<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Apr 18, 2010 at 12:04 AM, C. G. Estabrook <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:galliher@illinois.edu">galliher@illinois.edu</a>></span> wrote:</div>
<div class="gmail_quote"><br> </div>
<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex" class="gmail_quote">I can't understand this concern with whether political leaders are sincere. Is that any way to judge their policies? Was Hitler sincere? Probably. Was Kennedy? Probably not. Would their crimes have lessened if they were, or weren't?<br>
<br>You seem much more certain about the Teapartiers' positions (and their sincerity) than Chomsky is; he talks about their grievances, not their program.<br><br>Also, he doesn't quite say that "the antiwar movement today is far ahead of what it was in the days of Vietnam..." He's talking about the period between Kennedy's invasion of South Vietnam and the mid-1960s, when it was actually dangerous to have an anti-war demo on the Boston Common. But in a few years - by 1969 - 70% of Americans according to the polls of the Chicago Council of Foreign Relations saw the Vietnam war as immoral - a crime, not a mistake.<br>
<br>We obviously haven't reached that level yet. But it suggests how quickly opinions might change. --CGE </blockquote>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<div>It doesn't matter. The Tea Pottiers will still be stupid. They can't be informed or educated in any sense that we might understand, because their "thinking" consists entirely of cliched sound bites, and they're incapable of any sort of critical analysis.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Any time you have to wait until 70% of your peers change their minds about something before you change your own mind, you're a sheep. I haven't forgotten when blue-collar workers called male college students with long hair and beards "faggots", then ten years later all the factory workers were wearing long hair and beards.
<div> </div></div>
<div>I grew up surrounded by Tea Pottiers when they were called the "Silent Majority". They're not quite so silent these days at their precious Tea Parties, but they're equally stupid and ovine. Plus ca change, plus que c'est la meme chose.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Mordantly,</div>
<div> </div>
<div>John</div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex" class="gmail_quote">
<div>
<div></div>
<div class="h5">On 4/17/10 11:30 PM, Morton K. Brussel wrote:<br>
<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex" class="gmail_quote">So now, Chomsky is defending Palin and Limbaugh as being sincere (if<br>misinformed?)!<br><br>Someone should have asked him such questions as to why the tea partyers seem<br>
to have adored Reagan, why they hate any government run health reform, taxes<br>of any kind, why in general they haven't taken up cudgels against our wars<br>(Ron Paul and a few others excepted), but love the military. Not a word about<br>
military spending have I heard. How about the Patriot Act and terrorists? Is<br>it simply because they haven't been addressed by the "left", as Chomsky says?<br>Pretty disappointing. Will he next show up on their podium?<br>
<br>His present notions are consistent with his oft repeated claims that the<br>antiwar movement(?) today is far ahead of what it was in the days of Vietnam<br>at a similar juncture (even if there really isn't a similar juncture). Is<br>
this blind optimism? This was pretty lousy Chomsky, which makes me fear the<br>conference to take place in Paris for him, and to which I've bought tickets.<br>Maybe he'll praise the Le Pen folks there, the equivalent of our tea<br>
partyers. If only the left would explain stuff to them… --mkb<br><br><br>On Apr 17, 2010, at 9:55 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:<br><br>
<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex" class="gmail_quote"><br><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWs6g3L3fkU&feature=player_embedded" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWs6g3L3fkU&feature=player_embedded</a></blockquote>
</blockquote></div></div></blockquote>
<br />--
<br />This message has been scanned for viruses and
<br />dangerous content by
<a href="http://www.mailscanner.info/"><b>MailScanner</b></a>, and is
<br />believed to be clean.