Hypocrisy of Noam Chomsky

[Nie Trink Wasser]

This is a very enlighting read for any critics of Noam Chomsky ....

a very nasty fellow

http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/21/may03/chomsky.htm

Chomsky has been a celebrity radical since the mid-1960s when he made his name as an anti-Vietnam War activist. Although he lost some of his appeal in the late-1970s and 1980s by his defense of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, he has used September 11 to restore his reputation, indeed to surpass his former influence and stature. At seventy-four years of age, he is today the doyen of the American and much of the world’s intellectual left.

...........

In 1980, Chomsky expanded this critique into the book After the Cataclysm, co-authored with his long-time collaborator Edward S. Herman. Ostensibly about Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, the great majority of its content was a defense of the position Chomsky took on the Pol Pot regime. By this time, Chomsky was well aware that something terrible had happened: “The record of atrocities in Cambodia is substantial and often gruesome,” he wrote. “There can be little doubt that the war was followed by an outbreak of violence, massacre and repression.” He mocked the suggestion, however, that the death toll might have reached more than a million and attacked Senator George McGovern’s call for military intervention to halt what McGovern called “a clear case of genocide.”

Instead, Chomsky commended authors who apologized for the Pol Pot regime. He approvingly cited their analyses that the forced march of the population out of Phnom Penh was probably necessitated by the failure of the 1976 rice crop. If this was true, Chomsky wrote, “the evacuation of Phnom Penh, widely denounced at the time and since for its undoubted brutality, may actually have saved many lives.”

 

[svero]

This is a very enlighting read for any critics of Noam Chomsky ....

a very nasty fellow

I don't know too much about Chomsky and Pol Pot. It seems to be the standard argument. Chomsky was wrong about Cambodia so nothing he says is relevent. Bla bla bla. But since you're the one bringing it up maybe you can support some of this argument with a link to articles by Chomsky where he supports the khmer revolution and more specifically where he advocated the killings and torture they eventuallly resorted to so I can read for them myself.

 

[a_unique_person]

Keith Windschuttle himself is a very nasty fellow. For example, his book on the Australian Aboriginies states that the destruction of the Aboriginal culture never happened, and that they were just barbarians who more or less deserved to die out.

Chomsky's basic treatise on Cambodia, that it only occurred because the destabilisation due to American interference in Asia, is not addressed. Just some arguments over the extent of the killings there. Chomsky has apparently not been aware at first how bad these were, and had to revise his view on what happened in that country.

That does not, however, invalidate his initial assesment of the situation, that without the US intervention in the area, the whole disaster probably would not have happened.

 

[Supercharts]

Chomsky?
Bwahaha.
An 'intellectual'?

Chomsky's writings are so anal he could be used as a case for the reviving of Freudian psychology.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

An 'intellectual'?

Yes, he is.
But only in the field of linguistics.
Outside that field you can savely call him an imbecile.

 

[Mr Manifesto]

Keith Windschuttle -as has alredy been pointed out- is the holocaust denier of the 21st century. I doubt Chomsky supported the butchery of Cambodia. He may have made a mistake as to the intentions of Pol Pott but Chomsky has always been a man of peace.

---
Edit

Nie Essen SteirScheiße

 

[Supercharts]

Yes, he is.
But only in the field of linguistics.
Outside that field you can savely call him an imbecile.

Quite correct.

 

[BillyTK]

I found this version of the discussion of "Hanoi Noam" more entertaining.

 

[svero]

Quite correct.

Well I guess you're smarter than Chomsky since you're so quick to judge him. Why don't you wow us with some examples of his stupidity. Instead of posting bwahahaha and a bunch of happy faces show me something he got wrong. Prove it with facts. And don't post some childish bs by another critic. You show me yourself from his writing.

 

[Cleopatra]

The one expert ( Lord Emsworth )says:

An 'intellectual'?
Yes, he is.
But only in the field of linguistics.
Outside that field you can savely call him an imbecile.

And the other expert( Supercharts) replies...

Quite correct.

Can you, gentelmen, inform me on the contribution of Professor Chomsky in the science of linguistics? I always wondered in which field does he specialize.

 

[alancarre]

Yes, he is.
But only in the field of linguistics.
Outside that field you can savely call him an imbecile.

Of course, if you know anything about him, you'd know that he never studied linguistics in a formal manner. The fact that he caused a revolution in the subject had nothing to do with rigourous training in this field (of which he had none). As it is with true intellectuals, he was able to look at an old problem from a new angle, unencombered by dogmatic constrants. Armed with reason, intelligence, and scepticism, he was able to revolutionize the subject. Should this apply to his other ineterests, maybe, maybe not. I find his writing to be very articulate and knowledgeble. I have yet to see a convincing counter argument to any of his observations.

- A

 

[Cleopatra]

Hey!! alancarre

Why you spoiled all the fun?

I wanted Lord Emsworth to tell me in which field Chomsky specializes but you spoiled all the fun by revealing that he hasn't studied linguistics...

Although, I dissagree with most of what Chomsky has written regarding Middle East, I must admit that this man can make you think!

 

[Nie Trink Wasser]

I have yet to see a convincing counter argument to any of his observations.

- A

here's one to start you off :

"..............In Chomsky’s telling, the bi-polar world of the Cold War is viewed as though there were only one pole. In the real world, the Cold War was about America’s effort to organize a democratic coalition against an expansionist empire that conquered and enslaved more than a billion people. It ended, when the empire gave up and the walls that kept its subjects locked in, came tumbling down. In Chomsky’s world, the Soviet empire hardly exists, not a single American action is seen as a response to a Soviet initiative, and the Cold War is "analyzed" as though it had only one side.

This is like writing a history of the Second World War without mentioning Hitler or noticing that the actions of the Axis powers influenced its events. But in Chomsky’s malevolent hands, matters get even worse. If one were to follow the Chomsky method, for example, one would list every problematic act committed by any part or element in the vast coalition attempting to stop Hitler, and would attribute them all to a calculating policy of the United States. One would then provide a report card of these "crimes" as the historical record itself. The list of crimes – the worst acts of which the allies could be accused and the most dishonorable motives they may be said to have acted upon -- would then become the database from which America’s portrait would be drawn. The result inevitably would be the Great Satan of Chomsky’s deranged fantasy life.

In What Uncle Sam Really Wants, Chomsky begins with the fact of America’s emergence from the Second World War. He describes this fact characteristically as the United States having "benefited enormously" from the conflict in contrast to its "industrial rivals" -- omitting in the process any mention of the 250,000 lives America lost, its generous Marshall Plan aid to those same rivals or, for that matter, its victory over Nazi Germany and the Axis powers. In Chomsky’s portrait, America in 1945 is, instead, a wealthy power that profited from others’ misery and is now seeking world domination. "The people who determine American policy were carefully planning how to shape the postwar world," he asserts without evidence. "American planners – from those in the State Department to those on the Council on Foreign Relations (one major channel by which business leaders influence foreign policy) – agreed that the dominance of the United States had to be maintained."

Chomsky never names the actual people who agreed that American policy should be world dominance, nor how they achieved unanimity in deciding to transform a famously isolationist country into a global power. America, in short, has no internal politics that matter. Chomsky does not bother to acknowledge or attempt to explain the powerful strain of isolationism not only in American policy, but in the Republican Party – the party of Wall Street and the Council on Foreign Relations businessmen whom he claims exert such influence on policy. Above all, he does not explain why -- if world domination was really America’s goal in 1945 – Washington disbanded its wartime armies overnight and brought them home. ......"

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=1018

 

[Victor Danilchenko]

Chomsky revolutionized linguistics by introducing the concept of "universal grammar". Whatever else you might accuse him of, his contribution to linguistics is indisputable.

 

[Nie Trink Wasser]

The thread is about Chomsky's POLITICS, not about his resume.

 

[Cleopatra]

...and we are expecting to see what do YOU thing about Chomsky and not what you have read in questionable Media sources

 

[corplinx]

You know, when I'm talking to the woman checking out my groceries at the store, she never says "did you hear what Chomsky said the other day?"

When I'm getting a spot at the gym or playing a pickup game of 21 on their basketball court, nobody asks me "did you hear what chomsky said?"

I think too many people get hung up on Chomsky and the thimble-full of people who agree with him.

It reminds me of Michael Moore's article in the nation a while back about modern liberalism isn't connecting with average joe anymore.

 

[alancarre]

[SNIP]

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=1018

I will get to this... There's more than a few things here, so it might take some time. Needless to say, the article, being entitled: "The Sick Mind of Noam Chomsky" is not exactly what I would call "impartial". Be that as it may, I think it should be fairly easy to discredit the arguments one by one.

Back in a while...
- Alan

 

[Victor Danilchenko]

Cleopatra

...and we are expecting to see what do YOU thing about Chomsky and not what you have read in questionable Media sources

I didn't learn about Chomsky's linguistic contributions in "questionable Media sources" -- I learned about them in grad school when I was doing AI research towards my degree. There are people out there who don't draw their knowledge about science from popular sources alone, you know.

His politics? I sometimes agree with him, more often I disgaree, but never fail to have my thinking challenged and provoked by his ideas.

 

[Cleopatra]

Victor , I wasn't addressing to you but to Nie Trink Wasser

My post is next to his but I will be more clear next time!