I couldn’t get pass first 30ish pages in the main book (after reading trough the prefaces and skipping here and there reading some other stuff that piqued my interest also). It got me heavily depressed and left me feeling completely powerless and hopeless and it only reinforced the things I noticed and tought about USA myself.
And I just quit…prefering the sanity of ignorance to the madness of reality.
How can anyone hope to have a normal world with THAT…and I live in Eastern Europe…one would say far away from thr main American Influence. Not so far as it felt before. If we tought that the Nazis or the Communists were evil…ohoho boy…this book makes one feel like there is nothing more vile in the world than the United States of America government.
Did you read it? How did it make you feel?
So many Chomsky haters! It’s impossible to keep up. Most of them have clearly not read his work, but saw some clip somewhere, where Chomsky told the truth about things that are not presented on MSM, and could not stand that he dared to be critical. My advice, don’t listen to these smears on a very honest man who is more interested in the truth than promoting so called “American Exceptionalism”. Read what he has to say. Decide for yourself.
Wow you make the book sound really good! Looks like I’m going to have to read it now, I love it when people dissect the realities of American power.
If you’re interested in this sort of thing, I also highly recommend the classic The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein, read it recently and it absolutely blew me away!
I was gonna recommend Klein as well. She’s honest about the problems we face but not surrendering to despair.
I also recommend her latest book Doppelganger, which actually follows up on some of the themes in her earlier titles.
Then you might want to pick someone who isn’t famous for his irrational hate.
It’s a major issue with all his works outside of the theoretical and one he gets called for regularly, his objectivity is nonexistent and he treats the US is utterly evil and the root of all bad things in the world. He denied the Khmer Rouge genocide because the perpetrators were a communist government, long after everyone else figured out that the refugees weren’t lying. He’s fairly infamous for his lack of objectivity and the leaps of logic he takes to make America at fault for everything, basically a Satan figure.
You’ll get plenty to scratch that ‘America bad’ itch but not really much that can actually be trusted. And if you can’t trust it, well, you might as well go on one of those subreddits dedicated to such complaining.
It’s really interesting when you compare the atrocities that USA has done and the atrocities China has done, with the response to each of them. The former is critised but not villianised, while the latter recieved both far out of proportion. Idc about CCP or china, more interested in information wars and how stupid and easily manipulated the average person is. Really really shows how insidious and powerful western propaganda is. Reddit is a fine example of western echo chamber…
There is nothing in U.S. history remotely on the scale of the Great Leap Forward.
Moreover, even today, almost anyone in China with the resources to do so hedges their bets on Chinese government. That’s why there are no significant restrictions on Americans transferring their assets into Chinese banks but there are significant restrictions on Chinese transferring their assets into American ones.
The question people like Chomsky fail to ask is “what’s the alternative?”. If you honestly ask this question, there are no real world examples of a better option than American hegemony. Indeed, the very values you hold dear that are used to criticize the means by which the Anglo-American dominance of the world has been maintained could never have existed without that dominance.
By and large, the world is content with American hegemony not because it is perfect but because it is better than the alternatives.
And by the way, using GLF is the same as critising USA for the bloody civil war, in the sense that both are internal affairs, albeit the former is much more stupid and needlessly barbaric.
How can you judge a country more by its internal affairs than its external crimes?
Thank you for this intelligent comment.
“What’s the alternative?” assumes an Anglo Saxon perspective with pre-conceived ideals. To the Chinese, as well as some other cultures, the same question is indeed pondered quite carefully upon. And therefore the western answer to that question cannot be automatically and forcefully applied to other cultures. This is the source of many modern conflicts.
My point is that the west cannot think that because American hegemony was good for some parts of the world, it is good for ALL of the world. Context of reality matters.
Anyway, my original point is how information is directed and digested these days with emotion rather than logic.
There are many leftists, American and otherwise, who write very much in the same tradition as Chomsky, but with far more of a focus on hopeful alternatives to the present order. Graeber, Solnit, and Bergman are the first that come to mind. Maybe they’d be a better fit for your current mental state!
Yea he puts the bad out there…but…no proposition to what a layman can do.
And I don’t mean about america specifically…I mean about their local problems of the sort.
How does one idiot battle the corrupts? Voting has no power…I don’t think it ever did actually…or if it did…certainly now the game is rigged from the start.
I’m looking at my country now: there’s the Socialists which are just former comunists and communist inteligence generals and higher ups…corrupt to the bone (with very minor but extremely shiny exceptions here and there).
There’s the Liberals which themselves made it clear they are just the same when they were in power.
And there’s 2 more parties…one is straight up Russian agents…and the other is filled with young people with good ideals …but after they got together they showed they’re all talk…all bark no bite…completely impotent outside of shiny slogans and ideals, so they’re out of the picture anyway.
Lately the Liberals and the Socialists have made a coalition (It’s like a coalition between USA and the USSR during the cold war if you ask me) only to not allow the Russian party to gain power…so…who the hell do you vote for? Is there even a choise anymore?
I like Chomsky a lot, but I don’t think he’s who you should turn to if you’re feeling so dispirited and hopeless. As I mentioned in my other comment, there are tons of other contemporary thinkers who are adept at pointing out the problems in our current social systems, but then also giving recommendations for how we can combat it. A lot of the time, it deals with focusing on things we do have control over, whether they’re community building organizations or simply reaching out to like-minded individuals.
I know everything looks really bleak, but there is still hope! I hope you feel better, friend!
Yes there literally is nothing more vile in the world than the government of the USA. The greatest terrorists the world has ever known.
And I just quit…prefering the sanity of ignorance to the madness of reality.
Reminds me of The Matrix character, Cypher
You know… I know this steak doesn’t exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth; the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy, and delicious. After nine years… you know what I realize? Ignorance is bliss.
It’s not easy but I’d imagine living in East Europe is all about experience life raw and direct. There’s no matrix in EE.
Chomsky is literally “America bad. No other person or country has agency it’s just America bad”.
Chomsky came into his own during the protest movements of the Vietnam War - he developed anti-capitalist, anti-imperialists ideology (which was big back then) and has made the facts fit his ideology ever since.
When it comes to his views on international stuff and geopolitics, Chomsky is pretty bad. His narrative is basically a reverse American Exceptionalism where the US is some kind of unique level of evil untouched by any other nation.
I’m a pretty lefty person myself, but I really can’t stand that guy
Chomsky is a genocide denying dumbass that no one should take seriously.
Chomsky never quite properly manages to explain what would happen if America didn’t exist though does he.
I suppose we’re supposed to intuit that Russia and China wouldn’t just swallow up every neighboring country.
Not to mention when America does take a backseat and doesn’t get involves, shit like the Holocaust happens, but we’ll forget that for now, and ask ourselves like one of those classic rock bands, “yeah sure, but what have they done recently, their new albums suck!”
chomsky’s work really challenges your perspective, doesn’t it? i think his critique of the us government is a wake-up call for many. it’s heavy stuff.
Chomsky is EXTREMELY antiAmerican, often to an irrational degree by either blaming America for everything or ignoring or even denying atrocities that aren’t connected to America.
He is not a trustworthy or unbiased source. He’s got a fixation and his worldview is entirely centered around that fixation, causing problems if you want objective information. The dude’s a genocide denier on the basis that America said it was happening and thus clearly America HAD to be lying. In this particular case, the Khmer Rouge.
He’s a smart guy. Do not trust him when he’s discussing history or current events
Your problem was treating what Chomsky writes as non-fiction.
chomsky’s work can be really heavy, especially if you’re not used to his style. it’s okay to take a break if it’s getting too overwhelming. it’s important to engage with challenging ideas, but it’s also okay to step back when you need to.