this guy has a really calm voice, comes across so much better when people calmly put across a point like this instead of shouting it at people furiously per the norm these days

*fear, because Chomsky always paints a picture of evil conspiracies of the neo-colonial oppressors.
Trusting him as a source is useless, because half of everything he says is a lie.

Invocations (fear) cannot be called by Crake because Crake is not privileged - sorry.

I think the difference he's looking for between Afghanistan and Washington is that Washington doesn't target civilians, and is a democratically elected government.

Society draws a line between military actions that try to minimize civilian casualties when possible and military actions that try to maximize civilian casualties.

Trusting him as a source is useless, because half of everything he says is a lie.

Just like Michael Moore; one half is lies, the other half, distortions.

>> ^quantumushroom:
Trusting him as a source is useless, because half of everything he says is a lie.
Just like Michael Moore; one half is lies, the other half, distortions.


I know. The neo-conservatives that got us into this endless global military complex profiteering war only speak the truth based on measurable facts.

Saddam=9/11=Bin Laden.

Jesus is real. Red skinned cloven hoofed evil guys living below the ground is real. Angel people with bird wings flying in the cloud tops are real. Magic is real.

I'll go float in my canoe in the lake of fire now. For I will sit there for an eternity in torture. Oh wait. I'll be dead.. as a result I will be non-corporeal... meaning zero nerve endings. So torture is essentially completely pointless. Zero nerves. Zero pain. Ya. Good thinking Mr Satan. Back to the drawing board.

^That's certainly a lot of assumptions you made, just from my disapproval of Noam Chomsky.

Firstly, I never actually understood why capitalists and religious conservatives ever joined the same party. They don't seem to have anything in common.

Secondly, I'm not an American, so I couldn't even have voted for the "neo-conservatives" that you seem to hate.

Crake, I think its fallacious to claim someone is lying without actually presenting a case where the person blatantly lied. I think Chomsky occasionally overstates the case but his readings of policy are dead on when you look at American actions in the historical sense as part of imperialism.

Furthermore Chomsky mentions Washington because the US government has carried out countless non democratic actions and terrorist actions in South America (Chile), South East Asia (Vietnam) and the Middle East (Iran) but we don't apply the same kind of value judgments as it does when it comes to other states. As he says in another clipping 9/11 is historically relevant because not only is it a terrible act, but its the first time an Imperialistic power experienced an attack on its home front, historically this has never happened for example in England.

^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Noam_Chomsky

And some examples of empires being attacked:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_invasion_of_Russia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_war_2

His accusations of American Imperialism may feel "dead on" to the listener, but that doesn't make it true, it only makes it good satire. What substance do his claims have?

I think that Noam Chomsky is a joke, and his theories are hyperbole.

Please Crake the Wikipedia article's criticisms are mostly academic and at times basically people disagreeing with Chomsky, hardly filled with points of him lying about certain events. Not to mention most of those points have replies issued by Chomsky himself.

The man makes good points on many subjects, obviously he won't be right all the time, for what I have heard and explored in his writings hardly justifies your frenzied accusations.

Furthermore what you postulated is Empires attacking other Empires or more standard notions of warfare between nations, what Chomsky speaks of is Imperialism against other nations. Is it right to destabilize other sovereign nations through the CIA? Assassinate other leaders? That is the point he is making.


I think your accusation of him being an outright liar is hyperbole. Let's agree to disagree.

I may be a bit frenzied, but it's only because I felt I should provide some counter-input to your many (frenzied?) uploads of Chomsky videos in the last few days.

I found this pdf of 200 infuriating - and yes, cherry-picked - Chomsky-quotes:
http://www.paulbogdanor.com/200chomskylies.pdf

A quote in the introduction sums up my position nicely:

“After many years, I came to the conclusion that everything he says is false. He will lie just
for the fun of it. Every one of his arguments was tinged and coded with falseness and
pretense. It was like playing chess with extra pieces. It was all fake.”
- Paul Postal
(The New Yorker, March 31, 2003)

^ Did everyone above watch the same video as me?!?
what's with going off on a tangent.. his point here is true, you see it all of the time with nationalism, even sports teams.. people have an 'Us vs. Them' mindset which they struggle to even question. his point here is accurate, and the people above criticizing only do so because he unbiasedly presents how elements of all world affairs are screwy, and so is bound to hit a nerve at some point with pretty much everyone.

Crake,

Consider your source, Paul Bogdanor is notorious for his criticism of everyone on the extremist left everyone from Chomsky to Galloway, who he singles out as being holocaust deniers, defending neo-nazis and so on or basically any body who expresses critical readings of Israel foreign policy.

The document itself basically quotes sentences out of their contextual grounding, which is always an exercise in folly and distortion. As we can quote anything Obama says out of context and make it mean something else entirely.

Being critical of Israel, and playing along with the 'Great Satan-Little Satan' discourse are very different things. Why did you think Galloway would be a convincing example?

>> ^chilaxe:
I think the difference he's looking for between Afghanistan and Washington is that Washington doesn't target civilians, and is a democratically elected government.
Society draws a line between military actions that try to minimize civilian casualties when possible and military actions that try to maximize civilian casualties.


Washington does and has targeted civilians, they torture innocent men, imprison people without any chance of justice, send random people off to third world countries to be tortured. If you think the strategies employed by the US military are designed to minimize civilian casualties think again, more reporters have been killed by US fire in Iraq than have been killed by anyone else.

Not to mention Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that's not targeting civilians? Hitting major population centres with nukes? The US of A has killed more civilians than any other power with the possible exception of Nazi Germany and maybe the USSR (and are you really proud to be in the running for that prize?).

One of only two countries in the world that routinely executes children and retarded people.

Yeah you're so civilized you can pass judgement on everyone else can you?

When did Afghanistan attack us?

>> ^chilaxe:
I think the difference he's looking for between Afghanistan and Washington is that Washington doesn't target civilians, and is a democratically elected government.
Society draws a line between military actions that try to minimize civilian casualties when possible and military actions that try to maximize civilian casualties.

>> ^chilaxe:
I think the difference he's looking for between Afghanistan and Washington is that Washington doesn't target civilians, and is a democratically elected government.
Society draws a line between military actions that try to minimize civilian casualties when possible and military actions that try to maximize civilian casualties.


Ok now that you have requested [i]them[/i] to accept your standard of "Washington doesn't target civilians, and is a democratically elected Ggovernment." Will you accept that [i]they[/i]. like to eat babies and kill anyone with bad breath? No?