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Is Noam Chomsky a good source?

I think Chomsky is an excellent source, especially when it comes to the media.

Oftentimes you will read in Truther materials throwaway lines about "media control" and it resembles a kind of cartoonish view where editors of newspapers and broadcasting are "told what to say".

Manufacturing Consent should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand how it is that propaganda functions in Western society. It follows my MO for understanding the world: focusing on systems and institutions instead of individuals.

Where I think Chomsky slips up sometimes is just in coming across as too strident. He's talking about some pretty horrible things: East Timor, the 2 million dead in SE Asia during Vietnam, etc - and I think you can see his emotions coming into play and that does take away from his analysis a bit understandable though his disgust may be. I guess I'm a bit of a stickler for accuracy and prefer sanitized analyses of things so that's my biggest gripe.

And its funny how often the Pol Pot and his free-speech thing for the Holocaust-denying book come up. Both of these criticisms fall apart upon inspection but I guess they've been repeated enough by people who feel threatened by Chomsky's conclusions that they become the "go-tos" for people who want to discredit him.

I wonder if the people up in arms about Cambodia have track records we can check where they criticized Reagan for his role in encouraging Pol Pot (since he was an enemy of communist Vietnam)? The fact is that Chomsky is on record as attributing nearly three quarters of a million deaths to Pol Pot and his killing fields. Its his highlighting of the half-million dead from a brutal and ruthless bombing campaign directly prior to Pol Pot's rule that get American apologists on the defensive.
 
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Chomsky should have chosen the Italian model of media rather than the American. One Word: Silvio Berlusconi. No bigger crook.

Reagan was supporting Not the Khmer Rouge, but a different army that were Sihanouk Loyalists. They may have had affiliations with the KR but weren't KR themselves

Pol Pot was long gone and the Khmer rouge were splintering at the time.

Besides, Chomsky has been proven wrong over the Balkans and ran apologia fro the Bosnian serb military.

http://www.glypx.com/balkanwitness/Chomsky-Norris.htm

As well as that, he got shredded by Hitchens and casey over his 9/11 comparison to an airstrike on a chemical plant in Sudan
 
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NWO, still no defense of your other points/accusations?

NWO Sentryman said:
Besides, Chomsky has been proven wrong over the Balkans and ran apologia fro the Bosnian serb military.

http://www.glypx.com/balkanwitness/Chomsky-Norris.htm
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From your source (bolding mine):

Noam Chomsky is a liar.

For example, Noam Chomsky says:

On the NATO Bombing of Yugoslavia, Noam Chomsky interviewed by Danilo Mandic: Director of Communications [for Clinton Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott], John Norris.... [T]ake a look on John Norris's book and what he says is that the real purpose of the war had nothing to do with concern for Kosovar Albanians. It was because Serbia was not carrying out the required social and economic reforms, meaning it was the last corner of Europe which had not subordinated itself to the US-run neo-liberal programs, so therefore it had to be eliminated. That's from the highest level...

Here's the passage from John Norris (2005), Collision Course: NATO, Russia, and Kosovo (New York: Praeger), that Chomsky is mis-citing, p. xxii ff.:

...
It was Yugoslavia's resistance to the broader trends of political and economic reform--not the plight of the Kosovar Albanians--that best explains NATO's war.
...
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(bolding mine)
lol :covereyes:dig:

You have bigger things to worry about than whether Noam Chomsky is a good source.
 
NWO Sentryman said:
http://www.glypx.com/BalkanWitness/Chomsky-NewStatesman-Watson.htm
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Once again you respond by posting links and saying nothing. Unbelievable.

Besides you are just parroting the Michael Parenti Line that Yugoslavia could ahve been saved. It's collapse was inevitable long before tito's death.
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Uhhh what? When did I say anything about Yugoslavia? All I did was show that your source owned itself.

Read the chomsky articles.

http://www.glypx.com/BalkanWitness/Articles-deniers.htm
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I'm certainly not going to read more articles from the same awful source or from any of your other awful sources. If you have a point to make make it yourself.
 
Norris answers the point specifically:
Having seen the repeated use, and frankly misuse, of this particular passage from by book by Noam Chomsky, I am happy to weigh in to set the record straight. I agree with Strobe that your authors have it just plain wrong. If one reads the analysis I present in my book, including the longer passage from which the quote is directly pulled, it is clear that I am in no way arguing that "market forces" drove the war. In making the case that Serbia was at odds with the broader trends in Europe, I argued that the western powers had gotten fed up with Milosevic for reasons that stretched back to the war in Bosnia, Srebrenica, the brutal treatment of political opposition and numerous other outrages. The broader trends sweeping Europe were increasing respect for the rule of law, fulfillment of basic standards of human rights and yes, economic integration, but the economic imperatives for any conflict with Kosovo were never raised by any senior official anywhere in the book or any of my research.


For whatever reasons, Mr. Chomsky seems simply unwilling to accept that there were justifiable humanitarian reasons for the conflict in Kosovo. That is certainly his prerogative, but I would greatly appreciate it if he no longer quoted my book both selectively and out of context to advance his polemic.
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Chomsky here is clearly dishonest.
 
PixyMisa said:
....Capitalism is the "natural" evolutionary outcome, and communism a clear dead end....
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This absolutism argument can easily be challenged. We are a gregarious species. We clearly evolved with altruism and cooperation traits benefiting the group.

On the other hand, selfish aggression has its moments of success as well.

Both traits would appear to have been naturally selected.

A combination of capitalism with some socialism would seem to me to be the evidence supported ideal system of cultural interaction. I don't want police, fire, or military to be privatized. Education, medical services, and utilities using combined capitalist and socialist systems such as public regulation of private systems provides is one solution in this area.

Certain products are bast produced under a competitive capitalist system such as cars and computers.


Drawing knee jerk conclusions about the best system means people opt for their image of that system rather than the actual system which would be apparent if only people would look past their black and white images.
 
skeptigirl said:
This absolutism argument can easily be challenged. We are a gregarious species. We clearly evolved with altruism and cooperation traits benefiting the group.

On the other hand, selfish aggression has its moments of success as well.

Both traits would appear to have been naturally selected.

A combination of capitalism with some socialism would seem to me to be the evidence supported ideal system of cultural interaction. I don't want police, fire, or military to be privatized. Education, medical services, and utilities using combined capitalist and socialist systems such as public regulation of private systems provides is one solution in this area.

Certain products are bast produced under a competitive capitalist system such as cars and computers.

Drawing knee jerk conclusions about the best system means people opt for their image of that system rather than the actual system which would be apparent if only people would look past their black and white images.
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I agree, though you're drawing a broader point than I was. Specifically in terms of economic efficiency, capitalism will always beat socialism, and in large economies (a million people or more) the difference becomes enormous. There's no "evolutionary path" from capitalism to socialism, because socialism is less well adapted to survive.

That doesn't necessarily mean that in all respects capitalism is the best way to deliver all goods and services; it's sometimes impractical (or has been, historically) or prone to specific failures (e.g. tragedy of the commons, positive feedback cycles, perverse incentives). Mind you, most of those flaws can be found in socialism too - just not always in the same circumstances, which is why leavening capitalism with a little socialism does seem to work pretty well.
 
PixyMisa said:
No, you merely demonstrated the same quote-out-of-context deceit that Chomsky is guilty of.
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I "demonstrated deceit"? Actually if you read the whole paragraph it reinforces Chomsky's interpretation if anything:

"NATO's large membership and consensus style may cause endless headaches for military planners, but it is also why joining NATO is appealing to nations across central and eastern Europe. Nations from Albania to Ukraine want in the western club. The gravitational pull of the community of western democracies highlights why Milosevic's Yugoslavia had become such an anachronism. As nations throughout the region sought to reform their economies, mitigate ethnic tensions, and broaden civil society, Belgrade seemed to delight in continually moving in the opposite direction. It is small wonder NATO and Yugoslavia ended up on a collision course. It was Yugoslavia's resistance to the broader trends of political and economic reform--not the plight of the Kosovar Albanians--that best explains NATO's war. Milosevic had been a burr in the side of the transatlantic community for so long that the United States felt that he would only respond to military pressure. Slobodan Milosevic's repeated transgressions ran directly counter to the vision of a Europe 'whole and free,' and challenged the very value of NATO's continued existence."

What's your interpretation?

ETA: The alleged "lie" in question:

"Noam Chomsky is a liar.

For example, Noam Chomsky says:

'On the NATO Bombing of Yugoslavia, Noam Chomsky interviewed by Danilo Mandic: Director of Communications [for Clinton Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott], John Norris.... [T]ake a look on John Norris's book and what he says is that the real purpose of the war had nothing to do with concern for Kosovar Albanians. It was because Serbia was not carrying out the required social and economic reforms, meaning it was the last corner of Europe which had not subordinated itself to the US-run neo-liberal programs, so therefore it had to be eliminated. That's from the highest level...'"
 
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cornsail said:
I "demonstrated deceit"?
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Yes.

Actually if you read the whole paragraph it reinforces Chomsky's interpretation if anything:
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Keep reading. You're still quoting out of context.

What's your interpretation?
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It's background, which Chomsky is trying to represent as the whole of the argument, which is patently false and deliberately dishonest. Chomsky's premises are false, his conclusions are false, and his methods deceitful.

ETA: The alleged "lie" in question:

"Noam Chomsky is a liar.

For example, Noam Chomsky says:

'On the NATO Bombing of Yugoslavia, Noam Chomsky interviewed by Danilo Mandic: Director of Communications [for Clinton Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott], John Norris.... [T]ake a look on John Norris's book and what he says is that the real purpose of the war had nothing to do with concern for Kosovar Albanians. It was because Serbia was not carrying out the required social and economic reforms, meaning it was the last corner of Europe which had not subordinated itself to the US-run neo-liberal programs, so therefore it had to be eliminated. That's from the highest level...'"
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Yes, Chomsky is a liar. There's more than one way to tell a lie.
 
You'll have to do better than that. Tell me what the real 'whole of the argument' is and quote the specific text which shows that I'm misinterpreting that paragraph.
 
I was citing articles by people who specialise in the history of the former yugoslavia.

I was citing War Crimes Prosecutor Marko Atilla Hoare.

I was making the point that chomsky is an unreliable source on the former yugoslavia.
 
PixyMisa said:
I agree, though you're drawing a broader point than I was. Specifically in terms of economic efficiency, capitalism will always beat socialism, and in large economies (a million people or more) the difference becomes enormous. There's no "evolutionary path" from capitalism to socialism, because socialism is less well adapted to survive.

That doesn't necessarily mean that in all respects capitalism is the best way to deliver all goods and services; it's sometimes impractical (or has been, historically) or prone to specific failures (e.g. tragedy of the commons, positive feedback cycles, perverse incentives). Mind you, most of those flaws can be found in socialism too - just not always in the same circumstances, which is why leavening capitalism with a little socialism does seem to work pretty well.
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You are confusing two concepts here, economic efficiency and survival adaptation. The two are not equivalent.

What I'm saying is you are better off looking at the specific product or service to determine which economic model is most beneficial for survival (IE natural selection).
 
NWO Sentryman said:
I was citing articles by people who specialise in the history of the former yugoslavia.

I was citing War Crimes Prosecutor Marko Atilla Hoare.

I was making the point that chomsky is an unreliable source on the former yugoslavia.
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It appears to me that you are having a hard time determining which of Chomsky's statements are about facts, and which are his opinions. When you don't agree with his opinions, you report that Chomsky's facts are erroneous.
 
skeptigirl said:
You are confusing two concepts here, economic efficiency and survival adaptation. The two are not equivalent.
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For economic systems, they are equivalent.

What I'm saying is you are better off looking at the specific product or service to determine which economic model is most beneficial for survival (IE natural selection).
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Well, there's one thing we know: It's never going to be communism, unless you classify "crushing poverty" and "mass starvation" as products or services.
 
skeptigirl said:
It appears to me that you are having a hard time determining which of Chomsky's statements are about facts, and which are his opinions. When you don't agree with his opinions, you report that Chomsky's facts are erroneous.
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It's clear that Chomsky is distorting the facts when he quoted Norris. It's not an error, it's obviously deliberate.
 
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