BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.

Subject: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: dianavan
Date: 17 Feb 07 - 08:10 PM

Now is the chance to educate yourself.

http://yalibnan.com/site/archives/2007/02/q_a_chomsky_on.php

He sounds about right to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Teribus
Date: 17 Feb 07 - 08:22 PM

Dianavan, thank goodness somebody has come along and told you what to think. Must be very comforting for you.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Feb 07 - 08:26 PM

12 minuutes to read at least an hour's worth of tough readin, T-Bird???

One thing fir sure is that you certainly are quick on the trigger and short on takin' time to undertand what yer shootrin' at...

Maybe you'd like to read---horrors--- what the man says before going into yer knee-jer attack-attack-attack mode...

(The Bobert goes back to the hard readin' which Noam always is...)

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Feb 07 - 08:41 PM

Excellent article. He states all the simple and fairly obvious truths that are denied, not spoken of, and barely ever even acknowledged in USA mainstream media.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Feb 07 - 11:09 PM

Just don't ask Chomsky to diagram any sentences or he'll leave you in the dark. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: artbrooks
Date: 17 Feb 07 - 11:17 PM

Dr. Chomsky is certainly entitled to his opinion. As a professor of comparative linguistics, he is as much an expert on the Middle East and Israeli-Arab relations as anyone else in any other profession.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Don Firth
Date: 17 Feb 07 - 11:43 PM

And who's telling you what to think, T-bird?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: number 6
Date: 17 Feb 07 - 11:46 PM

Noam Chomsky


biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: dianavan
Date: 18 Feb 07 - 03:45 AM

artbrooks - Give credit where credit is due. In addition to being a professor of linguistics, he:

...is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. In addition, he is a member of other professional and learned societies in the United States and abroad, and is a recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award of the American Psychological Association, the Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences, the Helmholtz Medal, the Dorothy Eldridge Peacemaker Award, the Ben Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science, and others. He is twice winner of The Orwell Award, granted by The National Council of Teachers of English for "Distinguished Contributions to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language" [6]. Early in his career Chomsky was granted the prestigious MacArthur Award.

Chomsky was voted the leading living public intellectual in The 2005 Global Intellectuals Poll conducted by the British magazine Prospect. He reacted, saying "I don't pay a lot of attention to polls" [7]. In a list compiled by the magazine New Statesman in 2006, he was voted seventh in the list of "Heroes of our time".[22]

- from Wiki

It is his mastery of linguistics that has brought clarity to many subjects and has made political ideas accessible to many people. You may not agree with him but to describe him as an opinionated professor is to deny him the respect he deserves. He is not as one-dimensional as you seem to think he is.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: artbrooks
Date: 18 Feb 07 - 09:45 AM

As best as I can recall, I did not call him "an opinionated professor." I said he was entitled to his opinion. Isn't he?

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Feb 07 - 01:01 PM

Did anybody ever understand that thing he used to do like clause analysis where he analysed a sentence, and he said you could do it in every language?

I did a linguistics course, and not even the lecturers who were teaching it could do it.

Noam.....his parents wanted to call him Noah, but they couldn't afford an 'H', they had to settle for an 'M'.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 18 Feb 07 - 01:43 PM

I have to confess that I didn't really have any idea who he was when I signed up for one of his courses ca. 1959, but one of the "other instructors" pointed out to me that it wasn't exactly "healthy" for someone who might eventually work on "military secrets" to be associated with him. I assured them that it was an "elective low-level course" where the Prof in charge was unlikely to ever show up in class, and it wasn't about politics.

Mr. Chomsky did show up briefly in one classroom session just as a "courtesy call," but he didn't talk about anything that we hadn't already not learned. (It was interesting, but not a particularly useful - brief - class.)

My recollection is that only one of the "interrogators" examining an SPH for a security clearance ever demanded an explanation for my "association with a known pinko-radical-commie-anarchist¹" among the dozen or so times they investigated me. At least three of them wanted details about my membership in that subversive organization called "the Boy Scouts," so I guess they were a little more suspect than Noam. Or maybe it was just obvious that I didn't learn anything in his class.

¹ 60s era pronunciation for "liberal" in the "establishment."

John

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: GUEST,Crazyhorse
Date: 18 Feb 07 - 02:19 PM

"If Chomsky's political writings expressed merely an idée fixe, they would be a footnote in his career as a public intellectual. But Chomsky has a dedicated following among those of university education, and especially of university age, for judgements that have the veneer of scholarship and reason yet verge on the pathological. He once described the task of the media as "to select the facts, or to invent them, in such a way as to render the required conclusions not too transparently absurd—at least for properly disciplined minds." There could scarcely be a nicer encapsulation of his own practice.
"

Oliver Kamm

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Feb 07 - 02:34 PM

Funny you should say that. I find Chomsky's description of the North American mainstream media quite accurate...although perhaps a bit too kind.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: dianavan
Date: 18 Feb 07 - 06:31 PM

I'm not surprised that Oliver Kamm would criticize Noam Chomsky since he is primarily a banker who supports Bush.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Greg F.
Date: 18 Feb 07 - 06:43 PM

Ah yes, but has Kamm actually READ anything by Chomsky besides a few cherry-picked sentances here and there?

Or is he like the usual Bushite crowd, comfortable with critiquing and damning out of hand things they've never read and don't understand?

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Feb 07 - 06:51 PM

He probably had - he's pro-Bush and pro-war, with a background as a leftie. Same type as the classical ex-trotskyist neo.cons in America, but English.

He came off worst in an attempt to falsely portray Chomsky as being someone who claimed there was no Srebenica massacre. He is himself someone who knows how "to select the facts, or to invent them".

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: GUEST, Fergettaboutit
Date: 18 Feb 07 - 10:06 PM

If your gurus aren't screaming about government involvement in 9/11, then they're probably part of the team. Chomsky said this:

"What does it matter even if it was true, it wouldn't be significant."

http://www.911blogger.com/node/5262

He was talking about the possibility that there may have been a government conspiracy behind September 11. So why isn't the possibility that the govt did the 9/11 job significant to Chomsky? Because his team got away with the job. The Bush/Clinton team, left/right, whatever you want to call it. The powers that control all the teams in American politics got away with 9/11 (they want to think), so now the people who act as government mouthpieces are urging us to move on.

Chomsky is a "Left Gatekeeper." He yaps at liberals and directs their attention away from topics that could be of danger to the establishment. Rush Limbaugh is a "Right Gatekeeper." Working in tandem, these people assure that serious questions never get asked on the public airwaves, or if they do get asked, that they are answered with government doctrine.

Below is a quick-reference chart of Left Gatekeepers:

http://www.leftgatekeepers.com/chart.htm

Just do a search for "Gloria Steinhem + CIA" for a nice slap in the face. And then there's Amy Goodman:

Amy Goodman should be regarded as a Left Gatekeeper (LG). Left Gatekeepers, like the journalists in George Orwell's 1984, function to promote the official propaganda of the state. They amplify what is not credible while excluding other voices from challenging the government's lies of the day....

However, since 9/11/01 Amy Goodman (and her internet/radio program Democracy Now!) has achieved enormous popularity while continuing to fail to challenge the Bush regime where doing so is most needed. In particular, whenever the topic of terrorism on US soil is brought up on her program she can be counted upon to repeat government propaganda....

http://educate-yourself.org/cn/amygoodmangatekeeper27aug05.shtml

And there's the Boston Globe's Ellen Goodman, who said, "Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers..."

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/02/09/no_change_in_political_climate/

I get real tired of being told what to think, by Chomsky, the Goodmans, Limbaugh, and the rest of the government operatives. They all aim to do the same thing...misdirect us. The fires were so intense at the WTC towers on 9/11 that the black boxes were consumed, they say, yet "hijacker" Satam Al Suqumi's passport was found in the rubble, unburned, afterwards. The passport was obviously planted. And Chomsky wants you to believe that's not significant? Give me a break:

http://www.cooperativeresearch.net/entity.jsp?id=1521846767-165

If the people you admire have "moved on" from 9/11 or if they redirect questions about it, then they're either in denial or on the govt payroll. In the case of the talking heads, they're traitors doing a job. How anyone can believe or put stock in anything Chomsky/Limbaugh says is beyond me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"...at just this moment it had been announced that Oceania was not after all at war with Eurasia. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Eurasia was an ally.... There was, of course, no admission that any change had taken place. Merely it became known, with extreme suddenness and everywhere at once, that Eastasia and not Eurasia was the enemy." (George Orwell, 1984)

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Bobert
Date: 18 Feb 07 - 10:12 PM

Oh, yeah...

Get down wid it, my friend... Get down wid it...

The truth will set ya free...

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: bobad
Date: 18 Feb 07 - 10:14 PM

Cue the theme music

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: GUEST,Fergettaboutit
Date: 18 Feb 07 - 10:59 PM

Love it when people scream "Tinfoil" and play the Twilight Zone music. That means they can't argue. But see, this isn't Limbaugh's program, where he can futz with the phone and pretend the challenging caller was disconnected.

Everyone reading this can think of some example where the conversation on television or radio jumped away from the War in Iraq or from 9/11 suspiciously quickly. That's because the gatekeepers get paid to... Here, I should have put this quote from above in bold. From the piece about Amy Goodman. It's what all good gatekeepers do:

They amplify what is not credible while excluding other voices from challenging the government's lies of the day...

The least credible explanation for 9/11 is that 19 flight-school drop-outs pulled off aeronautical maneuvers that fighter pilots later said they couldn't do. 19 men with boxcutters got Cheney to order NORAD to stand down. The twin towers were atomized so badly that no complete bodies were found, yet one of the hijacker's passports made it through unscathed. You don't hear Chomsky or Limbaugh talk about this stuff and the need for an investigation. They are paid to present the govt's version of events as unquestionable, then they go on to criticize each other. They stage little back-biting wars while they agree on the big thing...that the govt's version of 9/11 must be preserved as the "truth."

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: number 6
Date: 18 Feb 07 - 11:30 PM

"Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation."

.... Noam Chomsky

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Feb 07 - 11:38 PM

"The least credible explanation for 9/11 is that 19 flight-school drop-outs pulled off aeronautical maneuvers that fighter pilots later said they couldn't do."

REALLY??? And just which fighter pilots actually said they couldn't fly a plane straight into a building?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 06:24 AM

That 2nd plane damn near missed the tower head on - he was in a steep turn.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 08:00 AM

It's far less frightening for some people to think that the nigh-on-omnipotent US Government was responsible for something like 9/11, than it is for a handful of dedicated people to have done it.

If only the US had had a sustained campaign of high profile terrorism carried out against it for several decades, as most of Europe has (ETA, the IRA, Red brigades, etc, etc) then there would not be this refusal to believe that terrorist could do it...

There is no arguing with the Non-believers. It doesn't matter if they've decided that the Earth is 6000 years old, or there were no planes, or whatever it is. They have faith, so no evidence or explanation will convince them otherwise.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 08:32 AM

Chomsky/Limbaugh

They're all in it together... Osama Bin Ladin is a tool of Mossad...Mossad is a tool of the Vatican...Mother Theresa was an alien from Sirius...

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: artbrooks
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 09:06 AM

And...wait for it...McGrath is a secret Morris dancer.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 09:58 AM

Haven't got the legs for it, I'm afraid.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: diesel
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 10:15 AM

First signs of guilt McG - Denial !!!

Must be true !

Diesel..

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 10:19 AM

Bunn - there's a third possibility which you don't seem to be considering. The attacks on 911 may have been carried out by BOTH a tiny group of foreign terrorists AND certain elements in the US government....in that people in the US government may have been involved in:

1. making sure the terrorists were not caught and prevented before it happened

2. making sure the terrorists got the flight training they needed without interference by the FBI, etc

3. making sure the buildings came down by providing additional assistance in the form of pre-placed demolition charges in Bldgs. #1, #2, and #7.

I've seen enough evidence to suggest that, and it seems quite probably to me.

And the terrorists themselves may have been completely unaware of any such activities on the part of anyone but themselves. They may have been conveniently used by a group of people who wanted a "Pearl Harbor" level event so they could send the USA off to war with solid public support.

You see, believing that some people in the US govt were involved is not mutually exclusive with believing that there WAS an Al Queda plot and that Muslim terrorists DID fly those airplanes into those buildings.

Not in the least.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 10:24 AM

sounds like rubbish to me.

george Bush is supposed to have worked out all that!

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 10:30 AM

It sounds like rubbish to you because YOU didn't think of it first. ;-) If you had thought of it first, I'm sure you'd love it.

I am not for one moment suggesting that George Bush "worked it out". I doubt that he knew much about it, if anything. He's just a face that they trotted out in front of the public to vote for in the last 2 elections, and he's probably not very smart, by the looks of it. He's a figurehead.

The people who planned this thing, if they did, are probably very smart.

Read the "Project For a New American Century", and you may find a few of their names among the ones mentioned there.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 10:32 AM

And I consider it a theory, not a certainty. I'm not really in a position to be 100% certain about things which I have absolutely no personal involvement in. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 11:03 AM

The kind of theory Little Hawk had there is a lot more plausible than ones that that would have the whole thing home grown. Of course the next stage in that would have the "certain elements in the US government" being manipulated by outsiders.

And so it goes, mirrors within mirrors...Think about it too long and you go mad. Agents, double-agents, turned double-agents, turned double agents who have been turned...

There's no real point in wasting time speculating about how many people were in the conspiracy and who they were. (And of course it was a conspiracy, by definition, even if the correct conspiracy theory is that only Al Qaeda and it's immediate operatives were involved.)

Whatever happened, one thing is clear, and that's the thing to focus on. The US administration seized on the disaster, and its aftermath, as a way of carrying out policy objectives which had been there in advance. It may not have welcomed 911, it may not have planned and organised it, or stood back and let it happen - but 911 suited it right down to the ground.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 11:12 AM

Excellent points, McGrath. Whatever way it played out, they got their Pearl Harbor level event, didn't they?

When things happen like that which are just incredibly convenient from the point of view of someone who wants an excuse to go to war...well, I can't help being a tad suspicious.

Those buildings were losing a lot of money too...they were a liability, not an asset. So their destruction was "convenient" in more ways than one, for certain people.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: pdq
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 12:28 PM

As they say, "Shiite happens".

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: GUEST,number 6
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 01:32 PM

Oh no .......



biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: dianavan
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 01:49 PM

I still think that the link between Saudi Arabia and the Bush family has been underscored (to say the least).

"The Feds' interest in al-Bayoumi has been heightened by a money trail that could be perfectly innocent, but is nonetheless intriguing—and could ultimately expose the Saudi government to some of the blame for 9-11 and seriously strain U.S.-Saudi ties"

MSNBC.com Mobile

The article discusses the possibility of money being transferred to al-quaida through the bank account of Princess Haifa, wife of Prince Bandar (the guy holding hands with Bush).

but, of course: "The facts are unclear, and there's no need to rush to judgment," said one administration official. In meetings with intelligence committee leaders, Vice President Dick Cheney, Attorney General John Ashcroft and others have adamantly rejected attempts to declassify the information, citing national-security concerns."

I digress.

google: Saudi Money Trail or Prince Bandar or Princess Haifa

Prince Bandar is more than a little "slick".

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: GUEST,Fergettaboutit
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 01:57 PM

There's a difference between looking for evidence to support beliefs and being unable to dodge the obvious. I DO look for ways to believe that my govt told me the truth about 9/11, but I keep running into pesky facts that prove they told me a lie. Hundreds of facts. Maybe thousands by now. The list keeps growing.

Picture this: A group of Muslims is about to hijack planes and take them on suicide missions. Must be devout Muslims, or they wouldn't be willing to sacrifice their lives to fight the "infidels." So the men prepare to die. But do they pray on the night before they go to meet their Maker? No, they go out to titty bars and slam down a few drinks. And that's what the govt tells you happened with the "hijackers."

But I digress. Gatekeepers. McGrath says, "There's no real point in wasting time speculating about how many people were in the conspiracy and who they were." That's Chomsky's position exactly. It's also Rush Limbaugh's position. Gatekeepers tell you that the govt has looked at 9/11 from every angle, and 19 men with boxcutters pulled off the job. Period. Cut to a story about Britney.

Two wars have been launched because of 9/11. They're even re-writing architectural codes because "jet fuel" brought down the towers. Jet fuel didn't bring down the towers, so can new science based on that supposition be accurate? 9/11 now permeates every fiber of our society. There is no more important issue in America than 9/11. The PATRIOT Act had NO chance of passing before 9/11, yet the enormous bill was being printed as the attacks took place. 5 weeks later it was law, and we lost half of our Bill of Rights. All state, county and city regulations, insurance rules, banking rules, business rules and so on now need to be "PATRIOT-Act compliant." The attacks were a set-up, and the follow-through was already in the works...war abroad, clamp-down on freedoms at home.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Greg F.
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 02:49 PM

{Kamm] probably had - he's pro-Bush and pro-war, with a background as a leftie

Oh, OK - he's a politically "born-again" dickhead like David Horowitz & Jerry Rubin.

Makes sense now.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 04:56 PM

the fact that the terrorists went to strip clubs on their last night alive, proves they weren't devout muslims..... reminiscent of those people who thought all we would have to do to defeat the Taliban was threaten them with water cannons full of pigfat.

Just cause what they believe is stupid, doesn't mean they're completely bloody thick.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 05:18 PM

Ahhhhh, the past Bush family comnections with the Nazis has also been swept under the carpet as has the the Nazi's influence in the Republican Party in general...

As fir Bush being involved in 9/11 there is little doubt that he very much was just from his incompetence and stubborness in accepting anything that the Clinton administration had been doing at least somewhat well... Richard Clark's testimony to the 9/11 Commission fairly well documents this... And this is the very least of his involvement...

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: GUEST,Fergettaboutit
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 07:39 PM

My research suggests that CAI - the Teachers ('TIAA-CREF') private equity group - and MIT faculty members, including Noam Chomsky, John Deutch, Paul Gray and Charles Vest, used the online resources and knowledge of MIT Center to coordinate multiple acts of arbitrage, sabotage and fraud linked to the 'al-Qaeda' attacks of 9/11.

http://www.hawkscafe.com/090406.html

Fascinating website. A forensic economist. Look at some of these articles. Amazing stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 08:09 PM

Thats right John, if you seek a career killing people in secret and malicious ways, its best to distance yourself from Chomsky even 40 years ago.


dianavan, Noam sure has a lot of medals, awards, memberships and honors bestowed uopon him.

I bet Teribus and Dickey have twice the number of trophys and ribbons than Chomsky has.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Stringsinger
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 08:44 PM

"Dianavan, thank goodness somebody has come along and told you what to think. Must be very comforting for you."

Ah Teribus, you're just jealous because she's listening to someone who makes sense. :)

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Stringsinger
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 08:54 PM

GUEST, Fergettaboutit

Your assertions about Chomsky are outrageously wrong. The Left GateKeeper chart is as bogus as piece of propaganda as ever foisted on the public.

Chomsky's views are not in any way didactic. He is too intelligent for that but this is not the case with his detractors who make outrageous statements that they can't back up with factual information.

As to Bush, he is digging his own hole. He doesn't need Chomsky or anyone else to help him.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 08:56 PM

Lord save us from No(itall)am Chomsky!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Stringsinger
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 09:16 PM

John, I'm sure your lord will save you from Noam. Meanwhile, some of us will pay attention to his wisdom.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: GUEST,Fergettaboutit
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 09:21 PM

The left gatekeeper chart is mercilessly accurate. The freakin' Ford Foundation finances left-wing groups. It's all documented with receipts and public statements, too. Gloria Steinhem is a CIA operative. And a forensic economist said this latest about Chomsky, not I. Go to Hawkins' website and tell him he's being outrageous. Read some of his articles first, though. Brilliant work. So cool.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 09:31 PM

yes - Id say hes bang on.

especially on the unstated questions in the US media.

3years ago, I came back from a trip to Europe where all the news talked about the EU and the 10 new countries that just joined and the election that was to be held. There was barely a mention in the Canadian and US news - but plenty of gossip on Brangelina and other celebrities.
(the reason I watch the news is so that I know who the celebrities are)

the list goes on .. the US takes a dim view of any country harboring terrorists (but of course the US harbours Luis Posada Cariles who bombed a Cuban airliner and killed 73 people) Jeb Bush specifically requested that Posada be pardoned so that it doesnt look hypocritical for the US to try criticize other countries that may harbour terrorists).

theres also the US terror campaign on Cuba, and Nicaragua
they freely admitted to mining Nicaragua harbours - which is why they dont believe in a world court because then theyd be responsible.

the 'godfather' state punishes those that are defiant.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Stringsinger
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 09:47 PM

The Ford Foundation probably financed a lot of things. So What? That's what foundations do. They probably weren't all left wing stuff.

Gloria Steinham a CIA operative? That's really funny. I suppose she's responsible for 911 as well.

As for forensic economists, they are about as accurate as bible studies on the grand canyon.

Propaganda.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: GUEST,Fergettaboutit
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 10:28 PM

Miss Steinem said she had talked to some former officers of the National Student Association, who told her C.I.A. money might be available to finance American participation in the seventh postwar festival scheduled for Vienna in the summer of 1959....

Miss Steinem noted that since the foundation was started in "the post-McCarthy era" the Federal Government could not openly finance the foundation. Overt government support would also have "alienated" youths from other countries who were suspicious of the United States, she said.

http://www.namebase.org/steinem.html
(So, the group she was involved with was illegally taking money from the CIA, and she admitted she knew it was illegal. There is so much information about this on the internet, you really should look. She says she was never asked by the CIA to name names, and that's lawyerly talk for saying she didn't need prompting.)

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 02:33 AM

Chomsky says "If you look back at the record, what was the main reason for the U.S. attack on Vietnam? Independent development can be a virus that can infect others. That's the way it's been put, Kissinger in this case, referring to Allende in Chile. And with Cuba it's explicit in the internal record." He is actually arguing that the Vietnam War was fought because the United States is opposed to independent countries going their own way? Amazing that a guy as old as Chomsky can no longer remember that balance of power politics between the US and USSR was the determining factor for regional conflicts the world over. Whether you see the Vietnam War as a huge gaff or a noble cause, you have to see that the US motivation there was to counter a perceived power shift that threatened Southeast Asia, not stifle a country's independent aspirations.

I stopped reading when he got to defending Hugo Chavez as a man moving Venezuela toward independence. Hugo Chavez has repealed most of Venezuela's democratic structures and traditions, taken control of the press in that country, and established himself as a dictator in the mold of Fidel Castro. Not my idea of progress.

I don't totally disagree with everything that Chomsky states,(I agree that the progress with Korea is primarily the Bush Administration clutching at straws for any kind of foreign affairs progress) but I certainly find his arguments less than persuasive.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 02:21 PM

The USA is deeply opposed to countries behaving in an independent fashion, L.E.J., specially when we are talking about moves to establish economic independence. That is why they went against Castro from the time he threw out American big business interests in Cuba. They would have loved him if he'd been a ruthless dictator who cooperated with American big business.

They went against Torrijos and later Noriega in Panama, because the Panamanians were moving to legally take over national sovereignty of the Panama Canal Zone (negotiated with Jimmy Carter) and were also attempting to kick out American training bases for paramilitary groups in Panama (the School of the Americas, etc). The Panamanians were also negotiating with Japan to build a newer, bigger, better Panama Canal to replace the USA-controlled one. This would NOT have been of benefit to American contractors, but to Japanese contractors. It would have meant the loss of a huge strategic asset to the USA. The result: A totally illegal act of aggression by the USA against Panama during Bush the Elder's term of office, all ostensibly to "get" one evil man...Noriega! LOL! Talk about a phony excuse for a war. Noriega was simply the media scapegoat of the hour. He didn't matter. The Canal and the other matters I mentioned did.

They went against Roldos in Ecuador because he was attempting to steer an independent line in regards to the USA oil corporations, and he was expelling an American quasi-religous Pentecostal organization (the SIL) that pretends to do helpful missionary work all over Latin America, but actually engages in US-sponsored espionage work on behalf of the American corporate agenda. Roldos was attempting to steer an independent course for Ecuador. He was blown in his airplane.

They went against Allende in Chile because he was attempting to steer an independent course for Chile. He ended up dead, as usual.

They have gone against Iran ever since 1979, because Iran is not acting as a willing corporate servant for American interests...has not done so since the Shah was deposed.

They went against Saddam as soon as he deviated from USA instructions, but they loved him as long as he cooperated.

They went against the Taliban because the Taliban did not agree to open up Afghanistan as a corporate conduit for moving corporate oil through to the Indian ocean.

They moved against Chavez recently in a coup, but it failed. Chavez has been popularly elected. Twice. It's incovenient when demoratic elections don't elect the guy the USA wants, isn't it? Well, then, other means must be found to put someone in power that the USA wants...regardless of what a bunch of damned Panamanians, Chileans, Ecuadorians, or Iranians have on their minds.

It's always primarily about one issue: Is the leadership of a country cooperating with greater USA corporate development and marketing objectives (as the Shah of Iran did, for example, and as the Saudis have done) or are they resisting the corporate agenda in favor of their own local, social, and national independence?

If they are doing the latter, the USA will move against them ruthlessly by:

1. economic war
2. media war
3. covert war (including terrorism and/or assassinations)
4. outright open war and invasion with the US armed forces

Iran is presently being subjected to items 1, 2, and 3 above, although item 3 isn't getting much news coverage in our press. Item 4 is likely to follow sometime in the next 2 years, because that's all the time Mr Bush has left, and I don't think he intends to simply pass the job on to the next administration.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Stringsinger
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 06:58 PM

The New York Times article is such a red-herring. Steinem took some money from the government? So what.

The CIA has been financing everything including drug running in Afghanistan. It's about time they used some money for something useful.

As to Chavez, Castro etc. how are they more of a dictator then the guy in the White House today? Talk about ban on the presses, have you read the US papers lately?

It is so hypocritical to criticize Castro, Chavez or any of the South or Central American *elected* representatives when the US has a supreme dictator who is engineering an invasion into Iran to control the world's oil and establish military bases throughout the Mid-east.

Castro and Chavez have the democratic support of their people. Does Bush?

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 08:07 PM

regarding the balance of superpower politics and vietnam LeJ
shortly after wwII Ho CHi Minh could have been a US ally but they ignored him, and if they were really for supporting Democracy they should have allowed and honored the elections in the 50s. Ho Chi minh would have won but that didnt suit them.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Wolfgang
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 09:36 AM

Fergettaboutit, your screen name fits your posts.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Dickey
Date: 28 May 07 - 05:57 PM

I saw something interesting recently on Democracy Now. It was a documentary based on a book, Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman.

It claims that big newspapers like the NYT and Washington Post shapes public opinion they way they want as per the corporations that advertize and support the paper.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent:_Noam_Chomsky_and_the_Media

I am under the impression that many mudcatters belive that government is run by corporations and newspapers like the NYT and the Washington Post are the only thing exposing what the government is doing and keeping it in check.

So which way is it?

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 May 07 - 07:54 PM

In the main, Dickey, mass media shapes public opinion in North America through a combination of carefully presented "news", entertainment, and advertising. And the majority of people go along with it and never question it. There will always be a few voices in the media who buck the trend, but only very few, and most people won't listen to them and wouldn't believe them if they did listen to them.

Thus do governments and special interests shape public opinion and arrange public consent.

This was also true in Nazi Germany or in the Soviet Union or Red China or ancient Rome or the British Empire. The Soviets did it too clumsily, though, and they didn't offer their public enough domestic "goodies" to keep them pacified. Accordingly, they eventually failed in maintaining the consent and cooperation of the people.

I think Noam Chomsky is basically correct in what he says about "manufactured consent". It's the same as manufactured public demand for big-selling consumer goods, such as the "Tickle Me Elmo" doll or the Ipod. You convince everyone they've gotta have one, through aggressive advertising, and they all dutifully troop out like lemmings and buy one...or several.

Ka-Ching!!!!!

I tend not to be affected much, because I don't watch TV or listen to the radio, but I've always been a maverick and an outsider when it comes to stuff like that. There aren't enough people like me that it's ever going to be any real threat to the $ySStem.

The only thing that is a real threat to the $ySStem is its own idiocy and its basic insanity....its own excessive appetites. Those will probably cause it to fail in the end, as did the Soviets, the Nazis, Napoleon, the Romans, and whoever else you could care to name who was once king of the hill.

And then something else will take its place.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Dickey
Date: 29 May 07 - 09:47 AM

LH: So I assume when the NYT publishes some expose of some thing the government is doing in secret that it is actually the will of the government and those that trumpet enthusastically wht the NYT said are actually playing into the hands of the government and big corporations.

I further assume when the media in a communist country publishes something it is controlled by the government.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Amos
Date: 29 May 07 - 09:58 AM

DIckey:

You know what they say about "assume", I expect. Facts are tricky devils and they come in case-by-case sets, and it is very easy to find them completely reversing expectatiosn based on assumption.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Stringsinger
Date: 29 May 07 - 01:12 PM

Noam Chomsky is a shining voice in the forest of American ignorance. You can take what he has to say about Iran to the bank.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Dickey
Date: 30 May 07 - 12:05 AM

Amos:

I assume that you think you stated some sort of fact but in reality it amounts to a brain fart. It wouldn't even get the E meter off the peg.

Who controls the media:

____ The Government

____ Big Corporations

____ Nobody. The big media exposes what Corporations do and government secrets

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Amos
Date: 30 May 07 - 12:39 AM

Dickey:

If you continue to be abusive, I am going to stop discussing things with you. It is beneath you.

Media are controlled by different people, primarily by their own executives, their network executives, and their networks' owner corporations' executives. In addition, different media are partially controlled or pressured by advertisers, and by people connected to those who make up the staff of the individual medium. Indirectly, pressures are also brought to bear by interest groups who try to make enough noise to make the media feel their advertising revenue is at risk. Governmental offices also try to exercise pressure, especially on large media organizations. Sometimes they succeed.

So, the answer is, there is no single group that control all media. There are lots of groups and individuals who pressure the media, and the usual corporate chains of command.

Any questions?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Dickey
Date: 30 May 07 - 12:51 AM

Amos:

At least that sound like a statement.

So Chomsky was wrong about his Manufacturing Consent?

The mass media serve as a system for communicating messages and symbols to the general populace. It is their function to amuse, entertain, and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society. In a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest, to fulfill this role requires systematic propaganda.
In countries where the levers of power are in the hands of a state bureaucracy, the monopolistic control over the media, often supplemented by official censorship, makes it clear that the media serve the ends of a dominant elite. It is much more difficult to see a propaganda system at work where the media are private and formal censorship is absent. This is especially true where the media actively compete, periodically attack and expose corporate and governmental malfeasance, and aggressively portray themselves as spokesmen for free speech and the general community interest. What is not evident (and remains undiscussed in the media) is the limited nature of such critiques, as well as the huge inequality in command of resources, and its effect both on access to a private media system and on its behavior and performance.
A propaganda model focuses on this inequality of wealth and power and its multilevel effects on mass-media interests and choices. It traces the routes by which money and power are able to filter out the news fit to print, marginalize dissent, and allow the government and dominant private interests to get their messages across to the public. The essential ingredients of our propaganda model, or set of news "filters," fall under the following headings: (I) the size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth, and profit orientation of the dominant mass-media firms; (~) advertising as the primary income source of the mass media; (3) the reliance of the media on information provided by government, business, and "experts" funded and approved by these primary sources and agents of power; (4) "flak" as a means of disciplining the media; and (5) "anticommunism" as a national religion and control mechanism. These elements interact with and reinforce one another. The raw material of news must pass through successive filters, leaving only the cleansed residue fit to print. They fix the premises of discourse and interpretation, and the definition of what is newsworthy in the first place, and they explain the basis and operations of what amount to propaganda campaigns...."

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Herman%20/Manufac_Consent_Prop_Model.html

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 30 May 07 - 02:40 AM

"...the media serve the ends of a dominant elite..." - Chomsky

Exactly what Amos said.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Dickey
Date: 30 May 07 - 10:59 AM

So is what Amos said correct or is what Chomsky said correct?

Or is there a magic way to claim that both are correct?

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 30 May 07 - 11:32 AM

No magic, Dickey, they are both right.

Amos said the media is controlled by many people. According to Chomsky, those people serve the ends of the dominant elite.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Amos
Date: 30 May 07 - 12:37 PM

Some organizations manage to field enough pressure across many pressure-points to orchestrate a media campaign.

The most obvious of these is wide-area purchased advertising as is done for commercial purposes or political campaigns.

Less obvious, and more insidious is to "make news" by generating controversy. This can "entrain" the media response because controversy sells papers. The tactic is to blow up the controversy with exagerrated or false data (for example, stating that Iraq was buying uranium from Niger). An editor who smells a hot controversy will give it column-inches or air-time because he knows that it will stir people up, and increase his viewers or readers.

The original code of ethics of the Fourth Estate required that reporter's have the temerity to question, fact-check and investigate such manufactured news. But it is too often the case that in the pressure to get something out, they do not.

Given enough dollars or influence it is possible for a coordinate dorganization to manipulate the media, certainly. The point I was making earlier is that there is no single organization that holds such control lines. The public microphone is constantly the target of grabbery and squabble.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Amos
Date: 30 May 07 - 01:33 PM

Here's essence of Chomsky:

It's the primary function of the mass media in the United States to mobilize public support for the special interests that dominate the government and the private sector.

While I don't know if I would support the "primary function" part of that statement I think functionally, it describes the mass media wellt o observe they are used to mobilize public support for special interests whenever the special interests can bargain, trade, bully or buy the coverage.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Stringsinger
Date: 30 May 07 - 05:47 PM

Since most major TV stations are owned by corporate interests it makes sense that their primary role is to protect those interests. It's politics. The media moguls and powerbrokers have no intention of serving the public by offering programming for the "public good".
They will mobilize public support for their interests ahead of any other interests that would get in their way. Sponsorship plays a role in the retention of the media special interests by financing them.

I think Chomsky is right on.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Riginslinger
Date: 30 May 07 - 06:17 PM

Chomsky is right about a number of things, but I find him really hard to read. I think he needs a really good editor.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Dickey
Date: 31 May 07 - 09:04 AM

I am still trying to figure out if the government and big corporations that are served by the news media want us to believe the lies that Bush should be impeached, the war is lost, etc. -OR- are they telling us the truth.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Riginslinger
Date: 31 May 07 - 10:35 AM

It seems to me like they're just telling the public whatever they think will benefit themselves. Trying to figure out the truth seems to have become a full time proposition.

             I don't think one can totally rule out looking at news generated in the Arab/Muslim world either.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Amos
Date: 31 May 07 - 12:33 PM

I think you're choosing the wrong side of the stream, there, Dick. The government's orchestrated PR campaigns, exercised through a compliant media, have historically all been on the line of defending the war, ignoring Bush's offences, and protecting the administration from any criticism.

Big corporations do not act with any single voice. Even ONE big corporation has a hard time coordinating their "shore stories".

But it is generally the case that large corporations who profit from the war -- Haliburton, Titan, and their ilk -- will surely support PR that defends their revenue stream from the war. Large corporations who profit from oil revenues will surely support PR that minimizes environmental harm and will oppose or suppress stories that promote alternative engineering.

It is fortunate for this country, and the world, that there are enough outlets and voices reaching public ears that counter-examples and alternative interpretations can be found and can find a venue somewhere.

Where government and large corporations are concerned, it is almost always "Follow the money", except when it is "Cherchez la femme....". :D


A

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Amos
Date: 31 May 07 - 12:55 PM

"The press, in other words, has come to be regarded as an organ of direct democracy, charged on a much wider scale, and from day to day, with the function often attributed to the initiative, referendum, and recall. The Court of Public Opinion, open day and night, is to lay down the law for everything all the time. It is not workable. And when you consider the nature of news, it is not even thinkable. For the news, as we have seen, is precise in proportion to the precision with which the event is recorded. Unless the event is capable of being named, measured, given shape, made specific, it either fails to take on the character of news, or it is subject to the accidents and prejudices of observation.

Therefore, on the whole, the quality of the news about modern society is an index of its social organization. The better the institutions, the more all interests concerned are formally represented, the more issues are disentangled, the more objective criteria are introduced, the more perfectly an affair can be presented as news.

At its best the press is a servant and guardian of institutions; at its worst it is a means by which a few exploit social disorganization to their own ends. In the degree to which institutions fail to function, the unscrupulous journalist can fish in troubled waters, and the conscientious one must gamble with uncertainties. "

Chomsky, quoted on another thread.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Dickey
Date: 31 May 07 - 11:31 PM

"Haliburton, Titan, and their ilk"

I hear all the mainstream media yelling about end the war. Why does Haliburton, Titan, and their ilk who control the media allow this to happen?

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Amos
Date: 31 May 07 - 11:59 PM

Dickey, you haven't heard a goddamn word i've said.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Riginslinger
Date: 01 Jun 07 - 10:31 AM

"'The press, in other words, has come to be regarded as an organ of direct democracy, charged on a much wider scale, and from day to day, with the function often attributed to the initiative, referendum, and recall.'"


                That's what I mean. Why doesn't he just say what he thinks? I repeat: Chomsky needs an editor.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Dickey
Date: 01 Jun 07 - 11:31 AM

Amos:

It appears that you tiptoe your way through a minefield with your statements but you placed the mines so you know where they are.

If mainstream media produces hundreds of articles supporting an end to the war and almost none supporting the war, evidently Halliburton and the administration have no control.

Chomsky says the media is controled by big business or the government or both.

True or false?

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Stringsinger
Date: 01 Jun 07 - 11:52 AM

Corporations now control the government. We the people have to take it back.
Corporations own the major media too. We need to take that back also.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Dickey
Date: 01 Jun 07 - 03:20 PM

"When someone rambles on about what they think they know, it is most certainly suspect as to its accuracy"

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Dickey
Date: 05 Jun 07 - 10:36 AM

Noam Chomsky
Peter Schweizer, National Post March 21, 2006

    One of the most persistent themes in Noam Chomsky's work has been class warfare. The iconic MIT linguist and left-wing activist frequently has lashed out against the "massive use of tax havens to shift the burden to the general population and away from the rich," and criticized the concentration of wealth in "trusts" by the wealthiest 1%. He says the U.S. tax code is rigged with "complicated devices for ensuring that the poor -- like 80% of the population -- pay off the rich."
    But trusts can't be all bad. After all, Chomsky, with a net worth north of US$2-million, decided to create one for himself. A few years back he went to Boston's venerable white-shoe law firm, Palmer and Dodge, and, with the help of a tax attorney specializing in "income-tax planning," set up an irrevocable trust to protect his assets from Uncle Sam. He named his tax attorney (every socialist radical needs one!) and a daughter as trustees. To the Diane Chomsky Irrevocable Trust (named for another daughter) he has assigned the copyright of several of his books, including multiple international editions.
    Chomsky favours massive income redistribution -- just not the redistribution of his income. No reason to let radical politics get in the way of sound estate planning.
    When I challenged Chomsky about his trust, he suddenly started to sound very bourgeois: "I don't apologize for putting aside money for my children and grandchildren," he wrote in one e-mail. Chomsky offered no explanation for why he condemns others who are equally proud of their provision for their children and who try to protect their assets from Uncle Sam. (However, Chomsky did say that his tax shelter is OK because he and his family are "trying to help suffering people.")
    Indeed, Chomsky is rich precisely because he has been such an enormously successful capitalist. Despite his anti-profit rhetoric, like any other corporate capitalist Chomsky has turned himself into a brand name. As John Lloyd recently put it in the lefty New Statesman, Chomsky is among those "open to being "commodified" -- that is, to being simply one of the many wares of a capitalist media market place, in a way that the badly paid and overworked writers and journalists for the revolutionary parties could rarely be."
    Chomsky's business works something like this. He gives speeches on college campuses around the country at US$12,000 a pop, often dozens of times a year. Can't go and hear him in person? No problem: You can go online and download clips from earlier speeches -- for a fee. You can hear Chomsky talk for one minute about "Property Rights"; it will cost you US79 cents. You can also buy a CD with clips from previous speeches for US$12.99.
    But books are Chomsky's mainstay, and on the international market he has become a publishing phenomenon. The Chomsky brand means instant sales. As publicist Dana O'Hare of Pluto Press explains: "All we have to do is put Chomsky's name on a book and it sells out immediately!"
    Putting his name on a book should not be confused with writing a book because his most recent volumes are mainly transcriptions of speeches, or interviews that he has conducted over the years, put between covers and sold to the general public. You might call it multi-level marketing for radicals. Chomsky has admitted as much: "If you look at the things I write -- articles for Z Magazine, or books for South End Press, or whatever -- they are mostly based on talks and meetings and that kind of thing. But I'm kind of a parasite. I mean, I'm living off the activism of others. I'm happy to do it."
    Chomsky's marketing efforts shortly after Sept. 11 give new meaning to the term "war profiteer." In the days after the tragedy, he raised his speaking fee from US$9,000 to US$12,000 because he was suddenly in greater demand. He also cashed in by producing another instant book. Seven Stories Press, a small publisher, pulled together interviews conducted via e-mail that Chomsky gave in the three weeks following the attack on the Twin Towers and rushed the book to press. His controversial views were hot, particularly overseas. By early December 2001, the publisher had sold the foreign rights in 19 different languages. The book made the best-seller list in the United States, Canada, Germany, India, Italy, Japan and New Zealand. It is safe to assume that he netted hundreds of thousands of dollars from this book alone.
    Over the years, Chomsky has been particularly critical of private property rights, which he considers simply a tool of the rich, of no benefit to ordinary people. "When property rights are granted to power and privilege, it can be expected to be harmful to most," Chomsky wrote on a discussion board for the Washington Post. Intellectual property rights are equally despicable, apparently. According to Chomsky, for example, drug companies who have spent hundreds of millions of dollars developing drugs shouldn't have ownership rights to patents. Intellectual property rights, he argues, "have to do with protectionism."
    Protectionism is a bad thing -- especially when it relates to other people. But when it comes to Chomsky's own published work, this advocate of open intellectual property suddenly becomes very selfish. .."
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/issuesideas/story.html?id=1385b76d-6c34-4c22-942a-18b71f2c4a44

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Amos
Date: 05 Jun 07 - 11:44 AM

Calling someone a war profiteer for publishing anti-war analyses widely is really, really stupid, IMHO, not to mention deeply hypocritical and schizoid.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Wolfgang
Date: 05 Jun 07 - 01:13 PM

We all like our villains or heroes to be villainous or heroic through and through. Life often isn't so.

Great scientists can be social assholes, fine singers can be lousy thinkers, ruthless dictators can be really caring regarding their pets.

If all of the above (Dickey's post) was true about Chomsky, would that make any of his analyses worse? If he was poorer would that make any of his analyses better?

Parts of this discussion remind me of the too many Ewan MacColl threads (like if he has changed his name, was a deserter etc.):

Many debaters liked mentioning details they thought were negative about his life. Would (or should) that make him less influential in the folk world? Some of the rest defended each bit about MacColl as if it was unconceivable to adore the songwriter and collector but to consider him politically naive.

The I tell you something bad about a person you seem to admire approach makes one error, an overly defensive attitude makes the other.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Dickey
Date: 06 Jun 07 - 01:21 PM

What is the definition of Hypocrite?

Is the testimomy of a drug dealer about the benefit of drugs as honest as the testimony of a recovered drug addict about how bad drugs are?

Mr Chomsky is against property rights but he still copyrights his books. He is against trusts but he still has one.

He is against tax avoidance but he still sets up a trust.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Jun 07 - 05:33 PM

Wolfgang is spot on there.

This kind of things just aren't relevant. Argue with Chomsky's analysis, or question his facts - but the kind of stuff Dickey is going on about is as relevant as attacking him for his fashion sense or lack of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Jun 07 - 08:12 PM

Classic argumentum ad hominem:   

The fallacy of attacking the character or circumstances of an individual who is advancing a statement or an argument instead of trying to disprove the truth of the statement or the soundness of the argument.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Dickey
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 01:31 AM

"attacking the character or circumstances"

When one engages in the same practices he is supposedly against, it is not against his character or circumstances. It is against his actions that belie his "truths". It is self condemnation.

If a judge takes a bribe is his verdict still correct?


Richard Nixon: "I am not a crook" Yeah, Dick, just because you are a crook is nor reason to doubt your word.

Bill Clinton: "I did not have sex with that woman" Bill, we believe you 100% regardless of what the woman said.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Barry Finn
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 03:40 AM

"If a judge takes a bribe is his verdict still correct?"


It doesn't mean shit Dickey, your question should've been

"If a Judge takes a bribe does it mean that the defendant is more innocent or more guilty?" You're twisting the night away! The action of the Judge has no baring on the status of the questionable person. Just as the fashion or the banking methods of Norn have no baring on his views. That was silly of you Dickey.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 09:30 AM

"Don't take any advice from that guitar teacher - I've heard him play a few bum notes from time to time..."

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 10:21 AM

I guess we're all occasionally vulnerable to the Pigeonhole Disease. You know, we take one or two data points that define a category, such as hypocrite, and then extrapolate fromt hem to completely assume tons of other things -- in this case label Chomsky as hypocritical and thus throw all his positions into the trash. It's a human weakness, and it is (as the 2004 election demonstrated) a contagious mental weakness. Dickey is a prime carrier, right up there with Tarheel.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Dickey
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 11:23 AM

At least we can say that if Noam Chomsky does it, it must be OK for others to do it regardless of the fact that he says it is not OK.

Does a double standard come into play here? One standard for Chomsky and another for everybody else.

"contagious mental weakness. Dickey is a prime carrier, right up there with Tarheel."

Now what does that have to do with the validity of my assertion? That is a personal Ad Hominem attack designed to discredit my assertion.


"Classic argumentum ad hominem:   

The fallacy of attacking the character or circumstances of an individual who is advancing a statement or an argument instead of trying to disprove the truth of the statement or the soundness of the argument.

Don Firth"

How many personal attacks do you mount every day Amos?

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 12:08 PM

At least we can say that if Noam Chomsky does it, it must be OK for others to do it regardless of the fact that he says it is not OK.

Why should that follow? Why can't we say he's right when he says that, and wrong if he does that?

One way and another I suspect that all of us have in our time done things we have thought were wrong. In fact anyone who says they haven't is almost certainly a liar.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Don Firth
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 12:57 PM

Re:   argumentum ad hominem.

Don't argue with me, Dickey. Take it up with Aristotle.

If an axe murderer says that the sun rises in the East, does the fact that the assertion was made by an axe murderer ipso facto mean that the sun doesn't rise in the East?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: beardedbruce
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 01:32 PM

If Bush said that the sun rose in the East, a number of those here ipso facto would argue with the fact.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 02:07 PM

Small dose of your own medicine, Sir Dick; if I categorize you as a vector of a mental disease, it makes your assertions suspect, since you just might be raving mad. In the past you have gone out of your way to try and foist similar categorical imperatives on others, such as Chomsky, Clinton, FDR, and gawd all knows who else. The reason it might feel uncomfortable is because it distorts the truth. I am pretty sure you are _not_ raving mad, in the usual sense.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: KB in Iowa
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 02:26 PM

I hate to agree with Dickey but (assuming the info in the article is substantially correct) he has a point. I am reminded of the glee with which many of us on the left jumped all over Rush when he was caught with some prescription drugs he shouldn't have had. Hypocrite was bandied about rather freely in that case. This reads to me like a "do as I say, not as I do" situation. I have never cared for that attitude.

The above opinions do not mean I think Chomsky is wrong. I generally think he is pretty well on the mark, but I would be more impressed if I thought he was following his own advice. I think I will check to see if I can find out whether or not the article is accurate.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Don Firth
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 02:39 PM

Barring some cosmic cataclysm, the sun rises in the East and will continue to do so, no matter who says what about which--Chomsky, Bush, Carl Sagan, or Bozo the Clown.

Now, of Bush said it, granted, it might prompt me to verify from other, more reliable sources, primarily because so much of what he has said in the past has proven to be unreliable. Nevertheless, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: beardedbruce
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 02:42 PM

QAmazing! A case where you might allow that Bush is right!

I was sure that you would try to change the rotation of the Earth before admitting Bush could ever be right!

NOW, how about trying " to verify from other, more reliable sources"
about what else he has said, instead of making snap judgements in the future?

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Don Firth
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 03:35 PM

I have and I do verify, BB. No snap judgments. At least not on my part.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Dickey
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 10:00 AM

Dear Amos:

Methinks you suffer from the same dilusions as Chmosky, Do as I say not as I do.

Would you say that calling GWB a slime eater is an ad hominem attack?

Subject: RE: BS: A Declaration of Impeachment

From: Amos - PM
Date: 05 Jun 07 - 04:16 PM

T:

If you honestly feel that no lies have been promulgated by the Bush Administration, you either haven't been paying attention, or you are so deeply wrapped in your wooly cloud of true-believer denial that you can't draw a bead on reality even after two cups of coffee.

So far, all we have seen of the impeachment movement is a LOT of grass roots vocalization and one article from Conyers.

But -- ya never know. Keep your fingers crossed and your slime-eater may have to face the music some day.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Dickey
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 10:04 AM

Chomsky, for all of his moral dudgeon against American corporations, finds that they make a pretty good investment. When he made investment decisions for his retirement plan at MIT, he chose not to go with a money market fund, or even a government bond fund. Instead, he threw the money into blue chips and invested in the TIAA-CREF stock fund. A look at the stock fund portfolio quickly reveals that it invests in all sorts of businesses that Chomsky says he finds abhorrent: oil companies, military contractors, pharmaceuticals, you name it.

http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/2912626.html

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 01:02 PM

Once again, so what?

When it comes to politicians ad hominem makes a lot more sense,. because it's the person as such you are dealing with in a whole range of actions that affect you. Rather analogous to a marriage partner - it'd be daft to suggest that ad hominen wouldn't be appropriate in a dispute between husband and wife.

It's rather a different matter when what is in dispute are the views of an academic or a polemicist. In such a case personal actions are generally beside the point, and shouldn't be allowed to intrude into arguments about the ideas.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Dickey
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 10:42 PM

You mean like the Shrink that sexually abuses his vulnerable patients?

No reason the question the professionalisim of the treatments he dispenses is there?

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Don Firth
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 10:56 PM

You're getting a little over the top, there, Dickey.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jun 07 - 12:22 AM

Not quite the words I would have chosen, Don, but yer a gentleman.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Jun 07 - 11:50 AM

"You mean like the Shrink that sexually abuses his vulnerable patients"

Like what?

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jun 07 - 01:20 PM

Dickey:

It is clear you have severe misunderstandings about logic. If I were to call you a slime-eater, that would be an ad hominem attack in an argument we were having.

In Bush's case it simply a statement of what is already well-established on the public record.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Dickey
Date: 09 Jun 07 - 11:25 PM

Where is it on public record that GWB is a slime-eater Amos? Hmmmm. I can't find even one instance.

Does it appear on public record that Chomsky is a Hypocrite?

I find about 102,000 instances.

I see no need to mount a personal attack on you to prove my point.

However you seem to think it is necessary to attack people personally to bolster your weak arguments and make them more believeable.