Chomsky Banned in Guantánamo
That’s right. A book by the leading leftwing intellectual in America is verboten in the prison library there.
Though the library has 16,000 books, according to the Miami Herald, and though some of them deal with politics and current events, a book of Chomsky’s essays post 9/11 was expressly denied to a Guantánamo prisoner.
All of those essays were op-eds that Chomsky had originally written for the New York Times syndicate.
A spokesperson for the prison said “force protection reasons” precluded him from discussing the matter, but he confirmed that not a single copy of any Chomsky book was in the library.
Chomsky was his usual matter-of-fact self. “This happens sometimes in totalitarian regimes,” he told the Miami Herald.
But it shouldn’t happen at Guantánamo.
Nor should such censorship happen in U.S. prisons here at home.
Every once in a while a prisoner sends me a note telling me that the warden wouldn’t let him read The Progressive magazine.
We’re supposed to believe in free speech in this country.
And it seems to me that when we’ve taken every other freedom away from a prisoner, that the least we can do is not imprison that person’s mind.
That is, as Noam Chomsky said, a totalitarian impulse.
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Comments
I used to consider myself a Small "L" Libertarian .
My small "L" libertarianism excepted a small degree of collectivism along the lines of FDR and some necessary regulation of the Environment and in it's dealings with Civil Rights , Racial Issues, in addition to keeping some small thumb on Wall Street and Banking.
All with close scrutiny and with reasonable rationalization along the Constitution's "Common Welfare" clauses . Then I became "Realistic" .
Your small "L" seems to revolve around supporting the Police and Military State with crackdowns on social behavior and invading any country with "Oil and Arabs" or "Poppies and Persians" even .
At that point you also lose your "Fiscal Conservative" mantel, in my view,even as you would continue to complain about high taxes and deficits.
Fine , but what pisses someone like me off, is that after 8 years of Bush, everything now is Obama's fault , in your view .
As I have stated, I feel Obama and Bush work for the same outfit with small modifications in Methodology
,and of course Rhetoric.
Of course, they also have somewhat insignificant differences in policy on some issues , to maintain either "Left or Right Cover", depending on who is the figurehead at that moment .
I now have very little patience with people who have this blind spot .
The safest course I feel at this point is Large "L" .
After the Traitors, Thieves and Eugenicist are out of power , perhaps then we might take a look at some rational transformation back to Small "L" .
Finally , let me add that, if this Empire was about American Principles of Freedom and Human Rights, I'd be right on the front line supporting it , but it has nothing to do with any of the above and is, in fact, an enemy of these values.
It was never intended to be an "American Empire", altho we have been sold that BS , to gain our wealth and support , countless times .