Full Transcript of The Guardian's Interview with Noam Chomsky

The Guardian published today the full transcript of its interview with Noam Chomsky about Venezuela. They should have done that in the first place as Chomsky's language and choice of words speak for themselves. He doesn't seem to be terribly interested in investigating what is really going on in Venezuela. Why bother? Concentration of executive power? Lack of judiciary independence? Blatant corruption? Militarism? Nah...Who cares. For him everything is secondary, if not irrelevant, to the real issue at hand: the role and influence of the United States -- Talking about double standards!


Drawing by El Libertario

Reacciones a la carta abierta de Chomsky

• Panfleto Negro: Las inseguridades de Noam Chomsky

• Alek Boyd: Noam Chomsky on Afiuni: "extreme dishonesty" at The Guardian and Eva Golinger does a Johann Hari on Noam Chomsky

• Apporrea: Noam Chomsky califica de "engañosa" la versión de The Guardian sobre sus declaraciones 

• El Libertario Blog: Octavio Alberola: Noam Chomsky, bufón de Chávez

• BBC: Chomsky habla sobre su carta abierta a Chávez

Drawing by shokunin from the Open Clip Library

¡Tarde piaste, pajarito!

Readers of this blog may remember Venered's publication of an open letter to Noam Chomsky on April 7, 2010. In the letter we asked Chomsky to reconsider his view of the Chávez government in light of ongoing human rights abuses and increasingly militarized governance. He kindly replied to our letter but his answer was rather evasive,

Today, much to our surprise, both The New York Times and The Guardian report that Mr.Chomsky is having a change of heart over his "old friend" Hugo Chávez. Specifically, Mr Chomsky is denouncing the detention of Judge María Lourdes Afiuni who was send to prison on Chávez' order because she dared to emit a ruling in favor of the law and against Chávez' own interests.You can read more about the details of the case in the Guardian piece.

Credit where credit is due: We commend Mr.Chomsky for his initiative and his commitment to human rights.

Photo Credit: Licensed under Creative Commons by Duncan Rawlinson