[Shameless plug alert] I should have said that I wrote a book about the media coverage of Venezuela that has just been published. It uses Chomsky's Propaganda Model to assess the coverage. It is called "Bad News from Venezuela: 20 Years of Fake News and Misreporting". Get your library to stock it! I'm also writing a book updating the Propaganda Model in the Internet age. Noam is contributing to the project too. It will probably be out around Christmas.
If you want to read my PhD, on which the book is strongly based, DM me your email address.
And yet there are already reviews on Amazon. Like this guy named "Seisachtheia58":
"Chomsky is irrelevant to the Left at this point. The book contains no surprises, except as a another reviewer shares, there's more despair than optimism."
With, of course, one star out of 5 stars. I don't remember the saying of haters of Chomsky but it went something like "There are people who hate Chomsky, and then there are people who have read Chomsky". I think it's well suited to this situation.
We had a lot of Americans here in Ireland interfering in a recent referendum regarding abortion. There were groups in the U.S. who sent over individuals to canvass and offer advice and financing to pro-life groups over here.
There was an article on CNN about some of them. They even admitted in the article to lying to immigration at the airport in order to be allowed in.
"US government employee Benyam Capel, 22. He told Irish immigration he was traveling for pleasure, "because I enjoy activism.""
Some worthwhile academics to check out:
The following are people I just recently discovered and am checking out:
Karen Armstrong - writer on religion - haven't read her work but she's cited by Chomsky.
Adam Curtis - filmmaker, who made a remarkable 4-part documentary called "The century of the self" which I found brillian. It introduced me to a number of interesting thinkers whom I'm looking at now: Vance Packard, who wrote "The Hidden Persuaders", Herbert Marcuse, a psychoanalyst, Stuart Ewen, a Public Relations Historian.
It’s funny you say this dumb shit because I’m reading a book called Liberal Socialism at the moment.
Also:
Check out his interview with Yarden Katz where he talks about finding the right "level of abstraction" for cognitive systems. There are a series of videos. That's the only thing that comes to mind. http://www.openculture.com/2012/11/noam_chomsky_explains_where_artificial_intelligence_went_wrong_.html
It's a spinoff of reddit created by some disgruntled people who left /r/anarchism a few years ago in the midst of some incredibly hostile disputes, which involved creating a sub dedicated to writing murder poetry and dreaming of murder fantasies about several /r/anarchism users they didn't like. The people who made that sub created raddle.
Whatever utility it has as a platform for circumventing reddit's (frequently strange) admin bans is mitigated by the fact that some of the people there are genuinely off their rocker, like the head guy who spent months talking to himself and stirring up other users with an array of sockpuppets.
By the sounds of this post, he hasn't stopped with the socks lol
Actually, he seems to say it is the best edition, with caveats:
> ... 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.
He does, however, say this of the introduction:
> 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.
This is the edition I own. I haven't read it all yet, but I have got a few things bookmarked, prominently the index entry for division of labor and also his (Smith's) denunciation of it.
It's better than most (if not all of them).
It covers all three volumes of Capital.
Harry Cleaver's book <em>Reading Capital Politically</em> and his newest book <em>Rupturing the Dialectic: The Struggle against Work, Money, and Financialization</em> are very good and useful if you're coming from a more Libertarian Socialist side of politics.
His long time friend Howard Zinn wrote A People's History of the United States among other books.
Gore Vidal is another person with the same views and demographic.
For contemporary similar political writings/speakings, I recommend Glenn Greenwald at the Intercept and Jeremy Scahill.
Personally, I would support him by buying and reading one of his books (and I have), but yes, you can donate money to him:
Or go to www.normanfinkelstein.com and click the blue "DONATE" button.
Will the files be released as public domain? Or under CC?
You can add audio and video files to the internet archive to back them up for free. You might create a webpage to catalog them all for easier access (wordpress.com is free and easy to use, allows multiple users too). https://archive.org/index.php
Youtube is ok for listening to audio as video, but for mp3s the internet archive offers free hosting. You can add an mp3 link in youtube description. Might you create mp3 versions of the videos too? For those that like to listen on their mp3 player, etc.
Youtube videos make money from adverts which could help if the kickstarter doesn't cover all your costs. It'd be good to have all your material on your own channel.
Will you have a facebook page so that as files are released you can post them there? Or other social media presence - twitter, rss feed, etc.
You might want to use an Amazon AWS account (Amazon S3 product) for transferring large files between volunteers. (For those that can't hand you a flash drive.) https://aws.amazon.com/s3/?hp=tile
When Chomsky.info (and their facebook page) featured my www.chomskylist.com site, I received about 4,000 visitors. If we assume you might get about the same, you might have some idea about how much of a donation to ask for.
I never actually read it in full, but I got like 20 pages from this book as an assignment on University while studying international relations, and I can recommend it
https://www.amazon.com/Massacre-at-El-Mozote/dp/067975525X
In my case, I really dont want to recommend others as my area of study is more towards the macro level economic management of geopolitics than sponsored terrorism, and I know other people here in the sub can give far better recommendations, that said here you can check out a report done by Human Rights Watch that covers the entire situation including government policy quite well
https://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/pdfs/e/elsalvdr/elsalv923.pdf
I'd suggest everyone on this subreddit, since we are sensible people, to AT LEAST
1- Use a paid VPN service (Like NordVPN, IVPN, Mullvad)
2- Try to use free software (like qbittorrent instead of utorrent)
3- Use firefox with privacy addons (Decentraleyes, HTTPS Everywhere, Random Agent Spoofer, uBlock Origin)
4- Quit using any of the google products (use startpage as search engine).
5- Use protonmail/openmailbox.org instead of big brother corporate shit.
Those are the first baby steps to privacy.
Copying and pasting a comment I just made in another thread here:
I was following RT's coverage of the trial, as I read what was coming out, I was pretty shocked. Basically, everything I thought I knew about what happened was completely wrong.
https:// rumble.com/vlownq-kyle-rittenhouse-murder-or-self-defense.html
For people who don't want to read several articles summarizing the trial, this video, 13 minutes long, does a great job of laying out the actual facts, and not what the main stream media reported.
And this was a real kicker:
https://www.rt.com/uk/540851-rittenhouse-false-claim-independent-black/
Copying and pasting a comment I just made in another thread here:
I was following RT's coverage of the trial, as I read what was coming out, I was pretty shocked. Basically, everything I thought I knew about what happened was completely wrong.
https:// rumble.com/vlownq-kyle-rittenhouse-murder-or-self-defense.html
For people who don't want to read several articles summarizing the trial, this video, 13 minutes long, does a great job of laying out the actual facts, and not what the main stream media reported.
And this was a real kicker:
https://www.rt.com/uk/540851-rittenhouse-false-claim-independent-black/
Yeah, it seems like that's the lowest price for an ebook version. And the lowest prices for paperback are roughly the same at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. B&N has free shipping, and I don't know if Amazon Prime makes it cheaper there, so I'd just check both.
Well, according to her linkedin profile she started college in 1984: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/valeria-wasserman/2/a95/90
Typically that would mean ~20 year old so roughly 1960-1965 birthdate. That would put her at 50-55 so at least 30 years younger and possibly 35. Not looking too good.
Of course it helps that he's so old. 35 years doesn't sound too bad when the woman in in her 50's but imagine if Chomk were 55 and she were 20.
Yeah, he's amazing. He's the best on twitter. Also, he's just been interviewed on Jacobin's podcast.
Stop talking to yourself with multiple alts, BlackFlagged/cloudforester/dragonoa/ziq.
Cloudforester, BlackFlagged and Dragonoa are in fact the exact same person, known as ziq in this thread. Mostly they're just on Reddit to rage at people and then try to promote Raddle.
Their entire M.O. as shown there is to create a pile of alts and talk to each other, trying to create an appearance of consensus in order to smear someone or fabricate something. As far as anyone can tell they're a pathological liar and will lie at the drop of the hat about any detail possible. They're doing that in this very thread. It's smarter, frankly, to just ban all their accounts.
Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History > In this long-awaited sequel to his international bestseller The Holocaust Industry, Norman G. Finkelstein moves from an iconoclastic interrogation of the new anti-Semitism to a meticulously researched exposé of the corruption of scholarship on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
>Bringing to bear the latest findings on the conflict and recasting the scholarly debate, Finkelstein points to a consensus among historians and human rights organizations on the factual record. Why, then, does so much controversy swirl around the conflict? Finkelstein’s answer, copiously documented, is that apologists for Israel contrive controversy. Whenever Israel comes under international pressure, another media campaign alleging a global outbreak of anti-Semitism is mounted.
>Finkelstein also scrutinizes the proliferation of distortion masquerading as history. Recalling Joan Peters’ book From Time Immemorial, published to great fanfare in 1984 but subsequently exposed as an academic hoax, he asks deeply troubling questions here about the periodic reappearance of spurious scholarship and the uncritical acclaim it receives. The most recent addition to this genre, Finkelstein argues, is Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz’s bestseller, The Case for Israel.
>The core analysis of Beyond Chutzpah sets Dershowitz’s assertions on Israel’s human rights record against the findings of the mainstream human rights community. Sifting through thousands of pages of reports from organizations such as Amnesty International, B’Tselem, and Human Rights Watch, Finkelstein argues that Dershowitz has misrepresented the facts.
>Thoroughly researched and tightly argued, Beyond Chutzpah lifts the veil of controversy shrouding the Israel-Palestine conflict.
The Problems of Philosophy, Proposed Roads to Freedom, A History of Western Philosophy, and his autobiography. (Chronological order)
I'll be honest with you I'm not too familiar with the man himself, but these are probably the works I'd start with.
Chomsky has mentioned Ha-Joon Chang, in particular his book called Bad Samaritans. He also has another book called Kicking Away the Ladder.
Another one I've seen but haven't read is False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism by John Gray.
Another great one is The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.
Same thing happened after 9/11, when the Bush administration demanded the right for torture, as chronicled on page 43 of The Shock Doctrine:
>...then-secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld, empowered by George W. Bush, decreed that prisoners captured in Afghanistan were not covered by the Geneva Conventions because they were "enemy combatants," not POWs, a view confirmed by the White House legal counsel at the time, Alberto Gonzales (subsequently U.S. attorney general). [...] According to the White House, torture was still banned—but now to qualify as torture, the pain inflicted had to "be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure."
Citations:
Katharine Q. Seelye, "A Nation Challenged," New York Times, March 29, 2002; Alberto R. Gonzales, Memorandum for the President, January 25, 2002, www.nsbc.msn.com.
(You can read the memorandum here, it's very brief.) Interesting how Gonzales' first 'Positive' is that allowing torture 'preserves flexibility', reminiscent of how 'flexibility' (read: insecurity) in the work force is paraded as a great thing by neo-liberals.
U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel, Office of the Assistant Attorney General, Memorandum for Alberto R. Gonzales, Counsel to the President, August 1, 2002, www.washingtonpost.com.
https://www.amazon.com.au/PVC-Morale-Patch-Operator-Skull/dp/B095W1SZG4
Here is their Amazon page with the full description (Idk how or why they sell this on here). I wrongly assumed it was the same for both pages but it’s the same manufacturer and patch. So, yeah. You don’t hear the name R3ICH and immediately consider it a dog whistle?
The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War by Nicholas Mulder >Economic sanctions dominate the landscape of world politics today. First developed in the early twentieth century as a way of exploiting the flows of globalization to defend liberal internationalism, their appeal is that they function as an alternative to war. This view, however, ignores the dark paradox at their core: designed to prevent war, economic sanctions are modeled on devastating techniques of warfare.
>Tracing the use of economic sanctions from the blockades of World War I to the policing of colonial empires and the interwar confrontation with fascism, Nicholas Mulder uses extensive archival research in a political, economic, legal, and military history that reveals how a coercive wartime tool was adopted as an instrument of peacekeeping by the League of Nations. This timely study casts an overdue light on why sanctions are widely considered a form of war, and why their unintended consequences are so tremendous.
I haven't read any of his books yet, only watched his talks on youtube.
In september his latest book "The myth of normal" is released, which will cover all the topics he talks about and is about why society makes people so physically and mentally sick and how our society is profoundly abnormal when it comes to human evolution and needs.
Xi has some books that are better than anything you're going to find from people in the West tbh.
https://www.amazon.com/XI-JINPING-GOVERNANCE-Simplified-Chinese/dp/7119113925
You can find it for free on libgen too.
Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History > In this long-awaited sequel to his international bestseller The Holocaust Industry, Norman G. Finkelstein moves from an iconoclastic interrogation of the new anti-Semitism to a meticulously researched exposé of the corruption of scholarship on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
>Bringing to bear the latest findings on the conflict and recasting the scholarly debate, Finkelstein points to a consensus among historians and human rights organizations on the factual record. Why, then, does so much controversy swirl around the conflict? Finkelstein’s answer, copiously documented, is that apologists for Israel contrive controversy. Whenever Israel comes under international pressure, another media campaign alleging a global outbreak of anti-Semitism is mounted.
>Finkelstein also scrutinizes the proliferation of distortion masquerading as history. Recalling Joan Peters’ book From Time Immemorial, published to great fanfare in 1984 but subsequently exposed as an academic hoax, he asks deeply troubling questions here about the periodic reappearance of spurious scholarship and the uncritical acclaim it receives. The most recent addition to this genre, Finkelstein argues, is Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz’s bestseller, The Case for Israel.
>The core analysis of Beyond Chutzpah sets Dershowitz’s assertions on Israel’s human rights record against the findings of the mainstream human rights community. Sifting through thousands of pages of reports from organizations such as Amnesty International, B’Tselem, and Human Rights Watch, Finkelstein argues that Dershowitz has misrepresented the facts.
>Thoroughly researched and tightly argued, Beyond Chutzpah lifts the veil of controversy shrouding the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History > In this long-awaited sequel to his international bestseller The Holocaust Industry, Norman G. Finkelstein moves from an iconoclastic interrogation of the new anti-Semitism to a meticulously researched exposé of the corruption of scholarship on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
>Bringing to bear the latest findings on the conflict and recasting the scholarly debate, Finkelstein points to a consensus among historians and human rights organizations on the factual record. Why, then, does so much controversy swirl around the conflict? Finkelstein’s answer, copiously documented, is that apologists for Israel contrive controversy. Whenever Israel comes under international pressure, another media campaign alleging a global outbreak of anti-Semitism is mounted.
>Finkelstein also scrutinizes the proliferation of distortion masquerading as history. Recalling Joan Peters’ book From Time Immemorial, published to great fanfare in 1984 but subsequently exposed as an academic hoax, he asks deeply troubling questions here about the periodic reappearance of spurious scholarship and the uncritical acclaim it receives. The most recent addition to this genre, Finkelstein argues, is Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz’s bestseller, The Case for Israel.
>The core analysis of Beyond Chutzpah sets Dershowitz’s assertions on Israel’s human rights record against the findings of the mainstream human rights community. Sifting through thousands of pages of reports from organizations such as Amnesty International, B’Tselem, and Human Rights Watch, Finkelstein argues that Dershowitz has misrepresented the facts.
>Thoroughly researched and tightly argued, Beyond Chutzpah lifts the veil of controversy shrouding the Israel-Palestine conflict.
The Semisovereign People: A Realist’s View of Democracy in America by E. E. Schattschneider >The conflict of conflicts explains some things about politics that have long puzzled scholars. Political conflict is not like an intercollegiate debate in which the opponents agree in advance on a definition of the issues. As a matter of fact, the definition of the alternatives is the supreme instrument of power; the antagonists can rarely agree on what the issues are because power is involved in the definition. He who determines what politics is about runs the country, because the definition of the alternatives is the choice of conflicts, and the choice of conflicts allocates power. It follows that all conflict is confusing.
The War on Leakers: National Security and American Democracy, from Eugene V. Debs to Edward Snowden by Lloyd C. Gardner >Four days before Pearl Harbor, in December 1941, someone leaked American contingency war plans to the Chicago Tribune. The small splash the story made was overwhelmed by the shock waves caused by the Japanese attack on the Pacific fleet anchored in Hawaii―but the ripples never subsided, growing quietly but steadily across the Cold War, Vietnam, the fall of Communism, and into the present.
>Ripped from today's headlines, Lloyd C. Gardner's latest book takes a deep dive into the previously unexamined history of national security leakers. The War on Leakers joins the growing debate over surveillance and the national security state, bringing to bear the unique perspective of one our most respected diplomatic historians. Gardner examines how national security leaks have been grappled with over nearly five decades, what the relationship of “leaking” has been to the exercise of American power during and after the Cold War, and the implications of all this for how we should think about the role of leakers and democracy.
>Gardner's eye-opening new history asks us to consider why America has invested so much of its resources, technology, and credibility in a system that all but cries out for loyal Americans to leak its secrets.
The War on Leakers: National Security and American Democracy, from Eugene V. Debs to Edward Snowden by Lloyd C. Gardner >Four days before Pearl Harbor, in December 1941, someone leaked American contingency war plans to the Chicago Tribune. The small splash the story made was overwhelmed by the shock waves caused by the Japanese attack on the Pacific fleet anchored in Hawaii―but the ripples never subsided, growing quietly but steadily across the Cold War, Vietnam, the fall of Communism, and into the present.
>Ripped from today's headlines, Lloyd C. Gardner's latest book takes a deep dive into the previously unexamined history of national security leakers. The War on Leakers joins the growing debate over surveillance and the national security state, bringing to bear the unique perspective of one our most respected diplomatic historians. Gardner examines how national security leaks have been grappled with over nearly five decades, what the relationship of “leaking” has been to the exercise of American power during and after the Cold War, and the implications of all this for how we should think about the role of leakers and democracy.
>Gardner's eye-opening new history asks us to consider why America has invested so much of its resources, technology, and credibility in a system that all but cries out for loyal Americans to leak its secrets.
> Not according to Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower
There is no evidence Eisenhower opposed the use of the bomb before it was dropped.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01402398708437307?journalCode=fjss20
In any case, the opinion of Americans on the issue is far less relevant than the opinion of Japanese on the issue.
https://www.amazon.com/Hell-Pay-Operation-Downfall-1945-1947/dp/1400169089
I don't have the book in front of me at the moment, but there are several quotes from high ranking Japanese Generals and Politicians who stated, unambiguously, they were not going to surrender. Not even after the first bomb.
Your argument is thoroughly debunked and people like Alperovitz rely heavily on American sources to justify their claims but have totally ignored the Japanese perspective.
The Semisovereign People: A Realist’s View of Democracy in America by E. E. Schattschneider >The conflict of conflicts explains some things about politics that have long puzzled scholars. Political conflict is not like an intercollegiate debate in which the opponents agree in advance on a definition of the issues. As a matter of fact, the definition of the alternatives is the supreme instrument of power; the antagonists can rarely agree on what the issues are because power is involved in the definition. He who determines what politics is about runs the country, because the definition of the alternatives is the choice of conflicts, and the choice of conflicts allocates power. It follows that all conflict is confusing.
480 pages of examples you are looking for. Be careful though, it is a very depressing read.
Omg, this book is devastating…
"In 2011, he was photographed by the local paper volunteering in nearby Oakwell Hall country park. The previous year he was quoted in the Huddersfield Daily Examiner, saying he had begun volunteering after attending Pathways Day Centre for adults with mental health problems."
Source:
The documentary isn't bad. Sanders is a good comparison. I prefer Chomsky's style. You learn a lot more from his talks. Chomsky's documentary on Netflix (or even better some of his many talks/lectures) is much more informative than this.
Okay. But Tor in particular is really easy. Just go to this site, click download, and use the Tor Browser when you go online. Your internet activity will then be anonymous.
and down
>Western companies typically insist on plenty of state protection, so when General Motors or VW invests in an auto plant in Poland or the Czech Republic, they insist on substantial market share, subsidies, protection, etc.—just as they do when they move into a Third World country or the US. George Soros, the billionaire financier, has written several articles expressing his view that the spread of brutal global capitalism has replaced communism as the main threat to democratic societies.
>It’s not a new point. Working people 150 years ago were struggling against the rise of a system they saw as a great threat to their freedom, their rights and their culture. They were, of course, correct, and Soros is correct insofar as he reiterates that view.
>On the other hand, he also makes the common assumption that the market system is spreading, which just isn’t true. What’s spreading is a kind of corporate mercantilism that’s supported by—and crucially relies on—large-scale state power. Soros made his money by financial speculations that become possible when telecommunications innovations and the government’s destruction of the Bretton Woods system (which regulated currencies and capital flow) allowed for very rapid transfers of capital. That isn’t global capitalism.
It's no wonder why this is a best selling book in the US right now:
https://www.amazon.com/Real-Anthony-Fauci-Democracy-Childrens-ebook/dp/B08X5YWRRP
> The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that only 41% of American Adults now have a favorable impression of Dr. Fauci, down from 44% in August. Forty-five percent (45%) now have an unfavorable impression of Fauci, up from 42% who had a negative view of him in August. Thirteen percent (13%) are not sure.
Glenn Greenwald has now published an article on this.
TL;DR: There are legitimate complaints of corruption in the Workers Party, but the protests are driven by the right-wing media and wealthy classes angry about the leftist policies of the party.
What is the counter balance of power you see pushing back against current rising tide of fascism, racist rhetoric, violent anti immigrant fervor? How does this threat not metastasize in its current form? Because looking at our current situation I see an economy which looks very well positioned to collapse dramatically soon. I don’t see that calming the trends for fascist violence. To me, any idea this is now an incredibly dangerous situation is a naive notion.
You have a dangerous late stage capitalist decline mixing with increased chaos from climate collapse. Increasing refugees as resources grow scarce. How does this not pour gasoline on this current rise of fascism? Do you expect Trump to really be a moderating force against his own violent racist instincts? Chomsky disagrees with your take on this modern fascist threat as well:
> “Based on something objective. The white population is pretty soon going to become a minority (whatever ‘white’ means)…. The response to this is generalized anger at everything. So every time Trump makes a nasty comment about whoever, his popularity goes up. Because it’s based on hate, you know. Hate and fear. And it’s unfortunately kind of reminiscent of something unpleasant: Germany, not many years ago.”
> Chomsky discusses Germany’s plummet from its cultural and political heights in the 20s—when Hitler received 3% of the vote—to the decay of the 30s, when the Nazis rose to power. Though the situations are “not identical,” they are similar enough, he says, to warrant concern. Likewise, the economic destruction of Greece, says Chomsky may (and indeed has) lead to the rise of a fascist party, a phenomenon we’ve witnessed all over Europe.
The War on Leakers: National Security and American Democracy, from Eugene V. Debs to Edward Snowden > Four days before Pearl Harbor, in December 1941, someone leaked American contingency war plans to the Chicago Tribune. The small splash the story made was overwhelmed by the shock waves caused by the Japanese attack on the Pacific fleet anchored in Hawaii―but the ripples never subsided, growing quietly but steadily across the Cold War, Vietnam, the fall of Communism, and into the present.
>Ripped from today's headlines, Lloyd C. Gardner's latest book takes a deep dive into the previously unexamined history of national security leakers. The War on Leakers joins the growing debate over surveillance and the national security state, bringing to bear the unique perspective of one our most respected diplomatic historians. Gardner examines how national security leaks have been grappled with over nearly five decades, what the relationship of “leaking” has been to the exercise of American power during and after the Cold War, and the implications of all this for how we should think about the role of leakers and democracy.
>Gardner's eye-opening new history asks us to consider why America has invested so much of its resources, technology, and credibility in a system that all but cries out for loyal Americans to leak its secrets.
> No coincidence. Neurologists's mirror neurons are psychologists's theory of mind :)
I only say this just because there are many causes and to simply attribute one cause would be like saying radiation is the cause of cancer.
> he seems a too much into pseudo-science. For example, where does he get those percentages? And he seriously was talking about hypnotism?!
Certainly the percentages can be taken with a grain of salt but the idea is sound and more or less supported by a very good book: Bob Altemeyer's - The Authoritarians
As far as hypnotism goes I'm not clear what you mean, while it certainly is a parlor trick (aka an unacknowledged social contract between participants) that doesn't mean it is not effective. Much like any other illusion of the mind. Penn and Teller attempted to tackle the issue without little success, so if you have some good research on hypnotism I would be interested in reading it.
> I still need to check out Adam Curtis though. I had The Power of Nightmares linked on my desktop but I just checked and now it's a dead link :(
As someone familiar with Chomsky's work I would strongly recommend starting with Century of the Self. It's a fairly comprehensive account of the birth of modern propaganda and follows Edward Bernays quite closely.
>Is it widely recognised that those two books are the "holy grail of his political work"?
No, that is actually just my understanding. But I suspect it to be the case.
If you're interested, just a year after The Washington Connection came out, Bertram Gross published Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America. This book is as insightful as anything by Chomsky. Highly recommended.
Year 501 is really also a great read.
>The uniformed no doubt have already accused Noam Chomsky of supporting terrorists. I think like he says "false accusations take a few seconds and correcting them takes many minutes/hours". He is a fantastic polemicist. He and Hitchens are at the top for me.(even though I lean towards Chomsky considering how Hitch became a bit mental after 9/11) I think my difference between me and Chomsky is that I would be hesitant to accept an invitation from Hezbollah considering their actions above. What Noam does is up to him and I guess we just have a large disagreement when it comes to that point. I wouldn't want to look like I'm taking him out of context so here's an interview where he talks about meeting Nasrallah.(He starts talking about the visit around 5:10)
Well, I think if you are referring to public school or modern day "schooling" then this podcast episode will delve into how and why and what to do about it. Check it out!
The Million Dollar Education / A Re-Discovery of the Lost Tools of Learning
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/capitalism-vs-socialism-comparing-economic-systems.html
This is one of the best courses i found for learning the full spectrum of economic systems and the flaws in the Us system.
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostery
> Functionality
>Blocking
> Ghostery blocks HTTP requests and redirects according to their source address in two ways: cookie blocking and cookie protection (where available). When cookie protection is enabled, if a cookie is selected from Ghostery's list, it is not accessible to anyone but the user and thus cannot be read when called upon.
> Reporting
> Ghostery reports all tracking packages detected, and whether Ghostery has blocked them or not, in a temporary purple overlay box at the bottom right of the screen.
More info: https://www.ghostery.com/en/features
I've heard something similar about traffic patterns.. found it
Imposed rules or hierarchy appear to be pretty inefficient when put to the test in several scenarios.
This book (chapter 2) is instructive:
Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don’t Talk about It) by Elizabeth Anderson > One in four American workers says their workplace is a “dictatorship.” Yet that number almost certainly would be higher if we recognized employers for what they are―private governments with sweeping authoritarian power over our lives. Many employers minutely regulate workers’ speech, clothing, and manners on the job, and employers often extend their authority to the off-duty lives of workers, who can be fired for their political speech, recreational activities, diet, and almost anything else employers care to govern. In this compelling book, Elizabeth Anderson examines why, despite all this, we continue to talk as if free markets make workers free, and she proposes a better way to think about the workplace, opening up space for discovering how workers can enjoy real freedom.
Indeed the guy is an academic treasure. He's written a bunch of brilliant books, many of them quite technical, some more catered to the mainstream. This one I found quite tough going, but over the years I've learned more jargon so maybe I could understand it better.
Eg one of his books looked at forgotten American economists and their contribution to Economic theory - this was in the 19th century before economics became totally ideologically cleansed.
Just one of his many contributions.
You might try Overthrow by Stephen Kinzer. I haven't read it myself yet, but it is high on my list to get to.
Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History > In this long-awaited sequel to his international bestseller The Holocaust Industry, Norman G. Finkelstein moves from an iconoclastic interrogation of the new anti-Semitism to a meticulously researched exposé of the corruption of scholarship on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
>Bringing to bear the latest findings on the conflict and recasting the scholarly debate, Finkelstein points to a consensus among historians and human rights organizations on the factual record. Why, then, does so much controversy swirl around the conflict? Finkelstein’s answer, copiously documented, is that apologists for Israel contrive controversy. Whenever Israel comes under international pressure, another media campaign alleging a global outbreak of anti-Semitism is mounted.
>Finkelstein also scrutinizes the proliferation of distortion masquerading as history. Recalling Joan Peters’ book From Time Immemorial, published to great fanfare in 1984 but subsequently exposed as an academic hoax, he asks deeply troubling questions here about the periodic reappearance of spurious scholarship and the uncritical acclaim it receives. The most recent addition to this genre, Finkelstein argues, is Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz’s bestseller, The Case for Israel.
>The core analysis of Beyond Chutzpah sets Dershowitz’s assertions on Israel’s human rights record against the findings of the mainstream human rights community. Sifting through thousands of pages of reports from organizations such as Amnesty International, B’Tselem, and Human Rights Watch, Finkelstein argues that Dershowitz has misrepresented the facts.
>Thoroughly researched and tightly argued, Beyond Chutzpah lifts the veil of controversy shrouding the Israel-Palestine conflict.
There is a noticeable inconsistency with Chomsky's positions on things pre and post cold war. I'm not sure I would use the word reactionary, but calling the fall of the USSR a good thing for socialism, when the 1990's saw Russia lose 10% of it's population either from dying or leaving because of the neoliberal economic policies imposed on the eastern bloc by the US... is... actually, reactionary might be the right word.
> Naomi Klein quotes a Russian Academic named Vladimir Gusev as saying “The years of criminal capitalism have killed off 10 percent of our population.” Russia’s population decreased by 6.6 million between 1992 and 2006. Klein quotes US Economist Andre Gunder Frank calling what took place in Russia as “economic genocide.” Russian Vice President Alexander V. Rutskoi used the same words as the policies were beginning in 1992, saying it would have catastrophic results for children and the elderly.
I was always perplexed by this.
The person who wrote the fantastic book: Profit Over People: Neoliberalism & Global Order
(To be fair, it was written at least a decade after the economic genocide of Russia, I'm not sure, and I doubt it, but maybe Chomsky has changed his view on the fall of the USSR)
Also says this.
Howard Zinn also did a version of A People's History of the United States for kids.
The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering by Norman G. Finkelstein > Drawing on a wealth of untapped sources, he exposes the double shakedown of European countries and legitimate Jewish claimants, and concludes that the Holocaust industry has become an outright extortion racket.
Parenti the Marxist, or scientific socialist, vs Noam Chomsky, the idealist. Stack up Parenti's take on something next to Chomsky's take on something, and anyone who isn't ideologically hostile to marxism, will see who is being scientific and who is (sometimes) incapable of going past the same ideas they had since they were a preteen.
Well he's written a number of essays which you can find here.
It's a good place to start, there isn't a book per se on the topic by him, although he has obviously written on it. I thought "Collateral Damage" by Chris Hedges was an excellent book on the US war on Iraq.
https://www.amazon.com/Collateral-Damage-Chris-Hedges/dp/1568584164
Spoiler Alert: You Betcha.
At least, as the U.S. had previously defined it, in terms of a state that fails to meet the basic needs of its people, lawless and with a non-functioning gov't, etc. etc., ...In those terms, the U.S. has been a "Failed State" since several years ago when Noam published a book with that specific title, which I got and read a few pages in ever so often (which has been about as much as possible to stomach):
https://www.amazon.com/Failed-States-Assault-Democracy-American/dp/0805082840
Worse -- The book was an update on a previous one with was titled at that time, like in the '90's, called "Rogue States". ...So yeah, we've pretty much gone downhill for a while now.
We haven't abided by any kind of rules or laws for some time. The Trump Admin is actively ignoring 100+ congressional subpoenas, the Hatch Act and Constitution are violated on a daily basis, and right down to the USPS, the "administrative state" is being actively dismantled -- with prejudice, I might add, pun most definitely intended.
These are indeed dark times, and they will get much darker in the coming weeks.
Daniel Denvir’s All-American Nativism: How the Bipartisan War on Immigrants Explains Politics as We Know It > It is often said that with the election of Donald Trump nativism was raised from the dead. After all, here was a president who organized his campaign around a rhetoric of unvarnished racism and xenophobia. Among his first acts on taking office was to block foreign nationals from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. But although his actions may often seem unprecedented, they are not as unusual as many people believe. This story doesn’t begin with Trump. For decades, Republicans and Democrats alike have employed xenophobic ideas and policies, declaring time and again that “illegal immigration” is a threat to the nation’s security, wellbeing, and future.
>The profound forces of all-American nativism have, in fact, been pushing politics so far to the right over the last forty years that, for many people, Trump began to look reasonable. As Daniel Denvir argues, issues as diverse as austerity economics, free trade, mass incarceration, the drug war, the contours of the post 9/11 security state, and, yes, Donald Trump and the Alt-Right movement are united by the ideology of nativism, which binds together assorted anxieties and concerns into a ruthless political project.
American prison.
There was this gus who was in Auschwitz and in Russian prisons and, as he put it:
"Compared to Russians, Death Camps were summer vacation"
If you want to read what Gulag was - read the journals like this:
https://www.amazon.com/World-Journal-Survivor-English-Polish/dp/0877958211
The ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe (famous Israeli hisorian) is an amazing book which I would recommend.
https://www.amazon.com/Ethnic-Cleansing-Palestine-Ilan-Pappe/dp/1851685553
I've found the really helpful app "EasyThesis" in the play store last week. Look here for lot of good tips to write a well-organised and convincing thesis and also how to find reliable sources:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.perpetuum.easythesis
Are you serious? I was of the idea that he is a lefty that was trying to work out the details of communism. The person who informed me about him was from the r/Anarchism101 subreddit. Can you link a source where he was transphobic? He mentioned in one of his videos that he is writing a book titled How the World Works which is the same title as this Chomsky book idk if they are even tangentially related, but I had a preconceived image of him that sounds like it’s not true based of your response.
The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality: Bhaskar Sunkara: Books https://www.amazon.com/Socialist-Manifesto-Radical-Politics-Inequality/dp/1541617398
[From one of the most prominent voices on the American Left, a galvanizing argument for why we need socialism in the United States today
With the stunning popularity of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Americans are embracing the class politics of socialism. But what, exactly, is socialism? And what would a socialist system in America look like?
In The Socialist Manifesto, Bhaskar Sunkara explores socialism's history since the mid-1800s and presents a realistic vision for its future. The editor of Jacobin magazine, Sunkara shows that socialism, though often seen primarily as an economic system, in fact offers the means to fight all forms of oppression, including racism and sexism. The ultimate goal is not Soviet-style planning, but to win rights to healthcare, education, and housing, and to create new democratic institutions in workplaces and communities. A primer on socialism for the 21st century, this is a book for anyone seeking an end to the vast inequities of our age.]
This is the thirty second trailer for those who can't watch the whole 47 minute documentary on their website due to territory restrictions (better than nothing I guess).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkpuPJ0yj88&ab_channel=AlJazeeraEnglish
edit: spelling
I used the Hong Kong proxy from Private Internet Access to watch the documentary in the U.S. btw.
Sorry, I just don't understand how anybody who knows about the history of the Democratic Party specifically could rationally think there is anyway it will ever change. This book by Thomas Frank is a really good analysis. Although ultimately he seems to think reforming the party is possible, but he is not a radical so I guess that explains his irrational faith.
He actually has a book called "Tomorrow's Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa," which is more in line with the covert ops you were originally interested in, though obviously is a part of neo-imperialism as well.
I don't think you sound trolly. This is sort of a beginner question.
I clarified why I asked the question in the first place under the comment made by /u/scottscheule and I feel like a few of my questions weren't necessarily well thought out, just throwing them out to see what people thought.
I do, however, disagree with you on one point. With any public intellectual, there will always be people that take their word as gospel. To think a group impervious to that would be naive. I agree that Chomsky is an important thinker, but I also think that followers of Chomsky can also fall into the similar traps that opponents of Chomsky fall into (i.e. not reading the material of their opposition, because lets face it, people assume Chomsky's stance all the time and they've never opened a single one of his books)
I will contend that his data points are where he truly succeeds. I also think that people should read books like "How To Lie With Statistics", not because I think Chomsky lies, but because I think Chomsky knows when statistics are being used to lie, and I feel that skill is an important quality, just like reading dissenting opinions.
My point was to ask how people learned to emulate Chomsky's skills, as it's something I really appreciate from him, and I feel should be encouraged.
Thanks for the response. It was actually really helpful. =)
Take my example from Negotiating Critical Literacies. It's better if you read the book. It's here.
It's kindergarten-age kids.
The teacher never declares herself to be a leftist or anything; the kids' environmentalist/anti-corporate/pro-vegetarian agenda seems to somehow come from the children themselves, not from the teacher.
(Note: In any classroom, the group's agenda forms in a way that trumps individual agendas, a problem in any democratic system.)
Maybe it does indeed come from the kids' initiative, but the teacher certainly guides/molds/stimulates it, so the question of initiative gets blurred.
The problem is that the kids' agenda seems to turn out to be very leftist in a way that elicits suspicion; is it really a coincidence that the kids' views happen to coincide with the teacher's views (which I understand to be leftist, even if she's not open about it)?
What if you implemented this "Freirian" educational philosophy, and soon you had little kids becoming gun-rights activists too, when they happened to have a right-wing teacher (probably quite rare for teachers to be right-wing)? My guess is that the second that happened, people would FREAK out. The only reason they don't freak out about the environmentalist stuff is that they happen to AGREE with it.
That's the idea, anyway.
I know that kids like rainforests/animals and stuff, so maybe the comparison between environmentalism and gun-rights is inappropriate, but it drives home the point that "political" education turns the kids into political pawns for their teacher's political agenda/ideology--and that's apart from the question of whether they should be the pawns of ANYBODY's political agenda/ideology.
I understand it as a group centred around evidence-based action, the main uniting idea being that it's possible to test whether interventions actually benefit the target group.
I bring up social work because of one of the episodes of their podcast, Doing Good Better (titled after MacAskill's book), featured a story about Joan McCord, a criminologist who studied the effects of social programmes intended to reduce youth violence and recidivism.
https://podcast.effectivealtruism.org/episodes/how/
Edit: you are right that the organisation itself, as far as I know, doesn't run any programmes. I think there are affiliates and members who are involved in social work of one form or another, though.
I know Chomsky has criticized modern interpretations of "The Wealth of Nations" and in particular one of the recent scholarly annotated editions.
Can anyone recommend an annotated version of this book that would possibly pass muster with him? Trying to find a good version to read.
Thanks.
John Dewey: Democracy and Education Adam Smith: The Wealth of Nations Bertrand Russell: Power Paulo Freire: Pedagogy of the Oppressed H. Bruce Franklin: War Stars George Orwell: Homage to Catalonia
Most of the authors/works on the list, to do with politics and history, have been mentioned by Noam.
Here's a rough list of them:
John Dewey, Leonard W. Levy, Lawless World, E. O. Wilson, Hannah Arendt, Kenneth N. Waltz, Discourse on Inequality, Capital, The Discovery of India, The Wealth of Nations, Democracy in America, Bertrand Russell, David Hume, John Maynard Keynes, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Joseph Stiglitz, The Conquest of Bread, Mutual Aid, The Limits of State Action, Unpeople, William Appleman Williams, 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown, Chalmers Johnson, On Liberty, A People's History of the United States, John Rawls, Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism, Edward W. Said, Norman G. Finkelstein, George Orwell, Paulo Freire, The Making of the English Working Class, The Basic Works of Aristotle, Thucydides. (35 but not all works of each author included on this list).
Some, like Rawls, I've never heard him recommend, but he has indicated that he's read him.
> One was by Wolfgang Sperlich
You're correct, the title is <em>Noam Chomsky: Critical Lives</em> (2006). Can't believe I missed it.
Disciplined Minds: A Critical Look at Salaried Professionals and the Soul-battering System That Shapes Their Lives by Jeff Schmidt https://www.amazon.com/Disciplined-Minds-Critical-Professionals-Soul-battering/dp/0742516857
An anarchist physicist from UCI who was fired for writing an amazing book about the subservient role of the professional to oppressive hierarchies and institutions. Chomsky signed a letter with a bunch of other intellectuals supporting him. Howard Zinn said he's been "waiting a long time for someone to write this book" and Thomas Frank gave him a shout-out in his book Listen Liberal (also a good one http://listenliberal.com/).
> Is there anything "disgusting" or "racist" about the video?
I watched a few minutes, but the only thing I found disgusting was the lack of engagement with any serious issues of race inequality in the US.
> I think that intellectual challenge is a good thing.
Maybe read some about issues of race, then? Here is another one.
> Unfortunately, many leftists seem to find intellectual challenge disgusting/bad/racist.
This is way too vague to be meaningful.
I just recently read a very good book about the topic:
"The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making of the Neoliberal Thought Collective, With a New Preface", edited by Philip Mirowski and Dieter Plehwe. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0674088344/ref=nav_timeline_asin?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
The volume contains about a dozen articles written by different scholars and covers 3 major themes:
Part 1.- The origins of the national traditions of neoliberalism: France, Germany, Britain and the US.
Part 2.- How the neoliberal stances on several topics where formed: Trade Unions, monopoly, developmental economics and their relationship with Business Conservatives.
Part 3.- Examples of projects made or influenced by neoliberal ideas: the case of Chile under Pinochet, the international order (UN) and a critical analysis of the urban property rights project in Peru.
The volume is mostly aimed at scholars interested in the topic, so it is not an easy read, but I found it very informative and interesting. Some of the articles are more critical but overall I found it well balanced. Of course it is filled with references but unfortunately a lot of them are in German (it seems that a monograph by Bernhard Walpen is very thorough but it hasn't been translated from german :'( ).
I think the most important parts of Manufacturing Consent (for a high schooler) would be the intro and first chapter on the propaganda model, and chapter 2 ("Worthy and Unworthy Victims").
I've also heard this book is good.
EDIT Also: consider adding mainstream (or even right-wing) content to the course. My guess is that students would be less receptive to Chomsky et al. if you throw it in at the beginning of a course.
I think this is a transcript of the lecture he gave at that time.
Wondering if anyone has comments on The Palestine-Israeli Conflict: A Beginner's Guide which attempts to cover both sides of the topic using two different authors. It's on my shelf to read, but curious if anyone else has already assessed it.
According to amazon it's 160 pages in length and the pages aren't that big (it's one of those slim Seven Stories Press books).
I must have misheard Chomsky the first time I watched this. He says participatory economics in here, but also says znet? I found this book which has the participatory economics part, but not the znet part. I want to make sure before I purchase them. http://www.amazon.com/Parecon-After-Capitalism-Michael-Albert/dp/184467505X
I also feel like Chomsky isn't referencing a specific work by Dewey but rather the core of his philosophy. Any ideas, people?
And if you just wanna get plain weird this book by Merlin Stone can make you wonder about everything.
Like there was a war and the bad guys won. After they won they made great efforts to erase a previously existing religion and to date (10,000 years) have been very successful at suppressing the past from pretty much everyone.
Like when you hear Syria you should think Inanna, not ISIL. No one talks about the archaeological treasures that get reduced to rubble every time we invade a country with artifacts. The artifacts never make it and all i see in common is that traces of the old religion are being erased, very consistently, and of course no one in media talks about it.
But that's just me.
He has said that the two things are logically separate, that you could accept one without accepting the other.
But he has also said there is a sort of common thread that can be seen as connecting the two subjects, but it's not like a logical proof, but more of a loose connection. They both relate to a certain view of human nature that this type of language and reasoning ability makes humans very creative by nature when they are thriving, and so somewhat distinct from animals. So we should be skeptical and cautious of systems of control that limit human freedom and creativity, unless they can be justified with a heavy burden of proof. So that's where it connects to anarchism.
There are several videos on youtube search for Chomsky and philosophy. I think there is one maybe called the "The machine, the ghost, and the limits of understanding". I'm not 100% sure if that is the right one.
But he explored connection in depth in his 1996 essay Language and Freedom. This is also republished in the book Chomsky on Anarchism.
Language and Freedom: http://www.chomsky.info/books/state02.pdf
> I'd be interested in reading/watching his thoughts on her in a more in-depth analysis (if any one has any links).
Me too. But he has not been outspoken on his views on Hillary Clinton, as far as I have gathered. Even his analyzes of President Obama are some-what superficial. Chomsky is after all not a political scientist (not to mention that he's actually retired).
There is a new book that recently came out called Clinton Cash. It has stirred some waves and should definitely be read if you're interested in Clinton. It's available in audio book, too.
Oh, I just recalled. There's also "The Clinton Vision: Old Wine, New Bottles" by Noam Chomsky. It only looks at Bill though.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Economic-Transformation-Soviet-Union-1913-1945/dp/052145770X or any of RW Davies' work. Alec Nove- Economic history of the USSR
None with the incisive lucidity of Chomsky however.
The book referenced at 4:20 is Elements of Moral Cognition: Rawls' Linguistic Analogy and the Cognitive Science of Moral and Legal Judgment by John Mikhail. Seems very interesting.