James A. Donald's claim below was mostly anonymized by a 3rd party I shared this with, it was then forwarded to another list. I've anonymized these two replies, and add this to the ongoing thread for continued comment. James? What would be a good question to ask entity 1? Reese <begin fwd> entity 1 writes: I'm not sure what this thread is about, but when I scrolled down I saw something pretty familiar. That would be the phrase "digsig," which is the handle of one James Donald. This guy has to be one of the nuttier infamous people on the Internet. He has been waging an anti-Chomksy war on various anarchist and libertarian newsgroups for OVER 5 YEARS. One of his favorite libels is to claim that Chomsky supported the Khymer Rouge. If Chomsky was any cuter and a Hollywood celebrity, this guy would have been arrested for stalking a long time ago. I don't read Usenet much, but everytime I check in, he's there posting away. I can only imagine what his den looks like. I'm sure he has a Chomsky picture on the dartboard and the rest of his office is arranged to aid him in his campaign to make the world safe for libertarian capitalists who need a life. .sig entity 2 wrote:
On the quote in question, I have a copy of Clive Ponting's Churchill book balanced on my knee right now, and I can confirm that the quote is word for word, except that the emphases have fallen off it with the loss of italics ('an innocent record and' 'altogether disproportionate' 'mainly acquired by violence, largely maintained by force').
Strike one to Chomsky.
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entity 3 writes
Well,
Where's the evidence that he misquotes more often than any other researcher [let alone deliberately]. Has someone compiled a compendium of his misdeeds?
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<snipped info identifying other list> entity 4 writes:
this was posted on the cypherpunks list. the respondent maintains that chomsky is well-known for misquoting or twisting quotes/sources. never heard that come up here in all our discussions... comments? cypherpunks is archived if you want more info.
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I've been reading Noam Chomsky's book on Kosovo and came across this quote from a Cabinet note written by Churchill in January 1914 explaining the need for increased military expenditure (taken in turn from Clive Ponting's Churchill, 1994, P 132):
"We are not a young people with an innocent record and a scanty inheritance. We have engrossed to ourselves an altogether disproportionate share of the wealth and traffic of the world. We have got all we want in territory, and our claim to be left in the unmolested enjoyment of vast and splendid possessions, mainly acquired by violence, largely maintained by force, often seems less reasonable to others than to us."
Chomsky is hardly a reliable source. He routinely fabricates or falsifies quotes. I suggest you check his alleged sources.
Chances are you will be unable to find his alleged source. In the unlikely event that you are able to find it, it will not say quite what Chomsky claims it said.
--digsig
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