The Thailand expat forum for Travel, Lifestyle and Fun.

Butterfly

AA and Cujo, get the fuck out of my fucking thread if you can't debate properly.

You are polluting,

cujo

Interesting. I just got redded by some fruitfly, with this comment.
Which, as I haven't revealed my position on this matter, would seem to make the fruitfly the stupid one.

Butterfly

^ I can smell a conservative rat light years ahead. Your argument pattern and attacks against Ant are highly suspicious and highly motivated. Enough for me to call the shots.

Get the fuck out if you are not prepare to debate, it's that simple

Whiteshiva

Why are there no intelligent conservatives posting here on TD? I know they do exist in the real world, as I have had the pleasure to meet (and even befriend) quite a few over the years.....

Just curious......

Boon Mee

Heh...

cujo

I just read this whole thread, nowhere did I see where AA called Ant stupid.
What I see is you BB and Ant getting in high dudgeon and You BB calling AA in post #70 The first ad hominen attack in this thread. It seems when you're being beat at your own game, name calling is the order of the day.
AA has provided a LOT of evidence and support for his position.
You two are crying foul because you can see he's kicking your ass.

AntRobertson

Really:

Perhaps if I were so inclined as AA I'd cast aspersions on your reading comprehension skills.

You know, the ironic thing about all of this is that I bet you didn't even read half the stuff AA cut 'n pasted. You didn't did you. AA himself admitted that some of the stuff he pasted was worthless; yet here you are, seizing on it as ' conclusive evidence'. What's wrong with this picture?

Do I really need to respond in kind, cluttering up the thread, to 'kick his ass'. If you see good Googling skills and ability with mouse-clicks and paste functions as a substitute for independent, logical and rational thought then good for you. I don't.

__________________
The Revolution will be televised... Eleven o'clock... Channel 10.

Butterfly

^ yeah, yeah, in your dreams, go to bed or sober up

sabang

A partial Resume' of Noam Chomsky, lifted from a recent Bangkok Post interview with him-

"He opposed the Vietnam War long before it was fashionable to do so. He revolutionised the field of linguistics and helped spark the cognitive revolution in psychology. He changed the way scientists approach the study of the human mind.


His "Chomsky Hierarchy" is taught in basic computer science because it offers insight into the nature of how languages are structured. His theories of Generative and Universal Grammar indicate that the human mind comes hard-wired with default settings that enable infants to quickly learn any language spoken around them.


When the US dropped the atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, Chomsky walked off into the woods to be alone and contemplate what he later called "one of the most unspeakable crimes in history".


For the last 50 years Avram Noam Chomsky, now in his 80th year, has been a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was voted No. 1 in the 2005 Global Intellectuals Poll, a list of the 100 most important living public intellectuals, compiled in November, 2005 by Prospect Magazine of the UK and Foreign Policy of the US on the basis of a readers' ballot consisting of more than 20,000 votes.

Chomsky was followed by, in order, Unberto Eco, Richard Dawkins, Vaclav Havel, Christopher Hitchens, Paul Krugman, Jurgen Habermas, Amartya Sen, Jared Diamond and Salman Rushdie. Further evidence of the quality and resonance of his work comes from the 1992 Arts and Humanities Citation Index, which noted Chomsky was cited as a source more often than any other living scholar from the 1980 to 1992 period, and was the eighth-most cited scholar during any period."

Bangkok Post | Outlook | 'Resonant and unwavering'

Any discussion of Chomsky on a public forum such as this inevitably comes down to politics. Predictably, Right leaning Conservative folk seek to discredit him, even as a scholar, because of his dissidence to US foreign (and domestic) policy in many cases. Some of the criticism above may be warranted, most is out of context quotes that I can't be bothered analysing individually.

I'll repeat again- Your views on Chomskys politics, and Dissidence, are no argument against his intellectual standing. You are pissing against Thunder.

"Manufacturing Consent" should be required reading for anyone interested in Issues, and the Media treatment of them.

__________________
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

Butterfly

^ I might come around and read that one, was very pleased with the long documentary which tried to summarize his views and thoughts,

And listening to the arguments from the horse mouth, was definitely a plus

Accidental Ajarn

Anyone see Mondays' Bangkok Post? Chomsky is now claiming the USA is responsible for the brutal regime in Burma?

Is there a single negative aspect of the world that Chomsky does not blame on the USA?

Yet he lives and pays taxes in the USA?

Before reading this interview, I said the only conclusion Chomsky ever comes to (regardless of issue) is America is bad. Here he does it again. He plays this same old tired song over and over and over again.

WHo does he think he is fooling?

Wait, he knows exactly who he is fooling and how to fool his true believers and have these wanna-be anti-capitalists support his high-living lifestyle.

Chomsky is laughing all the way to the bank. Soak it all up and keep buying and reading his books, afterall we don't want to see Chomsky fall into a lower tax bracket, do we?

Accidental Ajarn

In Today's Bangkok Post

Resonant hypocrite

Re: The interview with Noam Chomsky, Bangkok Post, July 14. Writer Alan Becker lionises Chomsky as a figure whose convictions are "resonant and unwavering".

Further examination of Chomsky paints a far different picture. In his book Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy, author Peter Schweizer shows that "anti-capitalist and pro-environmentalist" Chomsky is actually a rich boy worth millions of dollars, with stock holdings in the oil companies and military contractor firms he claims to despise.

When confronted with that fact, Chomsky defended holding the stocks for the enrichment of his family members, and stated that just because he was anti-capitalist he shouldn't have to live in "a cabin in Montana".

Noam Chomsky is quick to call others hypocrites, when he himself is the quintessential hypocrite _ hardly a man whose convictions are "resonant and unwavering".
BEN LEVIN

sabang

Well heres Chomsky, quoted from said article:-

"Burma had one of the few elected governments in the region in the 1950s, and was intent on pursuing a neutralist course. The Eisenhower administration was carrying out vigorous efforts to enlist the governments in the region into its Cold War crusades. As part of this broad campaign of subversion and violence, Washington installed thousands of heavily armed Chinese Nationalist troops in northern Burma to carry out cross-border operations into China. Burma vigorously objected, but in vain. The China forces began arming and supporting insurgent minorities in that turbulent region. In reaction, power within Burma began to shift to the military, leading finally to the 1962 coup. The matter is discussed by Audrey and George Kahin, Subversion as Foreign Policy. George Kahin was one of the leading Southeast Asian scholars, virtually the founder of the academic discipline in the US. The consequences of the US-UK-Israeli operations you describe are, of course, to strengthen the military junta. These matters are unreported and unknown in the US, apart from specialists and activists, because they interfere too dramatically with the doctrine that "we are good" and "they are evil", the foundation of virtually every state propaganda system."

Bangkok Post | Outlook | 'Resonant and unwavering'

I don't have a dog in this hunt, but if you are going to call him wrong on this do so, and tell us how he is wrong.

All you are doing right now is moaning that he blames the USA for everything.

Marmite the Dog

I think it's called democracy?

Oh, hang on. Democracy is forcing your brand of capitalism onto other sovereign states. My bad...

Accidental Ajarn

“I don't have a dog in this hunt, but if you are going to call him wrong on this do I don't have a dog in this hunt.”

The US had almost no stake or presence in post-war Burma, and the presence of Chinese nationalistic forces was not totally opposed by the Burmese government as claimed by Chomsky, instead many inside Burma (Saying the Burmese or Americans did this or that ignores the fact the within every country and every government there are competing and conflicting forces at work) thought of the Chinese forces as a buffer against imperialistic advances (such as what has seen in Tibet) that Communist China has been known for.

Chomsky, The linguistic and activist, claims this one factor that is loosely connected with the USA is the reason that Burma moved to a military dictatorship, while most historians concentrate on two very different factors. First there are the ethnic divisions within the country, and during the British colonial period, most of local armed forces came from the Karen, Karenni, and Shan minorities and therefore the loyalties of these groups have always been questioned by the majority Burmans. When independence came, the ethnic groups lost their privileged positions in society and tensions naturally followed. These ethnic divisions, and the arming and military training the ethnic minorities received under the British helped lead the country into constant ethnic war over the last 60 years.

Second you had the totally incompetent government before 1962 of U-Nu, who had the idea of running a country according to Buddhist ideas. The corruption and incompetence of the U-Nu government made the initial years of military rule seem “better” and allowed military rule to firmly take root.

I recommend The River of Lost Footsteps by Thant Myint-U (Which just so happens to be sitting on my desk at the moment) if you are interested in Burmese affairs.

But maybe all the historians are wrong and Chomsky is right. America was at fault and the local conditions and the Communist forces in the region had nothing to do with Burma becoming a military dictatorship. America's desire to help countries on the patht to democracy naturally leads these countries to become brutal dictatorships? Communist China and other dictatorships had nothing to do with leading Burma to the path it went down? Well, that is Chomsky logic for you. Democracy leads to brutality and dictatorship leads to freedom?

What proof does Chomsky use to come up with his conclusions? Who knows? He doesn’t tell us, we are just supposed to buy into it because the great one said so?

Maybe the uneducated and uninformed will buy into his conclusions, but those of us with some detailed knowledge of these subjects are not likely to be swayed by a person who only knows a single tune, that tune is America is evil and the cause of all the world’s troubles.

sabang

Well thanks for that- I have now heard two quite differing accounts of the 'decline of Burma' within a couple of days . Guess I've learned something- when it comes to Burmese history I'm in the dark.

It's certainly fair to say there is more than one cause, and if the depth of Chomskys research on the matter is no more than this he's open to criticism for a monocled perspective.

Seems you know some of Burmese history AA, so sorry for the off topic question but where do these ex-Chinese nationalists sit with the Burmese hierarchy or society today?

'Ava green, anyway.

Accidental Ajarn

Sabang, I am not an expert on Burmese affairs, but I did previously work with an organization which focuses on helping people from Burma and I am currently doing some basic research on the topic for a book I am working on.

I can only give you an educated guess on your question, as far as I know most of the nationalist forces were either killed or sent to Taiwan, the ones who remained got into the drug trade pretty heavily. I suspect some of these are now turning legit and focusing on trade between Burma and China. But don't take this answer for gospel truth.

Butterfly

well, this should be easy to research, I am sure Chomsky is not the only academic working on the Burmese affairs, so a consensus on what happened there exactly must be available somewhere on the net. Of course if that academic consensus (international) is the same as Chomsky, you don't have a case to call him a traitor or an hypocrite, that would be you instead.

Accidental Ajarn

^

BF

I don't know about "on the net," but of course this issue has been covered in a number of academic journals, especially those focusing on Asian Studies. I have read a number of articles (and even wrote a short one that was critical of current US policy) on Burmese affairs and history. Chomsky assumes his readers do not read academic journals or are knowledgable about the subject at hand. Anyone knowledgeable about a subject can easily see that Chomsky is producing very selective evidence to make his case.

Actually I know about Khmer history and affairs than Burmese, and Chomsky's view that America is the cause of all Cambodian's recent problems is not one shared by the majority of respected historians and scholars.

Butterfly

^ like I said, if an international academic consensus support this then you have a case, but knowing Chomsky, and him being an academic, he wouldn't get away from his peers if his claims were entirely false. I have an hitch that he might be in the right direction, and you are writing articles for right wing blogs nutters.

Apologies in advance if I am wrong about this. I will try to google more about this.