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Post by
donnymurph
Would you say that your "handiwork" is quite well developed?
Post by
Patty
Would you say that your "handiwork" is quite well developed?
No comment.
Post by
gamerunknown
Sorry MyTie, went out with a friend Saturday and then it was my brother's communion yesterday.
Your cites fail to back up your central thesis. I was
very specific
, if a little agrammatical.
So MyTie want to come up with cites where Chomsky has praised a dictator or said that the US can't invade a country for performing actions the US did historically?
I suppose that should be "had". That comment was based on rather generous interpretations of what you said
here
and
here
.
Your post fails to meet that criterion from the start with the democratically elected Chavez. The second post purporting that Chomsky minimises the brutality of Pol Pot mentions two quotes from Chomsky (or possibly Herman, as the text was coauthored) out of context. The first is whether deaths due to starvation can be attributed to the authorities. There was no
mens rea
- the intention was not to cause the death of the citizens. In fact, the crop failure in part was due to US military action which destroyed crops and livestock in Cambodia. So I think it's a valid question. He raises this issue when discussing atomic bombing and whether it'd be justified in the second world war to bomb London to prevent starvation and famine in India. The second asks why the population acquiesced if such a movement did not have popular support, which is rather trite, but lacks context. I'd need to have the book to hand to comment further. Neither of those statements show that he thinks that a dictator is best.
The third link provides one quote from Chomsky without reference to publication or date, merely noting that it was in the 70s: presumably when the death toll was in the thousands. They note he recanted that figure later (when the death toll rose) without sourcing his later contentions. Not to mention that every source notes that the majority of the deaths were from starvation rather than executions. Chomsky compares Cambodia and East Timor in more detail
here
.
Your fourth link has this:
China is an important example of a new society in which very interesting and positive things happened at the local level, in which a good deal of the collectivization and communization was really based on mass participation and took place after a level of understanding had been reached in the peasantry that led to this next step
Which is precisely the opposite of what you claimed he said. He was praising mass participation and local autonomy, not authoritarian imposition of programs.
More chilling is this quote:
If it were true that the consequences of not using terror would be that the peasantry in Vietnam would continue to live in the state of the peasantry of the Philippines, then I think the use of terror would be justified
Which is a rationalisation of the use of terror in order to achieve political goals and a view which he has hopefully since recanted.
The article also says this: "the very collectivization he endorsed was the principal cause of this famine". I don't think so: sharing meagre resources does not lead to famine. The particular form this collectivisation took probably did, as it became clear that it was an authoritarian agrarian reform with no recourse to feedback. Amartya Sen has given a cogent argument that famines are caused by a lack of democratic accountability. Chomsky discusses the lack of accountability in the
USSR here too
.
As for his support of the right for holocaust deniers to publish, I assumed that'd be something you're in favour of? I think his and Finkelstein's support for academic freedom in that respect ought to be lauded. They're both Hebrew speaking Jewish scholars yet they support the right of people to come to conclusions which are repugnant to them based on their research.
Finkelstein discusses a tangent of that
here
and Chomsky discusses it in detail
here
.
Sorry about the facebook thing by the way. I assumed since she was using a public channel of communication (I could see her posts as she was a friend of a friend) she wasn't wary of being associated with her posts. There are options to keep posts relatively segregated from the public and all personal information entered onto the site is rendered over to Zuckerberg anyway.
Edit: Missed linking
this
. Chomsky cited the book about a favorable picture not in defence of the policies of the Khmer Rouge, but in order to demonstrate the difference in reporting on the accounts by the media. While it's unfortunate he criticised witness testimony, his concerns over fabrication were well grounded in some instances. He also discusses charges
here
.
Post by
Patty
Even so, it's a difference between friends of friends seeing things and then people who they don't even have any form of mutual connection to seeing things. If this was like 4chan or reddit or any other internet cesspit she would have been trolled hard, I'd imagine.
Post by
gamerunknown
Yeah, that's why I posted it here. I expected, perhaps, light joshing at me for having thin skin, not recriminations against her. She's also the one person I've met that's further to the left than me politically, which I was going to bring up.
Post by
Azazel
Goodmorning.
Post by
322702
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
MyTie
gamer-
Well worded reply!
I've got to write my sermon for church, go out to lunch, get new shoes, give an evening sermon, go to bed, then head back to work....
I've got no time to come up with such a great reply, so bear with me on this completely paraphrased debacle:
Cambodia cannot be excused completely due to outside forces. China's famine was largely avoidable, but happened due to inept management, and could have been mitigated if not for naraccistic cover up by the government.
It isn't Chomsky's cry for academic openness that makes his holocaust claim so horrid, but the parallel argument that such an irrational claim such as "holocaust never happened hurr durr" is not based in antisemitism instead of factual study.
I think Chomsky's ability to be so, uhm, "gentle" in his description of the most brutal and disgusting of human actions comes from his desire to equivocate the western world with them, which is to say, his despising of the US. That is what makes his claims so radical and unpalatable. If he were to stop trying to make comparisons with the US so much, and just look at the actions of dictators for what they are, then he'd probably be much more rational.
Post by
Interest
Afternoon.
Post by
Patty
Afternoon.
Hey.
Post by
240140
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Interest
And I'm now single. Hopefully I'll manage to stay this way for over a month this time. (Whoo, self control?)
Not if I have a say ;);););););) <3
What happened?
Post by
hatman555
Would you say that your "handiwork" is quite well developed?
No comment.
There is a
5 second film
for every situation O.o
Hat
Post by
Patty
>.>
In other news,
LGBT never tasted so good!
Post by
OverZealous
Would you say that your "handiwork" is quite well developed?
No comment.
There is a
5 second film
for every situation O.o
Hat
Those videos crack me up every time
=D
Post by
Interest
Would you say that your "handiwork" is quite well developed?
No comment.
There is a
5 second film
for every situation O.o
Hat
The 4/20 one is...just lol.
Post by
952951
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Interest
Probably.
Post by
Azazel
Yes. All major games, tv shows and movies do that. And I'm really looking forward to it.
Post by
Rankkor
Do you think Diablo 3 will spawn a meme? You know like Fus Ro Dah or arrow in the knee?
Unlikely. Diablo isn't known for dialog or talking for that matter. Its all about grabbing a pointy/sharp weapon, and stab/hack/slash as many enemies per second as possible.
Let your weapons/spells do the talking, so to speak................
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