Chomsky On The US, Israel, And Middle East History

The Article: Noam Chomsky: The Real Reasons the U.S. Enables Israeli Crimes and Atrocities by Kathleen Wells at Race Talk [via Alternet]

Kathleen Wells: Hi, I’m Kathleen Wells, political correspondent for Race-Talk. I’m speaking with Noam Chomsky, professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and renowned political activist and writer. He has written over a hundred books on linguistics, human rights, economics, and politics. Thank you, Professor Chomsky, for taking the time to speak with me this afternoon.

Noam Chomsky: Very pleased to be with you.

Kathleen Wells: Speak to me about the relation between the United States and Israel. Specifically, address, as you have previously stated, how every crime, violation of international law, that Israel commits is done through the direct participation and authorization of the United States.

Noam Chomsky: That’s a… As a descriptive statement, that is pretty close to accurate. I mean “all” is a very strong word but it is certainly generally true. And, in fact, the United States has overwhelmingly vetoed Security Council resolutions condemning Israeli crimes and atrocities, prevented the Security Council from calling on Israel to terminate aggression, and so on and so forth. The descriptive comment is not really controversial. There are interesting questions about why it’s true. There were also interesting questions about the sources of support for this position in the United States, which helps us explain why it is true.

The history is reasonably clear. This was not the case up until 1967. In fact, before 1967, the relationships were not very different from relationships among other powers. There was sympathy and support for Israel, which has many, many sources, including the Christian Zionism, which is a very powerful force that precedes and is numerically far stronger than Jewish Zionism. But for somebody like, say, Harry Truman, raised in a deeply Christian tradition, it was just taken for granted that the Bible instructs us that God gave the land of Palestine to the Jews. So it is kind of like in his bones. And that’s true for a very large part of the American population, much more so than — far more than any other country. So that is one factor, and there are other factors.
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You Just Keep Getting Better!

Why The “Jersey Shore” Is The Smartest Show On TV

We always forget something about the “Jersey Shore”.

Ronnie, J-Wow, Pauly-D — they had to apply for the show. This means MTV had to turn down legions of over-tanned, under-read guidos and guidettes. Surely, there was some girl too Snooki for even Snooki. A bro more vain than even The Situation. The real question, then, is: what are they doing right now? Do they watch Snooki’s censored flips in the club, or Ronnie obliterating another loudmouth on the Boardwalk and shrug: that’s it? What are they planning for this upcoming Friday night?

The “Jersey Shore” returned this July with the tagline “Different shore. Same crazy”. There are a few differences in Season 2. The crew has a slightly nicer beach-house, in Miami this time. And they’re richer now. The Situation and Snooki drive sparkling new Escalades—although Snooki can barely look over the steering wheel in hers. In the Season 2 premiere, MTV sat the cast of down for a painfully-staged mock-ad pitching “The Other Guys” movie starring Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg.

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Up In The Air And Terrified

This isn’t normal. Glasses aren’t supposed to roll off the flight attendant’s table and shatter on the floor. The pilot isn’t supposed to sound so shaky on the flight PA. We’re 32,000 feet over the icy North Pacific Ocean. A butterfly-in-your stomach dip later and we’re 31,800 feet up.

Your whole life is supposed to flash in front of you in moments like these. The big events—graduations, weddings, Super Bowls. And the even more memorable, smaller events—sleepy Sunday brunches with the favorites, Chinese checkers games with the grandparents.

And I did think about all that. Eventually. But at that moment—at the very moment when my life hung in the balance—I was thinking about college basketball. I was wondering if Duke had enough inside presence to survive the ACC. I was thinking about March Madness brackets and why some company didn’t just offer $1 billion to anyone who correctly predicted every game AND the championship game final score.

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Well Said, Anonymous Internet Commentator

I wish a person were only intelligent enough to both have a religion if it’s important to himself and his community, but having the fucking discernment to understand that the power elite outside of his community needs to play religious distortion in order to get him and his community’s resources thieved for a completely non-religious purpose.

Religion does keep people grounded and is human heritage and has a real state when it’s not tainted by power structure. This is like so many other things, that are pure before extra-community power distorts it.

You could say “well, what if some stupid community has a religion that’s totally fucked up and a few guys are sitting around abusing everything and making a dark backwoods Hellscape of life?” Well, that goes back to the argument that a man is not capable of recognizing justice unless a supra-community, a state power structure is there to shepard communities to perceive the structure’s “religion.” At that point everything is over.

– Procopius, commenting on Liberty Papers: Religious Freedom Is What Makes America.