If we don’t believe in freedom of
expression for people we despise,
we don’t believe in it at all.
Noam Chomsky
I often wonder as I grow older will there be any signs of me slowing down in my views, making life easier at dinner parties by not necking the Sancerre and pointing out the failings of Capitalism at the nearest white person, rendering me more conservative mainstream and ultimately middle class and grey.
Then I am reminded of the radicals that still lurk in our midst, untouched by conformity and leaving me with a smirk of joyful defiance as I continue to pull on my mod jacket, and ride my environmentally hugging moped. Chomsky is one hell of an intelligent influential man and a true radical anarchist that defines himself as a Libertarian Socialist.
He has enabled me not to feel dirty about my Socialist past influences because Socialism and freedom are inseparable! I keep forgetting in freedom, which isn’t difficult when I am surrounded by such a distinct lack of it. I agree with him on a lot of his views and feel what sullied the meaning of Socialism was the cold war propaganda and pulls of power.
“For the Bolsheviks, the goal of the farce was to extract what advantage they could from the moral prestige of Socialism, for the West, the purpose was to defame Socialism and entrench the system of ownership and management control over all aspects of economic, political and social life”.
But I’m not going to get into the political debates, just want to throw out a gentle reminder to all of us that don’t want to conform to stay strong. Just because the rest of them are comfortable in their woollen jackets slopping off to the poll stations to scribe the inevitable, doesn’t mean us radicals should be disheartened.
Intellects ARE the power – I have always defined my life with this but as he says with such knowledge comes great responsibility, it is up to us to expose the lies of governments and not join their corruptive power. People are so afraid of the telling the truth, of course for some that could mean death but for the rest of us it’s the only way to start getting rid of these dictatorships that hang over our lives.
He’s eighty-one and still defiant and if you haven’t discovered him till now and need some inspiration just to get you to the next stage of your activism, well here he is. I’m finding him an unclenched fist approach to my understanding of development and continued poverty and if you knew me, then you would know it’s a lot safer to be around me at parties now…just.
