Ask Chomsky:
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georgephillip
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Red - White - and - Gold (man Sachs)
Misty
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Chompsky; the hypocrite lying tax sheltering capiltalist.
Noam Chomsky, Closet Capitalist | Hoover Institution
One of the most persistent themes in Noam Chomsky’s work has been class warfare. He has frequently lashed out against the “massive use of tax havens to shift the burden to the general population and away from the rich” and criticized the concentration of wealth in “trusts” by the wealthiest 1 percent.*
But trusts can’t be all bad. After all, Chomsky, with a net worth north of $2,000,000, decided to create one for himself. A few years back he went to Boston’s venerable white-shoe law firm, Palmer and Dodge, and, with the help of a tax attorney specializing in “income-tax planning,” set up an irrevocable trust to protect his assets from Uncle Sam. He named his tax attorney (every socialist radical needs one!) and a daughter as trustees. To the Diane Chomsky Irrevocable Trust (named for another daughter) he has assigned the copyright of several of his books, including multiple international editions.
Chomsky favors the estate tax and massive income redistribution—just not the redistribution of his income. No reason to let radical politics get in the way of sound estate planning.
When I challenged Chomsky about his trust, he suddenly started to sound very bourgeois: “I don’t apologize for putting aside money for my children and grandchildren,” he wrote in one e-mail. Chomsky offered no explanation for why he condemns others who are equally proud of their provision for their children and who try to protect their assets from Uncle Sam. Although he did say that the tax shelter is okay because he and his family are “trying to help suffering people.”
Indeed, Chomsky is rich precisely because he has been such an enormously successful capitalist. Despite the anti-profit rhetoric, like any other corporate capitalist he has turned himself into a brand name. As John Lloyd puts it, writing critically in the lefty New Statesman, Chomsky is among those “open to being ‘commodified’—that is, to being simply one of the many wares of a capitalist media market place, in a way that the badly paid and overworked writers and journalists for the revolutionary parties could rarely be.”
ChomskyÂ’s business works something like this. He gives speeches on college campuses around the country at $12,000 a pop, often dozens of times a year.*
But books are Chomsky’s mainstay, and on the international market he has become a publishing phenomenon. The Chomsky brand means instant sales. As publicist Dana O’Hare of Pluto Press explains: “All we have to do is put Chomsky’s name on a book and it sells out immediately!”
Putting his name on a book should not be confused with writing a book because his most recent volumes are mainly transcriptions of speeches, or interviews that he has conducted over the years, put between covers and sold to the general public. You might call it multi-level marketing for radicals. Chomsky has admitted as much: “If you look at the things I write—articles for Z Magazine, or books for South End Press, or whatever—they are mostly based on talks and meetings and that kind of thing. But I’m kind of a parasite. I mean, I’m living off the activism of others. I’m happy to do it.”
ChomskyÂ’s marketing efforts shortly after September 11 give new meaning to the term war profiteer. In the days after the tragedy, he raised his speaking fee from $9,000 to $12,000 because he was suddenly in greater demand
Radicals used to think of their ideas as weapons; Chomsky sees them as a licensing opportunity.
Chomsky has even gone the extra mile to protect the copyright to some of his material by transferring ownership to his children. Profits from those works will thus be taxed at his childrenÂ’s lower rate. He also extends the length of time that the family is able to hold onto the copyright and protect his intellectual assets.
Corporate America is one of Chomsky’s demons. It’s hard to find anything positive he might say about American business. He paints an ominous vision of America suffering under the “unaccountable and deadly rule of corporations.” He has called corporations “private tyrannies” and declared that they are “just as totalitarian as Bolshevism and fascism.” Capitalism, in his words, is a “grotesque catastrophe.”
But a funny thing happened on the way to the retirement portfolio.
Chomsky, for all of his moral dudgeon against American corporations, finds that they make a pretty good investment. When he made investment decisions for his retirement plan at MIT, he chose not to go with a money market fund or even a government bond fund. Instead, he threw the money into blue chips and invested in the TIAA-CREF stock fund. A look at the stock fund portfolio quickly reveals that it invests in all sorts of businesses that Chomsky says he finds abhorrent: oil companies, military contractors, pharmaceuticals, you name it.
When I asked Chomsky about his investment portfolio he reverted to a “what else can I do?” defense: “Should I live in a cabin in Montana?” he asked. It was a clever rhetorical dodge. Chomsky was declaring that there is simply no way to avoid getting involved in the stock market short of complete withdrawal from the capitalist system. He certainly knows better. There are many alternative funds these days that allow you to invest your money in “green” or “socially responsible” enterprises. They just don’t yield the maximum available return."
Noam Chomsky, Closet Capitalist | Hoover Institution
Noam Chomsky, Closet Capitalist | Hoover Institution
One of the most persistent themes in Noam Chomsky’s work has been class warfare. He has frequently lashed out against the “massive use of tax havens to shift the burden to the general population and away from the rich” and criticized the concentration of wealth in “trusts” by the wealthiest 1 percent.*
But trusts can’t be all bad. After all, Chomsky, with a net worth north of $2,000,000, decided to create one for himself. A few years back he went to Boston’s venerable white-shoe law firm, Palmer and Dodge, and, with the help of a tax attorney specializing in “income-tax planning,” set up an irrevocable trust to protect his assets from Uncle Sam. He named his tax attorney (every socialist radical needs one!) and a daughter as trustees. To the Diane Chomsky Irrevocable Trust (named for another daughter) he has assigned the copyright of several of his books, including multiple international editions.
Chomsky favors the estate tax and massive income redistribution—just not the redistribution of his income. No reason to let radical politics get in the way of sound estate planning.
When I challenged Chomsky about his trust, he suddenly started to sound very bourgeois: “I don’t apologize for putting aside money for my children and grandchildren,” he wrote in one e-mail. Chomsky offered no explanation for why he condemns others who are equally proud of their provision for their children and who try to protect their assets from Uncle Sam. Although he did say that the tax shelter is okay because he and his family are “trying to help suffering people.”
Indeed, Chomsky is rich precisely because he has been such an enormously successful capitalist. Despite the anti-profit rhetoric, like any other corporate capitalist he has turned himself into a brand name. As John Lloyd puts it, writing critically in the lefty New Statesman, Chomsky is among those “open to being ‘commodified’—that is, to being simply one of the many wares of a capitalist media market place, in a way that the badly paid and overworked writers and journalists for the revolutionary parties could rarely be.”
ChomskyÂ’s business works something like this. He gives speeches on college campuses around the country at $12,000 a pop, often dozens of times a year.*
But books are Chomsky’s mainstay, and on the international market he has become a publishing phenomenon. The Chomsky brand means instant sales. As publicist Dana O’Hare of Pluto Press explains: “All we have to do is put Chomsky’s name on a book and it sells out immediately!”
Putting his name on a book should not be confused with writing a book because his most recent volumes are mainly transcriptions of speeches, or interviews that he has conducted over the years, put between covers and sold to the general public. You might call it multi-level marketing for radicals. Chomsky has admitted as much: “If you look at the things I write—articles for Z Magazine, or books for South End Press, or whatever—they are mostly based on talks and meetings and that kind of thing. But I’m kind of a parasite. I mean, I’m living off the activism of others. I’m happy to do it.”
ChomskyÂ’s marketing efforts shortly after September 11 give new meaning to the term war profiteer. In the days after the tragedy, he raised his speaking fee from $9,000 to $12,000 because he was suddenly in greater demand
Radicals used to think of their ideas as weapons; Chomsky sees them as a licensing opportunity.
Chomsky has even gone the extra mile to protect the copyright to some of his material by transferring ownership to his children. Profits from those works will thus be taxed at his childrenÂ’s lower rate. He also extends the length of time that the family is able to hold onto the copyright and protect his intellectual assets.
Corporate America is one of Chomsky’s demons. It’s hard to find anything positive he might say about American business. He paints an ominous vision of America suffering under the “unaccountable and deadly rule of corporations.” He has called corporations “private tyrannies” and declared that they are “just as totalitarian as Bolshevism and fascism.” Capitalism, in his words, is a “grotesque catastrophe.”
But a funny thing happened on the way to the retirement portfolio.
Chomsky, for all of his moral dudgeon against American corporations, finds that they make a pretty good investment. When he made investment decisions for his retirement plan at MIT, he chose not to go with a money market fund or even a government bond fund. Instead, he threw the money into blue chips and invested in the TIAA-CREF stock fund. A look at the stock fund portfolio quickly reveals that it invests in all sorts of businesses that Chomsky says he finds abhorrent: oil companies, military contractors, pharmaceuticals, you name it.
When I asked Chomsky about his investment portfolio he reverted to a “what else can I do?” defense: “Should I live in a cabin in Montana?” he asked. It was a clever rhetorical dodge. Chomsky was declaring that there is simply no way to avoid getting involved in the stock market short of complete withdrawal from the capitalist system. He certainly knows better. There are many alternative funds these days that allow you to invest your money in “green” or “socially responsible” enterprises. They just don’t yield the maximum available return."
Noam Chomsky, Closet Capitalist | Hoover Institution
georgephillip
Diamond Member
- Thread starter
- #24
I think it's accurate to say that in Noam's version of Socialism economic freedom and political freedom would both be enhanced compared to the editions championed by Ronald Reagan.
"I have often thought that if a rational Fascist dictatorship were to exist, then it would choose the American system."--Noam Chomsky
Noam's vision of socialism would extend democracy to tax time. You would receive a ballot along with your tax bill allowing you to tell your government where to spend your tax money.
Reagan's commitment to American freedom stopped just short of risking his own life for it in World War II.
And that has exactly what to do with the US spreading DU around?
Revenge? Is that a principle of America?
Fox? Teaparty?
daveman
Diamond Member
Another writer has something to say:
Expertise in one field does not carry over into other fields.
-- Robert Heinlein
Chomsky's a linguist. That's all. If I want views on linguistics, I'll ask him. Geopolitics? His views aren't any more valuable than my own.
But the left loves him since he lends a veneer of legitimacy to their nonsense.
Expertise in one field does not carry over into other fields.
-- Robert Heinlein
Chomsky's a linguist. That's all. If I want views on linguistics, I'll ask him. Geopolitics? His views aren't any more valuable than my own.
But the left loves him since he lends a veneer of legitimacy to their nonsense.
so are you going to refute the information from the medical journal he cited or stick with ad hominem?
And what was Palins training? What was Reagans? Glenn Beck? Limbaugh?
My training was in electronics, I did however have a very successful career in Telecommunications, Programming and software administration.
I am also sought out for advise on vehicle repair and several other subjects.
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daveman
Diamond Member
I can find no evidence the United States used depleted uranium munitions in Fallujah. A-10 Warthogs, who carry 30mm DU rounds for their cannon, were not used. There was no Iraqi armor present, so the M-1 Abrams tanks there would not have used, or even carried, DU sabot rounds...they would have carried and fired only high-explosive rounds, which are jacketed with steel, not DU. Far more effective against vehicles and personnel. The DU sabot is not an anti-personnel round...it'll go through a guy standing next to you, and you'll just get spattered with bits of guy.
Furthermore, Saddam had 550 tons of yellowcake just 50 miles from Fallujah. If there is indeed higher than normal background radiation around Fallujah, it's Saddam's fault.
Finally, several studies have shown DU to be only a minimal health threat.
So, unless the linguist can prove that the US used DU in Fallujah, I'd say what he presented is pretty much refuted. Of course, none of you Chomsky-worshipers will believe any of this, because you share his hatred of America.
daveman
Diamond Member
They had leadership experience. Both were governors.
Immaterial. I don't cite them as experts in anything, except possibly getting leftists' panties in a bunch.
I'd sooner ask Chomsky what brand of oil he recommends than his opinion on how evil the US is.
And anyone should believe you why? since you brought it up.
BTW was Falluja where we also used White Phosphorous?
Shoo, if one day people wake up to the fact corporate media can only be conservative today, the wingnuts will be lost. Every time I read how media is liberal I wonder what it is they are looking at? Look only at the medical costs, the rising class of poverty, the wage stagnation of the walmart world, the pollution of lands through over development, the crumbing inner city, the lack of work opportunities due to outsourcing, and then watch corporate media for these stories. Good luck.
"The most thought-provoking thing in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking." Martin Heidegger
"The most thought-provoking thing in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking." Martin Heidegger
daveman
Diamond Member
Not saying anyone should. Unlike leftists, I don't believe my opinion is worth any more than anyone else's, except for areas I have direct knowledge, training, and experience. If you want to discuss the relative merits of the BAK-12 versus the BAK-13 aircraft arresting systems, I'd expect you to pay attention to what I had to say, because I have training and experience with both. If you don't have any experience, don't think your opinion is more valid than mine.
Yes. So?
daveman
Diamond Member
Politics is relative. To a Marxist, a socialist is a fundy rethuglican.
Perhaps that's the reason you don't see the media having a leftward bias.
georgephillip
Diamond Member
- Thread starter
- #37
Or maybe the generator mechanic should take his family on a hike through southern Iraq.
You just can't get your mind around the fact that your government kills, maims, and poisons innocent human beings for money.
I thought willieP was banned in civilian areas?
Have you seen firsthand what white phoshphorous does?
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daveman
Diamond Member
"Of course, none of you Chomsky-worshipers will believe any of this, because you share his hatred of America."
Did I call it, or what?
Meanwhile, no one can prove conclusively that DU was used at Fallujah. But since DU is "bad", and America is "bad", what you use instead of logic tells you that the US HAD to have used DU there. Because.
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georgephillip
Diamond Member
- Thread starter
- #40
Chomsky's a linguist like Robert Anson Heinlein was an engineer.
Both are philosophers who might have found common ground discussing Alfred Korzybski's General Semantics.
How many publishers have asked you to write a book on Geopolitics?
How many best sellers on Geopolitics have you already authored?
Chomsky's legitimacy comes from his devotion to moral Universality: If you don't want anyone killing your children for money...don't kill other people's children for money.
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