I first came across Noam Chomsky in 1996 when I watched an interview between him and Andrew Marr, a brilliant British journalist. I wasn’t a big fun of journalists, though they do a very good and important job in every vibrant democracy. While my views have changed, at the time, I felt that some of them were self serving, so I was very happy that he had the better part of Andrew Marr in that interview. As a result, I started looking around for more of this my overnight sensational hero. It was at the beginning of the internet revolution, so I didn’t have one, though it is now a common modern day accessory in every lower middle class home. Clearly, it was difficult laying my hands on his first political book: American Power and the New Mandarins. When I got it, I didn’t read it critically, because of my leftist leanings.
It was in the year 2000 when I re-read Alvin Toffler’s Power Shift, which I had read seven years earlier, and the revelation was like a thunderbolt. I was surprised that a book that I have read before could resonate so much on me after its second reading. I asked myself subtly, which other books in my collection I read uncritically. Due to that life changing experience, I started working my way back. And that was when I picked up Chomsky’s ‘American Power and the New Mandarins’ again. At this point in time, a lot of water had flowed under the bridge regarding my intellectual development, geopolitical world view and critical thinking. It also happened that I had the benefit of the internet, though it was dial up and not as fast as today, but it could still do the job of quickly cross checking simple facts without having to swing by rucksack on my back and making my way to the British Library. It was freedom. As I re-read the book I came across a statement he attributed to Harry S. Truman. My curiosity then was hyperactive, because I was trying to get into the mind of the American president who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I, therefore, quickly dial it up; you couldn’t google then, and it was very frustrating getting the speech on the net, but eventually I got hold of it and read it. It is quite a speech; well over 3,500 words. I read the speech about twice, and I could not locate the reference, and I got spooked. Under normal circumstances if not because of my ultra interest in Truman I wouldn’t have bordered to cross check such information, especially when it is coming from an MIT professor. In fact, to say that I was surprised or shocked was an understatement. I was frightened. I worried which other books have I read without critical examination. It was my graduation into the world of propaganda. And from then, it became laborious for me to read historical books, since I have to be hundred percent sure of what I was reading.
The fact is President Harry S Truman never made that statement. If he did make it elsewhere I am not sure. As far as I can see Noam Chomsky made it up. It was complete fabrication, yet he gave reference to that falsehood and unmitigated lie, which does not even qualify for a white lie. It is absolute evil intent designed to mislead the public. And what did Mr Kwarteng write to his credit? He said, ‘he relies on declassified congressional data, among others to make his case.’ For those who are interested, I don’t normally do this, but since Mr Kwarteng put my integrity on the line and the ignorance of some his ilk I will provide you with a quick access to it. The quote on Harry S. Truman can be found in his book on page 318-319, i.e. the 1969 edition. This is what Noam Chomsky wrote in his book, ‘suppose, that is, that American policy ceases to be dominated by the principles that were crudely outlined by President Truman almost twenty years ago, when he suggested in a famous and important speech that the basic freedom is freedom of enterprise and that the whole world should adopt the American system, which could survive in America only if it became a world system.’ This is not a quote that can be characterised as misquotation; it is outright complete fabrication. Yet, he referenced it in his book. So I am not surprised that Mr Kwarteng will champion an idiot like that, because he has done it to me when he made reference to my article entitled: Using Cuba To Defend Nkrumahism Is Laughable. I wrote, ‘On Hitler’s Mein Kampf, if I haven’t read it I would have done so out of curiosity. I wouldn’t do it for intellectual or academic reason, because it is complete twaddle.’ When he commented on it, because he needed it to fit into his narrative, he turned the whole thing upside down and wrote, ‘Now returning to other matters, is it not strange that Mr. Baidoo, Jr. will not read Adolf Hitler too? Of course Mr. Baidoo, Jr. is entitled to his position not to read Hitler. Reading one author as opposed to anther[sic] is a personal choice no one should disrespect. On this score, however, we shall not fault Mr. Baidoo, Jr. We, on the other hand, have read Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” for a number of reasons.’
As far as I am concerned, when it comes to intellectual integrity one strike and you are out. I do not offer a second chance. On Chomsky’s folly, he is not some third grade intellectual, or some freelance historian trying to make a living for Christ sake. He had the resources to conduct proper research, because when he wrote that book he had held a chair at MIT for seven years. So there is no excuse other than deliberate fraud and fabrication of evidence to fit into Chomsky’s world view. This is an intellectual example, for the rest of his lies I am even ashamed to catalogue them. So while you sit by the internet just have fun by looking up for his shameful misrepresentation and distortion of world events, which people like Mr Kwarteng fall over themselves to read.
He may have thousand and one awards to his name; it doesn’t mean a thing to me now, especially when he tried to swindle me when I paid £8 for that book in a second hand book shop in Holborn. He may be brilliant, but he takes very silly positions, which even an O-Level student will know better. There are a lot of brilliant people who make fools of themselves. For example, nobody can question the intelligence of Martin Heidegger. Yet, he took the gloss off his intelligence when he dragged his name in the mad by supporting and justifying Nazism philosophically. Mr Kwarteng’s obsession with awards, without doubt, borders on psychosis. He keeps throwing them around as if it is something to cherish. You can lobby to have the black congressional caucus honouring a race hustler like Al Sharpton who feeds on the corpses of his fellow black people. And you will be telling me to celebrate that? Not a chance in hell.
Communism is evil without qualification as far as I am concerned. Marxism is lethal evil squared. America, in the last century, was on a mission to stop the spread of communism in the world, and he went into some unholy alliance. If America had completely lost in the Korean peninsula, all the productive skills of the South Koreans would have been lost to the world. It is extremely silly and intellectually bankrupt to suggest that, because America allied itself to some repulsive regimes to defeat communism it was also as guilty as those regimes. Can anybody in his right mind argue that Churchill was guilty for the crimes of Stalin, because he went into alliance with him to defeat Hitler? Churchill said, ‘If Hitler invaded hell I would make, at least, a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.’ What Churchill was on about is that he can make an accommodation with the devil to defeat a greater evil. It is, therefore, complete nonsense and unvarnished stupidity for anybody to make such argument. That is why I don’t have any use for a person like Avram Noam Chomsky, because this is the sort of silly argument he makes all the time.
If Mr Kwarteng has got no mind of his own, and will read these idiots and fill up his discourse with them that is fine, but please don’t ask me to join your band wagon. I have got an independent mind and I can think for myself. I don’t need a silly self-loathing person like Chomsky to think straight. Majority of the leftist American intellectuals want to hear exactly the rubbish he manufacture all the time, and since some of them can’t think for themselves so they need a person like him to think for them.
You don’t need validation when you make sensible and watertight argument. When you are not sure of the rigorousness of your argument that is when you need others to vouch for its validity. Like in a law court, a single person testimony becomes suspicious. That is when, at best, they add circumstantial evidence, DNA, timeline of the accused where about when the crime he is accused was committed, and many more. Thank you
Philip Kobina Baidoo Jnr
London
baidoo_philip@yahoo.co.uk
Copyright © 1994 - 2024 GhanaWeb. All rights reserved.
