Turning the Tide

March 25, 2004 1:00 PM

Turning the TideIf Kerry and his friends are not far enough from the political center, you might try this, Noam Chomsky's new blog. I would call it "No lefty left behind" But, hey, whatever packs your suitcase.
posted by Postroad (38 comments total)

Oh man. Check out the user comments for that first post. Bring on the crazies!
posted by gwint at 1:10 PM on March 25, 2004

booyah! bring it on noam.


show the center and right what the word progressive means.
posted by specialk420 at 1:12 PM on March 25, 2004

But what are our choices? Either we have the proto-fascist Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz-Cheney crowd or we have the semi-fascist Kerry-Berger-Albright crowd. Between both cabals we have seen a 75% reductions in adjusted-real buying power among 90% of the working poor and millions dead as a result of the War Without End. How can we bridge the gap of pre- and un-rationalisms that are dominating the sublimations of the non-contextualized?
Posted by euph173 at March 25, 2004 10:47 AM

I think this guy was my freshman year room-mate. He had a very long beard, and smelled badly.
posted by psmealey at 1:25 PM on March 25, 2004

What the hell is up with the comments on the latest entry? Is there some actual context to those footnoted posts or is it just some graduate student spamming his work for publicity?
posted by Tlogmer at 1:28 PM on March 25, 2004

Bloviating excrement; vaunted rhetoric; plethora of lacunae. Blah Blah Blah Blah.

Posted by Doug at March 25, 2004 11:59 AM

A new metafilter motto?
posted by milnak at 1:31 PM on March 25, 2004

show the center and right what the word progressive means.

Be careful what you wish for...


I've met with Mr. Chomsky a few times. Politics aside, he's actually a swell guy.
posted by trharlan at 1:35 PM on March 25, 2004

I am a huge fan of Chomsky. I frequently do not agree with him, but he's such a brilliant and eloquent advocate of his cause, he makes it entertaining just to listen to him. I think he and Gore Vidal are national treasures.
posted by psmealey at 1:39 PM on March 25, 2004

Someone once said reading my posts was like listening to an adult in a Peanuts cartoon: wa wah wuh wuuh wah wah. I'd say that description fits like a glove for Noam (I'm sorry, we're you saying something?) Chomsky's blog.
posted by pardonyou? at 1:41 PM on March 25, 2004

ugh. we're were
posted by pardonyou? at 1:42 PM on March 25, 2004

Little Green Footballs linked to it, I'm guessing that's where many of the comments are coming from.
posted by red at 1:44 PM on March 25, 2004

Little Green Footballs linked to it, I'm guessing that's where many of the comments are coming from.

Ha! I was actually thinking: Those user comment threads look like something out of LGF meets ANSWER-- not exactly much common ground.
posted by gwint at 1:48 PM on March 25, 2004

If ever there was a site in need of comment registratin and moderation...
posted by me3dia at 1:51 PM on March 25, 2004

Man, at least he has a comments section. Popular blogs without comments are just cowardly. Imagine how much of Instapundit's right-wing bullshit would be torn apart by one or two well crafted comments.
posted by skallas at 1:54 PM on March 25, 2004

Then there is another choice: electing Bush or seeking to prevent his election.

The lesser of two evils is still evil.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 1:56 PM on March 25, 2004

I'd say that description fits like a glove for Noam (I'm sorry, we're you saying something?) Chomsky's blog.

One suspects he will NOT be his main topic for nearly 90% of adjusted-realtime and that his uses of the first personal pronoun will show 75% reductions in comparison, if that is what wa wah wuh wuuh wah wah means.
posted by y2karl at 1:57 PM on March 25, 2004

The comments left on the very first post (scroll to bottom) are pretty funny.

Noam Chomsky, meet inarticulate mob.

Inarticulate mob, meet GWAAAHHHH!BOOGABOOGA!!!
posted by scarabic at 2:07 PM on March 25, 2004

So, this "Bush: that everyone is talking about . . .

ahh forget it! Canadians for Kerry!
posted by Quartermass at 2:07 PM on March 25, 2004

I love Noam Chomsky. I had just been accepted into the Ph.D. program at MIT when I found out I was pregnant and decided to scrap the move to MA. I was so looking forward to working /studying with him. Ah well, the universe has it's own plans, I suppose.
posted by dejah420 at 2:09 PM on March 25, 2004

is it chomsky's blog, or is it selected postings from z-net by chomsky that are rpesented in blog form? sounds liek the latter if you read the bottom article on the page.

(i must admit i was expecting footnotes for each posting ;o)
posted by andrew cooke at 2:17 PM on March 25, 2004

BTW Noam has gone all political realist and soft on us: he actually "endorsed" (very reluctantly, but endorsed) Kerry:

"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."

Regardless of the validity of the above argument, this is something I never expected Chomsky to support (i.e. "lesser-evilism"). Note that the above suggests that NC voted for Gore and not for Nader in 2000...
posted by talos at 2:36 PM on March 25, 2004

If there was ever a website that MT3.0 should be tested on, this is the one. I haven't seen a comment crapflood like this since I last read slashdot unmoderated by accident.
posted by plemeljr at 2:44 PM on March 25, 2004

This is nice. Thanks Postroad.
posted by Blue Stone at 2:46 PM on March 25, 2004

The "comment crap flood" is the best part, IMHO.
I've heard some very articulate Chomsky critics, but most of what passes for Chomsky criticism I've seen on the web is just poo flinging and a fanatical loathing of book-learnin'.
posted by 2sheets at 2:57 PM on March 25, 2004

Looks like the comment system has been removed. Shame I think.
posted by crayfish at 3:11 PM on March 25, 2004

I think this guy was my freshman year room-mate. He had a very long beard, and smelled badly.

psmealey and TLogmer--psst!
posted by y2karl at 3:15 PM on March 25, 2004

is it chomsky's blog, or is it selected postings from z-net by chomsky that are rpesented in blog form? sounds liek the latter if you read the bottom article on the page.

My bet is that Michael Albert, who runs ZNet and seeminly has an endless amount of time on his hands, is running Noam's blog as well, posting in stuff from Chomsky's postings in the ZNet forum. The posts seem pretty loose and incoherent, not something I'd expect from a Chomsky blog.
posted by jacobsee at 3:17 PM on March 25, 2004

Thanks y2karl, the discovery of that site will doubtless change my life. Imagine: the ability to generate text that's so oppressively dull, it's funny. Oh, wait. No, it's not.
posted by psmealey at 3:33 PM on March 25, 2004

What a riot! Chomsky is hilarious. The pithy way he satirizes the left is renedered doubly funny by the fact that he believes he's writing serious truths, not clever satire. His blog's definately going into my bookmarks right under the Onion.

(He, for instance, pays attention to the "real world" - implying, of course, that anyone thinking differently either lives in an illusion, or doesn't live in an illusion but supports the Other Side for evil, self-interested reasons. WooooHooooo!)

And the comments are just priceless. The last one on that comment link from scarabic ... damn I haven't read something that funny since SatireWire went dark:

Of course dweezie don't forget this important point about these Freepers and their cenosorship of Dr. Chomsky:

For any transformation which is sufficiently diversified in application to be of any interest, this analysis of a formative as a pair of sets of features is unspecified with respect to the traditional practice of grammarians. It must be emphasized, once again, that a case of semigrammaticalness of a different sort may remedy and, at the same time, eliminate a corpus of utterance tokens upon which conformity has been defined by the paired utterance test. On our assumptions, the descriptive power of the base component suffices to account for an important distinction in language use. With this clarification, any associated supporting element raises serious doubts about the extended c-command discussed in connection with (34). To characterize a linguistic level L, the earlier discussion of deviance can be defined in such a way as to impose an abstract underlying order.
posted by MidasMulligan at 3:33 PM on March 25, 2004

What a riot! Miday is hilarious. The pithy way he satirizes the left is renedered doubly funny by the fact that he believes he's writing serious truths, not clever satire.

Chomsky's a prick, but at least through the self-regard that he wears like a Force Field of Righteousness, he's trying to do the right thing.

He may be annoying, but I find him tediously hectoring in a loveable kind of way.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:54 PM on March 25, 2004

I love the meta-thread in the comments regarding looking for a horse to eat. That shit is priceless.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 4:23 PM on March 25, 2004

I hate famous people blogs that aren't really blogs. It's just like those fake campaign blogs. Compare this with, say, Tom Tomorrow, who actually links to other bloggers and creates writing and thoughts tailored to the format. Anyone could go around collecting and collating stray writings from any random high-profile figure, and ghost write some stupid ersatz celebrity blog, what's the point? It actually kind of creeps me out when ideologues try to get their mind-viruses out by soullessly, cluelessly and transparently plugging it into a format that they think is "cool" with the young people nowa'days. I look at this and see those anti-drug rap videos we had to watch in jr. high- the form is superficially similar, but the authenticity is utterly, obviously, laughably absent.
posted by dgaicun at 4:36 PM on March 25, 2004

Man, at least he has a comments section. Popular blogs without comments are just cowardly.

No they're not. I can think of many reasons one wouldn't want comments. What's happening on Chomsky's site is the perfect example. You're just pissed off that you can't rant on his site like you do on metafilter.

Imagine how much of Instapundit's right-wing bullshit would be torn apart by one or two well crafted comments.

Looking at the circle jerk metality displayed daily on metafilter lefty threads, I'm thinking not much.

Instapundit has a huge audience. I know that makes you jealous skallas, but jealousy isn't pretty. Surely you get your dose of bush sucks threads with room to comment here.
posted by Dennis Murphy at 6:00 PM on March 25, 2004

For any transformation which is sufficiently diversified in application to be of any interest, this analysis of a formative as a pair of sets of features is unspecified with respect to the traditional practice of grammarians. It must be emphasized, once again, that a case of semigrammaticalness of a different sort may remedy and, at the same time, eliminate a corpus of utterance tokens upon which conformity has been defined by the paired utterance test. On our assumptions, the descriptive power of the base component suffices to account for an important distinction in language use. With this clarification, any associated supporting element raises serious doubts about the extended c-command discussed in connection with (34). To characterize a linguistic level L, the earlier discussion of deviance can be defined in such a way as to impose an abstract underlying order.

Mark Midas as down another postmodernism text generator sucker.
Now, there's a guy who obviously never clicks on a commentary link.
posted by y2karl at 6:38 PM on March 25, 2004

Man, at least he has a comments section. Popular blogs without comments are just cowardly.

Looks like Mr. Chomsky has had enough of being so brave as to have public comments.

The permalinks are nonfunctional, and the links to the comments are gone.
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 9:29 PM on March 25, 2004

If Kerry and his friends are not far enough from the political center

Yeah, I have to admit Kerry is pretty far to the right of the political center but at least he isn't in the lunatic fringe with the Bushwhackers.
posted by nofundy at 5:20 AM on March 26, 2004

Looks like Mr. Chomsky has had enough of being so brave as to have public comments.

Oh, and your blog does or, rather, ever did? If so, how long did that last?
posted by y2karl at 12:44 PM on March 26, 2004

Man, at least he has a comments section. Popular blogs without comments are just cowardly.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Sorry man. That's just too funny.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 6:28 PM on March 26, 2004

Wee, I got an email back.

Date: 3/26/2004 19:42:31 -0500
From: Noam Chomsky
Subject: Re: Microsoft IIS and your weblog

At 10:40 AM 3/26/2004 -0500, you wrote:
>I can't help but notice your weblog (http://blog.zmag.org/ttt/) runs on
>a server running the Microsoft IIS web server. Given your ideals, I'm
>suprised you're not on an Open Source/GNU solution. What gives?

I use whatever system MIT provides. I don't know enough even to understand
what you are proposing, and if I did, I doubt that I'd have the time to
deal with it. Time is finite. Demands are huge. Priorities are inescapable.


Is this guy obtuse, or what?
posted by angry modem at 6:53 AM on March 27, 2004