The most important thing @RachelRileyRR has done in my opinion is to finally break the mainstream silence on Noam Chomsky, a man who has never met a conspiracy theorist he hasn’t promoted the work of. The bile & outraged reactions from activists expose their ignorance of his work
Riley pointed out that he has defended antisemites, which he has, including ones literally suspended by Corbyn’s Labour for antisemitism. But this only scratches the surface of his record, which is riddled with support for racist genocide revisionism
haaretz.com/opinion/the-we…
haaretz.com/opinion/the-we…
I wrote that article in 2017, but it is not the first time someone has presented this evidence clearly, yet the public has never moved on from viewing him as a cuddly, kind, socialist old man who fights for social justice.
In reality, he has expended more of his political activism on defending mass murdering dictators from scrutiny than he ever has speaking out in defence of the global proletariat. As long as their oppressors are anti-Western, Chomsky has backed dictators over civilians for decades
There is a certain subset of people who do not care about addressing the truth, and prefer living in a world based on cults of personality and tribalism. I’m sorry Chomsky is a counter revolutionary war crimes apologist. I wish he wasn’t, but he is. It’s time we talked about it.
You may be angry at people like Rachel for pointing it out, but it’s the truth, and your failure to stop idolising a man who is proud of his genocide revisionism says far more about you than you realise. And if you don’t believe me, go ask Noam about Srebrenica yourself.
& absolutely none of this is to do with anti-Zionism or opposition to the occupation of Palestine. I have been pro-Palestine all my life, none of that has ever lead me to denying Ratko Mladic ordered the murder of children. Hypocrisy on war crimes damage social justice movements.
We need to demand more from our public figures. And if those public figures value the life of a civilian shot dead in Bosnia less than the life of a civilian shot dead in Gaza, then they aren’t on the side of social justice at all. Moral consistency is all that matters here
And if you won’t listen to me because I’m a liberal, here are a group of committed socialists making the same argument a full 6 years before I wrote my piece. People have been trying to call this out for decades now. Listen to them. workersliberty.org/story/2011/06/…
Finally, that’s not to say everything Chomsky has ever said should be disregarded, far from it. But his position on these issues is a stain on his work and needs to be honestly addressed by those who choose to cite and laud him. Refusal to do so carries that stain onto you too.
For clarity, I do not believe Chomsky is an antisemite, and I share the sentiments of Libcom on this matter.
