Chomping Chomsky

While the left identitarians went hard after many of the signers of the Harper’sLetter on Justice and Open Debate” a few days ago (especially Potter-purveyor J.K. Rowling), one prominent lefty name that escaped wrath was Noam Chomsky, though his presence on the list of signers did raise a lot of eyebrows. Maybe it’s because he hasn’t said anything crossways about trans-identity dogma that denies anatomy, physiology, and genetics, though it is perhaps worth noting the surprising fact that Chomsky dissented sharply from one of the core postmodernist principles that there is no human nature, and famously debated Michel Foucault on this issue way back in 1971. (The whole cumbersome thing can be found on YouTube, but here’s a short extract.)

Anyway, just to be sure, Chomsky decided to go full berzerker wacko a few days ago, as reported by Campus Reform:

Prof: Trump is the ‘worst criminal in history, undeniably’

Noam Chomsky, Laureate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona, recently spoke during an interview on the Michael Brooks Show about the “worst criminal in history” President Donald Trump and the Republican party’s “deep hatred of democracy and fear of democracy.”

According to Chomsky, “Trump is the worst criminal in history, undeniably.” Chomsky described Trump as the “gangster in the White House,” who “has killed tens of thousands of Americans.” Trump’s crimes go far beyond this  and “the worst of it is coming,” Chomsky claimed, for he is to be blamed for “the heating of the globe.”

Chomsky claimed that Trump’s response to combating global warming is deadly to the human race, and “there is no crime like this in human history.” “If he can pour more profits into his pockets and the pockets of his rich constituency tomorrow,” Chomsky said, “who cares if the world disappears in a couple of generations?”

Okay, so Trump is not Hitler. He’s worse than Hitler! Except Chomsky starts to get confusing in the very next sentence:

Trump is not a fascist, Chomsky admitted, but his mentality is that of a “tin-pot dictator of some small country where they have coups every couple of years.” Chomsky stated that “Trump is taking the worst aspects of capitalism… and amplifying them.”

Perhaps this is because Chomsky actually doesn’t mind fascism. Anyway, there’s more!

Chomsky claimed that Ronald Reagan initiated these problems by starting “the neoliberal assault on the population, arguing that government is the problem, not the solution.” Trump, he added, is the “wrecker” and has heightened these problems by dismantling and defunding “every health-related aspect of the government.”

Chomsky said that all Trump “has done is cause chaos.” Neoliberalism, with the private ownership of nursing homes and other hospital models, leaves Trump with the responsibility of “telling us how wonderful we are for destroying the nursing homes, killing all the elderly people.”

“It goes deep into issues well before Trump, but he is a unique phenomenon — again, the worst criminal in human history,” Chromsky said, “so his minor crimes are to destroy American democracy and to amplify a pandemic killing over a hundred thousand people. But those are minor crimes by his standards.”

Maybe with this demented drivel Chomsky is trying to position himself to serve in a Biden cabinet?

Back up, though, and notice that Chomsky is billed as a Laureate Professor at the University of Arizona. Somehow I missed the news that he’s either left or is on leave from his longtime home at MIT. He is on tap to teach three classes (online one supposes) in the fall, though a check shows that it is actually one class (“Meaning in Language and Society”)  with three sections, each with a graduate teaching assistant. But only 8 (eight) students have signed up for any of the sections so far.

Meanwhile, the University of Arizona today announced the layoff of 250 staff because of the financial hit the university has suffered from COVID-19 (a $280 million shortfall for the coming year). Sadly, Chomsky wasn’t among them. The campus identitarians are complaining about the cuts in predictable ways:

Faculty and staff teaching first year English courses and leading research on student retention were among those cut, according to Coalition for Academic Justice at the University of Arizona (CAJUA). . . Celeste González de Bustamante, an associate professor and member of CAJUA, said the cuts happened in areas that are critical to the university’s mission, especially in serving marginalized students. . .

“It’s sending a message that our university is really only open to students with privilege, it’s only open to students who are wealthy and can afford luxury housing and have the financial support that’s needed to be successful at the university,” [Alex] Karaman [a student retention specialist] said. . .

“I think President Robbins would rather see his face on the next Space X rocket as it flies to the moon, than he would increase retention and graduation rates of students of color at the university,” Karaman said.

I recommend that they go check in with Chomsky. Hey—he’s got plenty of room in his course! I’m sure he can reassure everyone that it is all Trump’s fault.

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