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Accidental Ajarn

^

You appear to be a true believer.

Fine.

Being a believer of leftist ideology is like being religious. Since there is no hard empirical evidence to support this way of thinking, one just has to take it on faith. Chomsky is one of your prophets. Chomsky, as far as I have ever seen, has never referred to any quantitative studies in his writings. Sure, in any issue as complicated as political science one can always find anecdotal evidence to support any position. But using only one-side of the story is not likely to get to the truth.

I have given you a few of Chomsky’s statement that show he was a keen supporter of communism throughout the 60s through he 80s, I could give you hundreds more.

As far as his wacked out 9/11 conspiracy themes, or his anti-Jewish propaganda, well what can you say.

Arguing against leftists is like trying to convince people that it is highly unlikely there are little green men flying around in UFOs around US military bases. Arguments about the lack of evidence of life in our solar system and near the near impossibility of the ability to break the laws of physics which would be needed in order to travel the distances that life would need to in order to visit us on Earth do not go down well with true believers

Believe what you want, belief is not what scholars work with, we work with evidence.

Texpat

I'm not whining. I rather enjoy being a member of a capitalist society, with democratic freedoms and the ability to make choices of my own. I have no problems with electing leaders who employ smooth talking PR campaigns to make them appear better than the other candidate. Yes, we're all aware this goes on. No, we're not being misled or duped.

You seem to prefer the gentle, pipe-smoking old man who lives in the log cabin up on the hill to lead you to the promised land, making your fairy-tale nirvana come true. When did you check out of reality?

I see no reason why I should walk around bashing myself in the head everyday and demand everyone else I meet be equally apologetic. Just ain't going to happen.

AntRobertson

True believer? It's not a question of faith or religion...

Quote:

Being a believer of leftist ideology is like being religious. Since there is no hard empirical evidence to support this way of thinking, one just has to take it on faith. Chomsky is one of your prophets. Chomsky, as far as I have ever seen, has never referred to any quantitative studies in his writings. Sure, in any issue as complicated as political science one can always find anecdotal evidence to support any position. But using only one-side of the story is not likely to get to the truth.

I'm sorry but that's a load of unmitigated bollocks. All you've done to this point is level unsubstantiated accusations - and refused to provide evidence of those you've been queried on - and now you're telling me that "leftist ideology is like being religious"?? I suppose then that 'rightist' ideology is somehow not.

Believe it or not but I'm old enough and intelligent enough to think for myself. Chomsky's no prophet of mine; I agree with some but not all of what he says. I've read and studied his work and taken on-board that which strikes me as being correct.

All you are doing, in effect, is telling me that's 'wrong' without actually addressing the issues. I mean here I am suddenly being called on to defend my stance because you've erected a strawman. It's called intellectual-dishonesty.

__________________
... allegedly

AntRobertson

Could've fooled me. You've taken an opportunity in a thread discussing Noam Chomsky to have a pop at other posters.

This isn't about me, Tex. Your continued ad hominem does you no credit and betrays you.

Accidental Ajarn

"I've read and studied his work and taken on-board that which strikes me as being correct."

There is your problem. What do you base your decision to accept or reject his "theories?" What evidence does he use to back up his conclusions?

Ok, I do know a bit about academic research and maybe it is very easy for me to spot the flaws in the lack of methodology used by Chomsky, but I would think an intellegent layman could see this as well. Chomsky only uses selected ancedotal evidence to support his theories, it doesn' take a scholar to see through that type of logical reasoning.

In the end, the proof is in the pudding.

Chomsky is living in a capitalistic country where he lives in high style. He has chosen the path his writings slam instead of the life he advocates. He doesn't even believe the nonsense he writes, but he knows how to market and make profits off the gullibility of others.

He has made himself into a brand and sold that to others who want easy answers but like chomsky, have no real convictions.

Chomsky gives words of rebellion to those who are enjoying the fruits of what they are "rebelling" against.

Chomsky was a strong supporter of socialism, which history shows has failed.
But he has been able to rebrand himself for a new generation of wanna-be political activists without real conviction or knowledge.

How much evidence do you want?

I gave you a few quotes and links to hundreds of others where it shows where Chonmsky got it wrong (Or lied outright in many cases). If you want to believe in your prophet, nothing I can say or write will convince you otherwise.

Accidental Ajarn

Here is how one of todays top scholars views Chomsky's methodology.

Huntington commented on Chomsky’s claims thus (NYRB, 26 February 1970):

It would be difficult to conceive of a more blatantly dishonest instance of picking words out of context so as to give them a meaning directly opposite to that which the author stated. For the benefit of your readers, here is the "obvious conclusion" which I drew from my statement about the Viet Cong: …the Viet Cong will remain a powerful force which cannot be dislodged from its constituency so long as the constituency continues to exist. Peace in the immediate future must hence be based on accommodation.
By omitting my next sentence — "Peace in the immediate future must hence be based on accommodation"—and linking my statement about the Viet Cong to two other phrases which appear earlier in the article, Mr. Chomsky completely reversed my argument. (Incidentally, the phrase "direct application of mechanical and conventional power" is not mine, but one which I quote from Sir Robert Thompson. Mr. Chomsky, however, does not see fit to recognize these distinctions of authorship.)
Mr. Chomsky's further effort to say that I favor demolishing Vietnamese society and "eliminating the people" in order "to crush the people's war" is totally false and misleading. My article described the urbanization produced by the escalation of the war between 1965 and 1968 and the extent to which this "American-sponsored urban revolution" undercut the "Maoist-inspired rural revolution." It concluded from this fact that peace would require compromise and accommodation on both sides. To eliminate Viet Cong control in the areas where they have been strong, I said, "would be an expensive, time-consuming and frustrating task." Instead of attempting this, we should aim at a political reintegration of the country which "clearly will depend, however, upon the recognition and acceptance of Viet Cong control of local government in these areas. It is here that accommodation in the most specific sense of the word is a political necessity." This is, in a nutshell, the thesis of the article, and it is well reflected in its title, "The Bases of Accommodation," which Mr. Chomsky somehow forgot to mention.

Accidental Ajarn

Chomsky’s Totalitarian Apologetics

By Paul Bogdanor

The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism: The Political Economy of Human Rights, Volume I. By Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman. South End Press, 1979.

The pseudo-scholarly appearance of this book - replete with quotations and footnotes - should fool no-one: this is a work of propaganda, in which American allies are furiously attacked and communist dictatorships relentlessly excused. Perhaps its most noteworthy feature is the assertion that “Washington has become the torture and political murder capital of the world” (p16), although not one of the reactionary crimes cited by the authors amounts to even a microscopic fraction of the tens of millions who had just been massacred or starved to death in the People’s Republic of China or the millions who were dying at that very moment at the hands of communist tyrants in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, let alone the countless victims of near-genocidal Soviet client regimes, from Ethiopia to Uganda.


Chomsky's Totalitarian Apologetics

AntRobertson

How is that a "problem"? My opinions are just as valid as yours and it's very presumptious of you to discredit them on the basis of some arbitrary standard that you're applying. For every critique you find of Chomsky I can point to one in support so copious cut 'n pastes are redundant and a waste of time.

And you yourself are guilty of that which you're accusing others. For, just one representative, example:

Unsubstantiated guff. How can you know what he believes or doesn't let alone say he doesn't believe what he writes? Where is your "academic research"? And you've still not answered the question; what is your fascination with his earnings? Do you even know what he earns?

Well more than the unsubstantiated allegations, inferences, and leaps of logic would be a good starting point.

For the second time, he is not my prophet. Indulging in this sort of labelling betrays a lack of intellectual-honesty. You're labelling both me and him to give yourself a target to attack. A 'strawman', in the colloquial.

garye

The Acc.Ajarn is right(tongue firmly in cheek)
He says "we work with evidence"
Lets look around us and the state of the world which has been dominated by predominantly by more right wing Govts.
Prices soaring, ancient conflicts unresolved ,banks wavering,corruption rampant throughout.All firmly under the guidance of the Fed Reserve I.M.F and Oil....no socialists there!
The evidence is the hunger and misery of war,and continued ineptitude and inability by the supposed leaders of this planet to adapt to a changed world,instead,desperately clinging onto old belief systems with ferverent righteousness,and damn the consequences...maintain the status quo!!!
Well thats my rant..thanks

Butterfly

I hardly see any evidence of him supporting communism. He is just describing a situation about Communism, which by the way is very true. Early days communism was all about brotherhood, camaraderie etc... quite a positive thing actually. Saying something had a positive point is hardly giving that thing full support. Ex: Bush killed Saddam Hussein. That's a good thing. But I don't support him, he deserve a bullet in the head for being a stupid trailer trash fuckwit and a mass murderer. See my point ?

Since when opinions of others is an indication of someone being a communism ? do you support witch hunting because this is basically what you are demonstrating here ?

Yes, you seem to suffer from this.

and rightly so, as we should all. Lawyers didn't invent the technique btw, it's called rethoric, and is based on critical thinking and comprehension analytical techniques. You can always google it and learn.

You seem to be one yourself, venting and making noises without making a case or addressing any issue with which you disagree. If you can't understand Chomsky, maybe you should stop repeating what you heard on Faux News and start maybe reading a few of his books to make your own EDUCATED judgement.

That will be a first

You have shown none for now. I am afraid you are too uneducated and too ignorant to show any evidence or have a serious discussion about Chomsky.

Accidental Ajarn

I am obviously not the only one who finds Chomsky making a fortune by opposing capitalism ironic.

Keep buying into Chomsky’s load of BS, after all Chomsky is laughing all the way to the bank about the gullibility of his followers.

http://foreigndispatches.typepad.com/dispatches/2005/10/noam_chomsky_is.html

One of the most persistent themes in Chomsky’s work has been class warfare. He has frequently 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 one percent. The American tax code is rigged with “complicated devices for ensuring that the poor — like eighty percent of the population — pay off the rich.”
But trusts can’t be all bad. After all, Chomsky, with a net worth north of $2,000,000, 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.
http://www.nationalreview.com/interrogatory/schweizer200510250827.asp
Lopez: Tell me the great hypocrisy of that greatest of all public intellectuals according to one recent depressing survey: Noam Chomsky.
Schweizer: Noam Chomsky thinks he's the Moses of this age and even those on the Left who don't agree with him on everything accept his moral authority. But Chomsky is a socialist who practices capitalism, and an anti-militarist who has made millions off of Pentagon contracts. Wonder what his followers would think of that? Then there is his constant lecturing about "tax gimmicks" and "tax shelters" that "the rich" use to avoid paying their "fair share." He must have forgotten about that when he set up his tax shelter.

Lopez: And he wasn't a lot of fun when you got in touch with him, was he?
Schweizer: I give credit to Chomsky for responding to my questions. His excuses were something to behold. No wonder he teaches linguistics. It's amazing how he twists his words. By the way, he said it was okay to criticize other rich people for setting up trusts and setting one up himself. After all, he explained, he's been fighting for poor people his whole life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_as_I_Say_(Not_as_I_Do):_Profiles_in_Liberal_Hyp ocrisy
Notable issues that Schweizer addresses in the work are Noam Chomsky's acceptance of money from prominent institutions whose policies he opposes (such as the Pentagon), living in an expensive home, and his visitation of socialist states such as Cuba. Schweizer, in the rest of the work, makes similarly-toned accusations against individuals the book focuses on, particularly surrounding political issues such as environmentalism, labor, and taxation. After the book's publication Chomsky talked to Schweizer about his creation of a trust fund for his daughters and grandchildren.[1] In Schweizer's follow up discussion with Chomsky, Schweizer reveals that even though Chomsky abhors corporations and refers to them as "fascist", Chomsky's own retirement fund is invested in large capitalization NYSE companies and the TIAA-CREF stock fund. Schweizer points out: "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."[1]

Accidental Ajarn

Butterfly

Thanks for demonstrating the intellectual capacity of the average member of the modern left.

Butterfly

AA, did you actually read his books ? or at least listening to his work ? or are you just repeating some BS you heard ?

AntRobertson

AA,

Look, we’re getting nowhere fast here. You seem to be equating "academic research" with the copious cut 'n pasting of others work that you’ve Googled.

All fine and well; but read into and alongside your inference that others who hold a contrary opinion are a bit thick and your reliance on labels to shift the posts it's not very convincing.

As far as I can see, to this point your rote response to a direct question is to ignore it, repeat your claims, and cut 'n paste even more.

Butterfly

^ yeah, the trademark of Boon Mee and friends, maybe another shared troll ?

Accidental Ajarn

Ant

Fair enough, my evidence presented in this anti-chomsky rant is hardly reliable or valid enough for publication in an academic journal.

But, I know more than a fair bit about academic research, Ok? (I have taught it at the post-graduate level).

"Good research" begins with a question and then seeks an answer. Chomsky begins with an answer and then attempts to find a way to "prove" the answer is correct. What Chomsky does is called propaganda (Or marketing), not research.

He is slick, he is normally vague enough to ensure he can backtrack when necessary. But

Now, maybe in lingustics he is considered a scholar, but surely you are not claiming that in political issues Chomsky is objective in any accepted sense of the word?

You can believe what you want to believe, but Chomsky is not a political or economics researcher, he does not collect data in a accepted fashion and then look at at it objectively.

He selectively takes second hand reports and twists the information to provide support for his already established conclusions.

If you want to believe what he writes, up to you.

If you find this type of "academic research" credible, believe every word of your phophet regardless of the facts.

But, I hope I have been around the block too many times to let any one regardless of political orientation influence me by lingusitic tricks while ignoring most of the objectively available evidence.

Do you find Chomsky credible because you approve of his methodology or becasue his conslusions fit into your political views?

Dollars to donuts its the latter.