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Scooter

Three cheers for Chomsky.
An accessable way for people to understand Anarchism.
Nice thread thanks

Scooter

Should have recomended something I guess.
Class Warfare The Attack On The Working Class.
The book shop just up from the UN Irish pub in CM have a few books of his.

Accidental Ajarn

Chomsky is a complete fucking hypocrite. He lambasts capitalism while enjoying living in a capitalistic society with all of its advantages. He has constantly used his right of free speech to support regime after regime that does not allow it. During the 70s, he claimed all American reports about Cambodia were lies and all reports by the Khmer rouge were true. He (and other so called academics who wouldn’t know a piece of empirical evidence from their assholes) supported the Khmer Rouge, long after evidence was clear that horrors were being conducted, and called all victims that escaped the massacres liars until evidence became so overwhelming that he finally had to backtrack.

Yeah, brilliant?

How so? Because he has been wrong in the past about everything he has predicted? Such as socialism would overcome capitalism, Khmer Rouge would turn the country of Cambodia into Nirvana, etc…

Maybe it is because he can articulate a position and convince non-critically thinking individuals without using any reliable or valid evidence?

I think he is a fucking fruitloop, well-spoken, but his knowledge of the world and critical thinking skills are completely absent.

Fucking apologist for murderous regimes just because those regimes happen to follow the misguided path of socialism. And some of you guys claim he is brilliant? You guys have some low standards of respect for intellectual ability and logic.

sabang

^ I would like to see you provide evidence and Link these allegations Ajarn.

Chomsky was a vocal dissenter against the VN War. History seems to have proved him right, but it was this more than anything that caused him to be demonised as a firebrand radical (which he is not) in mainstream USA.

Then he went on to publicise, to a largely ignorant west, the abuses that were happening in Central America- Nicaragua, El Salvador & Guatamala in particular- and the US supporting role in these atrocities. History most definitely proved him right here- and the stamp of those years is quite apparent in the politics of todays Central America.

Ditto the extent of the 'Communist' massacres in Indonesia, and western involvement in this (such as the CIA producing extensive lists of Communist sympathisers- in reality Labour organisers- that were marked for liquidation). At least 500,000 were slaughtered.

To me this is his greatest importance- telling us stuff, with academic integrity and thoroughness, that our political establishment wanted(s) the public not to be aware of, facts they tried to suppress. The mainstream media dutifully acquiesced- Chomsky did not. If you add to this alone his books 'Understanding Power' and 'Manufacturing Consent' (amongst others) he is rightfully considered one of the most important, and honest, intellectuals in the world today.

He is always open to a public debate, and in his quiet, bookish style blows his 'Opponent' out of the water. Not even in the same league- because he will only debate that which he has researched thoroughly. Would any intelligent person seriously believe a politicians hyperbole over Chomskys primary research? A sad indictment of the state of modern politics.

__________________
To err is human. To blame someone else is politics.

AntRobertson

^&^^

Likewise I'd like to see some of those accusations substantiated with evidence.

Frankly it strikes me as either a perversion, misterpretation, misunderstanding, or outright distortion of Chomsky's position(s). In the first paragraph alone you've made several blatantly untrue claims.

Accidental Ajarn

You guys can start off with

http://jim.com/canon.htm

Chomsky's idea of analysis was to accept any evidence, no matter the source or reliability, that fit into his world view while rejecting any evidence, regardless of source or methodology to obtain the evidence, that oppossed his leftist worldview.

No one with any type of normal to advanced critical thinking ability would accept any of Chomsky's arguments. Chomsky is not a scholar as he rejects the scientific method and the use of empirical evidence, he is a propagandist.

Brillant?

Only if one has very very low standards.

Milkman

^ Where in this paper or thesis mention of what you describe? I'm not challengin you, AA, but I cannot find it. A Ph.d AT M.I.T. ought to have some quality sources when he forms an opinion. Where is what, you are talking, about? Thanks.

Accidental Ajarn

Here are a few tidbits for you.

“Like Chomsky and Herman, Summers dismisses the refugee accounts as bearing little evidentiary validity.”

“Another major point reiterated in the works of all four authors is that America must be held accountable for most of the postwar problems, since, they argue, it had created the deplorable pre-liberation conditions. But this was a two pronged argument, not only was America to blame for the annihilation of a country, but it was the Khmer Rouge who were the protagonists, heroic in their effort to stave off starvation by evacuating the cities. It is expounded upon repeatedly by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman in the Chomsky-Lacouture Controversy,”

“Chomsky is no stranger to radical politics. He has written countless books and articles attacking U.S. foreign policy and the U.S. media. His background in linguistics makes him a formidable debater, and even his enemies call him a genius. Chomsky shies away from excessive demagoguery, but not from polemical exchanges. What separates him from the amateur activists cum academics in chapter 2 is his luster as a professional sophist or armchair academicien de grandeur. His extensive experience has taught him to anticipate potential quagmires and to make certain that token allowances are peppered throughout his works. He uses these vague concessions to make himself appear more or less "objective," always high-minded and (partially) right in retrospect, when he later quotes himself selectively.”


“It is in this twisted context that Chomsky and Herman's onslaught on the mass media began. They were meticulous, if not retentive, in pointing the minor faults of the Western press. They blew out of proportion a few erratas, which they latched onto and repeated in After the Cataclysm. They rebuked the media, along with Ponchaud and Barron-Paul, for shamelessly using refugees whom no objective person could trust. Why? Refugee stories could not be substantiated. Like Hildebrand, Porter, Summers, and Caldwell, Chomsky and Herman accuse the U.S. government of war-induced famine, but hypocritically assert that Khmer Rouge quick thinking in evacuating Phnom Penh served to rescue the population from starvation. Chomsky and Herman want to have their cake and eat it too. For instance, after dwelling on the several allegedly faked photographs of a man being murdered by the Khmer Rouge, and another pulling plows,[147] they conclude that "Even if the photograph had been authentic, we might ask why people should be pulling plows in Cambodia, the reason is clear, if unmentioned. The savage American assault on Cambodia did not spare the animal population."[148] Their logic is as appalling as Hildebrand and Porter's brazen defense of the Khmer Rouge evacuation of Phnom Penh's hospitals, though Chomsky and Herman do that too.”

Ear is much kinder to Chomsky than I would be, I think he is a complete waste of flesh and blood. WHy is he living in the USA is that country is so evil and communism is so great? Why doesn't he pack it up and live in North Korea where he could enjoy all stalionism has to offer? Why has he never chosen to live the life he advocates?

Sorry, but if anyone buys into his arguments it does not reflect well on the intellectual capacity of the individual being influenced by Chomsky's weak arguments. All style no substance. But, then again, if you are a leftist this is your only choice. Nearly 100% of all scientific economic research supports the concept that free markets work better than central planned economies (but one doesn't need a PhD to realize this).

Milkman

AA, thanks for the article but you need a link. I will read it in full, when you post a link. You have to post a link in Issues.

Thanks.

sabang

Chomsky is a major critic of Communism actually- he compares the system as it evolved to State totalitarianism.

So I believe, but Chomsky does not advocate centrally planned economies. He describes himself as a syndicated anarchist. His style of politics involves devolving power as much as possible to local bodies, with wide participation and power sharing in the political process. Government by local committee, if you like. He believes centralisation of power inevitably leads to abuse of power and corruption.

Thats his politics, which you can agree or disagree with. His credentials as a scholar are hardly in question- add to my brief resume' above his original academic credentials as a Linguistic scientist, and his important work here. This alone makes him an important Academic anyway.

Just because he told people what many of them did not want to hear does not make him wrong- he has been overwhelmingly proven right. What you can read as mainstream history now was considered close to treason when he first told the world about it.

Even if he has been wrong on a particular point or observation (which you have yet to establish), this does not discredit his body of work either. I, like yourself, note the grudging respect for Chomsky in the article you quoted above AA. It's premise however falls well short of even partially discrediting his massive body of work- this being to find Some (Any) Point that his research or reporting has been questionable or even wrong on, and then use that Point (whether established or not) to discredit the whole body of his work by implication or innuendo. It is a widely used technique, used by all sectors of the Political divide, and it fools none but the most naive of debaters- normally those who's myopic world view it agrees with.

An open minded read of Chomsky is an excellent cure for Myopia- you don't have to agree with his Politics.

Accidental Ajarn

Here is a good example of Chomsky getting it right?

"Space limitations preclude a comprehensive review, but such journals as the Far Eastern Economic Review, the London Economist, the Melbourne Journal of Politics, and others elsewhere, have provided analyses by highly qualified specialists who have studied the full range of evidence available, and who concluded that executions have numbered at most in the thousands; that these were localized in areas of limited Khmer Rouge influence."

Chomsky lies: denial of the Khmer Rouge holocaust in Cambodia.

Most in the thousands and mostly in areas of limited Khmer Rouge influence? Oh, yes now I see his brillance! All no Khmer Rouge Cambodians have lied all these years and only Chomsky from the safety and security of his highly paid tenure-track position in the USA where his freedom of speech is assured is right.

He used only the evidence that supported his simplistic theory of "America bad - all enemies of America good" while completely ignoring the mountain of evidence that was available at the time that contradicted his assertations.

Accidental Ajarn

Anti Communist? What have you been smoking?

http://www.paulbogdanor.com/chomskyquotes.html

ON COMMUNISM…

“One might argue, at least I would argue, that council communism... is the natural form of revolutionary socialism in an industrial society.”
(Government in the Future [Seven Stories Press, 2005], p27)


- Maoist China

“But take China, modern China; one also finds many things that are really quite admirable… a good deal of the collectivization and communization was really based on mass participation and took place after a level of understanding had been reached in the peasantry…”

Accidental Ajarn

I am hardly alone in my opinion

(The New Yorker, March 31, 2003)

http://www.paulbogdanor.com/200chomskylies.pdf

“in comparison to the conditions imposed by US tyranny and violence, East Europe
under Russian rule was practically a paradise.”

Letter reprinted in Alexander Cockburn, The Golden Age Is In Us (Verso, 1995), pp149-51.

Any of you guys who claim he is brilliant and was an anti-communism want to defend this?

“Internal [Soviet] crimes abated [after 1945]; though remaining very serious they
were scarcely at the level of typical American satellites, a commonplace in the Third World,
where the norms of Western propriety do not hold.”

World Orders, Old and New (Columbia University Press, 1996), p39.

If the Soviet Union was so great, why did it die away and why didn't Noam ever go live it that paradise?

“[Regarding] China’s actions in Tibet… it is a bit too simple to say that ‘China did
indeed take over a country that did not want to be taken over.’

Letters, New York Review of Books, April 20, 1967.

WTF was he smoking?

“Also relevant is the history of collectivization in China, which, as compared with
the Soviet Union, shows a much higher reliance on persuasion and mutual aid than on force
and terror, and appears to have been more successful.”

American Power and the New Mandarins (rev. ed., The New Press, 2002), p137n56.

“The Truth: Its culmination was the Great Leap Forward, the worst man-made catastrophe in
history, in which 30 million died”

Basil Ashton, Kenneth Hill, Alan Piazza, Robin Zeitz, “Famine in China, 1958-61,” Population and
Development Review, December 1984, p614.

“In a phenomenon that has few parallels in Western experience, there appear to have
been close to zero retribution deaths in postwar Vietnam. This miracle of reconciliation and
restraint… has been almost totally ignored.”

The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism (South End Press, 1979), p28.

No one with any knowledge of post war Vietnam, even committed leftists, would give any credence to this statement

http://www.paulbogdanor.com/200chomskylies.pdf

Need more? We could go on all day about the lies and mistakes of the “brilliant one.”

Leftist? Sure Propagandist? Sure Hypocrite? Sure Scholar? Hardly

Boon Mee

Chomsky is an idiot - end of story...

Accidental Ajarn

^

Yes, but as the famous showman was reported to have said, there is a sucker born every minute.

Chomsky has made millions living in a capitalistic society by slamming his own lifestyle.

ANd the gullible eat it up.

Someone once called his writing, Anti-Americanism for dummies. Good label.

That he remains popular and "respected" by some shows the lack of critical thinking skills being taught in Western educational systems.

AntRobertson

It's not really. Chomsky's not anti-American. That's merely a convenient label that his detractors use to slur him. Why bother addressing the actual issues and points that he raises when you can dismiss them with one label? If this were a few decades earlier he'd be accused of being a 'Commie'.

Any good educational system should teach critical and independent thought. Are you suggesting that because every child is not rote taught that Chomsky's 'wrong' (i.e. concur with your line of thinking) that this is somehow a failing?

__________________
... allegedly

Accidental Ajarn

^

He, Chomsky argues like a lawyer, not a scholar. He only uses "evidence" that supports his arguements and does not objectively analysis information.

Chomsky first comes to a conclusion, and then finds ways to sell the idea.

If you want to believe, go for it. Pay your hard earned money to make the anti-capitalist Chomsky even richer.

AntRobertson