Mr. Vicchio explains Chomsky

[bulba112]

[quote=Gorgo]I'll let Dan Clore do most of the work here. This is not a direct refutation of Norberg, but someone else, so some of the remarks will make no sense, but takes care of the general question: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/jamesd.html

Clore is obsessive maniac. It's enough to read how he sputters about James A. Donald. He's not arguing, he's preaching.

Re subject: the fact is that Chomsky tried being an apologist for Khmer regime. Yes, I know that you will produce five million words excusing and distorting every single interpretation so it would not appear as such. You're merely in denial, losers. Chomsky tried being apologist and make the supposed evil traditional you-know-who look bad as smearers of the Khmers. It's typical for him - excuse the oh so unjustly accused! Then the supposedly unjustly accused turn out to actually have been fairly accused. Chomsky instead of saying a big OOOPS is choosing to drown in shit deeper and deeper.

Because guess what, if he admitted he went wrong on this, he'd lose his image of the supposed "lone just man" that excuses oh those evil evil smearers of him. That's it. it's all just a matter of Chomsky's ego tripping.

Pol pot had more intellectual honesty than you and Chomsky combined.

[jamesd]

Quote by: Gorgo I'll let Dan Clore do most of the work here. This is not a direct refutation of Norberg, but someone else, so some of the remarks will make no sense, but takes care of the general question: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/jamesd.html

This purported refutation bears absolutely no relevance to the article it purports to refute, refuting a straw man.

Quote by: Gorgo "In actual fact, Herman and Chomsky do give all of these sources in their lengthier treatment of the same subject in After the Cataclysm, Volume II of The Political Economy of Human Rights [PEHR II]. T

Indeed they do, which makes it possible to look up these sources, as the article supposedly refuted does, and find massive discrepancies between Chomsky's account of what these sources supposedly say, and what they actually said.

[Gorgo]

You're talking worse nonsense than Vicchio, Jamesd. Back up what you say and stop the idiotic insults, Bulba.

[Mr.Vicchio]

They can't "back it up" with you Gorgo, because you will assume, no matter the evidence, that they are wrong, and will search Z-MAG for a pre-built rebuttal that will, in your mind, refute any attempt to cast Chomsky for what he is. The "elitist version of Michael Moore" He slam Captialism and demeens the virtue of the society that he lives in, he lusts for the publicity and will twist any fact, any situation to say he is right.

So asking us to offer proof is rather disengenious on your part. You read nothing we have said, none of the links, the break downs of Chomsky. You jsut say "Oh thats jsut Horowitz crap www.zmag.com where's your proof?"

[Richard 23]

Well, you don't like Mr. Chomsky. That much is clear.
Let's see where can agree. This part should be easy.

I believe that a person can hold reprehensible views, even views that require no research to disprove.
That person believes things which simply are not true.
That person may have an ulterior motive, but that isn't proven simply by being demonstrably wrong.
None of this so far is a crime in the United States.
Being wrong about one or more things doesn't mean that all other views are wrong.
You are free to ignore people who have views that conflict with your own.
Attempting to discredit a person's view based on some entirely different view is ... [dishonest].

I would go on but the choice meat was very deep stuff. Long paragrphs detailing Chomsky's denying there was a holocaust...

If you're referring to Chomsky's statement statement affirming the right of an author to hold a repulsive view that was included in a [French?] author's book which "denied the holocaust," then you may be misrepresenting what actually happened. Lots of people got pissed over this.

If you're referring to something else, then I'd have to read it....
But assuming that Chomsky makes repulsive statements that represent his own personal view which is that the holocaust never took place, meaning the systematic murder of millions of mostly Jewish people, then, yuck, what the hell's wrong with Chomsky? Do his stated beliefs go further or is that the extent of the statement(s)?
One would have to be pretty stupid to state such a belief in public, because everything else is drowned out. I'd keep it secret. He's smarter than me, so why did he go public?

To briefly sum up Chomsky: America is evil, the people puppets, the Soviet Union was wrongly charcterized as evil (though he has admitted it was an imperialistic power), Communism is a good thing.

Now comes the hard part. Absolute vs nuance.

You're not oversimplifying things because you dislike
Chomsky in general and want him to go away, right?

These moral absolutes are not believable [to me].
So either you or Chomsky is missing something.
Reverse all of the absolutes and it's still far from accurate.

America is a nation with high ideals which it has unfortunately not always lived up to.
America has supported undemocratic regimes, it has even removed democratically elected [disputed] governments and installed more favorable ones.
This behavior is troubling and can have tragic consequences.

The Soviet Union was expansionist. Invading and occupying another country is commonly referred to as imperialism. So I'd agree that the Soviet Union was expansionist. That Chomsky "admitted" to this is no surprise. I don't think he has made any secret of this widely held view. Why is this highlighted? Are you suggesting he was being intellectually dishonest about how wonderful the Soviet Union was until someone forced a guilty admission? This would be hard to believe. Show me.

If Chomsky dismissed "The Soviet Union was 'evil'" as simplistic, then I would agree. Nobody is all good or all bad, it's never that simple. Some are worse or better than others.
It is often useful, even necessary during time of conflict to describe the enemy using moral absolutes.
You maximize support by doing this. If there's room for doubt, there will be people who hold different views. This makes it more difficult to justify killing the enemy with moral clarity. Support might decline as the body count rises.
After the killing ends, there is nothing wrong with revisiting reality and aknowledging that reality is grey, not black or white. This can be a healthy exercise and reduce tension between polarized viewpoints, each one partially accurate. This is unhealthy. IMHO

Communism is good.

Hey, that's a song by NegativLand!
Does Chomsky also say "Commuism is bad?"
Better would be "Communism was [neither|both] good [nor|and] bad."
Same reason as before.

That's about all I can handle.

Honestly are you sure you're getting this right?
Maybe Chomsky's getting senile or he's lost his edge.
And yet...

What I am familiar with that he normally avoids moral absolutes.
He frequently states that he might be wrong.

Rather than providing answers, Chomsky asks questions.
This can be frustrating for people who like things neat and tidy,
but where there are multiple points of view, there is no absolute truth.

Instead of telling people what to think, he encourages people to search for the truth
He also presents alternate points of view to provoke listeners to think critically.

This leaves Chomsky an easy target for critics; it's easy to quote him out of context
or edit quotes. But at the same time, it's difficult to take critics seriously since
Chomsky's ideas take time to explain when they don't follow the conventional wisdom.

The old Apple slogan: Think Different.

I can see why you, Gorgo find Zmag and Chomsky as alluring and intelligent; they take the notion that Capitialism is evil, communism/socialism is good, human rights are only abused when America is involved, class warfare is thier bread and butter message. America is a land of dumb robots manipulated by the "jewish media" (I closed the window before I remembered where I grabbed that Chomsky Gem) to enrich the corperate bosses and further enslave the populace. Chomsky would have done very well had he been born east of Berlin, and from his writtings and meandering drivvel, one can only conclude he often wished that were so.

Again a list of moral absolutes.
Again I doubt he put it so simply and so wrong.
So I agree with you if it was, disagree otherwise, blah blah blah.

If you don't agree with his approach then tune out. [I know you know]

If someone disagreed with something you said
and then mischaracterized what you said in order
to convince me that you suck, I'd ask him, politely,
to go and piss up a rope.

Somthing like this might be more accurate:
I don't like so and so because he [he convolutes the truth|
he speaks in riddles|he speaks Pig Latin|I don't like his method].

But again, if you got it right then maybe
Chomsky's losing his edge.

Man, nuance is rough. Taking him out of
context would be a lot easier.

[Gorgo]

This thread is about how you said that Chomsky "honors mass murderers." So far I have seen no attempt to back that up. While the rest is interesting, the accusations are difficult to check out, often made by questionable people, like Matt Welch. Matt Welch has written for Frontpagemag.com, a very questionable web site. It is clear that they are not interested in facts on that site. You cannot say the same about Zmag.org.

Kindly attempt to back up your statement, or I will assume that you are of a worse stripe than Horowitz.

Quote by: Mr.Vicchio They can't "back it up" with you Gorgo, because you will assume, no matter the evidence, that they are wrong, and will search Z-MAG for a pre-built rebuttal that will, in your mind, refute any attempt to cast Chomsky for what he is. The "elitist version of Michael Moore" He slam Captialism and demeens the virtue of the society that he lives in, he lusts for the publicity and will twist any fact, any situation to say he is right. So asking us to offer proof is rather disengenious on your part. You read nothing we have said, none of the links, the break downs of Chomsky. You jsut say "Oh thats jsut Horowitz crap www.zmag.com where's your proof?"

[Gorgo]

The whole Far Eastern Economic Review thing is a joke. Chomsky and Herman say that these people have "concluded that executions have numbered at most in the thousands." Then these people try to make a big deal of of that "at most" part when, for instance, Nayan Chanda says "possibly thousands." The point is that the numbers that these people came up with were at most, in the thousands. To belabor this point so much is in itself disingenuous. Nayan Chanda did not say "in the millions." This guy did not say, "in the millions." The other guy did not say, "in the millions." At most, what they said was "in the thousands."

This is the kind of distraction by volume that these people that Vicchio refer to do. They take you around and around and don't really say anything at all and conclude that Chomsky is some kind of madman, and I can almost guarantee that Vicchio did nothing more than a cursory google search without checking any of it out. It's all nonsense.

I haven't attempted to check out the Vaclev Havel thing. I'm not sure why I should.

[Mr.Vicchio]

No Gorgo, I did prove that. He DID it's detailed, but I was wrong is saying he never refuted the Cambodia slayings... he did. Many years later under the light of irrefutable evidence. Instead he blamed the the Deaths on the American Military.

My bad. First he defended the Pol Pot Tyrrany from the accusations, praised Pol Pot (and Hitler, and Stalin) but then shifted his arguement from "there werw only a few thousand at best" to the deaths were the result of the US Air Force bombing poor villagers..

Gorgo. You won't admit your boy Chomsky has, will and defends the regimes and their leaders that have killed more people then ANY in history.

[Gorgo]

This tears it. Vicchio, why do they allow you to remain on these boards?

Quote by: Mr.Vicchio http://www.wernercohn.com/Chomsky.html

[Gorgo]

You haven't backed up this statement, you've posted a lot of nonsense about other things that have no bearing on this and that show that your sources are questionable at best.

Do we conclude that you, Vicchio, are a _______or not? (edited so as not to overstate)

Quote by: Mr.Vicchio Gorgo. You won't admit your boy Chomsky has, will and defends the regimes and their leaders that have killed more people then ANY in history.

[Gorgo]

Vicchio, Noam Chomsky has never praised Pol Pot, Hitler or Stalin, and this is one of a long list of idiotic statements that you cannot back up. Stop before you implode.

[Gorgo]

I guess we're not going to get an apology from Vicchio for making these ridiculous statements with nothing but some loony web sites talking about how Chomsky is in secret alliance with neo-nazis. I imagine if I'd read further, Mr. Rogers was one of those neo-Nazis.

Vicchio, why do they allow you on these forums? Did we establish that?

[Nono]

Quote by: Gorgo I guess we're not going to get an apology from Vicchio

I'm still waiting for a simple reply from him to simple questions posed on last summer's global warming thread. Hit and run is his whole act.

[rmnunez]

Chomsky has an agenda and its well documented, goes back to the Vietnam war. He doesn't want to describe his perspective as "socialist" or "Marxist", which would explain his consistent criticism of US foreign policy, so he has latched on to the notion some sort of plutocratic elite controls the US government and through it the destiny of the world -obviously for personal gain.

[Nono]

Just as your agenda -- clearly documented on this site -- is to invariably support US foreign policy.

We all have our "agendas".

[Gorgo]

I think he's made very clear that he has leftist ideas and is not a Marxist or a Leninist. I think that you don't want to describe your perspective as extreme right wing, or fascist, which would explain your constant criticism of democratic ideals, so you've latched onto the notion of some sort of leftist conspiracy, obviously for personal gain.

http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/intervie...anarchism.html

Quote by: rmnunez Chomsky has an agenda and its well documented, goes back to the Vietnam war. He doesn't want to describe his perspective as "socialist" or "Marxist", which would explain his consistent criticism of US foreign policy, so he has latched on to the notion some sort of plutocratic elite controls the US government and through it the destiny of the world -obviously for personal gain.

[Gorgo]

Quote by: Gorgo They have a shrine to chomsky... yes, a real upstanding individual. I don't know why you seem to think any web site that promotes a man that honors mass murderers is reliable."

Ready to apologize for this yet, Mr.Vicchio?

[Lou Minotti]

so he has latched on to the notion some sort of plutocratic elite controls the US government and through it the destiny of the world -obviously for personal gain.

Latched on? I guess I'm just "latched on" to the notion that the world is round, huh?

[Gorgo]

Quote by: Mr.Vicchio First he defended the Pol Pot Tyrrany from the accusations, praised Pol Pot (and Hitler, and Stalin)

Mr.Vicchio, are you ready to apologize for these statements?

[Mr.Vicchio]

Quote by: Gorgo Mr.Vicchio, are you ready to apologize for these statements?

No because he made them, and later, after being slammed for it, tried ot hid ethe truth.

Sorry I won't appoloigize for the truth.