What are your opinons on the works of Noam Chomsky ? either his linguistic theories or political commentaries if you like ?
His political commentaries... "Great minds" usually don't first make up their mind on a hypothesis (say, US or "the west" is to blame for ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING) and then work back in trying to find the faintest connections here, softer connections there, and then try to support a general claim based on those to support this hypothesis. If he has to equate "collateral damage" caused from precision weapons targeting terrorists who hide behind schools and hospitals, to the murders of barbarians who proudly say they intently and preferably target innocent women and children, so be it. He's a hack, and has always been. He's also notorious for dishonest debating where he uses incorrect or vastly exaggerated "facts", which can not be falsified by the debater on the spot (without looking the correct info up), using practically everything to support the way he wants the discussion to go. At least a good sign is that bar the most extreme hard-left hacks, just about everyone is ashamed to be associated with him anymore. (aside from the linguistics stuff) He's popular with lay folk who like having a "hip intellectual" enforcing their preconceived notion. That's as far as his contributions go in the political sphere.
And I am absolutely not surprised that Piskie "subscribes" (excellent choice of words) to his political views. Hearing about the crap he had to say about the Nikola Tesla "free energy" stuff, I just knew he'd be all over Chomsky.
I'll take your criticism of him (he's not infallable after all) if you can provide examples that show he's wrong, otherwise this is all accusations without substance.
And, to be fair, I understand it's hard to fit a proper critique of Noam Chomsky into an Arsenal message board
Didn't he kick off his career at Welling? - he started up front I believe but the new manager felt he was better as a holding midfielder -great move as it turned out to prove....
Are these the same precision weapons which destroyed a bomb shelter in Iraq which killed hundreds of women & children ? I love how people love to define what are terrorists.Some say terrorists others call them freedom fighters,it all depends which side you support.Since 2001 the USA has been leading the "world wide war on terrorism".It's a shame they weren't leading it when they were allowing the IRA to collect money on the streets of the USA.Money which was used to kill women & children on the streets of the UK.
Spot on. Once you open your eyes and your brain, you can expose the hypocracy coming from these people from a mile away.
Chomsky's comments on that weren't on specific bombings in general where the intel was wrong or whatever and innocents were primarily hurt. His comments made equivalent any casualties of war from the hands of let's say a british soldier primarily in pursuit of fighting enemy combatants, to the intentional targeting of civilians by a suicide bomber (since 'terrorist' is ambiguous). Are those your ethics on the issue as well? So modern warfare should never be an option against an enemy that chooses to build their bases at schools and hospitals, right? None of the reproach should go to them? ...
Most governments & politicians are hypocrites.We see on our news every night what is happening in Syria.Some governments want to get involved because ofwhat they see as the barbarity of the Assad regime.These same countries also choose to ignore the barbarity of other regimes in the Arab world.The USA has had a problem with the Castro regime in Cuba for over 50 years but they never had a problem with the Batista regime in Cuba.The USA had a problem with the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile so the CIA was behind a coup which bought Pinochet to power.Pinochet's regime tortured and killed tens of thousands of people but the USA chose to ignore that.If the USA is such a defender of freedom and democracy.I have offered wondered why they don't do something about China. The USA is not the only one though,this and previous governments in the UK have been and are just as bad
One of the worst as he was potentially a great man. More and more lies are peddled on TV and media everyday. I don't bother watching the news on TV, i just have a look on BBC news for a quick 5 minute round-up, to avoid all the propaganda. A great movie i watched a while ago was called "Network". Although it was made in 1976, it highlights the problems we face everyday in the media. Acting from William Holden was amazing.
We are always bought up to believe the BBC is impartial.I am quite open that i'm a republican and believe the UK should have an elected head of state.On July 14th this year officials of the Duchy of Cornwall appeared before a parliamentary committee to explain Prince Charles tax affairs.There was absoloutely no mention of this on any of the BBC news broadcasts that day.Contrast this with the news coverage given to William visiting an agricultural show a couple of weeks ago or Katherine attending a race on Anglesey last week.Both these stories were headline news.It's funny how the "impartial" BBC can totally ignore any news that can be construed to be negative about the royal family
Totally agree about the BBC not being impartial. News nowadays is either heavily sensored, does not promote free thinking or focuses on pointless things like celeb culture. What's annoying is I have to pay for this tripe. Why not run adverts and make it self sufficient like Channel 4?
There is no doubt that the BBC is not perfect, but I think questioning their impartiality because they chose not to report on a story is not entirely fair. We all have our own biases and in this case I would say that if the BBC makes no one entirely happy, it is probably doing it's job and being very impartial. In my opinion the BBC does well on world news and general news. I think by policy they tend to be less involved in political and "gossip" news, just because it is well-covered anyway, and because it is very difficult to report on it evenly.
