Martin William Smith wrote:

> No.  It couldn't be that.  I didn't say *no one* was doing *anything*.
> By now, you have read most of the writings of Chomsly, et al, on this
> subject.  You know that the system produces these results.  But your
> level of protest goes up by an order of magnitude *after* the bombing
> starts.  You can't be bothered to make a big noise at a point when it
> can actually head off situations like the present one.  Could it be
> you don't really understand the problem?  Could it be you protest now
> because it is so easy to be self-righteous now, and because you need
> to recover some self-esteem after so many years of letting things get
> worse and worse?  Why is it so hard to admit you really don't care
> enough to really solve the problem?

  [snip]

> But *I'm* not protesting.  Nor would I be protesting had there been
> more coverage in the media.  Are you blaming the media now because you
> didn't know what was going on?  Is it their fault you were caught out
> as an ignoramous?  No.  False.  You knew from reading Chomsky what was
> going on.  It is the way the system works.  You don't really have a
> right to claim ignorance because the media and the government have
> been pooling the wool over your eyes for ten years.

  [snip]

> No.  I have said several times.  I don't want to spend my life
> protesting, because I believe it will ultimately fail.  It will fail
> because, far from changing the system, it validates it.  I will rather
> spend my life searching for a solution.  But I'm an engineer.  I
> recognize that is the way I think.  I don't intend to work against
> myself.

You seem to refer to Chomsky an awful lot. Unlike Michael, I don't wonder if
you have actually read any Chomsky, I believe you probably have. However,
I'm becoming convinced that you just don't _get_ Chomsky very much at all.

Let's have a look at how Chomsky himself describes one of the central themes
he talks and writes about (from an interview by John Pilger):

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PILGER: Let's talk about today. What do you mean when you say that the media
'Manufactures Consent' in a in a manifestly free society?

CHOMSKY: Mm once again I borrowed the phrase, actually it was a joint book
with Edward Herman. We borrowed the phrase from one of, from the leading,
the dean of American journalism, and one of the leading progressive
intellectuals, Walter Lippmann. Er he wrote back in the 1920s that
manufacture of consent is a central part of what he called the 'art of
democracy'. And he had a theory behind it, in what are called progressive
democratic essays, and he put it very lucidly, and he expresses the general
assumption. The theory is that er it's a theory that goes back to the
founding fathers, and in fact back to British liberalism in the 17th
century. Er the theory is that the general public are what he called the
'ignorant and meddlesome outsiders'. They are a 'bewildered herd' and he
said 'we', meaning what he called the responsible men, the small group who
have to | do things, make decisions, run things, 'we' have to protect
ourselves from the trampling and rage of the bewildered herd. We have to
make sure that those 'ignorant and meddlesome outsiders' stay outside. And
he developed the conception of democracy, which is the one we have, er the
public are, function, they are to be spectators, not participants. Now,
since it's a democracy, they are permitted occasionally to lend their weight
to one or another member of the responsible classes, and that's called an
election. And then they're supposed to go home and attend to their own
affairs, because what, how things are run is none of their business. Now, he
also understood that you cannot do it by force. The country is too free,
it's no longer possible to do it by force, so therefore you have to
manufacture consent, control opinions.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

But when people like Michael choose to openly disagree with their
government, i.e., when they choose to be participants rather than
spectators, you characterize that as "pissing and moaning" and "tacit
approval". And yet you continually refer to Chomsky's critiques of the
system as excuses for inaction: that's the way the system is and it just
simply can't and won't be changed.

That is such a fundamental misreading of Chomsky that I almost can't believe
it's accidental. In fact, Chomsky often talks about how to change the system
and uses the example provided rural workers in Brazil:

"Millions of workers have become organized into rural unions which are very
rarely discussed. One of the slogans that they use which is relevant here,
is that we should 'expand the floor of the cage.' We know we're in a cage.
We know we're trapped. We're going to expand the floor, meaning we will
extend to the limits what the cage will allow. And we intend to destroy the
cage. But not by attacking the cage when we're vulnerable, so they'll murder
us. That's completely correct. You have to protect the cage when it's under
attack from even worse predators from outside, like private power. And you
have to expand the floor of the cage, recognizing that it's a cage. These
are all preliminaries to dismantling it. Unless people are willing to
tolerate that level of complexity, they're going to be of no use to people
who are suffering and who need help, or, for that matter, to themselves."

What he is saying is that the goal is to abolish the capitalist/oppressive
system around us. But that can't be done all at once, especially without a
critical mass of support. So in the meantime, we can struggle to "expand the
floor of the cage," in other words to win back as much control over the
institutions that run our lives as the system will allow.