Three-Toed Sloth

Chomsky and Zinn on The Fellowship of the Ring, or, "Can't you see the violence inherent in the subcreation?"

As channeled by Marvin Appelbaum and Ian Pinkner, in McSweeney's:

Chomsky: We should examine carefully what's being established here in the prologue. For one, the point is clearly made that the "master ring," the so-called "one ring to rule them all," is actually a rather elaborate justification for preemptive war on Mordor.

Zinn: I think that's correct. Tolkien makes no attempt to hide the fact that rings are wielded by every other ethnic enclave in Middle Earth. The Dwarves have seven rings, the Elves have three. The race of Man has nine rings, for God's sake. There are at least 19 rings floating around out there in Middle Earth, and yet Sauron's ring is supposedly so terrible that no one can be allowed to wield it. Why?

Chomsky: Notice too that the "war" being waged here is, evidently, in the land of Mordor itself --- at the very base of Mount Doom. These terrible armies of Sauron, these dreadful demonized Orcs, have not proved very successful at conquering the neighboring realms --- if that is even what Sauron was seeking to do. It seems fairly far-fetched.

There are a few false notes, but otherwise it's pretty funny (at least, if you've had to deal with acquintances in the first flush of having read What Uncle Sam Really Wants). --- Found by Bill Tozier.

The Continuing Crisis; The Progressive Forces; Scientifiction