A year back Noam Chomsky wrote about Samantha Power. She'd just reviewed a book of his, and here he talks about her as being an establishment type. Chomsky's so smart, it's really worth looking at. Though I don't share his blanket-left political take, his analysis helps explain why Obama's dependence on Harvard and Yale types is so dispiriting:
herself — as a harsh critic of US foreign policy. The reason is that
she excoriates Washington for not paying enough attention to the crimes
of others. It's informative to look through her best-seller Problem
from Hell to see what is said about US crimes. There are a few scant
mentions: e.g., that the US looked away from the genocidal Indonesian
aggression in East Timor. In fact, as has long been indisputable, the
US looked right there and acted decisively to expedite the slaughters….
I don't think, incidentally, that it would be fair to criticize Power
for her extraordinary services to state violence and terror. I am sure
she is a decent and honorable person, and sincerely believes that she
really is condemning the US leadership and political culture. From a
desk at the Carr Center for Human Rights at the Kennedy School at
Harvard, that's doubtless how it looks. Insufficient attention has been
paid to Orwell's observations on how in free England, unpopular ideas
can be suppressed without the use of force. One factor, he proposed, is
a good education. When you have been through the best schools, finally
Oxford and Cambridge, you simply have instilled into you the
understanding that there are certain things "it wouldn't do to say" —
and we may add, even to think.
His insight is quite real, and important. These cases are a good illustration, hardly unique.
Obama said something like this himself in his first book. Education at fancy schools is training, it's not education.
