Stop Me Before I Vote Again

There is no denying the logic of lesser evilism. If given a choice between getting raped and punched in the face, or getting raped with a good night kiss afterwards, most people would choose the latter, though which would be the more humiliating is debatable.

Chomsky plays his usual game of defining the parameters of the debate and bogging us down in endless intellectualizing and analysis. But you don't have to be America's Foremost Intellectual (TM) to realize that the answer to the above false dichotomy is "None of the Above." Chomsky frames the debate as "Dems vs Reps, but never "How do we keep from getting raped?" which is the real question.

Yeah, there are marginal differences between the two parties and those differences may be of real consequence for many individuals, but giving in to the perverted logic of lesser evilism and pulling the lever for the Dems ensures that we will never break out of the cycle of madness and and ever-increasing tyranny. If a Republican wins that may be worse, but so long as either wins it's still going to get worse, just to varying degrees. In the end there's no way to avoid the pain but to reach for the cure; you either continue to endure the cancer or suffer through the chemotherapy where your ordeal will get worse before it gets better. Freedom may not be guaranteed by the latter, but it can never come from the former. Chomsky is too smart not to realize this obvious fact, which is why I regard him as being so fundamentally full of shit.

I see he has been sputtering around the Occupy Movement giving speeches suggesting they do what they did in Brazil and send vans out to poor neighborhoods to do political theatre and then analyze the responses afterwards. No, you can't make this shit up. What a radical!

Denis Rancourt and Ghali Hassan offer some food for thought:

http://activistteacher.blogspot.com/2008/07/against-chomsky.html

http://www.countercurrents.org/hassan200610.htm

That was great, the both of you. As to Sean in particular, Chomsky has been assimilated--assuming he hadn't been any way before he gained any name recognition.

Amidst the realm of realpolitik, real or illusory, Mr. Smith's discussion touches on one of the most pivotal points as to decision-making, and one in which economics escapes most Americans. With any given election or political issue, the marketing apparatus warn us to be concerned only about this issue, without contemplating the long-term (or even mid- or short-term) effects of any given choice--say, between abortion and no-abortion. Like choosing between (Democrats and Republicans) Pepsi and Coke, though--or HFCS and genuine refined sugar--the choice is itself not an illusion, but one of brand preference, so useless that it would be less painful were it actually an illusion. The long term results of making the choice at all overlook, shall we say, "Option C," or turning off the television, drinking water, et cetera. To buy either brand--even if Pepsi pays it employees a little better or Coke uses free trade sugar--is to put coins into the casino, which ensures that it will continue operating. And yes, the pointless variety will grow even less noticeable the more often either option is chosen. Even Newton figured out gravity.

higher use of resources of time skill and money
makes the call here

there are obviously direct means to meliorate the issues that a vote at the margin might meliorate indirectly

obviously the margin of difference governs the use of resources necessary
to make a difference

voting ?

can it add to the co0nfirmation of a lesser evil ?

so what ? if there's no alternative
within the same context

in this case the context
an alternative that clearly expresses
rejection of lesser evilism
noam recognizes all this
and he recognizes the limits of action
of certain self proclaimed decent souls
ie souls that won't protest
won't disobey law
won't volunteer services
or donate serious money
so they go to vote every so many years

facing the ballots choices
noam suggests these limitedly decent souls
consider the closeness of the contest between greater and lesser evil
if its close
maybe vote lesser evil if its not
then vote rejectively
express your soul

------------------
to me this is all quite beside the point
whether my soul is besmirched or not
big fucking deal

i have no bourgeois conscience

i might vote on lots of stuff
i love referenda and recalls etc
fall back 'throw the bums out '

worth the vote ?
again if its close
its maybe "worth" the short "time cost"

why not vote to index the state minimum wage

--and don't think low turn out registers anything as coherent as system rejection
the orthrians poll this and assure them selves the distribution of non voters if not a twin of the voters "preferences"
is at least a sibling ---

i'm considering "working " for liz warren

why ?

hell i don't know
curious ?

but its not of any importance unless as an alternative i plunged into a movement
which indeed would be a prefered act

but .....

i'm not curious

this is personal
but so is conscience voting
or nopt voting
as a demonstration of what i stand for ?

me ? please !

who cares
if i'm a soiled spirit ?

now an organized boycott of the polls

if it had legs i'd rather be involved there then with liz warren

a boycott movement defines its whys
clearly rejects the system at hand

but i don't see one

OWS might open up that front
surely the meme nest for that egg to drop into
is already in place among the OWS multitude
and i'd join any boycott off shoot of their's in a flash

"order the entree "
that might soften a few rides
thru this hobbesian irony of a society ?

as a stand alone act to support such an order
--a collective order --
is next to worthless
unless the outcome is sampled
by the carnival pollsters
as "too close to call"
that and one class balance revealing type referendum
would get me to the polls on time

"Chomsky once challenged the US war machine at its root and went to jail for his activism, an activism tied to a strong campus anti-war movement. But after jail and after Vietnam, Chomsky became a non-activist intellectual engaged in analytical penetration of the monster"

okay ......so .....???

"Chomsky, from his position of power within MIT..."

what ??

power ???

wasn't his attack on the new mandarins enough for ya ??

"While this may not be Chomsky’s intent, it is clear that the great majority of Chomsky readers have never put themselves at significant risk by confronting the madness that rules our lives and that is destroying every region of the planet. It is clear that most Chomsky readers don’t read Chomsky as part of a necessary reflection within a high-risk activist battle, within a praxis of change "

noam's work as a writer on current events
de-activates potential activists ??

really ??

an old rad reminded me

"there are already plenty of "activists"
that's not the scarce resource
what we don't have
is a single vanguard organization
of any stand alone practical consequence
no org like the old cp

self liberation thru
high risk system confronting "praxis" ?

anarco-narcotics

strikes me as litle more then
solitary or smal "pack" soul salvation

worthless even if its
a complusion born of personally desperate circumstances

worthless but of course hardly the main enemy
more like a useful flock of idiots

whats interesting
anarchonarcotics
are useful for both sides

us AND the big THEMers

Ghali is a loud mouth attention getter
from down under
where loud mouths outnumber kangas

sean i know you have better sources then this pair of twits

I confess: I'm "Commenter B".

That said... I stand by my belief that the War On Women™ is being used by Donkeycratic partisans to divert Liberals' and Pwogwessives' attention away from the Donkeycrats' complicity in what is an ongoing War On The People -- all of us, whether we're women, men, Black, Latin, Arab, poor, working class, middle class, young or old.

The whole attitude of American Feminism towards the GOP's War On Women™ -- and their silence regarding the Donkeycrats' collaboration with the GOP -- and their lack of attention towards the greater War On The People and their continued dwelling in their single-issue ghetto pretty much proves my theory about modern American Feminism vis-a-vis Carl Perkins:

You can do anything
that you wanna do,
but uh-uh, honey,
lay offa' my uterus!

No, don'tcha step on my
Blue Suede Uterus...!

Additionally, my observation of the plight of American workers over the past two decades also explains my indignation over those times back when my DW was still at EPA, when she would periodically go into her Glass Ceiling rants over how she was being paid $80k a year for doing the same job that a man was being paid $100k a year to do -- totally ignorant of the fact that I was rather underpaid at $40k a year for the work I was doing, and was having wet dreams about earning $80k a year.

Granted, I could agree with her in principle, but still -- Christ, babe, you're earning the kind of salary I dream of earning! She just couldn't get it, though; she couldn't quit bitching about the "glass ceiling" at EPA, and her measly $80 a year. Bah. Piss on American Feminism.

1) Maplewood is a fine upstanding Essex County suburb and to imply that teen pregnancy is on the rise and/or is problematic there... well, what were you doing trolling Columbia High School cheerleaders, sir?

2) If you're assessing problems on the national landscape and want to find something you can fix/change sooner rather than over the course of 1,000 or more years, a "war on women" would be low on the list of priorities, much like gay marriage or abortion access. I'm pretty sure the nation's deep-seated corruption and profiteering on vapor economies and bubbles isn't a result of The War on Women.

3) Which isn't to say that life can be rougher on a XX genome than it is on an XY genome, generally speaking.

When can we start talking about the Democrat's War on Women? Somehow I don't think that swinging dicks have been the only victims of bombings and drone strikes carried out by the Obama regime.

life can be rougher on a XX genome than it is on an XY genome, generally speaking.

I didn't realize Ghali Hassan was a loudmouth from the land of loudmouths. I thought he might be someone with impeccable credentials, like a professor at MIT.

Sean
Sorry I just find anti zionic vituperators tedious in the extreme
It's like bashing Jerry Lewis
Though I can't resist that
So I ought to have more patience with the zionia bashers

I stopped bashing zionians when they sent those leb fascists
Into the refuge camps to slaughter the innocent

Seemed that was the end of any possible defense of fort israel

Now I snooze at the tales of horror

Again it's like tales from the crypt
I prefer spot lights on the lesser exposed miscreant agents of uncle hegemonic

I prefer spot lights on the lesser exposed miscreant agents of uncle hegemonic

Mr B would say the difference is relatively unimportant. Of course the 17-year-old mom-to-be, and her mother, the Maplewood real-estate broker, might think different, and who could blame them?

Apparently, this is incredibly difficult for most Americans to understand.

The number of people I see who blithely assert that, hey, abortion is important, but it's a tiny issue compared to assassination of American citizens, or vice versa as though it were a self-evident fact just boggles me.

My best friend thinks the most pressing issue in modern politics is global warming. Some people think it's the war on women. Me, I reckon it's the fact that the President can kill anybody at any time for any reason.

It's not like any of that shit is unimportant, and it seems self-evident to me that which one concerns you most is going to be more a matter of preference.

Unless one of you all has a mathmatical equation listing exactly how bad every atrocity in the world is.

There is a kind of mathematics to lesserrevillism, and it goes like this: Okay, both parties are crypto-Fascist imperialist warmongering monsters, so that cancels out and we can forget about it; the election is all about the residual marginal differences. This seems to exclude a lot of important stuff from the picture.

Mjs
Cuban Americans for a start

The clique running Columbia

The Hindu half of the Hindu zionic axis

Assorted central American bad ass issimos

A clutch of Bantu blood drinkers

I Can tolerate lots of Han bashing even
Before listening to another round of anti mini me howling

I think it helps to be not in manhattan

I must admit the mosquito inside my porch
Is a daily occurrence and yet I complain more about him then tse tse flies

Down here on the treasure coast Zionism is for a certain brand of
Wild eyed bible riders
And I adore them

Mjs
What it excludes is symbiotic

To the extent the parties reinforce each other
By both excluding flank challengers

Notice the MSM is in love with center party emergence
Like between the two corporate controlled parties is a sunken Atlantis
Of reason and grand convergence

Vital Center worship is more of an evil then lesser evil worship

Barry is a vital center worshipers
They come in two brands

Yee old time vital centerists
And the brave new centerists

Barry as a brave newer
Is in many respects a greater evil then the Mittnovik

The beauty of reaction is it's destructive power

My mind is torn between melioration and conflagration
We left marginals need to prepare ourselves for both outcomes obviously

Hope for conflagration vote for melioration
Is my corrupt bargain with Clio

There is an echo to my former anti zionia
The Saudi clan
what grotesque fuckers
And the other Arab royals

Here however in the great spectacle of market earth
I guess seeing the Brits bounce out and financial strip
their loathsome royals might entertain me more

But 10 thousand saud clan types living together
inside barb wire really satisfies the imagination

Tin huts
desert sun

A taste of gaza

Christopher's snark makes no points other than expressing his pride in his own snowflakeness.

I could easily think that my hangnail is my worst bodily state of dis-ease. Yet all the while there can be cancers raging within me, which at certain points in their lifespans will make themselves known and terminate my existence well before the hangnail ever thinks about developing a potentially bothersome infection.

Many swings and misses at Chomsky in the two links Sean provided. Not least: I don't think Rancourt has grasped how many activists over the years have been inspired to action by reading Noam. I've encountered too many to count; many who've literally said reading or hearing Noam changed their lives and caused them not only to see the world in fundamentally different and more radical ways, but to take action accordingly.

Hang around long enough, you become a target. I understand that.

I do think, however, and sadly, that Noam's position on BDS seems to betray his roots as a Young Zionist back in the day. His arguments just don't hold up to his own standards. It amounts of a pulling-of-punches that is quite disheartening.

I have absolutely no opinion of any this. But what is always interesting, and depressing, is to watch the human animal in action. It's an ape with a bit more of a sophisticated brain and (using that brain) thinks itself important and different from all the other animals. Of course, it isn't. It'll be extinct some time or another and no one and nothing will notice, or care, or even observe. Just like all the other extinct animals that ever were.

The latest thing that has the apes all hooting and hollering is the war on female apes! Let us all prey.

I'm gonna go fix myself another drink, grab a pipe load and read another cheap, badly written science fiction novel, it'll be more entertaining, more informative and far less frustrating than paying attention to the current tempest in a teapot.

MJS - you run a great site and I'd gladly contribute but I'm drunk and stupid and can't figure out how to do so. Please make the procedure clear.

Orville, does that mean there is one issue on which a reasonable person might hang a lesser evil vote? Have I taken your comment the wrong way? All I see in Christopher's comment is an inoffensive, and accurate, acknowledgment of many raging cancers.

MJS nails it,

There is a kind of mathematics to lesserrevillism, and it goes like this: Okay, both parties are crypto-Fascist imperialist warmongering monsters, so that cancels out and we can forget about it; the election is all about the residual marginal differences. This seems to exclude a lot of important stuff from the picture.

The moral calculus of the Lesser Evil works beautifully, as long you can dismiss the greatest evils.

DP -- Send me an email at stopmebeforeivoteagain {at} yahoo.com and I'll set you up.

Orville, does that mean there is one issue on which a reasonable person might hang a lesser evil vote?

It means seeking root causes is far more important than looking at symptoms.

It means prioritizing the work at fixing root causes, by working on those which have some chance of effect.

I think I made that clear in my first comment in this thread.

Have I taken your comment the wrong way? All I see in Christopher's comment is an inoffensive, and accurate, acknowledgment of many raging cancers.

And I see in Christopher's comment a collection of observations on people who have lots of hangnails and not on people who are seeing the nascent competing cancers. This, because of the style and content of Christopher's past comments provides context.

Given the limits of human language, there's probably miscommunication and misreading involved at everyone's end.

More on the above.

Imagine the asbestos factory worker who shows up at his MD's office at age 53 with some constant coughing and phlegm-hacking. MD looks at AFW and determines through exam and testing that he's got mesothelioma, asbestosis, throat cancer and a functionally collapsed lung.

AFW has been a cigarette smoker and his job at the plant was packaging friable asbestos.

MD's choice of attack on the conditions would be what benefits MD the most -- expensive approaches, most likely, and ones which do more to fatten MD's coffers than they do to help AFW enjoy his remaining days.

AFW figures he's a goner so he keeps smoking, further deteriorating the functional lung.

AFW's wife sees AFW losing weight rapidly thanks to the cancers' hunger for nutrients. Her approach is to fatten him up.

AFW's line boss gives AFW a simpler job that demands less cardiovascular stamina.

AFW's niece, an "activist" college student, starts a protest boycott of all asbestos and tobacco products.

Meanwhile, AFW's employer keeps packaging friable asbestos, and Big Tobacco keeps selling cigarettes, and Big Medicine keeps dodging the clear causal chains between asbestos, tobacco smoking, and AFW's conditions.

"I think I made that clear in my first comment '

maybe so but re iteration is the soul of communication
like it or not

It means seeking root causes is far more important than looking at symptoms.

It means prioritizing the work at fixing root causes, by working on those which have some chance of effect.

And of course we all know which problems are root causes and which are just distracting symptoms.

Obviously, a "war on women" couldn't possibly be one of the deeper problems of the world, and what misogyny in government exists is simply the symptom of deeper problems, and will disappear once we address those deeper problems.

This is all so incredibly self-evident that there is absolutely no need to make a case for it.

I have no idea what you think I was saying above; I'm certainly not arguing that every problem is equally bad.

What I am saying is that, in American politics, there is an attitude of assuming that the problems that concern you the most are thus objectively the most important problems in the nation, and that the fact of this is so obvious that anybody who thinks some other problem may go deeper and be of greater concern is clearly delusional.

I think making a good case that your pet problems are worse than/the root of everybody else's pet problems would probably require a book-length treatise.

And if that seems daunting, my follow-up question is "Why do you even need to prove that your pet problem is the worst of them all?" Isn't it enough that it's a pressing issue, without having to make it objectively the most pressing issue in the entire world?

This is not my area to say the least
But I listened to Noam on DDT or whatever it's initials are
and couldn't discover much to criticize

Blanket anathemas on Israelis seems functionless

Attacking US guv aide strikes me as adequate
If you add in divestiture aimed at US corporations
with Zionic dealings
Isn't our job to influence our evil state ?

Y'know. sometimes I really feel like pulling the plug on this blog. Pissing into the wind, as boat dudes say.

Left attacks on Chomsky are sheerest idiocy, which sadly is rarely in short supply from the left.

Left attacks on Chomsky are sheerest idiocy

He wouldn't be human if he didn't get it wrong once in a while. But the things he's gotten right are so many, and so important.

I did pull the plug on my blog, for a bit anyway, though who knows. What is there to say that hasn't been said? Same bullshit, same ego-driven crap, same babbling among people, who, in my experience, aren't all that nice. Always too busy, all for the cause but, oh my, don't ask for any money or time, or some old-fashioned solidarity. Chomsky consistently gives all three,in case some haven't noticed.

In the end, though, it doesn't matter whether you pull the plug or not. Who the fuck will care one way or the other? Even if the wondrous Lenin's Tomb blog ended,it would be of no consequence. Fellow has a bad case of prolixity, so overall well-being might rise if it did.

BTW, there are places in the US where you cannot get an abortion or where you have to have money to go where you can get one. If you are poor, prepare to run the gauntlet of lunatics on your way to the clinic.

A vote can never be less than a statement of confidence, a token of approval. It means nothing to a candidate that I voted for him strategically, with grave misgivings or any other gooey salve to the conscience. What matters is that he got my vote. Having got it, he owes me nothing. If he breaks his promises, he will make his excuses — assuming he even acknowledges having broken them. If he's the winner, he now has his mandate and will do as he pleases. It won't even matter if he wants to run for re-election. He knows that almost all incumbents win. How deluded would I be were I to think he understands my reservations in having voted for him? A vote is an all-or-nothing commitment; there's no fine print.

It's not, sad to say, unlike taking part in a TV survey. Does it signify if you watched a show with delight or indifference? All that signifies is that you watched it, saw the ads and remembered something about them. It's not as if they care whether you liked the show.

How can you not vote for Obama, friends will say: he'll give you the right to marry another man. Even if he had the power to do so, I wouldn't fall for this bribe. I don't approve, you see, of the annulments he's made: lives canceled by bombs. Imagine gaining my rights at such a price. But Romney will order the bombings as well, they will reply. No doubt; and so he's just as intolerable. No contest between them: both of them failed to qualify.

There are always thumbscrews which elections apply to the conscience. Candidate X would not interfere with abortion. Candidate Y just might. Yet both of them want a turn at running the war machine. Abortion is a make-or-break issue; but so are the wars. Could I vote for Candidate X without voting for the wars? I couldn't. So I won't.

If I can be excused for repeating something I wrote before, I wouldn't vote for a gay-baiter no matter how impeccable his record. It's a matter of self-respect. I also wouldn't vote for someone good on gay issues if his record was otherwise horrible. That's also a matter of self-respect. And that's what it comes down to, doesn't it? You're not required to vote. It's been called a duty; it isn't. It's not one of those (many) things in life you must do regardless of aversion. Make them deserve your vote.

http://towardfreedom.com/home/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2791:the-mess-in-mali-the-logic-of-unintended-consequences&catid=30:africa&Itemid=63

That links to a good spot light throw
By a long time pal of the Pals

No doubt good Ghali
mentioned above
does much similar spot lighting

Lesson to op like ass holes

even loud mouths often enough can make righteous calls

Well said Antonello. The idea that it makes one iota of difference how one feels about a vote, or what one's precious, subtle, and nuanced motivations were, a vote's a vote. There's no mechanism to record the exquisite feelings and anguish that preceded the pulling of the lever.

The truly comic, and tragic, extreme manifestation of this "thinking": people who say they supported the Iraq war for X, X, and X reasons, but not Y, Y, Y. As in: "I supported the Iraq war for humanitarian reasons and to support democracy the the heart of the Arab world blah blah blah. WMD didn't matter to me." Setting aside the sheer absurdity of the more "benign" reasons for supporting this catastrophe: this is all some bizarre form of My Yahoo support for war.

MJS, kindly keep the blog plugged in.

Mr Yates

I dare say there is much about the workings of the global market places
Leftists get snarled about

Simply because of wide spread
Humanist - Marxist ignorance of the basics

Basics a thousand blogs could churn out for a thousand days
Prolly to end with but a small advance

Trench warfare

Some of us had designed tanks
But putting them into mass production
is off the agenda
At most of our amalgamated left business observatories

Too boring
Too detailed
Too mundane

Antonello is a good potential recruit to a ballot box boycott movement

Simply not voting articulates nothing
Because the spectrum of non voters has no shape when sample
That articulates anything
It's a blob of slowly churning chaotic self contradictions

Example
Who here would critique this in useful non boiler plate detail?

http://grijalva.house.gov/uploads/Executive%20Summary%20FINAL.pdf

If there is anything that counts as "sheerest idiocy" it's refusing to call bullshit on bullshit, whatever the source. I don't care whether the bullshit comes from the mass media or some celebrity intellectual worshiped as a cult figure by the left. As James Petras points out, "the peace and justice movements, at home and abroad, are bigger than any individual or intellectual, no matter what their past credentials."

Yeah, Chomsky is right most of the time, but the same could be said for Olberman, Maddow, Kos and dozens of other propagandists and shills. It amazes me that people fail to realize that good propaganda is always couched in the truth, and accommodates itself to the world-view of the people it's aimed at. Any two-bit hustler knows he can never win you over by continuously lying in your face unless you're a complete idiot. To have any credibility on the Left, you have to denounce the US and Israel on some level.

The critical issue is not where Chomsky is playing his usual game of speaking the "truth" in broad generalities that are uncontested by most people on the left, but where he is full of shit, because it's not the gold plating on the phony ring that matters, but the brass underneath it.

If Chomsky can get you to believe that lesser evilism is a morally correct choice, that the Zionist lobby in the US and Western Europe has little influence on the policies of Western governments, and the question of who is responsible for 9-11 is not only irrelevant, but could mean the "end of the Left"...then he's done his job. At the end of the day a vote is a vote, and it doesn't matter whether you voted for Obama because Oprah convinced you he was the messiah, or Chomsky convinced you that failure to vote for the lesser evil shows "contempt for the people." Refusing to question Zionist power because Chomsky convinced you it doesn't exist is a more effective muzzle on the truth than refusing to question it because you are afraid of being denounced as an "anti-semite" and your career ruined by this power that doesn't exist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNpNzDoH1II&feature=player_embedded

On the subject of Israel though, is where Chomsky really runs off the rails. His opinions and apologetics are scarcely different from those of J-Street, the "liberal" champions of Zionist bullshit. I could go into considerable detail on this, but anything by James Petras or Jeffrey Blankfort on this issue is a good start:

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/pg-blankfort.html
http://petras.lahaine.org/?p=7

If there is anything that counts as "sheerest idiocy" it's refusing to call bullshit on bullshit, whatever the source. I don't care whether the bullshit comes from the mass media or some celebrity intellectual worshiped as a cult figure by the left. As James Petras points out, "the peace and justice movements, at home and abroad, are bigger than any individual or intellectual, no matter what their past credentials."

Yeah, Chomsky is right most of the time, but the same could be said for Olberman, Maddow, Kos and dozens of other propagandists and shills. It amazes me that people fail to realize that good propaganda is always couched in the truth, and accommodates itself to the world-view of the people it's aimed at. Any two-bit hustler knows he can never win you over by continuously lying in your face unless you're a complete idiot. To have any credibility on the Left, you have to denounce the US and Israel on some level.

The critical issue is not where Chomsky is playing his usual game of speaking the "truth" in broad generalities that are uncontested by most people on the left, but where he is full of shit, because it's not the gold plating on the phony ring that matters, but the brass underneath it.

If Chomsky can get you to believe that lesser evilism is a morally correct choice, that the Zionist lobby in the US and Western Europe has little influence on the policies of Western governments, and the question of who is responsible for 9-11 is not only irrelevant, but could mean the "end of the Left"...then he's done his job. At the end of the day a vote is a vote, and it doesn't matter whether you voted for Obama because Oprah convinced you he was the messiah, or Chomsky convinced you that failure to vote for the lesser evil shows "contempt for the people." Refusing to question Zionist power because Chomsky convinced you it doesn't exist is a more effective muzzle on the truth than refusing to question it because you are afraid of being denounced as an "anti-semite" and your career ruined by this power that doesn't exist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNpNzDoH1II&feature=player_embedded

On the subject of Israel though, is where Chomsky really runs off the rails. His opinions and apologetics are scarcely different from those of J-Street, the "liberal" champions of Zionism bullshit. I could go into considerable detail on this, but anything by James Petras or Jeffrey Blankfort on this issue is a good start:

(links to follow)

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/pg-blankfort.html
http://petras.lahaine.org/?p=7

Nice to see the Simbivvas rallying 'round Chomsky the fake-anarchist!

Anarchism is best achieved by helping the world's largest weapons research laboratory owned by the world's largest geopolitical bully.

That's definitely true, isn't it?

If I wanted to help AFW from my example above, I'd give money to Johns-Manville -- or work for them in Public Relations, or as their defense lawyer in personal injury suits. That would be the best way to help AFW.

This is the example of Our Hero, Professor Chomsky.

Dare not criticize him! Dare not!

Fabianism is the best of all possible social orders anyway. It really is.

And of course we all know which problems are root causes and which are just distracting symptoms.

There it is again. Super-snark.

I didn't say "we all know" anything, Christopher.

I'll reiterate, since Mr Paine demands it be the soul of communication.

I'm talking about what are the things we can change if we want some improvement of our society.

If you're a wealthy gay man who merely seeks the right to gay marriage, and has no problem getting health care, finding a job, affording housing and food... you're not really looking at any problems. You're looking at luxuries and weeping about being denied access to them.

Unless you want to say marriage is the font of all stable societies, in which case you begin to sound like you come from a Log Cabin and maybe want to play in bathrooms with Larry Craig.

Unfortunately too many on the left can't distinguish between disagreement (even substantive disagreement) and being a "propagandist and shill", as Sean illustrates. Chomsky's decades of criticizing Israel and supporting Palestinian causes isn't enough to keep them from acting as though he's no more than another Kos or Maddow. If that doesn't qualify as idiocy it's hard to imagine what would.

"Yeah, Chomsky is right most of the time, but the same could be said for Olberman, Maddow, Kos and dozens of other propagandists and shills."

Where to begin?

And: " and the question of who is responsible for 9-11..."

Oh boy....

"Where to begin?"

Start anywhere you like.

"Oh boy...."

If there's a measure of how corrupting Chomsky's influence has been on the American Left, it's smarmy, condescending responses like this whenever anyone questions the 9-11 fairy tale. The Left in American has been thoroughly conditioned to give this response. After all, the government and Chomsky have told us what to think about this, who are we to question them?

@Anon,

They don't give you a comfortable perch at the Empire's foremost militaristic institute, publish and promote all your books and make you the intellectual world's equivalent of the Beatles because you threaten elite power. Malcom X could have discovered cold fusion and he wouldn't have been rewarded a seat at MIT.

I'm talking about what are the things we can change if we want some improvement of our society.

If you're a wealthy gay man who merely seeks the right to gay marriage, and has no problem getting health care, finding a job, affording housing and food... you're not really looking at any problems. You're looking at luxuries and weeping about being denied access to them.

I really don't know how gay marriage comes into this. As I understand the point you're making, you could just as easily talked about rich people asking for more tax credits for their enormous yachts.

Yes, I concede fully, for I think the third time, that some issues are more important than others. I concede that the fact that someone is complaining doesn't prove that they're being horribly oppressed. I fully accept that if you have brain cancer and a hangnail, the cancer is a more pressing concern.

The question is, which issues are the cancers and which the hangnails?

If you want to make the case that a specific issue is of pressing concern, and another is just a symptom/distraction, you have to make that case. The fact that it's obvious to you doesn't make it obvious to everybody else.

Mr. Flugennock, who I was mainly responding to, has twice asserted that any "war on women" is a distraction from the more important "war on people". He hasn't, at least in the comments quoted here, provided any reason to think that the "war on women" isn't particularly important, or any reasons to think that women will be inevitably better off if we just win the war on people. Both of these assertions are just taken as self-evident.

I don't find them self-evident at all.

Sean, the 9/11 fairy tale is that swarthy men in caves couldn't possibly have pulled off an attack like that. It just had to be the work of Eeeeeevil White Men, whom Truthers seem to assume are not only limitlessly evil (OK, maybe I'm with you much of the way there) but also limitlessly competent.

The "9/11 fairy tale" notion seems to stem from childlike awe of parental power. Looks to me more like the swarthy A-rabs pulled off a low-tech masterpiece of terrorism. That the national security state and assorted crypto-fascists predictably took advantage of the opportunity 9/11 afforded is a far cry from their having orchestrated it, or even known about it in advance.

As Ben Hecht said, and every good SMBIVAn knows: ""The competition is idiots. Keep it under your hat."

Idiots run the show. They may be evil, but they're of limited competence. Of course, the combination of evil + incompetence + unbridled power can have ghastly consequences, as the Vietnamese, Iraqis, Afghans, and millions of others can attest.

I don't find them self-evident at all.

No, you wouldn't. You're too busy setting up psychological hierarchies of privilege, and assessing which privileges you're denied, however mote- or sliver-like they may be compared to others.

Why don't you take a stab at pointing out some of the things you think are (1) causative, and (2) in some way susceptible to social change within your remaining lifetime?

No points awarded if you cite the War on Women.

And definitely no points awarded if you smugly deride everyone politely while grasping the bone china teacup with rigid pinky extended from the grasping hand.

(Translation: being a cultural elitist is no more elevated or blameless than being a financial elitist)

chomskyzinn's piling on the derision and smug superiority too.

Back to your Ivory Tower, pretentious fop.

Here's an example of something far more problematic than being denied abortion-at-will, being denied your "partner's" health care benefits, or having someone make you look at a Thomas Kincaid painting:

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/04/12-3?page=1

Being submitted to cruel and unusual punishment before any type of crime commission evidence, legal process or conviction of the supposed crime is problematic for the whole populace, not just a few dandies who are sad that they can't wear their frilly blouses at a Cracker Christer weddding in the Hamptons.

Idiots run the show. They may be evil, but they're of limited competence.

Oh yeah. They're "incompetent" at being pretentious fake-intellectuals, "hapless" at thinking policy debate = vehicle of change, "clueless" at devolving all problems to posing as a scholar on a pathetic blog read by other fake-intellectuals.

They're so "inept" that they have the power to detain, torture, murder or disappear you without process or other regard for your liberty. And their "cluelessness" has them earning riches while you stew in your morass of psychological superiority and murk of ego-stoke.

And please, don't pretend you were being "ironic" there, CZ. We've all read your comments suggesting your brow is much higher than ours.

Orville, I find your derision thoroughly entertaining and can't get enough of it. Probably a masochistic streak in me, but the more you lay it on, the more I like it.

In an ivory tower? Perchance to dream! My fondest wish would be to be either a very wealthy idealistic crank, with enough fuck-you money to last me many lifetimes over. Or a tenured radical. Or both.

But alas, I'm a mere wage slave, sureptiously typing within the belly of the corporate beast. Better compensated than many, but without an ounce of security or much peace of mind.

I dunno. Looks to me like you've found security in defending Chomsky with Chomsky-esque obscurantism and debate-boundary-constraint.

And the "Ivory Tower" remark wasn't meant to be a prediction of your exact employment, but rather, a suggestion of how you present yourself here -- beleaguered genius who deserves a Chomsky-like position in our society but alas, is denied that prestige and wealth.

Keep building fences around the Chomsky myth, bro. Maybe step up to fortifications that are more durable than mere fences, though. Our Hero is on his last legs and we don't want to see his Hallowed Reputation tarnished in his final days.

Here's an example of something far more problematic than being denied abortion-at-will, being denied your "partner's" health care benefits, or having someone make you look at a Thomas Kincaid painting:

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/04/12-3?page=1

You know, people who are denied health care sometimes die from the lack of it, or are permanently maimed. Same with some women who are forced to give birth. My understanding is that the US has an unusually high maternal mortality rate, too.

Dying in agony sure sounds a lot worse than having to listen to an annoying noise for a few minutes.

This, again, is why I have problems with ranking the world's ills. It's incredibly easy and nasty to say that lack of treatment for cancer is like "being forced to look at a Thomas Kincaid painting" or that being hit with acoustic weapons is "listening to an annoying noise for a few minutes".

And I think maybe if you were deafened by some nasty riot control weapon you might also be concerned about whether you could affordably get health care for your ears.

Why don't you take a stab at pointing out some of the things you think are (1) causative, and (2) in some way susceptible to social change within your remaining lifetime?

No points awarded if you cite the War on Women.

So, I have to make a case that something is causative and susceptible to social change, but it doesn't count unless you already believe that it fits the criteria.

Not sure what that's supposed to prove, exactly. You already know which issues you think fit the bill, so... I'm naming those, I guess.

"They don't give you a comfortable perch at the Empire's foremost militaristic institute, publish and promote all your books and make you the intellectual world's equivalent of the Beatles because you threaten elite power."

It's true I first read a Chomsky book thanks to tireless promotion by elite power. MY GOD YOU'RE RIGHT.

So now it's racist to question the government's 9-11 lies?. This is comical even by the standards of the 9-11 Lies movement. You seem as butthurt about this as the CIA's subcontractors and their phony media wing. Those damn Persians, always trying to steal Arab glory!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/28/al-qaida-ahmadinejad-911-conspiracy

Millions of "swarthy" people, as you put it, have been murdered and their countries destroyed on the basis of this lie you and Chomsky defend. I don't think robbing Al Qaeda of it's props is high on the list of Arab concerns right now.

Like 99 percent of those who criticize it, you clearly know nothing of what the 9-11 Truth Movement actually claims but are repeating fictions you read elsewhere. If you did, you would know they make no special claims of what did or did not happen that day, but instead present evidence and arguments that call the government's assertions into dispute, and ask for a legitimate and independent investigation into what really happened.

Interesting, though, how you turn Chomsky's bullshit on its head to attack those who you claim think Al Qaeda incapable of this, and then turn it back around to accuse the CIA of being incapable of something like this. OBL could coordinate an attack like this in real time from his Ernst Blofeld Collector's Edition Evil Headquarters carved into a mountain in Afghanistan, but the CIA couldn't manage it from Langley. OBL could get NORAD to stage a drill whose scenario was identical to that of the 9-11 attacks at the very moment they were occurring, but no one in the US government could have pulled this off.

The "eeeevil white men" you think are all idiots have this country by the balls, have robbed it of trillions of dollars in broad daylight and gotten it to fight wars on behalf of a shitty little country in the Middle East of no use to anyone but the politicians they buy. They have overthrown or subverted countless governments all over the planet and intimidated more into compliance. They have manipulated the populace of foreign countries into rising against their governments in color revolutions, and have manipulated the populace of our own country into acquiescence or wasting our energies with impotent protest, intellectual posturing and obsessing over race. They've clearly done a good job of bullshitting you and most of the Left into thinking their War of Terror is a real response to real enemies.

But they're all incompetent morons.

Sean, I basically agree with your "eevil white man" paragrapph. There's just a lot more bumbling and incompetence than you're suggesting. Iraq, for instance, didn't turn out "as planned." Not even close. Seems to me, it unleashed a host of unintended consequences for the empire.

Vietnam didn't go "as planned" either, though it did accomplish the objective of squashing and making an example of anyone who dares try independence. But I don't think the US leaving with its tail between its legs, and a vibrant anti-war movement at home, was what planners had in mind.

The Reagan years were far more successful: outsource the thuggery to terrorists like the contras, and choke places like Nicaragua and El Salvador until they cry uncle and dare not aspire to independence again.

The record of success and competence is more complex than your paragraph suggests, though there have been stunning and brutal victories for empire.

Iraq was a complete victory for the necocons, where events turned out exactly "as planned" in Oded Yinon's "A strategy for Israel in the 1980s" except for the fact it took a few decades to realize it. The goal has been to fracture the Arab and Muslim countries into failed states divided and at war with each other:

"Lebanon's total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precendent for the entire Arab world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula and is already following that track. The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unqiue areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel's primary target on the Eastern front in the long run…

Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel's targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria."

http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/articles/article0005345.html

That they can pull off the 9-11 attacks and multiple wars in the Mideast even when they openly stated and admitted their plans in advance is amazing. Philip Zelikow, who headed the 9-11 cover-up, admitted that the war in Iraq was fought to protect Israel. PNAC clearly stated in their papers that the destruction of Iraq was a strategic goal for Israel in its own right, but one which might require a Pearl Harbor style even to rally the American people behind it. One year after writing that they got their Pearl Harbor.

But they have the mainstream media, academics and Lefty gatekeepers on their side to ensure no one ever questions any of this and if they do, they are marginalized as fruitcakes. There is no one more ridiculed by the so-called "Left" in this country than those who openly doubt 9-11, not even the fascist thugs responsible for all this evil.

Sean, a couple of questions, not asking argumentatively: Do you think the government knew about 9/11 in advance, was involved in the plotting/planning? Or knew in advance but didn't do anything about it? And either way, would such a plan be leakproof?

I do see your point about Iraq. Have heard similar point made, that the aim was to destabilize a number of countries, and either to replace their leaders with favorable ones, and/or simply sow chaos: The original plan included Iraq, Lebanon, Iran, Libya, Syria, and I believe 2 others. This has been well-documented, yes.

I don't think there's such a thing as a leakproof plan, but criminal conspiracies don't need to be leakproof to be successful. The existence of illegal drugs throughout the US is evidence of successful criminal conspiracies to distribute and sell drugs. You don't have to know who did it or how they did it to deduce this fact.

As for who I think did 9-11, the evidence I have seen points strongly to Israel working in tandem with elements within the US government, without whose cooperation many of the events of 9-11 would have been near impossible.

I would suggest examining the evidence and arguments produced by the 9-11 Truth Movement and drawing your own conclusions.

http://www.911truth.org/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Anp3KsuciEQ&feature=player_embedded