Chomsky was loveable and brilliant as always
Summary: US should be enabling Ukraine to negotiate fully with russia, rather than pressing only for Russian capitulation. Pushing harder will only lead to WW3 and annihilation. Realists across the spectrum have warned about expanding NATO to Ukraine, that it would lead to WW3. US officials have said the war is about weakening or destroying Russia. That means WW3. We must stop that. He emphasized that negotiation means making concessions to Russia. Ukraine has to make concessions in order for Russia to stop. Real concessions regarding territory and neutrality. Chomsky barely says US has been blocking Ukraine from making such concessions, instead sending $40B more weapons to not make concessions [and that's one way to block them, I believe many others]. Chomsky says Donbas and Crimea should have referenda.
[He didn't mention the already existing referenda and polls, I should have asked, however the answer was a bit muddled before in 2014 in the Donbass. It was and has continued to be very pro-Russian in Crimea.]
Chomsky thinks it's Orwellian doublethink to believe Russia has any interest in conquering Finland and Sweden when they're struggling with cities [largely ethnic Russian, I might add] not far from Moscow in Ukraine. He emphasized how the plain from Kiev to Moscow leaves them wide open to attack, as has happened many times. So they have legitimate concerns.
[He didn't say how they'd mostly controlled the area for hundreds of years, as a territory or vassal state until the coup of 2014, and the current government is deep stated by a US/Israeli-connected and Neonazi supporting oligarch and the USA. He didn't say anything good about Putin, or the invasion, he said it was a war crime comparable to the US invasion of Iraq. I would say it was far more justified, and I'd mention the 2014 coup having US backed Neonazis, the Odessa Massacre, the 14,000 deaths in the civil war, and the initiating promises and ultimately starting Ukranian attack on Donbass on February 22, would have seemed to provide the same "Responsibility to Protect" as NATO used in Yugoslavia. Chomsky did mention the fighting leading up to Minsk II, which is most of those deaths.]
Meanwhile, there was most just praise, and not much information in the chat. But over and over there was a troll-like commenter which kept asking about things like Ukrainian sovereignty, and why was Realism being applied exclusively to Ukraine. Questions like these over and over again continuously.
Chomsky never denies popular sovereignty, he called for internationally monitored referenda (ignoring those that have already occurred...thereby even making more capituation to the western narrative). And Chomsky in my recollection has always been a realist of an anti-Hegemonic as well as anarchist stripe. One difference between him and marxist leninists like me is that he never even brings up the whole panoply of additional stories which provide even more justification for what others, say Putin and Assad, have done. He doesn't want to get into those fights. He sticks to the more well proven ground, all published in western media reports, and simply gives a fully dispassionate, but correct analysis. A correct analysis always comes from realism, not idealism. Not merely amongst Marxist Leninist but all materialists, rationalists, etc. Only starry eyed idealists (of whom Neocons are a good example) and some new age mystics would say otherwise. We don't want WW3, so we must not demand full capitulation from the Russians. It's as simple as that. However, Chomsky clings to trotskyite idealism is his rhetoric, always calling Putin and Assad monsters, etc. In that way, he avoids making the argument about Assad, Putin, etc., as is done in the war media, among those who read them, but simply on rational realist grounds (we don't want nuclear war) and without directly challenging their stories, as I and many other anti-Hegemonists dare to do, fearlessly perhaps as we have few to offend. He is proving you don't have to believe those other stories to get the jist of what has to be done. That leads to few such technical arguments, and people don't often ask. But then it may leads to attacks from idealists whose claims don't even make sense if you know the other side of the story, as I do, and therefore certainly Chomsky does too, and might answer some such a question if brought up and there were enough time. (To his credit, Chomsky answers questions individually.) There are endless details that show this war is not about the often claimed "Freedom and Democracy" or anything like national or local sovereignty. But that should not be surprising for the world's long time hegemon and global manipulator. Billions had been spent since 1945 and 2014 on Ukraine, mostly supporting Nazi and Neonazi paramilitaries, and then many billions more since 2014, on equipping, training, weaponizing. A foreign country spending billions on ideological propaganda and paramilitary training and full scale military and hoping to use said country as a wedge to break an adjacent country using a puppet government whose deep state was upended in coup they engineered so they effectively control it despite whatever the full country has voted for is not a role anyone should accept as sovereignty. It's a a hegemonic scam compared to local, historic, and ethnic ties. It's sham character may become only more clear in war, certainly that seems true in Crimea and Donbas. It's doubtful they want federation, in fact they've declared independence for some time now by locally operated elections. Putin had for years officially refused to support or recognize DPR and LPR let alone militarize it, only reluctantly after a long planned NATOized Neonazified Ukrainian attack on DPR and LPR began, with long annexed and endlessly western-polled as pro-Russian Crimea on the plan too. DPR and LPR actually did admirable work on their own of defending themselves from Ukrainification, if you think local control is a good idea, or anti-hegemony. It battle, they were victorious over the Kiev forces, which were then fully equipped, outfitted, and trained by US/NATO for 8 years...effective NATO-ization without much comment in the western media..leading to the moment of Ukrainian attempted reconquest (which may have been starting on February 16 or sometime between then and February 22).
I saw at least one insult hurled at the troll. ("Go back to CNN.") Not useful. And then somebody else saying to ignore the troll...inevitable. Geeks cooked up a rule with Usenet...never feed the trolls. I personally think it's OK to reply with correct but succinct arguments (though it often doesn't seem possible, when so many presumptions are wrong. But sadly I couldn't on-the-spot come up with good rejoinders. A table ought to be made.
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