Friday, December 4, 2009

On Chomsky's lecture at the Edward Said Memorial

On Mondoweiss, this account of Chomsky's Lecture:
Chomsky: the ‘unipolar moment’ is working out fine for ‘the satisfied nations’

Last night, Noam Chomsky delivered the Edward Said Memorial Lecture at Columbia on "The Unipolar Moment and the Culture of Imperialism." Some notes from David Bromwich who was there:

"Chomsky took up a major theme of Said’s writings. In the big constellation, Enlightenment/Rationalism/Liberalism/Democratic Values, a missing word and concept that should be understood to accompany the others is Imperialism. He addressed "the unipolar moment," which started in 1989 with the end of Soviet Communism and the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. The self-congratulatory tone of recent commemorations of November 1989 tended to make people forget certain other stopping points on the way to unchallenged U.S. hegemony. A short survey followed of the destructiveness of the "settler colonialism" that cleared North America of its indigeneous peoples. J.Q. Adams spoke out clearly of the policy as "perfidious" and regretted "the heinous sins of this nation" against "that hapless race." The equinamity, by contrast, of the mainstream wisdom now is epitomized by J.L. Gaddis: "expansion is the path to security."

13 comments:

  1. <span><span>I wonder why v is now signing off as VR on Mondoweiss? Virgil Rex? </span></span>

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  2. Not really vza,  nice attempt but wrong name (pseudo). They actually had a systemic slip at Mondo where they were putting my real name (in registration) up on the site,  so we corrected it and left a two letter handle with a new password. 

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  3. However,  if you read the post over there,  you will notice there is no shortage on people who do not know what they are talking about on the site...lol

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  4. Or you could call me what you like Rex,  rex lex odipus rex,  virgil vespian,  vanda....lol

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  5. :-D I like virgil vespasian!

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  6. I don't know...vespasienne in French is public toilets or street toilets.

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  7. Oh dear, back to virgil rex!

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  8. Vespasian was a Romain emperor who decreed a tax on  urine collection from households and streets. Urinals in Paris were named after him. They used to be many and I remember them for their peculiar architecture. They were replaced  now  and only one is left in Boulevard Arago( see photo) Another particularity about them is that they used to be a meeting place for homosexuals..

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  9. <span>Thanks for the interesting bit of Paris history trivia!
    </span>

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  10. You're welcome..
    But since we're on with kings ( Rex) and  emperors why not Virgil Royal or Virgil Regal..I'm sure v would be happy with that.

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  11. Ah yes...king of the<span> urinals,  truly a title to covet :)
    </span>

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  12. a shocking title in fact  king of the urinal , actually very nice it has a mult-interpertation for imperialism inqueries to homosexuality

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