Germane Chomsky Article

http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20090521.htm
Obama and his ultra, fascist, right wing, American President policies. But, as Steven Colbert put it, "but, he makes the kids like it." This is Noam's key line here: "Small wonder that the President advises us to look forward, not backward -- a convenient doctrine for those who hold the clubs. Those who are beaten by them tend to see the world differently, much to our annoyance."

Obama Seeks Space Arms Ban

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's pledge to seek a worldwide ban on weapons in space marks a dramatic shift in U.S. policy while posing the tricky issue of defining whether a satellite can be a weapon.

Moments after Obama's inauguration last week, the White House website was updated to include policy statements on a range of issues, including a pledge to restore U.S. leadership on space issues and seek a worldwide ban on weapons that interfere with military and commercial satellites.

It also promised to look at threats to U.S. satellites, contingency plans to keep information flowing from them, and what steps are needed to protect spacecraft against attack.

This is just what Noam Chomsky calls for in Failed States.

The Problem With Chomsky?

Interesting......

Porn Bailout?

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Another major American industry is asking for assistance as the global financial crisis continues: Hustler publisher Larry Flynt and Girls Gone Wild CEO Joe Francis said Wednesday they will request that Congress allocate $5 billion for a bailout of the adult entertainment industry.

“The take here is that everyone and their mother want to be bailed out from the banks to the big three,” said Owen Moogan, spokesman for Larry Flynt. “The porn industry has been hurt by the downturn like everyone else and they are going to ask for the $5 billion. Is it the most serious thing in the world? Is it going to make the lives of Americans better if it happens? It is not for them to determine.”

Mr. Chomsky, do you want anything to do with a porn bailout?

Porn is humiliation and degradation of women. It’s a disgraceful activity. I don’t want to be associated with it. Just take a look at the pictures. I mean, women are degraded as vulgar sex objects. That’s not what human beings are. I mean, I don’t even see anything to discuss...As to the fact that it’s some people’s erotica, that’s their problem. That doesn’t mean I want to contribute to it. If they get enjoyment out of the humiliation of women, they have a problem. It’s nothing I want to contribute to.

Chomsky on Anarchism

This is more intelligent than simply "no government" or "violence." Haha, because that seems to be the typical responses I hear when students are asked what anarchists believe in. I recommend his book Chomsky on Anarchism. Btw, I apologize for the poor audio. Enjoy!

Carol Chomsky, dead at 78

"Carol Chomsky, a linguist and education specialist whose work helped illuminate the ways in which language comes to children, died on Friday at her home in Lexington, Mass. She was 78.

The cause was cancer, her sister-in-law Judith Brown Chomsky said.

A nationally recognized authority on the acquisition of spoken and written language, Professor Chomsky was on the faculty of the Harvard Graduate School of Education from 1972 until her retirement in 1997. In retirement, she was a frequent traveling companion of her husband, the linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky, as he delivered his public lectures." - New York Times

Our thoughts are with Noam and his family.

Chomsky on Adam Smith

"I didn't do any research at all on Smith. I just read him. There's no research. Just read it. He's pre-capitalist, a figure of the Enlightenment. What we would call capitalism he despised. People read snippets of Adam Smith, the few phrases they teach in school. Everybody reads the first paragraph of The Wealth of Nations where he talks about how wonderful the division of labor is. But not many people get to the point hundreds of pages later, where he says that division of labor will destroy human beings and turn people into creatures as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human being to be. And therefore in any civilized society the government is going to have to take some measures to prevent division of labor from proceeding to its limits.

He did give an argument for markets, but the argument was that under conditions of perfect liberty, markets will lead to perfect equality. That's the argument for them, because he thought that equality of condition (not just opportunity) is what you should be aiming at. It goes on and on. He gave a devastating critique of what we would call North-South policies. He was talking about England and India. He bitterly condemned the British experiments they were carrying out which were devastating India.

He also made remarks which ought to be truisms about the way states work. He pointed out that its totally senseless to talk about a nation and what we would nowadays call "national interests." He simply observed in passing, because it's so obvious, that in England, which is what he's discussing -- and it was the most democratic society of the day -- the principal architects of policy are the "merchants and manufacturers," and they make certain that their own interests are, in his words, "most peculiarly attended to," no matter what the effect on others, including the people of England who, he argued, suffered from their policies. He didn't have the data to prove it at the time, but he was probably right.

This truism was, a century later, called class analysis, but you don't have to go to Marx to find it. It's very explicit in Adam Smith. It's so obvious that any ten-year-old can see it. So he didn't make a big point of it. He just mentioned it. But that's correct. If you read through his work, he's intelligent. He's a person who was from the Enlightenment. His driving motives were the assumption that people were guided by sympathy and feelings of solidarity and the need for control of their own work, much like other Enlightenment and early Romantic thinkers. He's part of that period, the Scottish Enlightenment.

The version of him that's given today is just ridiculous. But I didn't have to any research to find this out. All you have to do is read. If you're literate, you'll find it out. I did do a little research in the way it's treated, and that's interesting. For example, the University of Chicago, the great bastion of free market economics, etc., etc., published a bicentennial edition of the hero, a scholarly edition with all the footnotes and the introduction by a Nobel Prize winner, George Stigler, a huge index, a real scholarly edition. That's the one I used. It's the best edition. The scholarly framework was very interesting, including Stigler's introduction. It's likely he never opened The Wealth of Nations. Just about everything he said about the book was completely false. I went through a bunch of examples in writing about it, in Year 501 and elsewhere.

But even more interesting in some ways was the index. Adam Smith is very well known for his advocacy of division of labor. Take a look at "division of labor" in the index and there are lots and lots of things listed. But there's one missing, namely his denunciation of division of labor, the one I just cited. That's somehow missing from the index. It goes on like this. I wouldn't call this research because it's ten minutes' work, but if you look at the scholarship, then it's interesting.

I want to be clear about this. There is good Smith scholarship. If you look at the serious Smith scholarship, nothing I'm saying is any surprise to anyone. How could it be? You open the book and you read it and it's staring you right in the face. On the other hand if you look at the myth of Adam Smith, which is the only one we get, the discrepancy between that and the reality is enormous," Noam Chomsky, Class Warfare.

I'll have to read some Smith to find out on my own, but this is definitely intriguing.

Chomsky on Obama's Cabinet Selections

He strikes again!

Chomsky on War Crimes

If you're a Noam Chomsky fan, then you've probably heard this provocative statement plenty of times: "if the standards of the Nuremberg Trials were applied, then every post World War II American president would have been hanged as a war criminal." Here are some of each president's war crimes, according to Chomsky, from Truman to Clinton (this is taken from a 1996 interview with Tom Morello) :

Well, with Truman you could start with, shortly after he entered office there was the bombing of Hiroshima, which maybe one could give an argument for -- well, I don't think so -- but it is almost impossible to give an argument for the bombing of Nagasaki. That was mostly just trying out a new weapon to see if it would work. Then there was an utterly gratuitous bombing, a one thousand plane raid at the end of the war -- right in fact after Japan surrendered -- called the "finale," the grand finale. Then comes, for example, the support for the brutal counter-insurgency campaign in Greece, which killed about 150,000 people to basically restore Nazi collaborators and demolish the resistance. And then we could go on from there.

Eisenhower. The Eisenhower administration, the Truman and Eisenhower administration, the bombings -- whatever you think about the Korean War, and there is a pretty complicated story when you really look at it, but nevertheless the bombings in North Korea in 1951 and 1952 was just an outright war crime. You can read in the Air Force history about how in the Eisenhower years they had nothing left to bomb, everything was flat, so they just bomb dams, which they exalt how wonderful it was to see the water flooding down and killing people and wiping out the crops and so on. Well people were hanged for that, for less than that. They were hanged for opening dikes in Nuremberg. And then again we can proceed with what happened in Guatemala and elsewhere where it was a terrible crime in the Eisenhower years.

Kennedy is not even worth discussing. The invasion in South Vietnam -- Kennedy attacked South Vietnam, outright. In 1961-1962 he sent Air Force to start bombing villages, authorized napalm. Also laid the basis for the huge wave of repression that spread over Latin America with the installation of Neo-Nazi gangsters that were always supported directly by the United States. That went on and in fact picked up under Johnson.

In the Nixon years, for example, the bombing of inner Cambodia in 1973 was a monstrous crime. It was just massacring peasants in inner Cambodia. It isn't much reported here because nobody paid attention, but it was quite a part in helping create the basis for the Khmer Rouge. Well, the CIA estimate is that 600,000 people were killed in the course of those US actions, either directed or actually carried out by the United States.

In the Carter years there were major crimes, for example the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, which happened to start under Ford and led to the nearest thing to genocide since the holocaust, maybe 1/3 or 1/4 of the population has been slaughtered. That was using 90% US arms. In the Carter years, when the Indonesians were actually running out of arms in their attack on this country, Carter actually increased the flow of arms in 1978, which was the worst peak of the slaughter. Carter was backing Somoza and his national guard, openly and with direct military and diplomatic support at a time when they had killed about 40,000 people in the terror of the last days of their regime. Again, that's a sample.

Going on to the Reagan years, its not even a question. In fact the US was condemned by the World Court during the Reagan years for its "unlawful use of force," meaning aggression in Nicaragua. In Central America alone, maybe 200,000 people or so were slaughtered in a very brutal fashion by US run programs. In southern Africa about 1.5 million people were killed and over $60 billion of damage were done according to the UN commission which reviewed it later from 1980 to 1988. That's from South African atrocities that the US was directly supporting. Then, again we could go on. Well Bush, we've already talked about him, but the invasion of Panama for example was simply outright aggression. It was condemned internationally -- the US was able to veto the security counsel condemnations, that doesn't change the fact that they were there.

When we move on to the Clinton years, one of his first acts within a few months was to send missiles to bomb Baghdad. Well, he didn't kill a huge amount of people, only I think 8 or so. But there was absolutely no pretext, there wasn't even a pretext. I mean it was to show what a tough guy he is. In fact the pretext was so ludicrous, it's embarrassing to repeat it. The pretext was that this was self defense against armed attack, because two months earlier there had been a failed attempt by someone who might or might not have been Iraqi, no one knew at the time, to kill Bush or something like that. I mean, it's just ridiculous. About half of military aid and training to Latin America under Clinton was going to Columbia, which has absolutely the worst human rights record in the hemisphere, killing thousands of people in a horrifying fashion. These are all crimes. I don't think it's hard to set up a bill of indictment if somebody wants to.

Now, for post-1996 foreign policy, here are just some war crimes:

Clinton armed and funded vicious dictators in Israel and Turkey. Turkish citizens, particularly suffered through some of the worst tortures known to man.

Well, Bush pretty much goes without saying. I'll just make this simple: the entire War on Terrorism.

So, do I think these rich, white guys should be hanged? No, I don't believe in the death penalty. But, I do believe in social justice, so they should be brought to trial for their crimes, as any other citizen would.

Zack Interviews Noam Part II

Zack interviews Noam Part I

It's funny how this completely contradicts the article on NAFTA we read about today in Business.

Noam Chomsky on Pornography

Noam Chomsky Responds To My Question

Glen:

Mr. Chomsky,

You are the true American's most valuable human resource. You, the king of facts, have transcended the field of American political criticism. Your work against the drug war and America's foreign policy is noble. Having read Manufacturing Consent and a plethora of your interviews on YouTube, I know first hand of your excellence. One question I would like to ask you (if you have the time; I know you are one busy man) concerns mill workers. From what I've heard, you argue that the workers should run them. This might sound like a simplistic analysis, but isn't the job of the worker one of manual labor? Their job, though this may be the case in some instances, is typically one that does not involve heavy thinking. Wouldn't the mill be ultimately more successful if it hires non-physical labor specialists to handle managerial decisions? If applicable, please refer me to a book of yours that gets into this. Thank you and godspeed in your future work, sir!

Regards,
Glen Maganzini
Wakefield Étudiant (wakefieldnews.blogspot.com)

Chomsky:

Thanks for the generous remarks.

For privileged sectors, it's convenient to believe that their special talents and knowledge entitle them to manage the world. To say that the evidence is slim is much too kind. With regard to the case you mention, mill workers typically know much more about production than managers. And there is substantial scholarship on the general matter, including among others economist Stephen Marglin's "Why are there bosses," historian of technology David Noble's work on computer-controlled machine tools, and many other specialized studies.

Can you believe that Yahoo! marked his reply as Spam? He responded to my question 30 minutes after I sent it! What a guy. Not to carp on Noam, but "Why are there bosses" doesn't exist. It's actually called "What Do Bosses Do?

Chomsky = Owned

Jared Israel: I repeat, what crimes has Milosevic committed in Kosovo, Bosnia, Croatia? Date or dates, place or places. Details. Prove the credibility of your sources. I think you just parrot what's written in the mass media.
Noam Chomsky: Apologies. I didn't realize you thought that Milosevic's regime was alone in the world in not having committed many crimes. If you think I'm going to take time to discuss this topic with you, think again. There are serious things to do.
Taken from an e-mail debate.

Come on, Noam, at least give a little evidence to support your argument.

Chomsky on Iraq

Ben, watch this video! I'm sure this won't completely change every opinion you have on the war (and that's a good thing, you should question what you hear!), but I'd at least like you to consider some of the comments made when you do another "Iraq Update" post. Thanks, your pal Chris!

Noam Chomsky On Capitalism

CHOMSKY: This is mostly propaganda, in my opinion. What is called 'capitalism' is basically a system of corporate mercantilism, with huge and largely unaccountable private tyrannies exercising vast control over the economy, political systems, and social and cultural life, operating in close co-operation with powerful states that intervene massively in the domestic economy and international society. That is dramatically true of the United States, contrary to much illusion. The rich and privileged are no more willing to face market discipline than they have been in the past, though they consider it just fine for the general population. Merely to cite a few illustrations, the Reagan administration, which revelled in free market rhetoric, also boasted to the business community that it was the most protectionist in post-war US history - actually more than all others combined. Newt Gingrich, who leads the current crusade, represents a superrich district that receives more federal subsidies than any other suburban region in the country, outside of the federal system itself. The 'conservatives' who are calling for an end to school lunches for hungry children are also demanding an increase in the budget for the Pentagon, which was established in the late 1940s in its current form because - as the business press was kind enough to tell us - high tech industry cannot survive in a pure, competitive, unsubsidized, 'free enterprise' economy, and the government must be its saviour. Without the saviour, Gingrich's constituents would be poor working people (if they were lucky). There would be no computers, electronics generally, aviation industry, metallurgy, automation, etc., etc., right down the list. Anarchists, of all people, should not be taken in by these traditional frauds.

More than ever, libertarian socialist ideas are relevant, and the population is very much open to them. Despite a huge mass of corporate propaganda, outside of educated circles, people still maintain pretty much their traditional attitudes. In the US, for example, more than 80% of the population regard the economic system as inherently unfair and the political system as a fraud, which serves the special interests, not the people. Overwhelming majorities think working people have too little voice in public affairs (the same is true in England), that the government has the responsibility of assisting people in need, that spending for education and health should take precedence over budget-cutting and tax cuts, that the current Republican proposals that are sailing through Congress benefit the rich and harm the general population, and so on. Intellectuals may tell a different story, but it's not all that difficult to find out the facts. - http://www.struggle.ws/rbr/noamrbr2.html

Once again, Noam hits the nail on the head!

Chris Discusses Manufacturing Consent

Part 2

Chris Discusses Manufacturing Consent

Part 1

My apologies for eating and drinking during the video. Tostitos + Power C make for one delectable combination. Enjoy!

America is Not A Democracy

Chomsky gives a nice little history lesson here.

Question:

Q. Why do unemployed, ill-dressed 20 something males with no job prospects always quote Noam Chomsky?

A. Chomsky probably makes them feel better about not paying taxes to a failed state. They should be out robbing banks...silly twenty-something, ill-dressed men.

I was looking up Chomsky on Yahoo! Answers and this is what I came across. I laughed.