Slashdot Mirror

Indeed, many places are (or were) "far, far worse in terms of the rights of its citizens", as you put it; we should be grateful they're even willing to accept import of suffering.

(why do you think "rule by consent" precludes fear and, partly, force from being elements of it?)

always stop and think if something you're doing will be infringing on the rights of someone else

But a straightforward ability to ignore such violations, to convince oneself in being oh so good and having higher moral ground, is one of the nicest things about the export of suffering...

Well, the quote does say if - "if if it ever wants to force connectivity on a country against its ruler’s wishes". Obviously it doesn't include situations when the dictatorship is on the "good" side, duh!

Generally, has it ever been not about our interests?...

http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html

Maybe the whole point is to waste your time and dumb you down and keep you locked up in a mirror maze?

And failing that, to neuter you politically? See Jeff Schmidt's "Dsiciplined Minds":
http://disciplinedminds.tripod.com/
http://www.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/pubs/01BRrt.html
"How to survive? Well, how can captive soldiers survive what is commonly called "brainwashing"? The US Army has a manual on resisting indoctrination when a prisoner of war. As Schmidt amusingly notes, this manual wasn't written for students, but "students in graduate or professional school should be able to put such resistance techniques to good use." (p. 239). A person who maintains an independent, nonconforming outlook in any institution, including a prisoner-of-war camp, is seen as deviant and threatening. The keys to resistance are knowing what you're up against, preparing to take action, working with others (organization!), resisting at all levels, and dealing with collaborators by cutting them off from key information and attempting to win them over. Schmidt gives a revealing account of his own difficulties in graduate school and how he survived as a radical."

Undergrad is not quite as bad though. But remember, all the professors and assistants whose salaries you are paying (even by incurring debt) -- they have all gone through this brainwashing process.
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm

Something else I wrote on this:
http://groups.google.com/group/openvirgle/browse_thread/thread/3dd2b7e6648da125/231e63e966e932df?hl=en#231e63e966e932df

And on how things may change, by me:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p14bAe6AzhA

Or by someone else:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U&feature=related

Good luck.

See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzXBn5koFbY
http://www.alternativeratreatments.com/eat-to-live.html
http://www.drfuhrman.com/
http://www.diseaseproof.com/

Check your vitamin D levels too:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml

What you describe sound like a very respectable life. :-) Still, no one (including me) can live in this world and not get involved in some bad aspects of it (like, in the case of helping broadcasting stations, the mainstream media was often not doing its job of investigative journalism). Related:
    "What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream"
    http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm

Anyway, I hope those first links might help with reversing Type-II diabetes.

BTW, two other boxes of democracy are moving box (to somewhere with better laws) and mail box (writing representatives). :-) So, there are at least six. :-)

Why the ammo box is problematical:
    "Social Movements and Strategic Nonviolence"
    http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/change/science_nonviolence.html

Anyway, the things they don't teach in school...
    "Educating for a Peaceful World"
    http://www.forums.alliance21.org/d_read/pax/articles/Deutsch.htm

Maybe you were better off to get out sooner?

At least everyone in Cuba have access to medical care.
    http://www.hr676.org/

On your points:

"Go to work,"
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html
http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html

"send your kids to school."
http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
http://www.holtgws.com/

"Follow fashion,"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-consumerism
http://www.alternativeratreatments.com/eat-to-live.html

"act normal."
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/11/the_war_on_the.html
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

"Walk on the pavements,"
http://www.bluezones.com/makeover-about (shows how unusual that is)

"watch T.V."
http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/
http://www.tvturnoff.org/
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml

"Save for your old age,"
http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2009/02/social-collapse-best-practices.html

"obey the law."
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification

"Repeat after me: I am free."
http://www.amctv.com/videos/the-prisoner-1960s-video/
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm

Any more? :-)

See Noam Chomsky: http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm
"""
The universities, for example, are not independent institutions. There may be independent people scattered around in them but that is true of the media as well. And it's generally true of corporations. It's true of Fascist states, for that matter. But the institution itself is parasitic. It's dependent on outside sources of support and those sources of support, such as private wealth, big corporations with grants, and the government (which is so closely interlinked with corporate power you can barely distinguish them), they are essentially what the universities are in the middle of. People within them, who don't adjust to that structure, who don't accept it and internalize it (you can't really work with it unless you internalize it, and believe it); people who don't do that are likely to be weeded out along the way, starting from kindergarten, all the way up. There are all sorts of filtering devices to get rid of people who are a pain in the neck and think independently. Those of you who have been through college know that the educational system is very highly geared to rewarding conformity and obedience; if you don't do that, you are a troublemaker. So, it is kind of a filtering device which ends up with people who really honestly (they aren't lying) internalize the framework of belief and attitudes of the surrounding power system in the society. The elite institutions like, say, Harvard and Princeton and the small upscale colleges, for example, are very much geared to socialization. If you go through a place like Harvard, most of what goes on there is teaching manners; how to behave like a member of the upper classes, how to think the right thoughts, and so on.
"""

For more on rethinking Princeton University's guiding ideology in an alternative post-scarcity way, see an online document I wrote on that:
"Post-Scarcity Princeton, or, Reading between the lines of PAW for prospective Princeton students, or, the Health Risks of Heart Disease (about 200 pages)"
http://www.pdfernhout.net/reading-between-the-lines.html

To begin with, why filter *before* people get a chance to create things or say things? Why not use review and moderation (like with slashdot) *after* people get a chance create things or say things?

These posts of mine lead to endless links about what is wrong with the current schooling system at all levels:
"[p2p-research] College Daze links (was Re: : FlossedBk, "Free/Libre and Open Source Solutions for Education")"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
"[p2p-research] The Higher Educational Bubble Continues to Grow"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html
"[p2p-research] Rebutting Communiqué from an Absent Future (was Re: Information on student protests)"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html

But key ideas can be found at these links:

      "Disciplined Minds" by Jeff Schmidt
      http://www.disciplined-minds.com/

      "The Big Crunch" by David Goodstein, Vice Provost, Caltech
      http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html

      "What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream" by Noam Chomsky
      http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm

      "University Secrets:Your Guide to Surviving a College Education" by
Robert D. Honigman
    http://web.archive.org/web/20060707100524/www.universitysecrets.com/us.htm
    http://web.archive.org/web/20060710145531/www.universitysecrets.com/table.htm

      "The Kept University"
      http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/03/press.htm

      "We're NOT Off to See the Wizard: REVISITING THE IDEA OF COLLEGE"
      http://unconventionalideas.wordpress.com/?s=wizard

      "The Underground History of American Education" by 1991 NYS Teacher of
the Year John Taylor Gatto
      http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.htm

      "In Defense of Childhood: Protecting Kids' Inner Wildness " by Chris
Mercogliano, who spent thirty-five years teaching at the Albany Free School
      http://www.chrismercogliano.com/childhood.htm

And there are many more I link to in the posts, but these are starting points.

It would take years to read through all the references I link to in the three posts (and it has. :-)

AERO is one place that catalogs most of the alternatives:
    http://www.educationrevolution.org/

Babies are born knowing how to learn; people only need to relearn that if it has been stomped out of them, as is done through most conventional compulsory schooling. This is not to disgree that college can also be an effective filter for businesses to use to obtain compliant workers who know certain basic skills and who also are unlikely to seriously challenge authority. Related links:
    http://ilabs.washington.edu/news/scientist_in_the_crib.html
    http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm
    http://www.educationrevolution.org/
    http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.htm
    http://www.the-open-boat.com/Gatto.html
    http://www.holtgws.com/whatisunschoolin.html

Thanks for the great link. And here is another that relates to that:
    http://www.disciplined-minds.com/
"""
[Schmidt] argues in Disciplined Minds that work is an inherently political activity and that hiring therefore involves political screening. ...
    Who are you going to be? That is the question.
    In this riveting book about the world of professional work, Jeff Schmidt demonstrates that the workplace is a battleground for the very identity of the individual, as is graduate school, where professionals are trained. He shows that professional work is inherently political, and that professionals are hired to subordinate their own vision and maintain strict "ideological discipline."
    The hidden root of much career dissatisfaction, argues Schmidt, is the professional's lack of control over the political component of his or her creative work. Many professionals set out to make a contribution to society and add meaning to their lives. Yet our system of professional education and employment abusively inculcates an acceptance of politically subordinate roles in which professionals typically do not make a significant difference, undermining the creative potential of individuals, organizations and even democracy.
    Schmidt details the battle one must fight to be an independent thinker and to pursue one's own social vision in today's corporate society. He shows how an honest reassessment of what it really means to be a professional employee can be remarkably liberating. After reading this brutally frank book, no one who works for a living will ever think the same way about his or her job.
"""

Example review:
    http://www.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/pubs/01BRrt.html

And in some ways, that is not too different from Noam Chomsky's argument here:
    "What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream"
    http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm

"If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged." - Noam Chomsky

we don't have, or need, propaganda machines.

You are wrong AND wrong. Your supposed freedom is an illusion. Read some Noam Chomsky articles.

"International Terrorism: Image and Reality" by Noam Chomsky, notable linguist and self-declared Libertarian Socialist
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199112--02.htm
"""
There are two ways to approach the study of terrorism. One may adopt a literal approach, taking the topic seriously, or a propagandistic approach, construing the concept of terrorism as a weapon to be exploited in the service of some system of power. In each case it is clear how to proceed. Pursuing the literal approach, we begin by determining what constitutes terrorism. We then seek instances of the phenomenon -- concentrating on the major examples, if we are serious -- and try to determine causes and remedies. The propagandistic approach dictates a different course. We begin with the thesis that terrorism is the responsibility of some officially designated enemy. We then designate terrorist acts as "terrorist" just in the cases where they can be attributed (whether plausibly or not) to the required source; otherwise they are to be ignored, suppressed, or termed "retaliation" or "self-defence." ... The answers are not difficult to find. We must simply abandon the literal approach and recognize that terrorist acts fall within the canon only when conducted by official enemies. When the US and its clients are the agents, they are acts of retaliation and self-defense in the service of democracy and human rights. Then all becomes clear. ...
"""

There are many related comments by Chomsky on this:
  http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=chomsky+terrorism

Even a book:
    "excerpts from the book: The Culture of Terrorism by Noam Chomsky"
    http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Chomsky/Culture%20of%20Terrorism.html
    http://www.amazon.com/Culture-Terrorism-Noam-Chomsky/dp/0896083349

More here:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky's_political_views

And, not by him, but here is an essay by Prof. G. William Domhoff on why non-violence is the only moral and rational approach to social change in the USA:
    http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/change/science_nonviolence.html

"On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the U.S. Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school."

I should have caught that as a problem too. Someday, public schools may be much more like public libraries open to anyone to use than day prisons for children of working parents, but until then, consider:

"Links about alternative peer-oriented education"
http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Education

"The Underground History of American Education" by 1991 NYS Teacher of
the Year John Taylor Gatto
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.htm

"The Seven Lesson Schoolteacher" also by John Taylor Gatto
http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt

"State Controlled Consciousness" also by John Taylor Gatto
http://www.the-open-boat.com/Gatto.html

"The Big Crunch" by David Goodstein, Vice Provost, Caltech
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html

"Disciplined Minds" by Jeff Schmidt
http://www.disciplined-minds.com/

"What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream" by Noam Chomsky
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm

"University Secrets:Your Guide to Surviving a College Education" by Robert D. Honigman
http://web.archive.org/web/20060707100524/www.universitysecrets.com/us.htm

"In Defense of Childhood: Protecting Kids' Inner Wildness " by Chris
Mercogliano, who spent thirty-five years teaching at the Albany Free School
http://www.chrismercogliano.com/childhood.htm

"Teach Your Own" by John Holt (and other books)
http://www.holtgws.com/

"The Teenage Liberation Handbook" by Grace Llewellyn (and other books)
http://gracellewellyn.com/

"The Emergence of Compulsory Schooling and ... Resistance" By Matt Hern
http://web.archive.org/web/20071014123355/http://www.social-ecology.org/article.php?story=20031028151034651

"Sustainable Education" by Jerry Mintz
http://www.greenmoneyjournal.com/article.mpl?articleid=195&newsletterid=1

"Federated Learning Communities"
http://www.ericdigests.org/2000-1/learning.html
http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/ilc/models.html

"The Three Boxes of Life and How to Get Out of Them: An Introduction to
Life/Work Planning" by Richard N. Bolles (also writes "What Color is Your
Parachute")
http://www.amazon.com/Three-Boxes-Life-How-Them/dp/0913668583

General related:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies_My_Teacher_Told_Me

I consider capitalists, even the "less correct ones" like, say Bill Gates and his monopoly, infinitely more moral (even if perhaps not 100% intentional) than even what you'd call "center" socialists.

I don't know who or what I'd call "center" socialists, I don't think I've ever used the term.

I find it pretty remarkable -- nonsensical, even, bordering on insane -- to claim that Bill Gates is infinitely more moral than socialists like Peter Kropotkin, Eugene Debs, Carl Sandburg, Noam Chomsky, Kurt Vonnegut, or George Orwell, or the anarchists at your local "Foot Not Bombs" chapter.

the kind of radio where you can listen to ideas too far off in the ideological fringes to make it onto the Internet

Alas, it looks like the fringes have already arrived.

you know there ARE real conspiracies. here's a great example:

The Fate of an Honest Intellectual
Noam Chomsky

[Excerpted from Understanding Power, The New Press, 2002, pp. 244-248]

I'll tell you another, last case-and there are many others like this. Here's a story which is really tragic. How many of you know about Joan Peters, the book by Joan Peters? There was this best-seller a few years ago [in 1984], it went through about ten printings, by a woman named Joan Peters-or at least, signed by Joan Peters-called From Time Immemorial. It was a big scholarly-looking book with lots of footnotes, which purported to show that the Palestinians were all recent immigrants [i.e. to the Jewish-settled areas of the former Palestine, during the British mandate years of 1920 to 1948]. And it was very popular-it got literally hundreds of rave reviews, and no negative reviews: the Washington Post, the New York Times, everybody was just raving about it. Here was this book which proved that there were really no Palestinians! Of course, the implicit message was, if Israel kicks them all out there's no moral issue, because they're just recent immigrants who came in because the Jews had built up the country. And there was all kinds of demographic analysis in it, and a big professor of demography at the University of Chicago [Philip M. Hauser] authenticated it. That was the big intellectual hit for that year: Saul Bellow, Barbara Tuchman, everybody was talking about it as the greatest thing since chocolate cake.Well, one graduate student at Princeton, a guy named Norman Finkelstein, started reading through the book. He was interested in the history of Zionism, and as he read the book he was kind of surprised by some of the things it said. He's a very careful student, and he started checking the references-and it turned out that the whole thing was a hoax, it was completely faked: probably it had been put together by some intelligence agency or something like that. Well, Finkelstein wrote up a short paper of just preliminary findings, it was about twenty-five pages or so, and he sent it around to I think thirty people who were interested in the topic, scholars in the field and so on, saying: "Here's what I've found in this book, do you think it's worth pursuing?"
Well, he got back one answer, from me. I told him, yeah, I think it's an interesting topic, but I warned him, if you follow this, you're going to get in trouble-because you're going to expose the American intellectual community as a gang of frauds, and they are not going to like it, and they're going to destroy you. So I said: if you want to do it, go ahead, but be aware of what you're getting into. It's an important issue, it makes a big difference whether you eliminate the moral basis for driving out a population-it's preparing the basis for some real horrors-so a lot of people's lives could be at stake. But your life is at stake too, I told him, because if you pursue this, your career is going to be ruined.
Well, he didn't believe me. We became very close friends after this, I didn't know him before. He went ahead and wrote up an article, and he started submitting it to journals. Nothing: they didn't even bother responding. I finally managed to place a piece of it in In These Times, a tiny left-wing journal published in Illinois, where some of you may have seen it. Otherwise nothing, no response. Meanwhile his professors-this is Princeton University, supposed to be a serious place-stopped talking to him: they wouldn't make appointments with him, they wouldn't read his papers, he basically had to quit the program.
By this time, he was getting kind of desperate, and he asked me what to do. I gave him what I thought was good advice, but what turned out to be bad advice: I suggested that he shift over to a different department, where I knew some people and figured he'd at least be treated decently. That turned out to be wrong. He switched over, and when he got to the point of writing

The point is there is plenty for everyone to learn from Turkish society. In particular they way their intellectuals take their responsibilities serious and dissent.

The second part describes how they put their dissent in action; by publishing texts banned by the state and then demanding to be prosecuted for their 'crimes' so to attract attention to the freedoms that oppressed in Turkey.

My mistake for not mentioning the source. I forgot, sorry. The speaker is Noam Chomsky. http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20060425.htm

This case is direct evidence for Chomskian media theory. (As if there wasn't enough already -- Chomsky has compiled literally thousands of incidents)

Bollocks. This is just straightforward lying. That has eff all to do with Chomsky and Hermann's analysis of how the media is distorted. On the contrary their theories mostly emphasize unconscious distortion and selection practiced out of the "highest motives" by those selected and self-selected to man the positions of power in our current system. You should read Chomsky and Hermann's original work so that you (or the original article author who is also talking out of his rear-end) do not present misrepresentations of that work. Failing that you could read a short summary such as the following .

Well, China finally did something. It signaled to the United States that they noticed that we were trying to use space for military purposes, so China shot down one of their satellites. Everyone understands why -- the mili- tarization and weaponization of space depends on satellites. While missiles are very difficult or maybe impossible to stop, satellites are very easy to shoot down. You know where they are. So China is saying, "Okay, we understand you are militarizing space. We're going to counter it not by militarizing space, we can't compete with you that way, but by shooting down your satellites." That is what was behind the satellite shooting. Every military analyst certainly understood it and every lay person can understand it. But take a look at the debate. The discussion was about, "Is China trying it conquer the world by shooting down one of its own satellites?"

http://www.chomsky.info/talks/20011103.htm

It is well-understood that BMD, even is technically feasible, must rely on satellite communication, and destroying satellites is far easier than shooting down missiles. That is one reason why the US must seek "full spectrum dominance," such overwhelming control of space that even the poor man's weapons will not be available to an adversary. And that requires offensive space-based capacities, including enormously destructive weapons that can be launched with instant computer-controlled reaction, greatly increasing the risk of vas slaughter and devastation if only because of what are called in the trade "normal accidents" - the unpredictable accidents to which all complex systems are subject.

Well, China finally did something. It signaled to the United States that they noticed that we were trying to use space for military purposes, so China shot down one of their satellites. Everyone understands why -- the mili- tarization and weaponization of space depends on satellites. While missiles are very difficult or maybe impossible to stop, satellites are very easy to shoot down. You know where they are. So China is saying, "Okay, we understand you are militarizing space. We're going to counter it not by militarizing space, we can't compete with you that way, but by shooting down your satellites." That is what was behind the satellite shooting. Every military analyst certainly understood it and every lay person can understand it. But take a look at the debate. The discussion was about, "Is China trying it conquer the world by shooting down one of its own satellites?"

http://www.chomsky.info/talks/20011103.htm

It is well-understood that BMD, even is technically feasible, must rely on satellite communication, and destroying satellites is far easier than shooting down missiles. That is one reason why the US must seek "full spectrum dominance," such overwhelming control of space that even the poor man's weapons will not be available to an adversary. And that requires offensive space-based capacities, including enormously destructive weapons that can be launched with instant computer-controlled reaction, greatly increasing the risk of vas slaughter and devastation if only because of what are called in the trade "normal accidents" - the unpredictable accidents to which all complex systems are subject.

Sure we voted for the wrong guy, but his administration's gross mismanagement of this country showed very clearly that the two parties are not by any means identical, and that your vote for a president can have a very real impact on the policies that are put into place.

Regardless of which party is in power, the goal of dominating the Middle East is the same.

"Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force."

That might sound like Bush but those words were uttered by alleged humanitarian Jimmy Carter. The history of both corporate parties shows they have enthusiastically pursued the nation's imperial ambitions abroad.

Conventional liberal wisdom dictates that Al Gore wouldn't have invaded Iraq, but we'll never know for sure what might have been. We do know that Gore didn't oppose the crippling sanctions the Clinton administration enforced on Iraq, resulting in over one million innocent Iraqi deaths. To them the price was worth it. We know that Gore also supported the "Iraq Liberation Act" and accused Saddam Hussein of supporting terrorism.

Currently Barack Obama is pulling the wool over everyone's eyes with his talk of withdrawal. But examining his policy proposals shows a much different picture. He wants to increase the size of the military. He wants to keep a number of troops in Iraq and has no plans to withdraw any of the so-called contractors. He wants more troops in Afghanistan and he is arguing the same discredited lies about Iran as Bush. He's not anti-war, he's anti-losing-Iraq and he's trying to find a way to salvage the US empire.

Voting Democrat is not necessarily going to lead to a hastier exit from the occupations. They promised that in 2006 when they took over Congress and they have abrogated that promise. They won't even impeach Bush. Why would they do anything different after Obama is elected? Besides, it was under the Republican Dick Nixon that the Vietnam war was ended (this time started with lies by a Democrat).

The Vietnam war was finally ended when large sections of the military refused to fight the war. Mutiny, killing of officers and widespread breakdown of command meant that the US government could no longer count on the military to fight the war. They had no choice but to end the war. The GI resistance was made possible by a large, vibrant and supportive civilian antiwar movement at home.

In Vietnam the stakes were "credibility" in the face of the US's chief imperial competitor, the USSR. Today the stakes are far higher for the US ruling class. They need to control the flow of oil in the Middle East for leverage over their emerging competitors around the globe. They are not going to just walk away from what the US State Department once called "one of the greatest material prizes in world history." We're going to have to force them to leave.

Would things have turned out differently had Gore become President? I concede the point: had things been different then they would be different. But would the US still be attempting to dominate the Middle East and use every means at its disposal to do so? It would be naive to believe that Gore is somehow different in this respect.

Agreed. "If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged. By violation of the Nuremberg laws I mean the same kind of crimes for which people were hanged in Nuremberg."

BTW, he can certainly be both. I think he's stupid enough to think that he could help his oil buddies AND somehow think it was the right thing to do (unbelievably). As far as masterminding... no, no. Swaying the public with false rhetoric is very easy. Too easy...

Old school advice...

First of all, school up to the PhD is a pyramid scheme (currently failing):
"The Big Crunch" by David Goodstein (Vice Provost CalTech)
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html
The end result is "disciplined minds" who will not step out of line politically:
http://disciplined-minds.com/
Or journalistically:
http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20051207.htm
"By the time you've gone through, you know, Oxford and Cambridge and here you could say Harvard and Princeton and so on, and even less fancy places, you have instilled into you the understanding that there are certain things that just wouldn't do to say, and that's what a good deal of education is. So the people who come out of it - and there are many filters, if people go off and try to be too critical there are many ways of discouraging them or eliminating them one way or the other. Some get through, it's not a uniform story. ... The more educated you are the more indoctrinated you are. And you believe you are being free and objective, whereas in fact you're just repeating state propaganda."

The reason schooling exists in its current form is to teach these seven lessons:
"The Seven-Lesson Schoolteacher" by John Taylor Gatto - 1991 New York State Teacher of the Year
http://hometown.aol.com/tma68/7lesson.htm
in order to prepare most people for a life of servitude to the military or factories (and to not be very thoughtful about consumption or politics either).
"The Prussian Connection" -- Gatto
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/7a.htm
And from:
"A conversation with historian and author James Loewen. Sort of."
http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/18/loewen.html
"We like to believe schooling is a good thing. But when it comes to understanding any problem with historical roots, we might expect that the more traditional schooling in history that Americans have, the less they will understand it. Students who have taken math courses are better at math. The same is true for English, foreign languages, and almost every other subject. But in history, stupidity is the result of more, not less, schooling."

Still, studies have shown that the only people who really get economic value out of an Ivy League degree or equivalent are those from lower middle class backgrounds. All other things being equal, for most other people it's not worth the money as an investment. See the book "Class" for some other details:
http://www.amazon.com/Class-Through-American-Status-System/dp/0671792253
Otherwise, consider:
"College is a Waste of Time and Money" (1975)
http://www.grossmont.edu/bertdill/docs/CollegeWaste.pdf
"College, then, may be a good place for those few young people who are really drawn to academic work, who would rather read than eat, but it has become too expensive, in money, time, and intellectual effort to serve as a holding pen for large numbers of our young. We ought to make it possible for those reluctant, unhappy students to find alternative ways of growing up, and more realistic preparation for the years ahead."

And consider those years ahead following Moore's Law will include computers 10000X faster than what we have now for the same price in 20 or so years.
http://www.transhumanis

anarchy means no laws

Having a "self-policing community" means having laws.

Like those who misunderstood Turing's writing, you might want to be more careful about what you read (although perhaps you can't be blamed since you seem to have suffered a temporary eye spasm). When Chomsky says "the details need not concern us", he means the details aren't important in the context of what he was writing, not that the details are of no significance.

In the excerpt you began to read, he says, "There is no fixed Turing test; rather, a battery of devices constructed on this model" and leaves it at that because the discussion moves on to say why, even if you use the so-called "Turing test" (i.e. the approach proponents in AI try to use), it doesn't tell us anything. Whether or not we choose to call a computer "intelligent" is a question "of decision, not fact; decision as to whether to adopt a certain metaphoric extension of common usage".

You and I both agree with Chomsky that believers in what's called "the Turing test" have misunderstood Turing's paper, and that there is no test that can be "passed" for a computer to be found "just as intelligent as a human" (or more so). This is something Chomsky's elaborated on, in detail, elsewhere and one reason I find his writing on the topic to be so important. See New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind, for example. Or perhaps you'll want to pick up some Grape Nuts and a metronome instead...

Programming a computer that can beat a chess grandmaster is obviously not easy, but the fact that the computer won is about as enlightening as the realization that machines can lift more than the strongest man.

I'll reproduce a comment I made the last time an AI article surfaced:

I've held back from replying to the myriad of other /. articles about the "Turing test", but I can't help responding to this one. There is no meaningful comparison between the achievements of this program and the cognitive capacities of human beings. I agree with Noam Chomsky on this issue; since I can't state it as eloquently or concisely as him, here's his take on the subject.

Some might call it a cop-out to just link to Chomsky, so I'll paste the most relevant section here:

There is a great deal of often heated debate about these matters in the literature of the cognitive sciences, artificial intelligence, and philosophy of mind, but it is hard to see that any serious question has been posed. The question of whether a computer is playing chess, or doing long division, or translating Chinese, is like the question of whether robots can murder or airplanes can fly -- or people; after all, the "flight" of the Olympic long jump champion is only an order of magnitude short of that of the chicken champion (so I'm told). These are questions of decision, not fact; decision as to whether to adopt a certain metaphoric extension of common usage.

I've held back from replying to the myriad of other /. articles about the "Turing test", but I can't help responding to this one. There is no meaningful comparison between the achievements of this program and the cognitive capacities of human beings. I agree with Noam Chomsky on this issue; since I can't state it as eloquently or concisely as him, here's his take on the subject.

I will say right now that I am vehemently anti-corporate, anti-corporatization, and anti-consumer, so you know my bias beforehand.

Now, if you really want to learn the history of corporations, and how they went from being chartered by the state, rather heavily regulated, and with very few rights, to the monstrosities we have today that exert control over governments and individuals, ransack our earth, place profits over people, and, due to diffusion of responsibility, can care for nothing but a bottom-line for their shareholders, I suggest these sources as good starting points:

Prof. Noam Chomsky on Microsoft and corporations. Chomsky is interviewed by Corp-Watch. He expounds on Microsoft and the anti-trust cases levelled against it, but he also goes into some depth regarding the history of corporations in America. I highly recommend Chomsky, of course because I by and large agree with his assessments, but also because he always includes his sources. He actually spends much of his time scouring over declassified government documents in order to back his assertions up. Also check out his website for an absolute wealth of information.

The Corporation. An excellent documentary, directed by Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott, based on a book written by Joel Bakan. The corporation is examined, as if it were an individual (as it is seen to be in the eyes of the law), from a psychological standpoint. Not very surprisingly, corporations are diagnosed as psychopathic. Many interviews with CEOs, marketers, capitalist "think tanks," labor groups, and intellectuals. Rightly enough, the documentary can be downloaded freely via Bittorrent. I believe there is a link at the site.

Hopefully I've helped you out a bit, despite the obvious bias involved on my part.

HOw about this for a target: spend half as much on renewable energy as you do on killing other people and developing weapons to kill other people and pretty soon (10 yrs) you wont NEED to kill people as you wont need to steal their oil anymore.

HOw about this for a target: spend half as much on renewable energy as you do on killing other people and developing weapons to kill other people and pretty soon (10 yrs) you wont NEED to kill people as you wont need to steal their oil anymore.

Yes, Chomsky's a professor of linguistics. Period.

You like sticking people into nice little labeled cubbyholes, don't you?
this 1972 article reprinted from the New York Review of Books, should go some way towards explaining what linguistics are, and Chomsky's reputation in the field.

And if linguistics still sounds rather esoteric, and inapplicable to, other things, say, Artificial Intelligence, what of it? Would he be more qualified to speak of East Timor if he taught political science or worked for Fox News?

You could also check out some of the stuff here:

http://chomskytorrents.org/
http://www.cryptome.org/
http://www.chomsky.info/interviews.htm

It was interesting to read the very detailed answers given to the questions, but I couldn't help feeling that Jay didn't fully address the second part (and to me the more important) that I asked: namely how will it not be the case that accepting corporate sponsorship (in this case Reuters' $100,000) not inevitably lead to control of the organization.

Jay answers this by saying that he'll make sure that there's no undue influence brought to bear on the editor. That misses the point that Chomsky (yes, I know hate him if you must but he makes some good points) & Herman make about media censorship, which is that the people that occupy positions in which they know they're funded by big business are RARELY directly censored. Instead most of the time they self-censor (see paragraph 4). The Pacifica Radio Network made the decision to avoid government or corporate underwriting explicitly because they realised that any normal, reasonable person is influenced by the source of their funding and has it hovering in the back of their mind.

I like the idea that Jay proposes of having professional editors sorting the wheat from the chaff but believe that although the site may have initial success and credibility it will inevitably be slowly co-opted because of the process of media hegemony detailed by Chomsky and Herman.

B.t.w. anyone idolizing Bob Woodward should think about this perspective. I think he and Seymour Hersh are prime examples of how well intentioned individuals are unable to make an effective difference within a corporately funded system.

Good article here.

I noticed another post referring to RMS sharing his ideas with Noam Chomsky, while I admire both men as intellectuals, I'm afraid the greatest threat to liberals and democrates of all spots and stripes is that we are our greatest enemies. We don't jump to the conclusion that we are right, rather we tend to list to the left and circle ideologies and problems, canvassing them from all sides and in all lights. Come vote time we tend to fragment into camps warring as much with each other as with the neocons. Chomsky has in recent federal elections siphoned off votes that might have helped elect a Democratic President.

Maybe in America as in Canada we need to put aside our petty differences and vote en bloc to push the neocons out of power before the definition of facism RMS casts at America today becomes applicable in the U.S. and in Canada.

I'll now dismount my soapbox and return to fretting about the present Federal election at home.

" JP: A definition would help here too. RMS: Fascism is a system of government that sucks up to business and has no respect for human rights. So the Bush regime is an example, but there are lots of others. " RMS shares ideas with Noam Chomsky.

Some linguistics & psycholinguistics (e.g Norm Chompsky and Steve Pinker) argue the human brain is unique in that it is able to quickly master the complex grammar present in all human languages.

In fact there is even a mathematical proof that seems to indicate that human languages should be technically unlearn-able (google: EM Gold language grammar - "Language identification in the limit"). IIRC - the synopsis being that, human languages are at least as sophisticated as context free languages (and can to some degree be modeled by context free languages) and the grammar of context free languages should not be learnable from the sort of linguistic input available to a child.

So...anyhow, I'm not so sure if studying how birds learn a sequence of sounds really gets at the more interesting aspects of human language acquisition. I mean it's probably interesting in terms of how animals, and even people, learn to produce simple sequences of sounds.

But, for human language? Or, at least for the interesting, i.e. uniquely human, parts of it? For that you probably need to either study people, or possibly very similar animals like other primates.

I don't know. I think I'd disagree. I think Sokal DID do something valuable. He exposed charlatanism and intellectually dishonest egotistical frauds to the light of day. Prior to knowing exactly what postmodernism and "postconstructualism" were I'd occasionally seen a paper or two in the field (or related field) and while they seemed bizzare and mostly incomprehensible to me, I was willing to give the benefit of the doubt. ie.-maybe I was just too DUMB to understand it and it was all perfectly legit. Sokal blew those preconceptions out the window and I think I have a (slightly) greater understanding of the fallibility of certain academic fields because of it. I think Noam Chomsky hit the nail directly on the head in his essay "Rationality/Science" when he says:

"Quite regularly, "my eyes glaze over" when I read polysyllabic discourse on the themes of poststructuralism and postmodernism; what I understand is largely truism or error, but that is only a fraction of the total word count. True, there are lots of other things I don't understand: the articles in the current issues of math and physics journals, for example. But there is a difference. In the latter case, I know how to get to understand them, and have done so, in cases of particular interest to me; and I also know that people in these fields can explain the contents to me at my level, so that I can gain what (partial) understanding I may want. In contrast, no one seems to be able to explain to me why the latest post-this-and-that is (for the most part) other than truism, error, or gibberish, and I do not know how to proceed. Perhaps the explanation lies in some personal inadequacy, like tone-deafness. Or there may be other reasons. The question is not strictly relevant here, and I won't pursue it."

all are available on the web:
http://www.chomsky.info/audionvideo.htm
http://www.zmag.org/chomskyaudio.htm

zmag has further links to similiar audio files.

enjoy!

Every American should have to read Chomsky's _Manufacturing Consent_ . You can find excerpts of it here and here
Much of his work and speeches can be found here

When I finally went right to the source, and actuully read chomsky , it helped me make sense of what I had seen and read on the news after 9-11 and during the run-up to the Iraq war.

Edward Herman also has a lot of excellent and insightful material on the media and politics.

The media act as a set of filters that propagate a particular set of ideas to the citizens. This set of ideas is just happens to be about the same as what the rich and the powerful believe and think. More about this here

Both Democrats and Republicans are conservative. The term "liberal" has turned into a contentless profanity flung about from one side to the other simply to provide a convenient derogatory label.

The US leans so far to the right that Democrats seem liberal. There is really hardly anything to distinguish either US political party other than paying lip service to some ineffable ideology like "family values."

Most of the calls for social reform come from true liberals such as Eben Moglen and Noam Chomsky, people so far outside the conservative mainstream that they are labelled "radicals," and therefore automatically wrong.

The Democrats and Republicans just have different masters. There is very little real difference.

But I'm still voting Democrat.

I mean it's really not that complicated.

"The dominant media is firmly imbedded in the market system. They are profit-seeking businesses, owned by very wealthy people (or other companies); and they are funded largely by advertisers who are also profit-seeking entities, and who want their ads to appear in a supportive selling environment."

I mean your assumption of a "liberal" media would state that corporations are desperately trying to fail at their only purpose for being which is making money.... Does that make any sense at all?

My only guess is that you define "liberal" as bashing Bush for driving drunk or "conservative" as sensational stories of character such as swift boat for truth or what not... but your missing the point they are showing whatever is supportive of their selling environment.

I would consider a "liberal" media as one that critiques the use of imperialism as an unjust undemocratic mechanism for social or economic change domestically and abroad.

We have hundreds of people on this board saying the media is liberal because it prefers Kerry...

I would really grow tired of people proclaiming the media is "liberal" without engaging in well founded critical work that states otherwise.

In other words... if you're going to say the media is liberal where is your rebuttal to the propaganda model?

I mean it's really not that complicated.

"The dominant media is firmly imbedded in the market system. They are profit-seeking businesses, owned by very wealthy people (or other companies); and they are funded largely by advertisers who are also profit-seeking entities, and who want their ads to appear in a supportive selling environment."

I mean your assumption of a "liberal" media would state that corporations are desperately trying to fail at their only purpose for being which is making money.... Does that make any sense at all?

My only guess is that you define "liberal" as bashing Bush for driving drunk or "conservative" as sensational stories of character such as swift boat for truth or what not... but your missing the point they are showing whatever is supportive of their selling environment.

I would consider a "liberal" media as one that critiques the use of imperialism as an unjust undemocratic mechanism for social or economic change domestically and abroad.

We have hundreds of people on this board saying the media is liberal because it prefers Kerry...

I would really grow tired of people proclaiming the media is "liberal" without engaging in well founded critical work that states otherwise.

In other words... if you're going to say the media is liberal where is your rebuttal to the propaganda model?

Many of Chomsky's books, articles, speech mp3's can be found here at chomsky.info

Chomsky really sets up a historical and motivational framework for how government, corporations and the media work together to control the political agenda. Whether that collaboration is a conspiracy or even consciously deliberate, is another matter. But I think anyone who makes a deliberate, openminded study of his evidence will come to the same conclusion--eventually. And developments in politics and war over the last few years have shown me just how right Chomsky really is.....

The elite media and the top government officials and the corporations DECIDE for us what is on the table for the political debate, and what is NOT on the table. They decide what the definitions of "Liberal" and "conservative" are. Not surprisingly, CorpGovMedia have decided that the Left vs Right, conservative vs democratic debate is going to be on social issues. Most of the economic issues are either off the table, or are limited in scope.

THe social issues are gays, guns, abortion, religion, etc. The media IS liberal on the social issues.

The economics issues are fair trade, progressive taxes, monopolistic business practices, and immigration. The media (and CorpGovMedia itself) is quite conservative economically. Not a big surprise, seeing as how the elite media is owned and operated by large corporations and the wealthy and upper-income earners. And when I say "conservative", I mean the media is in favor of policies that tend to favor the wealthy and the corporations. For example, on trade, the media favors "free trade", meaning policies that disempower the average person, and lower his wages. Also, the media favors immigration, which is increases corporate profits and decreases American wages. THe media is in favor of regressive taxation (likes flat tax rates, and user and sales taxes). The media is also in favor of war, in general. And so forth....

For more info on this subject, read the websites for bestselling authors Thomas Frank (see the online essays) and Noam Chomsky several books and essays online here).

As for countries harbouring terrorists, it depends on whether the terrorist's interests agree with America's. Bin Laden was created by the CIA to fight the russians in Afghanistan. Saddam was a good friend of the US during the Iraq-Iran war. It is always a case of economic interest. Have a look at Noam Chomsky's article on How America Determines Friends and Foes. It makes for a very interesting read, like most of his articles.

It is a fact that US foreign policy is not motivated by benevolence. If you think that saying that makes someone a "left wing crackpot", fine - but are you willing to discuss the evidence, or are you just going to flame mindlessly?

here

chomsky.com(looks like some band)

chomsky.info(Noam Chomsky)

Q.E.D