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("Quid coniuratio est?")
WORSHIPPING AT THE SHRINE OF CHOMSKY
"Why should I think? I just let Noam Chomsky do that for me."
This is the creed of the slave, no matter how trendy, tittering, bored-with-life, non-emotional, and "just so" it dresses itself to be. It is the pose, for example, of the fake intellectual who slyly smiles and faintly snickers, while subtly broadcasting a "little hint" that "I am just an airy, floating, mind. And, I am glib of tongue. Therefore I am quite intellectual and not likely to be wrong."
So there is a certain sub-group of fancied "progressives" and "leftists" that are lately taking up the oh-so-fashionable cause of labor. (Yet see how some condone shoddy treatment of grad student labor, right in their midst.)
This seems to be the case with "St. Noam", who, from his academic sandbox, surrounded by worshipful acolytes, purrs and winks at his followers. With the breath of a superior sort of smile hovering about his airy nothing of a face, The Great Chomsky looks out on a sea of worshippers, all panting for their transfusion: "I sat 27 feet from the platform. I was that close to the blessed man."
What is the blessed man saying now? Some good things, it must be admitted. After all, if it was all impotent gibberings from Mr. Special, there could be no new converts and, eventually, the disciples themselves -- the very chosen ones! -- yea verily, might even themselves edge sideways away. The PROCESS involves luring them in with smatterings of the withheld Truth, then once they're inside the tent the disciples, the converted ones, go to work.
"Yes, welcome aboard. Welcome to the team, the winning team, the Chomsky team."
And it's like coming in from the cold. It's so nice and warm and friendly: those crisp Fall nights at the Espresso Bar, all wrapped up in mugs of hot chocolate and feeling very special -- almost as special as Mr. Special himself.
You don't want to leave all this, do you? Remember how cold and crazy it was out there, before you got with the team, the winning team, the Chomsky team.
But you -- showing possible suspicious evidence of links to an oafish background -- make, in the middle of this warm, fuzzy somnolence, an intellectual farting noise: "OKC bombing doesn't add up," you dare to introduce into the slightly sad but therefore wise tranquility.
They all look at you. "It's mighty cold out there, fella," they seem to say.
But one of them, the kind one, the wise elder statesman, he of nickname "the vocabulated one", raises his hand and, with a look around, implies that mercy and forebearance is indicated here.
"But Brian," says the merciful vocabulated one, "the Leader has, in a clever, sub-textual remark, which he delivered apparently incidentally and quite by accident at his last talk (at which talk, I might add, I sat just 17 feet from the podium), opined the opposite. He (as usual, he is the only one even remotely addressing the issue) noted the trend toward 'government bashing' and that 'instead of blowing up corporate headquarters, they are blowing up government buildings.' Clearly, Chomsky has indicated that anti-government extremists are indeed responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing."
The pressure from many eyes turns toward you. "Not planning on leaving the True Faith, are you?" they seem to ask.
But you, clumsy oaf that you are ("And a rather nervous fellow." "Yes, I noticed."), just have to ruin your place in CozyLand by blurting out, "But Goddamnit! Why can't Chomsky just say it? Why does he sneak it in sub-textually?"
Well, of course, even the kind, vocabulated one is finally forced, reluctantly, into acknowledging that, "Yes. Blasphemy has occurred."
So now you wander in the cold Autumn, with the winds all around. "Oh!" you sigh. "If only Noam Chomsky were to walk by, so that I could at least warm my hands!"
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