I did like you asked and read that book, Hegemony or Survival, by that committed anti-American lunatic Noam Chomsky. While Mr. Chomsky masquerades as a thoughtful dissenter, he is nothing more than a tired old leftist unable to learn from social failures in China, the Soviet Union, the Eastern Block, and now Venezuela.
Mr. Chomsky’s ubiquitous use of quotations alerts us of an authoritative posture and a knowledgeable store of information which he flings down upon readers from a sanctimonious perch. Unfortunately, the unending citations, which keep reminding us how much he knows, make it difficult to get through sentences without having to reread them over and over. All the while he beats us into submission with prose so dry and devoid any humor, rhythm, or poetry, that it’s tough to stay awake.
By the time I fought my way through a couple chapters I found I was just trying to claw to the end so I could proclaim—I did it!
It is very difficult to make any kind of analysis when a work is such a chore to read, but Mr. Chavez, I am a dedicated trooper and I wanted to make sure that perhaps I was not missing something about leftist ideology which you so proudly embrace and deride Americans for not holding more dear.
I can confidently tell you I didn’t find the illustrious pot of gold, and it wasn’t for not trying (I am a very hard worker).
Problem is, words only possess convincing argument when they can be attributable to veracity witnessed in the real world.
After you get past Chomsky’s historic and conceivably factual regurgitations you are still battered by tired and predictable propaganda. Years ago, talking about Daimler’s intention to build automobile factories in Alabama, Chomsky proclaimed it was a corporate willingness to deliberately reduce the standard of living for workers that drove the evil auto manufacturer, never acknowledging that perhaps market competition drove the company to reduce its costs; as if insuring misery upon workers was somehow a corporate directive.
No matter how Hegemony or Survival obliterates clear and understandable language to distract the reader, it doesn’t change the fact that this thesis is ridiculous: The U.S. will not survive if she tries to be too strong.
I am sure Harry Reid and John Kerry agree with you, but any school boy who’s endured a fist fight will tell you that’s a bunch of crap.
Now I’ll give it to you that Noam Chomsky’s style is so dull and mind-numbing, that by the time you get to his vituperate attacks on the Bush administration, as a reader, you really have too little energy left to put up any passionate resistance. Instead you slog through paragraph after paragraph passively acknowledging—this guy is off his rocker.
In spite of the fact that I am not too keen on your book recommendation, I must admit I quite enjoyed your “fire in brimstone” speech at the United Nations. Probably not quite as colorful as something we would expect to hear from Al Sharpton, but easily as humorous as something emanating from Al Franken, Charlie Wrangle, or that Abscam dickhead Jack Murtha…and I would say your delivery was much better.
So what was it I was so suppose to learn from this book Mr. Chavez? Can I call you Hugo?
The United States of America is going to be in big trouble if we don’t heed the warnings of a whacked out University leftist endorsed by a little piss ant dictator?
It is nice that you’ve got that Iranian Holocaust denier, the Cuban guy with great health care programs (according to Democrats and Michael Moore), and a North Korean knucklehead all on your side; all that and a few hundred atom bombs, and you’re still nothing but a defiant little shit.
I know you’ve also got Sean Penn, Danny Glover, and Harry Bellefonte, and for that I am truly envious.
Your book recommendation did introduce me to one concept I was intrigued by. In this torturous diatribe Chomsky laments the United States policy of venturing to expand its dominating strength and influence.
Imagine that.
What State doesn’t do that?
What you really are ticked about is your inability to exert influence as we do. Welcome to the real world.
Let me indulge one more school days recollection and recall how I wasn’t the biggest kid in the class and had to endure the taunts and ridicule of bigger kids. I was never going to be big enough or strong enough to kick the crap out of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and I wasn’t going to be quarterback for the Raiders either. I wasn’t even likely to go to college and climb the corporate ladder.
I recognized I might be able to work hard, earn some honest money, and perhaps through the experiences I was capable of, make a difference in our world.
That, Mr. Chavez, is called being a grown up.
If I tried to kick Arnold’s ass I’d have been squashed like a bug.
Compared to the United States, you my friend, are not even a bug.
Sincerely,
James V. Pontillo II
American Patriot
Copyright 2007 Jim Pontillo
