Siddarth -
http://www.guernicamag.com/blog/2652/noam_chomsky_my_reaction_to_os/
Noam Chomsky... I love that man's clarity and directness. I can only
imagine the conversations in the White House whenever he speaks up...
Bush/Cheney: "Can't we just disappear him? I *am* the decider, and
that is what I decide!"
Obama: "Shit, he's right... shit... did he really have to say
that? shit."
Clinton/Clinton/Gore: "He's a really bright man, I wish he would
just come over to our side!"
I've wondered for decades if a man like Chomsky could ever have a role
in a US administration (aside from the inconvenient academic gadfly I
presume most administrations dismiss him as).
Imagine what the US's posture in the world might look like if the
sitting president always had someone as clear and direct as Noam Chomsky
sitting next to her. Imagine if every evening they sat down to review
the day's events and Noam did that quiet, level, clear, (almost?)
non-blaming analysis of the (clearly intentional?) fuckups going on in
our government *every day*!
I hope that after Obama is out of office that his memoirs will include
what he was thinking every time Chomsky quietly pointed out his (and
other's) glaring errors in action.
In reviewing his Wikipedia entry, I found reference to him being the 8th
most cited author of all time and *most* cited living author. It does
not bear directly onto the "Mapping Scientific Output" symposium
tomorrow at the Hilton but onto a much larger domain of "Mapping the
Contemporary Evolution of Human Knowledge" perhaps.
- Steve
PS. I'm sure there are those here who do not hold Chomsky in as high of
esteem as I do (it started when I first studied his work in
Linguistics), and while I'm not interested in the (usually right-wing?)
ad hominem attacks I'm already too familiar with, I *would* appreciate
any useful criticism of the man and his political opinions. He is one
purveyor of "inconvenient truths" to a great many people.
epilogue :
http://www.guernicamag.com/blog/2652/noam_chomsky_my_reaction_to_os/
(- no fake quotes here!)
...
The killing was easy , the understanding is difficult.
It takes no great skill to kill, any brute can do it, it is a much
greater challenge to keep something alive.
How do we model stupifaction of real people?
Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD
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