Posted by Dilip Simeon, 9.2., 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NOAM CHOMSKY:<\/strong> If you\u2019ll indulge me, I\u2019d like to start with a brief\nreminiscence of a period which is eerily similar to today in many unpleasant\nrespects. I\u2019m thinking of exactly 80 years ago, almost to the day, happened to\nbe the moment of the first article that I remember having written on political\nissues. Easy to date: It was right after the fall of Barcelona in February 1939.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The article was about what seemed to be the inexorable spread of\nfascism over the world. In 1938, Austria had been annexed by Nazi Germany. A\nfew months later, Czechoslovakia was betrayed, placed in the hands of the Nazis\nat the Munich Conference. In Spain, one city after another was falling to\nFranco\u2019s forces. February 1939, Barcelona fell. That was the end of the Spanish\nRepublic. The remarkable popular revolution, anarchist revolution, of 1936,\n\u201937, \u201938, had already been crushed by force. It looked as if fascism was going\nto spread without end.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s not exactly what\u2019s happening today, but, if we can borrow\nMark Twain\u2019s famous phrase, \u201cHistory doesn\u2019t repeat but sometimes rhymes.\u201d Too\nmany similarities to overlook.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n When Barcelona fell, there was a huge flood of refugees from\nSpain. Most went to Mexico, about 40,000. Some went to New York City,\nestablished anarchist offices in Union Square, secondhand bookstores down 4th\nAvenue. That\u2019s where I got my early political education, roaming around that\narea. That\u2019s 80 years ago. Now it\u2019s today.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n We didn\u2019t know at the time, but the U.S. government was also\nbeginning to think about how the spread of fascism might be virtually\nunstoppable. They didn\u2019t view it with the same alarm that I did as a\n10-year-old. We now know that the attitude of the State Department was rather\nmixed regarding what the significance of the Nazi movement was. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Actually, there was a consul in Berlin, U.S. consul in Berlin, who was sending back pretty mixed comments about the Nazis, suggesting maybe they\u2019re not as bad as everyone says. He stayed there until Pearl Harbor Day, when he was withdrawn\u2014famous diplomat named George Kennan. Not a bad indication of the mixed attitude towards these developments…. <\/em>https:\/\/www.alternet.org\/2020\/02\/noam-chomsky-we-must-confront-the-ultranationalist-reactionary-movements-growing-across-the-globe\/<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Posted by Dilip Simeon, 9.2., 2020 NOAM CHOMSKY: If you\u2019ll indulge me, I\u2019d like to start with a brief reminiscence of a period which is eerily similar to today in many unpleasant respects. I\u2019m thinking of exactly 80 years ago, almost to the day, happened to be the moment of the first article that I remember having written on political issues. Easy to date: It was right after the fall of Barcelona in February 1939. The article was about what seemed to be the inexorable spread of fascism over the world. In 1938, Austria had been annexed by Nazi Germany. A Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[50,51,49],"class_list":["post-258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-facism","tag-history","tag-noam-chomsky"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spblinux.de\/Staying-the-Course\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spblinux.de\/Staying-the-Course\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spblinux.de\/Staying-the-Course\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spblinux.de\/Staying-the-Course\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spblinux.de\/Staying-the-Course\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spblinux.de\/Staying-the-Course\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":259,"href":"https:\/\/spblinux.de\/Staying-the-Course\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions\/259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spblinux.de\/Staying-the-Course\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spblinux.de\/Staying-the-Course\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spblinux.de\/Staying-the-Course\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}