Lunch With The FT: Noam Chomsky

 
The Black Sheep
350 Main St, Cambridge
Clam chowder $5
Tomato soup $5
Kale and salmon salad $14
Mixed salad $14
Coffee x2 $6
Total $0*
John McDermott left a $44 tip

This week's lunch is with Uncle Noam.
What a funny and often fabulous magazine this is...

Still, Chomsky thinks about how hard to hit his targets. He admits as much as our soups arrive. “Suppose I criticise Iran. What impact does that have? The only impact it has is in fortifying those who want to carry out policies I don’t agree with, like bombing.” He argues that any criticisms about, say, Chávez, will invariably get into the mainstream media, whereas those he makes about the US will go unreported. This unfair treatment is the dissident’s lot, according to Chomsky. Intellectuals like to think of themselves as iconoclasts, he says. “But you take a look through history and it’s the exact opposite. The respected intellectuals are those who conform and serve power interests."

* The owner, clearly a fan, picked up the tab.

Chomsky is in London next week, giving the 2013 Edward W Said London Lecture, Reflections On the Middle East, on Monday - which will be put online afterwards - and talking about propaganda at the British Library on Tuesday - there will be a live webcast on the night. Both events are sold out.

PS Today's Guardian Review runs a short piece, My Hero: Noam Chomsky by Charles Glass; "When you know some people better, you see their flaws. With Noam, it was the opposite."

Chomsky Fact! Noam has eaten a turkey on marble rye sandwich for lunch most workdays for the last twenty years, followed by a banana; "Isn’t it interesting”, he pauses, reflecting, “that eating a banana is somehow comical.” BYT Online.

Chomsky Quote! "I never was aware of any other option but to question everything."

Hugo Chavez: 1954-2013

I don't like politicians
Especially leaders
or anyone who seeks power, basically
(haven't we learnt by now they're the last people you should give it to?)
but along with Tito (and maybe Castro)
Hugo - friend to the poor (and to The Gays let's remember, though no-one does)
who stood up against American empire and hegemony
and gave 100s of millions of people in Latin America and around the world hope -
was probably as good as we'll get.
¡Viva Chavez!
La lucha continua...

• "If you want to know who Chavez was, just look at who is crying at his death, and who is celebrating it." - Fidel Castro, March 11th.

PS The vilification against Chavez was so great that papers like The Independent made up stories about him and his supporters being homophobic, which they eventually had to retract and apologise for. 
Your wonderful liberal British media at work there...
BUT I READ IT IN THE PAPER!!! etc etc.

Hugo Chavez: Independent Retracts Anti-Gay Slur

The Venezuela Solidarity Campaign today welcomed a decision by The Independent newspaper to retract a story titled: "Chavez's homophobic rant against challenger" (16 February 2012 by Simeon Tegel). The article has been withdrawn from its website.

On its website, The Independent explains: 
"Correction: An article in our foreign pages recently alleged that President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela had indulged in a "homophobic rant" against a political rival. We now accept that President Chavez did no such thing. We are happy to set the record straight."

Venezuela Solidarity Campaign. [Link now broken - sorry].
Here's the mighty Fagburn on this vile slur at the time.

Hugo Chavez: Communist Eats Gay Babies - Report

Chavez's Homophobic Rant Against Challenger

The Independent.
Odd headline.
Hugo Chavez has made no comment on Don Capriles' sexuality, never mind "a rant".
In fact nobody has made a "rant", as far as I'm aware.
Your source? "Mario Silva, who presents The Razorblade, a state-run TV show known for its assaults on Chavez critics, said Mr Capriles had been arrested in 2000 for having sex with another man in a car. Mr Capriles denies the accusation."
Mario Silva and Hugo Chavez are not the same person, dear - hence the different names.
And calling VTV "state-run" is as absurd as saying the BBC is "state-run" and claiming Jeremy Clarkson is the official spokesperson for David Cameron.
And how homophobic can you be if you try to introduce gay marriage, as Chavez did?
Still, all's fair when talking crap about one of our Officially Declared Enemies.
We must tell more lies.
Bombs away.
Hegemony - yay!

Bradley Manning: An Army Of One

'Bradley Manning’s Army of One
'How a lonely, five-foot-two, gender-questioning soldier became a WikiLeaks hero, a traitor to the U.S., and one of the most unusual revolutionaries in American history.'

Interesting/odd essay in New York magazine.
Why "traitor"?
Why mention his height in the intro?
Steve Fishman argues that it was "all in the mind", but does talk about Manning wanting to act morally.
He claims to have spoken to his father and an un-named gender counsellor.
But a counsellor wouldn't talk about a client - it's confidential (Fagburn has never seen any evidence for the rumours that Bradley was "gender-questioning").
And his father says Bradley's taken him off his visitor list, so one wonders what he says can be believed.
Most importantly (if it's true) it says how Adrian Lamo entrapped Bradley Manning by flirting with him - scum.
Be interested to hear what Bradley thinks about Julian Assange...

Update: The Guardian has run a piece on this that misses the Lamo story but concentrates on newly released weblogs where - allegedly -Manning says he was bullied for being gay in the army; "It took them a while, but they started figuring me out, making fun of me, mocking me, harassing me, heating up with one or two physical attacks."
But a "Guardian Exclusive" said this in May.

Update 2: Glenn Greenwald responds in Salon; The Motives Of Bradley Manning.
Greenwald's consistently defended Manning. He's also interviewed Lamo who he considers "deranged" and an attention-seeker.

Update 3: "It's obviously improper for the executive to intervene and impose a jail sentence without a trial [in Venezuela]. And I should say that the United States is in no position to complain about this. Bradley Manning has been imprisoned without charge, under torture, which is what solitary confinement is. The president in fact intervened. Obama was asked about his conditions and said that he was assured by the Pentagon that they were fine. That's executive intervention in a case of severe violation of civil liberties and it's hardly the only one. That doesn't change the judgment about Venezuela, it just says that what one hears in the United States one can dismiss..."
Noam Chomky in an interview with The Observer about Hugo Chavez. The full transcript was released by The Guardian today after Chomsky accused them of "extreme dishonesty" for the spin they had put on what he'd said.

Update 4: I've started a new post on what's turning into "Fishmangate".

Hugo Chavez: ¡Y Venceremos!

Fagburn doesn't think anyone should put so much faith in one person, but I hope you're okay...

Pop and Politics 1 - Mr Caracas meets Ms Crackers

"Oh yeah - Chavez has a huge crush on me," the ever-reliable and self-effacing Courtney Love has told Uncut magazine.
"No, seriously! He's been sending me flowers. I'm not shitting you."
Yes, seriously. She really is not "shitting you" - Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's left-wing president, met the mentally unbalanced bubbly Ms Love at a New York screening of Oliver Stone's new documentary about Latin America's Pink Tide, South of the Border.
"Oliver sat me in the front row - and I'm wearing this red dress, and it's quite short. Chavez had no idea who I was. Anyway, his aide - this gay guy who's totally into me - comes up and introduces me to Chavez, and I say, 'El Controversial!'. And then he kisses me, and says, 'I love America! I kissed a girl in a rock 'n' roll band!'"
"Now he sends me flowers. He's a cute little fat guy."
Fagburn also enjoys the fascinating fag fact - and ever so catchy internal rhyme; Chavez/has a/gay PA.
¡Olé!