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Professor Falk's defense of Chomsky was disappointing. He praises Chomsky for his "integrity and courage" and his "crucial insights into the malfunctioning of our democratic political order." He also writes that Chomsky's judgments "stand brilliantly the test of time," and that to dismiss him as a polemicist is "absurd." Permit me to ask Professor Falk a few questions: 1. Does he believe that Chomsky's defense of the Vietnamese communists on numerous crucial issues (e.g. land reform, the nature of their political system, and their re-education camps) "stand brilliantly the test of time"? As an example, see what Chomsky and the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars wrote about communist land reform policies in their 1970, "The Indochina Story." On Chomsky and the re-education camps, see Chapter 4 in Chomsky's and Herman's 1979 book, "After the Cataclysm." 2. How can Falk argue that Chomsky is not a polemicist when it seems quite clear that, in Chomsky's his mind, you are either on his side or you are an apologist for barbarism and unspeakable crimes? Read, for example, his review of Guenter Lewy's "America in Vietnam" (in chapter 5 of Chomsky's, "Towards a New Cold War"). In it, Chomsky castigated Lewy's arguments as "morally grotesque" and "intellectually worthless." The result, Chomsky wrote, "is a form of apologetics for massacre and destruction....for which no comparison comes to mind apart from the worst excesses of Nazi and Stalinist scholarship.'" Is this the spirit of democratic debate? 3. What "crucial insights into the malfunctioning of our democratic political order" does Chomsky provide? For many years, Chomsky has been re-hashing dated Marxist theories about how America's political system is dominated by business leaders who want to do nothing but keep people stupid and rape the world of all the money and goods they can find. Is this serious scholarship? Anders G. Lewis
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