[Peace-discuss] Chomsky remarks on the election

[Phil Stinard]

Thanks, Mort, for posting the Chomsky blog.  He criticizes Kerry, discounts 
fraud as affecting the election results, and says that the election was like 
tossing a coin to pick a king, views that I hold to a certain extent.  I dug 
down through the responses to find one that asks the one remaining question 
that I have.  We'll see if he responds:

Comment by kevinarchibald posted on Friday, November 12 at 04:39 AM:

Especially in light of Chomksy's comments above about how meaningless this 
election was, and about how many issues were off the table, I'd love to hear 
from Chomsky on why he decided to sign off on the vote2stopbush.com petition 
that advocated voting for Kerry in swing states. I voted for Cobb, but I 
have to agree with Nader that issues were off the table because 
progressives, and this especially goes for high-profile progressives such as 
Chomsky, Zinn, and Mooree, essentially gave Kerry their vote by not 
advocating an aggressive presidential campaign in all states. Now I agree we 
people who say the best progressive advertising is to start local and work 
upwards, where each success gains the confidence of the people in giving our 
candidates more power. But, if as Chomsky says, we're already substantial, 
then we could have made a difference in at least the last two presidential 
elections, when many believed the elections were going to be close, and it 
was all about turnout. Like a union going on strike, we could have refused 
to vote for Kerry, unless important progressive issues were part of the 
party platform, stump speeches, and debates.

>Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 11:24:11 -0600
>From: Morton K.Brussel <brussel4 at insightbb.com>
>Subject: [Peace-discuss] Chomsky remarks on the election
>To: peace-discuss at lists.cu.groogroo.com
>Message-ID: <8059E3A9-3406-11D9-BCDB-000502314E22 at insightbb.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
>
>For those who thought that Chomsky was hiding after the election, here
>are comments from his blog. I think they are overly dismissive
>regarding the election, and hence I recommend that people look at the
>ZNet web site (blogs) for readers' responses. They are equally
>interesting/informative. mkb
>
>Some election comments...
>Posted by Noam Chomsky at 03:05 PM
>
>We have a fairly clear idea of what [Bush?s] planners want, but what we
>can expect depends on circumstances, including those we create.  That?s
>what should concern us, not speculating about what we cannot know.
>
>The outcome was a disappointment, but there have been disappointments
>before.  Take 1984, when essentially the same gang of thugs?a little
>less tilted to the extreme reactionary statist side?won by a 2-1
>margin, with about the same percentage of the electoral vote as today.
>And they were engaged in horrendous atrocities abroad and very harsh
>and destructive programs for most of the population at home.  The world
>didn?t come to an end.  In fact, activism proved quite effective.
>
>I don?t think that the Kerry campaign even tried to include the
>opinions of most of the population, including those who voted for
>Kerry.  People will vote their class interests when they see some
>credible political force that might represent those interests.  That?s
>not Kerry or the DLC.  There are urban-rural differences, but even
>greater differences internal to each.  We can reach out to people,
>urban or rural, by taking them and their concerns seriously, trying to
>understand them, and working to find ways to realize legitimate
>concerns, without compromising our own principles.  The same way we
>work in, say, liberal academic communities, where there is also vast
>diversity.
>
>As to fraud, etc. I don?t think it is a major issue, even if true.  The
>election had about the significance of tossing a coin to pick a king.
>If the coin was slightly biased, that?s unfair, but not the main issue.
>   The much more important point is that the opinions of the majority of
>the population were excluded from the political arena on major issues.
>People voted for the imagery concocted by the PR industry.  Exit polls
>reveal that clearly.  But to discover whether the imagery is accurate,
>we have to compare people?s attitudes and beliefs with the actual
>programs.  There?s plenty of interesting and credible evidence on this,
>and when we investigate it, we discover that people were hopelessly
>misled.  Voters for both candidates assumed, overwhelmingly, that the
>candidates held their views, which is demonstrably false.  In fact,
>voters recognized that they could not vote on
>agenda/policies/programs/ideas?about 10% gave that as their reasons?but
>only on imagery.  And in a society based crucially on deceit (what is
>advertising?), it is quite natural that the political managers and the
>PR industry will run elections the same way.  To repeat, there is
>overwhelming evidence that the opinions of the majority of the
>population on major issues were simply off the agenda, either within
>the political parties or in mainstream discussion, with rare
>exceptions.  That democratic deficit seems to me far more important
>than the possibility that the coin that was tossed was biased.
>
>
>Bush won slightly more than 30% of the electorate, Kerry slightly under
>30%.  I doubt that fraud had much to do with it.  That?s about what I
>personally predicted, if that matters; am collecting some symbolic bets
>from friends, and even wrote about it a bit, on Znet.  It is
>meaningless.  It tells us virtually nothing about the country, just as
>it would tell us nothing if there had been a slight shift in votes and
>Kerry had won with a meaningless slight plurality.  The important
>issues are: the opinions of the majority of the population on major
>issues were off the agenda, people voted for one or another image
>conducted by the PR salesman, and the images have little to do with
>reality.