At 12:45 AM 06/10/00 -0700, James A.. Donald wrote:

-- At 09:02 PM 05/10/00 -0700, James A.. Donald wrote:

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Big deal. Chomsky tells the reader that somewhere there is some underreported evidence that the reports of Khmer Rouge massacres were fake,

Reese wrote:

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WHERE? WHERE DOES HE SAY THIS?

Exact source with quote, or shaddup.

I have given you the exact source with quote a dozen times,

Liar.

and each time you simply lie about my words.

Here it is, yet again:

The below, is more like it.

Distortions at Fourth Hand Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman The Nation, June 25, 1977

: : such journals as the Far Eastern Economic Review , the : : London Economist , the Melbourne Journal of Politics , and : : others elsewhere, have provided analyses by highly : : qualified specialists who have studied the full range of : : evidence available, and who concluded that executions have : : numbered at most in the thousands; that these were : : localized in areas of limited Khmer Rouge influence and : : unusual peasant discontent, where brutal revenge killings : : were aggravated by the threat of starvation resulting from : : the American destruction and killing. These reports also : : emphasize both the extraordinary brutality on both sides : : during the civil war (provoked by the American attack) and : : repeated discoveries that massacre reports were false

Now I have something to work with, I'll get back to you on this.

So tell us, where were these discoveries that the massacre reports were false? Who discovered them to be false, and how?

Nothing that Chomsky and Herman claim in the above is true, but the most important claim, and the most straightforward lie, is "repeated discoveries that the massacre reports were false."

You inserted a "the" again. In quotes, that's a no-no, so slap the back of your hand for me. Reese

-- At 03:39 PM 06/10/00 -1000, Reese wrote: James A.. Donald wrote:

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Distortions at Fourth Hand Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman The Nation, June 25, 1977

: : such journals as the Far Eastern Economic Review , the : : London Economist , the Melbourne Journal of Politics , and : : others elsewhere, have provided analyses by highly : : qualified specialists who have studied the full range of : : evidence available, and who concluded that executions have : : numbered at most in the thousands; that these were : : localized in areas of limited Khmer Rouge influence and : : unusual peasant discontent, where brutal revenge killings : : were aggravated by the threat of starvation resulting from : : the American destruction and killing. These reports also : : emphasize both the extraordinary brutality on both sides : : during the civil war (provoked by the American attack) and : : repeated discoveries that massacre reports were false

At 07:56 PM 10/6/2000 -1000, Reese wrote:

http://abbc.com/aaargh/fran/chomsky/cassandra.html --a 1985 essay by Christopher Hitchens defending Chomsky against such charges.

Merely a denial, not a rebuttal: This essay does not actually claim that the people cited by Chomsky said the things that Chomsky attributes to them. In particular it presents no actual examples of massacre reports that were discovered to be false. It answers none of the criticisms that I or other people have made of Chomsky. Instead it takes fragments of those criticisms out of context, without the specifics of that criticism, and simply denies the charges, without acknowledging or rebutting any of the evidence that Chomsky's accusers present. It does not rebut a single charge, or address a single piece of evidence. It does not rebut, or even address, the charges I made, or indeed any of the charges that any critic made. Most flagrantly, it ignores the fact that Chomsky's position, and the radical left position, on Cambodia changed abruptly and radically when Soviet foriegn policy changed in January 1979, quoting statements that Chomsky made after 1979 as evidence that he did not mean the things he said before 1979. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG a1/b9+joFgSrGbYhfddJ31t3e/FAHktWAG4etk89 4mEy3ZBLFNtOmlUy/IYvzGQ5asmemEJK3EFHcohBT

Hi everybody; I have no interest in Chomsky flames and wish they would die. In fact, I'm going to *MAKE* them die, for me at least, by filtering posts on chomsky's name. (yes, this post right here is going into the bitbucket when it gets back to me from the list). I'm just dropping this note to remind everyone who's tired of this argument that you also have the power to make your machine ignore it for you, thus saving you the trouble and bother of filtering through it to find actual relevant content. If enough people ignore it, it *will* die. Bear

At 09:21 AM 07/10/00 -0700, James A.. Donald wrote:

I have often remarked on how Chomsky's board treats inconvenient facts and unwanted views in the same way that the totalitarian states that Chomsky so admired treated people who noticed inconvenient facts and people who held unwanted views.

I see that you are of the same view.

I'm not on Chomsky's board. You've yet to make a coherent argument that will stand on its own, I'm telling you a third time now: I am not a Chomsky hater, nor am I a Chomsky admirer; his is a name I've heard on this list, but I've not investigated him. I've engaged only in a campaign to verify what you've said, I've not attempted to defend him against your accusations. As yet, you've not presented compelling, irrefutable evidence. After what I've seen the past couple days, Occam's Razor tells me it is because such evidence does not exist, but I'm giving you one last chance to convince me. Give me a valid, pre-79 quote, give me a valid, conflicting, post-79 quote, and tell me what is damning about the two quotes, if you can. The clock is ticking. Reese

At 1:42 PM -0400 10/7/00, Steve Furlong wrote:

Ray Dillinger wrote:

...

Hi everybody;

I have no interest in Chomsky flames and wish they would die. In fact, I'm going to *MAKE* them die, for me at least, by filtering posts on chomsky's name. (yes, this post right here is going into the bitbucket when it gets back to me from the list).

I'm just dropping this note to remind everyone who's tired of this argument that you also have the power to make your machine ignore it for you, thus saving you the trouble and bother of filtering through it to find actual relevant content.

If enough people ignore it, it *will* die.

No, no, no. To judge by the list traffic, Cypherpunks don't write code. Cypherpunks don't make maximal use of the tools they have. Cypherpunks complain endlessly and engage in flamewars. I'm afraid your post was off-charter.

A cheap shot, as James Donald has written more crypto code than most here, by a wide margin. Cf. his "Kong" program. As for "list traffic," it has been very low by historical standards for the past year or so. Only a handful of names--perhaps a dozen--account for 80% or more of all posts. There are many possible reasons for this, but this is another subject. The point being that most keyboards have a "Delete" key, but very few have a "Create" key: it is always much easier to delete unwanted traffic than to cause new traffic to be created. "Cypherpunks write code" has a certain meaning, often misinterpreted by newbies and other careless types as a statement that words are not important, only C or Java code matters. In fact, it has meaning more along the lines of what Lessig was writing about in his "Code" book (regardless of what one thinks of his conclusions). Many who have been posting here in the past year have apparently _missed_ the core ideas, hence their blathering about the need for privacy laws, about calls for collective action, about legitimate needs of law enforcement. Which tells me we need words more than we need some chunk of C code. (Not that 97% of the subscribers of this or any other similar list have ever written a single program with any conceivable crypto significance.) As for Chomsky, I've been deleting all of the recent posts arguing pro- or con-Chomsky. --Tim May -- ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.

-- At 02:12 PM 10/7/2000 -0400, Tim May wrote:

As for Chomsky, I've been deleting all of the recent posts arguing pro- or con-Chomsky.

You did not miss much. In the most recent Chomsky thread, all the same things were said, as have been said so many times before. Indeed, I have traced the canonical Chomsky thread back to 1967. The canonical thread goes as follows: Chomsky critic: "Chomsky distorts and misrepresents the sources he cites, and attributes arguments, evidence, and statements to people that they did not make. Do { Chomsky defender: "No he does not. Produce examples. No one has ever given any examples of Chomsky doing such a thing." Chomsky critic produces his favorite examples again. } while (patience remains); --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG BAnB6UM20wXOg3nqf2/f5M+g0eEq+ETNu3QkxQDR 48hVyE3jP0JHqB9vRs1ecJRcj6KWCgU/wxEAQHdzU

-- At 08:36 PM 10/7/2000 -0700, James A.. Donald wrote: Chomsky before 1979: (falsely purporting to be quoting "highly qualified specialists") : : executions have numbered at most in the thousands; that : : these were localized in areas of limited Khmer Rouge : : influence and unusual peasant discontent, where brutal : : revenge killings were aggravated by the threat of : : starvation resulting from the American destruction and : : killing I am guilty of oversimplification here: Chomsky and Herman 's claim to be quoting highly qualified specialists is true in the sense that one journalist who specialized in covering asia did offer opinions (opinions, not the promised evidence) somewhat similar to those that Chomsky described, but false in that the opinions of the cited "highly qualifed specialists" were considerably more cautious and less extreme than those attributed to them by Chomsky and Herman. When Chomsky talks of "analyses by highly qualified experts" he is referring to the same people that Shawcross depicts as inexperienced stringers: Shawcross <http://www.jim.com/jamesd/shawcross.htm> tells us: : : Through 1974, however, as more and more reports of Khmer : : Rouge brutality began to seep out of the growing areas : : that they controlled, some journalists began to wonder : : whether postwar reconciliation would be as easy as they : : had hoped. In March 1974, the Baltimore Sun correspondent : : wrote of "the incomprehensible brutality of the Khmer : : Rouge communists"; the Washington Post reported on how the : : Khmer Rouge were "restructuring people." Sydney Schanberg : : of The New York Times wrote about the joy with which : : refugees escaped Khmer Rouge control at Kompong Thom. : : James Fenton wrote in the New Statesman of the fear with : : which some Khmers were beginning to talk of the other : : side. In the fall of 1974, journalists learned of Sar : : Sarsdam, a village near Slem Reap, which had been burned : : by the Khmer Rouge and in which, according to Catholic : : Relief Services workers, over sixty peasants had been : : brutally killed. Old women were reported to have been : : nailed to the walls of their homes before being burned : : alive. Children had been torn apart by hand. : : : : Even so, there were few journalists in Phnom Penh who : : wanted to believe the blood-bath theory. It had been : : invoked so often by United States officials in defense of : : a policy with which most of those same journalists : : disagreed, that there was a tendency in the final days of : : the war to dismiss the United States Ambassador John : : Gunther Dean and other officials who harped on Sar Sarsdam : : as hawks who wished to prolong the war. Martin Woollacott : : of the Guardian later recalled with pain that some : : journalists sang a little song to the tune of "She Was : : Poor but She Was Honest": : : : : Oh will there be a dreadful bloodbath : : When the Khmer Rouge come to town? : : Aye, there'll be a dreadful bloodbath : : When the Khmer Rouge come to town. : : : : When the Khmer Rouge did come to town, in April 1975, only : : a few foreigners remained in Phnom Penh. Closeted in the : : French Embassy they watched, at first more astonished than : : appalled, as the victorious young army began to empty the : : entire city at gunpoint. Hospital patients, refugees, : : schoolchildren, all had to take one of the main roads out : : of the city. Most of the Cambodians in the Embassy were : : ordered to leave its supposed sanctuary and to trek into : : the countryside as well. The foreigners were then trucked : : to the Thai border. From then on, the Khmer Rouge closed : : Cambodia almost completely from the outside world and : : embarked upon one of the most radical and bloody : : revolutions in history. : : : : For the next three and a half years the few thousand : : refugees who managed to escape to Thailand were the : : principal source of news about the country. They told from : : the start a consistent story of deaths from starvation and : : exhaustion during the evacuation of Phnom Penh; of forced : : evacuation of almost all the towns after Phnom Penh; of : : relocation into new villages or work zones; of inadequate : : food supplies and nonexistent medical care; of a rule of : : terror conducted by young boys with AK-47s on behalf of a : : shadowy, all-powerful organization known as Angka. : : Refugees spoke of people being shot, clubbed to death or : : buried alive for disobeying orders, asking questions or in : : some other way infringing the rules that Angka laid down. : : Among the dreadful tales they told were those of babies : : being beaten to death against trees. : : : : Accounts of such atrocities began to appear in the Western : : press in the summer of 1975. In London, early reports were : : by Bruce Loudoun and John McBeth in the conservative Daily : : Telegraph, the paper which had reported German atrocities : : wrongly in World War I and correctly in World War 11. In : : July, Henry Kamm wrote a long article in The New York : : Times, and the paper ran an editorial cornparing the Khmer : : Rouge policies with "Soviet extermination of kulaks or : : with the Gulag Archipelago." Kamm was one of the few : : journalists on a major newspaper to cover the Cambodian : : story throughout. : : : : Clearly, Cambodia was not ignored. Its travails received : : far more attention than those of, say, East Timor, Burundi : : or the Central African Republic, to mention just three : : other contemporary disasters. Nonetheless, it was some : : time before many reporters came to accept that terrible : : events were taking place in Cambodia. just as few people : : had wished to believe in the elimination of the Jews until : : the evidence was thrust before them, so many people wished : : not to believe that atrocities were taking place in : : Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge takeover. This was : : especially true among reporters who had reported the war : : negatively from the Lon Nol side, hoping for the victory : : of the others. Far from eagerly seeking, let alone : : fabricating, evidence of Khmer Rouge atrocities, they : : shrank from it. Others believed, at least for a short : : time, that the refugees were unreliable, that the CIA was : : cooking up a blood bath to say, "We told you so." --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG 37WRF9Dxu4BQA95/Aau0TADk3uxHakiwls/x/2hO 43h9eP3yiKs/5DZgro5iNVIJXgutdxyHoBBMFjBxz

At 08:36 PM 07/10/00 -0700, James A.. Donald wrote:

I have presented examples of Chomsky citing vaguely specified sources that supposedly provide evidence for all sorts of astonishing things, supposedly provide evidence for the then Soviet line, yet strange to report, no one is able to produce this alleged evidence. When the Soviet line changed, no one continued to claim these things were true. In particular, no one continued to claim the existence of "repeated discoveries that massacre reports were false"

To be addressed in my next, which, likely, will be my last, to you.

I have looked for this alleged evidence, and not found it.

Considering how you've read things into my posts, I am, shall I say, dumbfounded. </blood-dripping sarcasm>

It is the job of Chomsky's fans, not my job, to find these "repeated discoveries that massacre reports were false", and the rest.

I am not a Chomsky fan, for the fourth time. Get a clue, ok? I'm critiquing you and your allegations, not defending Chomsky.

Chomsky after 1979, in the documentary film "Manufacturing Consent: Noam

Of course a film citation is almost impossible to check.

This is where I sign off. By my way of calculation, I owe you one more reply. Barring some epiphany resultant from a coronary or other life-changing event, I expect it will be the last time I reply to you, on this topic. Reese

At 12:19 AM 08/10/00 -0400, James A.. Donald wrote:

Chomsky made some remarkable claims, which I have quoted, for the existence of some remarkable evidence.

So are you claiming that this alleged evidence seemingly cited by Chomsky exists, or are you denying that Chomsky claimed the existence of this evidence?

Learn how to read - and comprehend - what I type. Stop trying to put words in my mouth.

Choose one story and stick to it.

I try not to emulate broken records on a Victrola that plays too slow.

If you claim the evidence cited by Chomsky exists, where is it? If you deny that Chomsky cited this very remarkable evidence, then let us once again go over his words.

Commit yourself to one excuse or the other excuse.

Commit myself to one prepared excuse or another? Natch on that, I've told you three times my position on all of this, I'll not repeat myself now. You have provided new info, I'll be looking into it - even though a part of it is checking to see whether you've quoted your own webpage accurately. Reese

At 07:24 PM 07/10/00 -0400, James A.. Donald wrote:

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At 02:12 PM 10/7/2000 -0400, Tim May wrote:

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As for Chomsky, I've been deleting all of the recent posts arguing pro- or con-Chomsky.

You did not miss much.

In the most recent Chomsky thread, all the same things were said, as have been said so many times before. Indeed, I have traced the canonical Chomsky thread back to 1967.

The canonical thread goes as follows:

You are the entity making the allegations, yet Chomsky remains as accredited in some circles as he ever was.

So does Clinton. -- A quote from Petro's Archives: ********************************************** Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question. -- Thomas Jefferson, 1st Inaugural