Originally a comment by James Garnett on Trying to reason with Chomsky.

Plus, Chomsky is just boring a lot of the time. The man has literally put me to sleep.

Also, too:

the fact remains that Putin doesn’t own other countries even if they are right next to Russia.

In 1991, Estonia declared independence from Russia, and shortly thereafter made the Estonian language the official language for all governmental purposes. It had formerly been Russian. When I visited eight years later, the bulk of the Russian immigrants still refused to learn or speak Estonian because even though they composed less than a quarter of the population they considered themselves to be the “owners” of the country. I will never forget asking the price of a sweater at the market in Tallinn (in my stumbling Estonian) and being angrily berated and sworn-at by the Russian-speaking woman who ran it, simply for speaking that language.

Chomsky has never had to live in that kind of environment, and cannot possibly imagine the absolutely fierce intensity of peoples trying to escape Russian influence and make stronger ties with NATO and the west. To him it is just some kind of abstract chess game.

Estonia went from being a backwards SSR to a fully modern western country and member of NATO just three years after they regained independence, and they enjoy one of the most modern constitutions in the world with equal rights for women enshrined therein. Think about that, Noam. Think about how motivated a people have to be to go from stone age to space age in three years. We Americans have had nearly 250 years to do the same, and we’re still behind the game as compared to those Estonians.