Salman Rushdie is troubled by the pathetic state of moral courage, specifically by the poor treatment suffered by those who show such spine. (Has it ever been otherwise? Would it really be ‘courage’ if the consequences were not thus?) But here he runs off the rails:
America isn’t immune from this trend. The young activists of the Occupy
movement have been much maligned (though, after their highly effective
relief work in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, those criticisms have become a little muted).
Let's consider: Police cars shat upon, windows smashed, several rapes committed in camp, STDs spread among willing and unwilling alike, and a terrible mess left behind when the ‘Occupiers’, finally, vacated — no, I think the ‘Occupiers’ well and truly earned the aspersions cast in their direction, their despicable socialist/anarchist message aside. Perhaps the absence of the Occupier riff-raff and their bodily excretions from the public scene might be helping to ‘mute’ this criticism, especially from their downwind neighbors in the Village who are otherwise, one notes, quite sympathetic to the cause. (A word of advice to future protesters: Don't shit where your friends sleep, nor immediately upwind. You are taking notes, right?)
Out-of-step intellectuals like Noam Chomsky and the deceased Edward Said have often been dismissed as crazy extremists, ‘anti-American’, and in Mr. Said’s case even, absurdly, as apologists for Palestinian ‘terrorism’.
Judging by his output, Chomsky is nuts, utterly detached from even a desperate semblance of reality. It's easier to follow his rants than those of, say, certain high boneheads officials of the United Nations, but only because Professor Chomsky is professionally familiar with the concept of syntax.
One may disagree with Mr. Chomsky’s critiques of America but it ought still to be possible to recognize the courage it takes to stand up and bellow them into the face of American power.
Holy shit, man, have you actually been to America? You remember us, then: Land of the free, say whatever you wish? (Except in line at the airport, of course.) The only ‘courage’ Mr. Chomsky displays is his regular habit of unhinged leftist jackassery, which would embarrass any sane man but nonetheless enjoys prominent display at Barnes & Noble and in the pages of the ever-febrile Nation – and for which he is fêted (and, no doubt, fetid) at the best-lubricated parties in New York, suburban D.C., and, god help us all, Berkeley!
Had Mr. Rushdie's column been published a month ago, I would have suspected that the eminent jokester was having a little fun. But, alas, it may be that he, too, is cracking up.
