Soccer Mom: Unplugged

Noam Chomsky expressed interest in meeting with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez after Chavez' fiery speech at the United Nations propelled Chomsky's book to the top of the chart at Amazon.com.   Can't you just imagine student Hugo at the feet of professor Chomsky, much like we saw him worshipping at the altar of Fidel a few weeks back?  Chomsky, to his credit, did not embrace the hateful rhetoric of the ex-paratrooper turned coup leader but endorsed his sentiment.

A quote from the article (emphasized commentary is mine):

 The Bush administration backed a coup to overthrow his government," Chomsky said. "Suppose Venezuela supported a military coup that overthrew the government of the United States? Would we think it was a joke?" (First off, that claim is unsubstantiated.  Secondly,  we are talking about a man who led a violent coup against his own democratically elected government not once but twice.)

The leftist author, a linguistics scholar and longtime critic of US foreign policy, told the Times he is "quite interested" in Chavez's policies and finds many of them "quite constructive." (I think the key word here is leftist.  What does Chomsky have to say about Chavez' wealth and paranoia in the face of the continuing poverty of half his nation?)

Now, here's the real question.  Why does the media, why do we care about Chomsky?  Leftist academics are nothing new.  For that matter neither are socialist/communist dictators.  That they are walking hand in hand in this instance is hardly noteworthy.  Lenin read Marx and found validation of his revolutionary ideas.  Marx read Bauer and rejected religion.  And yet,  every communist system has collapsed leaving impoverished societies in the wake while capitalist nations enjoy lower percentages of poverty.  The old agage a "rising tide lifts all boats"  has been unquestionably proven in America.  If democracy and capitalism are such dismal failures, then why is it that the average poor American has more living space than the average (middle class) European?  Why is it that capitalist America is the greatest charitable contributor on the planet?  We almost solely subsidize the UN.  Think about that. The evidence is all around us that the path to a better world was written into our constitution and rooted in capitalism.  When was the last time you waited in line for a roll of toilet paper?

Just me thinking out loud here.  As always.  But I can't understand the naivete of leftists who would advocate shared misery in lieu of shared upward mobility.  My life is a testament to the American system.  Neither of my parents graduated from high school.  My mother dropped out in 8th grade to pick tobacco - something that her family situation required.  My father, raised by a widow who herself was reared in a Catholic orphanage,  joined the Army at 17 and took advantage of military benefits to better his situation.  Together they worked several jobs, almost always 2 but usually 3 or more between them, to move us to suburbia.  They took every odd job available.  Throwing papers (after a full workday).  Delivering telephone books.  You name it.  Finally, in her sixties, my mom got her GED. (My mom rocks, BTW) My husband and I have been blessed to continue the trend of upward mobility, both of us with college degrees and then some. 

Tell me in which communist nations, people one generation off the farm are living like I am.  Tell me where in the socialist world, people one generation away from poverty are handing over 15% of their income to charity?  Tell me. 

If we want to see any semblance of a poverty free Utopia, then we have to remove power from the hands of unscrupulous men and idiots.  The former are the dishonest thugs ruling much of the third world and the latter are the leftists who consider redistribution of wealth a viable social option, though many of those are paying lip service and fall better into the first category (Chavez in particular). We also need to put capital into the hands of more people without compromising personal responsibility.  At this juncture, I favor microcredit (though not through the UN) but the jury is still out on that idea.  It is much too early to tell whether or not pulling people into the capitalist system in this manner is effective as it requires at least a generation to move out of poverty.  When the children of the women who've successfully borrowed are educated and enter the work force literate and capable of earning more than a hand to mouth existence, then we will have some hard data to analyze.  With a little more oversight and regulation, I think this program could be part of the rising tide.  Certainly, it would show the benefits of capitalism over degrading, paternalistic socialism.

Knowing what we do about the overwhelming and undeniable success of capitalist democracies,  I am left wondering why the MSM think that Chomsky and Chavez make good headlines.