Re: <nettime> DeeDee Halleck on Herb Schiller's death

["Robert Simon" <robertms@euronet.nl>]

geert lovink wrote:

>Like Chomsky,
> [Schiller's] lack of knowledge about the history of the Sovjet Union, stalinism and
> the destruction of people's lives, cities, countries and nature by sovjet
> communism is highly disturbing.  But this counts for many of the old
> leftists, who are themselves a product of the Cold War (both in Europe,
> the US and in the 'Third World'). Net criticism is a movement from '89'
> and therefor celebrates the fall of the Wall and the end of these
> dictatorships, from my point of view.


Prashanth Mundkur wrote:

>I am
> curious if you can provide examples of Chomsky's 
> ignorance of the nature of Soviet communism.


I too would appreciate examples. 

For decades, Chomsky has been explicit and consistent in his critique and
condemnation of the Soviet Union, and "Soviet-style" socialism, and so G.
Loovink's remark seems itself to be somewhat "disturbing". Moreover, it is
unclear to me at least how Chomsky is an "old leftist", if this is meant
to mean that he has somehow supported the Soviet Union/system in some way
(see the sentence above), or, that his critical positions have been shaped
by a bi-polar "cold-war" world-view--he has explicitly and consistently
critiqued and rejected such a critical framework. In fact, the focus on
"89", and the "fall of the wall" as some kind of general anno zero seems
to fall entirely within the framework provided by the cold-war worldview. 


Robert Simon



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