I think a little sensitivity training is in order.

Also in need of such training are Keri Lyons and Nadia Collado, who demonstrated topless in front of Kimmel in what they called “a show of solidarity for Take Back NYU.” What would the clerics at the University of Gaza think about their actions?

anyways, still good times, chomsky is not a leader of the left (he’s too old anyways to do that) but his opinions and arguements are very valid.
i read some posts accusing him of this and that; baseless personal insults are ridiculous, and totally unrelated with any political discussion. even if for the sake of arguement we accept that w/e chomsky is accused of is true, that has nothing to do with his opinions.
the validity of an opinion is detached from the person voicing that opinion.

He is, of course, the man who was paid by the Pentagon for decades while railing against the Military Industrial Complex, has set up several tax shelters for himself and invested in War profiteers while declaring the evils of capitalism. In short, his views are just as wonderfully fractured and poorly thought out as the list of demands for this protest!

Sincerely,

Hitler
Founder, Chancellor
Nazi Party
Third Reich

Appeals to the administration for kindness to the students may accomplish something in the short term to remediate the damages that the student action has done to the students themselves. But unless the students understand that they are and have acted under a false premise, a mistaken understanding of social relations, then they and others like them will commit themselves to similarly futile, defeatist enterprises in the future. This is the agglomeration of piece-meal, fragmentary, identity politics leftism in the US, which operates as if isolated elements in the system can be addressed one at a time, independent of the whole, and treated like a cancer. Such an approach seeks to isolate and treat each reified instance as utterly disconnected from the whole. If only Israel wouldn’t bomb the Gaza, if only NYU would give scholarships to Gaza students, if only, if only, if only…

But NONE of these issues can be approached as single-issue items, or as an amalgam of cobbled together items, treated outside of the socio-economic and historical context and the whole organization of society under capitalism. And to treat them as such is to run the risks that these students have run: they have endangered their academic careers for a futile effort, because they operate from a false premise–that some sort of “action,” some mayhem, some “activist” trouble-making will effect change, when the total system is going to adjust to such disequilibrium in an instant, and restore order immediately. All that has happened is that the students have endangered their futures and made their own possible maneuverings in the world more difficult. And they have gained nothing from this sacrifice. Because liberal activism is flawed in its orientation due to a failure to understand the nature of the enemy, or the task at hand. I am not arguing for the status quo. I am arguing for an intelligent, programmatic and effective approach to changing it. And this sort of activity is not at all recommended.

The fact is, such liberal, progressive, radical “left” politics is doomed. It has no idea that you cannot lobby a corporation to be a nicer corporation because there are other compensations that will take place. Israel is the imperialist outpost of US capitalism, and it will not go away as such without ending capitalism. Period.

Similarly, private institutions will charge money, exploit their workers, alienate students, and tend toward higher prices, as long as private institutions exist. PERIOD.

The answer is to work with program, a party of the workers, to end the system that produces this entire reality.

You have taught me nothing, except that you have absolutely no understanding of political history, ideology, or historically effective political action.

Noam Chomsky represents a completely impossible and utterly ineffectual political “ideal”–anarchism–which has never and will never effect anything, because it is based on a false premise, that “government” (or organizations, or what have you) itself is the issue, rather than that the class-character of the government is the issue.
Those who understand that the government under capitalism is the organizing committee of the ruling class understand that government PER SE is not the problem, but rather class-based government of the bourgeoisie (or whatever ruling class in history, including the aristocrats). The proletariat, taking over the government, does not abolish government. It abolishes the class-character of government.

Chomsky has no ideas for anything other than criticizing Israel from a standpoint of the “left” and some notion that US imperialism and its outpost in Israel could be abolished without abolishing capitalism itself. Israel is an occupying force fully endorsed and buttressed by the imperialist enterprises of the US. That cannot be otherwise under capitalism, which is always going to be imperialistic.

It is not possible to abolish the imperialism of the US without abolishing capitalism. But Chomsky eschews and condemns as “authoritarian” those actual revolutionaries that have actually made revolution against capitalism. And instead, he encourages this sort of piece-meal, unprogramatic, anarchic, clueless, defeatist, naive and unfortunately defeating forms of protest and action that have not gained a thing and cannot gain a thing.

They cannot work because you don’t LOBBY a corporation to be “nicer” corporations, as such. No, you do away with corporations. You don’t ask for a kinder, gentler machine-gun hand of the bourgeois state. You do away with the bourgeois state. Actions that are predicated on a false understanding of the socio-political and economic realities are doomed to failure. Period. That’s why this action will result in the career suicides of a few while delivering nothing for the many.

“This is what democracy looks like?” NO, this is not what democracy looks like. Democracy is inconsistent with a corporate-owned and run university. The students occupied such a building. Such an occupation cannot be democratic because the owners are the arbiters of the space, and what goes on there. Democracy doesn’t exist in such a setting.

“The Megaphone desktop tool is a Windows “action alert” tool developed by Give Israel Your United Support (GIYUS) and distributed by World Union of Jewish Students, World Jewish Congress, The Jewish Agency for Israel, World Zionist Organization, StandWithUs, Hasbara fellowships, HonestReporting, and other pro-Israel public relations, media watchdog, or activism organizations. The tool delivers real-time alerts about key articles, videos, blogs, and surveys related to Israel or the Arab-Israeli conflict, especially those perceived by GIYUS to be highly critical of Israel, so that users can vote or add comments expressing their support of Israel. The tool was released in July during the 2006 Lebanon War. An RSS newsfeed is available so that non-Windows users may also receive the Megaphone “action alerts.”