Comments on: Chomksy Blog

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By: Zizka

Zizka — Sun, 28 Mar 2004 15:14:38 +0000

“Chomsky wouldn’t worry about being labeled “a conspiracy theorist and a demagogue”. He would say that such labeling proves that the corrupt power structure of the non-civilized (which is to say Western) countries is forced to twist and turn in response to those who reveal its perfidy by explicating on its exploitation and social genocide.” If Chomsky really were to respond that way to Sebastian’s inaccurate attempts at a quick smear, I’d explain to him that in this fallen world in every society there are always people like Sebastian, and that no abstruse explanation is needed. As for the New York Times (Hi, Sebastian! The NYT is NOT liberal!)—the NYT does need explanation. Without agreeing with everything Chomsky says, or Nader either, centrist Democrats have hurt themselves seriously by rejecting them out of hand. A recent thread on Yglesias was dominated by ignorant crowing and sniping (On its first day Chomsky’s blog had both some bad links and anti-Semitic comment spam!). The Democratic party is in its really weak position today in large part because of its passivity (spearheaded by Lieberman and Bayh, if you can spearhead passivity) on media concentration and corporate governance.

By: Donald Johnson

Donald Johnson — Fri, 26 Mar 2004 21:34:20 +0000

Sebastian, your comment regarding Chomsky’s “point” is silly. This is clear to anyone who reads him and figures out what his point is by doing the remarkable and revolutionary new thing of, well, noticing what point he says he is trying to make. He concentrates on US crimes because he thinks it’s his duty as a US citizen to do so, and because he thinks the mainstream press either does a miserable job or actively covers up such crimes. He says this over and over again and tells people that they should read the mainstream press and that he isn’t a source of information for other kinds of atrocities. He doesn’t even cover all US crimes, something he pointed out to me in a letter many years ago when I suggested he could reach more people by writing books on human rights violations in general, so that he couldn’t be accused of what you’re accusing him of doing. I could and have offered real criticisms of him—criticisms based on actually reading him, understanding his point, and still disagreeing. On the Cambodia issue, I think he was more skeptical of the larger death toll estimates than he should have been, probably because so many lies had been told in that war before, but the impression given by his critics when they say “apologist” is that he was a Pol Pot supporter. It’s certainly what I expected to see when I picked up the second volume of “Political Economy of Human Rights” many years ago and started browsing through the Cambodia chapter. It’s IMO Chomsky at his worst (as I said in my sickening post), but it was shockingly different from what I’d been led to expect. Actually, in a sense Chomsky did confuse two genocides in Cambodia. He thought that much of the suffering under Pol Pot was the aftereffects of the horrific civil war (and US bombing campaign). I don’t have a source handy, but I think there were literally millions of people uprooted by the bombing campaign, out of a country of 7 million people and around 500,000 died. There were warnings at the end of the civil war that Cambodia was on the brink of famine. So it was natural for Chomsky to think that some of the suffering in the postwar period was due to the war, though as it turns out the bulk of it was the fault of the Khmer Rouge. The point of the Tutsi example and others I could cite (the estimates I’ve seen for the death toll of the Bangladesh killings by Pakistan in 1971 varies by two orders of magnitude, from tens of thousands to 3 million) is that it is often impossible to know even to an order of magnitude how many people have been murdered in some atrocity until a careful study is done, though it certainly doesn’t stop people from putting numbers in print. So while Pol Pot was in charge, it was clear to Noam that terrible things were happening, but not that it would turn out to be genocide. The odd thing about the Tutsi case is that it’s been ten years now and we’re just starting to hear that there was a second genocide. The criticisms of Noam on Cambodia seem particularly hypocritical when the whole point of his writing on that subject was to compare coverage of the Cambodian atrocities to those in East Timor, and yet while everyone “knew” what a terrible person Noam was, no one seemed to know anything or care much about what was happening in East Timor. Until late 1999, when Clinton finally stopped backing Indonesia.

By: armando

armando — Fri, 26 Mar 2004 20:46:08 +0000

So if I say that Gerry Adams is a brutal murderer, then I become an apologist for the IRA? I see. Also, Sebastian, you should probably note that Bruce Sharp, whose article you linked to, later said that his opinions softened somewhat and said that he had “no doubt that [Chomsky] is a man of honor and great integrity.” You know, the standard criticism for those who are apologists for genocidal dictators.

By: Sebasatian Holsclaw

Sebasatian Holsclaw — Fri, 26 Mar 2004 19:58:13 +0000

Good heavens, Chomsky is an apologist because he wanted to avoid the fact of Cambodian genocide to make his ‘greater’ point about the fact that all evil comes from the US (only very very mild exaggeration on the word ‘all’). And what is this Hutu, thing? Chomsky didn’t ‘confuse’ two acts of genocide. He denied the existance of Pol Pots genocide far beyond the time when it became clear.

By: Sebasatian Holsclaw

Sebasatian Holsclaw — Fri, 26 Mar 2004 19:57:52 +0000

By: Donald Johnson

Donald Johnson — Fri, 26 Mar 2004 18:08:22 +0000

Sebastian, merely telling me that you’re sickened doesn’t impress me one bit, because it’s been my experience that most Chomsky-haters carefully pick and choose what sickens them—otherwise they’d have to admit that Chomsky is right about the issues which concern him the most. There’s a kind of hysterical vindictive reaction to Noam’s writings in some people that makes me think of a guilty conscience—otherwise people could read him calmly, say he’s right here, wrong there, and not tell idiotic and vicious lies about him. I think it’s wrong (bearing false witness, one could say) to say that Chomsky was an apologist for Pol Pot, because to people unfamiliar with his writings, it sounds as if Chomsky had said Pol Pot was a good man. It’s a funny sort of apologist who compares Pol Pot’s record of killing to the mass slaughter that was going on in East Timor. But as is Chomsky’s point, most mainstream Americans care little or nothing about America’s role in East Timor in the 70’s, so if Chomsky compares Pol Pot’s record to East Timor, perhaps to your typical Chomsky-hater it sounds like he is uttering praise. In reality, Chomsky said in 1977 and 1979 that Pol Pot was guilty of serious and gruesome atrocities. He was not at that time sure that Pol Pot was a full fledged genocidal killer. He started using the term genocide by the 80’s. Well, guess what? It’s now coming out that the Tutsis who took over Rwanda after the Hutu genocide in 1994 might themselves have murdered 450,000 people, from what I’ve just read. People who reported on the Hutu genocide of the Tutsis knew that the Tutsi had killed a bunch of people when they took over, but it now appears there were two genocides, not one. So in effect, people had mistakenly thought the second full-scale genocide was only a set of atrocities. I thought that myself. I bet you thought so. Most people did. I hope you’re sickened by it. Say, Sebastian, does this mean we’re all evil, just like ole Noam? Yup, no doubt. Msg, I learn things from your posts too, though we definitely are on opposite sides on some things.

By: msg

msg — Fri, 26 Mar 2004 09:00:19 +0000

Sebastian- If it’s truly the case that, as well-versed on Chomsky’s work and the attitudes of his followers and detractors as you seem to be, readily able to quote and parse his thought fluently, you remain unaware of his positions on Israeli policies and actions, then I apologize for what was a hasty and ill-formed judgement. Your attitude in other posts on other threads, or rather my perceptions of your attitude, which seem to me excessively, even blindly chauvinist, were what led me to that unfair misjudgement, if in fact that’s what it was. Again, my apologies, qualified but sincere,for what you say is an unwarranted assumption. – Gnomes of Zurich is a reference I didn’t immediately understand, but like you I can infer when necessary. So I’m guessing it’s from the so-called “Protocols…etc” something I’ve never read and have no interest in reading. Inasmuch as referring to that document and the septic morass it floats on would place me, in your view, among the ranks of irrational bigots who are against all things Jewish, as opposed to the real position I occupy, and vehemently insist I occupy, which is total opposition to state terror as well as any and all racist fascism, I have to say, “Boo right back.” Michael Griffin

By: Sebastian Holsclaw

Sebastian Holsclaw — Fri, 26 Mar 2004 08:12:37 +0000

I hate to seem more ignorant than you already think me, but I really wasn’t specifically aware of Chomsky’s views on Israel. (Though I bet I could guess what they are). The fact that you believe I’m trying to covertly attack his views on Israel (of which I am unaware) by drawing attention to his well published views on Pol Pot is rather revealing I must admit. The winding ‘logic’ of it is precisely something Chomsky would engage in, so I’m firmly convinced you are a committed reader. ” Chomsky, IMO, did initially think that Pol Pot was merely a mass murderer, not a full-fledged genocidal maniac. He left open the possibility in his 1979 book that Pol Pot was a genocidal maniac, but you can tell if you read him that he thought it more likely that he was merely a mass murderer. After the Vietnamese invasion toppled Pol Pot (an invasion Chomsky initially condemned as aggression), he quickly realized that the death toll under Pol Pot was high enough to justify the term “genocide”, though he also thinks that the term should also be applied to the American war.” I would be amused by the fact that you think “Chomsky, IMO, did initially think that Pol Pot was merely a mass murderer” counts as a good defense of the man, but frankly it just sickens me. And with all this talk about conspiracy theories: Don’t you think if they really existed, I would have been ordered to kill Chomsky—revealer of secrets—and then forced to kill myself to protect the Gnomes of Zurich? Boo!

By: Gar Lipow

Gar Lipow — Fri, 26 Mar 2004 06:00:27 +0000

Just because the term “conspiracy theory” is misued does not mean there is not such a thing, nor that it is not worthy of dimissal. In it’s classic form “conspiracy theory” is a way the mildly liberal admit that horrible things happen without admitting there is something fundamental wrong with the system. It is only small groups of shadowy figures who do the horrible things; putting good people in charge would solve everything. Yes there are really such things as conspiracies. But the worst evils are done publicly or as “open secrets” (widely known, but not admitted).

By: Gar Lipow

Gar Lipow — Fri, 26 Mar 2004 05:59:54 +0000

By: msg

msg — Fri, 26 Mar 2004 05:15:43 +0000

Donald Johnson- Thanks for consistently bringing honest reason and a calm tone to topics that can so easily become strident duels of vituperation. Every time I read something you wrote it quiets me, even when I disagree with what you say. – Sebastian Holsclaw- What you’re really attacking Chomsky for is his views on Israel isn’t it? But you think there’s a better chance of gaining sympathy with a Pol Pot reference right? Because really you don’t much care about those Cambodians do you? The term “conspiracy theory” has been intentionally reconfigured, weighted with scorn and bogosity, altered by the very people who were and are conspiring to manipulate public opinion and events. The words themselves simply mean a theory about a conspiracy. There are conspiracies. There are theories about those conspiracies. There’s nothing delusional or dismissable about that. “Chaff” is an old agrarian term for the light bits that seperate from grain as it’s winnowed. It was adopted for bits of tinfoil dropped from planes to scramble radar signals. Chaff is what a lot of the more fantastic nonsense that’s been paraded before the credulous public has been, diversion, to pre-invalidate hard-to-believe testimony of the heinous and atrocious covert actions that do take place outside the glare of simplistic, and easily controlled, media. – Anyone who uses the term “conspiracy theory” or “conspiracy theorist” to dismiss a claim out of hand is a conspirator. I say this.

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 26 Mar 2004 02:17:50 +0000

I see it didn’t take long for the Fascist Footballers to shit all over Chomsky’s blog. In the wake of this denial of service attack, commenting is suspended and the comments have been removed. Personally, I would’ve have left them up as a display of pathology. Sleep easy, Sebastian dear.

By: ogged

ogged — Thu, 25 Mar 2004 23:21:18 +0000

To answer my own question: about a day.

By: Donald Johnson

Donald Johnson — Thu, 25 Mar 2004 21:57:54 +0000

Chomsky is appealing to me because he’s an antidote to the endless stream of dishonest pro-American jingoistic bullsh** that one finds in the so-called liberal media. It’s easier in the age of the Internet to find alternative sources of information about American foreign policy and human rights violations than it was a few years ago, but reading Chomsky is still a quick way to find out what some of the sources are. That ought to be easy to understand. As for being a Pol Pot apologist, I used to think he was one because everyone seemed to say so. Then I actually read him. Chomsky, IMO, did initially think that Pol Pot was merely a mass murderer, not a full-fledged genocidal maniac. He left open the possibility in his 1979 book that Pol Pot was a genocidal maniac, but you can tell if you read him that he thought it more likely that he was merely a mass murderer. After the Vietnamese invasion toppled Pol Pot (an invasion Chomsky initially condemned as aggression), he quickly realized that the death toll under Pol Pot was high enough to justify the term “genocide”, though he also thinks that the term should also be applied to the American war. Before I read Chomsky, I thought that being an apologist for Pol Pot meant saying that Pol Pot was a good guy, so imagine my surprise to find that it meant saying that Pol Pot was guilty of gruesome atrocities, comparable in scale though not in per capita killed to what was going on in East Timor. As it turns out, the per capita death rate was similar and Cambodia’s death toll much larger in absolute terms, so Chomsky was underestimating it, but when he’d spent a chapter denouncing the US record in East Timor, it was startling to see Cambodia compared to it. I’m understating my reaction—I was naively astonished when I started reading the Cambodia chapter in “The Political Economy of Human Rights”, because, though I think it is Chomsky at his worst, it was nothing like what I’d been led to believe and at that time (I can barely remember what it was like to think this) I didn’t think pundits lied or misled their readers in order to discredit someone they despised. Since that time, when someone is accused of being an apologist for this or that, I’ve realized it’s a good idea to see that person’s writings at first hand before believing it. Cuz, you know, mainstream political intellectuals in a self-righteous mood can’t seem to be trusted any more than those nasty radical types.