24461: Leiderman (reply) to 24455: US-Haiti by Noam Chomsky (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Stuart M Leiderman <leidermn@cisunix.unh.edu>


Dear Readers:

As much as Noam Chomsky deserves credit for his tightly-crafted hypotheses
of intrigue and power politics in the world, I think his high-altitude
analysis of Haiti is nothing  more than beating a dead horse (cheval
mort?) and it is of no value to the country's slum residents, factory
and plantation workers, and rural people.  Who is his intended audience,
what bar and grill do they frequent and what is their cocktail of choice?

I always give Prof. Chomsky the benefit of my doubt and I always look for
a new idea from him, but I never find any.  This kind of article may
fulfill his publish-or-perish obligations but it is nothing more than
another unnecessary epitaph over an old Haitian gravesite.  He didn't even
leave flowers.

I think the best use of Prof. Chomsky's talent might be to simply write a
fiction, a la Franz Kafka's "The Metamporphosis," where this skilled
parser of power politics suddenly wakes up in the body of the Prime
Minister of Haiti.  Would he take it as a horrible turn of events or as
the opportunity of a lifetime?

Thank you,

Stuart Leiderman