FAIR (and by way of disclosure, is an author along with both Chomsky and Zinn at Common Courage Press at which this reporter is Publisher). As Cohen stated on Commondreams.org May 7, “Progressives need to be a bridge forward, not an obstruction. Noam Chomsky has described the choice we face: ‘Help elect Bush, or do something to try to prevent it.’”

To cite another example, Doug Henwood, the Publisher of the Left Business Observer wrote in April, “...as Noam Chomsky puts it, to the distress of his many fans, given the magnitude of U.S. power, ‘small differences can translate into large outcomes.’”

But in response to an email query from this reporter, Chomsky wrote,
“Voting for Nader in a safe state is fine. That's what I'll do. I don't see how anyone could read what I wrote and think otherwise, just from the elementary logic of it. Voting for Nader in a safe state is not a vote for Bush. The point I made had to do with (effectively) voting for Bush.”

Chomsky also made clear how he views the election in the context of other efforts for change: "Activist movements, if at all serious, pay virtually no attention to which faction of the business party is in office, but continue with their daily work, from which elections are a diversion -- which we cannot ignore, any more than we can ignore the sun rising; they exist."

In another email exchange, Howard Zinn stated, “I will vote for Nader because Mass. is a safe state. And voters in ‘safe states’ should not vote for Kerry.” He also notes, “I don't have faith in Kerry changing, but with Kerry there is a possibility that a powerful social movement might change him. With Bush, no chance.”

The question of Kerry’s receptivity to social movements deserves serious consideration, discussed further in the book from which this article is adapted. But returning to the issue of voting for Kerry in safe states, the impact of the Electoral College is virtually absent in discussions about Nader’s run.

As BusinessWeek June 14 2004 points out, 75% of voters live in safe states. Voters casting a ballot for Kerry in those states, regardless of the message they intend to send, will be perceived by the Democratic National Committee as endorsing the Kerry platform of war and moving the Democrats to the right. Meanwhile, voters in safe states have the opportunity to send a message that Kerry’s platform is unacceptable, without risking throwing the election to Bush.

 http://www.counterpunch.org/bates06252004.html