What about Noam?
Karl R. Peters
Noam Chomsky or his writings on this newsgroup. What's the deal?
Can't we put aside our political bickering and focus on something
remotely topical?
Karl
<marX>
Henry Murrell
"Karl R. Peters" <u100...@warwick.net> wrote in message
news:89sqti$r5q$1...@news.warwick.net...
write something then.
If you want my opinion, I agree with Noam about a lot. the differences I
have with his views:
* Affirmative Action (Noam has said he's for it, its actually part of a
special kind of con)
* the JFK assassination (Noam has said its not relevant, the Parenti view
that it revealed the gangster nature of the state is my view also)
* the internet (Noam doesnt talk about it the way I see it)
those are the differences that I can remember off of the top of my head. But
his main theses: Year 501, the Propaganda-Model, the nature of liberals, the
absence of actual conservatives, the nature of mandarins, the most important
traditions of Western enlightenment, the failures of the pseudo-democracies
etc. ... on these points Noam is right.
Karl R. Peters
Henry Murrell <henrymurrell...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:kavw4.5137$WI1....@news1.frmt1.sfba.home.com...
> write something then.
OK, I will :)
> If you want my opinion, I agree with Noam about a lot. the differences I
> have with his views:
I agree with Noam a lot too, but unfortunately haven't had much
exposure to him yet, so I don't know much about a lot of his views.
All I'm really familiar with are his views on the US media/propeganda
system, which I agree with fully.
> * Affirmative Action (Noam has said he's for it, its actually part of a
> special kind of con)
"a special kind of con", huh? What are his views on AA, anyway?
I'm pretty much in favor of it, but only because capitalism by its nature
preserves past racism in its institution.
> * the JFK assassination (Noam has said its not relevant, the Parenti view
> that it revealed the gangster nature of the state is my view also)
I'm not familiar with Parenti... I think I'd agree with Noam on this;
the JFK assassination seems irrelavent. But then, I was born in
1973; the assassination seems like ancient history :)
> * the internet (Noam doesnt talk about it the way I see it)
Hmmm, how do you see it? I see it as a new tool of communication,
like the printing press or the television, but one which, due to its
decentralized nature has the ability to profoundly impact of our society
for the better. Whether it will ever excercise this potential is something
I don't know.
> those are the differences that I can remember off of the top of my head.
But
> his main theses: Year 501, the Propaganda-Model, the nature of liberals,
the
> absence of actual conservatives, the nature of mandarins, the most
important
> traditions of Western enlightenment, the failures of the
pseudo-democracies
> etc. ... on these points Noam is right.
Hmmm, could you point me to a web site or other source of information
where I might learn about these? I've never read anything by him on
these subjects... other than on the propeganda business, that is.
Karl
<marX>
James A. Donald
On Sun, 5 Mar 2000 00:18:46 -0500, "Karl R. Peters"
<u100...@warwick.net> wrote:
> I've noticed that there seems to be next to no discussion about either
> Noam Chomsky or his writings on this newsgroup.
There has been plenty of discussion: Just do a Dejanews search for
articles written by, or responding to, Charles Kalina.
Chomsky's sole function was to provide rationalizations for Soviet
imperialism, and vicious condemnations of any and all who might resist
it. Soviet Union go bye bye. Thus there is now nothing much left for
Chomsky's fans to talk about. Soviet Union dies: Chomsky fades.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
VGzkaf8bObveZGzUti0tG7IGW0BMFwxi4CziVC/X
4uvIYqxdI0ET2vurcSOn/ZV+cKQo9m/k+0a/847AD
------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.
http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ James A. Donald
NRN Consulting
>the JFK assassination seems irrelavent. But then, I was born in
>1973; the assassination seems like ancient history :)
>
I was under the impression that Noam thought that there was too much
BS floating around the assassination to make sence of the whole situation.
--
Live High-Rise View of Chicago: http://www.rlu.net/cgi-bin/cam.cgi
Buy Chomsky: http://www.rlu.net/cgi-bin/search.cgi?name=Chomsky
Karl R. Peters
just a few hours ago, before you pointed me to it, but I'm sure others
will appreciate the reference too :)
Karl
<marX>
Roman <us...@host.com> wrote in message
news:user-05030...@burn-mn02037.smartt.com...
> Karl R. Peters wrote:
>
> > Hmmm, could you point me to a web site or other source of information
> > where I might learn about these? I've never read anything by him on
> > these subjects... other than on the propeganda business, that is.
>
> Try the Chomsky Archive at http://www.zmag.org.
Karl R. Peters
...but as I see it, the function of Noam Chomsky is to oppose US
imperialism, not to promote USSR imperialism. And based upon
what I've read of Chomsky's writings in the last 10 years (this
www.zmag.org site is great), he's doing a fine job of it.
BTW, you do realize that opposition to US imperialism does not
constitute an endorsement of USSR imperialism, right?
Karl
<maRX>
James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote in message
news:38c42da3...@nntp1.ba.best.com...
> --
Henry Murrell
"Karl R. Peters" <u100...@warwick.net> wrote in message
news:89um3c$ar0$1...@news.warwick.net...
>
> Henry Murrell <henrymurrell...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:kavw4.5137$WI1....@news1.frmt1.sfba.home.com...
>
> > write something then.
>
> OK, I will :)
>
> > If you want my opinion, I agree with Noam about a lot. the differences
I
> > have with his views:
>
> I agree with Noam a lot too, but unfortunately haven't had much
> exposure to him yet, so I don't know much about a lot of his views.
> All I'm really familiar with are his views on the US media/propeganda
> system, which I agree with fully.
>
> > * Affirmative Action (Noam has said he's for it, its actually part of a
> > special kind of con)
>
> "a special kind of con", huh? What are his views on AA, anyway?
> I'm pretty much in favor of it, but only because capitalism by its nature
> preserves past racism in its institution.
>
I think it was in "the Common Good", where Barsamian asked Chomsky about
Affirmative Action, and Noam answered something like: it seemed like a good
idea to him.
My point is that liberals (and neo-liberal media, like the NYTimes) use the
concept of the inner-city black as the prototype of the down-trodden ...
this allows them to avoid the issue of labor unions ... the correlation
could hardly be more exact ... in my lifetime liberals abandoned labor
unions at the same time that they become fond of Affirmative Action.
Please don't read this as a putdown of inner-city African-Americans - I'm
talking about a relatively sophisticated propaganda-model type effect here.
The correlation also exists within particular issues of a newspaper. If you
look at the Saturday editions of the NYTimes, for example - a day which is
often the most revealing, because stories that have no fixed by-line date
often get published on that day (not pushed out of the way by the weeks
events) --you will sometimes see (on the same day on the front page) a
mystified article about the US Federal Reserve Board raising interest rates
(which lowers the relative power of labor), right next to a (no particular
date) research article about African-Americans (a term the Times uses, but
not in these articles, which always use the term: "black").
Its really simple, mandarins today undermine organized labor in issue after
issue, but manage to feel good about themselves by helping a few
African-Americans get into a few colleges ...like I said, Affirmative Action
is a part of a special kind of a con.
> > * the JFK assassination (Noam has said its not relevant, the Parenti
view
> > that it revealed the gangster nature of the state is my view also)
>
> I'm not familiar with Parenti... I think I'd agree with Noam on this;
> the JFK assassination seems irrelavent. But then, I was born in
> 1973; the assassination seems like ancient history :)
>
Parenti's books are pretty good, but he really excels as a speaker. If you
want to get a copy of a Parenti speech on the JFK assassination, I think you
can use his web page (http://www.michaelparenti.org) (I think thats the URL)
> > * the internet (Noam doesnt talk about it the way I see it)
>
> Hmmm, how do you see it? I see it as a new tool of communication,
> like the printing press or the television, but one which, due to its
> decentralized nature has the ability to profoundly impact of our society
> for the better. Whether it will ever excercise this potential is
something
> I don't know.
>
> > those are the differences that I can remember off of the top of my head.
> But
> > his main theses: Year 501, the Propaganda-Model, the nature of liberals,
> the
> > absence of actual conservatives, the nature of mandarins, the most
> important
> > traditions of Western enlightenment, the failures of the
> pseudo-democracies
> > etc. ... on these points Noam is right.
>
> Hmmm, could you point me to a web site or other source of information
> where I might learn about these? I've never read anything by him on
> these subjects... other than on the propeganda business, that is.
>
> Karl
> <marX>
>
the Noam Chomsky archive (http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/index.cfm) has a lot
of material. The best stuff (IMO) - for most of the above - is in the many
interviews Noam has given over the years. I would try those first. Besides
the interviews in the archive, you could use a search-engine for 'interview
Chomsky', and find a bunch that are on other sites.
Some of 'Year 501' (also at the archive) is compelling, but not as
trenchant as some of Chomsky's other work ...for Noam as related to the
traditions of western enlightenment, I think there's a book by Milan Rai (I
havent read it) that includes a direct discussion of this.
as far as the failures of the pseudo-democracies, Chomsky is currently on a
tour (I believe) giving a speech directly about this. there is RealAudio of
various versions of this speech on a number of sites (www.kunm.edu has one,
I think)
my own web-page (really only good with MSIE) has two entries on Chomsky:
http://henrymurrell.a.m6.net/content/bios/drg_noam.htm
has a quote from a brief intro to Chomsky by David Graeber, that he posted
to this newsgroup a few years ago
and
http://henrymurrell.a.m6.net/content/bios/chomsky.htm
which is my own brief intro to Chomsky (and not readable enough)
Sir_Tho...@human.evolution.net
patently absurd that it can't even be taken seriously. Noam is decidedly
opposed to all forms of imperialism; this is why he has repeadedly referred to
the Soviet regime as a brutal tyranny. Calling Noam pro-imperialist is like
calling him antisemitic; the notion is patently ridiculous. But when you stand
on a platform relying on truth as your weapon you will find that people
opposed to your views will resort to foundatiionless accusations and name
calling, because the truth is a difficult position to counter.
If you want to push buttons you might try an approach that has more basis in
reality. Calling Noam a pro Soviet-imperialist is so far removed from reality
that it isn't even useful for a chuckle . . . . it ranks in the "whatever"
category ot the "give your head a shake."
Chomsky "fans" can hardly be blamed for not indulging in idle-worship, since
Noam is opposed to it himself. This group might better be named
"alt."fan".Noam-Chomskyesque.discussions"
In article <38c42da3...@nntp1.ba.best.com>, jam...@echeque.com (James A.
Karl R. Peters
> Its really simple, mandarins today undermine organized labor in issue
after
> issue, but manage to feel good about themselves by helping a few
> African-Americans get into a few colleges ...like I said, Affirmative
Action
> is a part of a special kind of a con.
Ahhh, so then your opposition to Affirmative Action is not so much
opposition to the thing itself, but rather, the purpose to which the idea
is used. Here I think I agree with you. Implicit in the idea of AA is
that the reason people are poor is because we haven't done enough
to integrate them into the system... when in fact it is the system itself
which is causing the poverty.
Fair 'nough.
Karl
<marX>
Karl R. Peters
Douglas Darrah <desk...@yahoo.com.invalid> wrote in message
news:10m8cs853ufqd846r...@4ax.com...
> As you'll discover reading the archives, these individuals shout down
> anyone who does not agree with their anarcho-capitalist orthodoxy
> (though, to be honest, it's unfair to lump Kalina in with Matt,
> Constantinople, and a couple of others, because I'm not sure what he
> stands for. From what I've read, he's a clever sophist, and clearly
> anti-Chomsky, but outside of that I could not say. I suggest reading
> his exchanges with Dan Clore; perhaps you'll be able to discover
> something about him I missed.) Since Chomsky thinks lowly of that
> oxymoronic creed, he is their poster boy for Communist and Nazi
> (really, I'm *not* kidding!) apologists.
I've read a couple of articles by Kalina... and so far, he does seem
to be fairly reasonable. One thing that has disturbed me a lot about
Chomsky is that his writings do seem very "propegandish"... that is,
he tends to recycle the same facts over and over, use the same key
phrases, and so on. While I like Chomsky's ideas, the manner in which
he presents them leaves me... suspicious.
Kalina seems to have picked up on this, and enjoys criticizing it. His
criticisms seem valid... although his (apparant) conclusion that Chomsky
doesn't know diddly doesn't seem to follow from his critisms. So,
I don't know.
For now, I'll keep an open mind with respect to him. With respect
to the anarcho-capitalists, well, I'll respect them when they demonstrate
some capacity to respect the *existence* of humans, their being,
instead of only their profitable labor.
Karl
<marX>
James A. Donald
On Tue, 07 Mar 2000 16:58:51 GMT, Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net
wrote:
> The idea that Noam supports Soviet Imperialism is so patently
> absurd that it can't even be taken seriously. Noam is decidedly
> opposed to all forms of imperialism;
Noam Chomsky has defended every act of Soviet imperialism, even the
invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
> this is why he has repeadedly referred to the Soviet regime as a
> brutal tyranny.
A misleading half truth, worthy of Chomsky himself. Chomsky only
speaks unkindly of the Soviet Union in the course of emphasizing that
it is substantially lesser evil to the United states. Further, while
Chomsky has included pro forma denunciations of the Soviet state, he
displayed various degrees of enthusiasm for its avatars in the third
world. In particular consider his reports of North Vietnam, which
depict not only as a democracy, but in substantial part a
participatory democracy, unlike the wholly fraudulent democracy of the
West. (Stalin's birthday remained a national holiday in North Vietnam
long after he'd been denounced in the USSR.)
> Calling Noam pro-imperialist is like calling him antisemitic; the
> notion is patently ridiculous.
How very odd then that once the Soviet Union and its various servants
collapsed, suddenly Chomsky no longer sees very many acts of US
aggression.
Chomsky defended Soviet imperialism even when there was absolutely no
US attempt to defend the victims of Soviet aggression, for example
Soviet aggression against Czechoslovakia and Hungary, and he defended
Soviet Imperialism even in those cases where it was completely black
and white that the Soviet Union was aggressing, and the US was
defending the victims of Soviet aggression, as in Greece.
Chomsky not only defended Soviet Imperialism even where the US made no
effort to defend against it, he also ignored US imperialism where US
intervention was not directed against Soviet Imperialism for example
Somalia.
It was resistance to Soviet power, not the presence of US power, that
tweaked his tits, that provoked Chomsky's lies and attacks.
Chomsky viscerally identifies with those that have the power to
destroy, torture, and kill, and despises and derides their victims. A
good example of his contempt for the victims of tyranny is his
infamous denigration of the refugees from the Cambodian and Vietnamese
communists.
When we look at those he attacks, and those he defends, it is clear
that Chomsky seeks a world of power, domination, fear, and submission.
He defends those who pursue such ends, regardless of how terrible the
means they employ, and denigrates and viciously attacks all those who
attempt to defend themselves against such domination.
Wherever there is tyranny and murder, wherever the master's boot
smashes repeatedly into the face of a child, you can count on Chomsky
to deny the crimes of the master and demonize the child as a CIA
agent. He only condemns crimes in the course of attributing those
crimes to innocent people.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
d6tcBbi6ioUpNG6B/Xxk5J0bV0dkRO74xEZ1EWuR
44Vejj+PKESIyV8kH55KDuBFSApPsTXuYJ504N0Tm
Seth Kulick
James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
> --
>On Tue, 07 Mar 2000 16:58:51 GMT, Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net
>wrote:
>> The idea that Noam supports Soviet Imperialism is so patently
>> absurd that it can't even be taken seriously. Noam is decidedly
>> opposed to all forms of imperialism;
>
>Noam Chomsky has defended every act of Soviet imperialism, even the
>invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
okay, gotta ask - in what writing did he defend those invasions?
--
--------------------------------------------------------------
Seth Kulick "The hypnotic splattered mist
University of Pennsylvania was slowly lifting" - Bob Dylan
sku...@linc.cis.upenn.edu http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~skulick/home.html
James A. Donald
Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net:
> > > The idea that Noam supports Soviet Imperialism is so patently
> > > absurd that it can't even be taken seriously. Noam is decidedly
> > > opposed to all forms of imperialism;
James A. Donald:
> > Noam Chomsky has defended every act of Soviet imperialism, even the
> > invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
Seth Kulick
> okay, gotta ask - in what writing did he defend those invasions?
For example in http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/dd/dd-c01-s06.html he
interprets the invasion of Czechoslovakia as a defensive move forced
upon the Soviet Union by US aggression, in that the US unreasonably
and threateningly refused to accept the "neutralization" of Germany.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
+r8hQSh6u4JV+2mabUOFZFf4nUYvfC0M5wjIglEb
4atOpoE+mwLN4LANQn0vKVBTb6ecTPhWIde//q0v9
Sir_Tho...@human.evolution.net
papers . . . really. To interpret the text you cite as a support for Soviet
Imperialism is, again, a sign of personal delusion or a fundamental lack of
understanding of just who and what Noam Chomsky is. In the passage cited,
Chomsky talks about the nature of the relationship between two great imperial
powers, the greater and more persistant of which was the United States. He
offered no justification for the invasion of Czechoslovakia, but merely said
it could have been avoided if the U.S. had agreed to a Soviet plan to create a
neutral Germany; but the U.S. insisted on Germany being allowed to join NATO.
This would have constituted rearming a nation which had recently all but
destroyed the Soviet Union and resulted in millions and millions of Soviet
lives being lost. We should not confuse ourselves into absolving the Soviet
Union from guilt in the Second World War or in the invasion of Czechoslovakia,
and Chomsky does neither, and your argument fails upon even the most cursory
anaylsis of your source. Thank God scholarly papers require sourcing; this way
we can check for authenticity and context.The latter being just as important
as the former.
If I didn't have exams and papers coming up, I would take your arguments on in
a more thorough manner, but I simply do not have the time. In brief,
statements like "Chomsky no longer sees very many acts of US aggression" and
"Chomsky seeks a world of power, domination, fear, and submission" again
digresses into the nether-regions of absurdity or ignorance (I'm not sure
which) and does not warrant the time I am woefully short on as it is.
Hopefully some other Chomskyite will take the time to address your riduclous
claims. I should, I suppose, thank-you for providing me with a good chuckle
over the absurdity of it all; it ranks right up there with the claim that
Chomsky is anti-Semitic . . . it really is quite comical, but is so far
removed from reality that it exists only in the paranormal fantasy-world of
your imagination.
In article <38c8ea18...@nntp1.ba.best.com>, jam...@echeque.com (James A.
Donald) wrote:
> --
>On Tue, 07 Mar 2000 16:58:51 GMT, Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net
>wrote:
>> The idea that Noam supports Soviet Imperialism is so patently
>> absurd that it can't even be taken seriously. Noam is decidedly
>> opposed to all forms of imperialism;
>
>Noam Chomsky has defended every act of Soviet imperialism, even the
>invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
>
> --digsig
> James A. Donald
> 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
> d6tcBbi6ioUpNG6B/Xxk5J0bV0dkRO74xEZ1EWuR
> 44Vejj+PKESIyV8kH55KDuBFSApPsTXuYJ504N0Tm
James A. Donald
On Wed, 08 Mar 2000 10:14:46 GMT, Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net
wrote:
> Quoting out of context results in failing grades for even first year college
> papers . . . really. To interpret the text you cite as a support for Soviet
> Imperialism is, again, a sign of personal delusion or a fundamental lack of
> understanding of just who and what Noam Chomsky is.
Attacking the US for forcing Khrushchev to invade Hungary in self
defence is the same thing as defending Stalin and Khrushschev's
aggression against Hungary. Similarly attacking the press for
reporting that the Khmer Rouge were murderers is the same thing as
denying that the Khmer Rouge were murderers. Similarly attacking the
press for their failure to report the absence of a bloodbath in
Vietnam and Cambodia is the same thing as denying the bloodbath in
Vietnam and Cambodia.
Wherever Chomsky lies in the service of tyranny, mass murder, and
slavery, his fans, and Chomsky himself, always piously find some
alternate meaning, "He was not saying X, he was saying Y". Indeed he
said Y, but he also said X.
For a hilarious example of Chomsky emitting clouds of fog concerning
his now politically inconvenient denial of the bloodbath in Vietnam
and Cambodia, see
<http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=576356905>
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
7Fi/09yZBEWwvchled/VQht5bzQpatSzR9JXIs+v
4YBUL8jgpGrHgIuevK5RKYmtODrpXASPMDGtItHFz
Tobold Rollo
>Similarly attacking the
> press for their failure to report the absence of a bloodbath in
> Vietnam and Cambodia is the same thing as denying the bloodbath in
> Vietnam and Cambodia.
>
> Wherever Chomsky lies in the service of tyranny, mass murder, and
> slavery, his fans, and Chomsky himself, always piously find some
> alternate meaning, "He was not saying X, he was saying Y". Indeed he
> said Y, but he also said X.
Gottah love it when people grasp at straws. I think those who denounce
so easily Chomsky's research should take a course in logic. Oh the apathy of
desperate measures...
ParticleMan
"James A. Donald" wrote:
> --
> On Tue, 07 Mar 2000 16:58:51 GMT, Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net
> wrote:
> Noam Chomsky has defended every act of Soviet imperialism, even the
> invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
Would you mind citing an exact reference, please? I've read most of
Chomsky's books, and many of his lectures and interviews, and I haven't
seen this one. To be more specific, I've never seen anything but the polar
opposite. To see Chomsky as some sort of Soviet apologist is patently
absurd.
Your entire post is so ridiculous, I can only assume you've been reading
some OTHER Noam Chomsky!
Peace. ;)
Sir_Tho...@human.evolution.net
message, see that message for the link.
In article <38C68DE7...@virginia.edu>, ParticleMan <di...@virginia.edu>
wrote:
James A. Donald
"James A. Donald" wrote:
>> Noam Chomsky has defended every act of Soviet imperialism, even the
>> invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
On Wed, 08 Mar 2000 12:29:11 -0500, ParticleMan <di...@virginia.edu>
wrote:
> Would you mind citing an exact reference, please? I've read most of
> Chomsky's books, and many of his lectures and interviews, and I haven't
> seen this one.
You have almost certainly seen it innumerable times, it is reasonably
infamous, and you simply deny that Chomsky said what he so plainly
said.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
vB2tzoiLyx7SKAYJ826s/oqpwAGw2erQc8MDQOZP
4EemDCmTEtBzpYTaabTenr+6ZXqkxzKzUt8f9DUsv
Dan Taylor
> > Would you mind citing an exact reference, please? I've read most of
> > Chomsky's books, and many of his lectures and interviews, and I haven't
> > seen this one.
>
James A. Donald then said:
> You have almost certainly seen it innumerable times, it is reasonably
> infamous
"Yet again, we see the unnamed, or untraceable citation.
This is the standard commie tactic that we have seen before
so many times. The use of such "citations", both by usenet
commies and the "scholars" they purport to quote, is now
becoming almost a standard formula for recognizing commies.
It used to be the use of the word "proletariat", now it is the
scholarly sounding but unverifiable citation."
James A. Donald, 2nd March 2000
Constantinople
The citation was given within the last day or so in this group.
You should get a better newsreader.
Here, I'll paste in James's whole post.
Title: Re: What about Noam?
Author: jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald)
Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2000 08:39:54 GMT
--
Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net:
> > > The idea that Noam supports Soviet Imperialism is so patently
> > > absurd that it can't even be taken seriously. Noam is decidedly
> > > opposed to all forms of imperialism;
James A. Donald:
> > Noam Chomsky has defended every act of Soviet imperialism, even the
> > invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
Seth Kulick
> okay, gotta ask - in what writing did he defend those invasions?
For example in http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/dd/dd-c01-s06.html he
interprets the invasion of Czechoslovakia as a defensive move forced
upon the Soviet Union by US aggression, in that the US unreasonably
and threateningly refused to accept the "neutralization" of Germany.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
+r8hQSh6u4JV+2mabUOFZFf4nUYvfC0M5wjIglEb
4atOpoE+mwLN4LANQn0vKVBTb6ecTPhWIde//q0v9
------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.
http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ James A. Donald
--
"The most important function of economics as a discipline is its
didactic role in explaining the principle of spontaneous order."
-- Buchanan
James A. Donald
ParticleMan wrote:
> > > Would you mind citing an exact reference, please? I've read most of
> > > Chomsky's books, and many of his lectures and interviews, and I haven't
> > > seen this one.
James A. Donald then said:
> > You have almost certainly seen it innumerable times, it is reasonably
> > infamous
On Thu, 09 Mar 2000 20:01:51 +1100, Dan Taylor <dta...@sympac.com.au>
wrote:
> "Yet again, we see the unnamed, or untraceable citation.
> This is the standard commie tactic that we have seen before
> so many times.
I have already given this citation several times, once in this very
thread. Further, there is a large difference between demanding a
citation for a extremely well known matter, and demanding a citation
when someone piously pretends to give a citation for a fantastic and
outrageous claim, but does not in fact give the citation.
A couple of posts earlier in this thread I wrote:
For example in http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/dd/dd-c01-s06.html
he interprets the invasion of Czechoslovakia as a defensive
move forced upon the Soviet Union by US aggression, in that
the US unreasonably and threateningly refused to accept the
"neutralization" of Germany.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
EIoN7dYhygMOPzx1dwW0W299CigcU5/5C2o4Y9L5
4bfvwbyyNq57ECu3E7uoZ3RxtRVgWv6EhpfQoF1Z8
Tim Starr
Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net wrote:
>...[Chomsky] offered no justification for the invasion of
>Czechoslovakia, but merely said it could have been avoided if the
The Soviets were bluffing. They never seriously intended to neutralize
Germany. That would've required withdrawing the Red Army from Germany,
& the Red Army never withdrew from any country it ever occupied (until
the USSR collapsed), with the sole exception of Yugoslavia, which
Stalin greatly regretted when Tito ceased to be Stalin's puppet. The
only part of Allied-occupied Europe which was neutralized after WWII
was Austria, which was occupied by the British, not the Soviets. It
was also smaller than Germany, not a major industrial or military
power, & any invasion of Western Europe through Austria would've had to
have also gone through Switzerland, which was heavily fortified. There
weren't any equivalent fortifications between Germany & France, & even
the Maginot line had been penetrated by the Wehrmacht in WWII.
>...but the U.S. insisted on Germany being allowed to join NATO.
Germany insisted on joining NATO - at least, the part that wasn't
occupied by the Red Army did. The US merely supported West Germany's
desire to join NATO for security against Soviet invasion. The Germans
knew what it was like to be invaded by Soviet Russia - looting,
pillaging, rape, murder, torture, politicide, one-party police state
rule, etc. Germans fled by the hundreds of thousands from East to West
Germany before the Berlin Wall was built.
>This would have constituted rearming a nation which had recently...
...been de-Nazified by the Western Allies, while in East Germany the
Gestapo was virtually re-named "Stasi."
--
Tim Starr
Class of '91, Capitalist State - Go Pigs!
(timstarr(at)c2.net)
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Tim Starr
Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net wrote:
>A button pusher eh? The idea that Noam supports Soviet Imperialism is
>so patently absurd that it can't even be taken seriously. Noam is
Then why does he deny that the Korean War was caused by Soviet
imperialism? E.g.:
<quote>
In the early Cold War years, Dean Acheson and Paul Nitze planned
to "bludgeon the mass mind of `top government'," as Acheson put it with
reference to NSC 68. They presented "a frightening portrayal of the
Communist threat, in order to overcome public, business, and
congressional desires for peace, low taxes, and `sound' fiscal
policies" and to mobilize popular support for the full-scale rearmament
that they felt was necessary "to overcome Communist ideology and
Western economic vulnerability," William Borden observes in a study of
postwar planning. The Korean War served these purposes admirably. The
ambiguous and complex interactions that led to the war were ignored in
favor of the more useful image of a Kremlin campaign of world conquest.
Dean Acheson, meanwhile, remarked that in the Korean hostilities "an
excellent opportunity is here offered to disrupt the Soviet peace
offensive, which...is assuming serious proportions and having a certain
effect on public opinion." The structure of much of the subsequent era
was determined by these manipulations, which also provided a standard
for later practice.14
</quote>
Did Chomsky ever condemn the Chinese Revolution as Soviet-sponsored
imperialism? Did he ever condemn the Viet Cong insurrection in Vietnam
as Chinese- and Soviet-sponsored imperialism? Did he condemn the Khmer
Rouge as Chinese imperialism?
As for Chomsky's "anarchism", his position on the right to keep & bear
arms makes it perfectly clear exactly what kind of "anarchist" he is:
<quote>
DB: There's quite a bit of controversy on gun control. Advocates of
free access to arms cite the Second Amendment. Do you believe the
Second Amendment permits unrestricted, uncontrolled possession of guns?
What laws permit and don't permit is a question that doesn't have a
straightforward answer. Laws permit what the tenor of the times
interprets them as permitting. But underlying the controversy over guns
are some serious questions. Literally, the Second Amendment doesn't
permit people to have guns. But laws are never taken literally,
including amendments to the Constitution or constitutional rights.
Underlying the controversy is something which shouldn't be discounted.
There's a feeling in the country that people are under attack. I think
they're misidentifying the source of the attack, but they feel under
attack. Decades of intensive business propaganda have been designed to
make them see the government as the enemy, the government being the
only power structure in the system that is even partially accountable
to the population, so naturally you want to make that be the enemy, not
the corporate system, which is totally unaccountable. After decades of
propaganda people feel that the government is some kind of enemy and
they have to defend themselves from it. Many of those who advocate
keeping guns have that in the back of their minds. I wouldn't believe
it if I hadn't heard it so many times. That's a crazy response to a
real problem.
...
...the government is at least partially accountable and could become as
benign as we make it.
What is not benign and is extremely harmful is what you didn't mention,
namely business power, highly concentrated, by now largely
transnational power both in the producing and financial sectors. That's
very far from benign. Furthermore, it's completely unaccountable. It's
a totalitarian system. It has an enormous effect on our lives and also
on why the government is not benign.
As for guns being the way to respond to this, that's frankly
outlandish. It's true that people think that. They think if we have
guns we can make it more benign. If people have guns, the government
has tanks. If people have tanks the government has atomic weapons.
There's no way to deal with these issues by violent force, even if you
think that that's morally legitimate. Guns in the hands of American
citizens are not going to make the country more benign. They're going
to make it more brutal, ruthless and destructive. So while one can
recognize the motivation that lies behind some of the opposition to gun
control, I think it's sadly misguided.
</quote>
Sir_Tho...@human.evolution.net
>In article <fzax4.204$Dv1....@news1.rdc1.bc.home.com>,
>Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net wrote:
>>A button pusher eh? The idea that Noam supports Soviet Imperialism is
>>so patently absurd that it can't even be taken seriously. Noam is
>>decidedly opposed to all forms of imperialism...
>
>Then why does he deny that the Korean War was caused by Soviet
>imperialism? E.g.:
Are we all aware that United States had stationed 1 million troops around the
borders of the Soviet Union and tripled their military spending in 1949? Put a
million troops on any country's border, engage in a massive military buildup,
and you'll see a nervous and predictable reaction from any nation interested
in its own survival. Why do these discussions continually ignore the struggle
taking place between the U.S. and the Soviets, and always return to this
shallow assumption that the only agitators in the world were the Soviets?
Where is Korea located? What country is it next to?
All of these "Noam supports Soviet Imperialism" statements just blatantly
ignore the fact that there was an international arm wrestling match taking
place between the Soviets and the U.S., which gained most of its momentum from
the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan. There was a bitter struggle
taking place between TWO rival ideologies, both of which were willing to
kill, murder, and slaughter in order to achieve victory. TWO countries were
involved. These discussions can only be understood from within this context.
The issue revolves around American claims of innocence, not on Soviet guilt
or innocence. Noam is an advocate of taking responisbility for the actions of
your own country. It isn't hard to convince people that the Soviet regime was
a brutal tyranny, most Americans already accept that without even knowing
anything about it (duh), so why bother? The real trick is in convincing the
complacent and docile American population that their own country has been
responsible for horrendous attrocites; at least a hundred years worth
(beginning with the blatant and inexcusable murder of nearly 1,000,000
Filipinos; as Mark Twain said "Thirty Thousand killed a million"). Everyone
quickly and consclusively admits to the terrible nature of the Soviet
slaughter of the Kulaks, but nobody, or virtually nobody (save Twain a handful
of others), even mentioned a peep about the holocaust in the Philippines; and
this has been an American trend or tradition during the 20th century (ignoring
the actions of their country). No issue has been more deeply buried by U.S.
historians (save maybe U.S. motives for dropping the atomic bomb). In fact,
during the slaughter in Philippines, Americans stuck to their constant and
shockingly negligent tradition of MINDLESSLY waving flags and saying "go
team!" Right, go team, go and kill those bamboo spear armed civilian men,
women and children (the vast vast majority of those killed in the Philippines
were civilian men, women and children) who simply wanted the right to govern
their own nation. Right, load up the gatlin guns and mow those menacing
stick-wielding peasants down. The United States has a horrible tradition of
insisting that "in times of war we need to support our boys in the field no
matter what." Opposition to war and killing is not (unless you are stupid and
gullible) automatically something that must be equated as a lack of support
for our boys in the field. It is a moral repsonsibility to oppose unjust wars.
So Noam's task is to make Americans aware of their own responsibility, and the
terrible and butcherous nature of their own corporately controlled state
(instead of butchering their own people, the U.S. murders people of other
nations). As Jesus said, don't point out a splinter in your neighbor's eye
when you yourself have a splinter twice the size in your own eye. This is not
to justify the actions of the neighbor, it is merely a case of saying shut you
trap until you have the moral authority to comment on the actions of others
(hypocricy).
Simply and constantly dumping responsibility on the doorstep of the Soviets
irresponisbly ignores the entire nature of the Cold War. It wasn't, as George
Bush said, a case of "Good versus evil; right versus wrong," it was a case of
one murderous superpower facing off against another murderous superpower on a
global playing field. Placing the entire blame for the Korean War on the
Soviets is not only silly but irresponsible, and cannot be supported by the
facts. Also, to ignore the fact that the Soviet Union (primarily for economic
reasons) made concerted attempts at warming relations between the two
super-powers. which were flattly and decisvely rejected by the U.S., also
ignores the facts.
Karl R. Peters
James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote in message
news:38c77b58...@nntp1.ba.best.com...
> For a hilarious example of Chomsky emitting clouds of fog concerning
> his now politically inconvenient denial of the bloodbath in Vietnam
> and Cambodia, see
> <http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=576356905>
Well, I will say this much: in this quote from Chomsky, he completely
fails to state whether or not a bloodbath occured in Vietnam following
the withdrawl of US forces. He does make quite explicit the bloodbath
caused by US forces prior to that, though.
This is one thing that annoys me about Chomsky... his writing is very
disorganized, and difficult to penetrate. While I think Chomsky has
a lot of good ideas, his presentation often leaves much to be desired.
(Sometimes he is much clearer than at others :)
So, can anyone answer two questions? 1) Did a "bloodbath" occur when
the US pulled out? (Numbers, please) 2) Has Chomsky ever stated,
*clearly*, whether such a thing occured?
Karl
<marX>
Tim Starr
Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net wrote:
>In article <8a8rsv$tqr$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, Tim Starr <timstarr@my-
deja.com> wrote:
>>In article <fzax4.204$Dv1....@news1.rdc1.bc.home.com>,
>>Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net wrote:
>>>A button pusher eh? The idea that Noam supports Soviet Imperialism
>>>is so patently absurd that it can't even be taken seriously. Noam
>>>is decidedly opposed to all forms of imperialism...
>>
>>Then why does he deny that the Korean War was caused by Soviet
>>imperialism? E.g.:
>
>Are we all aware that United States had stationed 1 million troops
>around the borders of the Soviet Union and tripled their military
>spending in 1949?
Would that be the year after the Chinese Revolution?
>Put a million troops on any country's border, engage in a massive
>military buildup, and you'll see a nervous and predictable reaction
>from any nation interested in its own survival.
That's a justification for the Soviet imperialism of the Korean War,
not a denial or a condemnation of it. Scratch a Chomskyite, get a
Soviet-liner.
>Why do these discussions continually ignore the struggle taking place
>between the U.S. and the Soviets, and always return to this shallow
>assumption that the only agitators in the world were the Soviets?
>Where is Korea located? What country is it next to?
Oh, you wanna bring Mao into it. OK. First, Kim Il-Sung went to Mao &
said:
"Is it OK if I invade South Korea? Please? Can I?"
"OK, but only if Uncle Joe Stalin says it's OK," Mao replied.
So, Kim Il-Sung went to Uncle Joe & said:
"Is it OK if I invade South Korea? Mao said it was OK. The US will
never react in time to stop me."
"Sure, go ahead, if Mao says it's OK, it must be OK. After all, he
knows Asia better than I do. Look at how I wanted him to just form a
coalition government with the Nationalists, & he insisted on holding
the Revolution right away, with all those captured Japanese weapons I
gave him. It worked. Mao knows what's best for the Revolution in
Asia."
"Oh, goody, thanks Unca Joe!"
(paraphrased from John L. Gaddis' "We Now Know: Rethinking the Cold
War")
>All of these "Noam supports Soviet Imperialism" statements just
>blatantly ignore the fact that there was an international arm
>wrestling match taking place between the Soviets and the U.S...
Lie. That's what enables us to tell what side Chomsky took. Chomsky
calls everything the US ever did to defend against Communist
aggression "U.S. imperialism."
>The issue revolves around American claims of innocence...
Chomsky convicts the US of murder for defending countries against
Communist aggression. That's the issue. He denies all Communist
aggression by blaming it on the US.
>The real trick is in convincing the complacent and docile American
>population that their own country has been responsible for horrendous
>attrocites...
Red herring. I'm perfectly willing to admit that, but that's not the
issue here. The issue is Chomsky's blaming of the US for Communist
aggression.
Sir_Tho...@human.evolution.net
In article <8a8prf$s8a$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, Tim Starr <tims...@my-deja.com>
wrote:
>In article <qKpx4.3268$Dv1....@news1.rdc1.bc.home.com>,
>Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net wrote:
>>...[Chomsky] offered no justification for the invasion of
>>Czechoslovakia, but merely said it could have been avoided if the
>>U.S. had agreed to a Soviet plan to create a neutral Germany...
>
>The Soviets were bluffing. They never seriously intended to neutralize
>Germany.
This coming directly from your friends in the Kremlin eh?
>>...but the U.S. insisted on Germany being allowed to join NATO.
>
>Germany insisted on joining NATO
Germany had no say in the matter; Germany was a conquered nation. They were
international criminals that instigated the Second World War and cost
countless millions of lives. Your "Germany," that wanted to join NATO, was
really just a U.S. appointed German spokesman (give your head a shake). The
U.S. were the one's who were unwilling to back down in their vision of what
the post-war German nation would look like. Their was no peace treaty at the
end of the war that decided the fate of these international criminals. The
number of U.S. lives lost fighting Germany was tiny, miniscule, compared to
the number of Soviet lives lost, not to mention the virtual destruction of the
Soviet nation and infrastructure. The U.S. plan to create a NATO aligned
Germany was equivilant to replacing one enemy with another. The Soviets would
have been idiotic fools if they had not bitterly resisted. The U.S. was just
as interested in destroying the Soviet Union as the Germans were. Why would
the Soviets easily agree to installing another sworn enemy in the Nazi's
place? Why should they?
>The US merely supported West Germany's
>desire to join NATO for security against Soviet invasion. The Germans
>knew what it was like to be invaded by Soviet Russia - looting,
>pillaging, rape, murder, torture, politicide, one-party police state
>rule, etc. Germans fled by the hundreds of thousands from East to West
>Germany before the Berlin Wall was built.
>
Oh Lord . .. we can only hope that the blind will some day see. Okay . . .
right . .. the Soviets were INVADERS were they? Had nothing to do with the
German attempts at obliterating the Soviet nation? Right .. .. the vicious
unprovoked Soviets INVADED the poor and misunderstood Nazi nation ... sure
they did. Those Bolshevik dogs . . . how dare they attack the saintly Nazis.
Great, now we have Nazi apologism going on, which is even worse than any
alleged Soviet apologism. I really don't know how to respond to this rubbish
. .really, I don't. I am at a loss. We could turn this around and look at
the German actions in the Soviet Union, but you probably wouldn't be
interested in that would you? Of course not, it doesn't support your argument.
We could go even further and look at accounts of rape by American soldiers in
Vietnam, but then again you probably wouldn't want to do that either, because
it to would wreak havoc with your thesis.
Actually . . . I really don't believe that you are a Nazi apologist. But you
have to be careful when you indulge in deflectionary tactics; in this case
they make you appear as if a Nazi apologist. Ill-advised, really.
>>This would have constituted rearming a nation which had recently...
>
>....been de-Nazified by the Western Allies, while in East Germany the
>Gestapo was virtually re-named "Stasi."
Uh-huh . .. the U.S. then eagerly gobblred up numerous Nazis to join the new
CIA. Proving once again that the U.S. would always rather kiss, hug, and
endorse a fascist, than give an inch to the Soviets. This is why the U.S.
rushed to restore Germany as an economic power in the world. It says a great
deal about the character of the U.S. . . . or at least those that run it.
Tim Starr
Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net wrote:
>
>In article <8a8prf$s8a$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, Tim Starr <timstarr@my-
deja.com>
>wrote:
>
> >In article <qKpx4.3268$Dv1....@news1.rdc1.bc.home.com>,
> >Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net wrote:
> >>Czechoslovakia, but merely said it could have been avoided if the
> >
> >The Soviets were bluffing. They never seriously intended to
> >neutralize Germany.
>
>This coming directly from your friends in the Kremlin eh?
Nah, Soviet archives as interpreted by John L. Gaddis in "We Now Know:
Rethinking the Cold War." All my personal contacts with Soviet
intelligence are obsolete. :-)
>>>...but the U.S. insisted on Germany being allowed to join NATO.
>>
>>Germany insisted on joining NATO
>
>Germany had no say in the matter...
The Western Allies did. Germany wasn't re-armed until Britain, France,
& the US all agreed on it.
>Germany was a conquered nation. They were international criminals
>that instigated the Second World War and cost countless millions of
>lives.
All 80 million German people, eh? Quite the Germanophone, aren't you?
>Your "Germany," that wanted to join NATO, was really just a U.S.
>appointed German spokesman (give your head a shake).
Were the British & French governments also US puppets?
>The U.S. were the one's who were unwilling to back down in their
>vision of what the post-war German nation would look like.
False. The original US plan for post-war Germany was the Morgenthau
Plan, which was written for Morgenthau by the Soviet spy who worked for
him, Harry Dexter White. Stalin wanted to de-industrialize Germany to
cause starvation to help the Commies get elected. Too bad for him, the
Western Allies wised up to the criminality of that plan, & rejected it.
>Their was no peace treaty at the end of the war that decided the fate
>of these international criminals.
The fate of the international criminals was decided at Nuremburg, & by
the de-Nazification done by the Western Allies. The Soviets were the
sole holdouts.
>The number of U.S. lives lost fighting Germany...
Irrelevant.
>The U.S. plan to create a NATO aligned Germany was equivilant to
>replacing one enemy with another. The Soviets would have been
>idiotic fools if they had not bitterly resisted. The U.S. was just
>as interested in destroying the Soviet Union as the Germans were.
>Why would the Soviets easily agree to installing another sworn enemy
>in the Nazi's place? Why should they?
France originally objected to re-arming Germany, too, but the Soviet
menace convinced them to go along with it. Why should France have had
any less reason to fear another German invasion than Russia?
>...the Soviets were INVADERS were they?
Yes. I didn't say "aggressors." Soviet Russia had just cause to
invade Nazi Germany, but not to commit the war crimes they committed in
the process. It was the unnecessary war crimes committed by the Red
Army as it invaded & occupied Germany that alienated the Germans from
the Communists. Stalin's response to those who complained about the
Red Army raping German women was that the men who'd fought their way
from Stalingrad to Berlin deserved to have a little fun to make up for
their suffering. The official policy of the Red Army was not to
prosecute any Soviets for war crimes committed in the invasion of
Germany.
[hysterical strawman snipped]
>We could go even further and look at accounts of rape by American
>soldiers in Vietnam...
1) Tu quoque fallacy.
2) Red herring.
3) Disanalogy. Rape was against official US policy in Vietnam, &
rapists in the U.S. armed forces were prosecuted for it. Rape was
consistent with official Red Army policy in the invasion of Germany, &
no Soviets were ever prosecuted for it.
>>>This would have constituted rearming a nation which had recently...
>>
>>....been de-Nazified by the Western Allies, while in East Germany the
>>Gestapo was virtually re-named "Stasi."
>
>Uh-huh ... the U.S. then eagerly gobbled up numerous Nazis to join
>the new CIA.
Only after they realized they had a Soviet threat on their hands.
>This is why the U.S. rushed to restore Germany as an economic power
>in the world. It says a great deal about the character of the
>U.S. ... or at least those that run it.
What's wrong with Germany being an economic power in the world?
Dan Clore
> In article <8a8prf$s8a$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, Tim Starr <tims...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> >In article <qKpx4.3268$Dv1....@news1.rdc1.bc.home.com>,
> >Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net wrote:
[snip]
> >The US merely supported West Germany's
> >desire to join NATO for security against Soviet invasion. The Germans
> >knew what it was like to be invaded by Soviet Russia - looting,
> >pillaging, rape, murder, torture, politicide, one-party police state
> >rule, etc. Germans fled by the hundreds of thousands from East to West
> >Germany before the Berlin Wall was built.
> >
> Is there any hope that the blind might one day see? Oh . . . I see, the
> Soviets INVADED Germany did they? Right, had nothing to do with German
> attempts to obliterate the Soviet Union. Right, the Soviets were vicious
> INVADERS . . sure they were. Right, those innocent angels in Germany; the poor
> picked on and misunderstood Nazis . . innocent victims of the Bolsheviks. Now
> we have Nazi apologism going on, which is far worse than any ALLEGED Soviet
> apologism. We could turn this around and look at what Germany did in Soviet
> Union, but that wouldn't interest you would it? Your deflectionary tactics
> only make you appear as a Nazi aplogist; you have to careful where you take
> your arguments. Honestly, I understand that deep down you probably aren't a
> Nazi apologist, but that's where your argument is leading.
I certainly would not take Tim Starr's side -- in fact I have him
killfiled because I consider him an absolute pathological liar -- but I
would say that one should not minimize the many atrocities committed by
the Soviets against Germans. You know, speaking of things like
gangraping teen-age girls and such hardly makes one a Nazi apologist.
That's all.
[snip]
--
---------------------------------------------------
Dan Clore
The Website of Lord We˙rdgliffe:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/index.html
Welcome to the Waughters....
The Dan Clore Necronomicon Page:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/necpage.htm
Because the true mysteries cannot be profaned....
"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!"
PattiW.
invaded Australia yet. And why is Mao quoted as saying "It is better to
sniff at the dung of the French for a while than be forced to eat that of
the Chinese?
I get awful tired of defending other "isms" , so stop being the center of
the universe (centrist) and admit that we aren't God's gift either. Govts
are run by people with power and we all know that power is a lens that
distorts.
Tim Starr <tims...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:8a9ggr$dm5$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> In article <ThWx4.8476$Dv1.1...@news1.rdc1.bc.home.com>,
> Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net wrote:
> >In article <8a8rsv$tqr$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, Tim Starr <timstarr@my-
Sir_Tho...@human.evolution.net
>In article <ThWx4.8476$Dv1.1...@news1.rdc1.bc.home.com>,
>(paraphrased from John L. Gaddis' "We Now Know: Rethinking the Cold
>War")
>
The Wilson Quarterly, Summer 1997 v21 n3 p90(4) (COPYRIGHT 1997 Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars)
"Hardly anyone in either the older or younger generation of Cold War scholars
will agree with all of Gaddis's judgments ... [Gaddis relies on
information contained in] the appearance of "One Hell of a Gamble," by the
Russian scholar Alexandr A. Fursenko and his Canadian collaborator, Yale
University historian Timothy Naftali [and other similar SECONDARY sources]....
the strength of Fursenko and Naftali's book is also its weakness. Very few of
the KGB, Politburo, and military intelligence (GRU) documents cited here are
available to other scholars. Moreover, the authors' acknowledgments and source
notes give little indication of what sort of conditions were attached to their
exclusive access - a discouraging omission, indeed ... Some citations are
reassuringly precise, while others read simply "spravka (summary), GRU." What
were those conditions? Did the authors select the materials they wanted from
complete lists and finding aids, or were their searches directed by the staffs
of these still-closed archives? "
World Affairs, Fall 1999 v162 i2 p43 (The Cold War Revisionists Kayoed.
RICHARD C. RAACK.)
"Documentation is what underlies all history. Absent the solid document behind
it, history becomes at best informed guesswork ... Some professional
reputations are already threatened. .many history writers and journalists
leaping with stupefying bravado to broadcast opinions on matters well beyond
their professional reach, should one be surprised that no doubt historically
naive, but perhaps well meaning, commercial producers of an entire television
series on the cold war fell into the trap of putting a revisionist historian
of the United States in charge of their new history for the mass public? That
historian, John Lewis Gaddis ... Gaddis's latest book, We Now Know: Rethinking
Cold War History, is a summary of some recent scholarship on the
subject...The rapid opening of many former East Bloc archives after 1989
brought, as noted, that deluge of new facts that Gaddis, working as a research
scholar, would have been professionally obliged to deal with. But he has just
advertised a change in his role as historian. The reason for this move
evidently lies in his confession that he cannot take advantage of the newly
opened archives for want of appropriate foreign language
capabilities...Gaddis's new stance is that of synthesizer and popularizer of
other scholars' recent research--when that research is published in English.
Yet Gaddis's recent confession, implying that he has been carrying on for
years at research tasks in which he could not succeed, has not dissuaded the
Council on Foreign Relations from publishing We Now Know with its
imprimatur...One gets the impression from this new book that Gaddis is still
fearful to go far beyond the pale of local received opinion, which remains
congenial to the revisionist-dominated United States historians and their
partisans in the American academic world and in the wealthy foundations. The
revisionist circle, although by now increasingly fractured and much distended,
still does not seem to be one Gaddis wants to abandon ostentatiously. He has,
after all, been with them for a long time...Gaddis had early staked his
reputation among them by holding on to some of their favorite opinions, such
as the notion, straight out of Stalin's own propaganda, that the Soviet
dictator was really only interested in gaining security; and that Stalin had
no "master plan" (to use Zubok and Pleshakov's terminology) for postwar
expansion beyond his alleged belt of security. Gaddis re-creates both of these
illusions in this book. But by recognizing that Stalin was once a world
revolutionary (without telling readers just when and why the Soviet chief gave
up that faith), as he does, and acknowledging that he had a postwar
expansionist plan in Germany (by Leninist tradition a place where a key phase
of that revolution was certain to occur) Gaddis yields a little on the latter
point. To escape from the dilemmas of explanation in which he thereby places
himself, he turns to confounding the reader, and probably himself, with utter
nonsense...Yet it is inexact, pejorative, and misleading. My own suspicion is
that it appears in his text only as a nod to his lighter revisionist
brethren.(22) ...Some sources and findings at odds with the revisionists'
traditional canon of wisdom bring Gaddis, in the course of his synthesizing,
to complete silence... For example, in We Now Know he cites my substantially
archive-based findings twenty or so times. An author perhaps should be
grateful for that recognition; however, Gaddis clearly is not of a mood to
accept, or even mention, some of the conclusions I draw from the new facts I
found, or even to refer readers to the documents I cite. To be sure, he is not
required to accept my conclusions or those of any other scholar. But he cannot
ignore what he indicates he is aware of: the facts and findings reported in
English from my research in a number of those newly opened former East Bloc
archives. They, when correct, compel the attention of any writer trying to do
a synthesis of the history of the early cold war; when wrong, they require
refutation as part of the necessary relentless search to clarify the
historical record. Gaddis neither attends to them nor refutes them...Gaddis
has a problem holding the lid on many awkward findings he cannot fit into his
synthesis. To deal with it, he cites in one note many authors, some in
conflict among themselves on the point he wishes to make. He then asserts his
own point as if it were the sum of all that footnoted wisdom, citing all the
voices, including the discordant ones, as his proof. In doing that, he often
does not tell the reader why he chooses one historian's finding over another
conflicting finding. What is one to do with all those unruly facts and
discordant opinions left protruding from his overstuffed footnote? He doesn't
tell us that, either...Yet historians must follow the same rules as
researchers in the hard sciences in this respect: no scholar can avoid
mentioning discordant, but credible, up-to-date facts and findings produced by
other scholars, no matter how much they may be at odds with his own...Gaddis,
knows little of French machinations and hardly more about Stalin's German
policy of those earliest postwar years; he mainly cites Naimark's book on the
latter and tells us little about the key events in the earliest days of the
postwar struggle over Germany...although Gaddis' [book], to his credit, is
generally well written, sometimes even better than that, and has few
misspellings and typos. On this count, it looks and reads like something a
good press invested some effort in getting out professionally....we now know a
great deal more than Gaddis's book reports on the early cold war, and we can
be certain that much that he claims is downright wrong "
The Historian, Summer 1999 v61 i4 p904 ( COPYRIGHT 1999 Phi Alpha Theta,
History Honor Society, Inc.)William O. Walker III
"Notwithstanding its historiographical utility, We Now Know, like the work of
all senior scholars, should be judged not only by its strengths but by its
limitations as well... one notes attacks on unnamed scholars for committing
the "sin" of moral equivalency in writing about U.S. and Soviet spheres of
influence in Europe after 1945 (51). Disturbing, too, is the disappearance of
the sustained discussion about U.S. ideology that informs early sections of
the book. The United States in the Cold War did more than react to the
unfolding of events. Other scholars have ably shown that its own ideological
imperatives helped to generate and sustain the tensions of that era."
Europe-Asia Studies, July 1998 v50 i5 p922(2); PAUL DUKES University of
Aberdeen.
"Deconstructing his own title, John Lewis Gaddis points out that by 'we' he
means post-Cold War scholars as he has interpreted their findings, while 'now'
is at a particular time when the Cold War may be viewed more clearly than when
it was actually going on and 'know' is necessarily contingent but nevertheless
the consequence of an approach to new evidence with an open mind...he puts
forward some mostly unexceptionable hypotheses while concluding that the
responsibility for the Cold War was shared by 'authoritarianism in general and
Stalin in particular'. The first resulting from 'the laws of both history and
geography', and the second from 'some secret design of Providence'? Certainly,
hardly anybody would want to absolve Stalin from his many sins. Nevertheless,
many of the policies pursued by him were dictated by circumstances rather than
by himself, and, arguably, Cold War interpretation will not reach full
maturity before it goes beyond such exclusive attribution of responsibility,
or at least to the realisation that we were all in it together. On the other
hand, conveniently, to blame Stalin for what went wrong in the relationship of
the wartime allies is to let us all off the hook. The 'democratic republic' is
absolved completely, it would seem: Latin America, except for Cuba, goes
virtually unmentioned while the intervention in Vietnam is appraised as no
more than 'foolish and tragic', and such events as the bombing of Laos - the
heaviest in history pass unmentioned....Little of [his] new evidence appears
to be archival"
Gaddis' work is clearly and significantly flawed in numerous and highly
identifiable respects; clearly it has some value, but relying on it like a
bible is pure folly. Even if we grant your position and ignore the scholarly
rejections of Gaddis' work, your position also presumes that Chomsky and the
U.S. both had some sort of knowledge of the documents that did not become
available until after the fact, and even then the material is debatable at
best. Chomsky's conclusions could only be formed on the basis of presently
avaialble evidence. Gaddis' book, however, did get a ringing endorsement from
Armed Forces & Society and other consistently American absolutioning
periodicals. . . not surprising.
I could go into the Korean War details in depth, but I'll put this all aside
for now, because I simply do not have time for this U.S. apologism. I will
leave you to launch an easily rebuttable though empty pro-U.S. victory speech;
Blind and mindless American apologism is as bad as Soviet apologism; as for my
so-called Soviet colors (completely untrue), I can only say that McCarthyism
is still alive and well and living in your foggy little brain. Seek help . .
the communists are not coming.
James A. Donald
On Thu, 9 Mar 2000 22:59:04 -0500, "Karl R. Peters"
<u100...@warwick.net> wrote:
> So, can anyone answer two questions? 1) Did a "bloodbath" occur when
> the US pulled out? (Numbers, please)
Obviously we cannot get precise, or even approximate numbers when the
totalitarian state that apparently committed the bloodbath is still
partially in place.
Desbarats estimates from refugee reports sixty thousand to a hundred
thousand directly executed. Of course a much larger number died as a
result of bad conditions in slave labor camps.
Nguyen Cong Hoan, a former official of the postwar government in
Vietnam, estimates fity thousand to one hundred thousand killed by
execution. The toll of executions plus deaths during slave labor is
frequently guessed by various people to be about a quarter of a
million.
The number who died fleeing the country is about half a million to a
million, of these perhaps a quarter of a million died fleeing the
pacification process in South Vietnam. We may reasonably conclude that
that which they were fleeing was at least as dangerous as the flight.
> 2) Has Chomsky ever stated,
> *clearly*, whether such a thing occured?
He has elaborately equivocated.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
Yvtx7JAwma3tolU3tRtciy6gcU57Iyis4El56fAc
4CcMtBGH2OpPR2QuSiwo4Ac1EFlDx461EOhmG61Bw
Sir_Tho...@human.evolution.net
>Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net wrote:
One has to consider the context in which Starr's comment was used and why it
was used.
James A. Donald
On Thu, 09 Mar 2000 23:47:49 GMT, Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net
wrote:
> Germany was a conquered nation and had no say in the matter.
Germany had a democratically elected government, a government elected
by people some of whom had personally experienced rape, looting, and
casual violence by soviet soldiers.
The Soviet Union, shortly before the German effort to join Nato, had
made expansionist probes of the will and capabilities of the allies
along much of its frontier,for example in Greece. Sydney Hook reports
talking to German in the allied zone who frankly said that that they
were reluctant to criticize Russia because they feared winding up in
the hands of Soviet torturers, but were unafraid to criticize the
allies.
> They instigated
> the Second World War and were international criminals; supporting their rights
> over the rights of nations who suffered countless millions of lost lives
> borders on being as hideous and dispicable as the Nazi regime itself.
Why do you consider that a relevant argument? You appear to be
arguing that because ever single german was wicked criminal, a
murderer, he deserved to have socialism imposed on him for his sins.
Socialists normally argue that socialism is only going to harm a tiny
minority: "capital" as a tiny secretive conspiracy in Washington, not
capital as the peasants cow, yet the emotional content of your
arguments frequently tells the reverse story, the emotional content of
the argument is that almost the entire population are criminals,
deserving to have their lives shattered and broken, deserving of
imprisonment, torture, and execution. If the rage and hatred of
socialists is only directed at a tiny little far away group, then
Pinochet would be as much a commie as Allende, for he failed to
compensate most foreign investors in big companies or to return their
property, nor did he compensate or return the property of big
landowners. It is because Pinochet protected the peasant who owns a
cow that you hate him so, not because he murdered a few thousand real
and suspected commies. If it was just the copper mines and the big
esta6tes you worried about, you would cheer Pinochet as
enthusiastically as you cheer every communist tyrant, all of whom
killed far more commies than did Pinochet.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
wQQqmHtWBxbUhvOyzJ+EjfNdapx02RlyC1bD2ff/
4LP2Mh+exnuj5wJ9ErKe7QcqrrKuge5ZZ4QC3ksvY
Constantinople
It was filled with Germans, who were collectively guilty for the
crimes of individual Germans, just as the Jews are collectively
guilty for any crimes of individual Jews. Never mind the paradox
that if Hitler was giving the Jews their just punishment, then
the Germans are not collectively guilty of any crimes. Logic
only gets in the way of higher truths.
Brian Siano
"James A. Donald" wrote:
> I have already given this citation several times, once in this very
> thread. Further, there is a large difference between demanding a
> citation for a extremely well known matter, and demanding a citation
> when someone piously pretends to give a citation for a fantastic and
> outrageous claim, but does not in fact give the citation.
>
> A couple of posts earlier in this thread I wrote:
> For example in http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/dd/dd-c01-s06.html
> he interprets the invasion of Czechoslovakia as a defensive
> move forced upon the Soviet Union by US aggression, in that
> the US unreasonably and threateningly refused to accept the
> "neutralization" of Germany.
I read this link, and frankly, James Donald's full of it.
The passages in question state that in 1952, the Soviet Union offered
a plan for German reunification. Chomsky provides some evidence that
the US's refusal was based on the desire to have the USSR has a threat
to Europe, and thus support the Mutual Security Act. Since a unified
Germany would have eliminated that threat, the US refused it on specious
grounds.
If the argreement had been pursued, Chomsky says:
"It is likely that there would have been no Soviet tanks in East Berlin in
1953, no Berlin wall, no invasion of Hungary or Czechoslovakia -- but
crucially, no ready justification for U.S. intervention and subversion worldwide,
for state policies of economic management in the service of advanced
industry, or for a system of world order in which U.S. hegemony was founded
in large part on military might. The basic reason for rejecting the proposal
seems to have been the U.S. interest in integrating a rearmed Western Germany
in the NATO military alliance, whatever the security risks or the
consequences for the Soviet satellites."
This was the only passage where Czechoslovakia is even mentioned.
Note that Chomsky's argument is that the US's stance had contributed to
such events as the Berlin Wall and the invasions of Czechoslovakia and
Hungary-- and it's clear that these are events Chomsky wishes had
not happened.
To say that this is a "defense" of the Soviet invasion is, simply, nuts,
or an indication of James Donald's now-legenary dishonesty, fanaticism,
disregard for fact and his pathological hatred of Noam Chomsky.
Brian Siano - bsi...@cceb.med.upenn.edu
Constantinople
Your above argument is such transparent idiocy that I think I
will print it and take it around to show to my friends, so that we can
have a laugh together. Your comments make me want to start a website,
which I might title "arguments so stupid that they refute themselves".
Seth Kulick
Constantinople <constan...@my-deja.com> wrote:
[...]
>
>Your above argument is such transparent idiocy that I think I
>will print it and take it around to show to my friends, so that we can
>have a laugh together. Your comments make me want to start a website,
>which I might title "arguments so stupid that they refute themselves".
>
well, you've certainly changed my mind with that well-reasoned response!
--
--------------------------------------------------------------
Seth Kulick "The hypnotic splattered mist
University of Pennsylvania was slowly lifting" - Bob Dylan
sku...@linc.cis.upenn.edu http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~skulick/home.html
Sir_Tho...@human.evolution.net
>will print it and take it around to show to my friends, so that we can
>have a laugh together. Your comments make me want to start a website,
>which I might title "arguments so stupid that they refute themselves".
>
Clearly You Have been smoking the same crack that Donaldson and Starr have
been smoking . . . . but puff away man, there's no brain left to destroy
anyway.
Constantinople
I suppose that the terminally stupid could use a bit of clueing-
in.
Brian admits both points that James makes, specifically that
according to Chomsky,
the US unreasonably and threateningly refused to accept the
"neutralization" of Germany
We can infer that Brian agrees with James on this point from the
fact that, even though Brian is responding directly to it, Brian
does not anywhere deny it. James furthermore says that Chomsky
interprets the invasion of Czechoslovakia as a defensive move
forced upon the Soviet Union by US aggression
Again, Brian says not one thing in rebuttal of this point (he
only says that Chomsky "wishes" the invasion "had not happened",
which is not a denial of the point), and so we can infer that
Brian agrees with this as well.
Brian's only comment, then, is that to say that interpreting the
invasion of Czechoslovakia as defensive is not a defense of the
invasion.
That is a weak argument, and nowhere does Brian argue for it.
Many people are likely to consider self-defense as a defense, and
therefore Brian ought to explain why self-defense is not a
defense. But Brian nowhere argues for that claim. Instead Brian
attempts to misdirect by discussing the quote itself, hoping that
this will convince others that Brian's disagreement with James is
over what Chomsky said rather than on the question of whether
self- defense is in fact a defense.
Seth Kulick
Constantinople <constan...@my-deja.com> wrote:
[...]
> Instead Brian
>attempts to misdirect by discussing the quote itself,
[...]
okay, I get it now! You mean that Brian is being misleading by
discussing what Chomsky actually said. Is that right?
Incidentally, can I try an alternate interpretation of what
Chomsky said? How about, "the U.S. preferred a world in which both the
U.S. and the Soviet Union were going around doing evil things to
a world in which both may have been restrained from doing evil
things".
Sir_Tho...@human.evolution.net
Japan, as a conquered nation, had its constitution imposed on them by the U.S.
after the war. Of course you acknowledge the American right to force Japan
to comply with its will. Of course you support the right of the United States
to prohibit Japan from having an army; but no, being the idiot you are, you do
not support the right of the Soviet Union, who suffered unspeakable horrors
at the hands of the Germans (far FAR worse than anything the Americans
suffered at the hands of the Japanese), to prevent Germany from being rearmed.
Right, so anybody who has the dare and gaul to attack the United States navy
should be permanently disarmed; but anybody who kills, butchers, and
slaughters millions of Soviet women and children should be given a trophy or
something, right? You certainly would not want to grant the Soviets the same
right the Americans took (permanent disarmament), no, that would border on
being fair, can't have that. That's because you are completely devoid of even
the most rudimentary ability to understand the fact that the Soviet nation was
destroyed and filled with the smell of burning corpses. Hell, you proabably
even support what the Germans did; you must admit, the U.S. administration was
probably secretly wishing the Soviets had been completely destroyed.
All of these actions have to be considered within the context of the war. If
you are so dimwitted that you can't even for second consider the millions of
dead women and children that littered the Soviet countryside, then there is no
hope for you. If you had loaded the corpses of dead children onto carts, you
would have been just a tad furious too, you might have been seeking revenge
too. (We'll ignore the fact that most serious scholars believe Stalin to have
been quite coocoo too, that is irrelevant as well, right?) The U.S. has no
idea what the Soviet people went through; the U.S. countryside was not filled
with dead or dying women and children. Yet still, idiots like yourself support
the American right to prevent the rearming of the Japanese, but do not support
the Soviet right to prevent the rearming of Germany. THAT my friend is what
this argument is really about. It has nothing to do with endorsing what
Soviets did IMMEDIATELY after the war, as another dimwitt said, it is a "red
herring" designed to deflect the issue. Give your head shake. This is not a
justification for rape or pillage, it is just common sense acknowledgement
that this whole ugly affair was the result of a bitter, ugly war between the
two nations. Before you climb ontop of your moral mountain, lets remember that
the U.S. murdered countless people in Japan by unecessarily dropping two
atomic bombs which killed mainly civilian men, women, and children (one AT
LEAST cannot be justified by any pathetic stretch of the imagination; here I
am not imcluding the countless Japanese women and children killed by the
napalm fire-bombings which all but leveled most of Japan; how many American
women and children died?). We can say that at least the Soviets didn't drop
nuclear bombs on Germany in the days before its inevitable surrender . . . now
that would have been truly monstrous, only a bunch of butchers would do
something like that. But once again, I am allowing myself to digress into your
game of button pushing. Its like I told Starr "I didn't really believe" he was
a Nazi apologist (some things go over people's heads though I guess) but was
just allowing myself to play counter-button-pusher. I suppose you rely on
Gaddis like a bible too eh? Despite the fact the Woodrow Wilson Centre for
Scholars, where he got (and twisted) much of his information, has decribed his
book as "utter nonsense" (<-- Their quote, not mine; see review posted in
earlier article).
In article <38c91ae...@nntp1.ba.best.com>, jam...@echeque.com (James A.
Constantinople
>
>In article <8abit5$1g...@edrn.newsguy.com>,
>Constantinople <constan...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>
>[...]
>>
>>Your above argument is such transparent idiocy that I think I
>>will print it and take it around to show to my friends, so that we can
>>have a laugh together. Your comments make me want to start a website,
>>which I might title "arguments so stupid that they refute themselves".
>>
>
As it happens, I wrote another response expressly for you.
Tim Starr
Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net wrote:
> In article <38C85D...@columbia-center.org>, clore@columbia-
center.org wrote:
> >Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net wrote:
> >> In article <8a8prf$s8a$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, Tim Starr <timstarr@my-
To explain why the German people preferred Western alignment to Soviet
occupation?
Tim Starr
Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net wrote:
[replying to James Donald]
>You are such a complete buffoon.
Ad hominem.
>The argument is no different than saying that Japan, as a conquered
>nation, had its constitution imposed on them by the U.S. after the
>war. Of course you acknowledge the American right to force Japan
>to comply with its will. Of course you support the right of the United
>States to prohibit Japan from having an army; but no, being the idiot
>you are, you do not support the right of the Soviet Union, who
>suffered unspeakable horrors at the hands of the Germans (far FAR
>worse than anything the Americans suffered at the hands of the
>Japanese), to prevent Germany from being rearmed.
Japan's conquerors had the right to prohibit Japan from having an
military, & Germany's conquerors had the right to prohibit Germany from
having a military. The difference is that Japan was conquered by one
power, America, while Germany was conquered by several. If all of
Germany's conquerors had agreed to prohibit Germany from having an
military, that would've been within their rights, but since Soviet
Russia only conquered part of Germany, the Soviets only had the right
to prohibit the part they conquered from having a military.
(BTW, the only reason why the US didn't suffer as much from Japan in
WWII as Soviet Russia did from Germany is because Japan didn't invade
the US, Japan invaded China, the Philippines, & much of the rest of the
South Pacific.)
The Soviets had every right to prohibit East Germany from having any
military. Funny thing, though, they didn't. Instead, East Germany was
one of the most heavily militarized & fortified countries in Europe.
The Soviets didn't seem to fear German military forces, just ones that
weren't its total puppets. If they wanted a neutral buffer zone, they
could've neutralized East Germany any time they wanted to.
Every country that was jointly occupied by the Soviets & the Western
allies was partitioned. Korea's a perfect example. Did the Soviets
offer to neutralize Korea? No. In 1952, when Stalin offered to
neutralize Germany, the Korean War which he'd authorized was still
going. It didn't end until Stalin died, at which point a negotiated
peace re-established the pre-war borders between the two different
occupation zones.
[snip waving of bloody shirt with hammer & sickle logo on it]
[snip tu quoque argument]
Hmm... not much left of your post left once the logical fallacies are
snipped.
Constantinople
Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net says...
>>will print it and take it around to show to my friends, so that we can
>>have a laugh together. Your comments make me want to start a website,
>>which I might title "arguments so stupid that they refute themselves".
>>
>
>been smoking . . . . but puff away man, there's no brain left to destroy
>anyway.
So you, also, fail to see that the argument I was replying to was no
argument at all, nothing but a transparent attempt to misdirect! That's
okay, because I wrote another response explicitly for you, that explains
it in greater detail.
Tim Starr
Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net wrote:
>In article <8a9ggr$dm5$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, Tim Starr <timstarr@my-
deja.com> wrote:
>>In article <ThWx4.8476$Dv1.1...@news1.rdc1.bc.home.com>,
>>(paraphrased from John L. Gaddis' "We Now Know: Rethinking the Cold
>>War")
>
>The Wilson Quarterly, Summer 1997 v21 n3 p90(4) (COPYRIGHT 1997
>Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars)
>
>"Hardly anyone in either the older or younger generation of Cold War
>scholars will agree with all of Gaddis's judgments ... [Gaddis relies
>on information contained in] the appearance of "One Hell of a Gamble,"
>by the Russian scholar Alexandr A. Fursenko and his Canadian
Irrelevant, that book's about Cuba & the Cuban Missile Crisis, not the
Korean War - as anyone could tell if they read its
subtitle, "Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958-1964". Kruschev
wasn't even in power during the Korean War, which ended long before
1958.
[irrelevant whining by another alleged historian that Gaddis doesn't
know Russian & didn't pay enough attention to him snipped]
[mere gainsaying of Gaddis snipped]
[whining that Gaddis blames Stalin for the Cold War (how dare he!) &
didn't say much about Vietnam or Laos (Gaddis' book only covers the
period from the end of WWII through the Cuban Missile Crisis) snipped]
>Gaddis' work is clearly and significantly flawed in numerous and
>highly identifiable respects...
Have you read it? Are you seriously denying that Stalin authorized Kim
Il-Sung to invade South Korea? I have other sources - Volkogonov,
Bullock, etc. They all agree on this point. Kruschev himself admitted
that the Commies started the Korean War.
>...your position also presumes that Chomsky and the U.S. both had
>some sort of knowledge...
The US knew enough to reject Stalin's bluff. Chomsky still doesn't.
Neither do you.
Constantinople
>
>In article <8abmkm$1o...@edrn.newsguy.com>,
>Constantinople <constan...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>
>[...]
>> Instead Brian
>>attempts to misdirect by discussing the quote itself,
>[...]
>
>okay, I get it now! You mean that Brian is being misleading by
>discussing what Chomsky actually said. Is that right?
I see you can't handle what I said, so you have to snip it
all except for one line which you take out of context and
knowingly misinterpret. Do you really think that's a
convincing rebuttal?
>Incidentally, can I try an alternate interpretation of what
>Chomsky said? How about, "the U.S. preferred a world in which both the
>U.S. and the Soviet Union were going around doing evil things to
>a world in which both may have been restrained from doing evil
>things".
That also does not contradict what James said. And of course you
snipped that too, to give the impression that your do contradict
what James said.
Tim Starr
"PattiW." <jwisni...@home.com> wrote:
>But Tim, we lost the Viet Nam war. Why haven't those yellow commie
Because Suharto defeated the Commies in Indonesia before the US lost
the Vietnam War. The Commies were unable to gain Indonesia, or even
East Timor, as a staging area for any invasion of Australia. It was
fear of this before Sukarno was overthrown by the Commies that led the
Australian military to join in the defense of South Vietnam.
>And why is Mao quoted as saying "It is better to sniff at the dung of
>the French for a while than be forced to eat that of the Chinese?
Mao didn't say that, Ho Chi Minh did, & he said it back when China was
still ruled by Chiang Kai-Shek, before the Chinese Revolution. Ho Chi
Minh had no objections to accepting all sorts of help from Mao,
including Chinese logistics workers who went to North Vietnam by the
hundreds of thousands. When Stalin told Ho Chi Minh to take orders
from Mao, Ho said "Thanks, Unca Joe!" The Vietnamese then did what Mao
told them to for the next couple of decades, before the Soviets took
over supporting North Vietnam & China defected to the other side of the
Cold War.
Ernest Brown
and given that the Soviets had already destroyed democracy in
"neutralized" Czechoslovakia, I'd say that the pathological liar was
Chomsky, once again.
James Donald has made at least one idiotic statement in the past, but that
does not excuse Chomsky's voluntary bathing in the blood of democidal
victims. Tu quoque is still a foul fallacy.
E. Brown
Wisdom's Children: A Virtual Journal of Philosophy & Literature
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/billramey/wisdom.htm
Submissions welcomed.
On Fri, 10 Mar 2000, Brian Siano wrote:
> Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2000 13:11:21 -0500
> From: Brian Siano <bsi...@cceb.med.upenn.edu>
> Newsgroups: alt.fan.noam-chomsky, alt.anarchism
> Subject: Re: What about Noam?
> Brian Siano - bsi...@cceb.med.upenn.edu
>
>
>
Ernest Brown
smear the testimony of victims of democide when their cause is
"politically incorrect." Chomsky's hypocritical double standard in
uncritically accepting Timorese accounts and rejecting Khmer statements of
mass murder is well and truly documented, and no weasel-wording will get
him out of it.
He's just another member of "Holocaust Deniers, Inc," with different mass
slaughters to offer apologias for, in addition to a "media conspiracy"
ideology which is vastly inferior to the Situationist theories he
parasitizes.
Wisdom's Children: A Virtual Journal of Philosophy & Literature
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/billramey/wisdom.htm
Submissions welcomed.
On Sat, 11 Mar 2000 Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net wrote:
> Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2000 04:28:37 GMT
> From: Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net
> Newsgroups: alt.fan.noam-chomsky, alt.anarchism
> Subject: Re: What about Noam?
>
> In article <Pine.A41.4.10.100031...@sp2n21.missouri.edu>, Ernest Brown <c50...@showme.missouri.edu> wrote:
> >Considering that such offers (from Stalin, BTW) were worse than useless
> >and given that the Soviets had already destroyed democracy in
> >"neutralized" Czechoslovakia, I'd say that the pathological liar was
> >Chomsky, once again.
> >
> >James Donald has made at least one idiotic statement in the past, but that
> >does not excuse Chomsky's voluntary bathing in the blood of democidal
> >victims. Tu quoque is still a foul fallacy.
> >
> >E. Brown
> >
>
> If you earn a PhD Ernie it will be a final and insulting damnation of the
> educational system. Talk about "idiotic statements"; "Chomsky's voluntarily
> bathing in the blood of democidal victims" is about as idiotic a thing as I
> have ever read and is so far removed from the reality of who and what Noam
> Chomsky is that it displays either a shameless disregard for the truth or a
> complete and total ignorance of reality. I suppose you believe in other
> products of paranormal fantasy too, like "trickle down effects" and "invisible
> hands."
>
>
>
Tim Starr
In article <ThWx4.8476$Dv1.1...@news1.rdc1.bc.home.com>,
Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net wrote:
[snip]
>Are we all aware that United States had stationed 1 million troops
>around the borders of the Soviet Union...
Really? I didn't know the US stationed troops in Poland, Hungary,
Czechoslovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, Austria, Romania,
China, etc.
[snip]
>Simply and constantly dumping responsibility on the doorstep of the
>Soviets irresponisbly ignores the entire nature of the Cold War. It
>wasn't, as George Bush said, a case of "Good versus evil; right
>versus wrong," it was a case of one murderous superpower facing off
>against another murderous superpower on a global playing field.
Funny, the German people didn't think the Western Allies were just as
murderous as the Red Army. They didn't even hate the French as much as
they feared the Soviets, or else they would've preferred Soviet
alignment to NATO membership, since that entailed a Franco-German
alliance.
[snip]
>...to ignore the fact that the Soviet Union (primarily for economic
>reasons) made concerted attempts at warming relations between the two
>super-powers. which were flattly and decisvely rejected by the U.S.,
>also ignores the facts.
Yes, the Soviets were desperate for Western economic assistance (they
should've thought of that when they rejected the Marshall Plan), but
they weren't willing to give up on their struggle for world conquest in
exchange for aid. Reagan was perfectly willing to sell American grain
to Russia, but not to transfer any technology that would increase
Soviet military strength.
Sir_Tho...@human.evolution.net
wrote:
>[irrelevant whining by another alleged historian that Gaddis doesn't
>know Russian & didn't pay enough attention to him snipped]
>
>[mere gainsaying of Gaddis snipped]
>
Irrelevant eh? I find that strange, especially considering the fact that the
most scathing review came from the man whose work Gaddis relied on
heavily as a PRIMARY source. Note the following (capital emphasis is
mine):
"For example, in We Now Know he cites MY substantially
archive-based findings twenty or so times. An author perhaps should be
grateful for that recognition; however, Gaddis clearly is not of a mood to
accept, or even mention, some of the conclusions I draw from the new facts
I found, OR EVEN TO REFER READERS TO THE DOCUMENTS I CITE.
To be sure, he is not required to accept my conclusions or those of any other
scholar. But he cannot ignore what he indicates he is aware of: the facts and
findings reported in English from my research in a number of those newly
opened former East Bloc archives. They, when correct, compel the attention
of any writer trying to do a synthesis of the history of the early cold war;
when wrong, they require refutation as part of the necessary relentless search
to clarify the historical record. Gaddis neither attends to them nor refutes
them...Gaddis has a problem holding the lid on many awkward findings he cannot
fit into his synthesis."
This is a lesson in basic history (stuff you're taught as a sophomore
historian). Note again: "Documentation is what underlies all history." And
again, that in order to ignore information that Gaddis was aware of and in
order to support his thesis while contradicting facts Gaddis "To escape from
the dilemmas of explanation in which he thereby places himself, he turns to
confounding the reader, and probably himself, with utter nonsense...it is
inexact, pejorative, and misleading."
This isn't coming from any old scholar; this is one of Gaddis' main primary
sources, Richard C. Raack, a man who resents the fact that his findings were
twisted and misrepresented without so what as the OBLIGATORY footnote
referring readers to the original documents or the original scholar's
conclusions. This is basic basic history; these are not trivial or irrelevant
details; these are details which categorize Gaddis' work as deliberately
misleading. The question then is why? Why is he misleading; well Raack
offers a scholarly explanation:
"Gaddis is still fearful to go far beyond the pale of local received opinion,
which remains congenial to the revisionist-dominated United States historians
and their partisans in the American academic world and in the wealthy
foundations."
>
>[whining that Gaddis blames Stalin for the Cold War (how dare he!)
Wrong. The point of criticism is was already quoted but which you chose to
ignore (taking lessons from Gaddis no doubt), note:
"he puts forward some mostly unexceptionable hypotheses while concluding that
the
responsibility for the Cold War was shared by 'authoritarianism in general and
Stalin in particular'. The first resulting from 'the laws of both history and
geography', and the second from 'some secret design of Providence'? CERTAINLY,
HARDLY ANYBODY WOULD WANT TO ABSOLVE STALIN FROM HIS
MANY SINS. Nevertheless, many of the policies pursued by him were dictated by
circumstances rather than by himself, and, arguably, Cold War interpretation
will not reach full maturity before it goes beyond such exclusive attribution
of responsibility,
or at least to the realisation that we were all in it together. On the other
hand, conveniently, to blame Stalin for what went wrong in the relationship of
the wartime allies is to let us all off the hook. The 'democratic republic' is
absolved completely, it would seem."
Again we return to Chomsky, who has been trying, desperately, to make people
like yourself realize that the U.S. shares guilt. There is no absolution of
Stalin in the above quote; what we see is an attack on shallow minded people
who refuse to see the forest through the trees.
>[whining that Gaddis blames Stalin for the Cold War (how dare he!) &
>didn't say much about Vietnam or Laos
The omission of these topics is not a matter of course; it is strategic
maneuver designed to mislead his readers (clearly it worked) and support the
author's thesis; namely, that the saintly Americans conducted themselves in a
moral and orderly fashion at all times, and are completely innocent of any
blame or wrong doing.
>Are you seriously denying that Stalin authorized Kim
>Il-Sung to invade South Korea? I have other sources - Volkogonov,
>Bullock, etc.
Again, I am not attempting to absolve the Soviets of blame in the Korean War;
clearly they had their greasy little hands all over the situation (although
the Chinese were far more involved . . . who rushed 200,000 troops to the aid
of the North? Wasn't the Soviets), my point is that the Americans were equally
guilty. Who was Rhee?? Where did he come from? Who supported him? Korea was
one country before an act of imperialism divided it in two. There would have
been no Korean War if the imperialists had not divided the country after the
war. Here lies the root of the war. What came after was the result of the
interplay of 4 countries, all equally to blame; Korea (who should have been
one nation), China, the U.S., and the Soviets (for the purpose of this
discussion we leave out, although not absolve, Japan and Taiwan). I won't get
into reviews of Volkogonov here.
>>...your position also presumes that Chomsky and the U.S. both had
>>some sort of knowledge before the fact...
>
>The US knew enough to reject Stalin's bluff. Chomsky still doesn't.
>Neither do you.
Whatever.
Seth Kulick
Constantinople <constan...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>In article <8abr58$73k$1...@netnews.upenn.edu>, sku...@linc.cis.upenn.edu says...
>>
>>[...]
>>> Instead Brian
>>>attempts to misdirect by discussing the quote itself,
>>[...]
>>
>>okay, I get it now! You mean that Brian is being misleading by
>>discussing what Chomsky actually said. Is that right?
>
>I see you can't handle what I said, so you have to snip it
>all except for one line which you take out of context and
>knowingly misinterpret. Do you really think that's a
>convincing rebuttal?
How does one respond to a self-parody?
>
>>Incidentally, can I try an alternate interpretation of what
>>Chomsky said? How about, "the U.S. preferred a world in which both the
>>U.S. and the Soviet Union were going around doing evil things to
>>a world in which both may have been restrained from doing evil
>>things".
>
>That also does not contradict what James said. And of course you
>snipped that too, to give the impression that your do contradict
>what James said.
I'll leave it to others to judge whether it contradicts what James
said. My opinion is that while both mention the U.S. and the Soviet
Union, my modest little interpretation above is a bit different than
saying that Chomsky is a Soviet apologist.
btw, I snipped the other stuff because my news program was complaining
that I had more quoted lines than new stuff.
Constantinople
<8ac6hb$mdr$1...@netnews.upenn.edu>:
>In article <8abt8n$25...@edrn.newsguy.com>, Constantinople
><constan...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>>In article <8abr58$73k$1...@netnews.upenn.edu>,
>>sku...@linc.cis.upenn.edu says...
>>>Constantinople <constan...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>[...]
>>>> Instead Brian
>>>>attempts to misdirect by discussing the quote itself,
>>>[...]
>>>
>>>okay, I get it now! You mean that Brian is being misleading by
>>>discussing what Chomsky actually said. Is that right?
>>
>>I see you can't handle what I said, so you have to snip it all
>>except for one line which you take out of context and knowingly
>>misinterpret. Do you really think that's a convincing rebuttal?
>
>How does one respond to a self-parody?
And do you think *that* is convincing?
>>>Incidentally, can I try an alternate interpretation of what
>>>Chomsky said? How about, "the U.S. preferred a world in which
>>>both the U.S. and the Soviet Union were going around doing
>>>evil things to a world in which both may have been restrained
>>>from doing evil things".
>>
>>That also does not contradict what James said. And of course
>>you snipped that too, to give the impression that your do
>>contradict what James said.
>
>I'll leave it to others to judge whether it contradicts what
>James said. My opinion is that while both mention the U.S. and
>the Soviet Union, my modest little interpretation above is a bit
>different than saying that Chomsky is a Soviet apologist.
Sure. And "Chomsky had corn flakes for breakfast" is also a bit
different from saying that Chomsky is a Soviet apologist. But the
question is not whether you are able to say something about
Chomsky without calling him an apologist. The question is whether
you can contradict the arguments that James gave, and not only
did you not contradict them, you did not even reply to them.
>btw, I snipped the other stuff because my news program was
>complaining that I had more quoted lines than new stuff.
Had you bothered to *answer* the other stuff, your news program
would not have complained. But you didn't even put up a fight.
Usenet is so facking boring lately.
PattiW.
Tim Starr <tims...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:8ac1bv$8tq$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
Seth Kulick
look, you guys take a perfectly straightforward quote, and then
say "what Chomsky's really saying is X", and then demand a response
to that. There's no argument to respond to. And then you complain
when somebody actually reports what Chomsky's quote says. And then
to make it even more hilarious you three or four members of the
Chomsky-is-evil cult complain that Chomsky's "defenders", whatever
that means, twist his words around. How bizarre.
>
>>>>Incidentally, can I try an alternate interpretation of what
>>>>Chomsky said? How about, "the U.S. preferred a world in which
>>>>both the U.S. and the Soviet Union were going around doing
>>>>evil things to a world in which both may have been restrained
>>>>from doing evil things".
>>>
>>>That also does not contradict what James said. And of course
>>>you snipped that too, to give the impression that your do
>>>contradict what James said.
>>
>>I'll leave it to others to judge whether it contradicts what
>>James said. My opinion is that while both mention the U.S. and
>>the Soviet Union, my modest little interpretation above is a bit
>>different than saying that Chomsky is a Soviet apologist.
>
>Sure. And "Chomsky had corn flakes for breakfast" is also a bit
>different from saying that Chomsky is a Soviet apologist. But the
>question is not whether you are able to say something about
>Chomsky without calling him an apologist. The question is whether
>you can contradict the arguments that James gave, and not only
>did you not contradict them, you did not even reply to them.
What arguments? that "Attacking the US for forcing Khrushchev to
invade Hungary in self defence is the same thing as defending Stalin
and Khrushschev's aggression against Hungary."? That Chomsky
"interprets the invasion of Czechoslovakia as a defensive
move forced upon the Soviet Union by US aggression, in that
the US unreasonably and threateningly refused to accept the
"neutralization" of Germany." ? What's to reply to? James says
this is what Chomsky is saying, but when one goes to the quote
it's obviously not what Chomsky is saying.
McTorture
Constantinople <constan...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:8EF3C9C78f2...@209.99.56.11...
> Usenet is so facking boring lately.
as you are a main contributer to this group -
I suggest that if you really find it boaring -
it is you who at least in part to blaim -
no one is keeping you here -
you are free to leave -
or are you -
?????-
$$$
Sir_Tho...@human.evolution.net
Constantinople
>In article <8EF3C9C78f2...@209.99.56.11>,
>Constantinople <constan...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>>
>>And do you think *that* is convincing?
>
>look, you guys take a perfectly straightforward quote, and then
>say "what Chomsky's really saying is X", and then demand a
>response to that. There's no argument to respond to.
Yes there is, and you snipped it because you can't deal with it.
Too bad for you.
>And then you complain when somebody actually reports what
>Chomsky's quote says.
You know full well that my complaint was that James's argument
was not even addressed, but rather ignored, and a partial summary
was given that evaded the issue raised by James - as though the
ability to leave parts out of a summary were somehow proof that
the parts were not there in the original.
>And then to make it even more hilarious you three or four
>members of the Chomsky-is-evil cult complain that Chomsky's
>"defenders", whatever that means, twist his words around. How
>bizarre.
Three or four members? Boy, are you out of it. Chomsky has no
reputation at all in the wide world, and I only think about
Chomsky because my group (alt.anarchism) keeps getting threads
that are crossposted to the alt.fan.noam-chomsky group. I see
these posts from people like you saying this utter shit about
this linguist whom I'm surprised anyone reads any more, and I'm
moved to response, because deep down I care about my fellow
beings and dislike to see you waste your time.
Yes, it is. At least you're finally addressing the claim.
Constantinople
I stick around because I expect it to get better.
Sir_Tho...@human.evolution.net
>In article <8EF3C9C78f2...@209.99.56.11>,
>Constantinople <constan...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>
>And then to make it even more hilarious you three or four members of the
>Chomsky-is-evil cult complain that Chomsky's "defenders", whatever
>that means, twist his words around. How bizarre.
They aren't members of a "Chomsly-is-evil" cult, they are professional
buffoons who get their kicks from pushing buttons and making outlandish
statements. If one looks at their comments and has even the most rudimentary
understanding of the historical facts, you can see that they must be trying to
push buttons . . . we see this in the title of the original post "What about
Noam?"; its kinda like "Anyone wanna fight?"; loosely equivilant to walking
into an Elvis fan club meeting and calling Elvis a fat flake who couldn't sing
worth a damn, and then laughing when everyone freaks out. Its the same kind of
mindless button pushing. Quite juvenille, of course, but also transparent.
Thh scary part is that one gets the impression that they actually believe this
nonsense. I have just discovered this group quite recently so I do not know
the extended history of its frequenters, but this would appear to be a pretty
flagrant attempt to push buttons; I thought I would play their little game and
"pop out of the box" just to delight them. Thought I'd even try to push some
buttons of my own, but when they "popped out the box" I was quite terrified by
the hideous face of apparent ignorance. To discover that one of them is
actually a PhD candidate is even more frightening; good lord, can you imagine
this man teaching in a college or university? The very thought makes me dizzy
and disoriented with fear for the future.
Constantinople
<qQly4.14173$Dv1.1...@news1.rdc1.bc.home.com>:
>In article <8accdd$u6k$1...@netnews.upenn.edu>, sku...@linc.cis.upenn.edu (Seth
Kulick) wrote:
>>In article <8EF3C9C78f2...@209.99.56.11>,
>>Constantinople <constan...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>>
>>And then to make it even more hilarious you three or four members of the
>>Chomsky-is-evil cult complain that Chomsky's "defenders", whatever
>>that means, twist his words around. How bizarre.
>
>They aren't members of a "Chomsly-is-evil" cult, they are
>professional buffoons who get their kicks from pushing buttons
>and making outlandish statements. If one looks at their comments
>and has even the most rudimentary understanding of the
>historical facts, you can see that they must be trying to push
>buttons . . . we see this in the title of the original post
>"What about Noam?"; its kinda like "Anyone wanna fight?";
>loosely equivilant to walking into an Elvis fan club meeting and
>calling Elvis a fat flake who couldn't sing worth a damn, and
>then laughing when everyone freaks out. Its the same kind of
>mindless button pushing. Quite juvenille, of course, but also
>transparent.
Oh, really? I've tracked down the original post that introduces
that title. Here it is:
From: "Karl R. Peters" <u100...@warwick.net>
Newsgroups: alt.fan.noam-chomsky
Subject: What about Noam?
I've noticed that there seems to be next to no discussion about either
Noam Chomsky or his writings on this newsgroup. What's the deal?
Can't we put aside our political bickering and focus on something
remotely topical?
Karl
<marX>
That post was nothing but a request for information, and the
title reflects that. Your false interpretation is
consistent with the rest of your comments in this thread.
>Thh scary part is that one gets the impression that they
>actually believe this nonsense. I have just discovered this
>group quite recently so I do not know the extended history of
>its frequenters, but this would appear to be a pretty flagrant
>attempt to push buttons; I thought I would play their little
>game and "pop out of the box" just to delight them. Thought I'd
>even try to push some buttons of my own, but when they "popped
>out the box" I was quite terrified by the hideous face of
>apparent ignorance. To discover that one of them is actually a
>PhD candidate is even more frightening; good lord, can you
>imagine this man teaching in a college or university? The very
>thought makes me dizzy and disoriented with fear for the future.
You're dizzy because you're hyperventilating. Maybe you should
see a doctor.
Sir_Tho...@human.evolution.net
>Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net wrote in
><qQly4.14173$Dv1.1...@news1.rdc1.bc.home.com>:
>
>>then laughing when everyone freaks out. Its the same kind of
>>mindless button pushing. Quite juvenille, of course, but also
>>transparent.
>
>Oh, really? I've tracked down the original post that introduces
>that title. Here it is:
>
> From: "Karl R. Peters" <u100...@warwick.net>
> Newsgroups: alt.fan.noam-chomsky
> Subject: What about Noam?
>
> I've noticed that there seems to be next to no discussion about either
> Noam Chomsky or his writings on this newsgroup. What's the deal?
> Can't we put aside our political bickering and focus on something
> remotely topical?
>
> Karl
> <marX>
>
>That post was nothing but a request for information, and the
>title reflects that. Your false interpretation is
>consistent with the rest of your comments in this thread.
Well, if that was the original post I must have missed it; the post I saw was
one from James Donald who said something to the effect of "I thought this was
a Noam Chomsky group, what about Noam? Doesn't anyone know that he is a
pro-Soviet imperilaist" or something to that effect. I'll look it up in my
history and post it.
Nathan Folkert
> even
> the Maginot line had been penetrated by the Wehrmacht in WWII.
The Maginot line was never penetrated by the Wehrmacht. It was
outflanked, the result of a strategic failure in which the French believed
that the invasion of Belgium and subsequent entrance of Britain into the
war (in the interests of its naval defense and the violation of a neutral
power) would allow the combined armies of Britain and France to defeat
Germany. It was in dynamic warfare that the French, Dutch, Belgians, and
British were defeated by new German armoured warfare tactics, not in the
breaching of its static defenses. The southern flank of the Maginot line
proved to be impenetrable to the Italians, and the fortresses along the
German border were only overcome when the majority of France had fallen to
the Nazis. The only regions unprotected were adjacent to Switzerland, an
invasion of which would have proved equally deadly to the fascists as a
frontal assault of the French defenses, and the border of Belgium, where
the failure of French military planning manifested itself in the defeat
and conquest of France. Had the French not felt that they could rely on
British intervention in the event of an invasion of the Low Countries
(which turned out to be irrelevant, since Britain was already in league
with the French against Hitler by the time the war began) and extended
the fortifications (at enormous cost) to the Atlantic coast, it is
possible that the German advance would have been halted or deterred.
--
Nathan Folkert
nfol...@cs.stanford.edu
http://www.stanford.edu/~nfolkert
==========================================================================
There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes
you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; and you've got to put your
bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the
apparatus and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to
the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free,
the machine will be prevented from working at all.
===========================================================================
- Mario Savio, leader of the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley
December 2, 1964
Constantinople
<VXjy4.14053$Dv1.1...@news1.rdc1.bc.home.com>:
Invisible hands?
So, does reading Chomsky ruin a mind (or retard its growth), or,
alternatively, does Chomsky attract ruined minds? What's the
causality behind the correlation?
fl...@best.com
Brian Siano <bsi...@cceb.med.upenn.edu> wrote:
>
> "James A. Donald" wrote:
>
> > I have already given this citation several times, once in this very
> > thread. Further, there is a large difference between demanding a
> > citation for a extremely well known matter, and demanding a citation
> > when someone piously pretends to give a citation for a fantastic and
> > outrageous claim, but does not in fact give the citation.
> >
> > A couple of posts earlier in this thread I wrote:
> > For example in
http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/dd/dd-c01-s06.html
> > move forced upon the Soviet Union by US aggression, in that
> > the US unreasonably and threateningly refused to accept the
> > "neutralization" of Germany.
>
My jaw dropped when I read this.
Chomsky's passage is equivalent to saying
"In 1939, Germany had a plan for solving the Polish Problem.
The Allies' refusal was based on a desire to have Germany
as a threat to Europe.
If the agreement had been pursued, it is likely that there would have
been no invasion of France, no assault on Norway, no West Wall --
but crucially, no ready justification for Allied intervention and
subversion worldwide, for state policies of economic management in
the service of advanced industry, or for a system of world order in
which Allied hegemony was founded in large part on military might..."
(I should also bring up the ridiculous non-sequitur, "since
a unified Germany would have eliminated that threat". How
would a unified, neutralized Germany eliminate the threat
of Soviet expansion?)
Chomsky's an imbecile for stating the quoted passage. You
are an imbecile for bringing it out into the light of
day as an attempt to defend him. If I were in your position
I should bury it behind a tree.
Floyd McWilliams
fl...@best.com
James A. Donald
On Fri, 10 Mar 2000 13:11:21 -0500, Brian Siano
<bsi...@cceb.med.upenn.edu> wrote:
> I read this link, and frankly, James Donald's full of it.
> The passages in question state that in 1952, the Soviet Union offered
> a plan for German reunification.
Chomsky attributes the invasion of Hungary and Czechoslovakia to the
US unreasonably, aggressively, and threateningly refusing this plan.
In fact the "neutralization" plan would have led to the Soviet
domination of all of Germany, because the Soviet occupiers were using
terror against ordinary germans and the allies were not, and the
people justifying this plan implicitly admit as much by the fact that
they mix their justifications for this plan with justifications for
terror against ordinary germans.
But even Chomsky's characterization of the plan was entirely accurate,
even if refusing to abandon western Germany to Soviet mass murders and
torturers actually had been an act of aggression, it would still be
obvious bullshit to link the invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia
to the US rejection of this plan, to claim that these invasions were
forced on the Soviet Union to defend itself against the aggressive
acts of the US.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
WFSAxWgQo97YKj0jv4MMF22ZYreQikDF/2QIflQ
4ZDX0d4z3Dr/ASYotOIYvCattQfHmo+89KUpYav4g
------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.
http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ James A. Donald
James A. Donald
On 11 Mar 2000 02:52:29 GMT, sku...@linc.cis.upenn.edu (Seth Kulick)
wrote:
> look, you guys take a perfectly straightforward quote, and then
> say "what Chomsky's really saying is X"
Indeed the quote is straightforward.
> And then you complain
> when somebody actually reports what Chomsky's quote says.
It was you that proceeded to argue that what Chomsky was really saying
was Y, where the words "Czechoslovakia", and "Hungary", conspicuously
present in the original quote, were conspicuously absent from Y.
You were unable to construct a paraphrase or summary of the original
quote that include those words, and also contradicted X.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
jsF2OHrthHnLmXbsQXRE6bK7qsUSj8fuprYvLUGv
4viV90jgHyE3P71cKZcnXbnOvguNkmWCHl91Hhip3
Sir_Tho...@human.evolution.net
>No, it is very much a part of what Chomsky is, i.e. one who attempts to
>smear the testimony of victims of democide when their cause is
>"politically incorrect." Chomsky's hypocritical double standard in
>uncritically accepting Timorese accounts and rejecting Khmer statements of
>mass murder is well and truly documented, and no weasel-wording will get
>him out of it.
>
>He's just another member of "Holocaust Deniers, Inc," with different mass
>slaughters to offer apologias for, in addition to a "media conspiracy"
>ideology which is vastly inferior to the Situationist theories he
>parasitizes.
You really think you are something . . . don't you Ernie? All I can say is
. . if you don't get it, then you just simply don't get it; you never
will, because you lack the qualities of a decent human being. Like Gaddis,
you have absolutely no appreciation for context except where it fits your
perverted little thesis; that thesis, as usual, is a blank check for the
superpowerful. The emptiness of your shallow little brain is betrayed in every
post. That you have advanced degrees both stuns and frightens me ... actually,
I take that back; I am sure America's far right would be dlighted to welcome
you to their silver-laden banquet for the rich and powerful. Have fun, little
man, in your career as an apologist for, as Ceasar Augusto Sandino said, "that
monstrous eagle that feeds on of the blood of nations."
Cheers.
Ernest Brown
Wisdom's Children: A Virtual Journal of Philosophy & Literature
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/billramey/wisdom.htm
Submissions welcomed.
On Sat, 11 Mar 2000, James A. Donald wrote:
> Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2000 18:38:25 GMT
> From: James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com>
> Newsgroups: alt.fan.noam-chomsky, alt.anarchism
> Subject: Re: What about Noam?
>
> --
> On Fri, 10 Mar 2000 13:11:21 -0500, Brian Siano
> <bsi...@cceb.med.upenn.edu> wrote:
> > I read this link, and frankly, James Donald's full of it.
> > The passages in question state that in 1952, the Soviet Union offered
> > a plan for German reunification.
>
> Chomsky attributes the invasion of Hungary and Czechoslovakia to the
> US unreasonably, aggressively, and threateningly refusing this plan.
>
> In fact the "neutralization" plan would have led to the Soviet
> domination of all of Germany, because the Soviet occupiers were using
> terror against ordinary germans and the allies were not, and the
> people justifying this plan implicitly admit as much by the fact that
> they mix their justifications for this plan with justifications for
> terror against ordinary germans.
>
> But even Chomsky's characterization of the plan was entirely accurate,
> even if refusing to abandon western Germany to Soviet mass murders and
> torturers actually had been an act of aggression, it would still be
> obvious bullshit to link the invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia
> to the US rejection of this plan, to claim that these invasions were
> forced on the Soviet Union to defend itself against the aggressive
> acts of the US.
>
> --digsig
> James A. Donald
> 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
> WFSAxWgQo97YKj0jv4MMF22ZYreQikDF/2QIflQ
> 4ZDX0d4z3Dr/ASYotOIYvCattQfHmo+89KUpYav4g
James A. Donald
On Fri, 10 Mar 2000 23:19:37 -0600, Ernest Brown
<c50...@showme.missouri.edu> wrote:
> No, it is very much a part of what Chomsky is, i.e. one who attempts to
> smear the testimony of victims of democide when their cause is
> "politically incorrect." Chomsky's hypocritical double standard in
> uncritically accepting Timorese accounts and rejecting Khmer statements of
> mass murder is well and truly documented, and no weasel-wording will get
> him out of it.
That is unfair to the Timorese, though entirely fair to Chomsky. The
more spectacular claims of mass murder came not from Timorese, but
from commies claiming to speak on their behalf. Now that the Timorese
are free to speak on their own behalf, the claims have dropped from
hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands.
It is now clear that the Indonesians, unlike communists, did not set
up any facilities for the mass production of murder, but simply killed
people in a casual ad hoc fashion, though of course it is till quite
feasible to kill large numbers of people even when employing these
less efficient methods.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
sH30z+dRGeW3sptwGQtYI39OQ7yNjH6a/KgZ0CXL
4NXQeuC6dCqBeg30VsDvnPCxjA0pzpW3ogb+KMP0Q
Sir_Tho...@human.evolution.net
>Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net wrote in
><VXjy4.14053$Dv1.1...@news1.rdc1.bc.home.com>:
>
>>In article
>>>Considering that such offers (from Stalin, BTW) were worse than
>>>useless and given that the Soviets had already destroyed
>>>democracy in "neutralized" Czechoslovakia, I'd say that the
>>>pathological liar was Chomsky, once again.
>>>
>>>James Donald has made at least one idiotic statement in the
>>>past, but that does not excuse Chomsky's voluntary bathing in
>>>the blood of democidal victims. Tu quoque is still a foul
>>>fallacy.
>>>
>>>E. Brown
>>>
>>
>>If you earn a PhD Ernie it will be a final and insulting
>>damnation of the educational system. Talk about "idiotic
>>statements"; "Chomsky's voluntarily bathing in the blood of
>>democidal victims" is about as idiotic a thing as I have ever
>>read and is so far removed from the reality of who and what Noam
>>Chomsky is that it displays either a shameless disregard for the
>>truth or a complete and total ignorance of reality. I suppose
>>you believe in other products of paranormal fantasy too, like
>>"trickle down effects" and "invisible hands."
>
>Invisible hands?
>
>So, does reading Chomsky ruin a mind (or retard its growth), or,
>alternatively, does Chomsky attract ruined minds? What's the
>causality behind the correlation?
>
You couldn't possibly be that dumb. There is a correlation; you just don't see
it because you're too stupid. I'm afraid that I am unable, within the confines
of this forum, to increase your I.Q.
Constantinople
<aYBy4.16473$Dv1.1...@news1.rdc1.bc.home.com>:
>In article <8EF46FFA0f2...@209.99.56.11>,
>constan...@my-deja.com (Constantinople) wrote:
>>Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net wrote in
>><VXjy4.14053$Dv1.1...@news1.rdc1.bc.home.com>:
>>
>>>I suppose you believe in other products of paranormal fantasy
>>>too, like "trickle down effects" and "invisible hands."
>>
>>Invisible hands?
>>
>>So, does reading Chomsky ruin a mind (or retard its growth),
>>or, alternatively, does Chomsky attract ruined minds? What's
>>the causality behind the correlation?
>>
>
>You couldn't possibly be that dumb. There is a correlation; you
>just don't see it because you're too stupid. I'm afraid that I
>am unable, within the confines of this forum, to increase your
>I.Q.
Okay, I guess that went right over your head.
James A. Donald
On Sat, 11 Mar 2000 22:57:12 GMT, Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net
wrote:
> you have absolutely no appreciation for context except where it fits your
> perverted little thesis; that thesis, as usual, is a blank check for the
> superpowerful.
As I said earlier in this thread, what really tweaked Chomsky's tits
was resistance to Soviet power, not the exercise of US power.
I earlier mentioned in passing his line on Greece, that he described
it as US imperialism imposing its will on the Greek people, glibly
passing over the routine use of mass murder and terror by EAM-ELAS.
One of the interesting aspects of this conflict that Chomsky neglects
to mention is that Stalin decided the conflict defined all people of
Greek ancestry living within the Soviet Union as disloyal, and killed
most of them, which suggests that even Stalin himself saw it as a war
by the Soviet Union on the Greeks, yet Chomsky, unlike the rest of the
world, denounced it as a war by the US on the Greek people.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
NtdGgRH5/7zshZu6B4BJQpfQ/OHW+BHlmTwnuVf8
41If6AAhGq5gzVk+WSnezbmOfZ6ahEEfqcTllsvzQ
James A. Donald
On Sat, 11 Mar 2000 15:31:39 GMT, constan...@my-deja.com
(Constantinople) wrote:
> So, does reading Chomsky ruin a mind (or retard its growth), or,
> alternatively, does Chomsky attract ruined minds? What's the
> causality behind the correlation?
We should not let them suck us down to their level. Exposing Chomsky
demonstrates the fraud underlying "anarcho" socialism, as done
reporting the unpleasant reality of the revolution in Catalonia.
If we respond to personal attacks with personal attacks, it makes
rational criticism of terror and mass murder look like mere petty
exchange of childish insults.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
xsju/WCxfmROixNVhIxcllTtX06mWSuqMUFo3hW0
4LPUPjZ+QpYKrKloBAa+WkHmgPl2JLlSwzbKip9En
Seth Kulick
James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
> --
>On 11 Mar 2000 02:52:29 GMT, sku...@linc.cis.upenn.edu (Seth Kulick)
>wrote:
>> look, you guys take a perfectly straightforward quote, and then
>> say "what Chomsky's really saying is X"
>
>Indeed the quote is straightforward.
>
>> And then you complain
>> when somebody actually reports what Chomsky's quote says.
>
>It was you that proceeded to argue that what Chomsky was really saying
>was Y, where the words "Czechoslovakia", and "Hungary", conspicuously
>present in the original quote, were conspicuously absent from Y.
>
>You were unable to construct a paraphrase or summary of the original
>quote that include those words, and also contradicted X.
You're a riot, James. Take what I said in my summary about the
Soviet Union doing evil things, and add "including the invasions
of Czechoslovakia and Hungary". I had thought that was was obviously covered
under "evil things".
Sir_Tho...@human.evolution.net
> --
>On Sat, 11 Mar 2000 15:31:39 GMT, constan...@my-deja.com
>(Constantinople) wrote:
>> So, does reading Chomsky ruin a mind (or retard its growth), or,
>> alternatively, does Chomsky attract ruined minds? What's the
>> causality behind the correlation?
>
>We should not let them suck us down to their level. Exposing Chomsky
>demonstrates the fraud underlying "anarcho" socialism, as done
>reporting the unpleasant reality of the revolution in Catalonia.
You know Jimmy, not everyone that reads Chomsky is an anarcho socialist. I
know I'm not. Are you a greedy murdering capitalist pig? I imagine there is a
possibility that your are not; it is quite possible that you are merely living
in a U.S. flag-waving induced stupor that prevents you from seeing the forest
through the trees (red, white, and blue forever man!); as such I wouldn't
immediately suggest that you should be dragged before the Hague where the
leaders you support should all be; if justice was truly blind virtually every
President of 20th century would have been tried for various international
crimes. For me it all boils down to consistency; for instance, if Milosevic is
to be tried for war crimes (as he certainly should be) then so should Bill
Clinton. If Stalin is to be labeled a monster (as he certainly should be),
then so should Harry Truman. It really is quite simple; simple that is, if you
have any sense of justice or decency. But hey . . . lets all turn off our
brains and say "Go team!" Let's grant the U.S. government a blank check to
kill, slaughter, and butcher (or arm those that do) . . . I mean hey,
whatever Harry, Ronald, George, or Bill does, must be perfectly okay; they
would never do anything immoral, especially Bill, he is a real moral champion
that guy; he's a fine piece of work. Actually, he isn't fit to scrub the
toilets of most Americans, but he is good enough to run the country in the
manner to which it is accustomed (namely, irresponsibly). I will say this much
about Anarchists such as Peter Kropotkin, at least he recognized the
incredible waste of the capitalist system; if the U.S. devoted even a tiny
fraction of the effort they dedicate to blasting tiny little nations into
smouldering piles of rubble into solving the problems of poverty and
homelessness, there would be no problem with poverty and homelessness.
But being indecent people, they could care less about the problems of poverty.
They're more interested in solvoing the problems of the rich and powerful,
that way everyone else can feed off of their table scraps. These are the
people you support, congradulations, you too are a moral champion and a fine
piece of work.
James A. Donald
James A. Donald:
> > It was you that proceeded to argue that what Chomsky was really saying
> > was Y, where the words "Czechoslovakia", and "Hungary", conspicuously
> > present in the original quote, were conspicuously absent from Y.
> >
> > You were unable to construct a paraphrase or summary of the original
> > quote that include those words, and also contradicted X.
Seth Kulick:
> You're a riot, James. Take what I said in my summary about the
> Soviet Union doing evil things, and add "including the invasions
> of Czechoslovakia and Hungary". I had thought that was was obviously covered
> under "evil things".
Your summary of your summary, now becomes an obvious lie. That fails
to accurately describe the original quote, which clearly implied that
what the Soviet Union did in Hungary and Czechoslovakia was self
defence forced on it by US agression.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
pCD6AwxHd/ntBKrZtiwfIeA0J87H8YAZUXoVGbMQ
4HUc8AjzGcpfWKllmZvlNQ66HxkfyMjusAdG2CFhT
James A. Donald
James A. Donald wrote:
> > We should not let them suck us down to their level. Exposing Chomsky
> > demonstrates the fraud underlying "anarcho" socialism, as done
> > reporting the unpleasant reality of the revolution in Catalonia.
On Sun, 12 Mar 2000 05:14:01 GMT, Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net
wrote:
> You know Jimmy, not everyone that reads Chomsky is an anarcho socialist. I
> know I'm not.
I really do not care which particular brand of mass murder and slavery
you espouse. The only remaining brand of terror that has any
credibility is "anarcho" socialism, Chomsky's brand, so I am
interested in destroying that, not in attacking you. If you espouse
some less credible brand of totalitarianism, that is fine by me. Go
right ahead. As the Beatles said, "you are not going to make it with
anyone anyhow".
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
ScHhFg/WdBa0Lo44I3Mzip+lgI8X2M8As/L5sZ8+
4g41+aFziV67BVYUHHy+p8G2QIJ3ZxkVh+GqhZKF9
Sir_Tho...@human.evolution.net
>credibility is "anarcho" socialism, Chomsky's brand, so I am
>interested in destroying that, not in attacking you.
Proof of the dreamy little fantasy world you live in. We'll ignore the
democratic socilaists that rule Sweden. Hardly blood thirsty slave masters;
although they do suffer (generally speaking) from the horrible affliction of
not wanting to discard their people once they cease to be productive (what
monsters). Sweden is far from perfect, but they at least have some moderate
degree of compassion for the less fortunate amongst their own people
(although a bitter right-wing attack is being launched to change these
compassionate social policies; a bitter, selfish right-wing campaign is being
launched to create a more vicious and less caring society).
As for destroying Chomsky, better, more qualified men than fringe flakes like
yourself have been trying to do just that for 30 years; strangely, Chomsky
keeps growing in popularity and notoriety; last year a poll conducted in the
college I was attending showed Chomsky to be one of the most well known
intellectuals amongst students; impressions of Chomsky's work were generally
favorable. If 30 years of far right-wing intellectual creeps and U.S.
apologists (finest debaters in America) have failed to "destroy" Chomsky's
reputation amongst the public, a loser like you can hardly make a dent,
especially when you resort to outright stupidity and quoting out of context to
support your "attack."
>As the Beatles said, "you are not going to make it with
>anyone anyhow".
Strange you should bring John Lennon into this. . . ? . ? . you're quoting
Lennon to support your position?? I leave this with a simple ... ?????
>We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
>of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
>right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.
Property is a privilege not a right, it is also a tool of oppression; not
being allowed to starve to death, now that should be, although it is not
(under your system), a right. Not being forced to live under a bridge in one
of the richest nations in the world, now that should be a right. Did you know
that under your system when a spouse looses his or her spouse to death, it has
in many instances been immediately followed by financial disaster and
homelessness for the survivng spouse? Did you know that Jim? Do you care? Of
course not, or you would whole-heartedly support the implementation of
measures to prevent these kinds of human tragedies; but you wouldn't support
that because that would be Socialism Jim. Just imagine, the death of a loved
one, followed by financial ruin and homelessness (while people like Bill
Gates frollick in oceans of cash); this is the face of the system you support.
This is your face, and it isn't pretty Jimmy .. it isn't pretty at all.
Socialists, en masse, simply want a system that does not allow people to be
thrown onto scrap heaps when they cease to be productive, especially when the
resources to support them are in existence. Allowing preventable tragedies
like this is the same as endorsing them.
Ernest Brown
Germany under the control of the man who arguably did more than anyone
else to slay massive numbers of leftists in general and Marxists in
particular than anyone else in this century?
E. Brown
Wisdom's Children: A Virtual Journal of Philosophy & Literature
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/billramey/wisdom.htm
Submissions welcomed.
On Sun, 12 Mar 2000, James A. Donald wrote:
> Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 03:08:24 GMT
> From: James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com>
> Newsgroups: alt.fan.noam-chomsky, alt.anarchism
> Subject: Re: What about Noam?
>
> --
> On Sat, 11 Mar 2000 22:57:12 GMT, Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net
> wrote:
> > you have absolutely no appreciation for context except where it fits your
> > perverted little thesis; that thesis, as usual, is a blank check for the
> > superpowerful.
>
> As I said earlier in this thread, what really tweaked Chomsky's tits
> was resistance to Soviet power, not the exercise of US power.
>
> I earlier mentioned in passing his line on Greece, that he described
> it as US imperialism imposing its will on the Greek people, glibly
> passing over the routine use of mass murder and terror by EAM-ELAS.
>
> One of the interesting aspects of this conflict that Chomsky neglects
> to mention is that Stalin decided the conflict defined all people of
> Greek ancestry living within the Soviet Union as disloyal, and killed
> most of them, which suggests that even Stalin himself saw it as a war
> by the Soviet Union on the Greeks, yet Chomsky, unlike the rest of the
> world, denounced it as a war by the US on the Greek people.
>
> --digsig
> James A. Donald
> 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
> NtdGgRH5/7zshZu6B4BJQpfQ/OHW+BHlmTwnuVf8
> 41If6AAhGq5gzVk+WSnezbmOfZ6ahEEfqcTllsvzQ
>
> ------
> We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
> of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
> right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.
>
Ernest Brown
of democide. I was, of course, referring to the exaggerations fostered by
those you speak of.
It also does not exculpate the Indonesians, either, even if their democide
wasn't as great or as organized. We must guard ourselves against falling
into the Chomskyian evil of "praising with faint damnnation" the sins of
those opposed to Communist bloodbaths.
Wisdom's Children: A Virtual Journal of Philosophy & Literature
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/billramey/wisdom.htm
Submissions welcomed.
On Sun, 12 Mar 2000, James A. Donald wrote:
> Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 00:33:13 GMT
> From: James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com>
> Newsgroups: alt.fan.noam-chomsky, alt.anarchism
> Subject: Re: What about Noam?
>
> --
> On Fri, 10 Mar 2000 23:19:37 -0600, Ernest Brown
> <c50...@showme.missouri.edu> wrote:
> > No, it is very much a part of what Chomsky is, i.e. one who attempts to
> > smear the testimony of victims of democide when their cause is
> > "politically incorrect." Chomsky's hypocritical double standard in
> > uncritically accepting Timorese accounts and rejecting Khmer statements of
> > mass murder is well and truly documented, and no weasel-wording will get
> > him out of it.
>
> That is unfair to the Timorese, though entirely fair to Chomsky. The
> more spectacular claims of mass murder came not from Timorese, but
> from commies claiming to speak on their behalf. Now that the Timorese
> are free to speak on their own behalf, the claims have dropped from
> hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands.
>
> It is now clear that the Indonesians, unlike communists, did not set
> up any facilities for the mass production of murder, but simply killed
> people in a casual ad hoc fashion, though of course it is till quite
> feasible to kill large numbers of people even when employing these
> less efficient methods.
>
> --digsig
> James A. Donald
> 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
> sH30z+dRGeW3sptwGQtYI39OQ7yNjH6a/KgZ0CXL
> 4NXQeuC6dCqBeg30VsDvnPCxjA0pzpW3ogb+KMP0Q
Ernest Brown
On Sat, 11 Mar 2000 Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net wrote:
> Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2000 22:57:12 GMT
> From: Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net
> Newsgroups: alt.fan.noam-chomsky, alt.anarchism
> Subject: Re: What about Noam?
>
> In article <Pine.A41.4.10.1000310...@sp2n21.missouri.edu>, Ernest Brown <c50...@showme.missouri.edu> wrote:
> >No, it is very much a part of what Chomsky is, i.e. one who attempts to
> >smear the testimony of victims of democide when their cause is
> >"politically incorrect." Chomsky's hypocritical double standard in
> >uncritically accepting Timorese accounts and rejecting Khmer statements of
> >mass murder is well and truly documented, and no weasel-wording will get
> >him out of it.
> >
> >He's just another member of "Holocaust Deniers, Inc," with different mass
> >slaughters to offer apologias for, in addition to a "media conspiracy"
> >ideology which is vastly inferior to the Situationist theories he
> >parasitizes.
>
>
> You really think you are something . . . don't you Ernie? All I can say is
> . . . if you don't get it, then you just simply don't get it; you never
> will, because you lack the qualities of a decent human being. Like Gaddis,
> you have absolutely no appreciation for context except where it fits your
> perverted little thesis; that thesis, as usual, is a blank check for the
> superpowerful. The emptiness of your shallow little brain is betrayed in every
> post. That you have advanced degrees both stuns and frightens me ... actually,
> I take that back; I am sure America's far right would be dlighted to welcome
> you to their silver-laden banquet for the rich and powerful. Have fun, little
> man, in your career as an apologist for, as Ceasar Augusto Sandino said, "that
> monstrous eagle that feeds on of the blood of nations."
>
> Cheers.
>
>
I'm sorry to see you slander the good name of a man of conscience by
association with Chomsky. Chomsky's evil lies in both his unbalanced
attacks on the U.S. and his crude "vampire top-hatted media capitalist"
conspiracy theories, which discredit genuine criticisms of U.S. foreign
and domestic policies. Unlike Chomsky, I see no need to diminish the
crimes of one side to criticize the other. If he'd ever actually paid
attention to the sophisticated Marxian media critiques of Debord and Co.,
he would at least be marginalized for the -right- reasons.
Ernest Brown
Wisdom's Children: A Virtual Journal of Philosophy & Literature
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/billramey/wisdom.htm
Submissions welcomed.
On Sun, 12 Mar 2000, Ernest Brown wrote:
> Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 00:53:09 -0600
> From: Ernest Brown <c50...@showme.missouri.edu>
> Newsgroups: alt.fan.noam-chomsky, alt.anarchism
> Subject: Re: What about Noam?
>
> I apologize if my inexact parallelism reflected upon the Timorese victims
> of democide. I was, of course, referring to the exaggerations fostered by
> those you speak of.
>
> It also does not exculpate the Indonesians, either, even if their democide
> wasn't as great or as organized. We must guard ourselves against falling
> into the Chomskyian evil of "praising with faint damnnation" the sins of
> those opposed to Communist bloodbaths.
>
> Wisdom's Children: A Virtual Journal of Philosophy & Literature
> http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/billramey/wisdom.htm
> Submissions welcomed.
>
>
> On Sun, 12 Mar 2000, James A. Donald wrote:
>
> > Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 00:33:13 GMT
> > From: James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com>
> > Newsgroups: alt.fan.noam-chomsky, alt.anarchism
> > Subject: Re: What about Noam?
> >
> > --
> > On Fri, 10 Mar 2000 23:19:37 -0600, Ernest Brown
> > <c50...@showme.missouri.edu> wrote:
> > > No, it is very much a part of what Chomsky is, i.e. one who attempts to
> > > smear the testimony of victims of democide when their cause is
> > > "politically incorrect." Chomsky's hypocritical double standard in
> > > uncritically accepting Timorese accounts and rejecting Khmer statements of
> > > mass murder is well and truly documented, and no weasel-wording will get
> > > him out of it.
> >
Seth Kulick
>James A. Donald:
>> > It was you that proceeded to argue that what Chomsky was really saying
>> > was Y, where the words "Czechoslovakia", and "Hungary", conspicuously
>> > present in the original quote, were conspicuously absent from Y.
>> >
>> > You were unable to construct a paraphrase or summary of the original
>> > quote that include those words, and also contradicted X.
>
>Seth Kulick:
>> You're a riot, James. Take what I said in my summary about the
>> Soviet Union doing evil things, and add "including the invasions
>> of Czechoslovakia and Hungary". I had thought that was was obviously covered
>> under "evil things".
>
>Your summary of your summary, now becomes an obvious lie. That fails
>to accurately describe the original quote, which clearly implied that
>what the Soviet Union did in Hungary and Czechoslovakia was self
>defence forced on it by US agression.
>
Your summary of my summary of my summary is an obvious mischaracterization.
Nathan Folkert
> Isn't it interesting to see Chomsky advocate a plan that would have put
> Germany under the control of the man who arguably did more than anyone
> else to slay massive numbers of leftists in general and Marxists in
> particular than anyone else in this century?
Chomsky did not advocate a plan that left Stalin in charge of Germany.
He described a plan that would have theoretically created a neutralized
and demilitarized Germany -- one in which neither Western troops or Soviet
troops would be allowed to enter or collaborate with, eliminating the
geostrategic threat of invasion over the Northern European plain that had
plagued Russia since Napoleon as well as the specific threat of the German
invasions that had twice captured a huge portion of Russia's productive
lands in less than forty years.
Once again, it is my opinion that the critics of Chomsky are brutally
twisting the intentions and content of his essay in order to arrive at the
patently false conclusion -- in this case that Chomsky approved of the
Soviet actions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. You are confusing a
strategic analysis of nation-states with moralism -- an explanation of
actions which a state takes to defend itself from a military threat with a
defense of those actions. One may hold a completely morally consistent
and upright view of Israel in which one criticizes Israel for occupying
the Golan Heights but also understands that militarily, Israel's hand was
forced by the realities of the Syrian military threat. One can understand
that the Soviets are going to maintain a powerful military presence in
Eastern Europe as a buffer against a massive, superior force gathered at
the head of the traditional invasion route from Western into Eastern
Europe without morally defending their actions. Would the Soviets have
allowed a greater degree of dissent in Eastern Europe had Germany been
neutralized and disarmed? This is difficult to say. Their client-state
Yugoslavia which did not have the misfortune of being located along a
traditional invasion route was able to escape the Soviet orbit. Would
they have invaded and captured the reunified Germany? This is also
difficult to say. They were still facing a far superior military
coalition even without the German threat, and it is undoubtable that had
the Soviets violated their proposed German neutrality that the West would
fully mobilize against it, most likely using nuclear force to back up
their conventional armies. Moreover, the Soviets did not invade and
conquer other extremely important strategic regions such as South Asia and
the Aegean region. Regardless, there is nothing inherently apologetic or
defensive about the claim that a neutralized Germany might have reduced
the Soviet interest in maintaining a militarized Eastern Europe under
strictly Russian control, especially given the strategic arrangements of
Europe at the time.
Constantinople
<bVIy4.18237$Dv1.2...@news1.rdc1.bc.home.com>:
>As for destroying Chomsky, better, more qualified men than
>fringe flakes like yourself have been trying to do just that for
>30 years; strangely, Chomsky keeps growing in popularity and
>notoriety; last year a poll conducted in the college I was
>attending showed Chomsky to be one of the most well known
>intellectuals amongst students; impressions of Chomsky's work
>were generally favorable.
And what independent knowledge of history do the students have
that would put them into a position to be able to judge Chomsky
one way or the other?
Here's a page on Chomsky by someone who has independent knowledge
of some of the things that Chomsky discusses.
http://econ161.berkeley.edu/Politics/Chomsky.html
It begins:
Dear ____,
You had expressed disbelief at my strong and negative reaction
(based on memories of the 1970s, when he seemed both in person
and in print to be mocking those trying to alert the outside
world to the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia) when the name
"Noam Chomsky" was raised. You said that Chomsky was one of
the most intelligent, hardest-working, incisive, and moral
voices on the left today.
And you suggested that I give him another chance.
So the next time I stopped by Cody's, I picked up one of
Chomsky's books: his (1992) What Uncle Sam Really Wants (New
York: Odonian Press: 1878825011).
But I only got to page 17. Then I put the book down--with my
strong negative allergic reaction confirmed.
[. . .]
I know that Chomsky's relation of the history of the
Anglo-American reconquest of the Mediterranean from Hitler is
not "as it really happened." But many of Chomsky's readers
will not. And it makes me wonder: whenever we reach an issue
that I do not know deeply, what things that I would like to
know is Chomsky going to try to keep me from noticing?
[. . .]
In a world in which there are lots of people who try to tell
it as it really happened, why should I spend any time reading
someone who tries to tell it as it didn't happen?
And then there were the passages that I could not take to be
anything other than casual lies:
James A. Donald
On Sun, 12 Mar 2000 08:52:23 GMT, Sir_Tho...@Human.Evolution.Net
wrote:
> Proof of the dreamy little fantasy world you live in. We'll ignore the
> democratic socilaists that rule Sweden.
Sweden is not socialist: They talked about "a third way" intermediate
between capitalism and socialism. They started to develop, in mild
form, most of the symptoms that communist countries suffer in vastly
more serious form, and then they pretty much blew off the "third way",
and are still backing off from that debacle.
Production in Sweden is wholly capitalist, though distribution is
substantially government managed. Indeed, Sweden is a society
unusually dominated by large privately owned businesses.
If Sweden is still free, it is because there is still some substantial
respect for property rights in the means of production.
Further, when Sweden was most socialist in its ideology and
orientation, it was in fact not all that free.
The Soviet Union did not use terror because it was dictatorial. It
became more and more dictatorial because socialism requires terror in
order to work successfully.
When Sweden started to emulate the economic institutions of the Soviet
Union, they found themselves starting to emulate the Soviet Union's
political institutions
In the 1970s Swedish socialism became dangerously close to actual
socialism, with the result that parliament became increasingly
irrelevant. Everything was done under "the general clause". This led
to the "immunity law" of 1974, which created the usual socialist
division of the masses supervised for their own good, and the
privileged and unelected nomenclatura who rule over them. Swedish
citizens took Sweden to the European court of human rights, and the
Immunity law was abolished in 1982, and since then Sweden has backed
away from socialism, back towards the "third way", which increasingly
resembles conventional capitalism with bigger welfare handouts.
It is true that Sweden works pretty well, but democracy in Sweden does
not work well. The two are connected. Socialism endangers democracy
by concentrating too much power in the hands of the few, and democracy
screws up the socialist economy, because economic decisions are made
out of short term political considerations. If Sweden was as
democratic as Switzerland, its economy would rapidly collapse.
> As for destroying Chomsky, better, more qualified men than fringe
> flakes like yourself have been trying to do just that for 30 years;
> strangely, Chomsky keeps growing in popularity and notoriety
Notoriety, indeed.
I observe that these days Chomsky hides from any real debate, hanging
out in forums restricted strictly to sycophants.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
hRb0z9JLSnNdo8g/UXAOHIa0MamL4x7eiGK3huIX
4HmedBCUI8fwQhqRrFl3jaqKR/agnlqhOG1KVn3Li
James A. Donald
On Sun, 12 Mar 2000 15:33:23 GMT, constan...@my-deja.com
(Constantinople) wrote:
> And what independent knowledge of history do the students have
> that would put them into a position to be able to judge Chomsky
> one way or the other?
>
> Here's a page on Chomsky by someone who has independent knowledge
> of some of the things that Chomsky discusses.
>
>http://econ161.berkeley.edu/Politics/Chomsky.html
> And it makes me wonder: whenever we reach an issue that I do not know deeply, what things that I would like to know is Chomsky going to try to keep me from noticing?
>
> [...]
>
>
> [...]
>
> And then there were the passages that I could not take to be anything other than casual lies:
My favorite example of Chomsky not playing fair with the reader is of
course his lies concerning the bloodbath that followed the communist
conquest of Indochina.
This partly because it was such an outrageous lie, but mostly because
the bloodbath was perhaps the pivotal event in my own political
development, the big shattering revelation that changed my view of the
world.
I endlessly return to Chomsky's lies on the bloodbath because the
bloodbath was such a big event for me.
Chomsky would have been playing fair with the reader if he had laid
his cards on the table and said:
Allegations of a bloodbath following the victory of the
oppressed masses of Indochina over the quislings of US
imperialism are capitalist lies.
This would have alerted the reader that Chomsky is telling the reader
one side of the story, the Soviet side of the story, and that there is
another side. It would have alerted the reader that Chomsky is
presenting the case for the defense for people accused of mass murder,
slavery, and armed robbery, and that somewhere else there is a
prosecution case that has accused them of mass murder, slavery, and
armed robbery.
Instead Chomsky wrote:
Nor is there any discussion in the Times of the "case of the
missing bloodbath," although forecasts of a holocaust were
urged by the U.S. leadership, official experts and the mass
media over the entire course of the war in justifying our
continued military presence.
As if it was completely uncontroversial that no bloodbath had taken
place, as if the story had only one side, and therefore Chomsky could
not possibly be telling us the Soviet side, as though any suggestions
that a bloodbath took place were hysterical propaganda, that no one
could possibly take seriously, too absurd to be taken seriously, let
alone rebutted.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
uDZ89SYEKkIYnN5WHMKQBjCwCZ7WTesdtLFsbQHe
4gusZFZW2maUR7AI4K23vtU1Jw54L5isVBaxYGIVc
Sir_Tho...@human.evolution.net
>out in forums restricted strictly to sycophants.
>
Don't I know you ? . . Aren't you WIlliam F. Buckley's illegitimate son? I'm
afraid it is just a waste of time talking to you now; I'll watch for you on
semester break, at which point I will be in a better position to address your issues on an academic level. Sounds like fun actually; you bring your copy of Gaddis, I'll open my Historical Journal Database and my collection of declassified documents, and we'll have a "source your what you say" debate.
Don't I know you ? . . Aren't you WIlliam F. Buckley's illegitimate son? I'm
afraid it is just a waste of time talking to you now; I'll watch for you on
semester break, at which point I will be in a better position to address your
issues on an academic level. Sounds like fun actually; you bring your copy of
Gaddis, I'll open my Historical Journal Database and my collection of
declassified documents, and we'll have a "source your what you say" debate.
James A. Donald
On Sun, 12 Mar 2000, Ernest Brown wrote:
> > Isn't it interesting to see Chomsky advocate a plan that would
> > have put Germany under the control of the man who arguably did
> > more than anyone else to slay massive numbers of leftists in
> > general and Marxists in particular than anyone else in this
> > century?
On Sun, 12 Mar 2000 06:14:22 -0800, Nathan Folkert
<nfol...@Stanford.EDU> wrote:
> Chomsky did not advocate a plan that left Stalin in charge of
> Germany.
Chomsky favored a plan that would have enabled Stalin to take charge
of Germany. The distinction between favoring a plan enabling Stalin
to take charge of Germany, and favoring a plan that left Stalin in
charge of Germany is too subtle for people like myself who not as
clever in the use of english as people like yourself and Chomsky.
> He described a plan that would have theoretically created a
> neutralized and demilitarized Germany -- one in which neither
> Western troops or Soviet troops would be allowed to enter or
> collaborate with,
Stalin already had an armed force throughout Germany, a police force
obeying the SPD, which united with the Moscow line communist party
immediately the nazis fell. This armed force engaged in murder and
robbery throughout all zones of Germany, checked and restrained by the
allies in some zones, and unchecked and unrestrained in Eastern
Germany. The rank and file of the SPD police force were the same
people who had kept people in line for Hitler. They switched masters
wholesale from Hitler to Stalin, perhaps figuring that Stalin would
permit them to continue to exercise the power that Hitler had given
them, while the allies might well execute them.
"Neutralization" would have meant immediate restoration of the nazi
apparatus of control, but with Stalin instead of Hitler at the top.
The reason "neutralization" had this effect was that Stalin's people
murdered those that opposed them, while those that opposed them did
not murder communists. "Neutralization" would have meant that
Stalin's men within Germany would have been free to make war on all
non communists, and non communists would not have been free to make
war on communists.
At Yalta, Stalin agreed to free elections in Poland, to be overseen by
an electoral commission with representatives from all the allies. We
saw how that worked. Stalin agreed with Churchill for joint control
of Yugoslavia and Hungary. We saw how that worked out. All these
grabs for land and slaves were still dripping blood when Stalin
proposed "neutralization" for Germany. The cold war measures that
Chomsky complains about were a reaction to Stalin's power grabs
throughout Europe, a reaction to Stalin's murderous power grabs
wherever the opportunity was open.
When Chomsky condemns these measures, the implication is that the US
and Britain should have let Stalin grab most of Western Europe, for
that is what Stalin was doing, that is what made these measures
necessary.
When Chomsky says condemns these measures, measures made in reaction
to Stalin's power grab, he is urging submission to Stalin.
> Once again, it is my opinion that the critics of Chomsky are
> brutally twisting the intentions and content of his essay in order
> to arrive at the patently false conclusion -- in this case that
> Chomsky approved of the Soviet actions in Hungary and
> Czechoslovakia.
Even if your claim about the neutralization plan was wholly true
instead of a barefaced commie lie, it would not alter the fact Chomsky
supported and lied in support of the Soviet reconquest of Hungary and
Czechoslovakia.
You start of with a long bunch of bullshit justifying Chomsky's
position on the neutralization plan, and then without explanation
speak as if you have successfully defended his position on the Soviet
reconquest of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, even though you failed to
mention those two countries up to that point.
> You are confusing a strategic analysis of nation-states with
> moralism -- an explanation of actions which a state takes to defend
> itself from a military threat with a defense of those actions.
If the Soviet union was defending itself against a US military threat
by invading Czechoslovakia and Hungary, then that clearly justifies
the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and Hungary.
But of course everyone knows that the Soviet Union was not defending
itself against such a threat, and neither you nor Chomsky have
provided any justification for the claim that these actions were
defense against a military threat from the US. Instead Chomsky merely
speaks as if it was self evident and uncontroversial that these
actions were defense against US aggression.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
yUaE2vho+7mnlz1x+E/0EJP7p0NBi3UrzOz5oEhk
4LoNSfVH05gY42JeIc9j+q56EnkpjkeVGzl9ZA1cr
Nathan Folkert
> --
> On Sun, 12 Mar 2000, Ernest Brown wrote:
> > > Isn't it interesting to see Chomsky advocate a plan that would
> > > have put Germany under the control of the man who arguably did
> > > more than anyone else to slay massive numbers of leftists in
> > > general and Marxists in particular than anyone else in this
> > > century?
>
> On Sun, 12 Mar 2000 06:14:22 -0800, Nathan Folkert
> <nfol...@Stanford.EDU> wrote:
> > Chomsky did not advocate a plan that left Stalin in charge of
> > Germany.
>
> Chomsky favored a plan that would have enabled Stalin to take charge
> of Germany.
And exactly how would Stalin do this, given a reasonable neutralization
policy and the conventional and nuclear threat of the combined military
forces of the United States, Britain, and France?
> The distinction between favoring a plan enabling Stalin
> to take charge of Germany, and favoring a plan that left Stalin in
> charge of Germany is too subtle for people like myself who not as
> clever in the use of english as people like yourself and Chomsky.
So, is Swiss neutrality "enabling Stalin to take charge of Switzerland"?
If I praise the Swiss for largely avoiding the Cold War conflict, am I
favouring a plan that would enable Stalin to take charge of Switzerland
and the heart of Europe? How about India? I suppose you are right --
your claim that saying that Stalin could invade or subvert a neutral
country is the same as saying that Stalin is in charge of that neutral
country is a little un-clever, and anyone who is capable of making that
claim would have difficulty with rather straightforward readings of
English text.
> > He described a plan that would have theoretically created a
> > neutralized and demilitarized Germany -- one in which neither
> > Western troops or Soviet troops would be allowed to enter or
> > collaborate with,
>
> Stalin already had an armed force throughout Germany,
As did all of the Allied forces, or any warring party that had just
conquered a hostile nation.
> a police force
> obeying the SPD, which united with the Moscow line communist party
> immediately the nazis fell. This armed force engaged in murder and
> robbery throughout all zones of Germany, checked and restrained by the
> allies in some zones, and unchecked and unrestrained in Eastern
> Germany. The rank and file of the SPD police force were the same
> people who had kept people in line for Hitler. They switched masters
> wholesale from Hitler to Stalin, perhaps figuring that Stalin would
> permit them to continue to exercise the power that Hitler had given
> them, while the allies might well execute them.
>
> "Neutralization" would have meant immediate restoration of the nazi
> apparatus of control, but with Stalin instead of Hitler at the top.
No, that would be Sovietization. The offer was for neutralization, which
would require the withdrawal of Soviet and Western forces, and the
severance of German government from the Allied occupying forces.
> The reason "neutralization" had this effect was that Stalin's people
> murdered those that opposed them, while those that opposed them did
> not murder communists. "Neutralization" would have meant that
> Stalin's men within Germany would have been free to make war on all
> non communists, and non communists would not have been free to make
> war on communists.
Your argument here doesn't even make any sense. Neutralization implies
that "Stalin's men" would no longer be in control of any parts of Germany.
Whether or not this could have been successfully implemented is a policy
question, but suggesting that it could have been implemented is not a
defense of Stalin's control over Germany.
> At Yalta, Stalin agreed to free elections in Poland, to be overseen by
> an electoral commission with representatives from all the allies. We
> saw how that worked.
It's not terribly effective to argue that Stalin would have acted no
differently in Eastern Europe without the strategic threat of a hostile
force in Germany by pointing to evidence about Poland, also situated on
the invasion route into Russia, at a time when the Nazis were still a
military force in Northern Europe.
> Stalin agreed with Churchill for joint control
> of Yugoslavia and Hungary. We saw how that worked out.
Yes, Tito turned Yugoslavia into a Communist state but broke free from
Russian influence and remained free from Stalinist control without massive
retaliatory response (though, the dictatorial Stalin was of course rather
upset by this, but the strategic cost was not as high). And the example
of Hungary repeats your previous flaw.
> All these
> grabs for land and slaves were still dripping blood when Stalin
> proposed "neutralization" for Germany. The cold war measures that
> Chomsky complains about were a reaction to Stalin's power grabs
> throughout Europe, a reaction to Stalin's murderous power grabs
> wherever the opportunity was open.
>
> When Chomsky condemns these measures, the implication is that the US
> and Britain should have let Stalin grab most of Western Europe, for
> that is what Stalin was doing, that is what made these measures
> necessary.
>
> When Chomsky says condemns these measures, measures made in reaction
> to Stalin's power grab, he is urging submission to Stalin.
No, they are not support for Stalin's power grab -- they are used to
question NATO policy. The further militarization and authoritarianization
of Eastern Europe by a militaristic authoritarian dictator was a
predictable response to German remilitarization and NATO membership. The
moral question here is not about the consequences of NATO's actions, since
in either scenario there were serious risks involved and the lives of
millions in Eastern Europe hinged on the whims of a totalitarian murderer.
The question is about the intentions of NATO's actions and whether the
policies actually undertaken reflected their stated justifications, which
is the point that Chomsky raises.
> > Once again, it is my opinion that the critics of Chomsky are
> > brutally twisting the intentions and content of his essay in order
> > to arrive at the patently false conclusion -- in this case that
> > Chomsky approved of the Soviet actions in Hungary and
> > Czechoslovakia.
>
> Even if your claim about the neutralization plan was wholly true
> instead of a barefaced commie lie,
What was my claim, and how was it a "barefaced commie lie"?
> it would not alter the fact Chomsky
> supported and lied in support of the Soviet reconquest of Hungary and
> Czechoslovakia.
Where did he support or lie in support of the Soviet reconquest? He
mentioned them offhandedly in a paragraph in the context that they might
not have happened had Russia not had a hostile strategic threat in
Northern Europe. The core of your argument is mischaracterization of
Chomsky's writing, ignoring the relevant strategic situation, and
confusing a rather straightforward and uncontroversial strategic truth
(that Russia has been repeatedly invaded and conquered through or by
Germany) with a moral argument in favour of their reactions to this
strategic threat.
> You start of with a long bunch of bullshit
... to which you do not respond at all ...
> justifying Chomsky's
> position on the neutralization plan, and then without explanation
> speak as if you have successfully defended his position on the Soviet
> reconquest of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, even though you failed to
> mention those two countries up to that point.
What was his position on the Soviet conquest of Hungary and
Czechoslovakia? That the Soviets might not have invaded and militarized
them had it not perceived a threat from a large hostile force in Germany?
That's what I read from his essay. In that case, I am the only one who
has presented any relevant arguments at all.
Moreover, I did mention Czechoslovakia and Hungary very early on in my
post and repeatedly implicitly referred to them as "Eastern Europe"
throughout the rest of my post, so your argument that I "failed to
mention" them baffles me.
> > You are confusing a strategic analysis of nation-states with
> > moralism -- an explanation of actions which a state takes to defend
> > itself from a military threat with a defense of those actions.
>
> If the Soviet union was defending itself against a US military threat
> by invading Czechoslovakia and Hungary, then that clearly justifies
> the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and Hungary.
The Soviet Union was not defending itself against a US military threat.
It was defending itself against the geostrategic threat of invasion across
the Northern European plain which has been the traditional invasion route
into Russia, the route by which Russia was defeated twice by foreign
invasion resulting in the deaths of tens of millions of its citizens.
> But of course everyone knows that the Soviet Union was not defending
> itself against such a threat,
Did the Soviets not care about the defense of their industrial and
economic heartland? Were they excited about having a hostile military
force in place in the state that had twice invaded Russia in forty years,
and through which Napoleon invaded a century before? Who "knows" that the
Soviet Union was not defending itself against a threat? I don't think
this is a view shared by any reasonably intelligent political scientist or
even any layman with even the slightest background in Eastern European
geostrategic reality.
> and neither you nor Chomsky have
> provided any justification for the claim that these actions were
> defense against a military threat from the US.
Except for all of the "bullshit" you snipped. As I had stated in my
previous post, you are confusing strategic analysis with moralism. The
Nazis invaded Belgium in order to circumvent the French defenses on the
Maginot line. Had the French extended their defenses to the Atlantic
coast, the strategic interest in Germany invading Belgium would have been
greatly decreased. Disregarding any moral consequences, the strategic
consequences of this policy were clear: any invasion of France by Germany
would go through neutral Belgium. Likewise with the West and Stalin: the
strategic response that Russian military planners would quite obviously
take to the remilitarization of the German state by a hostile military
coalition would be to turn Eastern Europe into a militarized buffer zone
so that future Barbarossas could hopefully be prevented.
> Instead Chomsky merely
> speaks as if it was self evident and uncontroversial that these
> actions were defense against US aggression.
They were not a defense against US aggression, and he never claimed that
they were. Your argument rests entirely on imaginary positions that you
hold for your opponenets. Rather, they were a strategic policy by a
nation state that had rather manifest evidence of its particular strategic
interests in Northern Europe. Other nation states have similar policies.
Britain has for a very long time had a policy of protecting the Low
Countries from foreign conquest in the interests of its naval policy and
defense from invasion. The United States has strong interests in the
protection of the Middle East and the vast oil resources that it holds.
Israel has interests in maintaining a buffer zone in Lebanon and keeping
the strategically important Golan Heights. The points that Chomsky raise
are not that the West was morally to blame for Russian actions in Eastern
Europe (for instance, Czechoslovakia and Hungary), but rather that there
was a question of their policy motivation. If his analysis is correct
(I've never read the documents in question, so I can't say), then the West
was not motivated by maintaining any sort of military protection against
the USSR or in the freedom of Eastern Europe, but were rather interested
in building political and economic protections by exaggerating the
military threat. Whether or not this is true, this is not an absolution
of Stalin but a criticism of NATO policy and its motivations.
> --digsig
> James A. Donald
> 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
> yUaE2vho+7mnlz1x+E/0EJP7p0NBi3UrzOz5oEhk
> 4LoNSfVH05gY42JeIc9j+q56EnkpjkeVGzl9ZA1cr
>
> ------
> We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
> of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
> right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.
>
> http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ James A. Donald
>
>
--
Nathan Folkert
nfol...@cs.stanford.edu
http://www.stanford.edu/~nfolkert
*************************************************
* Some men delight in the carriages a-rollin' *
* Others delight in the hurlin' and the bowlin' *
* I take delight in the juice of the barley *
* And courtin' pretty fair maids in the mornin' *
* bright and early! *
*************************************************
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Sir_Tho...@human.evolution.net
>> democratic socilaists that rule Sweden.
>
>Sweden is not socialist: They talked about "a third way" intermediate
>between capitalism and socialism.
More rubbish. I have had no less than 5 professors with PhDs in Political
Science tell me that Sweden is indeed a Social Democracy; guess they must be
pro-Chomsky commie blood bathers too eh? Sweden's system is not Tony Blair or
Bill Clinton's mysterious and mystical "Third Way" (send shivers up and down
my spine every time I hear it). There is no way in hell or on God's green
earth that Blair or Clinton would endorse a Swedish style SOCIAL DEMOCRACY in
Europe or America. Guaranteed pensions accounting for 75% of the wages from
your best earning year? Give your head a shake, Blair and Clinton would never
endorse that. Free post secondary education for all citizens? Give your head a
shake, Clinton and Blair would never endorse that in there pathetic "Third
Way." Clinton & Blair's "Third Way" is little more than a highly watered down
version of what you see in Canada (where the corporate world, e.g. CBNI, is
working hard to water the Canadian system down enough to comply with the
ethereal "Third Way"). I'll assume you didn't take Political Science 101,
which would explain why you have no idea what a social democracy is and why it
is called SOCIAL democracy.
>form, most of the symptoms that communist countries suffer in vastly
>more serious form, and then they pretty much blew off the "third way",
>and are still backing off from that debacle.
Right, there is a vicious assault be waged by corporate forces in Sweden who
want to see their compassionate social programs trashed. All for ourselves and
nothing for other people is the corporate rally cry! Let's begin by forcing
everyone to pay for post-secondary education like they do in the United States
and (the not yet watered down enough) Canada. That way they come out of school
50-80 thousand dollars and debt and must comply with the "rules of the game"
in order to prevent having their lives permanently destroyed.
>
>Production in Sweden is wholly capitalist, though distribution is
>substantially government managed. Indeed, Sweden is a society
>unusually dominated by large privately owned businesses.
Yes, strangely, again in the political science classes I have taken I have
heard time and again that "most modern SOCIALISTS endorse the creation of a
mixed economy." Of course all of these PhD professors are obviously uneducated
buffoons, right?
Ernest Burns, who founded the Canadian Social Democratic party described
Social Democracy best when he said that social democarts have "not as their
object the creation of a dictatorship of the proletariat, but the destruction
of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie." What he meant, was that the
super-rich and the super-corporations had to be stripped of their power and
influence over government. Social Democracy maintains that the earth and its
resources belong to all of the people and creatures that inhabit the earth; it
does not exist for the sole purpose of making merry the rich and powerful.
Social Democracy suggests that prior to mid-18th century, all previous
political upheavals took place to support the interests of a minority; after
that time we have seen political upheavals designed to support the interests
of the majority; the final, social upheaval should be a movement that seeks to
support the entirety of humanity. It regards all people as intrisically
valuable, and refuses (on moral grounds) to allow people to be discarded
simply because they can nolonger produce capital. The United States has been
the vicious champion of trying to enforce the capitalist system upon the
world; whether that system is democratic capitalist or fascist capitalist the
U.S. does not care; that is why they whole heartedly endorsed the Somoza
regime in Nicaragua and actually rushed miltary aid to the regime when
"virtually the entire population" rose up in rebellion (and U.S. instituted
dictatorship).
Public ownership of the means of production in Sweden is at 10%.
How long exactly have the Social Democrats been in power in Sweden? How many
times have they been re-elected? A very long time. People like governments
that lean towards benevolence; only idiots and brainwashed sheep endorse
"tough love" governments. Capitalism is great until your little financial
world falls apaprt or you find yourself thrown onto the capitalist human scrap
pile; that's when capitalists suddenly cry out in agony and long for a
benevolent and compassionate government. The wise man does not wait until he
is thrown on the human scrap pile; he institutes a benevolent government ahead
of time just in case in his little capitalist world falls apart. Its called
common sense; it is also called the Golden Rule. But then you probably are
doing quite well and could care less about the people in your nation (not to
mention those in other nations) who are living in misery and poverty. "Better
that they die and decrease the surplus population."
>It is true that Sweden works pretty well, but democracy in Sweden does
>not work well. The two are connected. Socialism endangers democracy
>by concentrating too much power in the hands of the few, and democracy
>screws up the socialist economy, because economic decisions are made
>out of short term political considerations. If Sweden was as
>democratic as Switzerland, its economy would rapidly collapse.
Right, sure . .. I say they sell off all of their nationalized institutions to
Sony Inc or Microsoft . . . that will work much better. Then democracy will
truly triumph . .. under the rule of unaccountable totalitarian private
tyrannies.
James A. Donald
On Sun, 12 Mar 2000, James A. Donald wrote:
> > Chomsky favored a plan that would have enabled Stalin to take
> > charge of Germany.
On Sun, 12 Mar 2000 20:23:55 -0800, Nathan Folkert
<nfol...@Stanford.EDU> wrote:
> And exactly how would Stalin do this, given a reasonable
> neutralization policy
Fear.
Everyone in Germany was scared shitless of Russia at that time. No
one dared criticize Russia, and they did dare criticize the US.
> and the conventional and nuclear threat of the combined military
> forces of the United States, Britain, and France?
Same way he did Hungary and Poland. He did not do overt mailed fist
subjugations there either. You will recollect that Hungary was
supposed to be neutral, and Poland was supposed to have
internationally supervised elections. Same way he damn nearly did
Greece. A soviet aligned communist party simply set to exterminating
all other parties.
> So, is Swiss neutrality "enabling Stalin to take charge of Switzerland"?
Swiss neutrality is protected by the swiss army.
What would have protected the neutrality of a disarmed and defeated
Germany?
This neutralizations shit was not something new. Stalin had been
pulling similar stunts all over many of the countries that were
rapidly being turned into the countries of the iron curtain. Fool me
once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
> If I praise the Swiss for largely avoiding the Cold War conflict, am I
> favouring a plan that would enable Stalin to take charge of Switzerland
They did not avoid the cold war conflict. If you called on them to
lay down their arms as part of neutralization, you certainly would be
favoring a plan that would enable Stalin to do to Switzerland that
which he did to a shitload of other countries.
> > Stalin already had an armed force throughout Germany, a police
> > force obeying the SPD, which united with the Moscow line communist
> > party immediately the nazis fell. This armed force engaged in
> > murder and robbery throughout all zones of Germany, checked and
> > restrained by the allies in some zones, and unchecked and
> > unrestrained in Eastern Germany. The rank and file of the SPD
> > police force were the same people who had kept people in line for
> > Hitler. They switched masters wholesale from Hitler to Stalin,
> > perhaps figuring that Stalin would permit them to continue to
> > exercise the power that Hitler had given them, while the allies
> > might well execute them.
> >
> > "Neutralization" would have meant immediate restoration of the
> > nazi apparatus of control, but with Stalin instead of Hitler at
> > the top.
>No, that would be Sovietization.
Exactly so. And the fact that many of the fans of Chomsky justify the
plan by demonizing the Germans show they know that full well.
> The offer was for neutralization, which
> would require the withdrawal of Soviet and Western forces, and the
> severance of German government from the Allied occupying forces.
But not, however the severance of the SPD and the existing ex-nazi
police from the Comintern.
The commies had been pulling this shit repeatedly throughout what
became the satellite nations. Look what happened in Greece despite
the presence of the British and the absence of the Soviet army. If
the British army had been absent, Greece and Italy would have
instantly been turned into Soviet satellites very much against the
will of the people of those countries. Even with the presence of the
British army to commies murdered most of the non communist
poliiticians. In the absence of an allied army, the Russians picked up
the pieces everywhere, due to the fact that people were accustomed to
totalitarianism, and the soviet aligned communist parties were willing
to murder indiscriminately, and had arms and money, and frequently the
allegiance of the former nazi police, and the Western aligned parties
were not willing to murder indiscriminately and did not have arms, and
did not have the allegiance of the former nazi police.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
UeuQgx/n7zLJeHXp5fH2OoCFvVOV121f1I7yHUqY
44x0LuirR3vDPntFoVmUQ3N3gNvS3E9nLT8TgJuDf
James A. Donald
James A. Donald:
> > > > The only remaining brand of terror that has any credibility is
> > > > "anarcho" socialism, Chomsky's brand, so I am interested in
> > > > destroying that, not in attacking you.
Sir_Thomas_More:
> > > Proof of the dreamy little fantasy world you live in. We'll
> > > ignore the democratic socilaists that rule Sweden.
James A. Donald:
> > Sweden is not socialist: They talked about "a third way" intermediate
> > between capitalism and socialism.
Sir_Thomas_More:
> More rubbish. I have had no less than 5 professors with PhDs in
> Political Science tell me that Sweden is indeed a Social Democracy;
Social democracy is not democratic socialism. The Swedes in the late
seventies, early eighties, thought that social democracy could be,
perhaps should be democratic socialism, but after they had a taste,
they changed their minds. They backed away from that experiment, and
are still backing. The name of the parties may remain the same, but
the program is not.
Sweden has private ownership of the means of production and free
markets. The Swedish government redistributes income and produces
such fripperies as opera and traditional dance, but keeps its hands
off the production of important stuff like bread, beer, bacon, and
cars. In some ways it is more free market than the US.
> Sweden's system is not Tony Blair or
> Bill Clinton's mysterious and mystical "Third Way"
A different mix of the same formula. A difference of degree, not kind,
and a rapidly shrinking difference in degree at that. Clinton's
promise to "abolish welfare as we know it" turned out to be a somewhat
cheaper version of introducing welfare as the Swedes know it. He
copied from Sweden controls on welfare recipients that US left wingers
regarded as extremely right wing, and the Swedes are returning the
compliment.
> Guaranteed pensions accounting for 75% of the wages from
> your best earning year?
That is what in the US we call welfare for the rich. The Swedish
governemnt takes from the rich and promptly gives the money back to
the rich, with the result that actual redistribution is far less than
it appears. In the US, government pensions are almost the same for
rich and poor. Does that make the US more socialist than Sweden?
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
XyrT0LxIBSsUlnTPbo+j/YgUjynrm1y7sdHVudvU
4BfnETpgtnEiWcqKg3bl5Lkqq9mXWwgKKc2j7kWbB
Sir_Thomas_More
>> > Chomsky favored a plan that would have enabled Stalin to take
>> > charge of Germany.
>
><nfol...@Stanford.EDU> wrote:
>> And exactly how would Stalin do this, given a reasonable
>> neutralization policy
>
>
>Everyone in Germany was scared shitless of Russia at that time.
>
Of course they were afraid; they (or their country) had just killed,
butchered, and slaughtered millions of Soviets. Its a perfectly natural
reaction; nobody is saying that the Germans should have been drawn and
quartered, but some sort of appreciation for the carnage inflicted upon the
Soviet Union is appropriate. Neitralization would seem to have been the most
logical, reasonable, and fair solution.
>> and the conventional and nuclear threat of the combined military
>> forces of the United States, Britain, and France?
>
>Same way he did Hungary and Poland. He did not do overt mailed fist
>subjugations there either.
Totally different sutuation; you have to consider what resources the NATO
powers possessed in the regions you are talking about. Even if the U.S. had
pulled out of Germany they would have still had a huge NATO force parked on
the border ready to intervene. Its not like Germany would have been left all
alone surrounded by hostile enemies.
> So, is Swiss neutrality "enabling Stalin to take charge of Switzerland"?
>
>Swiss neutrality is protected by the swiss army.
>
Right . . . the menacing Swiss army. I'm sure the Soviets were shaking in
their booties.
>What would have protected the neutrality of a disarmed and defeated
>Germany?
Maybe we should turn this question around; what protected the clearly and
laughably inferior Swiss army from the formidable Soviet army? If, by
straining ytour brain, you can answer that question, then you will know what
would protect the Germans: NATO forces stationed on the border in France.
>> If I praise the Swiss for largely avoiding the Cold War conflict, am I
>> favouring a plan that would enable Stalin to take charge of Switzerland
>
>They did not avoid the cold war conflict. If you called on them to
>lay down their arms as part of neutralization, you certainly would be
>favoring a plan that would enable Stalin to do to Switzerland that
>which he did to a shitload of other countries.
This idea that the Swiss had a military capable of stopping the Soviets is one
the most silly things you have said yet.
>
>> > Stalin already had an armed force throughout Germany, a police
>> > force obeying the SPD, which united with the Moscow line communist
>> > party immediately the nazis fell. This armed force engaged in
>> > murder and robbery throughout all zones of Germany, checked and
>> > restrained by the allies in some zones, and unchecked and
>> > unrestrained in Eastern Germany. The rank and file of the SPD
>> > police force were the same people who had kept people in line for
>> > Hitler. They switched masters wholesale from Hitler to Stalin,
>> > perhaps figuring that Stalin would permit them to continue to
>> > exercise the power that Hitler had given them, while the allies
>> > might well execute them.
>> >
>> > "Neutralization" would have meant immediate restoration of the
>> > nazi apparatus of control, but with Stalin instead of Hitler at
>> > the top.
>
>>No, that would be Sovietization.
>
>Exactly so. And the fact that many of the fans of Chomsky justify the
>plan by demonizing the Germans show they know that full well.
Why would the U.S. have a problem with Nazis polcing the Germans? Hell the
U.S. hired all kinds of Nazis to serve Uncle Sam in the CIA. I certainly would
oppose Nazi police being hired as police for any nation, but clearly the U.S.
had no real objection (as long as they new their place). So why would Nazis in
the police force be a concern for a flag waving American like yourself;
surely, you too, supporter of the govenrment as you are, should support the
hiring of Nazis for the CIA OR for policing Germany? It is equally expedient.
I would think that Nazis policing Germans would be far less dangerous than
sending Nazis into the Soviet Union (as the Americans did). Again, I am
opposed to the use of any Nazis anywhere where they had positions of power, I
am just confused why a flag kisser like you would oppose utlizing Nazis when
by their actions your government clearly did not.
Sir_Thomas_More
>> Guaranteed pensions accounting for 75% of the wages from
>> your best earning year?
>
>That is what in the US we call welfare for the rich. The Swedish
>governemnt takes from the rich and promptly gives the money back to
>the rich, with the result that actual redistribution is far less than
>it appears.
It should go without saying, although apparently not, that there is a cap.
People making millions of dollars a year do not get pensions amounting to
millions of dollars; you're digressing into absurdity again.
The Swedes do not allow their people to end up on human scrap piles; the U.S.
does regularly, and with great apparent glee and satisfaction. The "Third Way"
would still allow people to wind up on human scrap piles.