We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Benjamin Kerstein explains Noam Chomsky

If you believe – as in: if you believe that if you went into it thoroughly you believe that you would believe – that Noam Chomsky is a monster, but have better things to do with your life than wade through all the disgustingness that would prove it, then this is the interview you should read.

My thanks to David Thompson.

23 comments to Benjamin Kerstein explains Noam Chomsky

  • It’s very good to see a young thinker who’s onto Chomsky’s tricks. If you’ll forgive the self-pimpage, here’s a comment I left at the original article:

    ************************

    Chomsky’s anti-liberal stripes were in evidence long before Cambodia. The philosopher Sydney Hook jousted with him in the opinion journals of the 1960s, and came away with these impressions:

    “Although there was much to criticize in American domestic andforeign policy, what struck me was the one-sidedness, unfairness, and systematic use of the double standard in the attacks against the United States and South Vietnam. … He called upon the United States”to denazify itself,” but not North Vietnam or China. What practices in the United States, compared to the barbarous practices of Cuba orof China or of North Vietnam, warrant such a characterization? Inthose countries how long would one survive who whispered the kind of criticisms Chomsky was perfectly free to broadcast in the United States and be rewarded for it?
    — Sydney Hook, _Out of Step: An Unquiet Life in the Twentieth Century_, 1987

    “The United States was taxed with following a policy whose logic was “genocide” for helping South Vietnam deal with “a peasant-based insurrection led by Communists” while the genuinely genocidal practices of North Vietnam in liquidating whole categories of the population were not mentioned. On his visit to Hanoi, Chomsky publicly held North Vietnam up to the world as a model of social justice and freedom.
    Whenever Chomsky and those who repeated some of his absurd views were challenged, they often cited as their authority someone else who had uttered similar absurdities, as if this vindicated the point they were making.
    — ibid

    “The grim consequences of … Hanoi’s victory are nowincontestable. The record of the last decade [as of 1985] has brought a realization to some, who had been of the same view as Chomsky, of what they helped to bring into being in Vietnam. Protests have been organized against the continued existence of concentration and re-education camps, and the systematic barbarities practiced against dissenters. But Chomsky is still unrepentant. He has refused to join any protest, on the ground that it would serve the interests of the United States. In short, he has followed the double standard to the last, for he never hesitated to utter the most extravagent criticism of the United States on the ground that it would serve the interests of the Soviet Union. ” — ibid

  • hennesli

    I remember Kerstein also did a good expose of Christopher Hitchens Jew hatred(Link)

  • Laird

    A good article. Thanks for the link.

  • Ham

    I remember Kerstein also did a good expose of Christopher Hitchens Jew hatred(Link)

    That article is very weak. It doesn’t even mention the fact that Hitchens was Jewish himself and frequently confuses his atheism with specific antipathy towards Judaism.

  • When I click on the link to the article, I get an “access denied” message at the World Affairs site. It it subscription only, perhaps?

  • Alisa

    Ham, I personally know rabid anti-Semites who are even more Jewish than I am.

    For me the jury is still out on Hitchens’ views about Jews, and that article, along with the very intelligent comments, helps shed additional light on the subject.

    The subject of Chomsky, however, is pretty much settled for me.

  • Alisa

    Oh, and the article does mention Hitchens being Jewish.

  • 'Nuke' Gray

    Did you read about the leader of a hungarian anti-semitic party who found out that he, himself, was jewish? Or is this another example of the cunning jews trying to control the whole world, even the anti-semites?!

  • A quite detailed takedown of Chomsky’s Cambodia distortions is here, by a fellow otherwise unknown to me.

  • Dom

    Here is an interesting “letter to the editor” about Chomsky, from a Cambodian refugee. Scroll down to “Chomsky and the Khmer Rouge”.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2010/feb/07/letters-assisted-suicide

  • Paul Marks

    The best work on know on Noam Chomsky is “The Anti Chomsky Reader” a book of essays (on the varous subjects that Dr Chomsky is involved in) edited by Peter Collier and David Horowitz.

    The essay on Chomsky and Cambodia is by Stephen Morris and the two essays on Chomsky’s (a Jew) antisemitismn (his war on Israel and his support for Holocaust deniers) are by Paul Bogdanor and Werner Cohn.

    Chomsky is the leading “intellectual” of the COMMUNAL “anarchists” (the Black Flaggers).

    These people deny being Marxists (Red Flaggers), but work hand in hand with them (in vile things such as the “Occupy Movement”) and have the same objective….

    The war against large scale private property in the means of production, distribution and exchange. The war against “the rich”.

    To give a simple example – to Chomsky and the other “anarachis” Black Flaggers, “Bane” and his mobs of criminals in the recent “Batman” film, would be the GOOD GUYS.

    Interestingly many of these groups are actually subsidised by rich people (via the Tides Foundation and so on).

    “Bottom up” – chaos on the streets.

    “Top down” – demands from the ordinary population for an end the chaos and order to be restored (by any means).

    “Inside out” – the “fundemental transformation” of society.

    And for people such as George Soros the transformation would be a a global scale – no where would be allowed to opt out.

    The “Responsbility to Protect” would give the “international community” all the excuse it needed.

  • The book deals only with Chomsky’s vile, deceitful record in politics and leaves out his vile, deceitful record in linguistics

  • Dom

    Martin Keegan: Interesting comment. I know of no one who is willing to review the Chomsky – Skinner discussions the way they review Chomsky’s polemics on politics. Chomsky behavior was vile, and pscyhology’s contribution to linguistics has suffered ever since.

  • BigFatFlyingBloke

    If that Hitchen’s article says nothing good about that guys abilities as a writer or critical thinker, it’s just awful as he seems to be viewing every anti-theist sentiment expressed by Hitchens through a filter of hard line Zionism. He also completely misses, willfully or otherwise, the point that as the FIRST Abrahamic religion if somebody is going to be skewering religion as a hole Judaism is going to take a disproportionate number of knocks.

  • Jaded Voluntaryist

    “Libertarian Socialism” or “Anarchist Communism” or whatever you want to call it always struck me as an oxymoron.

    By definition you cannot bring such systems about without using coercion.

    I’ve sometimes wondered if the proponents of such ideas secretly plan on doing away with those who disagree – thereby eliminating the need for coercion. If the only people left alive agree with you……

    Certainly that was the Khmer Rouge’s approach – and Chomsky was a big fan of theirs.

  • Paul Marks

    Jaded Voluntarist – agreed, my impression of the Black Flaggers is the same as yours.

    Martin Keegan – you are partly mistaken.

    There are two essays in “The Anti Chomsky Reader” on Chomsky and linguistics.

    For example, in “A Corrupted Linguistics” Robert Levine and Paul Postal argue that Chomsky has been wildly over rated – and that the claims and style of “argument” of Chomsky and his supporters are dishonest.

  • 'Nuke' Gray

    And yet, Jaded Volunteer, the first anarchists were communists, because they believed that small communes were the way to go.

  • Jaded Voluntarist: funny you should mention that.

  • Paul Marks

    The only “freedom” that the Black Flaggers (the anarchoCOMMUNALISTS – or “libertarian left”) are interested in is the freedom to VIOLATE OTHER PEOPLE.

    To smash, to burn, to steal – and yes, to physially and sexually attack others.

    See (for example) the Black Flaggers among the American “Occupy” movement in “Occupy Oakland” and many other places.

    “But Paul they just want to set up peaceful communes…”

    NO THEY DO NOT.

    Such communes (both religious and secular) are already legal – indeed have a long history in the United States (and elsewhere).

    For example, a Owenite commune existed near to where Dallas now stands – indeed when it failed some of the people helped create evil “capitalist” Dallas (the home of Glenn Beck and so on).

    The American “Occupiers” (as their name suggest) are NOT interested in going off into the wilderness to create peaceful communities. They are interested in OCCUPATION – in making all things vile (hence their habit of throwing human excrement about), and in smashing and stealing and physically attacking people.

    The Occupiers in New York City are actually less violent t than in many other places – largely because the NYPD has kept a close watch on them (the Democrat Mayors of other cities let the Occupiers have more space -and they rewarded this tolerance with acts of evil).

    However, look how even the New York City occupiers “protest”,

    They marched past the homes of George Soros (and other major Wall Street leftists) WITHOUT ANY SHOUTING OR THREATS.

    They went a long way from Wall Street – to the homes of Charles and David Koch and Rupert Murdoch (people who did NOT make their money via Wall Street speculation) and there started their shouting and threats.

    Contrary to the New Statesman this week (and is it not interesting that the leading SOCIALIST magazine in Britain comes to the defence of a supposedly pro freedom movement) the CORE of the Occupy movement is like “Bane” and co from the latest Batman film (“The Dark Knight Rises”).

    If the CORE of the Occupy movement (the university types – the anarchoCOMMUNALIST Black Flaggers, the Marxist Red Flaggers and yes the “nationalist” blame-everything-on-“the Zionists” anti semitic types) gained the power they crave they would behave just as Bane and his minions do.

    “People’s Courts”and all.

    The collective (they even speak like “The Borg” – they chant in unison) would smash, burn, defile, and (YES) kill.

    The CORE oif this movement (whether anarchocommunilists, Marxists, or antisemitic nationalists) all have one thing in common…

    The believe in SOCIAL JUSTICE – i.e. “fair shares for all” (by FORCE).

    As the young person says to Catwomen in reply to the statement “but this was someone’s home” – “now it is EVERYONE’S house” (note the move from “home” to “house”).

    And when something belongs to “everyone” (the collective) it is smashed, defiled, and (eventually) destroyed.

    Make no mistake – the Black Flaggers (the anarchocommunalists – or “libertarian left”) are EVIL – they are supporters of “Social Justice” (just like Father C. back in the 1930s).

    This is why they happily cooperate witht the Red Flaggers (the Marxists – the university “Critical Theory” Frankfurt School of Marcism types.) in the “Occupy” Movement.

    And that is whey they ally (for example) with the forces of evil (the worshippers of the economic policies of Nasser and other such) in Egypt and other places.

  • Jaded Voluntaryist

    Did you spill something on your caps lock, Paul? 😉

  • Paul Marks

    I should use italics J.V.

  • Julie near Chicago

    There’s also Paul Bogdanor’s page “The Chomsky Hoax,” which has links to considerable material on the Doctor’s ideology (I don’t know if he truly has a philosophy or not) and fulminations, including some of Chomsky’s own pieces.

    http://www.paulbogdanor.com/chomskyhoax.html(Link)