Chomsky Slams down Trotskyite [Archive]

Zanthorus

14th December 2010, 21:15

What any leftists goal should be is to make the lives of people better,

This is vague rhetoric, of course our end goal is a dramatic improvement in everyone's lives. What distuinguishes Internationalist Communist's from the likes of Chomsky is that we consider the working-class to be the conduit of it's own self-emancipation. A lack of ability to concieve the latter is precisely what I take issue with in Chomsky's statements, as this lack is what implicitly underlines his arguments for voting for the 'lesser of the two evils' (As I believe Loren Goldner pointed out, the latter statement is correct in one sense, the Democrats certainly are evil) and that revolutionaries don't care about what happens to members of the working-class.

If your sitting in a bunker waiting for a full on revolution then your wasting your time and obviously you don't care about concrete issues to make peoples life better.

You are still tring to avoid the issue. I don't advocate 'sitting in a bunker waiting for full on revolution', I do care about concrete issues to make people's lives better. What I postulate is that those concrete issues should be fought ought by the working-class itself in defence of it's own interests, rather than them having it done for them by apparently well-meaning Fabian intellectuals. What I postulate above all is that at no point should any self-described revolutionary vote for the democrats and in the process violate the principal of working-class political independence in a shameless and opportunistic manner while using arguments which show a fundamental inability to concieve the working-class as an active agent in it's own emancipation.

No he's not on an equal level, he's an anarchist, and not a political party, nor is he in favor or political parties.

Then why the does he keep arguing for voting for the US democratic party? As has been pointed out thousands of times, Chomsky is not an Anarchist, he is a very extreme left-wing liberal parading as one. The Chomskyites can close their eyes to his social-democratic political stances all they like, it doesn't change a thing.

what he said was that sometimes voting makes a difference.

For the sake of argument, I will not deny that running in elections is a possible tactic which could be employed by an independent working-class political party as long as such electoral participation was in line with and made subordinate to the final goal of the working-class taking political power. If the party put up candidates in such a situation, then yes voting would make a positive difference. What I am trying to get into your head is that the latter is qualitatively different from voting for a party which stands for the class interests of the bourgeoisie.

RGacky3

14th December 2010, 21:16

Peter Schweizer of the Hoover Institute, in an article called Noam Chomsky, Closet Capitalist states that Chomsky, who has criticized tax havens and concentration of wealth, has himself (with a net worth of $2,000,000) used a trust to avoid taxation. "Chomsky favors the estate tax and massive income redistribution—just not the redistribution of his income." Schweizer argues that Chomsky has criticized the concept of intellectual property, a position Schweizer maintains is hypocritical in light of the fact that much of Chomsky's own material is copyrighted and distributed for a fee.

Again, Chomsky lives in a Capitalist economy, why would'nt he arange his finances to pay less taxes? He's also a very well known philanthophist to actual movements, and organizations that make a difference.

But again, what does this have to do with what he says? If you have money in mutual funds does that barr you from being a socialist? Does that make any sense to you?

ComradeMan

14th December 2010, 21:18

It's easy to be an anarchist with a great job and a net worth of $2,000,000....

:lol:

#FF0000

14th December 2010, 21:19

Ehhh I don't think criticizing him for having money and having published, copyrighted books is fair.

Otherwise carry on. I'm not a fan of Chomsky either.

#FF0000

14th December 2010, 21:20

"I would suggest not voting for McCain which means voting for Obama" Chomsky told The Real News. Chomsky believes that a continuation of Bush style policies would have a significant impact on the public, and although both candidates are well to the right of the population in terms of actual policy 'There is nothing wrong with picking the lesser of two evils"

lol

Nolan

14th December 2010, 21:21

Chumpsky is nothing more than a liberal. He writes a lot of good things, like a lot of liberals, but at the end of the day he's just another liberal with a hard-on for anti-Leninism.

There are much better leftist writers right now.

RGacky3

14th December 2010, 21:21

^^^^^^^ I didn't think anarchists did personality cults.

We don't, but if your wrong .... your wrong.

What I postulate is that those concrete issues should be fought ought by the working-class itself in defence of it's own interests, rather than them having it done for them by apparently well-meaning Fabian intellectuals.

Which is exactly what Chomsky advocates .... All the time.

A lack of ability to concieve the latter is precisely what I take issue with in Chomsky's statements, as this lack is what implicitly underlines his arguments for voting for the 'lesser of the two evils' (As I believe Loren Goldner pointed out, the latter statement is correct in one sense, the Democrats certainly are evil) and that revolutionaries don't care about what happens to members of the working-class.

Are the 2 mutually exclusive? No they are not. Chomsky advocates, as was said before emancipation of the working class by the working class, which includes many different approaches.

Then why the fuck does he keep arguing for voting for the goddamn US democratic party? As has been pointed out thousands of times, Chomsky is not an Anarchist, he is a very extreme left-wing liberal parading as one. The Chomskyites can close their eyes to his social-democratic political stances all they like, it doesn't change a thing.

He barely argues for that, and when he does he does it without illusions. But most of what he advocates is self emancipation of the working class, through syndicalism, mass organizing and so on.

Voting for the less of 2 evils does'nt cancel that out.

What I am trying to get into your head is that the latter is qualitatively different from voting for a party which stands for the class interests of the bourgeoisie.

Of coarse they both do, but one of them will get rid of social security the other will not. That makes a real difference in the lives of working class people.

RGacky3

14th December 2010, 21:23

It's easy to be an anarchist with a great job and a net worth of $2,000,000....

Its easy to be anything with that ....

ComradeMan

14th December 2010, 21:24

We don't, but if your wrong .... your wrong.

Wrong about what? That he is worth $2,000,000 and has a trust fund to avoid taxes that could go on, say, social housing- yet benefits from US military funding that is derived from....err.... taxes?

Which is exactly what Chomsky advocates .... All the time..

He also doesn't advocate tax havens.

Sosa

14th December 2010, 21:27

Then why the does he keep arguing for voting for the US democratic party? As has been pointed out thousands of times, Chomsky is not an Anarchist, he is a very extreme left-wing liberal parading as one. The Chomskyites can close their eyes to his social-democratic political stances all they like, it doesn't change a thing.

Please point out exactly where he does this. He never said such a thing. What he said is that small differences exist in candidates of both factions. He himself said he has voted republican or democrat based on these small differences. He doesn't advocate voting for any party line.

RGacky3

14th December 2010, 21:27

Wrong about what? That he is worth $2,000,000 and has a trust fund to avoid taxes that could go on, say, social housing- yet benefits from US military funding that is derived from....err.... taxes?

About that having any significance.

He also doesn't advocate tax havens.

Having your money in a trust is'nt a tax haven, and I doubt he would protest of that "tax haven" was taxed.

#FF0000

14th December 2010, 21:28

Zanthorus

14th December 2010, 21:30

Which is exactly what Chomsky advocates .... All the time... Chomsky advocates, as was said before emancipation of the working class by the working class, which includes many different approaches... most of what he advocates is self emancipation of the working class.

What you still seem to fail to understand is that his arguments for voting for the democrats are inconsistent with this perspective.

Of coarse they both do, but one of them will get rid of social security the other will not. That makes a real difference in the lives of working class people.

I don't know about "one of them will get rid of social security and the other will not." What I do know is that organising resistance against government cutbacks and attacks on the working-class will be more effective than sitting a pollbooth and putting an 'X' next to the box where it says 'Democratic party'.

ComradeMan

14th December 2010, 21:34

About that having any significance.

Of course it does seeing as he has been an outspoken critic of the US military and US foreign policy.

Having your money in a trust is'nt a tax haven, and I doubt he would protest of that "tax haven" was taxed.

No but it's still a way of avoiding taxes which he condemns.

Zanthorus

14th December 2010, 21:39

He doesn't advocate voting for any party line.

This is not the point. The point is that he votes for parties which uphold capitalism and imperialism, the point is that in doing so he goes against the political independence of the working-class. The point is that his arguments are in fundamental contradiction with the view (Which should be) held by both Anarchists and Marxists that the working-class is the active agent in it's own self-liberation, that the emancipation of the workers' must be the act of the working-class itself. The point is that he hypocritically attacks Leninists for their 'authoritarianism' all the while holding a view which is more in contradiction with the aforementioned principle than that of the Spartacist League who he attacks in this video. The point is that he claims to be an anarchist while openly promoting reformist and social-democratic politics.

So far, no-one seems to be able to rebut any of the points.

Devrim

15th December 2010, 14:58

Please point out exactly where he does this. He never said such a thing. What he said is that small differences exist in candidates of both factions. He himself said he has voted republican or democrat based on these small differences. He doesn't advocate voting for any party line.

I would suggest not voting for McCain which means voting for Obama

There is a video link here (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-real-news/chomsky-in-swing-states-v_b_136248.html).

I don't think that there is much difference between suggest and advocate.

Are the 2 mutually exclusive? No they are not. Chomsky advocates, as was said before emancipation of the working class by the working class, which includes many different approaches.

I have read quite a bit of Chomsky, and I have never read anything where he gives the idea of working class self emancipation anything more than lip service. I have never read him writing in detail about workers' struggles in the US or anywhere else. Of course there are lots of things by him that I haven't read, and if you could show me them I would obviously be proven wrong.

I have read a lot on the hypocrisy of US foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East and central America. He writes well on these issues and is informative, but I have never seen him as putting a class perspective forward on topics such as the Middle East. He argues for the implementation of UN resolutions, and for a 'political solution', for which really we can read 'imperialist solution'. Never once have I seen him suggest any sort of class solution.

Devrim

Revolution starts with U

15th December 2010, 16:04

BTW- he is receives the benefits of US military funding.

Peter Schweizer of the Hoover Institute, in an article called Noam Chomsky, Closet Capitalist states that Chomsky, who has criticized tax havens and concentration of wealth, has himself (with a net worth of $2,000,000) used a trust to avoid taxation. "Chomsky favors the estate tax and massive income redistribution—just not the redistribution of his income." Schweizer argues that Chomsky has criticized the concept of intellectual property, a position Schweizer maintains is hypocritical in light of the fact that much of Chomsky's own material is copyrighted and distributed for a fee.
http://www.hoover.org/publications/h...t/article/6222 (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.hoover.org/publications/hoover-digest/article/6222)

I would have to dispute this evidence, as you can get most of Chomsky's material for free from "chomskyinfo.net" or something like that. Also... how did he get ahold of someone's tax records? I worked as a tax preparer and I was only legally allowed to get my own clients records, and only with their permission.

RaÃºl Duke

15th December 2010, 16:31

I don't understand why people here think its an extraordinary claim that Chomsky has suggested to vote for the Democrats (or to vote for "the lesser evil;" I have a few words on that later); I thought that was common knowledge.

Nevertheless, Devrim has been helpful enough to show a few links showing just that. Also, you can always find more through the internet, just google it.

WHere does he advocate that? What he said is sometimes voting can make a concrete difference. Are you thick and/or blind? Consider the context, voting for what and who? There's an up and coming working class party in America that has a chance to win the elections at the time he made those remarks? Of course not. It's obvious that he means the Democrats or whoever the lesser evil is (which are usually assumed to be the Democrats). The "who" can be easily inferred, especially if you recognized (instead of ignore) Chomsky's track-record of advocating for Democrat votes (he advocated for Kerry before).

Yeah but the thing is he isn't saying "vote for democrats".

Sounds like it at first, but I figured out that I agree with him. People say politics and being politically active and they think it means voting every four years. But that isn't what it's about. Chomsky thinks it's what people do between those four years that is important. You know. Educating, agitating, organizing and all that.

yeah maybe he's for that too, but the context of the video points towards electoral politics (i.e. voting or not for established parties).
I'm just saying his opinion is false, I really don't see a significant "slight" good difference in voting the so-called "lesser evil."

The elections in question (2008) are over. Now we can take a look what "lesser evilism" has brought us....

And in your eyes given the circumstances back then was he wrong? Would it have been better or worse with McCain in?

"I would suggest not voting for McCain which means voting for Obama" Chomsky told The Real News. Chomsky believes that a continuation of Bush style policies would have a significant impact on the public, and although both candidates are well to the right of the population in terms of actual policy 'There is nothing wrong with picking the lesser of two evils" lol
If you take a look at Obama's policies (such as the tax policy and foreign policy), they're mostly been a continuation of Bush's policies. I really see nil good difference (I've seen more bad, like stupid new TSA regulations, with this so-called "lesser evil" administration), not even "slight," over how a Democrat president such as Obama is a "lesser evil." Personally, perhaps things will be "better" with McCain in the sense that we may never have seen the growth of the Tea Party if it weren't for Obama getting elected.

ed miliband

15th December 2010, 16:53

I don't understand why people here think its an extraordinary claim that Chomsky has suggested to vote for the Democrats (or to vote for "the lesser evil;" I have a few words on that later); I thought that was common knowledge.

Because acknowledging that Chomsky has suggested people vote for "the lesser evil" - which, as you point out, is common knowledge - calls into question the idea that Chomsky is this wonderfully pure anarchist that people who are essentially radical liberals (I know, I was one) like to cling to.

Bombay

15th December 2010, 19:19

Republicans in the US would want the socialists ect. to vote some small meaningless parties instead of democrats. That would pave the road to the white house for them.

ZeroNowhere

15th December 2010, 20:09

What we need to do is to encourage the working class to vote in anti-working class war criminals. This is clearly the path to working class independence and autonomy.

Ultimately, I have more sympathy for the people who would encourage the North Korean working class to die for their state (which is essentially what supporting the North Korean war effort means; the more soldiers, the better). At least the North Korean state is relatively benign in terms of general death tolls.

Republicans in the US would want the socialists ect. to vote some small meaningless parties instead of democrats. That would pave the road to the white house for them.As recent history, especially in 1992, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2006, 2008, and our very own 2010, has shown, the Democrats do a good enough job of that without our help, and the Republicans do the opposite quite decently as well. Even if one thinks that the path to working class autonomy is to encourage the working class to support bourgeois parties, one is still faced with a dilemma: vote Republican now and get Democrats later, or vote Democrats now and get Republicans later? We are thoroughly spoiled for choice, it seems. Now all we need to do is get all of those non-voters to vote Republicrat.

"Where the working class is not yet far enough advanced in its organisation to undertake a decisive campaign against the collective power, i.e., the political power of the ruling classes, it must at any rate be trained for this by continual agitation against and a hostile attitude towards the policy of the ruling classes."

Property Is Robbery

15th December 2010, 20:38

Is that political parties except the Democrat Party, which he advocates voting for?

Devrim
Watch the damn video

When the CPUSA has the same line we all bash them for it but when Chomsky says it everyone wants to rush to his defense. Dude's wrong. Sorry.
If you can find anywhere that Chomsky still holds that idea about Obama I'll give that to you, but it's simply not true. Sure he might've had hope that Obama might do something to make a change but obviously he doesn't believe that anymore, where as the CPUSA still supports Obama after all his bush-style fuck ups.

Kassad

15th December 2010, 20:45

I could tell the woman was a Spartacist about ten words in to her question. Even though I think she was on the correct side of the issue, she had absolutely no understanding of how to phrase it to back Chomsky, a pretty obvious anti-communist, into a corner. The Spartacist League and all of its fragments and splits do the same thing: parrot phrases they've used since the 1970's hoping they will appeal to people. It didn't work then and the Spartacist League probably has around a hundred members in the United States, so it's obvious how it's working for them now.

Chomsky isn't a stupid guy. He is a Linguistics professor and it shows when he is able to use really convincing language to make his points for him. Of course we should care who gets elected, as different electoral outcomes mean different things, but I think Chomsky clings to the idealism that a lot of ostensibly socialist people use and that's the idea that the Democratic Party is truly a separate entity from the Republicans. The exact same policies are getting enacted. The only different is a slightly different means. As materialists, it shouldn't be difficult to analyze that if the ruling class controls society, they control political parties and thus, they control the outcome.

So who's right in the video? The Spartacists are stupid as usual and literally, if they approach me one more time at a demonstration I'm throwing down with them. Chomsky is just a liberal and I think he's taking the same defeatist position that Howard Zinn did. "Capitalism sucks, but let's hope electing this dude makes it suck a little less." No mention of revolution, no mention of proletarian revolution. Just appeasement to the establishment. We obviously need an alternative.

RedStarBlackFlag

15th December 2010, 20:47

I think people are kind of missing the point of what Chomsky was saying. He isnt saying that voting for a democrat instead of a republican is going to kick off any sort of revolution or even change anything major. He is saying that there are differences in the two camps. While revolutionary change will not happen from voting for any corporate sponsored capitalist, it is important to understand that small differences can be exploited by us the working class interested in revolution. If one party or the other is willing to allow a new niche or rift in the hegemony of capitalism to open up for us the radical left to exploit then in fact change can result from voting. We must use any and all means to reach our goals. This includes voting, while in no way am i a democrat or a fan of capitalist liberal democracy, this is the reality in which we live. Ignoring our form of "democracy" will not harm it in anyway, this is actually what they want. I am also no Chomsky d-rider, this is more of a call to action of all sorts and a call for people to stop arguing were on the same side here people.....ANTI-CAPITALISM.

Devrim

15th December 2010, 21:46

Watch the damn video

I did. He advocates voting Democrat.

I would suggest voting against McCain, which means voting for Obama, without illusions. [3.55]

Funnily enough for all the American anarchists who think that adding without illusions makes it OK, that is exactly the same phrase used for years by the UK SWP, "Vote Labour without illusions".

I think people are kind of missing the point of what Chomsky was saying. He isnt saying that voting for a democrat instead of a republican is going to kick off any sort of revolution or even change anything major. While revolutionary change will not happen from voting for any corporate sponsored capitalist, it is important to understand that small differences can be exploited by us the working class interested in revolution.

Is there a difference, really? Both parts with have to manage the crisis and both parties will have to defend America's imperialist interests.

Obama has continued the US' 'War of Terror', as it was very clear that he would at the time of his election.

We wrote in our Turkish press at the time:

So what can we expect from the new regime in the US. Let’s look at foreign policy first. Of course, it is possible to look back at the last Democratic Government in the US, that of Bill Clinton. This was a government that fired cruise missiles almost indiscriminately at its enemies. From factories producing medical goods in Sudan to residential areas in Iraq, not forgetting to fire a few at Afghanistan in-between. We could also mention the two air bombardment campaigns in ex-Yugoslavia, which was referred to at the time as Humanitarian bombing. We could also point to his continuation of US sanctions against Iraq, which according to UNICEF caused the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children, the fact that he was the first to introduce the ideological basis of Bush’s terror campaign. It was Clinton who first used the terms ‘state sponsor of terrorism’ and 'rogue state'. There was also the little matter of an invasion of Haiti…

But let’s not damn Obama on the past record of his party in Government. Let’s allow the man to speak for himself. In April 2007 in his first major foreign policy speech, Obama stated that "We must lead by building a 21st century military.... I strongly support the expansion of our ground forces by adding 65,000 soldiers to the Army and 27,000 Marines.” One would wonder what he wants nearly 100,000 new soldiers for. Well, when he was asked on Fox News last month about the possibility of bombing Iran he stated that he “would never take a military option off the table.” He also wants to put an extra 10,000 troops into Afghanistan where he said that President Bush had ‘responded correctly’ in fighting the ‘good war’, a ‘good war' in which between 20,000 and 60,000 civilians have been killed. He also believes that Pakistan is “the right battlefield ...in the war on terrorism”, and has threatened to attack it.

To be honest all this puts him right at the centre of the Democratic tradition from Kennedy and Johnson in Vietnam via Clinton in Somalia, Kosovo and Iraq.

So what was the small difference? Is it more bombs in Afghanistan and Pakistan and slightly fewer in Iraq? How exactly can these "small differences" "be exploited by working class"?

All that you do by encouraging people to vote is play your part in the bourgeois political system. This is exactly what Chomsky does. He provides left cover for bourgeoise politics in that whatever left rhetoric he uses, ultimately he doesn't argue that workers have to do things for themselves, but creates illusions in the ballot box as a way to answer the problems of the working class.

Devrim

Sam_b

15th December 2010, 22:04

lol Sparts disrupting another meeting

RaÃºl Duke

15th December 2010, 22:09

Because acknowledging that Chomsky has suggested people vote for "the lesser evil" - which, as you point out, is common knowledge - calls into question the idea that Chomsky is this wonderfully pure anarchist that people who are essentially radical liberals (I know, I was one) like to cling to.

I was one too, I guess, but at least I was never blind to reality. I've acknowledge that he suggested people to vote for "the lesser evil" when I first heard about it; yet people here keep saying:

I think people are kind of missing the point of what Chomsky was saying. He isnt saying that voting for a democrat instead of a republican is going to kick off any sort of revolution or even change anything major. He is saying that there are differences in the two camps.

What fucking difference? Sure, both party say different things and promise different things, but in the moment of truth (once in power) they both seemingly run things about the same. We may be "missing Chomsky's point" but I think people who support his opinion are the ones really missing the big picture.

And the health care reform doesn't count, it isn't even yet a reality till like 2011-2013 and I'm willing to make a minor bet that the Republicans will tear that half-ass reform apart and the Democrats will stand idly by or actually take part in killing their prized pony.

ComradeMan

15th December 2010, 22:16

Why doesn't Chomsky come to RevLeft??? He could clarify a lot of stuff....:lol:

Kassad

15th December 2010, 22:17

lol Sparts disrupting another meeting

Are they any bigger where you are? They have several members in major cities like Chicago and New York, but aside from that, they really don't have any members. To my knowledge, the only member in the Midwest, if you don't count Chicago, is in Michigan. This is from personal experience, at least. I wonder how large their international is as a whole.

scarletghoul

15th December 2010, 22:19

I sat here for seven minutes waiting for him to move.

Sam_b

15th December 2010, 22:28

Are they any bigger where you are? They have several members in major cities like Chicago and New York, but aside from that, they really don't have any members. To my knowledge, the only member in the Midwest, if you don't count Chicago, is in Michigan. This is from personal experience, at least. I wonder how large their international is as a whole.

Tiny. London. My estimation is perhaps fifty or so.

They come to Marxism every year with their signs and newspapers, which is absolutely fine; but also disrupt meetings every year and need at times to be ushered out. The worst thing is that they always go on about something in a meeting which has nothing to do with their points.

I remember one having a fit at me when I was fifteen at my first Marxism when pointing out their 'Nuclear Weapons for Iran' placard and making some choice remarks.

Sam_b

15th December 2010, 22:28

Oh, and they also have done stalls on Christmas day in the past.

Another reason i'm pleased not to live in London.

Kassad

15th December 2010, 22:42

Tiny. London. My estimation is perhaps fifty or so.

They come to Marxism every year with their signs and newspapers, which is absolutely fine; but also disrupt meetings every year and need at times to be ushered out. The worst thing is that they always go on about something in a meeting which has nothing to do with their points.

I remember one having a fit at me when I was fifteen at my first Marxism when pointing out their 'Nuclear Weapons for Iran' placard and making some choice remarks.

I can actually say we've had the same general experience. Two of them showed up outside our National Conference on Socialism in November trying to peddle issues of Workers Vanguard. They didn't stay long because not one person there wanted to listen to them or even talk to them. I was surprised at least one didn't attend the actual conference and disrupt it.

However, on the 9th anniversary of the Afghanistan war, I was at a demonstration in Chicago. One of them came up to me, a younger guy (not as young as me. Probably 29-32 or so) selling their paper said he was from Michigan and the area he was from didn't have any other socialist groups, so he has trouble reading the Spartacist paper and its sectarian attacks. He was very nice and respectful and we talked for a few minutes before one of their long-time members bolted over and started calling me a reformist and telling me that my party didn't defend the Soviet Union from counterrevolution (is that a fucking joke?) and other assorted things. I had trouble not laughing.

One of the weirdest things is that once they get someone to buy a paper, they follow them. There were a couple guys who said they were shopping around for socialist groups and when they came to our booth, they were being followed by the Spartacists who were basically saying that we were petty-bourgeois and such. They're just absolutely insane.

I've spent a decent amount of time reading the back and forth between the Spartacists, the Bolshevik Tendency and the Internationalist Group because they basically bring internal information into the public view to slander each other. Basically, it comes down to the fact that James Robertson, the Spartacist leader, is an old, unmotivated alcoholic who just had a summer house with a hot tup built for him on the tab of the membership. Their organization isn't recruiting at all, let alone youth cadres.

If the Spartacists were combined with all of their splits, expulsions and fragments, I'd actually see them as a potent political force. They're energetic enough that they don't need thousands of members in the current state of affairs to be a legitimate socialist group. However, their fragmentations make them appear more laughable than their horrible political line. They can bark at us all they want. I find it comical.

Devrim

15th December 2010, 22:46

Tiny. London. My estimation is perhaps fifty or so.

I presume by "50 or so", you mean there whole international, not in London as there is no way that they have ever had 50 people there even back before all their splits.

I don't think that the numbers is the point though (says the man in the tiny organisation, slightly bigger than 50 though). There was a point when the Cliff tendency had 8 people.

Devrim

Fabrizio

15th December 2010, 22:52

he answered her well, I love Chomsky.

"given that you don't oppose racism and imperialism outright and given that your masters are capitalists...".

that's what you might call a loaded question.:laugh:

Fabrizio

15th December 2010, 23:03

awww I thought you meant physically. :(

Haha couldn't resist hucking a newspaper at the end could she?

She'd have probably been disciplined otherwise.

ComradeMan

15th December 2010, 23:59

"given that you don't oppose racism and imperialism outright and given that your masters are capitalists...".

Unlike the US militarily funded MIT.

Weezer

16th December 2010, 01:11

I really don't what liberals think about my ideology or it's members, but she's a Spart anyways.

Yes, Chomsky is a liberal. Deal with it.

NGNM85

16th December 2010, 06:23

Why doesn't Chomsky come to RevLeft??? He could clarify a lot of stuff....:lol:

Clearly he is not well understood. Although this indicates that it might be irrelevent, he's speaking plain english in the clip, he can't type slower, I'm not sure it would make any difference.

Devrim

16th December 2010, 08:56

Clearly he is not well understood. Although this indicates that it might be irrelevent, he's speaking plain english in the clip, he can't type slower, I'm not sure it would make any difference.

I think that Chomsky is pretty well understood. He is a liberal. What is probably most interesting about it is the amount of people on here who think that he is not.

If you look amongst anarchists, and this is relevant here as Chomsky claims to be an anarchist, I think the vast majority of European anarchists who are members of political organisations would say that he is a liberal too. There was a recent thread on the subject, which I think represents UK anarchist organisations quite well had most posters saying that he was a liberal.

I'd be interested to know what members of US anarchist organisations, like Syndicat who posts on here thinks.

The reason that I suspect there is this view of Chomsky in the US as an anarchist when really he is a liberal is that outside of the actual political anarchist organisations such as WSA and NEFAC, much of what passes itself off for anarchism in the US is actually just militant liberalism itself.

Devrim

RadioRaheem84

16th December 2010, 09:15

The reason that I suspect there is this view of Chomsky in the US as an anarchist when really he is a liberal is that outside of the actual political anarchist organisations such as WSA and NEFAC, much of what passes itself off for anarchism in the US is actually just militant liberalism itself.

Very true. Judging from the thank you reps to NGNM85's insanely liberal posts, your point, Devrim cannot be stressed enough.

NGN: Clearly he is not well understood. Although this indicates that it might be irrelevent, he's speaking plain english in the clip, he can't type slower, I'm not sure it would make any difference.

It's not a language barrier, NGN. Chomsky comes off very liberal-ish sometimes.

Revolution starts with U

16th December 2010, 09:25

My criterion for thx is based on how u said it, rather than what you said.

ComradeMan

16th December 2010, 12:21

Why doesn't someone invite him here and ask him?

:lol:

RaÃºl Duke

16th December 2010, 15:11

If you look amongst anarchists, and this is relevant here as Chomsky claims to be an anarchist, I think the vast majority of European anarchists who are members of political organisations would say that he is a liberal too. There was a recent thread on the subject, which I think represents UK anarchist organisations quite well had most posters saying that he was a liberal.

I'm not European (although not US-born either, yet I live in the US) and still see that Chomsky ain't the perfect anarchist (or much of an anarchist at all).

Than again, I began to realize Chomsky's faults when I began posting here; where there autonomists and UK-based anarchists which are more..."Leftist" than some/many self-described US anarchists.

RadioRaheem84

16th December 2010, 17:01

ComradeMan

16th December 2010, 17:19

Why are a lot of Anarchists in the US merely militant liberals?

I dated an Anarchist girl in college and she was merely an issue by issue vegan progressive for the most part.

I volunteer at the local anarchist co-op bookstore and most the volunteers there can be described as such too.

At lot of people don't really understand what anarchism means and think it's just some "I can do whatever I want and no one can stop me" type of ideology bundled together with all the hip p.c. issues of the moment.

Bud Struggle

16th December 2010, 17:23

Why doesn't someone invite him here and ask him?

:lol:

And have him go through comments like the ones on this thread? He's have to be crazy. :D

#FF0000

16th December 2010, 18:14

I think Chomsky's dealt with worse.

Fun fact: you can e-mail him via his faculty e-mail and he'll actually respond.

Milk Sheikh

16th December 2010, 18:20

I think Chomsky's dealt with worse.

Fun fact: you can e-mail him via his faculty e-mail and he'll actually respond.

How do you know that?:confused:

Bud Struggle

16th December 2010, 18:23

How do you know that?:confused:

Try it!. Either he'll respond or or respond .

Devrim

16th December 2010, 18:59

I'm not European (although not US-born either, yet I live in the US) and still see that Chomsky ain't the perfect anarchist (or much of an anarchist at all).

Than again, I began to realize Chomsky's faults when I began posting here; where there autonomists and UK-based anarchists which are more..."Leftist" than some/many self-described US anarchists.

I don't think that it is actually a 'national tendency'. ;) Of course there are anarchists in the US who realise that Chomsky is a liberal.

There are also more, I suspect, more anarchists in the US proportionally who have the same sort of liberal politics as Chomsky. I'd put this down to the weakness of both the working class and anarchist organisations in the US, which I think are also interconnected facts.

Devrim

ed miliband

16th December 2010, 19:01

What I got from that video is that Chomsky doesn't know anything about 'working people'. He views them as passive victims of American capitalism who need to be saved from their hardship through the help of the Democrats rather than as a living agent which is capable of fighting for social change by itself and on a class basis. Chomsky can claim to be a 'libertarian' and opposed to 'Leninism' all he wants, his ideas are fundamentally at odds with the idea that the emancipation of the working-class must be the act of the workers' themselves, a principle from which it follows that the working-class must organise in an independent class party seperate from and opposed to all the bourgeois parties, and a principle which the member of the Spartacist League speaking at the beginning correctly defended against Chomsky's slanderous statements that revolutionaries don't care about ordinary members of the working-class. In the end, Chomsky's 'libertarianism' is fundamentally at odds with working-class self-emancipation, whereas the 'authoritarian Leninism' he derides is more consistent with it than he will ever be.

I think we should email something like this to Chomsky and see how / if he responds. Perhaps add in something about his support for national liberation movements and sympathy for people like Chavez, Morales, and even Lula(!) If he does respond he'll probably say something about that 'making conditions slightly better for working people', and we'll be right back at square one again, but it's worth a try.

Zanthorus

16th December 2010, 19:26

I don't mind e-mailing Chomsky, it should be a piece of cake next to my attempts to pry out the positions of the various International Communist Parties on their competitors and other Left-Communist groups.

Rosa Lichtenstein

16th December 2010, 19:30

I'm sorry, but who are these 'Trotskyites'?

The Sparts certainly aren't 'Trotskyites' -- no more than Chomsky is a 'humanite', or Lenin a 'Marxite'.

HEAD ICE

16th December 2010, 19:39

How do you know that?:confused:

Try it, he's right. I've emailed Chomsky quite a few times.

Ele'ill

16th December 2010, 20:24

I volunteer at the local anarchist co-op bookstore and most the volunteers there can be described as such too.

Wooden Shoe Books? Philadelphia has a pretty seasoned anarchist community.

ComradeMan

16th December 2010, 20:27

Wooden Shoe Books? Philadelphia has a pretty seasoned anarchist community.

Do anarchists ever do anything other than open bookshops or have fairs?

:lol:

Ele'ill

16th December 2010, 20:31

Do anarchists ever do anything other than open bookshops or have fairs?

:lol:

You are either asking seriously or are dumb enough to think that's something close to a reasonably intelligent joke.

ComradeMan

16th December 2010, 20:34

You are either asking seriously or are dumb enough to think that's something close to a reasonably intelligent joke.

Well what do they do? I'm sorry but I had a lot of experience with anarchist movements and I just think they are like a hippy movement with an edge at times. Bookfairs, bookfairs, bookfairs and then arguing with each other about the organisation of their organisation and then splittling off into rival factions.... Plus the fact they never actually manage to be able to explain how any of their ideas will ever work in the real world.

Forward Union

16th December 2010, 20:41

I don't think that's true at all. Most communist groups are, I think, Trotskyists.

I'm Willing to bet the Communist party of China has more members than most Trotskyist Internationals

Ele'ill

16th December 2010, 21:03

I'm sorry but I had a lot of experience with anarchist movements

What time period and what did they do?

and I just think they are like a hippy movement with an edge at times.I know some people that identify as anarchists and like music, tattoos, parties etc.. I know some anarchists that are involved with organizations and grassroots movements but those orgs and movements while certainly left have many people with many different left leaning views on things. I know some people that like anarchism and for all intents and purposes are anarchists and work an hourly job and yet there are some that work as social workers, youth counselors etc..

Bookfairs, bookfairs, bookfairsOk, do you know what the purpose of a bookfair is?

and then arguing with each other about the organisation of their organisation and then splittling off into rival factions....This isn't a trait that's unique to anarchists.

Plus the fact they never actually manage to be able to explain how any of their ideas will ever work in the real world.Like what? And do you think anarchism operates as a critique?

Fabrizio

16th December 2010, 21:21

I'm Willing to bet the Communist party of China has more members than most Trotskyist Internationals

And those of France, Italy, Chile, Spain, to mention a few.

IcarusAngel

16th December 2010, 23:38

The fact of the matter is that Zanthorus distorts anarchist history and clearly is batshit ignorant about American foreign policy. He seems to have no understanding of American foreign policy - its purpose and its changes over the years - or Chomsky's viewpoints on foreign policy and on anarchism and syndicalism.

That said, I wish RGacky3 would quit making these posts. This is the second time he's made a post where Chomsky is "smacking down" a Leninist or a Stalinist or a Communist. The last thread turned it a shouting match, and predictably so. Obviously if you poison the well you're just going to piss people off and make them unwilling to consider other's views. But this time I'm going to provide some context.

Before I continue I'll start off by saying I've enjoyed some of Zanthorus' posts and in fact even nearly copied and pasted some of his comments about Sraffa's battles with the more extreme capitalists economists. But I think in the end he's ultimately an Austrian economist - i.e., he starts with conclusions and goes around piecing together evidence from outdated Marxist crackpots to support his beliefs. Chomsky and many leftists feel this methodology to be useless and pathological. Sound unfair? Well, there is more evidence that he's an Austrian economist than there is that Chomsky is a member of the liberal intelligentsia. The liberal intelligentsia has very different goals than Chomsky.

And his [Chomsky's] analysis of the Bolsheviks is liberal. He repeats the bog-standard liberal argument the Bolsheviks were intellectual elites who manipulated the poor unsuspecting workers into revolting against that nice Kerensky fellow.

This is a ridiculous argument that ignores history. It is not liberal in nature but is actually very much left-anarchist and left-communist in its critique:
"I am not a communist, because communism concentrates and swallows up in itself for the benefit of the State all the forces of society. I want the abolition of the State...I want to see collective or social property organised from below upwards, not from above downwards, by means of any kind of authority whatever..." -- Michael Bakunin

Was Bakunin a liberal, then? Pannekoek - another left-communist who "doesn't exist" according to Zanthorus and his bizarre theories - wrote a book entitled "Lenin as a philosopher - a critical examination of the philosophical basis of Leninism." His belief was that after Lenin and the Bolsheviks came to power, they crippled the Soviets. (Chomsky makes this same argument in many places - including I believe The Chomsky Reader and some other books.) Instead of of workers' councils, the Bolsheviks instituted their own party, which created a new ruling class.

Obviously, Bakunin and Pannekoek are not liberals. One is an anarchist and one is a left-communist. This is a belief held by many leftists. So already the first charge against Chomsky has been proven to be false.

The relationship between Marxists and anarchists has never been happy. After Proudhon rejected Marx's request for the two to cooperate in 1846, Marx launched several attacks on him to publicly ridicule his economic theory. In the 1860s at the First International, an organization that brought together radicals and socialists, Bakunin became Marx's lead anarchist opponent. When socialists decided whether or not to adhere to the Bolshevik International they were already divided on a wide range of important issues about political organization and revolutionary strategy. These came to a head at the Second International, but its possible to trace the roots of the argument to the debate between Marx and Bakunin in the IWMA.

After 1871 when the First International collapsed, socialists were split into two groups: "centralists" and "federalists." The followers of Marx = centralists. The followers of Bakunin = "federalists." Ironically, it was the Marxists who thought that revolution could succeed through political activity, and the anarchists who ignored all political activity as a means of revolution.

All that said, Chomsky is still closer to the federalist position. He believes that local communities are the best place to start forming alternatives to capitalism, and that the political differences between the parties basically means fewer people have to suffer. This was also a viewpoint echoed by Malatesta, who believed that private tyrannies were much worse than popular democratic control.

So I don't see what the big issue is. Chomsky is correct in that liberal democracies are much better than minarchist societies or corporatist societies. This has been proven by history.

Put quite simply, although Chomsky is Okish on US foreign policy his critiques are your standard radical liberal arguments about how they violate international law.

His viewpoints are not at all liberal on foreign policy. If you knew anything about the liberal perspective on American foreign policy it has three defining characteristics:

1. That American foreign policy was a series of mistakes during the Cold War.

2. That liberals are the "doves" in foreign policy, as they believe that the liberal elements of US foreign policy generally sought to do good in the world.

And,

3. Liberals believe that they are responding to countries that violate International Law.

Chomsky shows all three to be false. On the first, his work shows that far from being a series of blunders, American foreign policy was actually implemented to put down almost every attempt at establishing a society that is contrary to Western hegemony and globalization, no matter the kind of society (Islamic nationalism, socialism, or even FDR style democracy), while at the same time hypocritically supporting dictatorial/fundamentalist regimes and groups that are more sympathetic to US interests (Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, etc.) - to show that any society that deviates from the Western line will be punished immediately, even former allies, such as Hussein or Noriega.

On the second, he shows that far from being doves, liberals are often the proponents of imperialistic foreign policy goals, such as those of NSC-68 - which outlined something similar to PNAC - that the US had a vast share of the world's resources and needs to continue to hold it.

In fact, Chomsky has mostly criticized liberals such as Huntington, Schlesinger, Jr., Silber and liberal academia at large as being an indoctrination center to fool people into believing that the US is maintaining peace in the world.

These are all core Chomsky values.

Finally, on the third point he shows that the US violates international law while claiming to uphold it. This is not a liberal position, it is merely noting the hypocrisy of the US govt.

As for the claim that there is no difference between liberals and conservatives on foreign policy this is ridiculous. The goal of the right-wing foreign policy is now much more extreme. Reagan, for example, was more extreme than Clinton in his war against the third world (although it is true that it could be argued that overall, Clinton was more of a neoliberal as someone pointed out - more mergers and more free-trade agreements occurred under Clinton). However, Clinton stopped the war against East Timor, and was more interested in things like bringing stability to the Balkans than implementing traditional elite liberal order.

The goal of the Clinton administration was containment for Iraq. The goal of the Bush administration was that the US must exercise its power at will to remove leaders like Saddam Hussein and that international law should be "discarded" when it conflicts with US interests. The Bush administration consisted of members who directly were involved in the creation of PNAC. They believed that we are in "World War IV" (the Cold War was World War III in neocon thinking) with Islamic fundamentalism and that this war could last at least as long as the Cold War (fifty years) or longer. The purpose of this is to deracinate the Islam religion turn it into a formalized, secular ritual.

"It undoubtedly will prove to be a lot more like a cold war than a hot war.... If you think about it, in the Cold War it took fifty years, plus or minus. It did not involve major battles. It involved continuous pressure... It strikes me that that might be a more appropriate way to think about what we are up against here."

A war without end. That's what McCain for example meant when he said that we would be in Iraq for "100 years." Obama has already pulled out hundreds of thousands of troops. So there was a difference there.

"Nevertheless, the September 2002 unveiling of the imperial grand strategy justifiably sounded alarm bells. Acheson and Sofaer were describing policy guidelines, and within elite circles. Their stands are known only to specialists or readers of dissident literature. Other cases may be regarded as worldly-wise reiterations of the maxim of Thucydides that "large nations do what they wish, while small nations accept what they must." In contrast, Cheney-Rumsfeld-Powell and their associates are officially declaring an even more extreme policy, one aimed at permanent global hegemony by reliance on force where necessary. They intend to be heard, and took action at once to put the world on notice that they mean what they say. That is a significant difference." --Noam Chomsky

Chomsky can claim to be a 'libertarian' and opposed to 'Leninism' all he wants, his ideas are fundamentally at odds with the idea that the emancipation of the working-class must be the act of the workers' themselves, a principle from which it follows that the working-class must organise in an independent class party seperate from and opposed to all the bourgeois parties

So you believe in parliamentarian you just don't believe in Chomsky's version of it? Lenin believed that workers could not achieve victory without leaders. This is the opposite of what Chomsky says, that people don't need leaders, that he's not a leader of any movement, and that they should take power into their own hands.

Lenin argued for state capitalism and that democracy is in no way inconsistent with the rule and dictatorship of one person (a view Stalin also wrote about - one party rule being "true democracy). Marx, however, wrote in 1872 that workers could achieve power by peaceful means.

Chomsky believes that if the government expands the floors of the cage in the mean time it doesn't do anything to hurt. If I was in prison and trying to break out, I wouldn't object to the prisoners giving me three meals a day instead of two. It would only make me stronger.

The funny thing about this is that this guy uses democrats to prove that a lot of people do believe in socialism here:

http://libertarianleft.freeforums.org/there-is-no-real-left-left-to-ally-with-anymore-t669.html

The Gallup Poll reports that a majority of Democrats, 53%, have a “positive” image of socialism, which includes independents who lean toward the blue party.
Only 17 percent of Republican and GOP-leaners hold socialism in a positive light. In total, more than one-third of Americans, 36%, have a positive image of socialism.

What I got from that video is that Chomsky doesn't know anything about 'working people'.

This is ridiculous. The productive leftist movements around the world are much closer to Chomsky's vision than they are to Leninism.

Chomsky gets tens of thousands of people to show to his events around the world - in one case people were "picked into the auditorium so tightly it would be a good question whether the oxygen level would suffice."

In contrast you Leninists would be lucky if you could get half the amount of the local Libertarian group to show up to a Leninist/Stalinist speaking event.

IcarusAngel

16th December 2010, 23:41

I have read quite a bit of Chomsky, and I have never read anything where he gives the idea of working class self emancipation anything more than lip service. I have never read him writing in detail about workers' struggles in the US or anywhere else. Of course there are lots of things by him that I haven't read, and if you could show me them I would obviously be proven wrong.

This - like the claim that Chomsky somehow supported Turkish imperialism - doesn't even really merit refutation. Both Chomsky and Zinn have written about the history of the labor movement, and the role and the beliefs of the syndicalist anarchists (who also advocated for things like minimum wage etc.).

I think that Chomsky is pretty well understood. He is a liberal.

Chomsky believes that there should be a society in which the workers control the means of production. Liberals believe that capitalism is an end.

Chomsky believes in no war. Liberals believe in war to fight terrorists.

Chomsky believes that the state ultimately must be eliminated to achieve real freedom from poverty. Liberals believe the state is necessary to help erode poverty.

The difference are stark and clear.

Chomsky also favors communist values:
Student:
What do you think of socialism and communism?

Chomsky:
It depends what you mean. Most of these terms have lost any possible meaning, so we have to decide what we mean by them. If we mean by socialism and communism what the terms actually meant, I'm very much in favor of them and so is the overwhelming majority of the American population. That's another thing they don't tell you in civics courses. There are always polls asking people all sorts of questions. One of the amusing poll results has to do with asking people what's in the Constitution. People have very strange ideas about what's in the Constitution. Some of the ideas are quite interesting. For example, there was a poll in 1987 that gave people the following phrase: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" as a principle of social policy. People were asked if that's in the Constitution. About 75% [thought it was].

Now, that's communism. Communism has a principle of social policy that says that social policy ought to be designed so that each person produced according to his ability and each person receives according to his need, a basic idea. Although nobody says it, [and] you're not allowed to articulate it, the overwhelming majority of the population considers that such an obvious good principle of social policy that they actually believe it's in the Constitution. And if you look at other issues - take, say, welfare measures. That's not socialism and communism; mild social democracy. What does the population think about those?

When people are asked, "Would you prefer social spending to military spending," if you have X amount of dollars and the government's going to use them for military or health, let's say, the proportion in favor of social spending is just enormous, 4 to 1, 7 to 1, depends on how you ask the question. In fact, there's a general drift among the population towards a kind of New Deal-style social democracy or liberalism.

If we mean by socialism and communism things like worker control over production, community control over what happens in the community, democracy, end of wage slavery, rational social planning, from each according to his ability, etc., then I think that those are very good things, I think they consummate the ideals that were articulated but never believed, in the political revolutions of the eighteenth century. I think they would be very healthy developments. Notice that we can't discuss these issues in the United States. These are off the agenda. That's very important. If this kind of material were allowed into the educational system, if you're allowed to think and talk about these things and bring out these inarticulate feelings, you are a real threat to established power. Therefore the educational system excludes it. "Questions and Answers with Freshman Sociology," recorded by David Barsamian at University of Wyoming in Laramie, February 21, 1989

The problem, I think, is that Chomsky believes that liberalism influenced anarchism and his version of a free society, and it did. Proudhon said he was influenced by Adam Smith and the bible (as was Marx influenced by Smith).

It's actually very complicated. Chomsky is accused by liberals of being a socialist. He's accused by anarchists of being a Marxist. And he's accused by Marxists of being a liberal. It kind of goes full circle. In my opinion his balance is just right. It certainly isn't modern left liberal either in its methods or its aims.

If you look amongst anarchists, and this is relevant here as Chomsky claims to be an anarchist, I think the vast majority of European anarchists who are members of political organisations would say that he is a liberal too.

This is false. Chomsky is cited frequently in European anarchist literature. He is cited frequently in the Anarchist FAQ. He is cited by many anarchists - the anarchists that have criticized are the likes of Woodcock, and then Bob Black and a few other primitivists.

He's also popular with third world anarchists, much more so than any other anarchist I can think of.

This is the fallacy of the unrepresentative sample.

IcarusAngel

17th December 2010, 00:01

At lot of people don't really understand what anarchism means and think it's just some "I can do whatever I want and no one can stop me" type of ideology bundled together with all the hip p.c. issues of the moment.

So he... he benefits from US Military funding- the exact edge of the sword he constantly denounces.

Don't get me wrong, a lot of Chomsky's analyses are acute and valid but at the same time I don't see him as this great truth-speaker for the people and he has been accused of being quite aggressive in debate at times.

Ouch!!!

Unlike the US militarily funded MIT.

BTW- he is receives the benefits of US military funding.

Peter Schweizer of the Hoover Institute, in an article called Noam Chomsky, Closet Capitalist states that Chomsky, who has criticized tax havens and concentration of wealth, has himself (with a net worth of $2,000,000) used a trust to avoid taxation. "Chomsky favors the estate tax and massive income redistribution—just not the redistribution of his income." Schweizer argues that Chomsky has criticized the concept of intellectual property, a position Schweizer maintains is hypocritical in light of the fact that much of Chomsky's own material is copyrighted and distributed for a fee.
http://www.hoover.org/publications/h...t/article/6222 (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.hoover.org/publications/hoover-digest/article/6222)

Wrong about what? That he is worth $2,000,000 and has a trust fund to avoid taxes that could go on, say, social housing- yet benefits from US military funding that is derived from....err.... taxes?

The fact that this crackpot brings this up several times shows he just doesn't care about the truth or reality.

First of all it's a circumstantial ad-hominem fallacy and has no relevance to his views.

Second, the fact is all people benefit from the military and the government. I think it's been shown that something like 90% of businesses or so directly benefit from the government spending in one way or another - and, as chomsky points out, all of the Fortunate 100 companies have benefited from the government. The government is the military, so are all guilty of this to some extent.

Chomsky has responded to these claims:

"I remember a book by Norman Podhoretz, some right-wing columnist, in which he accused academics in the peace movement of being ingrates because we were working against the government but we were getting grants from the government. That reflects an extremely interesting conception of the state, in fact a fascist conception of the state. It says the state is your master, and if the state does something for you, you have to be nice to them. That's the underlying principle. So the state runs you, you're its slave, and if they happen to do something nice for you, like giving you a grant, you have to be nice to them, otherwise it's ungrateful. Notice how exactly opposite that is to democratic theory. According to democratic theory you're the master, the state is your servant. The state doesn't give you a grant, the population is giving you a grant. The state's just an instrument. But the concept of democracy is so remote from our conception, that we very often tend to fall into straight fascist ideas like that...."
--From an interview with David Barsamian, Language and Politics, page 747

"As to how I tolerate MIT, that raises another question. There are people who argue, and I have never understood the logic of this, that a radical ought to dissociate himself from oppressive institution. The logic of that argument is that Karl Marx shouldn't have studied in the British Museum which, if anything, was the symbol of the most vicious imperialism in the world, the place where all the treasures an empire had gathered from the rape of the colonies were brought together. But I think Karl Marx was quite right in studying in the British Museum. He was right in using the resources and in fact the liberal values of the civilization that he was trying to overcome, against it. And I think the same applies in this case."

--Reflexive Water: The Basic Concers of Mankind, p. 195

Furthermore, according to Chomsky, we are all guilty:

"Simply put, most people are not gangsters. Few people, for example, would steal food from a starving child, even if they happened to be hungry and knew they would not be caught or punished. Someone who did so would be properly regarded as pathological, and, in fact, very few are pathological in this sense. But, in fact, Americans steal food from starving children on a vast scale. IN much of Central America, for example, U.S. intervention has led to an increase in agricultural production while nutrional standards decline and millions starve and die, because crop lands have been devoted to export in the interests of agribusiness, not the needs of the domestic population... But since Americans are not gangsters, if they come to understand what they are doing - that they are in fact stealing food from starving children, on a vast scale - they would be appalled and would do something to put an end to this atrocity, as they can. Therefore, they must be protected from an understanding of this aspect of the real world."
Language and Politics, 374.

NGNM85

17th December 2010, 00:06

I think that Chomsky is pretty well understood. He is a liberal. What is probably most interesting about it is the amount of people on here who think that he is not.

You have that back-asswards.

Second, it's completely apparent that he is not completely understood. Just look at this thread, this very page. Virtually nobody here, including one person who is generally otherwise very intelligent and insightful, actually understood what he was saying.

If you look amongst anarchists, and this is relevant here as Chomsky claims to be an anarchist,

That’s because he is, if he claimed to be a marmoset, or a Scientologist there would be something to contest.

I think the vast majority of European anarchists who are members of political organisations would say that he is a liberal too.

Only the ones who have no idea what they are talking about.

There was a recent thread on the subject, which I think represents UK anarchist organisations quite well had most posters saying that he was a liberal.

Maybe there are a lot of stupid British Anarchists, I don’t know, I haven’t conducted a demographic study. That doesn’t mean anything.

I'd be interested to know what members of US anarchist organisations, like Syndicat who posts on here thinks.

The reason that I suspect there is this view of Chomsky in the US as an anarchist when really he is a liberal is that outside of the actual political anarchist organisations such as WSA and NEFAC, much of what passes itself off for anarchism in the US is actually just militant liberalism itself.

Devrim

Forgive me if I’m skeptical of your conclusions. First, I don’t think you’ve conducted any kind of legitimate survey of American Anarchists. Second, it wouldn’t mean anything if you did, the majority can be wrong, even horrendously wrong, as evidenced by this thread. Lastly, I think you probably have some fundamental misunderstandings or biases which are contributing to the confusion.

ComradeMan

17th December 2010, 00:06

I think Bud may really be Chomsky. :lol:

Devrim

17th December 2010, 00:32

This - like the claim that Chomsky somehow supported Turkish imperialism - doesn't even really merit refutation.

I think what was said on the issue of Turkey was that Chomsky praised the Turkish state. He did:

American intellectual Noam Chomsky praised Turkey’s progress toward becoming a “significant independent actor” and urged the country to make crucial decisions that will direct the course of its diplomacy, The Palestinian Chronicle reported Tuesday.
During two lectures organized by the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, he also blamed Israel for the conflict that erupted in the Gaza Strip earlier this year, accusing the Israelis of resorting to military force before “exhausting peaceful means.”
Chomsky said that Turkey could become a "significant independent actor,” if it chooses to.
"Turkey has to make some internal decisions: Is it going to face West and try to get accepted by the European Union, or is it going to face reality and recognize that Europeans are so racist that they are never going to allow it in?" Chomsky said.
The Europeans "keep raising the barrier on Turkish entry to the EU," he explained.
But Chomsky said Turkey did become an independent actor in March 2003 when it followed its public opinion and did not take part in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
Turkey took notice of the wishes of the overwhelming majority of its population, which opposed the invasion.

I don't think that it is any sort of deviation from Chomsky's views which plainly aren't anarchist. Witness his verbal support for states such as China, Vietnam, and Venezuela.

Chomsky's outlook on international politics is one of opposing the foreign policy of the US, and as such he gives support to states which do oppose US foreign policy. In this case Turkey. He does not see it as a class question.

This is false. Chomsky is cited frequently in European anarchist literature. He is cited frequently in the Anarchist FAQ. He is cited by many anarchists - the anarchists that have criticized are the likes of Woodcock, and then Bob Black and a few other primitivists.

He's also popular with third world anarchists, much more so than any other anarchist I can think of.

This is the fallacy of the unrepresentative sample.

I don't think that it is important whether he is 'cited' or not. Chomsky has written a lot of interesting things. There is nothing wrong with citing him.

My point was that members of actual anarchist organisations tend to see Chomsky as a liberal.

Devrim

IronEastBloc

17th December 2010, 00:35

I don't think that's true at all. Most communist groups are, I think, Trotskyists.

for saying this with any actual factual support, kindly stick your head up your ass and place it there until you suffocate from your own shit. Most communist parties across the world are either ML or Maoist in nature.

IronEastBloc

17th December 2010, 00:47

No matter how you defend it, how you say it, how you change it, etc. etc. etc.; Chomsky takes money grants from the department of Defense through his institution, MIT. all the excuses in the world on his part won't change that reality.

Chomsky is a bourgeois armchair theoretician who just wants to sell books.

#FF0000

17th December 2010, 01:28

for saying this with any actual factual support, kindly stick your head up your ass and place it there until you suffocate from your own shit. Most communist parties across the world are either ML or Maoist in nature.

1) I sort of explained what I meant by this (protip: I corrected myself and said "Most" wasn't the right word to use)
2) Hahahahahah look at you get so mad on the internet.

Milk Sheikh

17th December 2010, 02:43

Try it!. Either he'll respond or or respond .

What I mean is, How would anyone know it's him? On the net, anybody could be anybody. I simply can't believe a person of his caliber would sit by his computer and answer emails. lol.

Sosa

17th December 2010, 02:51

What I mean is, How would anyone know it's him? On the net, anybody could be anybody. I simply can't believe a person of his caliber would sit by his computer and answer emails. lol.

It's a faculty email.

RadioRaheem84

17th December 2010, 03:47

NGN:Forgive me if I’m skeptical of your conclusions. First, I don’t think you’ve conducted any kind of legitimate survey of American Anarchists. Second, it wouldn’t mean anything if you did, the majority can be wrong, even horrendously wrong, as evidenced by this thread. Lastly, I think you probably have some fundamental misunderstandings or biases which are contributing to the confusion.

Freedom House = Excellent criteria of free societies?

Tony Blair = Socialist?

Sam Harris = continuation of anarchist thought?

Yeah, I think Devrim's assertion is spot on.

Next, we'll address why Chomsky comes off as a liberal sometimes (despite the fact that I think he is not).

Zanthorus

17th December 2010, 13:20

*wall of text*

Congratulations on being able to follow my posts on a manner almost bordering on creepy, as well as being able to drag up posts made by me on other forums back when I was a rather confused anarchist. Double congratulations on not actually being able to address the point that Chomsky advocates voting for a pro-capitalist and pro-imperialist party.

RaÃºl Duke

17th December 2010, 13:40

I simply can't believe a person of his caliber would sit by his computer and answer emails. lol.

He's an MIT professor, he better be answering his e-mails (particularly his student's e-mails).

If he didn't, that might make him a bad professor.

Devrim has shown links and citations of Chomsky "being a liberal," the other side that states that Chomsky isn't a liberal and/or Chomsky doesn't suggest "lesser evilism" (i.e. which translates to Democrats) voting has shown little to no citations or links and/or ignored Devrim's points/links.

Here's a few links of my own, showing that he does call for "lesser evil" voting.

Here's a link, with video, where Chomsky says "vote for Obama" (http://www.freespeechzoneblog.com/diary/801/)

Here's an article from a liberal website stating that Chomsky endorses Kerry (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/18/63845/6981/86/51783) (yet voted for Nader in his home state, since it's not a swing state) (http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/20040526.htm)

Hell, I believe I even read in a Chomsky book (perhaps the "'anarchist' Chomsky book") where he states that lesser evil voting is important/ok and than used a reductio ad hitlerum argument to justify it by using the KPD example of not allying with the SPD.
The American elections are nothing like 1920s-1930s Germany, only liberals make that stupid allegory.

I already argued that it has become obvious with this administration that there's virtually nil fundamental difference, especially economic policy and foreign policy, when in office between both party despite that they both say/promise different things during campaigning. I'm not going to bother repeating this, it's fucking obvious if you've been paying attention the political developments of the Obama administration.

Does this mean I have no respect for Chomsky? No, not really. Although I would lose all respect if he does come up and tell people next election (2012; as long as obvious crazies like Palin and Beck aren't running) that we should all re-elect Obama as if that would mean anything/make a difference after all that has happened.

Forward Union

17th December 2010, 13:55

The unfortunate reality is that people are capable of fitting contradictory ideas in their head at the same time.

Chomsky has, repeatedly presented a class analysis in regard to domestic issues, not just of the US but also in regard to the internal situations of other countries. He has a Class Analysis of historical events to, and believes Trade Unions ought to take on an offensive role again capitalism in an attempt to create a worker run society.

He has made these claims, and continues to do so.

Now that's the fact, and it may contradict other comments he has made regarding the democrats. However, If one takes the view that having states break away from international political hegemony (particularly US imperialism) is a necessary or useful prerequisite for the success of working class movements both in the US and abroad, as a result of the view that no real working class self organisation can emerge under imperial power;, whilst domestic power is significantly less effective. One might find themselves praising "independent" actors. This happens to be a worldview I don't quite take, but one could argue that, and be within the anarchist tradition, not the liberal one.

REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL

17th December 2010, 15:06

Before I continue I'll start off by saying I've enjoyed some of Zanthorus' posts and in fact even nearly copied and pasted some of his comments about Sraffa's battles with the more extreme capitalists economists. But I think in the end he's ultimately an Austrian economist - i.e., he starts with conclusions and goes around piecing together evidence from outdated Marxist crackpots to support his beliefs. Chomsky and many leftists feel this methodology to be useless and pathological. Sound unfair? Well, there is more evidence that he's an Austrian economist than there is that Chomsky is a member of the liberal intelligentsia. The liberal intelligentsia has very different goals than Chomsky.

Zanthorus is..an Austrian economist...? :confused:

IcarusAngel

17th December 2010, 17:36

Devrim has shown links and citations of Chomsky "being a liberal," the other side that states that Chomsky isn't a liberal and/or Chomsky doesn't suggest "lesser evilism" (i.e. which translates to Democrats) voting has shown little to no citations or links and/or ignored Devrim's points/links.

I don't advocate voting for democrats - but voting for a democrat and advocating long term change are two different things.

Furthermore, I did show that Chomsky doesn't believe that FDR style liberalism is any long term goal, but that institutions should be challenged as much as they can in order to show the limitations of these institutions.

The fact that Obama tried to get health care passed, and yet it doesn't cover all Americans and is not a rational distribution of resources is a good example of how corporations do not meet our goals. So I would say he's at least correct in that regard.

As for participating in politics, syndicalists have a long history of doing so, including anarchists in the 20s (not in Germany, but in America and Britain as well). Anarchists in the third-world also have advocated "expanding the floor of the cage" with their immediate aims with a long term goal of syndicalist communities.

I don't have "links" but you can read about this in many anarchist history books including Chomsky's. You can also read the Anarchist faq which refers to Chomsky as an anarchist. The fact is no one has provided any evidence that all anarchist groups think Chomsky is not an anarchist; quite the opposite, he is supported by many anarchists.

Also, the claim that "liberals" and "conservatives" are the same on foreign policy is just false. It may be some Marxist analyst but it is not an anarchist analysis.

Finally, Chomsky's view on Marxism is totally consistent with Anarchist viewpoints and I think that was important to point out.

The unfortunate reality is that people are capable of fitting contradictory ideas in their head at the same time.

Chomsky has, repeatedly presented a class analysis in regard to domestic issues, not just of the US but also in regard to the internal situations of other countries. He has a Class Analysis of historical events to, and believes Trade Unions ought to take on an offensive role again capitalism in an attempt to create a worker run society.

He has made these claims, and continues to do so.

Yes. The fact of the matter is that there is no central doctrine in anarchism, however, Chomsky's views are clearly inconsistent with what are today called liberals. There aren't any liberal intellectuals who advocate a society of freely cooperating federations and communes etc., but have state capitalism as their long term goal. This is the exact opposite of what Chomsky has as his goal.

Chomsky has also said he has voted for Republicans on a few occasions. The fact that somebody has voted does not prove that they are not an anarchist anymore than somebody "volunteering" to work for a corporation proves that they are not an "anarchist."

IcarusAngel

17th December 2010, 17:51

I think what was said on the issue of Turkey was that Chomsky praised the Turkish state. He did:

I don't think that it is any sort of deviation from Chomsky's views which plainly aren't anarchist. Witness his verbal support for states such as China, Vietnam, and Venezuela.

He said that he hopes that Turkey becomes an independent actor. He also also condemned Turkey's human rights violations, just as he has in states such as China, etc.

I don't see how this "proves" he isn't an anarchist - he's not advocating a Chinese state, but he does advocate a final elimination of all authoritarian institutions.

My point was that members of actual anarchist organisations tend to see Chomsky as a liberal.

Devrim

Where is the evidence of this?

Did the members of the IWW take a vote and kick him out?

LibertarianSocialist1

17th December 2010, 19:24

It is wrong to associate a priori reasoning solely with austrian economics.

RadioRaheem84

17th December 2010, 19:33

Also, the claim that "liberals" and "conservatives" are the same on foreign policy is just false. It may be some Marxist analyst but it is not an anarchist analysis.

Say what? Please tell me you're joking? There are conservatives that are less hawkish than anti-Communist Scoops Jackson Democrats.

Clinton initiated the biggest bombing campaign on Iraq before Shock and Awe, and most of the junk peddled under Bush against Iraq was started in the Clinton years. Neo-Cons like Paul Wolfowitz are merely anti-communist Democrats.

Nixon was less of a hawk than LBJ.

Saying they're not the same because of some disagreements is spurious.

The Marxist analysis is that class power and capitalism dominate the decisions in the White House. There is no real difference or at least a considerable one in their spats.

This is sound reasoning and is more than evident in the way that a turn to the right has left every President since Carter to turn more and more neo-liberal. There is no back and forth between a liberal president and a conservative one really, just a President under the service of big capital.

RadioRaheem84

17th December 2010, 19:51

I just think that Chomsky adjusts what he is saying to different audiences to not lose their attention.

If you read what he says to leftist audiences he is pretty much open about being anti-capitalist, uses words like socialism, etc.

But when he is talking to more progressive, liberal and church groups, basically a mixed crowd he tends to waffle or at least tailor his message to not scare audiences away, an audience he knows is fairly new to leftist discourse.

That is why he will say stuff like, "it depends on what is meant by communism or socialism".

I mean to us that is a cop out answer or a WTF does he mean, it "depends".

I've seen several speakers do this. Parenti does it to by making social democracy seem all grand.

I've seen David Harvey do it when he was pressed on the BBC as to what society he envisions. He just waffled and said, " any society you or the people want". He knew the reporter was trying to get him to say Communism.

I do not fault Chomsky for doing that though. Imagine if you have a room full of a mixed crowd of anarchists, mostly liberal and progressive people and you say you are for Communism without saying much else. Most people would think, "OMGz, he is a Commie", "run for the hillz"!

He especially does this when he is being interviewed by journalists. He knows they want him to admit to being a socialist/anarchist to goad him into apologizing for Stalinism or "chaos".

And yet sometimes Chomsky himself even when he is being interviewed by a well known leftist like David Barsamian, will still refer to liberal Enlightenment thinkers as pre-cursors to Anarchism. He will talk about liberal principles and go into all of this deep idealism and junk and that makes him come off as a liberal too, but I assure you the guy is not ultimately a liberal. His best work was an attack on the liberal establishment. That is how he made his name. He hates liberals most of all and considers them the secular priesthood.

I really think that we shouldn't hate on Chomsky because he protects himself from an audience who is usually new to anti-imperialism and to a hostile press.

Also, he does believe that liberalism is a pre-cursor to Anarchism and leftist thought, (which I find wrong) and that also skewers some of the stuff he says, but overall the guy is on our side and has championed the most important thing of all when critiquing society: the class analysis.

Even he admitted that without this you're not a leftist.

IcarusAngel

17th December 2010, 19:53

It is wrong to associate a priori reasoning solely with austrian economics.

A priori reasoning is a crackpot methodology for all of the social sciences and the hard sciences. These "axioms" are invalid philosophical fairy tales that do not exist.

Anarchists have traditionally been pro-Science, anti philosophical mumbo-jumbo.

Rand's work is also based purely on axioms, and it has been completely destroyed even by philosophers.

Fabrizio

17th December 2010, 19:53

Unlike the US militarily funded MIT.

nah she said that to him. I just found all her "given that"''s quite funny that hse loaded into her "question"

ed miliband

17th December 2010, 19:54

Did the members of the IWW take a vote and kick him out?

I'm sure the fact Chomsky is probably of some financial benefit to the IWW is an important factor in his continued membership.

[this post is only partially in jest]

Fabrizio

17th December 2010, 19:59

A priori reasoning is a crackpot methodology for all of the social sciences and the hard sciences.

Didn't Marx start Capital with an a priori definition (of the "commodity" I believe, correct me if my memory fails me)...?

IcarusAngel

17th December 2010, 20:01

Say what? Please tell me you're joking? There are conservatives that are less hawkish than anti-Communist Scoops Jackson Democrats.

Those conservatives don't control the Republican Party. And those conservatives usually advocate something even worse.

Randians for instance advocate bombing all of the middle east under the defense that they're protecting private property rights (somehow the oil in those countries is American private property because we supposedly built their countries up). So they may disagree with foreign policy, but often advocate societies that are much worse.

Another thing the people at the Ayn Rand Institute believe is that we haven't had enough interventions in the middle-east, and that Reagan for example was "too weak" in that he pulled out of Lebanon. I don't really trust the right in their "anti-war" claims.

Clinton initiated the biggest bombing campaign on Iraq before Shock and Awe, and most of the junk peddled under Bush against Iraq was started in the Clinton years. Neo-Cons like Paul Wolfowitz are merely anti-communist Democrats.

Clinton's bombing campaign did nowhere near the damage that the first Gulf War did - which wasn't necessary and could have been avoided given that Saddam had offered up a peace treaty. Also, the girl hired to protest on behalf of Kuwait was hired by a private firm and most of the stories of "bringing democracy to Kuwait" were made up - because we know that didn't happen.

And, of course, Bush's war was an absolute disaster for the ME, setting them back perhaps centuries after much progress had been made by democratic movements.

It's really an objective fact.

Nixon was less of a hawk than LBJ.

This is false. Intervention and the stages for the Vietnam war began under Eisenhower. Nixon also expanded the war in Vietnam to two countries: Cambodia and Laos.

Saying they're not the same because of some disagreements is spurious.

The policy outlines among doves and hardliners is clear.

The Marxist analysis is that class power and capitalism dominate the decisions in the White House. There is no real difference or at least a considerable one in their spats.

This isn't entirely inconsistent with Chomsky.

What Chomsky is saying is that the US is putting down "the threat of a good example" - i.e., countries that are attempt to bring far more democratic control of the resources.

This is sound reasoning and is more than evident in the way that a turn to the right has left every President since Carter to turn more and more neo-liberal. There is no back and forth between a liberal president and a conservative one really, just a President under the service of big capital.

This is also false. The interventions prior to the neo-liberal shift were just as bad if not worse, such as the theft of land from Mexico, the slaughter of the Indians, etc.

In fact, mathematically it's been shown you were more likely to fight in the 1800s than in the 1900s.

Zanthorus

17th December 2010, 20:04

Did the members of the IWW take a vote and kick him out?

The Industrial Workers' of the World is not an Anarchist organisation.

IcarusAngel

17th December 2010, 20:04

Also, the neoliberal shift in politics has brought an end to "World Wars" - which were much, much worse.

Even in International Realations Leninism is considered crackpot.

IcarusAngel

17th December 2010, 20:08

Didn't Marx start Capital with an a priori definition (of the "commodity" I believe, correct me if my memory fails me)...?

The problem you guys have is that anarchists don't believe in Marxian economics, or even Marxist philosophy. It's been roundly criticized by anarchists - I've shown why and when the split came into existence.

If you study anarchist literature they were very much pro liberal science, and were against axiomatic, superstitious nonsense.

Devrim

17th December 2010, 20:09

He said that he hopes that Turkey becomes an independent actor. He also also condemned Turkey's human rights violations, just as he has in states such as China, etc.

I think that this basically proves the point. Chomsky sees the 'hope' for the region in things like the Turkish state becoming an independent actor. Not in the struggle of the working class.

My point was that members of actual anarchist organisations tend to see Chomsky as a liberal.

Where is the evidence of this?

There is no 'evidence' It is merely my personal experience. Nevertheless, I do talk and write to many people who are members of anarchist organisations in different countries, and used to be a members of one of the IWA sections myself. Are you actually a member of an anarchist organisation?

Did the members of the IWW take a vote and kick him out?

Is the IWW an anarchist organisation?

Personally I think it is closer to a historically reenactment society.

Devrim

Bud Struggle

17th December 2010, 20:11

Is the IWW an anarchist organisation?

Personally I think it is closer to a historically reenactment society.

Devrim :laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:

IcarusAngel

17th December 2010, 20:11

So in other words no evidence is presented that Chomsky has been "shunned" by the anarchist community.

On the other hand, many socialist organizations actively condemn Leninism and all Leninists.

Fabrizio

17th December 2010, 20:12

The problem you guys have is that anarchists don't believe in Marxian economics, or even Marxist philosophy. It's been roundly criticized by anarchists - I've shown why and when the split came into existence.

If you study anarchist literature they were very much pro liberal science, and were against axiomatic, superstitious nonsense.

"you guys"...?

Fair enough then if you take the point. I thought you were a Marxist.

I don't give a shit really I don't think there is any one correct or entirely incorrect "methodology" I think what matters is the end result, which ultimately is subjectively defined. So I was just making an observation.

IcarusAngel

17th December 2010, 20:14

scarletghoul

17th December 2010, 20:17

Maybe a few intellectuals on their high horses 'shun' him, and there are of course many criticisms to be made of him, but those things are not important compared to the fact that he is a well known and respected person who is arguing for socialism against capitalism. In the principal contradiction, he is on our side. Chomsky is cool.

Fabrizio

17th December 2010, 20:17

I'm a leftist anti-capitalist who very much enjoys Marxist literature.

However, Chomsky, and many other anarchists view Marxism (esp. Leninism) as nothing more than an irrelevant cult with few members.

I wonder where he could possibly get that idea? :laugh:

Given that members here are talking about methodologies from the Dark Ages I think he may be correct.

I think you have a point about marxism (at least Marxism with a capital M), but wouldn't you say classic concepts of "science" are also now shown to be outdated?

Amphictyonis

17th December 2010, 20:25

Chomsky needs to understand that the foundations of the revolution will be built on the bones of dead children. Sectarian absurdity for the win!

But seriously, whoever thinks he's a run of the mill liberal hasn't read him. I don't agree with him though when he says he lives in two worlds- the way it is and the way it should be. This is common on the socialist left though and does, many times, end up in validating the current political system. I'm at the point where I don't want to take part at all. I don't vote anymore. It's pointless. If I did I'd be operating under the illusion that we actually have a democratic process.

∞

17th December 2010, 20:27

Voting takes minimal effort and doesn't subtract from your ability to be revolutionary. Remember he did say "lesser of two evils" most of us agree Obama is slightly better than McCain and maybe it may save a miniscule amount of lives.

He may have just been asking the progressives to take this step as well. I never heard of him actually voting.....

RadioRaheem84

17th December 2010, 20:33

Those conservatives don't control the Republican Party. And those conservatives usually advocate something even worse.

Randians for instance advocate bombing all of the middle east under the defense that they're protecting private property rights (somehow the oil in those countries is American private property because we supposedly built their countries up). So they may disagree with foreign policy, but often advocate societies that are much worse.

Another thing the people at the Ayn Rand Institute believe is that we haven't had enough interventions in the middle-east, and that Reagan for example was "too weak" in that he pulled out of Lebanon. I don't really trust the right in their "anti-war" claims.

What those conservatives? I am talking about the general straight line of the Republican Party which is 'peace through strength'. An unquestioning loyalty to the military and their ventures into the global south/middle east.

Have you ever read the Bush Doctrine outlined in the National Security Strategy?
They had control of the Republican Party and it was as about as worse at it gets for an establishment Party.

Clinton's bombing campaign did nowhere near the damage that the first Gulf War did - which wasn't necessary and could have been avoided given that Saddam had offered up a peace treaty. Also, the girl hired to protest on behalf of Kuwait was hired by a private firm and most of the stories of "bringing democracy to Kuwait" were made up - because we know that didn't happen.

Before we go into this. Are you actually going to argue that there is a real difference between liberal and conservative foreign policy by comparing the damages done by each campaign taken by liberal and conservative administrations?

Clinton was less destructive than Bush I? Operation Desert Fox dropped more bombs on Iraq than during Operation Desert Storm.

And, of course, Bush's war was an absolute disaster for the ME, setting them back perhaps centuries after much progress had been made by democratic movements.

What democratic movements?

This is false. Intervention and the stages for the Vietnam war began under Eisenhower. Nixon also expanded the war in Vietnam to two countries: Cambodia and Laos.

And the Korean War initially began under the Truman administration. What is your point?

That one President can be just as harsh as the other?

Eisenhower escalated the Korean War. LBJ escalated Vietnam. Nixon promised peace with victory and took the bombing campaign to two other nations.

Reagan invaded Nicaragua, El Salvador, Grenada, and propelled proxy wars in the first two that slaughtered thousands. Bush I invaded Panama and Iraq.

Clinton: Somalia, The Balkans, Iraq, Sudan.

What type of game is this?

The policy outlines among doves and hardliners is clear.

It is clear that they both serve the same interests and an be both equally brutal.

One just has a good PR campaign making them look like they care more than the other.

This isn't entirely inconsistent with Chomsky.

What Chomsky is saying is that the US is putting down "the threat of a good example" - i.e., countries that are attempt to bring far more democratic control of the resources.

Never said Chomsky ultimately was wrong, just that you are, Icarus.

This is also false. The interventions prior to the neo-liberal shift were just as bad if not worse, such as the theft of land from Mexico, the slaughter of the Indians, etc.

In fact, mathematically it's been shown you were more likely to fight in the 1800s than in the 1900s.

Wasn't really talking about interventions at this point.

Was making the point about economic affairs and how there is little difference.

∞

17th December 2010, 20:36

Congratulations on being able to follow my posts on a manner almost bordering on creepy, as well as being able to drag up posts made by me on other forums back when I was a rather confused anarchist. Double congratulations on not actually being able to address the point that Chomsky advocates voting for a pro-capitalist and pro-imperialist party.

As creepy as it was he did make some good points.
Before you do what you accuse Chomsky of doing to the Sparts, I'd suggest a legitimate argument. It is very possible he suggests that progressives take this action and not Radicals.

He said "there is nothing wrong with voting for the lesser of two evils", tell us why there is some thing wrong or that they are both just as bad as the other.
That is getting to the point.

RadioRaheem84

17th December 2010, 20:40

Also, the neoliberal shift in politics has brought an end to "World Wars" - which were much, much worse.

Even in International Realations Leninism is considered crackpot.

Liberalism brought the world to war in the first place.

The neo-liberal shift is sparking dozens of struggles against big capital today.

What does it matter if it brought an end to world war? Capitalists brought an end to their own shit, that's what happened.

Since when has international relations not considered Leninism a viable option?

Seriously, you are assuming more of liberalism than what you are critiquing.

scarletghoul

17th December 2010, 20:44

How is Obama any better than McCain anyway ? This is a serious question. It seems presupposed in these discussions that he is a little better, but I do not see how.

RadioRaheem84

17th December 2010, 20:46

So in other words no evidence is presented that Chomsky has been "shunned" by the anarchist community.

There are some anarchist critics of Chomsky that I have read, but I see no reason for the anarchist community to shun him.

On the other hand, many socialist organizations actively condemn Leninism and all Leninists.

Maybe because they are not ML. What is the point of this statement? There are great socialist organizations that do support Leninism or defend Lenin's work. Monthly Review is one. David Harvey is a great Marxist.

Seriously, this is all way besides the point.

Sometimes I think that some leftists (mainly American Anarchists) love the aggrandizing praise that comes with adopting or defending liberal social science or natural science. Not that Marxists are all against this, but they rarely give it the praise or adoration that Anarchists like Icarus and NGNM85 give it. Almost, like a badge of courage with which to stand up tall and act brazen against others who don't see it as the bees knees.

Revolution starts with U

17th December 2010, 20:46

He'll give bread and carnival to the plebes....
that's about it

LibertarianSocialist1

17th December 2010, 20:51

A priori reasoning is a crackpot methodology for all of the social sciences and the hard sciences. These "axioms" are invalid philosophical fairy tales that do not exist.

Anarchists have traditionally been pro-Science, anti philosophical mumbo-jumbo.

Rand's work is also based purely on axioms, and it has been completely destroyed even by philosophers.

A priori reasoning is a crackpot methodology for all of the social sciences and the hard sciences. These "axioms" are invalid philosophical fairy tales that do not exist.
You have not shown that there is anything wrong with a priori reasoning. Marxism is clearly ''philosophical mumbo-jumbo'' according to you.

IcarusAngel

17th December 2010, 20:52

How is Obama any better than McCain anyway ? This is a serious question. It seems presupposed in these discussions that he is a little better, but I do not see how.

Would McCain have pulled hundreds of thousands of troops out of Iraq?

You should read NeoCon foreign policy. It speaks of dividing the world into spheres and invading and destroying all third world countries who oppose the US. The purpose of Iraq and other neocon wars was for the US enter into a 50 year cold war style intervention in the middle east (there would be conflicts, and then there would be continuous tension between the countries justifying all military expenditures).

As for the democratic movements in the Middle East, read Rashid Khalidi's book on this. They have generally been weakened by interventions, not by Clinton's random bombings.

Also, the comparison between the third world wars in Latin America and Clinton's bombing of an Aspirin factory I don't think makes sense. Clinton was responding to a terrorist bombing against a US embassy - it was not part of some complicated, hardline put down the third-worlders policy.

Zanthorus

17th December 2010, 20:59

tell us why there is some thing wrong or that they are both just as bad as the other.
That is getting to the point.

I think I've already explained my view point in this thread plenty of times. If the emancipation of the working-class is to be an act of the working-class itself, it must not give support to this or that bourgeois party, nevermined whether one or the other may be the 'lesser evil', but form it's own independent class party, autonomous of all factions of capital, and refused political support for any faction of capital. I've explained why the 'bones of dead children' and so on arguments concieve the working-class as a passive victim of capitalism which cannot fight for it's own emancipation. I've got to the point plenty of times already and still no-one seems to be addressing it.

IcarusAngel

17th December 2010, 21:00

You have not shown that there is anything wrong with a priori reasoning. Marxism is clearly ''philosophical mumbo-jumbo'' according to you.

The fact of the matter is that the success of the scientific method has dwarfed and conquered all theories based on "a priori" methodology. The only way to refute a priori reasoning is to come with another a priori system that contradicts it - otherwise you're attempting to "prove the negative" and that can never happen.

Show me a single social science that has used a priori reasoning with any success.

RadioRaheem84

17th December 2010, 21:03

Would McCain have pulled hundreds of thousands of troops out of Iraq?

You should read NeoCon foreign policy. It speaks of dividing the world into spheres and invading and destroying all third world countries who oppose the US. The purpose of Iraq and other neocon wars was for the US enter into a 50 year cold war style intervention in the middle east (there would be conflicts, and then there would be continuous tension between the countries justifying all military expenditures).

As for the democratic movements in the Middle East, read Rashid Khalidi's book on this. They have generally been weakened by interventions, not by Clinton's random bombings.

Also, the comparison between the third world wars in Latin America and Clinton's bombing of an Aspirin factory I don't think makes sense. Clinton was responding to a terrorist bombing against a US embassy - it was not part of some complicated, hardline put down the third-worlders policy.

Oh man, I cannot believe what I am reading.

Were Democratic movements better off when Truman supported the dictators in Turkey and Greece over the Communists/socialists?

Woodrow Wilson's red scare, suspension of Haiti's Consitution, etc.

Seriously, I had a different impression of you before I read this drivel Icarus.

You actually think there is a substantial difference between liberal and conservative administrations that would make voting between two business parties actually matter?

That neo-con policy you are so afraid has been continually called "Wilsonian" in it's theory and practice!

Christopher Hitchens whole selling point about the neo-cons and Iraq was that the ventures represented a break from traditional Republican containment policies and back to Democratic hot wars for liberation from "totalitarianism".

Read Oliver Kamm's Anti-Totalitarianism, a whole book dedicated to praising the Neo-Cons and their liberal humanitarian wars that were solidified in the halls of power by Anti-Communist Democrats, Clinton and Blair. Thanks to their interventions in the Balkans, which Paul Wolfowitz loved.

The Bush Neo-Con doctrine is largely shunned by paleo-conservatives, i.e. conservatives that have no sway anymore in the establishment Party.

You seriously do not know what you're talking about!!

IcarusAngel

17th December 2010, 21:07

Ele'ill

17th December 2010, 21:10

So I also want to point out that while Iraq is still unsafe it's generally been secured so pulling troops out of Iraq would be appropriate to an extent but where did they end up? In Afghanistan. Well, he did pull them out of Iraq didn't he... :rolleyes:

RadioRaheem84

17th December 2010, 21:11

I would've classified Marx as being anti-philosophical for the most part.

He wasn't ra-ra shis boom ba for science but he respected it wholeheartedly.

Is there some sort of intoxicating sense of self importance that comes with calling everyone else dogmatic if they do not bow down to the mantle of science, especially if policy or theories are fashioned about it from a liberal perspective?

Devrim, where are you? Your assertion was spot on. Come in here and defend it some more. Some American Anarchists really are militant liberals (attitude and all) in some areas and it's become more apparent to me with this thread.

RadioRaheem84

17th December 2010, 21:19

Again, what you say is just false. Wilsonian democracy was based on international law. Neocon policy was based on violating international law. Wilsonian interventions were to be conducted on a multi-lateral agreement; Neocon policy is based on going it alone. Wilsonian was based on democracy; neocon policy was based on the right to control resources.

Oliver Kamm is a crackpot on the internet. The fact that you keep referring to bloggers and so on rather than respected historians shows you're really grasping at straws.

Kamm and Co. represented the group of Euston Manifesto underlings that wanted to use neo-con policy as a way to win liberal and leftists over to their camp when the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were kick starting.

And the neo-cons never saw themselves as breaking international law. They saw international law and the UN Resolutions as being on their side. They saw 1441 as explicitly saying that they had the right to intervene alone if necessary to get Iraq to comply with international law. By all means necessary stretched out to mean "regime chance", something they saw as an explicit US and UN policy since the Iraqi Liberation Act of 98 and subsequent UN Resolutions afterward. Their main defense was nothing but UN Resolutions and their flimsy interpretations.

You clearly have no understanding of neo-con philosophy or the movement's history which was very much in praise of the Clinton/Blair Balkan intervention. Something they used as an example of what they wanted the Iraqi intervention to mirror.

And your praise of Wilsonian Democracy is just ludicrous. What the hell does all that jabber have to do with anything considering the man's disregard for it in the first place. Regardless of it's rhetoric, international law still meant nothing to an actual restructuring of world policy to mean capitalist demands; much like the Bush neo-cons Policy.

Seriously, just stop, you are deeply embarrassing.

IcarusAngel

17th December 2010, 21:21

This thread has really descended down to Libertarian conspiracy theories. There is no comparison between neocon policy and Wilsonianism. Those were two different times with two different international systems.

Furthermore, as I said, due to the rise of liberal policy interventions are actually less frequent, and less severe. This is a fact.

Leninism has been completely refuted in IR that's why I respect the Chomsky/anarchist analysis of foreign policy.

So I also want to point out that while Iraq is still unsafe it's generally been secured so pulling troops out of Iraq would be appropriate to an extent but where did they end up? In Afghanistan. Well, he did pull them out of Iraq didn't he... :rolleyes:

Yes. But it's better to have them in one country than two, better to have one war than two wars (or as McCain would have it, three wars).

McCain's policy bordered on being not only destructive for the Middle East but a termination of the human experiment.

McCain, like Hitler, also had a severe temper. Remember, when German bombers accidentally bombed London, the British retaliated and this sent Hitler into a rage and he started bombing London for weeks on end killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. Having a leader with a temper in really any time is dangerous.

Even other Republicans were worried about his temper:

"The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He's erratic. He's hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."
--Republican Thad Cochran

Cochran said that on a diplomatic meeting in Nicaragua McCain actually reached across a table, grabbed a government official by his collar and lifted him out of his chair:

"I don't know what he was telling him but I thought, good grief, everybody around here has got guns and we were there on a diplomatic mission."

Bob Smith also remarked on McCain's temper:

"His temper would place this country at a risk in international affairs, and the world perhaps in danger. In my mind, it should disqualify him."

McCain talked of bombing Iran and so on. That anybody couldn't see the difference between McCain and Obama is just insanity.

Zanthorus

17th December 2010, 21:27

The claim that Marxism is based on any kind of a priori reasoning is hilarious. Marx's analysis of capitalism is based on the analysis of the concrete social and historical preconditiosn for the production and reproduction of the capital relation, it is a perfectly 'scientific' and rigorously analytical methodology that underscores all three volumes of Das Kapital. It has nothing to do with 'philosophy'.

I was going to comment on this earlier but my computer crashed and I lost the post:

...overall the guy is on our side and has championed the most important thing of all when critiquing society: the class analysis.

Even he admitted that without this you're not a leftist.

First of all, I've never seem Chomsky pay anything more than lip service to 'class analysis'. His critique of US foreign policy usually relies on showing how it contradicts the United Nations or whatever and ignores the role of the working-class in resisting Imperialism. But anyhow, I don't think that 'class analysis' in terms of analysing society is what makes you a socialist. The 'classical economists' like Adam Smith and David Ricardo analysed capitalist society as a society divided between classes, as did various other historians of 'civil society', and French historians before Marx. As he himself noted:

Now as for myself, I do not claim to have discovered either the existence of classes in modern society or the struggle between them. Long before me, bourgeois historians had described the historical development of this struggle between the classes, as had bourgeois economists their economic anatomy. My own contribution was 1. to show that the existence of classes is merely bound up with certain historical phases in the development of production; 2. that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat; 3. that this dictatorship itself constitutes no more than a transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society.- Marx to Joseph Weydemeyer, 5 March 1852 (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/letters/52_03_05.htm)

What makes you a socialist is a specific form of class analysis, the one that says that the working-class is an active agent, capable of fighting for social change and it's own emancipation, capable of carrying out this struggle on a class basis, that this potentiality is a necessary feature of the working-class, the one that says that workers should form their own fighting class orgnaisations independent of and against the organisations of the bourgeoisie.

IcarusAngel

17th December 2010, 21:32

Kamm and Co. represented the group of Euston Manifesto underlings that wanted to use neo-con policy as a way to win liberal and leftists over to their camp when the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were kick starting.

Kamm is a blogger on the internet with no relevance whatsoever to neocon policy.

They are completely marginalized in the liberal community which is why they align themselves with Republicans in the first place.

And the neo-cons never saw themselves as breaking international law.

You've obviously never studied international relations or were asleep. Neocons believe the UN is irrelevant and should be abolished. The fact of the matter is that after the Gulf War all relevant UN resolutions in regards to invading Iraq had expired.

Michael Glennon, a well known neo-con figure in IR, wrote "The grand attempt to subject to rule of force to the rule of law should be deposited in the ashcan of history," that international law is all "hot air" and so on.

In fact, as I said, the Bush administration was open about violating and ignoring international law and in fact never had approval of the security council in the first place.

They saw international law and the UN Resolutions as being on their side. They saw 1441 as explicitly saying that they had the right to intervene alone if necessary to get Iraq to comply with international law.

Agian, that's a Kamm interpretation that has been refuted. Bush never made such an argument.

You clearly have no understanding of neo-con philosophy or the movement's history which was very much in praise of the Clinton/Blair Balkan intervention. Something they used as an example of what they wanted the Iraqi intervention to mirror.

The Iraq intervention had nothing to do with the intervention in the Balkans and this is the first time I've heard it referenced to that.

And your praise of Wilsonian Democracy is just ludicrous. What the hell does all that jabber have to do with anything considering the man's disregard for it in the first place. Regardless of it's rhetoric, international law still meant nothing to an actual restructuring of world policy to mean capitalist demands; much like the Bush neo-cons Policy.

Seriously, just stop, you are deeply embarrassing.

Which violations? Are we talking before or after the League of Nations?

RadioRaheem84

17th December 2010, 21:33

His temper? You boil it down to his temper?

There is no comparison between neocon policy and Wilsonianism. Those were two different times with two different international systems.

The point was that it has been referred to by the establishment itself (historians, journalists, bloggers, what have you) as Wilsonian.

Furthermore, as I said, due to the rise of liberal policy interventions are actually less frequent, and less severe. This is a fact.

Liberal humane interventionism of the Balkan variety was the main thrust and selling point of the Iraq War, other than WMDs.

What the hell are you talking about?

Neo-Cons have their origins in the Scoops Jackson Democrats. Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and Doug Feith all switched over to Republicanism during the Reagan Administration.

The same rhetoric of liberal interventionism seen in the Balkans was the same rhetoric seen by the neo-cons on Iraq.

http://www.newamericancentury.org/balkans_pdf_04.pdf

IcarusAngel

17th December 2010, 21:36

IcarusAngel

17th December 2010, 21:37

His temper? You boil it down to his temper?

And the fact that he talked about bombing Iran.

Ele'ill

17th December 2010, 21:40

Yes. But it's better to have them in one country than two, better to have one war than two wars

Iraq was being secured regardless- the main fighting is over with. Pulling troops out was the natural course of events as it was- then there was a troop surge in Afghanistan.

McCain, like Hitler, also had a severe temper. Remember, when German bombers accidentally bombed London, the British retaliated and this sent Hitler into a rage and he started bombing London for weeks on end killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. Having a leader with a temper in really any time is dangerous.

Even other Republicans were worried about his temper:

"The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He's erratic. He's hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."
--Republican Thad Cochran

Cochran said that on a diplomatic meeting in Nicaragua McCain actually reached across a table, grabbed a government official by his collar and lifted him out of his chair:

"I don't know what he was telling him but I thought, good grief, everybody around here has got guns and we were there on a diplomatic mission."

Bob Smith also remarked on McCain's temper:

"His temper would place this country at a risk in international affairs, and the world perhaps in danger. In my mind, it should disqualify him."

Is this really a talking point?

IcarusAngel

17th December 2010, 21:43

First of all, I've never seem Chomsky pay anything more than lip service to 'class analysis'.

Who put you in charge of what the working class believes and what is and isn't good "class analysis" in the first place.

His critique of US foreign policy usually relies on showing how it contradicts the United Nations or whatever and ignores the role of the working-class in resisting Imperialism.

This is so ludicrous I wouldn't know where to begin. He actively participated in working class resistance against the vietnam war and against the Iraq war.

He points out all the time that most people opposed the Iraq war without approval from the security council.

Furthermore, his analysis is not based on the US "violating international law," but instead it's based on the belief that the US shapes the world to its interests for the benefit of the elite class. That's why he brings up the United Fruit Company, the oil companies, and so on. It also based on putting down resistance movements - and thus, it is not based on "following international law" or bringing good will to the world.

What makes you a socialist is a specific form of class analysis, the one that says that the working-class is an active agent, capable of fighting for social change and it's own emancipation, capable of carrying out this struggle on a class basis...

So Zanthorus has been appointed king of what is and what isn't socialist.

There have been many socialists with many different forms of "class analysis."

RadioRaheem84

17th December 2010, 21:46

Kamm is a blogger on the internet with no relevance whatsoever to neocon policy.

They are completely marginalized in the liberal community which is why they align themselves with Republicans in the first place.

Except for the centrist liberal internventionists of the New Republic crowd. New Labour and New Democrat Clintonians are very much pro-Neo Con to some extent.

With the actual liberal progressive crowd, no, not so much.

But I was talking about actual liberals in power like Clinton and Blair.

You've obviously never studied international relations or were asleep. Neocons believe the UN is irrelevant and should be abolished. The fact of the matter is that after the Gulf War all relevant UN resolutions in regards to invading Iraq had expired.

Michael Glennon, a well known neo-con figure in IR, wrote "The grand attempt to subject to rule of force to the rule of law should be deposited in the ashcan of history," that international law is all "hot air" and so on.

In fact, as I said, the Bush administration was open about violating and ignoring international law and in fact never had approval of the security council in the first place.

You make no sense. The whole argument was that the first Iraq War never ended and thus the Resolutions were still workable.

You need to seriously stop, right now. You are continually baffling me as to how you think you know everything when in fact you don't.

http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraq-042005.pdf

Read this little case for Iraq made by the Project for the New American Century and then this whitepaper by the American Enterprise Institute. Two leading Neo-Cons think thanks.

The first three chapters of the PFANAC paper outlines their whole argument about Iraqi Non-Compliance with international law as a basis for war and also outlines the Clinton Administration's arguments, linking the two as a continuation of the SAME policy, not a different one.

The Iraq intervention had nothing to do with the intervention in the Balkans and this is the first time I've heard it referenced to that.

The point is that the neo-cons saw the Iraq War as a continuation of the liberal interventionism of the Clinton/Blair Balkan ventures.

IcarusAngel

17th December 2010, 21:52

RadioRaheem84

17th December 2010, 21:53

So a document from 1998 proves that they used the Balkans to sell the people the Iraq war? :laugh:

There is no comparison between the interventions in the Balkans and plunging the world into a massive invasion against Iraq. It's absolutely ridiculous.

Icarus, you're mad and a bit brazen for someone who knows shit.

I used to be a liberal interventionist of the Hitchens variety and would storm in here, before I was rightfully restricted, with a mountain of neo-con and liberal hawk garbage about how the Iraq War was a continuation of the liberal interventionism of Clinton and Blair.

This was the main selling point for the neo-cons and the liberal hawks themselves, not the realists in the Republican Party who were mainly about national security.

I am talking about kool-aid Neo-Con/liberal hawk drinkers.

Let me put it this way: You do not know what you are talking about. No amount of a brazen arrogant attitude is going to quell that.

You keep telling me that their arguments were about destroying international law, but their main focus was on getting Iraq to comply with international law by all means necessary, including regime change.

If they think international law is irrelevant it is mostly due to their belief that it is now working as of now due to their skewered belief that its working against them and their interest; which represent freedom.

RaÃºl Duke

17th December 2010, 21:54

.
I never heard of him actually voting.....

Umm...my last point has a link in which he states that he voted for Nader.

or that they are both just as bad as the other.
That is getting to the point.That has been done countless times in this thread by Devrim, Zanthrous, myself, and others. They're both as bad as the other since there's no real difference, in principle, between one or the other.

Also,

The fact that Obama tried to get health care passed, and yet it doesn't cover all Americans and is not a rational distribution of resources is a good example of how corporations do not meet our goals. So I would say he's at least correct in that regard.I already covered that point.

it isn't even yet a reality till like 2011-2013 and I'm willing to make a minor bet that the Republicans will tear that half-ass reform apart and the Democrats will stand idly by or actually take part in killing their prized pony. It may have passed in Congress, but it ain't yet implemented and it's very possible that it will fall apart, particularly since the Republicans have already won part of Congress and aim to tear it apart perhaps around 2012.

IcarusAngel

17th December 2010, 21:58

Icarus, you're mad and a bit brazen for someone who knows shit.

I've given empirical evidence that your beliefs are in fact false.

I used to be a liberal interventionist of the Hitchens variety and would storm in here, before I was rightfully restricted, with a mountain of neo-con and liberal hawk garbage about how the Iraq War was a continuation of the liberal interventionism of Clinton and Blair.

This is an argument that was directly refuted by liberals.

This was the main selling point for the neo-cons and the liberal hawks themselves, not the realists in the Republican Party who were mainly about national security.

Who voted against the Iraq war in the Republican Party?

You keep telling me that their arguments were about destroying international law, but their main focus was on getting Iraq to comply with international law by all means necessary, including regime change.

Iraq had complied with international law. It was the US that ordered the weapons inspectors out.

And their main focus was not getting Iraq to "comply with international law" - their main purpose was to remove Saddam Hussein, a policy that had been rejected by the US congress under Clinton.

ComradeMan

17th December 2010, 21:58

Trash this post... server meltdown!

RadioRaheem84

17th December 2010, 22:05

The Clinton policy was the policy of containment. Clinton attacked the Balkans, therefore Gore would have attacked Iraq. This doesn't follow logically and there is no evidence they had plans to go into Iraq.

The argument that somehow the UN resolutions were still relevant is an argument invented by Hitchens et al., not the Bush team, and in fact was refuted by liberals.

OMG. You're a fucking idiot!

Why would the Clinton Administration sign the Iraqi Liberation Act, making it a strict policy of the US to promote regime change in Iraq?

Containment means supporting dictators, interventionism means overthrowing them.

The argument that the UN Resolutions were still relevant was not an invention by Hitchens but strict policy by Bush:

Bush's speech to the UN circa 2002:

The United States helped found the United Nations. We want the U.N. to be effective and respected and successful. We want the resolutions of the world's most important multilateral body to be enforced. Right now these resolutions are being unilaterally subverted by the Iraqi regime. Our partnership of nations can meet the test before us, by making clear what we now expect of the Iraqi regime.

It even went so far as to make point for point why the Bush administration pursued Iraq:

The conduct of the Iraqi regime is a threat to the authority of the United Nations, and a threat to peace. Iraq has answered a decade of U.N. demands with a decade of defiance. All the world now faces a test and the United Nations a difficult and defining moment. Are Security Council resolutions to be honored and enforced or cast aside without consequence? Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding or will it be irrelevant?

The Joint Resolution for Use of Force Against Iraq in 2003 signed by Congress even cited the Iraqi Liberation Act of 1998:

Whereas in 1998 Congress concluded that Iraq's continuing weapons of mass destruction programs threatened vital United States interests and international peace and security, declared Iraq to be in "material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations" and urged the President "to take appropriate action, in accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws of the United States, to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations" (Public Law 105-235);

Whereas Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations;

Whereas Iraq persists in violating resolutions of the United Nations Security Council by continuing to engage in brutal repression of its civilian population thereby threatening international peace and security in the region, by refusing to release, repatriate, or account for non-Iraqi citizens wrongfully detained by Iraq, including an American serviceman, and by failing to return property wrongfully seized by Iraq from Kuwait;

Whereas United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 authorizes the use of all necessary means to enforce United Nations Security Council Resolution 660 and subsequent relevant resolutions and to compel Iraq to cease certain activities that threaten international peace and security, including the development of weapons of mass destruction and refusal or obstruction of United Nations weapons inspections in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687, repression of its civilian population in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 688, and threatening its neighbors or United Nations operations in Iraq in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 949;

Whereas Congress in the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102-1) has authorized the President "to use United States Armed Forces pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 (1990) in order to achieve implementation of Security Council Resolutions 660, 661, 662, 664, 665, 666, 667, 669, 670, 674, and 677";

Whereas the Iraq Liberation Act (Public Law 105-338) expressed the sense of Congress that it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove from power the current Iraqi regime and promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime;

Whereas on September 12, 2002, President Bush committed the United States to "work with the United Nations Security Council to meet our common challenge" posed by Iraq and to "work for the necessary resolutions," while also making clear that "the Security Council resolutions will be enforced, and the just demands of peace and security will be met, or action will be unavoidable";

SEC. 2. SUPPORT FOR UNITED STATES DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS

The Congress of the United States supports the efforts by the President to--

(a) strictly enforce through the United Nations Security Council all relevant Security Council resolutions applicable to Iraq and encourages him in those efforts; and

(b) obtain prompt and decisive action by the Security Council to ensure that Iraq abandons its strategy of delay, evasion and noncompliance and promptly and strictly complies with all relevant Security Council resolutions.

http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/10/print/20021002-2.html

RadioRaheem84

17th December 2010, 22:14

I've given empirical evidence that your beliefs are in fact false.

No you have not. You've cited nothing.

This is an argument that was directly refuted by liberals.

Liberals, like the ones of the New Republic, who emphatically supported both the Balkans and the Iraqi interventions?

Liberalism in the US isn't this monolithic way of thinking. There were liberals who supported the Iraq war for humanitarian reasons and those that saw right through the Bush bullshit.

I was explicitly talking about the Neo-Cons and liberal hawk kool-aid drinkers.

Liberal Hawks like Paul Berman, Dissent Magazine and the New Republic.

Who voted against the Iraq war in the Republican Party?

Paleo-cons, libertarian republicans.

http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/10/11/194543.shtml

Here are a few.

The anti-war Republican mentality is thus:

It is a traditional conservative position to be in favor of a strong national defense, not one that turns our soldiers into international social workers, and to believe in a noninterventionist foreign policy rather than in globalism or internationalism.

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/duncan1.html

http://www.amconmag.com/blog/anatomy-of-neoconservatism/

American paleo-cons see them as liberal interventionists.

Neo-Con praise mostly comes from liberal hawks, more so than from conservatives.

IcarusAngel

17th December 2010, 22:16

The Iraq Liberation Act specifically forbade the use of the American military to achieve regime change. That's evidence of my position; not evidence of your position. Furthermore, Clinton spent almost none of the money on the allotted money to fund groups that opposed Saddam Hussein.

By the same token, UN resolution 1441 also does not justify the use of the military to achieve its goals.

IcarusAngel

17th December 2010, 22:19

No you have not. You've cited nothing.

You've claimed that there are more dangerous interventions after the rise of neoliberalism. I showed this to be false. You've said that Clinton had a policy of overthrowing Saddam with the military - this is false. You compared the interventions of the Balkans and Sudan to the hardline plan to overthrow Latin American democracies - when there is no connection whatsoever, and in fact these are two different aspects of foreign policy.

You've said that the neocons don't believe in overthrowing international law - this is false, and I did cite a neocon scholar (not a blogger on the internet) to prove my point.

Finally, you said that we are living in more violent times due to what you perceive as the rise of "neoliberlaism" - this is also empirically false.

IcarusAngel

17th December 2010, 22:24

Are Security Council resolutions to be honored and enforced or cast aside without consequence? Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding or will it be irrelevant?

Clearly evidence of my position. Either the UN will bow down to US interests, or it will be "irrelevant." That shows an active propaganda campaign against international law, not for it.

RadioRaheem84

17th December 2010, 22:26

I used to read whole sections of junk published by a huge section of the liberal establishment that was largely pro-Iraq War.

From the New Republic, to Dissent Magazine, to the short lived Democratiya....

To books like this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Matter-Principle-Humanitarian-Arguments-Iraq/dp/0520245555/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1292624361&sr=1-2

A book containing a whole slew of liberal intellectuals and one conservative: Roger Scruton.

But shit: Jose Ramos Horta, Norman Geras, Johan Hari, Mitchel Cohen, Jeffrey Herf

The list goes on with liberal intellectuals all supporting the Iraqi invasion on humanitarian grounds.

Just because other liberals attacked them doesn't mean that liberals did not too support war and it was usually out of some belief that the Iraq War was a continuation of liberal interventionist policies.

How is it even an argument that liberals countered these pro-Hawk arguments? What does that have to do with anything?

You saying that they proved them wrong means nothing.

The point was that there was an active movement that followed the anti-Communist liberal hawks to the neo-con Bush administration and the Iraq War.

There is no denying this and Icarus you are clearly mistaken but just brazen about your shitty arguments.

∞

17th December 2010, 22:29

I think I've already explained my view point in this thread plenty of times. If the emancipation of the working-class is to be an act of the working-class itself, it must not give support to this or that bourgeois party, nevermined whether one or the other may be the 'lesser evil', but form it's own independent class party,

That is the problem. Chomsky has never done anything to actually "support" the democratic party. In various discussions he has with liberals (maybe excluding the 20 second discussion with Bill Maher) that Chomsky is stupendously critical of the liberals. This is evident from the first page of Failed States, Interventions and so on. Okay so he is not a liberal why does he call for this action? Well, evidence suggests the actions of non-revolutionaries can help pick a slightly better candidate, one he still describes as "evil". If you are going to equate Chomsky as liberal then you are taking in vain all of the works hes done against liberalism (by that I don't mean neo-liberalism economically, though he did that with Clinton as well), and that is disgusting. Though if I were Chomsky and could look into the future, I probably wouldn't suggest an action we so conveniently laugh at.

autonomous of all factions of capital, and refused political support for any faction of capital. I've explained why the 'bones of dead children' and so on arguments concieve the working-class as a passive victim of capitalism which cannot fight for it's own emancipation. I've got to the point plenty of times already and still no-one seems to be addressing it.Nice theory, but as much as it pains me to say it, the task of organizing the American population to socialism is near impossible. Chomsky still attends several IWW meetings in Europe and so on. So he does hold radical principles (a little bit on a tangent). It easy for you, in England, a hotbed of radicalism to say these things. But the difficulty of achieving anything near socialism is damn near impossible in America. Maybe withdrawing a few troops in Fallujah was what Chomsky's main concern was. Anyway I find it near despcable that we are sneering over such a small suggestion. He wants any change he could get, and from reading what hes written on socialism he wants it one way or another. The Left has better things to do than sneer at Chomsky's remarks.

RadioRaheem84

17th December 2010, 22:33

You've claimed that there are more dangerous interventions after the rise of neoliberalism.

No I didn't, I never claimed this. I said that since Carter, Presidents have been moving more and more to the right economically, i.e. their domestic policies are similar to each other.

My point about foreign policy was that the nothing inherently has changed in US policy, not from democrat to Republican.

Also, did you see the Balkans intervention as some sort of real liberal intervention that was not also masked as a an attempt to neo-liberalize the Balkans and break them up?

The Iraq Liberation Act specifically forbade the use of the American military to achieve regime change. That's evidence of my position; not evidence of your position. Furthermore, Clinton spent almost none of the money on the allotted money to fund groups that opposed Saddam Hussein.

By the same token, UN resolution 1441 also does not justify the use of the military to achieve its goals.

The only difference between Bush and Clinton's policy as the act of unilateralism.

Clinton did not want to go without the UN, as did Blair. Bush and Co. were more like, "we alone will defend international law".

They believed that they were upholding international law by going at it alone. If they actually broke international law, it's a whole matter entirely. I believe they did too, but the also have a plethora of shitty flimsy and almost ambiguously written resolutions to back them up too.

IcarusAngel

17th December 2010, 22:33

RadioRaheem84

17th December 2010, 22:36

Clearly evidence of my position. Either the UN will bow down to US interests, or it will be "irrelevant." That shows an active propaganda campaign against international law, not for it.

What? :laugh:

The point was that the rhetoric surrounding the Iraq War justification was compliance with UN Resolutions.

I think you are deconstructing that too much. Maybe it was about getting the UN to do the US's bidding, but what is the difference between that and Clinton and other administrations when the US wants something?

It isn't evidence of your argument. It's evidence that you cannot argue.

RadioRaheem84

17th December 2010, 22:38

The fact is I could probably find some Marxists who supported the Iraq war. In fact I think there were some Trotskyists who supported it. But that has nothing to do with the policy differences between the two parties.

Right. Like Marxists and Trots have more influence than the New Republic on Capitol Hill. :laugh:

Seriously, just stop now.

IcarusAngel

17th December 2010, 22:38

No I didn't, I never claimed this. I said that since Carter, Presidents have been moving more and more to the right economically, i.e. their domestic policies are similar to each other.

I agree.

My point about foreign policy was that the nothing inherently has changed in US policy, not from democrat to Republican.

I think that the US ability to flex its muscles has actually gotten weaker - due in part to the public opposition to wars, and also due to a shift from the more hardline extreme in the elite circles, probably because they finally realized a lot of their policies were backfiring against their established aims.

The only difference between Bush and Clinton's policy as the act of unilateralism.

Given that the Iraq Liberation Act forbade the use of force I don't see this. When Bush came into office they immediately devised plans to attack (overthrow Saddam) Iraq, even before September 11th. I don't see any evidence that Clinton would have done this if elected again.

Amphictyonis

17th December 2010, 22:53

Would McCain have pulled hundreds of thousands of troops out of Iraq?

Bush actually planned the majority of troop withdraw from Iraq. Obama actually expanded the war in Afghanistan into Yemen and Pakistan. Obama was worse for the left because he marginalized all the momentum we had going during the Bush years. The only good thing I see coming from the Obama administration is the possibility that people will see how full of shit both Democrats and Republicans are.

Posts like yours don't make me want to hold my breath though :)

IcarusAngel

17th December 2010, 23:08

Bush actually planned the majority of troop withdraw from Iraq. Obama actually expanded the war in Afghanistan into Yemen and Pakistan.

Bush actually never mentioned "time tables" and it was McCain policy to keep people in Iraq for 100 years or more. There had been several opportunities for Bush to withdrawal - which he did not take.

Obama was worse for the left because he marginalized all the momentum we had going during the Bush years. The only good thing I see coming from the Obama administration is the possibility that people will see how full of shit both Democrats and Republicans are.

Delusions of grandeur. The anti-war momentum had mostly died out before the 2008 elections. Had McCain won the left would probably be in the same state it is in now, perhaps even worse.

I think the state of the left is hopeful due to the opposition to austerity all around the world and here in the US as well.

Posts like yours don't make me want to hold my breath though :)

McCain winning may have led to a few more people *****ing on the internet but that's it.

Actually, the failure of liberal governments to provide what they need to be providing in capitalist society I think has been a very good thing to the left as evidenced in all the protests around the world, not just against war but against capital.

RadioRaheem84

17th December 2010, 23:09

Given that the Iraq Liberation Act forbade the use of force I don't see this. When Bush came into office they immediately devised plans to attack (overthrow Saddam) Iraq, even before September 11th. I don't see any evidence that Clinton would have done this if elected again.
.

Again, the difference was in unilateralism. Clinton would not have acted without UN authority.

Blair felt uncomfortable without it.

Bush was not. It acted unilaterally. The rhetoric was to "save" the international law of the UN.

Besides if the UN was so opposed to occupation it would not have given the US and UK its blessings with Resolution 1483, which called on them to:

11. REAFFIRMS that Iraq must meet its disarmament obligations, ENCOURAGES the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America to keep the Council informed of their activities in this regard, and UNDERLINES the intention of the Council to revisit the mandates of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency as set forth in Resolutions 687 (1991) of April 3, 1991, 1284 (1999) of 17 Dec. 17, 1999, and 1441 (2002) of Nov. 8, 2002;

http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N03/368/53/PDF/N0336853.pdf?OpenElement

Notice that all resolution on iraq after 91 were titled situation between iraq and kuwait, also another nod to neo-con justification that the war never ended and that compliance must have been met.

More evidence:

Pat Buchanan's "Republic Not an Empire" book spends its first chapter attacking the so-called Wolfowitz Memorandum.

Q: Right, I know that book.

Wolfowitz: And he laments the fact that these same Democratic senators who were attacking--in his view, appropriately attacking--the Wolfowitz Memorandum, had climbed on board the whole policy when it became Clinton's policy in the mid 1990s. He's correct in saying that what was considered by the New York Times to be such an outrageous document was U.S. consensus foreign policy, but during the Clinton Administration, not in this Administration. That is that these alliances needed to be retained, that NATO could be enlarged successfully, that we could downsize our military but we needed to retain a capability to deal with two major regional conflicts, which, by the way, is something that needed revision by the time I got back here. But it was the defense policy of the Clinton years, ironically.

Q: John Louis Gaddis has said that, that if you look at Clinton's policy it actually does come out of the '92 guidance to some extent.

Wolfowitz: Not to some extent. It's pretty much verbatim.

Q: But you're --

Wolfowitz: -- without acknowledgement.

Q: Except you have been skeptical about Clinton's, the sentimental liberalism in his ideas, his approach to foreign policy, right?

Wolfowitz: Well, yes but let's remember that -- I think they made a serious over-reach in Somalia when they went beyond just ending starvation and tried to do nationbuilding. I think Haiti was a waste of American effort. I think, as we've learned, the North Korea Framework Agreement was delusional. But on two of the key things they did, namely Bosnia and Kosovo, Bob Dole supported Clinton quite strongly and I would say courageously on Bosnia and I'm proud to claim some credit in having advised --

And similarly, on Kosovo, when Bush was deciding whether to support it or not, I was strongly urging him to do so. When some Republicans tried to undercut Clinton on Kosovo, it was Bush and McCain together who told them don't do that. It's wrong.

Wolfowitz: -- there have always been three fundamental concerns. One is weapons of mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people. Actually I guess you could say there's a fourth overriding one which is the connection between the first two. Sorry, hold on again.

The entire rhetoric behind ousting Saddam was about UN compliance to UN resolutions concerning WMDs.

RadioRaheem84

17th December 2010, 23:12

I think the state of the left is hopeful due to the opposition to austerity all around the world and here in the US as well.

Do you count liberals in this? It seems like you do and that worries me.

So what if Obama mentioned time tables. The biggest base and embassy in history are there. US troops aren't going anywhere. The War on Terror is now in Pakistan and Yemen, killing several civilians.

Why are you so defensive about liberals?

Amphictyonis

17th December 2010, 23:25

Bush actually never mentioned "time tables" and it was McCain policy to keep people in Iraq for 100 years or more. There had been several opportunities for Bush to withdrawal - which he did not take.

Thats funny, I wasn't aware Obama has taken out all US forces and contractors (mercenaries).

Delusions of grandeur. The anti-war momentum had mostly died out before the 2008 elections. Had McCain won the left would probably be in the same state it is in now, perhaps even worse. Delusions of grandeur? The only delusional people I've had the displeasure of dealing with since late 2007 have been the countless idiots who support Obama. He has, without a shadow of a doubt, marginalized the left and turned the political dial further to the right. The total privatization of health care, the expansion of the wars, massive cuts to social programs, massive amounts of money handed out to Wall St, the continuation of extraordinary rendition to nations that torture, GITMO is still running is it not? Fuck Obama. He also tried to deregulate World Bank.IMF funds. He opposes gay marriage and there will in fact be a US presence in Iraq for the next 100 years just as McCain said.

I think the state of the left is hopeful due to the opposition to austerity all around the world and here in the US as well. I always argued class awareness will be built on declining material conditions but it's not that hopeful in America because of the idiotic loyalty to Obama and democrats. Fuck liberals. Fuck Pacifica Radio/KPFA. Fuck "MovOn", fuck all of the sorry ass bastards like Micheal Moore who have paved the road to servitude in America by drooling over Obama. Fuck you too if you're one of them.

McCain winning may have led to a few more people *****ing on the internet but that's it.

Ya right. Loyalty to Obama and democrats has nothing to do with it. I live in San Fransisco- you want to see what the Mission district looked like?

oM6PsTium3Q

Fucking pathetic^ I was almost assaulted for telling most of them (a few friends included) Obama was a shit liar and will make no difference.

Actually, the failure of liberal governments to provide what they need to be providing in capitalist society I think has been a very good thing to the left as evidenced in all the protests around the world, not just against war but against capital.

America. Obama has marginalized the left in America. It's obviously made me angry over the last couple years. I'm tiered of it.

Amphictyonis

17th December 2010, 23:37

cgYgBCibOM4

All that celebrating amounts to is political ignorance with silent chants in their minds "we're not racist, we're not racist". Total fucking ignorance. Alan Keyes may have well won. The health Care privatization is where I just about lost my mind. I still, to this day, have to deal with people who think Obama's health Care bill was the best thing since cheese.

Americans are deeply brainwashed/mislead/misinformed. It's our job to break that spell not help perpetuate it by making excuses for democrats (no matter what color they are). The bourgeois establishment just played us like a bunch of fools and too many of us are still being played.

Amphictyonis

17th December 2010, 23:42

GVsH7Q0RzxI

How many self proclaimed Socialists/Marxists/Anarchists do you think were jumping for joy across the nation that night? The amount of emotional investment in Obama has indeed marginalized the left in America.

RadioRaheem84

17th December 2010, 23:42

Icarus's analysis is way too shallow and relies a lot on idealism, not a hard concrete reliance of the facts.

Clinton also awarded contracts to Halliburton during the Balkans venture. Policy is the same and the structures remain fundamentally the same which is the most important aspect of this debate.

Icarus relies too much on a shallow liberal-ish interpretation of politics in the US.

Which leads to me believe just how useful Chomsky is after the initial introduction to US Imperialism and hypocritical foreign policy?

Judging by his and NGNM85's post, something is seriously wrong here. The Liberalism is too much.

ZeroNowhere

18th December 2010, 02:49

Didn't Marx start Capital with an a priori definition (of the "commodity" I believe, correct me if my memory fails me)...?
You mean as opposed to empirical definitions?

"So, I was studying bachelors for a year, and according to my data they are all unmarried. Perhaps we should define them in these terms."

Jazzhands

18th December 2010, 03:10

I don't think that's true at all. Most communist groups are, I think, Trotskyists.

That's because they split every five seconds.

REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL

18th December 2010, 03:16

Geiseric

18th December 2010, 03:33

The 4th international, the organisation Leon formed, puts in almost every one of their pamphlets not to be sectarian. From what I hear the spartacists were increadibly sectarian, so they aren't exactly trotskyists.

Ele'ill

18th December 2010, 05:13

Most of the harm done isn't votable as you get it with either party. Liberal positions such as what we've seen in this thread remind me of people applauding a US effort to clean up the aftermath of their own bombing runs. That isn't noble that's bullshit.

It isn't an issue of lesser evil and never will be. It's an issue of which evils are more comfortable for your moral compass to handle and it's personified by a 'one war is better than two' attitude. Fuck that shit I'm a no war for their profit kind of person. If you think troops were pulled out of Iraq because it was a promise to US citizens you're an idiot. It was a strategic decision that was happening regardless. I don't care if McCain said he wanted troops in Iraq for 100 years that doesn't make any sense at all and never would have happened. Ever.

NGNM85

18th December 2010, 05:45

Freedom House = Excellent criteria of free societies?...etc.

You do this all the time. You break down the things I say and mangle them into soundbytes that I hardly recognize. It borders on disingenuous. I'm perfectly comfortable communicating by myself, don't tell me what I think, ask me what I think.

RadioRaheem84

18th December 2010, 07:24

Believe me you love to tell us what you think and I distinctly remember you promoting the heck out of The Economist's Freedom Index, which uses Freedom House as a major criteria.

IcarusAngel

18th December 2010, 15:08

[Random, weird attacks on working people and working organizations]

The horror.

You mean to tell me people went out and engaged in collective action without checking in every hour on revleft to determine the latest revleft tendency?

Shame on those workers for protesting without knowing the latest ideology invented inbetween games of Operation Counter Strike by Zanthorus -the one, the messiah, the second come of Marx - who has determined the "true" class analysis, forever and all time, or at least until next month.

A pox on them for discarding some arrogant kid who tries to change the aim of a local protest.

And, worst of all, they actually condemned racism? Those idiots. Condemning racism is so last year. I can barely stand it; they will obviously be the first executed when The Party comes to power.

You should make a documentary about this. It is clearly the most pressing issue of our time. Bonus features could include how to properly conduct a Zanthorus-Marxist-Lenist protest (the only way to protest), how to post on revleft without backing up your arguments, and why Radio Pacifica and Democracy Now are evil counterrevolution institutions.

TgTikifxVLE

IcarusAngel

18th December 2010, 15:31

Icarus, are you actually a revolutionary leftist?

Nearly every post you make you seem to compare some leftists arguments to that of a liberal college professor, and then dismiss the former as "crackpot" and not accepted by the (liberal) intelligentsia.

Science is either true or false. Either a methodology works or it doesn't work. That's it. Niels Bohr didn't have to check his theories through Marxist a prior methodology before he contributed to atomic theory.

you would give less credence to the consensus opinion of vaguely leftist members of the intellectual establishment, which you do when you tell us that X theory has been discarded, and is regarded as a laughing stock by college professors.

I said the a priori methodology is a laughing stock by everyone. Orthodox Marxist (which I assume means he follows Marx to a T) was given ample opportunity to explain his methodology, which he chose not to take. I can only conclude that he has no evidence that his methodology even works.

As for this being a part of liberalism, again, this is false.

As I said, most anarchists supported what you call "bourgeois" or liberal science - and the alignment of anarchism and liberalism has a historic root.

Bakunin, for example, celebrated enlightenment values and methodologies and identified in classical-liberalism the principles of the scientific methodologies, which he linked to progress and emancipation. He said that science knowledge occurred "only to a very small portion of society" but he believed that liberal science would provide the foundation for an all around education in anarchy.

Godwin was also grounded in rationalism and liberal science.

Kropotkin and Reclus extended Bakunin's ideas and developed an anti-a priori, empirically based version of anarchism. They believed the scientific method held the key to social well being.

After the Soviet Union, many anarchists preferred to apropriate liberal or bourgeois science (or just real science) as opposed to Marxism to further differentiate themselves from Marxists in ways that go beyond the political ideological disputes I outlined earlier.

See: Anarchism Seeds beneath the snow (http://books.google.com/books?id=Fgya85u7S-4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Anarchist+seeds+beneath+the+snow:+left-libertarian+thought+and+British&hl=en&ei=UdEMTfX3EoK8sQPt9e2sCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false), ch 11.

Also, with the alignment of anarchism and science there was the alignment of anarchism and liberalism's politics. Anarchists claiming liberty as their primary goal; anarchists believing that we have a set of rights that cannot be violated (equality, liberty, right to life, and other things that only necessitate that we have the ability to form social structures at our choosing, not at the state's discretion); and so on. Voltairine de Cleyre argued that the guarantee of civic rights, freedom from government, and independence of thought were cornerstones of both anarchism and liberal theory for example.

Spooner (abolition of slavery), Tucker, Rocker (he linked anarchism to progressive thinking and that activities by workers represented post-revolutionary organization), the anarcho-syndicalists, all engaged in political analysis and/or activity as well.

So Chomsky, nor my comments on science, are not out of line with quite a lot of the left-anarchist traditions.

"Even if its supporters are animated by the very best intentions, the iron logic of facts will always drive them into the camp of extremest despotism... the pretense that the so-called dictatorship of the proletariat is something different is only a sophisticated trick to fool simpletons. Such a thing as the dictatorship of a class is utterly unthinkable, since there will always be involved merely the dictatorship of a particular party which takes it upon itself to speak in the name of a class." --Rocker.

ZeroNowhere

18th December 2010, 15:31

Shame on those workers for protesting without knowing the latest ideology invented inbetween games of Operation Counter Strike by Zanthorus -the one, the messiah, the second come of Marx - who has determined the "true" class analysis, forever and all time, or at least until next month.

A pox on them for discarding some arrogant kid who tries to change the aim of a local protest.Tut, tut. One should respect one's elders.

LibertarianSocialist1

18th December 2010, 16:27

The fact of the matter is that the success of the scientific method has dwarfed and conquered all theories based on "a priori" methodology. The only way to refute a priori reasoning is to come with another a priori system that contradicts it - otherwise you're attempting to "prove the negative" and that can never happen.

Show me a single social science that has used a priori reasoning with any success.

Marxist economics.

LibertarianSocialist1

18th December 2010, 16:31

2.that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat;
How is this not a priori reasoning?

RadioRaheem84

18th December 2010, 17:19

Icarus Angel, that explains a lot. Thank you for clarifying why your posts and NGNs and even some of the stuff Chomsky says is laughable, shallow and surface level analysis. Uber-idealist and anti-materialist to the core.

ComradeMan

18th December 2010, 20:42

Marxist economics.

Well-known for its economic successes. :lol:

∞

18th December 2010, 21:44

Well-known for its economic successes. :lol:

Economic ideas based on analyzing current systems aren't there to produce "success".

ComradeMan

18th December 2010, 21:53

Economic ideas based on analyzing current systems aren't there to produce "success".

But they did make predictions about the future based on what Marx thought would be a natural and scientific development and thus could be accused of being a priori.

However if "economic" ideas do not propose something either more economically successful or "morally" acceptable then they aren't worth much either.

∞

18th December 2010, 21:57

But they did make predictions about the future based on what Marx thought would be a natural and scientific development and thus could be accused of being a priori.

However if "economic" ideas do not propose something either more economically successful or "morally" acceptable then they aren't worth much either.

So what if its a priori? I couldn't care less.

From what I've read the only thing he got wrong was saying globalization would increase the economies of the third-world into the first, we now know it increases their poverty. Everything else seems almost perfectly in his writings, I dare say its almost prophetic.

That was the purpose of his writings....

ComradeMan

18th December 2010, 22:07

So what if its a priori? I couldn't care less.

From what I've read the only thing he got wrong was saying globalization would increase the economies of the third-world into the first, we now know it increases their poverty. Everything else seems almost perfectly in his writings, I dare say its almost prophetic.

That was the purpose of his writings....

Well the revolution of the industrialised proletariat in Europe did not happen to start with.

Look, Marx is important but he is not the be-all and end-all and some of the stuff he said was just nonsense too.

So do you believe in your prophet's ideas of the family being done away with and women becoming communal property?

:lol:

∞

18th December 2010, 22:16

Well the revolution of the industrialised proletariat in Europe did not happen to start with.

It didn't succeed.

Look, Marx is important but he is not the be-all and end-all and some of the stuff he said was just nonsense too.

Mahobiglababahabsjsdhbsdjh.... <----That is nonsense

So do you believe in your prophet's ideas of the family being done away with and women becoming communal property?

I said some of his statements were near prophetic, way to take things out of context.

Myself

In its first form only a generalisation and consummation of it [of this relation]. As such it appears in a two-fold form: on the one hand, the dominion of material property bulks so large that it wants to destroy everything which is not capable of being possessed by all as private property. It wants to disregard talent, etc., in an arbitrary manner. For it the sole purpose of life and existence is direct, physical possession. The category of the worker is not done away with, but extended to all men. The relationship of private property persists as the relationship of the community to the world of things. Finally, this movement of opposing universal private property to private property finds expression in the brutish form of opposing to marriage (certainly a form of exclusive private property) the community of women, in which a woman becomes a piece of communal and common property. It may be said that this idea of the community of women gives away the secret of this as yet completely crude and thoughtless communism.[30] Just as woman passes from marriage to general prostitution, [Prostitution is only a specific expression of the general prostitution of the labourer, and since it is a relationship in which falls not the prostitute alone, but also the one who prostitutes – and the latter’s abomination is still greater – the capitalist, etc., also comes under this head. – Note by Marx [31]] so the entire world of wealth (that is, of man’s objective substance) passes from the relationship of exclusive marriage with the owner of private property to a state of universal prostitution with the community. This type of communism – since it negates the personality of man in every sphere – is but the logical expression of private property, which is this negation. General envy constituting itself as a power is the disguise in which greed re-establishes itself and satisfies itself, only in another way. The thought of every piece of private property as such is at least turned against wealthier private property in the form of envy and the urge to reduce things to a common level, so that this envy and urge even constitute the essence of competition. Crude communism [the manuscript has: Kommunist. – Ed.] is only the culmination of this envy and of this levelling-down proceeding from the preconceived minimum. It has a definite, limited standard. How little this annulment of private property is really an appropriation is in fact proved by the abstract negation of the entire world of culture and civilisation, the regression to the unnatural || IV ||IV| simplicity of the poor and crude man who has few needs and who has not only failed to go beyond private property, but has not yet even reached it.

Basically Marx didn't hold women should be victims of gang-rape. He was stating the conditions of woman in communist society.

ComradeMan

18th December 2010, 22:29

It didn't succeed.

Where did it start? Please show me....

Basically Marx didn't hold women should be victims of gang-rape. He was stating the conditions of woman in communist society.

Of course he was married and fathered seven children of whom three survived! :lol:

We could add how Marx predicted the "middle-class" would disappear culminating in a two-sided class conflict. Economic prosperity and development actually increased the "middle-class".

Bernstein's summary of Marx's errors in prediction:-
Peasants do not sink; middle class does not disappear; crises do not grow ever larger; misery and serfdom do not increase. There is increase in security, dependence, social distance, social character of production, and functional superfluity of property owners (Steger).
Steger, Manfred. Selected Writings Of Eduard Bernstein, 1920-1921. New Jersey: Humanities
Steger, Manfred. The Quest for Evolutionary Socialism: Eduard Bernstein and Social Democracy, Cambridge University Press, 1997

See here http://econc10.bu.edu/economic_systems/Theory/Marxism/German_sd/bernstein.htm

∞

18th December 2010, 22:32

We could add how Marx predicted the "middle-class" would disappear culminating in a two-sided class conflict. Economic prosperity and development actually increased the "middle-class".

Thanks to governmental programs and the 8 hour work day, etc.
Please look at the third world where there is plenty of this.

Bernstein's summary of Marx's errors in prediction:-
Peasants do not sink; middle class does not disappear; crises do not grow ever larger; misery and serfdom do not increase. There is increase in security, dependence, social distance, social character of production, and functional superfluity of property owners (Steger).
Steger, Manfred. Selected Writings Of Eduard Bernstein, 1920-1921. New Jersey: Humanities
Steger, Manfred. The Quest for Evolutionary Socialism: Eduard Bernstein and Social Democracy, Cambridge University Press, 1997

Bernstein? :laugh: Who here takes that reformist seriously?

ComradeMan

18th December 2010, 22:43

Thanks to governmental programs and the 8 hour work day, etc.
Please look at the third world where there is plenty of this.

Bernstein? :laugh: Who here takes that reformist seriously?

Why because he couldn't be right about stuff that was then verified? Max Weber who was also a giant in economics rejected a lot of Marx too, although he did concede stuff as well. No one has ever been 100% right about anything.... not even Marx.

Look, Marx is important and all that but Das Kapital is just an old book of economics written over 140 years ago... it's the 21st century. Try reading "Commonwealth" by Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt.

#FF0000

19th December 2010, 15:30

Where did it start? Please show me....

Er, Europe was kind of full of revolutions around Marx's time.

We could add how Marx predicted the "middle-class" would disappear culminating in a two-sided class conflict. Economic prosperity and development actually increased the "middle-class".

Uh can you quote this somewhere please.

Also we aren't Marxists because we believe that Karl Marx's predictions were right.

Revolution starts with U

19th December 2010, 17:09

Here's a good question; outside of politics, what successes has keynesianism, or AE, or Chicago school had?
All economics is full of shit. YOu just simply can't predict human behavior (tho chaos theory is probably the closest we have gotten). I find Marx far more important for his descritptions of the capitalist system (at the time), than his predictions about it.

RadioRaheem84

19th December 2010, 17:44

capitalism will always have the specter of marxism behind it because Marx did such a thorough job of giving us a social critique of it.

capitalists are still repeating the same tired arguments (sometimes verbatim) that marx refuted a century and a half ago.

ComradeMan

19th December 2010, 20:11

Er, Europe was kind of full of revolutions around Marx's time.

Show me a state not based on property rights and then talk to me about revolutions.

Uh can you quote this somewhere please.

See Bernstein and look at history in Europe in general.

Also we aren't Marxists because we believe that Karl Marx's predictions were right.

I'm not saying that, but if we are going to start critiquing a priori material then it's risky ground...

I tend to agree with Revolutions Starts With U- Economic theories are mostly shit based on seeming science but actually mystic illusions, it never seems to work anyway! :lol:

#FF0000

19th December 2010, 23:47

Show me a state not based on property rights and then talk to me about revolutions.

I see you moving those goalposts!

But, eh, either way I don't think Marx's "predictions" were much more than educated guesses on his part. I don't think he thought much of them himself.

See Bernstein and look at history in Europe in general.

Doesn't really answer my question tho. What did Marx mean by "Middle Class"? Where did he say this thing you attributed to him?

Or if you could tell me the title of Bernstein's thing where you quoted from that'd be good too (I don't think my chances of finding the piece online are very high with those particular citations you gave).

I'm not saying that, but if we are going to start critiquing a priori material then it's risky ground...

Guess I'm gonna have to read back a few pages.

I tend to agree with Revolutions Starts With U- Economic theories are mostly shit based on seeming science but actually mystic illusions, it never seems to work anyway! :lol:

I think this is mostly true. I know a lot of p. smart people who dropped their majors in Economics after nearly completing all the coursework because they decided "Yeah this doesn't reflect reality at all".

I don't know if I'd say that for Marxism, though.

Ocean Seal

20th December 2010, 00:01

I thought that Spartacists were Left-Communists and not Trotskyists.

#FF0000

20th December 2010, 00:06

I thought that Spartacists were Left-Communists and not Trotskyists.

Nope. They rep Trotsky.

ComradeMan

20th December 2010, 00:10

I see you moving those goalposts!

Well it depends what you call a revolution I suppose, palace coups and rebellions could be counted in I suppose, but revolutions? A leftist revolution would only be complete when private property were abolished- as Popov would say, the rest is "futile palace coups". This is also a line Antonio Negri seems to take and he points out that both the American and French Revolutions were not really very revolutionary at all from this perspective.

But, eh, either way I don't think Marx's "predictions" were much more than educated guesses on his part. I don't think he thought much of them himself.

I tend to agree, I am wary of "prophets" but a lot of hardened, dogmatist Marxists do tend to swear by it as "scientific"-

Doesn't really answer my question tho. What did Marx mean by "Middle Class"? Where did he say this thing you attributed to him?

Source: DIALECTICAL MARXISM The Writings of Bertell Ollman (http://www.nyu.edu/projects/ollman/docs/class.php)

Marx had varying definitions but here's some insight:-

Marx also speaks of a "lower middle class" which includes "the small manufacturers, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant."18 This class, it appears, picks up some members from all the economic classes mentioned earlier. What is the criterion by which Marx determines who belongs to the lower middle class? Judging by its membership, it could be income, power, or even distance from the extremes of involvement in the class struggle.
Elsewhere, the "middle classes" or "those who stand between the workman on the one hand and the capitalist and landlord on the other," are described as constantly growing in number and maintaining themselves increasingly out of revenues. They are also said to be a burden on workers and a social and political support for the power of the "upper ten thousand."19 Here, it sounds as if it is officials of various sorts whom Marx has in mind in speaking of the "middle class."

18- Communist Manifesto, p. 27.
19- Theories of Surplus Value, II, p. 573.

Or if you could tell me the title of Bernstein's thing where you quoted from that'd be good too (I don't think my chances of finding the piece online are very high with those particular citations you gave).

Here's a book:-
Quest for Evolutionary Socialism, The: Eduard Bernstein and Social Democracy, Manfred B. Steger

If you scroll back there was a link too with some quotes and references. Guess I'm gonna have to read back a few pages.

See above

I think this is mostly true. I know a lot of p. smart people who dropped their majors in Economics after nearly completing all the coursework because they decided "Yeah this doesn't reflect reality at all".

Know that feeling...

I don't know if I'd say that for Marxism, though.

Well I think it's fine as long as it's not seen as infallible and anyone who opens a critique gets denounced as a reactionary of revisionist per se. :lol:

ComradeMan

20th December 2010, 00:11

Nope. They rep Trotsky.

Does he get neg-repped too by Stalinoids and Anarchoids? ;) :lol:

Devrim

20th December 2010, 08:59

I thought that Spartacists were Left-Communists and not Trotskyists.

No, certainly not. If you take a quick look at their website (http://www.icl-fi.org/), you will see a big four in the corner. It is one of the give-aways that an organisation is Trotskyist.

Devrim

ZeroNowhere

20th December 2010, 09:13

So do you believe in your prophet's ideas of the family being done away with and women becoming communal property?

:lol:
You mean the ones which he attacked as exemplifying 'crude communism'?

NiccolÃ² Rossi

20th December 2010, 10:17

I thought that Spartacists were Left-Communists and not Trotskyists.

You may be confusing the Spartacist League with the Spartacus League (Spartakusbund) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartacus_League). In either case, the Spartakusbund was not a left communist organisation either, but the confusion could be more easily understood.

Nic.

Dean

21st December 2010, 01:11

While I respect Chomsky's analysis of imperialism in a wide range of countries/etc, I think he really dropped the ball on this subject. Especially since he's old enough to remember that LBJ, the so-called "peace candidate", increased troops and escalate war in Southeast Asia; an even that arguably left to the growth and militancy/independence (from established party politics) of the anti-war movement of the time.

Just because Chomsky didn't take the bait about who to vote for doesn't mean he was wrong in any way in the video. It speaks for itself.

Amphictyonis

21st December 2010, 05:10

The horror.

You mean to tell me people went out and engaged in collective action without checking in every hour on revleft to determine the latest revleft tendency?

Shame on those workers for protesting without knowing the latest ideology invented inbetween games of Operation Counter Strike by Zanthorus -the one, the messiah, the second come of Marx - who has determined the "true" class analysis, forever and all time, or at least until next month.

A pox on them for discarding some arrogant kid who tries to change the aim of a local protest.

And, worst of all, they actually condemned racism? Those idiots. Condemning racism is so last year. I can barely stand it; they will obviously be the first executed when The Party comes to power.

You should make a documentary about this. It is clearly the most pressing issue of our time. Bonus features could include how to properly conduct a Zanthorus-Marxist-Lenist protest (the only way to protest), how to post on revleft without backing up your arguments, and why Radio Pacifica and Democracy Now are evil counterrevolution institutions.

This has to be the most confused disingeuous post I've seen on revleft. I posted a video of people dancing here in the streets of San Fransisco when Obama was elected not a video of anyone protesting. My statement wasn't anti worker at all. Americans are misinformed and not just the silly Tea Party people. Liberals are just as bad in my eyes. I lost all respect for the so called "left" media outlets who pushed Obama down our throats as the answer to all our prayers- this includes Democracy Now and Pacifica Radio and in another 4 years the same bullshit will happen, the same people will become mesmerized by the bourgeoisie's representative government. This isn't our government, these aren't our politicians/representatives and we don't have actual democracy in America.

Forward Union

22nd December 2010, 00:08

Is the IWW an anarchist organisation?

Personally I think it is closer to a historically reenactment society.

Devrim

Absolutely absurd sectarian slander given the growth rate of the IWW in the UK, the disputes it's been involved in and won, the international work it's doing and links it's established in the Red and Black Coordination. Not to mention the advantages it has gained from having say, the best part of the Latin American Workers Association vote to join it after having split from Unite, most of whom I'm sure don't consider it a historical reenactment society. But you're welcome any day of the week to come down to London and try and explain this standpoint to them, that they might well be brought round to joining your ultra left think tank instead. I also wonder if the SAC consider the solidarity (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40Jrc-2QXaA) they are recieving from the IWW over the berns dispuite as the manifestations of a historical society.

Furthermore, I wouldn't really mind if these developments did happen to be 'historical renactments' but while I don't claim the best knowlege of history on this matter, I'm pretty sure the IWW never had much of a footing in the UK.

And if it really needs to be stated. No. The IWW is in no way Anarchist, it is not a political organisation.

As for Chomsky being a liberal. No. Liberals can't possibly proport a CLASS analysis. He certainly has some liberal ideas about some things, but I wonder how many people who are quick to label him liberal themselves support things like consensus decision making - one of the most grotesque and anti-democratic liberal infections Anarchism has ever suffered.

RadioRaheem84

22nd December 2010, 02:24

I would never call Chomsky a liberal, but he does have some liberal leanings, that is for sure.

I think it may have something to do with Anarchism itself though. I may just be taking some stuff that people post on here as representative of Anarchism. This might not be best.

#FF0000

22nd December 2010, 03:33

He certainly has some liberal ideas about some things, but I wonder how many people who are quick to label him liberal themselves support things like consensus decision making - one of the most grotesque and anti-democratic liberal infections Anarchism has ever suffered.

This is absolutely spot on.

RadioRaheem84

22nd December 2010, 03:49

consensus decision making? :confused:

NGNM85

22nd December 2010, 06:51

I would never call Chomsky a liberal, but he does have some liberal leanings, that is for sure.

Again, as Icarus Angel recently pointed out, Anarchism came out of Liberalism. (Marx was also influenced by Liberals, like Smith.) The Liberal thinkers of the Enlightenment proposed a number of ideas and values that Anarchists (and others) share; equality, liberty, free elections, secular governance, and democracy.

[QUOTE=RadioRaheem84;1964859]I think it may have something to do with Anarchism itself though. I may just be taking some stuff that people post on here as representative of Anarchism. This might not be best.

If you want to know about physics you should ask a physicist. There are a number of excellent, user-friendly guides to Anarchist thought.

There's the Anarchist FAQ (Apparently it's an updated version, I have not read this edition, nor do I know what was changed.)
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/index.html

There's a couple of good introductory essays, my favorite, which introduced me to Anarchism, is Emma Goldman's Anarchism: What it Really Stands For: http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/goldman/aando/anarchism.html

Peter Kropotkin's piece for the Encyclopedia Britannica: http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/kropotkin/britanniaanarchy.html

Another favorite is Chomsky's Notes on Anarchism, I also recommend Ak Press' compendium Chomsky on Anarchism which includes this, if I'm not mistaken.
http://www.spunk.org/library/intro/sp000281.html

All of those are courtesy of the Anarchy Archives which has a lot of excellent pamphlets, periodicals, and a few short books.

There are some excellent books on the subject, Daniel Guerin's Anarchism: From Theory to Practice, and two-part No Gods, No Masters. For a more extensive analysis I recommend Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism by Peter Marshall, it has a few minor factual errors and typos, but it's a very excellent book, especially considering he traces the origins of Anarchist thought from Confucius and Aristotle to the present. Definitely not a quick read, but well worth it.

RadioRaheem84

22nd December 2010, 07:44

equality, liberty, free elections, secular governance, and democracy.

Liberals never took these values to their most logical extent. I highly doubt most liberals presuppose the same basic version of democracy you advocate. Anarchists do tend to have a class analysis and thus see that material conditions (economic and social) effect the legitimacy of liberal democracies (and values).

Anyways, liberalism is empty idealistic rhetoric to the highest degree.

But there might be something that the Economist's Freedom Index might show me to the contrary, eh? I mean liberal rags still merit attention with their criteria for showing us the levels of freedom from state to state. :rolleyes:

NGNM85

22nd December 2010, 07:59

Liberals never took these values to their most logical extent. I highly doubt most liberals presuppose the same basic version of democracy you advocate. Anarchists do tend to have a class analysis and thus see that material conditions (economic and social) effect the legitimacy of liberal democracies (and values).

To have any idea of democracy, you have to start with democracy as a concept. While not all of these concepts were entirely new, they were not generally subscribed to. This was a substantial improvement from the 'divine right of kings.'

This is one of the differences, Anarchists conceived that real democracy included democracy in the workplace. However, it is important that the early Liberal philosophers were, essentially, living in a pre-capitalist society.

Anyways, liberalism is empty idealistic rhetoric to the highest degree.

.........In some cases.

But there might be something that the Economist's Freedom Index might show me to the contrary, eh? I mean liberal rags still merit attention with their criteria for showing us the levels of freedom from state to state.

Incidentally, the Freedom Index determined the United States as the 17th most democratic country. (Break out the party hats.) Again, it should be no surprise that Saudi Arabia and North Korea didn’t get to the top of the list.

RadioRaheem84

22nd December 2010, 08:28

To have any idea of democracy, you have to start with democracy as a concept. While not all of these concepts were entirely new, they were not generally subscribed to. This was a substantial improvement from the 'divine right of kings.'

While an improvement, their concept of democracy was still very much class bound.

This is one of the differences, Anarchists conceived that real democracy included democracy in the workplace. However, it is important that the early Liberal philosophers were, essentially, living in a pre-capitalist society.

Their concepts of liberty, equality and what not were all tied up in maintaining their class power. This is why a champion of women's rights, Abigail Adams, could also scoff at the poor rebellious farmers during Shay's Rebellion. Or why another liberal quasi-socialist icon George Sand, could scoff at the women of the Paris Commune.

These bourgoise figures talk big when it comes to rhetoric about equality but stop short of it when it confronts their class interests.

Incidentally, the Freedom Index determined the United States as the 17th most democratic country. (Break out the party hats.) Again, it should be no surprise that Saudi Arabia and North Korea didn’t get to the top of the list.

How could you even compare the two like that? Both had two different historical developments (especially since the former has been kept alive by liberal democracies for years, unlike the latter).

To dismiss them both as one in the same 'totalitarian' regime is utterly naive and profoundly ignorant. It shows just how bad you need a materialist outlook, man.

Seriously get a clue before you get all brazen about your idealistic nonsense.

And quit the annoying bold assertion that follows everything you say;"it's a fact".

:utterly naive, liberal-ish presupposition or mainstream source: /= it's a fact!!!!

NGNM85

22nd December 2010, 08:59

While an improvement, their concept of democracy was still very much class bound.

Largely, that is correct.

Their concepts of liberty, equality and what not were all tied up in maintaining their class power. This is why a champion of women's rights, Abigail Adams, could also scoff at the poor rebellious farmers during Shay's Rebellion. Or why another liberal icon George Sand, could scoff at the women of the Paris Commune.

These bourgoise figures talk big when it comes to rhetoric about equality but stop short of it when it confronts their class interests.

Again, this a very broad generalization.

How could you even compare the two like that? Both had two different historical developments (especially since the former has been kept alive by liberal democracies for years, unlike the latter).

..And quit the annoying bold assertion that follows everything you say;"it's a fact".

:utterly naive, liberal-ish presupposition or mainstream source: /= it's a fact!!!!
[/quote]

Adolf Hitler and Mother Teresa are both homo sapiens. What matters is the relevent data in the given context. All that is being compared is the state of democracy in these two countries. In both cases it's fairly abysmal. That is a fact. There is no other possible conclusion. What you're saying about the history of these countries is mostly true and I'm even inclined to agree, for the most part, but that doesn't change the fact that these countries are shockingly bereft of anything resembling democracy. That is the only pertinent data. There is no historical consideration, nor is there any emotional significance. Ostensibly, we could be absolutely thrilled at the horrific human rights violations that occur in these countries.

To dismiss them both as one in the same 'totalitarian' regime is utterly naive and profoundly ignorant.

Again, it's important to pay attention to what exactly is being compared. I never said they were the same, the Democracy Index doesn't say they are the same, it says they share one particular trait.

I didn't use the word 'totalitarian', I generally prefer 'police state', or 'dictatorship.' Regardless, the meaning is clear.

RadioRaheem84

22nd December 2010, 09:17

That is the only pertinent data.

An ideal is the only pertinent data? Discarding all historical considerations for the sake of judging nations based on an ideal that is presupposed and steeped in political bias?

Ostensibly, we could be absolutely thrilled at the horrific human rights violations that occur in these countries.

And what if the primary source of funding to these despotic regimes came from the West? What if there was a connection to the freedom found the top of the index and the repression in the global south? These two aren't existing in some sad juxtaposition. There is a link and it's usually; imperialism.

How then does that absolve the countries at the top of the Freedom Index, even with all of their internal contradictions to boot?

What you're doing is narrowing down the scope in which to analyze the conditions of nations to a profoundly shallow analysis that benefits your lame and utterly naive idealist pre-conceived notions.

There is no other possible conclusion.

Yes, there is, but you consistently deny it in favor of hammering in liberal-ish banter. One that makes me question the leftist credentials you so thoroughly tout about in here.

Forward Union

22nd December 2010, 17:29

consensus decision making? :confused:

It's a system of decision making where things are discussed by everyone for any length of time until absolutely everyone agrees on what to do. It's undemocratic on the basis that any minority may get it's own way by vetoing any decision or refusing to compromise.

It also discriminates again those tho are unable to attend meetings, those who aren't confident speaking, and favours entryism as well as being monumentally inneficiant and unworkable in large organisations.

NGNM85

22nd December 2010, 20:14

An ideal is the only pertinent data? Discarding all historical considerations for the sake of judging nations based on an ideal that is presupposed and steeped in political bias?

Democracy is not some obscure, nebulous, theoretical construct.
I don't deny that The Economist is very ideological it also has a staff of very talented writers and provides more comprehensive coverage of world events than most publications. The New York Times is also very ideological, but it's probably the best newspaper out there. You have to read these things critically. You should read everything critically, including the 'Daily Worker' or whatever-the-fuck.

That said, again, are the results especially surprising? Absolutely not. There is no possibility that any legitimate study of Burma, or Saudia Arabia, or North Korea that will conclude that they are the paragon of democracy because they aren't, in fact, they aren't even close. Also, this bias didn't stop them from listing the US an underwhelming 17, or their own country, the United Kingdom, even lower at 19. Is this an exact science? No. However, it is fairly accurate.
And what if the primary source of funding to these despotic regimes came from the West?

That isn't what is being measured.

What if there was a connection to the freedom found the top of the index and the repression in the global south? These two aren't existing in some sad juxtaposition. There is a link and it's usually; imperialism.

I would agree, for the most part, but again, that isn't what is being measured.

How then does that absolve the countries at the top of the Freedom Index, even with all of their internal contradictions to boot?

It isn't supposed to.

What you're doing is narrowing down the scope in which to analyze the conditions of nations to a profoundly shallow analysis that benefits your lame and utterly naive idealist pre-conceived notions.

I didn't conduct this study. It wasn't my idea. Again, all this is doing is comparing one specific feature, that’s all.

One point I will concede is that it is, admittedly, exceptionally easy to criticize other countries, that does not require moral courage. The real test is the extent one is willing to apply those standards to ones’ own country. According to my standards the US government, in terms of foreign policy, especially, is pretty dismal. It’s the most dangerous rogue state in the world. I have no shortage of political greivances and I have and I will take opportunities to expound on them at length.
　

Yes, there is, but you consistently deny it in favor of hammering in liberal-ish banter. One that makes me question the leftist credentials you so thoroughly tout about in here.

No, there isn’t. Also, none of what you are saying preempts this conclusion. Even if we take an almost perfect example, I’d say the best example would be Indonesia, or Pinochet’s Chile. Chile was a democratic country, Allende won a fair election, Indonesia had degrees of democracy, and seemed to be moving in that direction, of course the pentagon intervened and turned these nations into slaughterhouses, especially in the case of Indonesia. That is completely the result of external actors, namely the United States. Ok, we can still rightfully conclude that these were violent police states. In fact, that is the thing that is being objected to, the violent oppression. We should acknowledge culpability, as Americans, but that doesn’t prevent us from being able to make very basic observations about these countries. Also, there’s enough culpability to go around. If we conclude (Quite accurately.) Henry Kissinger is a mass murderer, by the same standard we conclude Suharto is a mass murderer. The only difference is we’re actually in a position to do something about one of them.

I don’t know what ‘Leftist credentials’ means.

RGacky3

24th December 2010, 15:10

For Leninists Liberal is just a curse word, its meaningless, just like "communism" is a curse word for the far right wing.

RGacky3

24th December 2010, 15:14

It's a system of decision making where things are discussed by everyone for any length of time until absolutely everyone agrees on what to do. It's undemocratic on the basis that any minority may get it's own way by vetoing any decision or refusing to compromise.

It also discriminates again those tho are unable to attend meetings, those who aren't confident speaking, and favours entryism as well as being monumentally inneficiant and unworkable in large organisations.
__________________

Consusnsus desicion making, like direct democracy, is nothing more than a tool to get things done, its not an absolute ideology, not everything will make sense to decide through consensus democracy, not everything will make sense to decide through direct democracy or through representative democracy, most things are just personal decisions.

bricolage

24th December 2010, 15:58

to be honest very few groups actually use a pure form of consensus and while its obviously flawed in coming to an end result its useful as part of the process itself. so if you are talking it is easy to gauge how the rest of the meeting feels about what you are saying based on what you can see going on with hands, also the idea of trying to reach some kind of consensus (even if you know you won't) is better than just going to straight to a hands up now vote which ends up leaving lots of people feeling pretty alienated from the process. of course you are going to have to rely on a actual vote at the end or else nothing will get done but there is no harm in a hybrid system.

RadioRaheem84

24th December 2010, 18:26

For Leninists Liberal is just a curse word, its meaningless, just like "communism" is a curse word for the far right wing.

So in other words, you too would accept the shallow analysis of the Economist Freedom Index without any historical materialist perspective? A free country is a free country and a police state is a police state, no need to analyze each separate country and their historical development to get a better understanding of what could be done?

RGacky3

24th December 2010, 19:32

So in other words, you too would accept the shallow analysis of the Economist Freedom Index without any historical materialist perspective? A free country is a free country and a police state is a police state, no need to analyze each separate country and their historical development to get a better understanding of what could be done?

No, thats that I meant.

What I ment was, you Leninists use "liberal" for any socialist who is against leninism.

None of those arguments you talked about were made be the people you call "liberals" like chomsky.

#FF0000

24th December 2010, 19:47

What I ment was, you Leninists use "liberal" for any socialist who is against leninism.

Wrong.

RadioRaheem84

24th December 2010, 21:07

No, thats that I meant.

What I ment was, you Leninists use "liberal" for any socialist who is against leninism.

None of those arguments you talked about were made be the people you call "liberals" like chomsky.

I never called Chomsky a liberal. I never called anarchists who don't like Leninism liberals.

I was referring to NGNM85's defense of the points I listed above.

Forward Union

25th December 2010, 00:00

Consusnsus desicion making, like direct democracy, is nothing more than a tool to get things done,

Well, it's even quite bad at that. But I'm not sure what the point of this statement is? Oligarchy and Dictatorships get things done to.

its not an absolute ideology, not everything will make sense to decide through consensus democracy, not everything will make sense to decide through direct democracy or through representative democracy, most things are just personal decisions.

What are you talking about??

RGacky3

25th December 2010, 00:50

Well, it's even quite bad at that. But I'm not sure what the point of this statement is? Oligarchy and Dictatorships get things done to.

Oligarchy and dictatorships get things done but that was'nt my point.

A society that uses consensus democracy does'nt mean that consensus democracy is used for everything, hell in California direct democracy is part of the decision making process, that does'nt mean capifornia is a "direct democracy." Dictatorships and ologarchies are a different beast, those are systems of authority.

What are you talking about??

I'm making the point that bashing consensus democracy because it might not be applicable to everything is like bashing coffee for not tasting good with stake.

NGNM85

25th December 2010, 05:47

RadioRaheem84

25th December 2010, 06:51

That has virtually no resemblance to what I said.

Did something get lost in translation again?

~Spectre

25th December 2010, 07:30

Chomsky is basically a liberal who supports, whatever his left rhetoric, what the woman from the Sparticist league correctly portrayed as an imperialist capitalist party.

Devrim

Is this your favorite argument to hang yourself on? He's not even close to being a liberal. Unless of course your liberals over there are all calling for the overthrow of capitalism. Which if true, leads me to severely question the competency of you lot, still unable to help instigate a revolution when your "liberals" themselves want capitalism gone!

He's leftier than you.

~Spectre

25th December 2010, 08:53

I have read quite a bit of Chomsky, and I have never read anything where he gives the idea of working class self emancipation anything more than lip service. I have never read him writing in detail about workers' struggles in the US or anywhere else.

Unfortunately, you can't vote the rascals out, because you never voted them in, in the first place.

Roughly speaking, I think it's accurate to say that a corporate elite of managers and owners governs the economy and the political system as well, at least in very large measure. The people, so-called, do exercise an occasional choice among those who Marx once called "the rival factions and adventurers of the ruling class."

The consistent anarchist, then, should be a socialist, but a socialist of a particular sort. He will not only oppose alienated and specialized labor and look forward to the appropriation of capital by the whole body of workers, but he will also insist that this appropriation be direct, not exercised by some elite force acting in the name of the proletariat.

In the United States, the political system is a very marginal affair. There are two parties, so-called, but they're really factions of the same party, the Business Party. Both represent some range of business interests. In fact, they can change their positions 180 degrees... Both parties are essentially the same party. The only question is how coalitions of investors have shifted around on tactical issues now and then. As they do, the parties shift to opposite positions, within a narrow spectrum.

The most effective way to restrict democracy is to transfer decision-making from the public arena to unaccountable institutions: kings and princes, priestly castes, military juntas, party dictatorships, or modern corporations.

Personally I'm in favor of democracy, which means that the central institutions in the society have to be under popular control. Now, under capitalism we can't have democracy by definition. Capitalism is a system in which the central institutions of society are in principle under autocratic control. Thus, a corporation or an industry is, if we were to think of it in political terms, fascist; that is, it has tight control at the top and strict obedience has to be established at every level -- there's a little bargaining, a little give and take, but the line of authority is perfectly straightforward. Just as I'm opposed to political fascism, I'm opposed to economic fascism. I think that until major institutions of society are under the popular control of participants and communities, it's pointless to talk about democracy.

...capitalism is basically a system where everything is for sale, and the more money you have, the more you can get. And, in particular, that's true of freedom. Freedom is one of the commodities that is for sale, and if you are affluent, you can have a lot of it. It shows up in all sorts of ways. It shows up if you get in trouble with the law, let's say, or in any aspect of life it shows up. And for that reason it makes a lot of sense, if you accept capitalist system, to try to accumulate property, not just because you want material welfare, but because that guarantees your freedom, it makes it possible for you to amass that commodity. [...] what you're going to find is that the defense of free institutions will largely be in the hands of those who benefit from them, namely the wealthy, and the powerful. They can purchase that commodity and, therefore, they want those institutions to exist, like free press, and all that.

Property rights (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property) are not like other rights, contrary to what Madison (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Madison) and a lot of modern political theory says. If I have the right to free speech, it doesn't interfere with your right to free speech. But if I have property, that interferes with your right to have that property, you don't have it, I have it. So the right to property is very different from the right to freedom of speech. This is often put very misleadingly about rights of property; property has no right. But if we just make sense out of this, maybe there is a right to property, one could debate that, but it's very different from other rights.

Well, in our society, we have things that you might use your intelligence on, like politics, but people really can't get involved in them in a very serious way -- so what they do is they put their minds into other things, such as sports. You're trained to be obedient; you don't have an interesting job; there's no work around for you that's creative; in the cultural environment you're a passive observer of usually pretty tawdry stuff; political and social life are out of your range, they're in the hands of the rich folks.

The labor press also condemned what they called the "bought priesthood," referring to the media and the universities and the intellectual class, that is, the apologists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apologist) who sought to justify the absolute despotism that was the new spirit of the age and to instill its sordid and demeaning values.

In the 1840s young women, called "Factory girls" back then working in the mills in Lowell Mass. Noam Chomsky quotes form the labor press in those days:
"When you sell your product, you retain your person. But when you sell your labour, you sell yourself, losing the rights of free men and becoming vassals of mammoth establishments of a monied aristocracy that threatens annihilation to anyone who questions their right to enslave and oppress. "Those who work in the mills ought to own them, not have the status of machines ruled by private despots who are entrenching monarchic principles on democratic soil as they drive downwards freedom and rights, civilization, health, morals and intellectuality in the new commercial feudalism." (emphasis added) [ref: (http://books.google.com/books?id=3ORu91WxxL4C&pg=PA29&lpg=PA29&dq=vassals+of+mammoth+establishments+of+a+monied+a ristocracy&source=web&ots=7L0vpYP2fR&sig=Gv5x9ys_DjsicwcdovWL1NYCSsg&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPR5,M1) p. 29, "Chomsky on Democracy and Education, edited by C.P. Otero]
Chomsky adds, "just in case you are confused, this is LONG BEFORE Marxism. This is American workers talking about their experiences in the 1840s". And that one of the early leaders of the AFL, about a century ago, expressed the standard view when he described the mission of the labour movement as "to overcome the sins of the market and to defend democracy by extending it to control over industry by working people." That is, you extend democracy from being merely in the political arena (it's very limited and emaciated there, but that's another story), to be also in the industrial/workplace arena -- to extend democracy there too.

There's a side current here which is rarely looked at but which is also quite fascinating. That's the working class literature of the nineteenth century. They didn't read Adam Smith and Wilhelm von Humboldt, but they're saying the same things. Read journals put out by the people called the "factory girls of Lowell," young women in the factories, mechanics, and other working people who were running their own newspapers. It's the same kind of critique. There was a real battle fought by working people in England and the U.S. to defend themselves against what they called the degradation and oppression and violence of the industrial capitalist system, which was not only dehumanizing them but was even radically reducing their intellectual level. So, you go back to the mid-nineteenth century and these so-called "factory girls," young girls working in the Lowell [Massachusetts] mills, were reading serious contemporary literature. They recognized that the point of the system was to turn them into tools who would be manipulated, degraded, kicked around, and so on. And they fought against it bitterly for a long period. That's the history of the rise of capitalism.

___

He writes well on these issues and is informative, but I have never seen him as putting a class perspective forward on topics such as the Middle East.

Material Analysis

The gifts include $3 billion for fighter jets. The largesse also happens to be another taxpayer grant to the U.S. arms industry, which gains doubly from programs to expand the militarization of the Middle East.

U.S. arms manufacturers are subsidized not only to develop and produce advanced equipment for a state that is virtually part of the U.S. military-intelligence establishment but also to provide second-rate military equipment to the Gulf states—currently a precedent-breaking $60 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia, which is a transaction that also recycles petrodollars to an ailing U.S. economy.

Class solution:
http://www.vimeo.com/14835834

Chomsky argues for people not to marry themselves to imperial borders, but instead to work towards abolishing all states. (sorry for the lack of transcript in a long video, but trust me he says it).

If you're not convinced that he isn't a liberal, please explain why. There's more where that came from.

Devrim

25th December 2010, 10:15

I have read quite a bit of Chomsky, and I have never read anything where he gives the idea of working class self emancipation anything more than lip service.

To be honest the long list of quotations that you produce are exactly what I would call lip service. I don't think mouthing off a few platitudes like this means much at all.

Until 1995 the constitution of the British Labour party read:

To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.

Various members of the labour party made various statements about socialism at least as 'radical' as Chomsky's. I think that we could agree though that this was actually a party that at times was running an imperialist capitalist state.

Unfortunately, you can't vote the rascals out, because you never voted them in, in the first place.

Yet ultimately he calls on people to vote for them, perpetuating illusions that people may hold.

As for the quotes about class struggle, Chomsky has produced a copious amount of work. What I said before was:

I have read quite a bit of Chomsky, and I have never read anything where he gives the idea of working class self emancipation anything more than lip service. I have never read him writing in detail about workers' struggles in the US or anywhere else. Of course there are lots of things by him that I haven't read, and if you could show me them I would obviously be proven wrong.

From somebody with that amount of output, maybe we could expect a single book about the class struggle? Is there one?

He writes well on these issues and is informative, but I have never seen him as putting a class perspective forward on topics such as the Middle East.

Class solution:
http://www.vimeo.com/14835834

Chomsky argues for people not to marry themselves to imperial borders, but instead to work towards abolishing all states. (sorry for the lack of transcript in a long video, but trust me he says it).

To be honest I am not really interested enough to listen to 55 minutes of Chomsky. However, I don't think a phrase such as 'work towards abolishing all states' means much more than vague its rather vague phraseology.

I would imagine though, and of course I could be wrong, that he provides quite a good analysis of the wrongs of both US and Israeli foreign policy. That is what Chomsky does well.

I would imagine that he doesn't argue that there is no solution to the problem within capitalism, and that the only solution lies within the working class.

If you're not convinced that he isn't a liberal, please explain why. There's more where that came from.

I am sure that there is a lot more. Chomsky is, as a pointed out earlier, a prolific writer. The reason that I think that Chomsky is basically a liberal is that his main body of political work is a critique of American foreign policy. Not that there is anything wrong with this in itself. To me Chomsky seems though to argue, to put it very simply, that the US should have a more 'ethical' foreign policy. His argument is not that of communists who state clearly that capitalism forces states to behave in this manner, but one of somebody who thinks that capitalism can be stripped of its 'excesses'. To me that is liberalism, though I am aware that the historical use of the word 'liberalism' within the European workers' movement, and its modern use in mainstream American politics are quite different.

I think that his calls for support for an imperialist party, because that is what the democrats are, are similar.

Devrim

~Spectre

25th December 2010, 20:25

Various members of the labour party made various statements about socialism at least as 'radical' as Chomsky's. I think that we could agree though that this was actually a party that at times was running an imperialist capitalist state.

Chomsky doesn't run a state though, so you can't dismiss his ideas through his actions.

Yet ultimately he calls on people to vote for them, perpetuating illusions that people may hold.
He doesn't always call on people to vote for them. The issue in the thread was Bush v. Kerry, and McCain v. Obama. That Bush needed to be ousted from office shouldn't be controversial. The Bush administration term I was extreme even by the standards of Imperial states. Now, as it happens, during its 2nd term, the Bush administration purged off most of the radicals responsible for term I.

With McCain v. Obama, it's similar. McCain espoused a slightly more extreme politics than Obama. And while radicals could've sat out the election, that could have potentially resulted in Sarah Palin being only one heart attack away from being commander in chief of the world's most powerful military. Not a pleasant thought to contemplate.

Again, you could argue that the results wouldn't be all that significantly different in the end, since the state would still be pursuing a class interest - I agree. But the point is that there IS some difference. Chomsky says that voting is the least important part, and that neither candidate should be supported. He simply differs on what to do with the chance to vote in those elections in question.

From somebody with that amount of output, maybe we could expect a single book about the class struggle? Is there one?
I mean, everything he writes about contains class struggle. The consistent theme of all his work is that the interests of concentrated capital take priority over the needs of the working mass.

He's written articles even pointing out that Adam Smith himself agreed with this very basic "truism" (Chomsky's words). For Chomsky the idea that there is class struggle is just that, a "truism".

Perhaps you mean the struggle of working people? He's written about the negative aspects of wage slavery, the division of labor, and he wrote a whole book on anarchism.

I'm not sure how that's just lip service.

I would imagine that he doesn't argue that there is no solution to the problem within capitalism, and that the only solution lies within the working class.
He has always been an exponent of Zinn style "solutions from below".

To me Chomsky seems though to argue, to put it very simply, that the US should have a more 'ethical' foreign policy.That's a truism. Of course the U.S. "should" stop killing people, but that alone does not a liberal make.

His argument is not that of communists who state clearly that capitalism forces states to behave in this manner, but one of somebody who thinks that capitalism can be stripped of its 'excesses'.Can you provide evidence for this? I've cited him arguing for the overthrow of capitalism, and arguing that indeed capitalism is what causes this behavior in states.

I think that his calls for support for an imperialist party, because that is what the democrats are, are similar.
He doesn't support an imperialist party, he just advocated voting for 1 over the other in contested districts, in 2 given election cycles being discussed here.