Responding to msg by jamesd@netcom.com (James A. Donald) on Tue, 20 Sep 3:22 PM

Of course Noam Chomsky is optimistic - he favors limitless and absolute state power and the forcible and violent silencing of all those who deviate from political correctness.

If I was campaigning to make a the US a totalitarian terrorist state, I would be full of optimism.

I respectfully suggest that that's not what Chomsky advocates. He makes superior detailed analysis and criticism of authoritarian government by brilliantly attacking weak-willed ideologues of all political persuasions which hide under skirts of tyrants. On the contrary, his optimism, it seems to me, derives from his own hard work and original thinking not from parroting any party line. With this he is in the company of original thinkers like Karl Hess, Murrary Bookchin and others who have garnered the courage to grow beyond the simple faith of left-right comforts and conceits. Their writings have a generosity of scope and purpose that exemplify how to assess specific problems and to prescribe remedies, and thereby perhaps help us break free of the mesmerizing, melodramatic defecations of partisan politics. Or so I optimistically muse. John