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Is Noam Chomsky a good source?

well, what am i supposed to say? That the US are a bunch of babykillers who do things only for the sake of being evil.

Still, if the US prevents a Mao or Stalin coming to power, that is a sign of benevolence.
 
cornsail said:
No, just apply your own standards to yourself.
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I know the US has done some pretty nasty stuff in the past (Supporting Suharto, fouling up in Vietnam, shady things done by the CIA such as GLADIO and Paperclip), but overall, Chosmky presents a very distorted worldview, such as saying the US Committed genocide in Vietnam, rewards torture, was convicted for international terrorism in the ICJ (Even though the ICJ ruling itself never said the words "International Terrorism" or "Terrorism")

Chomsky is a very cunning man. He doesn't necessarily lie, but he often equivocates or distort the facts to suit his worldview. He plays semantics in a way that is way beyond our comprehension. It's kinda like Alex Jones. Alex Jones goes on and on about MSM reports, declassified documents. Remember his "Clown Goblin Creature"?
 
Chomsky has a biased worldview, sure. I don't think any author can escape that. I also think it's an okay reason not to like him or be attracted to his work. Scrounging every bit of dirt you can find on him using poor sources is hypocritical though.

If you're skeptical of declassified document claims then you can look them up your self to see whether they're accurate.

There is no comparison to Alex Jones who lies all over the place and has no scholarly training or respectable publications.
 
cornsail said:
Chomsky has a biased worldview, sure. I don't think any author can escape that. I also think it's an okay reason not to like him or be attracted to his work. Scrounging every bit of dirt you can find on him using poor sources is hypocritical though.

If you're skeptical of declassified document claims then you can look them up your self to see whether they're accurate.

There is no comparison to Alex Jones who lies all over the place and has no scholarly training or respectable publications.
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Chomsky usually writes with an axe to grind, damaging his credibility.

Chomsky goes on and on about the declassified record, but has rarely named specific documents to look up.

There are comparisons between the two:

Both make vague references to the declassified record

Both believe in some cabal secretly ruling the world

both believe said cabal engineered vietnam and iraq wars
 
NWO Sentryman said:
Chomsky usually writes with an axe to grind, damaging his credibility.
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More not living up to your own standards since you are very obviously doing this. What do you think his beef is exactly?

Chomsky goes on and on about the declassified record, but has rarely named specific documents to look up.
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Are you sure?

Both believe in some cabal secretly ruling the world
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Wrong.

both believe said cabal engineered vietnam and iraq wars
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Wrong.
 
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Childlike Empress said:
He doesn't play semantics at all. By his profession he uses words in their original meaning. And he insists on one human death - one count, regardless of them being US citizens or not.
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he does use semantics to equivocate, exxagerate etc.

Chomsky's beef was vietnam, which then expanded to various areas of US policy

I'd like to see the "declassified records" chomsky refers to. while he does name northwoods and mongoose etc. this gives him a veneer of invulnerability as people who look at the documents and go tl;dr think he's always right.

"Manufacturing Consent" talked about this cabal and about how they controlled the media and the thought of the nation. Alex jones rails about Corporate media and talks about the "New World Order" and their use of media

Chomsky said the GOP and DEM were the same party. Alex jones rails about they are "Two sides of the coin"

Finally, Chomsky refers to Obama as a Puppet. Alex Jones does as well.

Chomsky said the cabal wanted a vietnam war, as well as an iraq war, namely for profit and control. Ditto Alex Jones.
 
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For those who think he's just anti-American, a couple quotes for perspective. :)

"There's nothing nice that you can say about any of [the Arab countries]."

"Canada became the per capita largest war exporter, trying to make as much money as it could from the murder of people in Indochina. In fact, I'd suggest that you look back at the comment by a well known and respected Canadian diplomat, I think his name was John Hughes, some years ago, who defined what he called the Canadian idea, namely "we uphold our principles but we find a way around them". Well, that's pretty accurate. And Canada is not unique in this respect, maybe a little more hypocritical."

"France is doing some really vicious things there, in fact they're just wiping out islands because they want them for nuclear tests. And when the socialist government in France is asked, "Why to do this?", they say, "Well look, we have to have nuclear tests." Well, if you have to have nuclear tests, why not have them in southern France? [audience laughter] Why have them in some island in the Pacific? Well, the answer to that is clear, after all they're just a bunch of little brown people or something. But you can't say that exactly, especially if you're a socialist, so something else is said."
 
NWO Sentryman said:
"Manufacturing Consent" talked about this cabal and about how they controlled the media and the thought of the nation.
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The Propaganda Model is NOT a conspiracy theory. You really should start researching for yourself.

Co-Author Edward Herman:

In retrospect, perhaps we should have made it clearer that the propaganda model was about media behavior and performance, with uncertain and variable effects. Maybe we should have spelled out in more detail the contesting forces both within and outside the media and the conditions under which these are likely to be influential. But we made these points, and it is quite possible that nothing we could have done would have prevented our being labeled conspiracy theorists, rigid determinists, and deniers of the possibility that people can resist (even as we called for resistance).
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NWO Sentryman said:
Chomsky is a very cunning man. He doesn't necessarily lie, but he often equivocates or distort the facts to suit his worldview. He plays semantics in a way that is way beyond our comprehension. It's kinda like Alex Jones. Alex Jones goes on and on about MSM reports, declassified documents. Remember his "Clown Goblin Creature"?
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Though Chomsky is a little brighter than Jones, not to mention more coherent.
 
From Herman's "retrospective" linked above:

Edward Herman said:
We explained in Manufacturing Consent that critical analyses like ours would inevitably elicit cries of conspiracy theory, and in a futile effort to prevent this we devoted several pages of the preface to an explicit rejection of conspiracy and an attempt to show that the propaganda model is best described as a 'guided market system.' Mainstream critics still made the charge, partly because they are too lazy to read a complex work, partly because they know that falsely accusing a radical critique of conspiracy theory won't cost them anything, and partly because of their superficial assumption that, as the media comprise thousands of 'independent' journalists and companies, any finding that they follow a 'party line' that serves the state must rest on an assumed conspiracy. (In fact, it can result from a widespread gullible acceptance of official handouts, common internalized beliefs, common policies established from above within the organizations based on ideology and/or interests, and fear of reprisal for critical analyses from within the organization or from the outside.) The apologists can't abide the notion that institutional factors can cause a 'free' media to act like lemmings in jointly disseminating false and even silly propaganda; such a charge must assume a conspiracy.
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gtc said:
So he is not just anti-American.
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Wrong. He is not even anti-american, nor is he anti-Canadian (a bizarre concept to begin with) or anti-french.

He thinks the very concept of "anti-american" is bankrupt:

CHOMSKY: The concept "anti-American" is an interesting one. The counterpart is used only in totalitarian states or military dictatorships, something I wrote about many years ago (see my book Letters from Lexington). Thus, in the old Soviet Union, dissidents were condemned as "anti-Soviet." That's a natural usage among people with deeply rooted totalitarian instincts, which identify state policy with the society, the people, the culture. In contrast, people with even the slightest concept of democracy treat such notions with ridicule and contempt. Suppose someone in Italy who criticizes Italian state policy were condemned as "anti-Italian." It would be regarded as too ridiculous even to merit laughter. Maybe under Mussolini, but surely not otherwise.

Actually the concept has earlier origins. It was used in the Bible by King Ahab, the epitome of evil, to condemn those who sought justice as "anti-Israel" ("ocher Yisrael," in the original Hebrew, roughly "hater of Israel," or "disturber of Israel"). His specific target was Elijah.

It's interesting to see the tradition in which the people you refer to choose to place themselves. The idea of leaving America because one opposes state policy is another reflection of deep totalitarian commitments. Solzhenitsyn, for example, was forced to leave Russia, against his will, by people with beliefs very much like those you are quoting.​
 
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Well I happen to agree with it. The idea that Chomsky is "anti-american" is really quite bizarre, given he's american, all his friends and loved ones are - and the fact he's built his whole life in the country.

Its probably the most retarded criticism of Chomsky out there.
 
This is my first message to this forum though I've been reading here off and on for a long time. Some knowledgeable insightful people. But there is the inevitable creeping in of the willfully uniformed with exes to grind.

I know more about how Chomsky really feels about his pronouncements through sources I won't go into.

My analysis with the benefit of some extra input. Chomsky is of course a brilliant guy. Very much a product of the American Jewish liberal toerant to a fault anti-war mindset of his day.

As an academic he has seen himself increasingly marginalized by his peers.
But as a political thinker, on the pop culture end of the spectrum, he's a superstar. Every pronouncement, every published sentence, every interview throwaway remark, is carefully analyzed and meaning extracted.

Now Chomsky, as sagacious as he may be, like most of us, forms opinions on the fly. Sometimes he thinks something is the case based on current info on a certain day - but later he sees things in a different light.

To his increasing vexation he is called upon to justify statements he has made in the past, even though his evaluations have moved on.

Unfortunately even someone as self-aware as Chomsky can succumb to the late in life attained role of guru or wise old man. And he runs with it.

So we more and more see present day Chomsky justifying what Chomsky of the past has said. I'm told his personal views are somewhatdifferent these days form those of the Noam Chomsky of ten, twenty, or thirty years ago.

I'll leave it at that with just the reminder that Chomsky finds himself in an intellectually compromising feedback loop with his faithful audiences. Something he himself hadn't anticipated.

M
 
Praktik said:
Well I happen to agree with it. The idea that Chomsky is "anti-american" is really quite bizarre, given he's american, all his friends and loved ones are - and the fact he's built his whole life in the country.
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Some of his best friends are American!
 
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