As part of First Amendment Day at UNC-CH, several student groups sponsored a Q&A session with Noam Chomsky. The event was meant to showcase an open dialogue; the notice boasts, “Chomsky will address student questions. He will not lecture.”
Unfortunately, Chomsky’s “answers” quickly devolved into monologues about whatever happened to be on his mind. In answering a question about the 2-party system, Chomsky managed to cover the following topics: the Tea Party movement (which is “rabid”), the welfare state, the Bretton Woods Agreement, John Maynard Keynes, the “virtual Senate” of lenders and investors who “often reverse government policies” (huh?), income distribution, families in which both parents work, the financial crisis, the housing bubble, the tech bubble, the “attack” on social security, the wealthy (who don’t care if the poor “just die” from lack of health care), entitlement spending, the 1920s, and the New Deal (which has been dismantled).
Chomsky spoke earlier in the day at an event about environmental responsibility sponsored by the Parr Center for Ethics. That event was not part of First Amendment Day.
