US Savage Imperialism

[georgephillip]

None of whom I listen to. Meanwhile, you fail to notice that those you named are experts in the field of political commentary.

Chomsky's a linguist.

Define "expert".

What Chomsky is as a linguist. Antonym: What Chomsky is discussing geopolitics.

How many are quoted as often as Plato?

Marx?

A thousand years ago, everybody believed the world was flat. Did that make it so?

Palin's an expert in geo-politics and Chomsky isn't?

Why?

 

[georgephillip]

Description of Appeal to Authority

An Appeal to Authority is a fallacy with the following form:

1. Person A is (claimed to be) an authority on subject S.
2. Person A makes claim C about subject S.
3. Therefore, C is true.

This fallacy is committed when the person in question is not a legitimate authority on the subject. More formally, if person A is not qualified to make reliable claims in subject S, then the argument will be fallacious.​

True or False?

"It (the US) was a very racist country all the way through its history, not just anti-black. That was Jefferson's image and the others more or less agreed with it. So it's a settler colonialist society.

"Settler colonialism is far and away the worst kind of imperialism, the most savage kind because it requires eliminating the indigenous population.

"That's not unrelated, I think, to the kind of reflexive U.S. support for Israel—which is also a settler colonial society. Its policies resonate with a sense of American history.

"It's kind of reliving it. It goes beyond that because the early settlers in the U.S. were religious fundamentalists who regarded themselves as the children of Israel, following the divine commandment to settle the promised land and slaughter the Amalekites and so on and so forth. That's right around here, the early settlers in Massachusetts."

Chomsky has published numerous volumns on US foreign policy.

He's far more qualified to his political opinions than you are to judge his political opinions.

Not that that's likely to stop you.

US Savage

If he's so "qualified" for them, how come they're always so egregiously, demonstrably WRONG? Given his track record, if he said, "I am Noam Chomsky", I'd demand documentation, just to be sure.

Is he wrong about the Arab League's 1976 Peace Proposal?

"The fact that the Israel-Palestine conflict grinds on without resolution might appear to be rather strange. For many of the world's conflicts, it is difficult even to conjure up a feasible settlement.

"In this case, it is not only possible, but there is near universal agreement on its basic contours: a two-state settlement along the internationally recognized (pre-June 1967) borders -- with 'minor and mutual modifications,' to adopt official U.S. terminology before Washington departed from the international community in the mid-1970s.

"The basic principles have been accepted by virtually the entire world, including the Arab states (who go on to call for full normalization of relations), the Organization of Islamic States (including Iran), and relevant non-state actors (including Hamas).

"A settlement along these lines was first proposed at the U.N. Security Council in January 1976 by the major Arab states.

"Israel refused to attend the session.

"The U.S. vetoed the resolution, and did so again in 1980. The record at the General Assembly since is similar."

 

[daveman]

What were his contributions? I've never seen any other than his hatred of America.

1. He has figured out how to make an exceptional fortune while living as a self-described ‘anarchist-socialist’ dissident in a capitalist society he has described as a ‘police state.’

a. He claims to be constantly threatened with censorship, while publishing dozens of books.

b. He denounces the Pentagon as the epitome of evil, while making million from his work for the very same institution. As a tenured MIT professor he actually works for the Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT, and same is entirely funded by the Pentagon and a few multinational corporations.

c. His first book, “Syntactic Structures,” was written with grants from the US Army (Signal Corp), the Air Force (Office of Scientific Research, Air Research, and Development Command), and Office of Naval Research.

2. A Professor of Linguistics, Chomsky is vital to the air force and others to improve their “increasingly large investment in so-called ‘command and control’ computer systems” that were being used in Vietnam. Since the computer cannot ‘understand’ English, the commanders’ communications must be translated into a language that the computer can use. Noam Chomsky: Politics or Science?

Gosh. Good thing he "hates hypocrites".

He wouldn't be the first self-loathing leftist.

if I was a leftist, I'd hate myself, too.

 

[daveman]

Define "expert".

What Chomsky is as a linguist. Antonym: What Chomsky is discussing geopolitics.

How many are quoted as often as Plato?

Marx?

A thousand years ago, everybody believed the world was flat. Did that make it so?

Palin's an expert in geo-politics and Chomsky isn't?

Why?

Palin's worked in the real world. Chomsky hasn't.

 

[LordBrownTrout]

That Chomsky operates in academiaville and is funded hugely through government grants should provide sufficient evidence of his irrelevance to society. His leap to somehow combine libertarianism and socialism sends his credibility over the cliff. Personally, I find more substance in a wal mart greeter and that's not a slap at them either.

 

[daveman]

What were his contributions? I've never seen any other than his hatred of America.

1. He has figured out how to make an exceptional fortune while living as a self-described ‘anarchist-socialist’ dissident in a capitalist society he has described as a ‘police state.’

a. He claims to be constantly threatened with censorship, while publishing dozens of books.

b. He denounces the Pentagon as the epitome of evil, while making million from his work for the very same institution. As a tenured MIT professor he actually works for the Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT, and same is entirely funded by the Pentagon and a few multinational corporations.

c. His first book, “Syntactic Structures,” was written with grants from the US Army (Signal Corp), the Air Force (Office of Scientific Research, Air Research, and Development Command), and Office of Naval Research.

2. A Professor of Linguistics, Chomsky is vital to the air force and others to improve their “increasingly large investment in so-called ‘command and control’ computer systems” that were being used in Vietnam. Since the computer cannot ‘understand’ English, the commanders’ communications must be translated into a language that the computer can use. Noam Chomsky: Politics or Science?

George, how long are you going to ignore this? Chomsky is a war profiteer.

George, how long are you going to ignore this? Chomsky is a war profiteer.

 

[Sallow]

That Chomsky operates in academiaville and is funded hugely through government grants should provide sufficient evidence of his irrelevance to society. His leap to somehow combine libertarianism and socialism sends his credibility over the cliff. Personally, I find more substance in a wal mart greeter and that's not a slap at them either.

Some of what he writes is interesting..but he sees a conspiracy under every rock.

It's really to much.

 

[thereisnospoon]

In the beginning, there is Chomsky.

"It's tempting to go back to the beginning.

"The beginning goes pretty far back, but it is useful to think about some aspects of American history that bear directly on current U.S. policy in the Middle East.

"The U.S. is a pretty unusual country in many ways.

"It's maybe the only country in the world that was founded as an empire.

"It was an infant empire—as George Washington called it—and the founding fathers had broad aspirations.

"The most libertarian of them, Thomas Jefferson, thought that this infant empire should spread and become what he called the 'nest' from which the entire continent would be colonized.

"That would get rid of the 'Red,' the Indians as they'd be driven away or exterminated.

"The Blacks would be sent back to Africa when we don't need them anymore and the Latins will be eliminated by a superior race."

Does American history, with its settler colonialist mentality, resonate with US support for Israel's current policies in the occupied territories?

Is today's "Iranian Threat" the latest manifestation of John Quincy Adams's grand strategy of security through expansion, the belief "...that you can't really have security until you control everything"?

oh puuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhllllllllllllllllllllleeeeeeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

 

[georgephillip]

No. I think the North Koreans attacking South Korea..our Allies..was why it occurred.


You don't want death..don't start the fight.

What makes you think "North" Korea started that fight?

History?

The situation escalated into open warfare when North Korean forces invaded South Korea on 25 June 1950.[30] It was the first significant armed conflict of the Cold War.[31]
Korean War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

History usually has at least two sides.

Also from wiki:

"On 8 September 1945, Lt. Gen. John R. Hodge of the United States arrived in Incheon to accept the Japanese surrender south of the 38th parallel.[47]

"Appointed as military governor, General Hodge directly controlled South Korea via the United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK 1945–48).[63]:63

"He established control by restoring to power the key Japanese colonial administrators and their Korean police collaborators.

"The USAMGIK refused to recognise the provisional government of the short-lived People's Republic of Korea (PRK) because he suspected it was communist.

"These policies, voiding popular Korean sovereignty, provoked civil insurrections and guerrilla warfare."

The view from the Left is that the US meddled in Korean affairs for five years by installing a dictator (Syngman Rhee) who spent WWII living in New Jersey.

While Japanese collaborators were being hunted and killed in North Korea, Rhee and his US patrons were installing Japanese officials and their Korean helpers in key posts in the military and police agencies.

Here's another left perspective on who invaded whom?

"On June 25, 1950, the north and the south each claimed the other side had invaded.

"The first reports from U.S. military intelligence were that the south had invaded the north.

"Both sides agreed that the fighting began near the west coast at the Ongjin peninsula, meaning that Pyongyang was a logical target for an invasion by the south, but an invasion by the north there made little sense as it led to a small peninsula and not to Seoul.

"Also on June 25th, both sides announced the capture by the south of the northern city of Haeju, and the U.S. military confirmed that.

"On June 26th, the U.S. ambassador sent a cable confirming a southern advance: 'Northern armor and artillery are withdrawing all along the line.'

"South Korean President Syngman Rhee had been conducting raids of the north for a year and had announced in the spring his intention to invade the north, moving most of his troops to the 38th parallel, the imaginary line along which the north and south had been divided.

"In the north only a third of available troops were positioned near the border.

"Nonetheless, Americans were told that North Korea had attacked South Korea, and had done so at the behest of the Soviet Union as part of a plot to take over the world for communism."

 

[loosecannon]

chomsky's an idiot.

Idiot savant.

Just because you know everything about something does not mean you know a whole lot about anything else.

But Chomsky's big insight (That human grammar seems instinctive, but specific grammars are cultural) seems pretty obvios.

And quite a lot of folks who are very bright, also find themselves going down rabbit holes or through the looking glass when they forget their humanity.

Chomsky, like Kozinsky, is what happens when you combine brilliance with psychosis.

Chomsky may or may not be a brilliant linguist. One assumes, since the government sees fit to give him grant funding. He is also, unfortunately, what Daniel Flynn calls an "intellectual moron", cognitive elites who are led by their ideological obsessions to embrace seriously stupid ideas.

He should have stuck to his own field, and not allowed himself to believe that brilliance in one thing means you're brilliant in everything.

And you are somehow more credible? No I think you have it exactly backwards! And your field is?

 

[loosecannon]

If Chomsky is not talking about applied linguistics, he is just one more bum at the end of the bar.

Except for the fact that he is perhaps the most respected of all American political science scholars.

EVERYBODY who understands Chomsky takes him seriously. So seriously that there are several folks who have made an entire career out of minimizing the impacts of Chomsky's message.

I understand Hitler was very respected in his time, as well. In fact, I understand that a lot of people STILL respect him. Doesn't make him someone I care to admire or quote, but hey, don't let ME stop you.

I'll give you that everybody who understands Chomsky takes him seriously. It's only those who THINK they understand him who take him seriously AND ADMIRE HIM. And you're damned right they try to minimize his impact, much the same way an oncologist tries to minimize the impact of a malignant tumor.

Apparently Chomsky is a threat to your ignorance!

Did you know that Chomsky is a Jew?

 

[loosecannon]

What Chomsky is as a linguist. Antonym: What Chomsky is discussing geopolitics.

A thousand years ago, everybody believed the world was flat. Did that make it so?

Palin's an expert in geo-politics and Chomsky isn't?

Why?

Palin's worked in the real world. Chomsky hasn't.

Palin has only worked in the salmon industry and backwater corners of the globe.

Chomsky is an academic, but there haven't been two other American political scientists of his caliber since his birth.

To brush him and his message off without considering it is proof that you are an ideologue hiding your head in the sand dreadfully afraid of mere ideals.

THINK for God sakes and stop feeling threatened by mere ideals. Esp when they are world class ideas.

Hell nobody loves Karl Marx, but virtually EVERYBODY on the American right is devoutly committed to Marx's ideas!

 

[loosecannon]

1. He has figured out how to make an exceptional fortune while living as a self-described ‘anarchist-socialist’ dissident in a capitalist society he has described as a ‘police state.’

a. He claims to be constantly threatened with censorship, while publishing dozens of books.

b. He denounces the Pentagon as the epitome of evil, while making million from his work for the very same institution. As a tenured MIT professor he actually works for the Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT, and same is entirely funded by the Pentagon and a few multinational corporations.

c. His first book, “Syntactic Structures,” was written with grants from the US Army (Signal Corp), the Air Force (Office of Scientific Research, Air Research, and Development Command), and Office of Naval Research.

2. A Professor of Linguistics, Chomsky is vital to the air force and others to improve their “increasingly large investment in so-called ‘command and control’ computer systems” that were being used in Vietnam. Since the computer cannot ‘understand’ English, the commanders’ communications must be translated into a language that the computer can use. Noam Chomsky: Politics or Science?

George, how long are you going to ignore this? Chomsky is a war profiteer.

George, how long are you going to ignore this? Chomsky is a war profiteer.

MIT is a war profiteer. The pentagon probably just supports his dept because he offers valuable analysis of geopolitics that they want access to.

 

[georgephillip]

That Chomsky operates in academiaville and is funded hugely through government grants should provide sufficient evidence of his irrelevance to society. His leap to somehow combine libertarianism and socialism sends his credibility over the cliff. Personally, I find more substance in a wal mart greeter and that's not a slap at them either.

Oh, yes it is.

Now tell us why you hate Walmart?

The confusion over libertarianism and socialism stems from what "libertarian" meant in Europe and how the same word transformed itself into something entirely different in this country.

Think of Chomsky's version as Left-libertarianism,Left-libertarianism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[loosecannon]

That Chomsky operates in academiaville and is funded hugely through government grants should provide sufficient evidence of his irrelevance to society. His leap to somehow combine libertarianism and socialism sends his credibility over the cliff. Personally, I find more substance in a wal mart greeter and that's not a slap at them either.

Some of what he writes is interesting..but he sees a conspiracy under every rock.

It's really to much.

Conspiracy is your word. But informal conspiracies definitely shade the entire geopolitical world in many, many, many redundant layers.

What do you think power hungry people who aspire to powerful positions do with their lives?

 

[loosecannon]

"Nonetheless, Americans were told that North Korea had attacked South Korea, and had done so at the behest of the Soviet Union as part of a plot to take over the world for communism."

there is a reason why the USA has refused for more than 65 years to sign an armistice with NK and officially end the Second World War. At first it was about re establishing our quarantine around the USSR/Russia and our war against labor unions/"communism". But since the cold war ended it becomes increasingly clear that it was always about empire and keeping nearly 100,000 US troops deployed and armed in the Western Pacific for power projection purposes.

 

[daveman]

Palin's an expert in geo-politics and Chomsky isn't?

Why?

Palin's worked in the real world. Chomsky hasn't.

Palin has only worked in the salmon industry and backwater corners of the globe.

Chomsky is an academic, but there haven't been two other American political scientists of his caliber since his birth.

To brush him and his message off without considering it is proof that you are an ideologue hiding your head in the sand dreadfully afraid of mere ideals.

THINK for God sakes and stop feeling threatened by mere ideals. Esp when they are world class ideas.

What makes you think I haven't considered his message? Are you so simple-minded that you believe anyone who disagrees with him hasn't investigated what he says?

I've read his shit. He's king retard of the America Sucks club. He should stick to linguistics.

Hell nobody loves Karl Marx, but virtually EVERYBODY on the American right is devoutly committed to Marx's ideas!

Ummmm...wrong. Insanely, astoundingly, utterly, universally wrong.

 

[daveman]

George, how long are you going to ignore this? Chomsky is a war profiteer.

George, how long are you going to ignore this? Chomsky is a war profiteer.

MIT is a war profiteer. The pentagon probably just supports his dept because he offers valuable analysis of geopolitics that they want access to.

Why would the Pentagon pay good money to be told that America is the source of all evil in the world?

Idiot.

 

[LordBrownTrout]

That Chomsky operates in academiaville and is funded hugely through government grants should provide sufficient evidence of his irrelevance to society. His leap to somehow combine libertarianism and socialism sends his credibility over the cliff. Personally, I find more substance in a wal mart greeter and that's not a slap at them either.

Oh, yes it is.

Now tell us why you hate Walmart?

The confusion over libertarianism and socialism stems from what "libertarian" meant in Europe and how the same word transformed itself into something entirely different in this country.

Think of Chomsky's version as Left-libertarianism,Left-libertarianism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

No slap at wal mart at all. I shop there for several different things. My disdain is for huge centralized government, corporate welfare and an evergrowing nanny state. The contempt at which our leaders view the constitution is a tragedy. But still, I don't look through the prism with negativity. Classical liberalism, circa late 1700's, US colonies, renders Chomsky's views null.

Why such fascination with Chomsky?

 

[Londoner]

Most of the middle east wants Iran dealt with.

We want Iran to be dangerous enough to justify US intervention in the region, but not so dangerous that they upset the balance of power. By that same token, we don't want a weak Iran -- because vulnerable or failed states have an equally undesirable effect on the balance of power.

Different topic. Here is the sad thing about Republicans when it comes to words like "Empire" and "Imperialism". They unwittingly bought into the Left's 60's jargon, and believe these are bad words. They aren't. My friend, we live in a jungle. Either you bend other nation's over a sofa, or they bend you over a sofa. Either they spill your innocent blood, or you spill their innocent blood. Study history and power vacuums, or biology and food chains: non-violent options don't exist. Resources like oil and precious metals are scarce. If you want to have a great nation -- a nation where your people comprise only 3% of the global population but enjoy over 35% of her resources -- you have to colonize weaker powers and take their natural resources. It's called survival, and it's a beautiful thing when done well -- like Rome, who celebrated war and bloodshed.

Son, the old way of Empire was with guns; the new Empire is done mostly with dollar diplomacy or "structural adjustments", e.g., you get a weaker power to borrow money to fix-up their nation. Then, when they default on the loan, as they always do, you seize their assets. Reagan perfected this. The point of the Cold War was to inflate the Soviet threat in order to pull larger portions of the 3rd world under our "protective" umbrella, that is, the point of the Cold War was to seize global assets on behalf of the great American lifestyle. (It's called survival, son. Be proud of it. I hate to tell you this, but God didn't give the lion claws so he could have a tea party. The lion's power is not maintained by spreading freedom or letting other animals take their fair share of food. Nope. The lion takes what he needs. Grow up son!)

Listen, the real men who run the country have to make tough choices. They know the woman and children back on the homeland can't handle what it takes to turn the pig into the sausage, so they feed the serfs feel-good lies about spreading freedom. It's time you "toughen-up" and join the men. It's time you learn that "Empire" and "Imperialism" and the bloodshed required to run a great nation are not bad things.

Son, geopolitics is contact sport. Own it. Be proud of it.

[Passt: Mark Levine doesn't talk about these things. His job is to protect the women and children from the harsh truth of what men must do to make a great nation. It's time you join the men. Don't be a Lefty weakling who is afraid of Empire and hard power. Don't tremble in front of Power. Be proud of it. Inside the belly of every lion their lies a lamb. Don't be afraid of power son. Don't apologize for it. Don't dress it up in pretty words like freedom. Man-up!]