Chomsky on America and it's "exceptionalism"

[Hoosiernorm]

Haven't missed much i see

[noddy]

Haven't missed much i see

=]

[Typhoon]

Regardless of Chomsky's views on US exceptionalism,



he does make for a kawaii garden gnome . . .

[Heracleum Persicum]

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Washington Post .. 4 officers say unarmed man had his hands up when police shot him

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John B. Geer stood with his hands on top of the storm door of his Springfield townhouse and calmly said to four Fairfax County police officers with guns pointed right at him: “I don’t want anybody to get shot . . . And I don’t wanna get shot, ’cause I don’t want to die today.”

But as one officer tried to ease Geer through the standoff, another, Officer Adam D. Torres, shot and killed Geer from 17 feet away, telling investigators he saw Geer move his hands to his waist and thought he might be reaching for a weapon, according to newly released documents from the county.

The other three officers, and a lieutenant watching from a distance, said they saw no such thing, the documents show.

..

The other officers contradicted Torres’s story, all agreeing that Geer had his hands above his shoulders, did not move them to his waist and was unarmed when he was shot.

..

The documents also show that Torres was involved in an argument with his wife in the 16 minutes leading up to his arrival at Geer’s home that may have caused him to miss key facts about Geer and the situation at the townhouse. He also did not issue a warning to Geer before he pulled the trigger.

“When the shot happened, his hands were up,” Officer Rodney Barnes, who had been talking to Geer at the moment of the shooting, told investigators that night. “I’m not here to throw [Torres] under the bus or anything like that, but I didn’t see what he saw.”

The documents, which include police investigative reports, transcripts, timelines, photos and dispatcher audio tapes, indicate that Torres said he considered Geer “a credible threat,” because he had placed a holstered gun at his feet at the beginning of the standoff. But the other three officers told investigators they never considered firing at Geer.

“It’s not good,” said Officer David Parker, who was crouching 15 feet behind Torres. “He killed that guy and he didn’t have to,” he told investigators.

But Torres said he thought Geer could have had another weapon hidden in his waist. “It was not accidental,” Torres told investigators. “No. It was justified. I have no doubt about that at all. I don’t feel sorry for shooting the guy at all.”

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[Endovelico]

[Simple Minded]

typical white European picking on the half-black dude minding his own business....

"But Vlad....I've been saying it at least once a week for six years!!!"

[Heracleum Persicum]

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Noam Chomsky on the Roots of American Racism

The America that “black people have always known” is not an attractive one. The first black slaves were brought to the colonies 400 years ago. We cannot allow ourselves to forget that during this long period there have been only a few decades when African-Americans, apart from a few, had some limited possibilities for entering the mainstream of American society.

We also cannot allow ourselves to forget that the hideous slave labor camps of the new “empire of liberty” were a primary source for the wealth and privilege of American society, as well as England and the continent. The industrial revolution was based on cotton, produced primarily in the slave labor camps of the United States.

As is now known, they were highly efficient. Productivity increased even faster than in industry, thanks to the technology of the bullwhip and pistol, and the efficient practice of brutal torture, as Edward E. Baptist demonstrates in his recent study, “The Half Has Never Been Told.” The achievement includes not only the great wealth of the planter aristocracy but also American and British manufacturing, commerce and the financial institutions of modern state capitalism.

It is, or should be, well-known that the United States developed by flatly rejecting the principles of “sound economics” preached to it by the leading economists of the day, and familiar in today’s sober instructions to latecomers in development. Instead, the newly liberated colonies followed the model of England with radical state intervention in the economy, including high tariffs to protect infant industry, first textiles, later steel and others.

There was also another “virtual tariff.” In 1807, President Jefferson signed a bill banning the importation of slaves from abroad. His state of Virginia was the richest and most powerful of the states, and had exhausted its need for slaves. Rather, it was beginning to produce this valuable commodity for the expanding slave territories of the South. Banning import of these cotton-picking machines was thus a considerable boost to the Virginia economy. That was understood. Speaking for the slave importers, Charles Pinckney charged that “Virginia will gain by stopping the importations. Her slaves will rise in value, and she has more than she wants.” And Virginia indeed became a major exporter of slaves to the expanding slave society.

Some of the slave-owners, like Jefferson, appreciated the moral turpitude on which the economy relied. But he feared the liberation of slaves, who have “ten thousand recollections” of the crimes to which they were subjected. Fears that the victims might rise up and take revenge are deeply rooted in American culture, with reverberations to the present.

The Thirteenth Amendment formally ended slavery, but a decade later “slavery by another name” (also the title of an important study by Douglas A. Blackmon) was introduced. Black life was criminalized by overly harsh codes that targeted black people. Soon an even more valuable form of slavery was available for agribusiness, mining, steel — more valuable because the state, not the capitalist, was responsible for sustaining the enslaved labor force, meaning that blacks were arrested without real cause and prisoners were put to work for these business interests. The system provided a major contribution to the rapid industrial development from the late 19th century.

That system remained pretty much in place until World War II led to a need for free labor for the war industry. Then followed a few decades of rapid and relatively egalitarian growth, with the state playing an even more critical role in economic development than before. A black man might get a decent job in a unionized factory, buy a house, send his children to college, along with other opportunities. The civil rights movement opened other doors, though in limited ways. One illustration was the fate of Martin Luther King’s efforts to confront northern racism and develop a movement of the poor, which was effectively blocked.

The neoliberal reaction that set in from the late ‘70s, escalating under Reagan and his successors, hit the poorest and most oppressed sectors of society even more than the large majority, who have suffered relative stagnation or decline while wealth accumulates in very few hands. Reagan’s drug war, deeply racist in conception and execution, initiated a new Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander’s apt term for the revived criminalization of black life, evident in the shocking incarceration rates and the devastating impact on black society.

Reality is of course more complex than any simple recapitulation, but this is, unfortunately, a reasonably accurate first approximation to one of the two founding crimes of American society, alongside of the expulsion or extermination of the indigenous nations and destruction of their complex and rich civilizations.

G.Y.: While Jefferson may have understood the moral turpitude upon which slavery was based, in his “Notes on the State of Virginia,” he says that black people are dull in imagination, inferior in reasoning to whites, and that the male orangutans even prefer black women over their own. These myths, along with the black codes following the civil war, functioned to continue to oppress and police black people. What would you say are the contemporary myths and codes that are enacted to continue to oppress and police black people today?

N.C.: Unfortunately, Jefferson was far from alone. No need to review the shocking racism in otherwise enlightened circles until all too recently. On “contemporary myths and codes,” I would rather defer to the many eloquent voices of those who observe and often experience these bitter residues of a disgraceful past.

Perhaps the most appalling contemporary myth is that none of this happened. The title of Baptist’s book is all too apt, and the aftermath is much too little known and understood.

There is also a common variant of what has sometimes been called “intentional ignorance” of what it is inconvenient to know: “Yes, bad things happened in the past, but let us put all of that behind us and march on to a glorious future, all sharing equally in the rights and opportunities of citizenry.” The appalling statistics of today’s circumstances of African-American life can be confronted by other bitter residues of a shameful past, laments about black cultural inferiority, or worse, forgetting how our wealth and privilege was created in no small part by the centuries of torture and degradation of which we are the beneficiaries and they remain the victims. As for the very partial and hopelessly inadequate compensation that decency would require — that lies somewhere between the memory hole and anathema.

Jefferson, to his credit, at least recognized that the slavery in which he participated was “the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other.” And the Jefferson Memorial in Washington displays his words that “Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever.” Words that should stand in our consciousness alongside of John Quincy Adams’s reflections on the parallel founding crime over centuries, the fate of “that hapless race of native Americans, which we are exterminating with such merciless and perfidious cruelty…among the heinous sins of this nation, for which I believe God will one day bring [it] to judgment.”

What matters is our judgment, too long and too deeply suppressed, and the just reaction to it that is as yet barely contemplated.

Interesting NYT article


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[Heracleum Persicum]

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NYT : 1.5 Million Missing Black Men

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In New York, almost 120,000 black men between the ages of 25 and 54 are missing from everyday life. In Chicago, 45,000 are, and more than 30,000 are missing in Philadelphia. Across the South — from North Charleston, S.C., through Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi and up into Ferguson, Mo. — hundreds of thousands more are missing.

They are missing, largely because of early deaths or because they are behind bars. Remarkably, black women who are 25 to 54 and not in jail outnumber black men in that category by 1.5 million, according to an Upshot analysis. For every 100 black women in this age group living outside of jail, there are only 83 black men. Among whites, the equivalent number is 99, nearly parity.

African-American men have long been more likely to be locked up and more likely to die young, but the scale of the combined toll is nonetheless jarring. It is a measure of the deep disparities that continue to afflict black men — disparities being debated after a recent spate of killings by the police — and the gender gap is itself a further cause of social ills, leaving many communities without enough men to be fathers and husbands.

Perhaps the starkest description of the situation is this: More than one out of every six black men who today should be between 25 and 54 years old have disappeared from daily life.

“The numbers are staggering,” said Becky Pettit, a professor of sociology at the University of Texas.

..

Very interesting article with interesting graphs @ the link .. please read

.

Waiting for Doc to counter with "Iranian woman can not go to Basketball match" ..

Well, Doc, 1,500.000 African Americans are missin

.

[Endovelico]

Noam Chomsky: "The Idea Of A Media Which Does Not Repeat US Propaganda Is Intolerable To American Leaders"
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/20/2015 21:32 -0400
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-04-2 ... erican-lea

Few individuals polarize the public with their opinions, statements and mere presence, like Noam Chomsky. The 86 year old linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, logician, political commentator, social justice activist, and anarcho-syndicalist advocate, has strong opinions (and in some cases, entire schools of thought) on everything from philosophy, to sociology, to linguistics, but he is perhaps best known in recent years for his political activism which has led to death threats due to his staunch and far-reaching criticism of US foreign policy (allegedly the Anti-Defamation League "spied on" Chomsky's appearances).

His broader outlook is a peculiar version of libertarianism (he describes himself as an anacrho-syndicalist), in which he asserts that authority is inherently illegitimate, and that the burden of proof is on those in authority. If this burden can't be met, the authority in question should be dismantled. Authority for its own sake is inherently unjustified. He contends that there is little moral difference between chattel slavery and renting one's self to an owner or "wage slavery." He holds that workers should own and control their workplace.

He is has also repeatedly stated his opposition to ruling elites, among them institutions like the IMF, World Bank, and GATT.

In other words, the present, in which ruling elites (whether the BIS and "Troika) and ubiquitous US intervention in every possible foreign affair (courtesy of a State Department which, as it has now been revealed, had until recently worked on behalf of the highest foreign bidder) determine the fate of the entire world, should provide Chomsky with endless material for contemplation.

Conveniently, overnight we got a glimpse into his current thought process, courtesy of the following extended interview conducted by RT with the famed linguist and anti-establishmentarian, in which topics such as the "weaponization" of media and information, America's paradoxical propaganda machine, the immunity of the US from the set of rules it creates for everyone else (but itself), and America's conversion from a democracy into a plutocracy, as well as many more, are touched upon.

Whether one agrees or disagrees with Chomsky, he always provides a unique and interesting perspective on current (and future) events.

From RT:

GbpOzZzbwHE

While the International Criminal Court investigates and sentences African dictators, any of the crimes the US commits like the invasion of Iraq, which has destabilized an entire region, go unpunished, philosopher Noam Chomsky tells RT.

RT: During a congressional hearing [on April 15, officially titled ‘Confronting Russia’s Weaponization of Information’], House Foreign Affairs Committee chair Ed Royce said, “The Russian media is now dividing societies abroad and, in fact, weaponizing information.” Where is that coming from? Is it a genuine fear or fear of alternative opinions?

Noam Chomsky: He’s talking about the Russian media but if there were any imaginable possibility of honesty, he could be talking about the American media, for which that is correct. Take the New York Times -- the greatest newspaper in the world. Take one example, at the first article that appeared today, that the tentative [nuclear] agreement with Iran was reached. It’s a thinkpiece, by Peter Baker, one of their main analysts. He discusses in it the main reasons to distrust Iran, the crimes of Iran. It’s very interesting to look at. The most interesting one is the charge that Iran is destabilizing the Middle East because it’s supporting militias which have killed American soldiers in Iraq. That’s kind of as if, in 1943, the Nazi press had criticized England because it was destabilizing Europe for supporting partisans who were killing German soldiers. In other words, the assumption is, when the United States invades, it kills a couple hundred thousand people, destroys the country, elicits sectarian conflicts that are now tearing Iraq and the region apart, that’s stabilization. If someone resists that tact, that’s destabilization.

That’s characteristic. The Summit of the Americas is meeting now in Panama. Take a look at the commentary on it here [in the US]. The big question is how much credit Obama will get for his move towards helping Cuba escape from its isolation in the hemisphere. It’s exactly the opposite. The United States is isolated in the hemisphere. You look back at the last hemisphere meeting in Colombia, a US ally. The United States was totally isolated. There were two big issues. One was admitting Cuba into the hemisphere. Everyone wanted it. The US refused, along with Canada. The other was the drug war, which the US insists on, and the Latin American countries who are being seriously harmed by it, they want it significantly modified, decriminalized and so on. And, again, the US was totally isolated. Those were the two main issues.

As for the steps towards Cuba, they’re described as noble gestures. The picture is that we’ve -- exactly as Obama said -- we’ve tried for 50 years to bring freedom, justice, and democracy to Cuba, but our methods have failed, so we might try some other methods to achieve these noble goals. The facts are very clear. This is a free and open society, so we have access to internal documents at an extraordinary level. You can’t claim you don’t know. It’s not like a totalitarian state where there are no records. We know what happened. The Kennedy administration launched a very serious terrorist war against Cuba. It was one of the factors that led to the missile crisis. It was a war that was planned to lead to an invasion in October 1962, which Cuba and Russia presumably knew about. It’s now assumed by scholarship that that’s one of the reasons for the placement of the missiles. That war went on for years. No mention of it is permissible. The only thing you can mention is that there were some attempts to assassinate [Fidel] Castro. And those can be written off as ridiculous CIA shenanigans. But the terrorist war itself was very serious. That was a footnote to it.

The other, of course, was a crushing embargo. We also know the reasons, because they’re stated explicitly in the internal documents. Go back to the early ‘60s, as the State Department explained, the problem with Castro was his successful defiance of US policies that go back to the Monroe Doctrine -- 1823. The Doctrine asserted that the United States has the right to control the hemisphere. They couldn’t implement it at the time, but that’s the Doctrine. And Cuba was successfully defying that Doctrine. Therefore, we have to carry out a terrorist war and crushing embargo that have nothing to do with bringing freedom and justice to the Cubans. And there is no noble gesture, just Obama’s recognition that the United States is practically being thrown out of the hemisphere because of its isolation on this topic.

But you can’t discuss that [in the US]. It’s all public information, nothing secret, all available in public documents, but undiscussable. Like the idea -- and you can’t contemplate the idea -- that when the US invades another country and the other resists, it’s not the resistors who are committing the crime, it’s the invaders. And we, of course, understand that very well when, say, Russia invaded Afghanistan. If somebody resisted it, we don’t say they’re criminals, they are destabilizing Afghanistan. Maybe Pravda said that, I doubt it. But here, it’s normal.

So if the House wants to study the weaponization of the media, they can look right at the front pages of the newspapers that they get every day.

RT: Our network has come repeatedly under attack, even from State secretary John Kerry. Recently, he said, “RT’s influence is growing,” while his very own deputy, Victoria Nuland, said that nobody watches RT in America, which is probably not true. Do you think this is about money? Because we know that the BBG -- the Broadcasting Board of Governors -- has a budget of $750 million as opposed to RT’s $250 million, which has never been a secret. Or is it something else?

NC: I think it’s something else. I don’t think they care about the money. The idea that there should be a network reaching people which does not repeat the US propaganda system is intolerable.

RT: To them.

NC: Yes. That’s normal.

RT: As for US-Russia relations, are we really in Cold War version 2.0?

NC: It’s dangerous. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has a famous doomsday clock. It goes back to the late 1940s. The clock is placed several minutes before “midnight.” Midnight means we’re done, finished. They just moved it two minutes closer to midnight -- three minutes from midnight. That’s the closest it’s been since the early 1980s when there was a major war scare. We now know how serious that war scare was. It wasn’t quite understood at the time, but it was very serious. Now it’s moved that close. One of the reasons is the deterioration in Russia-US relations, which is quite threatening. The other is environmental catastrophe, which we weren’t thinking about then. But, yes, that’s serious.

RT: Is it all because of the Ukrainian crisis?

NC: Partly. It’s also because of other domains in which Russia and the United States don’t see eye to eye. Just as there is a US-Iranian crisis. Everyone in the United States -- every leading commentator, every presidential candidate and so on, recently Jeb Bush -- says Iran is the greatest threat to world peace. That’s repeated over and over.

There’s also another opinion on the matter. Namely, the world’s opinion, and we know what that is because there are polls taken by the leading US polling agencies. The Gallup organization has international polls. And they ask the question, “Which country is the greatest threat to world peace?” The United States is way ahead of anyone else. No other country is even close. But Americans are protected from that. The US media simply refused to print it. This major poll, I think it was December 2013, it was reported by BBC. But not a single word in the major American media. So if the world thinks that, so much for the world. We say Iran is the greatest threat to world peace, therefore that is true. We can repeat it over and over.

The major newspapers in the United States -- the New York Times and the Washington Post -- have recently published op-eds by prominent figures calling for bombing Iran right now. How would we react if Kayhan, say, or Pravda, or any newspaper, published articles by leading figures saying ‘let’s bomb the United States right now’? I mean, there would be a reaction. There would. But if this happens here, it’s perfectly fine. It’s normal.

If we look closely at the conflicts, we can find plenty of problems with both sides. But the way they’re interpreted here is that we’re necessarily right about everything, and if anyone’s in the way, they are wrong about everything. I wouldn’t say there’s no disagreement on that, there’s some. Take for example Ukraine. The standard position here is that it’s all the fault of the Russians, it’s Russian aggression and so on. However, you can read -- not in the mainstream press, but in prominent journals -- different opinions. So in Foreign Affairs, the leading establishment journal, you can read a lead article on the front, the West is responsible for the Ukraine crisis.

RT: The West or particularly the United States?

NC: Well, the West means the United States and everyone else goes along. What’s called the international community in the United States is the United States and anyone who happens to be going along with it. Take, say, for example, the question of Iran’s right to carry out its current nuclear policies, whatever they are. The standard line is that the international community objects to this. Who is the international community? What the United States determines it to be. The latest meeting of non-aligned countries -- the large majority of the world’s population -- the last meeting happened to be in Tehran, where they once again -- they’d done it before -- vigorously endorsed Iran’s right to pursue its nuclear programs in accord with the provisions of the non-proliferation treaty, which allow that. But they’re not part of the international community [to the US]. They may be the majority of the world, but that’s not the international community. Any reader of [George] Orwell would be perfectly familiar with this. But it continues virtually without comment.

RT: If we are to assume that the US is the root of the problem in Ukraine, what is the endgame? What would Washington want out of this? Destroying Russia-Europe ties?

NC: I wouldn’t say it’s just the US. I don’t agree with that. I think it’s more complex. But a large part of the problem is what [John] Mearsheimer [author of the Foreign Affairs piece on Ukraine] described. It goes back to the breakup of the Soviet Union -- roughly 1990. At the time, there were many questions. One question was, what happens to NATO? If you had accepted the propaganda of the past -- since the late 1940s or 1950 -- you would’ve said ‘NATO should disappear.’ NATO was supposed to protect Western Europe from the Russian hordes. Okay, no more Russian hordes, now what happens to NATO? The question of its disappearance didn’t even arise. [Mikhail] Gorbachev made a pretty remarkable proposal. He offered to let Germany be unified and to join NATO, a hostile military alliance. You look at the history of the century, that’s a pretty astonishing move.

There was a quid pro quo, that NATO not expand one inch to the east. That was the phrase that was used in diplomatic interchanges. That meant East Germany. There was no thought of it expanding beyond. Of course, NATO, at once, moved to East Germany. Gorbachev was infuriated, he objected, but he was informed by the United States that this was only a verbal agreement, there was nothing on paper. So, too bad. [President Bill] Clinton came along and expanded NATO to the borders of Russia to, as Mearsheimer points out.

To the current threat to incorporate Ukraine into NATO, it’s a various serious threat that no Russian leader, whoever it is, could easily tolerate. It’s as if Mexico in the 1980s had overthrown the government, and the new government called for joining the Warsaw Pact. It’s inconceivable. So it’s a real problem. Not the whole problem, but part of it.

The Ukrainian parliament, as you know, recently overwhelmingly passed a resolution to move towards joining NATO. That’s pretty serious. Now there is -- I think, anyone who thinks about it, including the negotiators on all sides, knows what a resolution ought to be. Ukraine ought to be neutralized, with a recognition on all sides that it won’t join any hostile military alliance. That’s perfectly feasible, even good for Ukraine. And then steps have to be taken to some kind of devolution of power. You can discuss exactly how much should be done, but the basic outlines are clear. That could be a partial resolution to the crisis, but, unfortunately, there are other voices.

RT: We saw, at the end of last year, without any consent of the United Nations, the US started operations in Syria on ISIS positions. Pretty much the same thing is happening right now in Yemen. Professor, would this mean that international law, as we’ve always known it, is pretty much dead, is pretty much gone, is not used and considered anymore ?

NC: To say that it’s dead implies it was ever alive. Has it ever been alive? Go back to, say, the 1980s. There were two resolutions brought to the UN security council calling on all states to observe international law. They both were vetoed by the United States with the support of Britain and France, its allies. Why? Because the hidden understanding, not expressed, was the intent was to call on the United States to accept the judgment of the world court, which condemned what it called the unlawful use of force by the United States against Nicaragua. It called on the United States to terminate the attack and pay enormous reparations. The US refused. Then came these two UN security council resolutions, which the US vetoed. That tells you what international law is, but we can go much beyond.

International law cannot be enforced against great powers. There’s no enforcement mechanism. Take a look at the International Criminal Court, who has investigated and sentenced African leaders who the US doesn’t like. The major crime of this millennium, certainly, is the US invasion of Iraq. Could that be brought to the international court? I mean, it’s beyond inconceivable. In fact, as you may know, there’s a law in the United States, passed by Congress and accepted by the president, which, in Europe, it’s called the Netherlands Invasion Act. It’s a law that authorizes the president to use force to rescue any American that might be brought to The Hague for trial. Does international law have anything to say about this? Well, it does. Actually international law has something to say about a standard comment made over and over again by Western leaders, by Obama and others, with regard to Iran: ‘All options are open.’ That includes attack, the kind of attack which is called for in the major press. There happens to be a UN charter, which, in Article II, bans the threat or use of force on international affairs. Does anybody care? No. International law is kind of like the United Nations. It can work up to the point where the great powers permit it. Beyond that, unfortunately, it can’t.

RT: Finally, the documentary about you which is about to premiere -- called Requiem for an American Dream. Do you think the American dream is gone?

NC: It’s certainly declined. So the US has close to the lowest social mobility in the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] -- you know, rich countries. If you look at OECD measures of social justice -- accessibility to health care, obvious measures -- the United States ranks near the bottom, I think right next to Turkey. These are serious attacks on what’s called the American dream. It’s still the richest and most powerful country in world, there are extraordinary advantages. In many respects, it’s the most free country in the world, as I’ve already mentioned.

So there’s plenty of positive aspects, but it’s a very serious decline. In fact, even American democracy -- which is presented as a model to the world -- is very remote from democracy. In fact, that’s one of the major topics of academic social-political science, the study of relation between public opinion and public policy, which is pretty easy to study. You see the policy, there’s extensive polling, you know what people’s opinions are. And basically most of the population is disenfranchised. Their representatives pay no attention to their opinion. That’s roughly the lowest three-quarters on the bottom of the income scale. Move up the scale, you get a little more influence. At the top, essentially policy is made. That’s plutocracy, not democracy.

Democracy functions formally: you’re free, I’m free, anyone’s free to express their opinions. I can vote any way I like in the coming election. If I feel like voting Green [Party], I can vote Green. There’s not going to be very much fraud, it’s mostly honest. So the formal trappings of democracy do exist, which is not a small point. But the functioning of democracy has very severely declined.

How much did RT pay Chomsky to say those lies on television?...

[Doc]

Noam Chomsky: "The Idea Of A Media Which Does Not Repeat US Propaganda Is Intolerable To American Leaders"
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/20/2015 21:32 -0400
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-04-2 ... erican-lea

How much did RT pay Chomsky to say those lies on television?...

Apparently quite a lot:

https://www.google.com/#q=Noam+Chomsky+russia+today
"Noam Chomsky russia today"

About 456,000 results (0.53 seconds)

[Typhoon]

No surprise.

Noam Chomsky was the most visible and vocal apologist for Pol Pot and the genocidal Khmer Rouge.

This in a country with a population of about 7 million.

[Endovelico]

Noam Chomsky was the most visible and vocal apologist for Pol Pot and the genocidal Khmer Rouge.

"...in 1993, Chomsky acknowledged the massive scale of the Cambodian genocide in the documentary film Manufacturing Consent. He said, "I mean the great act of genocide in the modern period is Pol Pot, 1975 through 1978 - that atrocity - I think it would be hard to find any example of a comparable outrage and outpouring of fury."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_ ... and_Herman

[Parodite]

Chomsky just wants the US be better than everybody else, what's new.

[Simple Minded]

Chomsky just wants the US be better than everybody else, what's new.

I think it is crucial to the self-esteem of everyone else that we act like we are not better than them, er, uh, I mean that we don't act better than all y'all.

Otherwise, they would feel bad. That just would not be nice of us, not nice at all......

"We" just want you guys to be happy, that's all!

[Typhoon]

Noam Chomsky was the most visible and vocal apologist for Pol Pot and the genocidal Khmer Rouge.

"...in 1993, Chomsky acknowledged the massive scale of the Cambodian genocide in the documentary film Manufacturing Consent. He said, "I mean the great act of genocide in the modern period is Pol Pot, 1975 through 1978 - that atrocity - I think it would be hard to find any example of a comparable outrage and outpouring of fury."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_ ... and_Herman

To little, too late.

[Parodite]

Chomsky just wants the US be better than everybody else, what's new.

I think it is crucial to the self-esteem of everyone else that we act like we are not better than them, er, uh, I mean that we don't act better than all y'all.

Otherwise, they would feel bad. That just would not be nice of us, not nice at all......

"We" just want you guys to be happy, that's all!

And don't forget Jesus also got angry and violent at one point.. throwing around furniture in the Temple! Just so everybody is reminded he was only half-god and i.e. only half-human.

I like a US behaving half-human. Chomsky seems to have transferred his Jewish fetish of wanting to be perfect (he gave up I'm sure) to his chosen USofA. He will be forever disappointed. Now that's a Jewish thing

[Typhoon]

Chomsky just wants the US be better than everybody else, what's new.

I think it is crucial to the self-esteem of everyone else that we act like we are not better than them, er, uh, I mean that we don't act better than all y'all.

Otherwise, they would feel bad. That just would not be nice of us, not nice at all......

"We" just want you guys to be happy, that's all!

And don't forget Jesus also got angry and violent at one point.. throwing around furniture in the Temple! Just so everybody is reminded he was only half-god and i.e. only half-human.

I like a US behaving half-human. Chomsky seems to have transferred his Jewish fetish of wanting to be perfect (he gave up I'm sure) to his chosen USofA. He will be forever disappointed. Now that's a Jewish thing

For a supposedly smart guy, he makes the standard dumb mistake of seeing only his own nation's flaws and being blind to and uncritical of the flaws of others.

Also his linguistics stuff is mostly cult with little, if any, science.

[Parodite]

I like a US behaving half-human. Chomsky seems to have transferred his Jewish fetish of wanting to be perfect (he gave up I'm sure) to his chosen USofA. He will be forever disappointed. Now that's a Jewish thing

For a supposedly smart guy, he makes the standard dumb mistake of seeing only his own nation's flaws and being blind to and uncritical of the flaws of others.

Quite right. It seems that people who operate like that become cheerleaders or cheerloathers because of some ideological attachment and sentimentality.

Also his linguistics stuff is mostly cult with little, if any, science.

Could be and wouldn't be surprised.

[Endovelico]

Also his linguistics stuff is mostly cult with little, if any, science.

Will we ever learn not to speak of things we have absolutely no knowledge of?...

[Typhoon]

Also his linguistics stuff is mostly cult with little, if any, science.

Will we ever learn not to speak of things we have absolutely no knowledge of?...

A Potpourri of Chomskyan Science

Chomsky's linguistic theory stuff is a bunch of assertions, presented as revealed truth, without any empirical evidence.

In this regard, his work is similar to that of Freud.

[Simple Minded]

Also his linguistics stuff is mostly cult with little, if any, science.

Will we ever learn not to speak of things we have absolutely no knowledge of?...

Apparently not. If "we" ever did, the world would be a much less interesting place......

[Simple Minded]

Also his linguistics stuff is mostly cult with little, if any, science.

Will we ever learn not to speak of things we have absolutely no knowledge of?...

A Potpourri of Chomskyan Science

Chomsky's linguistic theory stuff is a bunch of assertions, presented as revealed truth, without any empirical evidence.

In this regard, his work is similar to that of Freud.

and also similar to Fred's opinions......

[Heracleum Persicum]

.


Forcing Black Men Out of Society

.

..

This means that there are only 83 black men living outside of jail for every 100 black women — in striking contrast to the white population, where men and women are about equal in numbers.

This astounding shortfall in black men translates into lower marriage rates, more out-of-wedlock births, a greater risk of poverty for families and, by extension, less stable communities. The missing men should be a source of concern to political leaders and policy makers everywhere.

While the 1.5 million number is startling, it actually understates the severity of the crisis that has befallen African-American men since the collapse of the manufacturing and industrial centers, which was quickly followed by the “war on drugs” and mass imprisonment, which drove up the national prison population more than sevenfold beginning in the 1970s.

In addition to the “missing,” millions more are shut out of society, or are functionally missing, because of the shrinking labor market for low-skilled workers, racial discrimination or sanctions that prevent millions who have criminal convictions from getting all kinds of jobs. At the same time, the surge in imprisonment has further stigmatized blackness itself, so that black men and boys who have never been near a jail now have to fight the presumption of criminality in many aspects of day-to-day life — in encounters with police, in schools, on the streets and on the job.

The data on missing African-American men is not particularly new. Every census for the last 50 years has shown the phenomenon.

..

Joblessness became the norm, creating a “nonworking class,” that lived in segregated areas where most residents could not find jobs or had given up looking. In Chicago, where, Mr. Wilson carried out his research, employers wrote off the poor by not advertising in places where they could see the ads. The situation was so grave in 1996 that he recommended the resurrection of a Works Progress Administration-like strategy, under which the government would provide public employment to every American over 18 who wanted it.

..

In recent months, the many grievous cases of unarmed black men and boys who were shot dead by the police — now routinely captured on video — show how the presumption of criminality, poverty and social isolation threatens lives every day in all corners of this country.

.

Sad, really sad

.

[Parodite]

Blacks come from a disadvantageous position of slavery and segregation fueled by racism. Two things, it seems to me, prolonged their difficulties that are not so much related to racism however:

1. Social housing programs for blacks; well intended but it created disadvantaged ghettos. That in combination with:
2. The US gvt, by keeping drugs illegal, created drug cartels and all the crime associated with drugs. For poor blacks in ghettos drugs not only became a consumer product but also a way to make some money in a hopeless situation.

FBI, DEA etc now have a huge vested interest in maintaining the status quo; they are people with careers, jobs and bills to pay at home.

But this is just my overseas impression and maybe a too crude picture... Nonc?

[Nonc Hilaire]

Blacks come from a disadvantageous position of slavery and segregation fueled by racism. Two things, it seems to me, prolonged their difficulties that are not so much related to racism however:

1. Social housing programs for blacks; well intended but it created disadvantaged ghettos. That in combination with:
2. The US gvt, by keeping drugs illegal, created drug cartels and all the crime associated with drugs. For poor blacks in ghettos drugs not only became a consumer product but also a way to make some money in a hopeless situation.

FBI, DEA etc now have a huge vested interest in maintaining the status quo; they are people with careers, jobs and bills to pay at home.

But this is just my overseas impression and maybe a too crude picture... Nonc?

Not too bad, actually. Add that drugs becme an excellent way to incarcerate good workers in an evil, slavery system of privatized for-profit prisons.