I have disliked Chomsky for a long time. Once you recognize the pattern to how he makes intellectually dishonest arguments, finding the truth behind what he says becomes easier.
I didn't know the whole story about the Covidien ventilators until now. Since Chomsky made it a key point, I knew there had to be more to it than what he said. So I took five minutes to search on google to find the other side of the story. The side of the story Chomsky could not be bothered to look up himself.
Chomsky says things like that which sound intellectual and educated, but when you parse it out and ask what is he saying and what it means, what he argues is based on what did not happen or does not exist. The actually history of SARs, MERs, and Swine Flu puts to lie his claims about "pathological neoliberal capitalist resistance to fighting pandemics". If those events did not happen, then the motivations for those actions Chomsky attacks for the last half of the article, can not exist. He also pays no attention to China's handling of the disease, placing all blame on the President and corporate america. So who is more pathological, free market capitalists for what they did not do, or Chomsky for his dishonesty?
The internet makes his style of deception much harder than when he was covering for Pol Pot's Killing Fields in the 1970s.
nice analysis
I think it was the 70s I was in berkeley buying ribs at Mom’s or was it emeryville. killing time. A noam chomsky movie never had heard of him. I walked out half way thru when I ran out of popcorn and never went back (to him).