Why I think Chomsky is actually wrong

Chomsky is appealing for progressives to abandon their deeply-felt convictions and vote for Kerry.

This is the first time that I truly think Chomsky is wrong. I haven’t read everything he’s written (hell, I haven’t read one of his books cover-to-cover) but to this point I don’t feel I would stand a chance debating him, and further, I don’t think I’ve ever felt he was misguided.

The whole progressives-for-selling-out (read: vote for Kerry) movement that he’s helping plug is just against everything I thought was supposed to be important. So, what, progressives in the United States are supposed to support a candidate who most likely does not stand for the *majority* of their beliefs? They are supposed to support a war candidate? They are supposed to support a party that has dictated many evil travesties and foreign policy blunders (read: war upon war upon genocide upon war) and still pretended to be the party of the left?

Chomsky is right. There is a difference between Bush and Kerry. The trouble is, with Chomsky’s infinite wisdom, he doesn’t come out and say – guess what folks – the differences are nuanced. Pro-choice but not pro-same-sex marriage. Pro-war but not.. whoops, he’s the same as Bush. Oh wait, he’d spend MORE on the military machine known as the Pentagon to get the boys and girls better gear. After all, spending more to protect the innocent lives of soldiers sent to a ficticiously-staged war is all that matters, instead of spending more on actually researching the foiled intelligence that sent them there in the first place.

Chomsky knows vast quantities more than I do about pretty much everything. I think he’s right up there with the geniuses of our time – maybe of our species’ history. But I think Chomsky is wrong. Voting for Kerry does not a better world make. It may make a calmer world, but perhaps this chaos that we’re all feeling (and honestly, people, we’re not all feeling it- more than 50% of decided voters in the United States don’t feel the chaos like we do) will inspire us. I think we need it.

If the PETA ads on animal welfare don’t bug us enough to call them, if the ridiculous television shows don’t bug us enough to cancel our subscriptions, if the pop-up ads on the internet don’t bug us enough to say, “FUCK YOU MICROSOFT! Fix your software!”; if the consumerism trends of Wal-Mart, big boxes and malls don’t make us cry for salvation, then why should Kerry’s election change anything? That’s exactly the point. It won’t. It will lull us into complacency.

The only thing we have found wrong publicly with Clinton was the sex scandal – as if it was any of anyone’s business in the first place. No one critiques the policies, no one questions the lack of judgment, conviction to values or attitude as leader-of-the-nation-most-likely-to-do-the-most (damage or aid?)

Kerry might win. I don’t think I would feel any better about the state of the world if he does – after all, democracy will likely go back to the 1990s feel-good-about-nothing attitude.

At least now, in a state of crisis, people might get off their asses, stop counting carbs and start counting dead Iraqi bodies – that way, they could realise what deprived lives we are leading unless we do something about the world. Kerry is the one-way ticket to more Atkins and less Acting for the betterment of the populace around us.

And no, that’s not supposed to be a zinger or attention grabber. It wasn’t even thought about for more than five seconds. It’s not supposed to make me feel superior to Chomsky nor any US Citizen who at the end of the day still votes for Kerry. It’s just a lament about the general state of things. Oh how I wish life’s experiences in this day were a little more lenient on my conscience.