Please put "Chomsky" in your threads title, or else we will get flamed by the numerous people who have "Chomsky" in their kill files j.hastings6@genie.geis.com describes a Chomsky movie where Chomsky protests about media priorities. The problem is that Chomsky does not use words such as "bias" and "persuasion". Instead he uses words such as "coercion" and "control" If he said "bias" the implication would be that we should deal with this problem by individual action, for example we should subscribe to magazines and so forth that give us diverse views - that we should respond as individuals. By using words such as "control" he implies that we should respond collectively to resist these acts of coercion. He calls speech, and thus implies they should be met with force. The natural and intended emotional response to Chomsky's lies and distortions is: "How do you explain that, Man?! Fight the Power! Right Awn!" By defining speech and ideas as force and coercion Chomsky is implicitly arguing for democratic control of speech and ideas. He implies that democratic control of speech and ideas would be a vast improvement in our civil liberties, that it would make us more free. If you say "bias" as Rush Limbaugh does, then the obvious implication is that one should start ones own newsletter and or attend to alternative sources of information. When Rush says "Media Bias" he is really saying "buy my book, listen to my radio show, watch my TV show." When Chomsky says that the public are "subject to a system of rigid ideological control" (not that particular newspapers are subject to rigid ideological control by imperialist capitalist stooges, but that *the people* are subjected to rigid ideological control by imperialist capitalist stooges") he is saying that the speech acts he that protests are acts of violence and coercion and thus he implies that we should defend ourselves collectively against such speech. In other words he is perverting the language so that for him "freedom of speech" is democratic control of speech and ideas by the people. Speech should be subjected to democratic control by the people, and this will make us more free and expand civil liberties. If Susie tells stories of how John ruined his life with drugs or booze, one might reasonably conclude that Susie is telling us to be selective and exercise self control. If Susie tells stories of how evil drug lords/publicans ruined Johns life by *forcing him* to consume drugs and or booze, one can only conclude that Susie is calling for drug/alcohol prohibition. Chomsky continually claims that we are *coerced* into accepting the ideas of the evil imperialist capitalist conspiracy. From this I reasonably infer he is arguing for democratic control of speech and ideas. He continually describes (and wildly exaggerates) the problem using language that implies that only a collective, rather than individual, response to misinformation can make us free. As you know, democratic control of speech and ideas was tried very successfully under the National Socialist German Workers party. In practice it proved remarkably similar to the undemocratic control of speech and ideas employed in the Soviet Union. j.hastings6@genie.geis.com writes
East Timor people suffered the same magnitude of oppression at the hands of the U.S.-supported Indonesians, as did the Cambodians under the Khmer [Rouge] ... ....
The reports of East Timor atrocities were relatively non-existent.
How do you explain that, Man?! Fight the Power! Right Awn! (I assume that Right Awn! is a smiley)
What Chomsky said about US involvement in Indonesian imperialism is a pack of lies. (Or rather what he implies - Chomsky mostly lies by carefully arranging truths and half truths so as to give a wildly misleading impression.) But even if what Chomsky said about the US involvement in Indonesian imperialism was completely true one can easily point to even more extreme examples bias in the opposite direction in the press. For example compare the massive publicity for Pinochet's murder of a handful of people, the deadly silence concerning the murder of huge numbers of people mostly women and children, by the marxist anti American regime in Ethiopia. This genocide was vastly greater than Timor, and you do not see Chomsky jumping up and down about media silence concerning Ethiopia. (One can easily dig up the real, rather boring, reasons why Ethiopia was ignored, and one can easily dig up the real, rather boring, reasons why East Timor was ignored, but is more fun to allege that the press is controlled by a vast evil immensely powerful communist conspiracy and force the commies write up the complicated boring research for a change.)
When I saw him live and on stage, Chomsky said he thought the genocide stories about Cambodia were as bogus as the other 99% lies told by the lapdog "adversarial" press (like Yellow Rain "chemical warfare" actually caused by bee droppings). ...
Can we really blame him for doubting the unreliable media?
He stopped defending Khmer Rouge (sp?) when he became convinced that the killing fields were real. In other words, he would never support genocide. That's the Party Line anyway, comrade.
Like practically everything Chomsky says, the above is a half truth that is used to imply a lie. Sure, in the beginning, all reasonable people assumed that the reports of genocide were more vomit by the Pentagon misinformation machine (not the lapdog press -- the press was very far from being lapdog -- it had been lapdog in the beginning, but dramatically shifted.) That is what I assumed -- at first. It soon became apparent that the reports of genocide were horribly real. But Chomsky kept right on pushing the same wheelbarrow on and on and on as the terrible evidence piled up, until the Vietnamese invaded - and *then*, when the winds of politics blew, he abruptly changed his position. This shows his position was based purely on politics, and that he displayed a contemptuous disregard for the truth, for principle, and for human lives. It reminds me of that scene in the book "1984" where in the middle of hate week, yesterdays enemy suddenly becomes today's ally, and yesterdays ally becomes today's enemy. Orwell's fictional hate week was based in part on real life abrupt shifts in magazines such as "New Republic" when Stalin made a non aggression pact with Hitler, and the further abrupt shift when Hitler broke that treaty.
Chomsky is an extreme free-speech anarchist, from what I've read about and by him. He even defended the right of Holocaust-revisionist Robert Faurisson to speak about his historical beliefs against the French state's claim that it has the right to determine what is "historical fact." Chomsky himself does not deny the Holocaust.
Chomsky is not an anarchist. He advocates an economic system very similar to that advocated by the National Socialist German Workers party, and somewhat different from that advocated by the Bolsheviks. This was demonstrated very nicely in his papers on GATT, which described managed trade as democratic control and as control by the people. If you define the Washington bureaucracy as "the people", as Chomsky does whenever he discusses acts of theft, coercion, and violence by the current American government against American individuals, then fascism is anarcho socialism by definition, and Chomsky is indeed an anarchist. Chomsky may well be tolerant of holocaust revisionists, as am I, but Chomsky fans show a notable lack of tolerance for other forms of speech, as is most noticeable on the net. This leads me to suspect that Chomsky's tolerance of holocaust revisionism may well be based on grounds somewhat different my own. If Chomsky was a fan of free speech, he would be celebrating what the laser printer and the internet have made possible. If he was genuinely concerned with monopolistic control of speech, rather than ensuring that "the people" exercised that monopoly, he would be celebrating what is now happening. Chomsky has the very clear objective of creating a economic, social and political system based on democratic control of speech, thought, work, and property, through the Democrat Party, using normal constitutional, legal, institutional and democratic means, just as the National Socialist German Workers party successfully did in Germany. Clearly this objective is far more realistic and achievable than the ridiculous fantasy of the Marxists of coming to power in America through revolutionary means. Since there are clearly a great many people who seek and desire totalitarianism, with their group at the top, we should hardly be surprised to see large number of people seeking to achieve this through means that are workable and feasible, rather than through means that are absurd and impossible. Nor should we be surprised to find that these people are mostly in the party whose ideas can most readily be perverted to this objective.
According to the S.F. Weekly in 1989, Noam Chomsky was once described in a college newspaper as both "a Nazi sympathiser" and "a Soviet apologist." That's a neat trick,
The ideological difference between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany is so slight as to be almost indiscernible. Stalin permitted abortion on a large scale, Hitler on a modest scale. Stalin murdered Jews on a modest scale, Hitler on a large scale - but this was more a tactic to create a body of killers who had no choice but to support him, rather than through any burning ideological difference. Apart from Jews and abortion, I cannot see any noticeable political difference between Hitler and Stalin, other than the very important fact that Hitler took power through democratic, constitutional, and institutional means, and that Hitler obeyed the letter of the constitution (while grossly violating the spirit of the constitution.) Similarly Hitler respected the form of property rights while brushing business owners aside and running their businesses directly by the German people for the greater good of the German nation. Chomsky would do likewise, rather than implementing the Soviet form of socialism. My impression is that if Chomsky or (more likely) one of his disciples were to achieve power he would resemble Stalin on abortion, and on America's Jews - the Asians, and he would resemble Hitler in regard to democracy and the constitution, and property rights. (Constitution as currently interpreted by the supreme court -- not constitution as originally written, of course.) But I would not be particularly surprised if he resembled Hitler on both Asians and on the Constitution (Supreme court version). I can definitely and confidently say that he would *not* resemble Stalin on the constitution and property rights. This is why people get hysterical when other people call Chomsky a totalitarian and a commie sympathizer. It is perfectly true, and perfectly clear, that Chomsky aims to achieve totalitarian terror by means radically different from those intended by the commies. In this sense he is clearly not a commie sympathizer. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because of the kind of animals that we James A. Donald are. True law derives from this right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state. jamesd@netcom.com