Chomsky is frustrating because he sometimes omits context and nuance and lumps wildly heterogeneous groups of people together and implies they are acting in concert. For example, a couple of his books give the clear impression that George Kennan was a warmongering villain (but as a kind of throwaway aside without evidence or analysis). He also has a tendency to anthropomorphize institutions instead of treating them as complex systems, e.g. see his many criticisms of the NY Times.
Of course, plenty of Chomsky’s opponents have their own rhetorical and moral problems. As an undergraduate I watched Chomsky debate Alan Dershowitz, and Dershowitz put on one of the most disrespectful (of Chomsky and the audience) and academically dishonest performances I have ever seen.
It is unfortunate that many outspoken US detractors lose their voices once Russia or others commit clear atrocities, or just keep repeating non sequiturs about the US. It makes it harder to trust their earlier arguments and disentangle principle from reflexive anti-Americanism.
(It is likewise very damaging when the American president/military/intelligence undertakes aggressive wars, arms/trains paramilitaries in authoritarian countries, supplies weapons to murderous dictators, etc., first because those are bad in themselves, but also because they undermine American international legitimacy in cases where projection of American power can actually defend freedom and peace.)
Yes, Chomsky does have a problem with lumping together anyone who he sees as having any kind of a unifying interest, I think it comes from his early political influences which have a very pronounced kind of class struggle thinking, that shows up overtly in his writings on anarchism and implicitly color all of his future analyses. He sometimes comes close to recognizing individual differences within what he sees as classes, but usually when quoting other people, and the significance of what they're saying never seems to sink in.
It is no wonder he's so depressed about the future, the belief that anyone with power is allied with everyone else with power on every conceivable issue is as good as forecasting permanent defeat. For example he writes off the end of the Vietnam war as something that happened when business interests turned against it, not really thinking about the fact that business interests are not completely inaccessible to normal people and in fact are normal people. They're just not academics.
Of course, plenty of Chomsky’s opponents have their own rhetorical and moral problems. As an undergraduate I watched Chomsky debate Alan Dershowitz, and Dershowitz put on one of the most disrespectful (of Chomsky and the audience) and academically dishonest performances I have ever seen.
It is unfortunate that many outspoken US detractors lose their voices once Russia or others commit clear atrocities, or just keep repeating non sequiturs about the US. It makes it harder to trust their earlier arguments and disentangle principle from reflexive anti-Americanism.
(It is likewise very damaging when the American president/military/intelligence undertakes aggressive wars, arms/trains paramilitaries in authoritarian countries, supplies weapons to murderous dictators, etc., first because those are bad in themselves, but also because they undermine American international legitimacy in cases where projection of American power can actually defend freedom and peace.)