OK, I just love Chomsky.

[Peak_Oil]

Noam Chomsky, to whom I was completely opposed a mere four years ago, tells more truth in five minutes than any major media operation does in 24 hours, holds up a standard for distinterestedness that I aspire to.

Chomsky for Attorney General!

[Indiana_Dem]

1. Yes he does tell things from a different perspective doesn't he? nt

[raysr]

2. I was watching

Bill Maher on HBO some time ago and "Andrew Sullivan" was one of his guests, he called Chomsky a liar! What a jerk-off!

[lindsayg]

5. I remember that Bill Maher show

Check out this video of Andrew Sullivan afterwords

http://homepage.mac.com/njenson/movies/sullivan.html

[NAO]

3. Edwards for Attorney General; Chomsky for Department of Dissent.

On some discussion board long ago I named my dream cabinent...

Noam Chomsky as Secretary of Dissent was my first listing. Others included

Amy Goodman - White House Press Secretary
Howard Dean - Department of Health, Education, and Welfare
Wes Clark - Secretary of Defense
Dennis Kusinich - Secretary of Peace
John Edwards - Attorney General

and finally...

Ralph Nader - to head new meta-agency to investigate fraud and corruption in government and in private business. Just as homeland security is meta-agency over CIA, FBI, etc., Nader's agency would be over OBM, SEC, FTC, FDA, EPA etc. Anywhere people were being harmed by government or business, anywhere people were being cheated or defrauded...I'm sure you get the idea.

[ashmanonar]

8. who's president over this dream cabinet? or is it an exec council,

so to speak?

[NAO]

10. John Kerry is President

I started out as an ABB Kerry Supporter.

Over time, despite the horrific treatment he got in the corporate media, I came to REALLY admire and respect Kerry. I genuinely do believe he would have been one of the best presidents in US History.

He is much more liberal and much more progressive than most people realize. His ideas were not relayed by the media, despite the fact that he stated them in speeches and printed them in press releases.

But the corporate media kept saying, "Kerry has no plan" or "nobody understands what Kerry stands for". Kerry's coverage in the corporate media was crafted to make him appear centrist and bland to progressives.

They would play clips of Bush - show him talking - but when they switched to Kerry they would just re-hash what he said. Then they would say, "people do not feel that they know Kerry" or "Kerry's personality does not come thru to voters".

The ONLY time during the ENTIRE 2004 campaign cycle that people got to see what Kerry was really like was the debates. And even hardcore Bushies grudgingly admitted that he blew Bush out of the water.

Major Media Oft Repeated Talking Point: John Kerry Has No Plan / No One is Clear Where Kerry Stands on the Issues
I tried to tell them, but I guess they, like Bush, don't READ
http://www.johnkerry.com/plan

The book has been available for download, for free, since mid-summer.

[ashmanonar]

15. ahh, i wasn't sure.

and you're right, they made him look blander than he actually is. i had the same problem that i didn't really know much about him...UNTIL i joined du. then i learned more than i had ever dreamed of.

[NAO]

4. Rhetorical Question - Why is Chomsky NEVER on TV? (news talk shows, etc)

So, why is Noam Chomsky never invited to be on "Crossfire" or "Hardball" or "Scarborough County"?

Why is he never interviewed on CBS news - (by the uber-liberal Dan Rather) or ABC news or CNN or MSNBC or FOX?

Why doesn't FOX fire that Alan Colmes guy and replace him with someone who is REALLY on the left (Chomsky). They could rename the show:

HANNITY AND CHOMSKY

Now, I'd watch THAT show!

[Peak_Oil]

6. It may have something to do with how he handed R. Pearle's ass

to him in '85. It was a pathetic showing from Pearle.

Chomsky fucking RULZ!

[KingoftheJungle]

7. He is way too smart for the media

He's a true intellectual, and the media cannot have any thinking that deep on the air.

[laheina]

11. That, and...

it would impinge on his scholarly credibility. The Ivory tower intellectual set will get on a person for writing books that are too *accessible* to the layman. TV would be worse.

[KingoftheJungle]

12. True, didn't think of that

[iconoclastNYC]

20. I agree with your point about the ivory tower

But I've read 4 chomsky books. A lot of his books are just really long essays, not very long. I find his writing style highly engaging and easily digestable. EXCEPT "Manufacturing Consent." That book is dry dry dry.

[laheina]

22. Books on Linguistics?

What was your perspective on his physicalist perspectives on language being an instinct that is hard wired into our brains?

A lot of scholarly works start out as published papers. I'm not sure on his specifically, but that prolly explains the long essay feel.

Anyway, my background is actually in philosophy, but I'm familiar with his work.

[Igel]

24. It's an interesting hypothesis (if I may but in) but hasn't

been proven.

In any event, for a while it was the "language module", which is potentially a different sort of critter. I think he reverted, or became more clear, under the Minimalist program.

But psycholinguists and neurolinguists have a different take on Chomsky. A hard wired language portion of the brain is neurolinguistics from the late 1950s (when Chomsky was in grad school), and even then wasn't cutting edge. There is no "language center" (but there are places where emotional and sentence intonations get processed, where word order is resolved and verb arguments are assigned, where visual and aural information is pieced together with real world knowledge and merged with possible sentence meanings ... but they're all in different portions of the brain, from "primitive" parts to the most recently added).

[laheina]

27. Linguistics as a hobby!?

Wow! I'm impressed. But, if we are on the same wavelength, it's the "minimalist" part that gives me the willies. Maybe I'm just sentimental that way.

However, as far as the neurolinguistics goes, I'm fascinated by the more recent developments. The most trippy thing is that, in a multilingual person, the English verbs and those of another language would be in separate locations of the brain but provided essentially the same functions.

[Igel]

34. It's supposed to be a bit more than a hobby for me.

I'm supposed to be conducting psycholinguistics experiments for my dissertation. Emphasis on "supposed".

[rman]

33. Chomsky's take on language cause the "Chomskian revolution"

in the human sciences (education, logic, literature etc); it was the end of "Behaviourism". Fact is that Chomsky's universal grammar does apply to all human language - including computer programming languages.

[Igel]

35. Um, what to say.

Behaviorism survives; it's just not part of syntax anymore. It wasn't as big as Chomsky's writings would imply, either. He needed a foil; that was the best one.

I'm unsure that Chomsky had as much effect as his worshippers think he did outside of linguistics. Whorf, Saussure, and Propp were bigger in literature. And UG wasn't really part of the Chomskyan revolution. The Chomskyan revolution was the search for structure in language. UG was a logical, but later, addition to the project.

Structure was the basic units and the mechanisms for producing surface complexity. The definition's shifted a bit over the years. Originally he derived the structures just for English (with what turns out to be a truly ridiculous approach, but only in hindsight). But if for one language, why not for all languages?

Problem is, you can only get to UG through the theory. The theory's changed a lot ... repeatedly. With every change, what we think of as UG changes. And there are competing theories ... with competing UGs. But almost all derive from the Chomskyan search for structure. And all are in flux.

Since no theory has succeeded in accounting for all the data in all human languages, so that the theory is still being tweaked in scary ways, it's still a question as to whether all the data in all the languages really can be reduced to the same set of primitive units and the same set of mechanisms that would comprise UG. They've gone a long way from Chomsky's first analysis (and Chomsky hasn't always picked the right path, either). But they're not there, yet. Currently Chomskyan UG is still a bit too English-like (other UGs are less English-like). UG is assumed to be real; but we know it's an assumption.

And we may not even need to posit UG. It's still an open question. Chomsky's always rejected the idea of deriving it from psychological principles, but Chomsky's not always been right before.

[laheina]

36. Thank you!

Behaviorism survives; it's just not part of syntax anymore. It wasn't as big as Chomsky's writings would imply, either. He needed a foil; that was the best one.

I'm unsure that Chomsky had as much effect as his worshipers think he did outside of linguistics.

Thank you! The fact remains that behaviorism had/has some major flaws on its own, and that had very little to do with Chomsky. As it pertains to psychology, philosophy of mind, and other disciplines, having a hypothesis that doesn't provide for brain states,emotional states, etc., doesn't seem very productive.

And while I like Chomsky, the whole cult that surrounds him can get rather tiresome.

[chicagiana]

9. LIberal BIAS ...

Well it's obvious. The media has a liberal bias.

</sarcasm>

[rman]

13. he doesn't like to be on MSM very much because

the constant interruptions that are part of the style of presentation of the MSM (commercials etc) doesn't allow for expression of unconventional ideas. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and in the MSM there's no time to present such evidence. When all he can do is express unconventional ideas - without evidence - it'll just "make him look like he's from Neptune".

He was on DemocracyNow only a few days ago:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/09/1458256

[LittleClarkie]

14. Oh, like they want someone who'll really challenge Hannity

Sean would have to run home to mama if ever someone really challenged him.

Or then again he's probably just shout them down like he normally does.

[IrateCitizen]

18. Many reasons, none of them good...

First, Chomsky brings a POV that is radically different from that of the "establishment". As such, it requires that he be given time to construct his argument in order to effectively convey it. The only place he will have such an opportunity is on a program like NOW, in a full interview. He will never be afforded that opportunity on a shout-fest like the standard fare on cable nooze.

Second, Chomsky's POV, if given credibility, is DANGEROUS to the establishment. Therefore, it has to be minimized. And what better way to minimize it, than to deny it access to the most-used medium today: television. Of course, he's allowed to churn out his books and show up on alternative media, so nobody can really claim "censorship". And his lack of time on the MSM can be attributed to lack of a "market imperative" for him to be shown.

Third, the rare occasion that you will see Chomsky, he will always be opposed by a hostile interviewer AND a hard RWer on the other side. And he will NEVER be given the last word. It's the MSM golden rule -- when featuring an unflappable leftist/liberal/progressive, they have to be outnumbered and never permitted a full hearing. That makes it much easier to marginalize them.

[Throd]

23. His delivery puts trees to sleep

Don't get me wrong, I hear him speaking on KPFK all the time and he says many things I agree with. But TV is an entertainment medium, after all, and his dry monotone will make most people lunge for the channel changer. He also has a talent to take an hour to state what could be said in ten minutes. Every third word is either "er" or "um". The sad truth is some irrational ranting freak will always get airtime before a well reasoned, if sowewhat dry, personality will.

[kaho]

30. ...nothing that a bit of coaching couldn't fix.

[leesa]

16. I love him too. He always surprises me with a different perspective.

[Lone_Wolf]

17. His take on the US and the world is a useful framework for understanding

our present situation. I've read most of his major political works, but his latest book 'Hegemony or Survival' is a real eye-opener. It makes you really question whether humankind will be around another 100 years.

[IrateCitizen]

19. I've come to view him much more realistically over the years

I owe Chomsky a debt of gratitude. He was a major influence toward the "falling of scales from my eyes" and allowing me to see the world as it really is. However, I don't view him as anything near infallible.

For instance, I think that he sometimes takes a view of US policy that is a little too critical. He has described the Marshall Plan as being driven wholly by selfish motivations on the part of the US. I would tend to disagree with that assessment, because although self-interest was certainly a part of it, the Marshall Plan was also the golden moment of US foreign policy, IMHO.

Also, I think he presents the US as being a little too invincible. He portrays the US as being this formidable empire even now, when in fact, the US is seriously waning in its power, and is likely on the verge of not collapse, but a significant regression on the world stage. We're overstretched militarily and economically, and nobody is doing anything to address it, so it's inevitable that we're going to decline over the next 10-15 years.

But his work on power structures and the media is invaluable. That may be the greatest gift that Chomsky has given us -- a tremendous insight into the nature of political power, and how it works. Understanding this is the first step toward combatting it. I also think that his assessments of the MSM, such as those in "Manufacturing Consent", are dead-on.

[rman]

21. i'd like to comment

re the Marshall Plan.
It certainly was a good move in the eyes of many foreign nations, in that respect it was indeed a golden moment. And it did in fact do a lot of good.
But that doesn't mean it could not have been conceived primarily due to selfish motivations on part of US powers. If only because "first you hook 'm..."

re US global power
Fact is the US still has the best armed (except for Israel perhaps) and the largest army in the world. And the political will to use it, and very little popular resistance to that political will.
Probably all nations combined are stronger then the US, but then there's the deterrent of the nuclear option - which probably wouldn't stop the US but it would very likely stop other nations. The US may not be invincible, but there's no real challenge to US global domination.


Still i don't always agree with Chomsky either. He doesn't seem to think peak-oil is much of an issue and he doesn't seem to think there's anything fishy about 9-11. Though i wouldn't claim to know anything better then he does, still he's human so he's fallible. I suspect he just didn't look very deeply into peak-oil and 9-11.

[Uzybone]

25. LOL

do you know what country you live in? Dreaming for Chomsky for AG is like dreaming that Bush will propose raising the minimum wage. Geez, why are so many people so out of touch?

as for Chomsky.....IMO he just rambles on and on, if you already agree with him (as I do) then you listen, if you dont you'll tune him out after 30 seconds.

[EVDebs]

26. Benjamin Franklin has a quote regarding our critics, how we should thank

them. He was speaking regarding Freemasonry (he was one), but this quote speaks volumes when applied to our democracy in general.

Dissent is to be encouraged, though non-violent dissent of course.

[Debs]

28. I love Chomsky

Have maybe 20 of his books. I saw him once on McNiell Lehrer, during the 80s talking about Nicaragua with a right wing counterpart. He handed the man his head, totally shredded his arguments. The man called him a liar and he simply said did these things happen or didnt they. The guy said they didnt happen, then mumbled in the context you are relating them. Of course the 'things' were well known events like the murder of Archbishop Romero

[Peak_Oil]

29. Could it have been Pearle?

I just listened to the transcript, and Pearle had just nothing to say to the Chomster.

[shunt]

bennet

the bill bennet "debate" was even worse.

Bennet played the "love it or leave it" card!

What an infant!!!!!

[shunt]

31. o0x

I was at his 1st talk after 9-11, it was awesome. Funny thing, Prof. Chomsky and his wife Carol (who he met when he was 4 and she was 2...not many repubs out there like that!) were walking out and this absolutley beautiful girl next to me...just turned all o0xie-eyed to her pal and said "oh my, what would it be like to be married to someone like that!"

definatley inspirational...on top of all the other inspiration of the evening. We talked that night and I had done a lot of writing and research on Michael Powell, I asked him about him and he replied "who is that???" he then gave me encouragment on doin' all I can to expose his crap (man, it sure needed to be...Powell was doing all his horrible crap so under the radar Noam wasnt following him!) and I cant say I did all I could, but I did a few things.


He still replies to my emails...I wrote him a long email comparing Sudan now to Afghanastan in the 80s, he returned an interesting response.

[DU GrovelBot]

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