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Anyone interested in truely alternative modern mass media critiques should read Noam Chomsky's "Necessary Illusions: Thought Control In Democratic Societies" or "Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media" (or watch the documentary by the same name by Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick).

A quote from the zmag chomsky archive website says "The authors identify the forces that they contend make the national media propagandistic -- the major three being the motivation for profit through ad revenue, the media's close links to and often ownership by corporations, and their acceptance of information from biased sources."

Chomsky's writing don't touch on the processes that make one young girl's kidnapping more

You might want to read Chomsky.

This isn't to say that it's without flaws - there are many revoltingly xenophobic comments on it, for example. But there is no question that it provides an excellent service and makes people much better informed than they otherwise would be.

I think a major problem with the Left is best expressed in this article, written by left-wing activist Michael Albert. Basically, he says that the left expresses hate for American institutions, but lacks a compelling alternative vision. The left knows what it hates - contemporary society - but doesn't know what it likes.

Because of this lack of solutions, the left feels more like an organized mass than a dialogue. The Left "solutions" that have been tried tend not to work frightfully well, and that produces a distinctly gloomy bias. First we had Leninism, then we had Maoism; neither worked. Then we had the Great Society, which started us on the path towards the Crummy Society. So what can the Left offer that's in any way positive? I can't think of much, and that tends to limit both popularity and contributions.

Remember, the Left believes in participatory democracy, which is largely a sham (look at voter turnout in the last election if you don't believe me). The right believes in a market - a place where almost anything goes and life is far freer. This makes individual expression far more important than it is on the left, since in the market society, the individual's voice is heard. I want a $3,400 digital camera, so I buy one; you want a $40 Instamatic, you buy it. We both get what we want.

The result of this is that conservatives like discussing their views, while liberals tend to bow to voices of authority such as Noam Chomsky or Salon. So the conservative format is talk radio or Internet discussion boards, while the leftist format is The Nation or Salon. In many respects, the leftist media is superior, since it tends to include better, more carefully researched articles. But the righitst media is enormously more participatory, and I think that gives people more of a feeling of involvement, more of a stake, and thus more willingness to donate money.

D

Perhaps, but one could speculate that this money would not go anywhere other than the shareholders' coffers...

There's an interesting article on zmag about how if the mainstream news talks about things being bad or good in the economy or whatnot, they're talking about it from the point of view of those at the top of corporations. This might be one of those cases.

Just speculatin' is all.

I suggest a little bit of reading. Noam Chomsky's writings are a good place to start, and here is an excellent piece by him. I agree that the US has done many good things with its military, but it has also done many bad things, which are mostly swept under the carpet.

Actually, that's only true from one set of perspectives. Think of it this way: Your title to the house is merely a piece of paper that says that the house is yours. All it means is that you can get men in blue uniforms with guns to show up and kick other people out of the house if you want, assuming the political climate stays roughly equivalent to what it is.

This does not mean you "own" the house, any more than having control of the police force and the ability to break into people's houses, kill them, and take their property means you "own" the house (but then, when has that ever stopped anyone?)

www.jbs.org[jbs.org]

The following well-written articles address the question of comparing Israel with the Nazi state:

Final Solution in the Occupied Territories by Edward Herman
Apartheid in the Holy Land by Desmond Tutu
Open Letter to General Ariel Sharon by Breyten Breytenbach

I my opinion, while comparing the treatment received by the Palestinians under the Israeli state to the Holocaust remains a futile exaggeration, comparing this state with the Nazism of the 30's or with the South African apartheid regime is perfect valid.

Beliskner said: Does anybody have a comprehensive list of what's wrong with US Foreign Policy

google found this link. cheers.

Other world-wide causes the US has declined to participate in.

It's a big list, and you'll see a couple dozen of some very interesting ones. Whenever the capitalistic war-mongering apologists talk about how the U.S. is such a world leader, it always makes me wonder how many other world leaders lead by abstaining from progressive political activity.

The biggest obstacle to world peace and harmony is the United States, BAR NONE. If you're an American who faithfully supports your government, know that you're part of the problem. If you're just a regular joe trying to figure out why people aren't REALLY trying to make the world a better place, take a good look at that list and see that many countries ARE trying.

Apparently, Chomsky gave the French translation rights of his work to Serge Thion to publish as he pleased.
Chomsky denies that he ever intended his work to be published with Faurrisson's and he further claims that he tried to stop it when he found out about it.
http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2001/04/BRICMONT/ 15109 (the article is in French)

So there you have it. I don't know if Chomsky is lying, but his story sounds entirely plausible to me.
Stephan

It isn't so much the commercial use of this information that bothers me but, rather, that it's being accumulated in the first place leaves the door open for shady government agencies to have access to it in a harder to fight way than something slightly more attributable and, therefore, possible to fight such as Carnivore.

If you think about it, there was no real reason for the FBI to stick their neck out like that with an actual hardware wire-tap of their own when most ISPs would probably bend over backwards to share the info they've already collected for commercial reasons.

Want to know who's been visiting dangerous, subversive websites? Simply send Agent Crewcut to play a few rounds of golf with CEO Weasel and suggest that there might be some juicy government contracts coming up for grabs.

Who is Thomas Friedman? A "hired prizefighter" for the establishment. With his flowery verbiage and effusive analogies he paints the canvas of human affairs, but distorted as in fun-house mirrors -- a fine article on the varied exploits of our favorite hack can be found on ZNet Do hit that link, it's really well done in my opinion.

It's tough to see through his prose, but Tommy advocates war crimes, assassinations, bombing campaigns, yes even terrorrism in support of "American interests." Internet controls and filters are certainly within the interests of the establishment, to keep our illustrious sage of globalization in place on his throne as universal arbiter of truth.

What a hack.

thomas l. friedman is little more than a bootlicking warmongering hack. he has called for ethnic cleansing and vengeful bloodbaths on several occasions, and he is rewarded with pullitzers (see article here).

please.

personnally i'd be more concerned about all the people treating the new york times like the bible (and friedman as the high priest at the altar of "freedom"). they do the world a lot more damage.

The fact that Israel has been practicing ethnic cleansing on the Palestinians for many decades is a fact documented by may scholars, non-Jewish and Jewish alike. The Internet simply makes it easy to bypass mainstream media and get the word out. This is what upsets Friedman. He fears the democratization effect of the Internet. Arab viewpoints don't become magically invalid simply because they are expressed over a powerful medium such as the Internet.

To further the point, the Palestinians have no army, are manginalized, killed, tortured, have no hope, etc., thus, as guaranteed by international law they fight back against an occupying army in the only way they can, with suicide bombs. It IS deplorable, but it is also deplorable that Israel practices ethnic cleansing. Somehow Israeli atrocities get whitewashed or not reported in U.S. mainstream media. In Europe the news is more balanced, but then they get criticised for anti-Semitism.

When Arabs worry that they will be killed by Jews and Christians, this *IS EXACTLY* what is happening -- at least in Palestine. The U.S. sends military equipment to Israel and Israel carries out it's 100 year old Zionist goal of an Arab-free Israel. It IS a reality. It isn't hard to see that Arabs are worried about what will happen next. Thus the great sin committed by the Arabs is that while they once worried privately, not they are worrying publicly using new Internet technology.

The "4,000 Jews not showing up to work" story may very well be a lie -- it's not entirely clear at this point because of allegations of the interception of instant messages coming from Israel -- but the fact that the rumor exists -- even if false -- points to the suspicion many have of Israel and the fact that they have acted as an agent provoceteur in the past to achieve their goals.

Exactly. I would also commend you to read the this article by Noam Chomsky that points out a number of facts (the documented, independent, uncontested variety, not political "facts") that back this up.

"On the second point, I don't know exactly what the media means by pacifists. There are a small number of people, people who I very much respect and who I've known for year, who are true pacifists. They don't believe in violence. Yes there are such people. I don't happen to agree with them and never have, but I respect the position.

However, what's called the peace movement has never taken that view. I know very few people who were not in favor of fighting the war against Hitler if they'd been alive or in retrospect. What the serious peace movement has been asking for is pretty much what the Pope just asked for, openly. He said, and he's right, it [the attack on the WTC] was a terrible crime and when there is a crime, those who are responsible should be held accountable and brought to justice, but without harming great numbers of innocent people.".

So just that we all understand you, according to your logic, if you don't agree with Israel, if we criticize its politics or head of state, we are anti-semitic? And if you happen to be jewish and criticize Israel or Sharon (like Chomsky), you are a "self-hating jew" (even rabbis)? So no debate is possible, right? Boy, you're quite the reactionary! Putting David Duke, Farrakhan and Chomsky in the same boat...

Anyway, that has nothing to do with the current debate. First, Chomsky earns a living as a linguistics professor. Even though some of his theories have been questioned, there is no doubt that he remains one of the most influential person in the field. Second, about his political activism sideline (which has quite a following, notwithstanding your uneducated appraisal): I guess you've read some of his writing in order to talk about him with such assurance. Could you please give us an example (with links) of his anti-semitism (his words, mind you, not what some have said about him). You can find a lot of his writing online here. You can also show us an example of his hate for Western Culture, his racism and his "narrow-minded, hate-based dialogue." You should have no trouble identifying the latter if you find it, seeing as how you so aptly use it yourself.

BTW, Sharon was judged to be inderectly responsible for the massacre at Sabra and Shatila by his own government...so, if you're criticizing this, I guess this makes you an anti-semite too! Boy, this is fun!

Here's an article by Chomsky on the WTO and pharmaceutical companies from a few years back.

not with a bang but with a whimper right? read some of this guy

I absolutely agree 100%.

You will probably find this amusing

Its about FUD && Propaganda - and RMS knows this, he may seem like a 'broken' record to "us", but he is spreading his meme well. Read some Chomsky - language is a complex tool.

I don't agree with the point of mixing up these two: Globalization and 9/11 attack, I'll explain my view. For me, the attack MAY BE just "somebody doesn't like the things that the USA do out there", and I won't go into discussion about their licity although I would like to mention that I am in principle against any kind of violence and therefore neither I like the USA intrusism nor I like the attack.

Now for the globalization movement. I think that there are many different people with many different reasons to be against this "invention" out there. I am myself firmly against the globalization movement so I'll explain my reasons.

Ecological reasons:
It is stupid to ellaborate a biscuit in Spain (actually my home country) and sell it in Australia while ellaborating some other biscuits there in Australia to sell them in Spain, well understood that good conditions are given for the two countries to ellaborate their own biscuits using either cooking recipe. Full stop. Now a bit further. If doing this is convenient for many companies, as it is the case, then big warning: Something is wrong. And so we arrive to the next chapter, social reasons.

Social reasons:
(Or how these companies, the multinationals, do business.) So it is in fact convenient for many companies to manufacture their products far away, even spending much money in trasportation. It is simple to imagine (or perhaps not so simple) to what extent the worker is being exploited. The concept is so obvious that I won't explain it, I will just say that, at least in Europe, chances are that if you pick any article of clothing in a store and have a look, it has been manufactured in China or Korea. For a cup of rice. You may say: If we rejected to buy those, that people would die. No. If we did so, their corrupt governments could not take place and convenient social laws would be adopted, just in our privilleged countries.

Choice reasons:
We consumers lose our freedom of choice. You may say: If you prefer to pay more and avoid exploitation, well, you are free to do so and let people decide by their own instead of trying to ban globalization or anything. Wrong. If we haven't got the information, then it's impossible for us to know what is going on. It would be neccessary for every piece of product to have a hundred of stickers telling how, when and where it was manufactured, impossible, paranoid. The result would be pretty much the same as with the EULAs. To use the same example: WE THINK THAT "Write Your Own Damn Code" IS GOOD, BUT WE DON'T CARE ABOUT "Grow Your Own Vegetables". Or buy them to a near neighbour or at least NEAR, say in your home country. Not patriotism or anything, it is just that we know better what is going on AT HOME than far away.

Economical reasons:
Read this: World Bank Secret Documents Consumes Argentina

My opinions are just opinions, and I am even often changing my views. But my point is that these reasons, wrong or right, make sense, I am not a hippy or anarchist but a design engineer, I LIKE to think. Therefore I don't like this link between the 9/11 attack and globalization.

If you find this interesting, this link may be of interest to you: Znet (Zmag), specially here.

But seriously, if you want to learn something about the evils of globalization as it is being played out, check out:

• The Noam Chomsky Archive
• Bad News: Noam Chomsky Archive

What crap. Can you please provide one piece of evidence to support this point? The debate was over the CIA-initiated coup against a democratically elected regime in Chile. There is no evidence this democratically elected regime would have led to "a global communist rule," and only an idiot or a paranoid could possibly imagine that it would. The US intervened in Chile to protect the economic interests of US corporations, which were identified as the US "national interest." All this is well documented. Pol Pot and Stalin were murderous leaders, no doubt, but it is hardly arguable that US intervention in Chile (as well as the other interventions mentioned by the other poster, i.e. Iran and Guatemala) did anything to stop them. Even US intervention in Vietnam may have helped Pol Pot rather than hurt him. In any case, the very idea that the USSR or the PRC or Cambodia was on the verge of instituting world dictatorship without the interventions of the US in various third world countries is laughable.

Maybe if these countries spent more time thinking about themselves and unfucking their own lives/governments/economy/etc., they wouldn't even need to come here to work.

First off if you dont know by now that the US has it's hands in every countries business then I suggest you do some reading. The reason why these countries can't "unfuck" themselves is because the US has other plans for them . For example Iran had a democratic system back in the day, but the US thought oil was more important so with the help of the CIA the shah came back. Years later this hate for what the US did came back, and you had American hostages in Iran. Dont worry Americans aren't the only one's that like freedom, a house, a nice life, etc. but it seems if a country goes away from what the US wants (it risks having it's govt. overthrown

for more on goats visit www.heritage.org!

Your argument is missing some distinctions.

First, "countries" are not atomic entities. There are interest groups within them. The RIAA/MPAA + media giants have their allies within many of the signatory countries. They would like nothing more than to control content and the means of distributing content completely. They would also like to control prices, limit competition, and some guranteed income in the form of hardware taxes.

These groups have the advantage of money and organization, but the disadvanatge that many of them live in democratic countries. So to get what they want, they have to do an end run around the democratic process. One way to do this is with economic treaties, which are negotiated in secret, by the very groups who will benefit most from them, and are then passed on to legislatures to be rubber stamped.

Why do the legislatures rubber stamp them? Well, for one thing, the lawmakers tend to be predisposed to favor this stuff in the first place, due to a variety of filters. For instance, in the US, to even be eligable to make a run for congress requires that you raise about $1,000,000/year from wealthy individuals. This means that our representatives are not exactly a "cross-section" of the population. So the lawmakers don't view the public as some group to be served, but as an annoying constituency which should be kept quiet and under control. I'm generalizing here, but the principle is fairly accuarate. In other countries there are other filters, of varying restrictiveness.

Moreover, the media doesn't highlight these amendments. Where was the huge public debate about the Telecommunications Act? Where was the public debate about the DMCA? Why do these agreements slip under the radar? There is little discussion of them in the media -- unless through leaks or lack of control word spreads anyways, and then there is a rush to defend them. So the Nafta debate, which was caused only because Perot -- who can buy his own air time -- forced the issue onto the airwaves. And then there was a rush by the NYTimes, Washington Post, etc. to villify him and to not present the opposing views.

Finally there is the method of bundling, by which these agreements are presented to congress without possibility to amend them, as part of a larger package, for a straight up or down vote. Threats of boycotts, higher tariffs, cutting of loans/aid are big clubs than can be used against other countries to get them to sign. But the key point is that the legislatures generally want to sign these things, and the aforementioned threats are provided as cover for them to say to their citizens -- "we had to do it."

At the end of the day, you end up paying taxes when you buy a hard drive, and the police can arrest you for reverse engineering, even if your goal is to interoperate, or just provide a lower price substitute.

I recommend reading an article about the derailed Multilateral Agreement on Investements to see this dynamic at work. In the case of the MAI, media leaks, mostly on the internet, launched a grassroots effort to oppose the provisions of the MAI. This resulted in derailing the agreement as more and more of the provisions came to light, and public hearings in several countries were called. A brief excerpt:


The [Wall Street] journal goes on to urge that it will be necessary "to drum up business support" so as to beat back the hordes [of people opposed to the MAI]. Until now, business hasn't recognized the severity of the threat. And it is severe indeed. "Veteran trade diplomats" warn that with "growing demands for greater openness and accountability," it is becoming "harder for negotiators to do deals behind closed doors and submit them for rubber-stamping by parliaments." "Instead, they face pressure to gain wider popular legitimacy for their actions by explaining and defending them in public," no easy task when the hordes are concerned about "social and economic security," and when the impact of trade agreements "on ordinary people's lives...risks stirring up popular resentment" and "sensitivities over issues such as enviromental and food safety standards." It might even become impossible "to resist demands for direct participation by lobby groups in WTO decisions, which would violate one of the body's central principles": "'This is the place where governments collude in private against their domestic pressure groups,' says a former WTO official."

The FCC is a joke, and these laws have been gutted for years.

Recommendation: stop paying attention to them, and read some stuff that isn't "owned" by anybody.

Except that you leave out that the Palestinians spent the last 50 years trying to destroy Israel, so Israel has some reason to keep the Palestinians under control. Not to mention that the Israelis haven't yet tried to actually wipe out the Palestinians, though I can see the day coming when they might try it, or at least to expel them all into Jordan and Egypt.

Many Palestinians have spent the last 50 years trying to simply survive underneath an Israeli government that started its existence by dispossesing many of the non-Jewish peoples and using terrorist tactics. Not to mention that the state was, to some extent, established by fiat of the dominant (and still very colonial) world powers of the time.

This doesn't mean the suicide bombers are right, or that the very real crimes of the Israelis make the crimes of the Palestinian people any less real. What it does mean is that the Israeli State is just as much to blame for the situation there as any Arab or Palestinian organization. This biography provides some interesting insights.

And while he may not be striclty correct, I don't blame the poster for thinking the US is doing the wrong thing in Columbia. We have a fairly long history of doing the wrong thing, sometimes with good intentions, sometimes without. It's only too bad that in many cases, the opposition is equally corrupt, and ceasing US intervention wouldn't be enough to bring peace to the world.

Bottom line: the world is a complicated place, the good guys aren't easy to tell from the bad guys, and often, people and nations are a mix of both.

2 - we have this little thing called freedom of speech. There is no law prohibiting the dissemination of bomb making information. If that is a crime, I guess Amazon.com is a terrorist organization:

In fact, that's exactly what the LA Weekly arrticle says the PATRIOT Act does - makes the dissemination of bombmaking information on the Internet illegal.

I'm not one for violent overthrow, only self-defense, but the weapons-making info should be protected under Amendment 1. I've sometimes been interested in weapons and how to construct them, just for the sake of knowing how to do it and how they work. Mind you, some of the stuff in the Reclaim Guide was apparently more Anarchist Cookbook-like than anything else (and, as someone who identifies with anarchist ideals of freedom, direct democracy, and decentralized authority, I hate typing that book's name), but there was other information - how to make shields, group demonstration tactics, a discussion of what a black bloc is and isn't, etc. Quite frankly, the WTC attack should show that hiding all the weapons-making info in the world won't stop someone determined to destroy stuff. Amendment 1 makes no caveats like "except information that could be used to destroy stuff." The assumption within is that people will be taught to use information responsibly, even so-called dangerous information.

Now, cracking machines, that was stupid, although it explains the "computer fraud and abuse" charge that confused a few of us discussing the raid early on.

I think I visited raisethefist.com once out of curiosity, but really didn't check out the content until the raid went down. It's more hotheaded and aggressive than some other anarchist and activist sites I can think of. He was a hotheaded kid. Be disappointed with his cracking of machines used by others (that violates "the right to swing your fist ends at my nose"), but defend his right to speak about subjects the government would rather people be unaware about, even if "for their own good."

About the "overthrowing the Constitution" claim... here's Google's cache of raisethefist, limited to the occurences of the word "constitution." Overthrowing the government is not necessarily overthrowing the Constitution, especially if that government routinely violates that same Constitution and takes no responsbility for those violations.

Not exactly. Speaking of killing innocent people on purpose look how many innocent Afghani's had died as of Dec. 6th thanks to US bombing. And while that is a low estimate, and was tallied almost 2 months ago, it still supasses the number of innocents lost when the trade towers came down. Considering that the US government has ordered all news services to place a low priority on civilian deaths because they are "a normal part of war" (everything that happens in a war is generally a normal part of war, we might as well just stop reporting entirely) and even though civilian deaths haven't been the goal of our attacks, in the words of Tim Wise, "the end result has been a distinction without difference. Dead is dead, and when one's actions have entirely foreseeable consequences, it is little more than a precious and empty platitude to argue that those consequences were merely accidental."

Especially when the government specifically targets Al Jazeera's Kabul office so that they can't report on civilian deaths, you realise that the hate felt for the US is completely rational. If it weren't for an atrocious foreign policy we wouldn't have the terrorist problem (or at least it wouldn't be as big) in the first place. Remember, violence begets violence. Even if you wouldn't have joined Al Queda before, would you join it now that the US bombed your mud house with a 2000 lb. JDAM bomb (whose taxes pay for that?) and killed all of your family for reasons that you don't really even know? (See the cursor.org story.) I know I would.

Back to drugs. What if all drugs were legal? The answer can be found here. But then how would the CIA be able to fund its covert ops, and does Uncle Sam really want to give all that money spent on the WoD back to the American people? They couldn't, and Uncle Sam doesn't. The truth is that the WoD is a cash cow, and if drugs were legal then they would no longer have exorbitant black market prices (which puts people in the gutter, and supposedly funds terrorists, which I thought is what we are trying to avoid anyway).

The sad thing is that all this is just the tip of the hypothetical iceberg. The US government sucks. For the good of, well, everyone we need to reduce it to its Constitutional limitations while the people still have the power to do so without a war. Well, that or I'm out of here as soon as I'm 18.

Not exactly. Speaking of killing innocent people on purpose look how many innocent Afghani's had died as of Dec. 6th thanks to US bombing. And while that is a low estimate, and was tallied almost 2 months ago, it still supasses the number of innocents lost when the trade towers came down. Considering that the US government has ordered all news services to place a low priority on civilian deaths because they are "a normal part of war" (everything that happens in a war is generally a normal part of war, we might as well just stop reporting entirely) and even though civilian deaths haven't been the goal of our attacks, in the words of Tim Wise, "the end result has been a distinction without difference. Dead is dead, and when one's actions have entirely foreseeable consequences, it is little more than a precious and empty platitude to argue that those consequences were merely accidental."

Especially when the government specifically targets Al Jazeera's Kabul office so that they can't report on civilian deaths, you realise that the hate felt for the US is completely rational. If it weren't for an atrocious foreign policy we wouldn't have the terrorist problem (or at least it wouldn't be as big) in the first place. Remember, violence begets violence. Even if you wouldn't have joined Al Queda before, would you join it now that the US bombed your mud house with a 2000 lb. JDAM bomb (whose taxes pay for that?) and killed all of your family for reasons that you don't really even know? (See the cursor.org story.) I know I would.

Back to drugs. What if all drugs were legal? The answer can be found here. But then how would the CIA be able to fund its covert ops, and does Uncle Sam really want to give all that money spent on the WoD back to the American people? They couldn't, and Uncle Sam doesn't. The truth is that the WoD is a cash cow, and if drugs were legal then they would no longer have exorbitant black market prices (which puts people in the gutter, and supposedly funds terrorists, which I thought is what we are trying to avoid anyway).

The sad thing is that all this is just the tip of the hypothetical iceberg. The US government sucks. For the good of, well, everyone we need to reduce it to its Constitutional limitations while the people still have the power to do so without a war. Well, that or I'm out of here as soon as I'm 18.

what stands out are his highly rational arguments, as well as his meticulous documentation

Clearly you ought to read more of Chomsky's serious critics. Granted, they can be hard to find since mainstream thinkers dismiss him and his fans out of hand.

This piece by Hitchens points out many gross errors in Chomsky's most ridiculous recent assertion --- that the Sept. 11 attacks considered as an atrocity do not "reach the level" of Clinton's bombing of the Sudanese pharmaceutical factory. (To me the most astounding thing was that Chomsky said this back when it was believed that over 10,000 people were murdered in the Sept 11 attacks!)

This is not to defend Clinton's bombing of the Sudan, but to show Chomsky's ultimate lack of credibility.

One of Chomsky's factual errors is to assert that the US blocked inquiries into the number of people dying from lack of drugs in the Sudan. This is easily verified as false. What the US blocked was an inquiry into what the factory produced.

One clear error in Chomsky's reasoning is his accounting of how death and suffering is to be compared. In the case of the Sudan, Chomsky counts indirect deaths caused by lack of medicine (he calls them direct). But with the destruction of the WTC he does not consider the staggering blow it has had on the world economy. Markets are held back. Foreign investments are curtailed. With decreased tax revenue in Europe, Japan, and the US, governments are forced to cut back on new programs to help the developing world.

Just where does he think $100M pharamaceutical factories come from? For that matter, how is it that new medicines are developed in the first place? The actual attack, as well as the fear of more attacks, has set back the entire world. It is in the developing world that people will suffer most of the continuing indirect effects of the Sept. 11 attacks. But although Chomsky finds these effects vitally important in the toll of the Sudanese bombing, but does not begin to consider them for the Sept. 11 attacks.

Worst of all, Chomsky wrote a reply which turns out to be more ad hominem than anything else. Chomsky does not respond to factual errors that Hitchens pointed out. Chomsky says he need not discuss the question of "Can the attacks of September 11 be compared to an earlier outrage committed by Americans?". But Chomsky did in fact compare the two events. (In his published note "On the Bombings".) Hitchens' question is legitimate and must be answered in any valid defense of Chomsky's statements on the Sept 11 attacks. In spite of earlier interest in the topic, Chomsky now declares the conversation ended, the question irrelevant and, in my view, forfeits both his position and his credibility as a serious, reasonable thinker.

what stands out are his highly rational arguments, as well as his meticulous documentation

Clearly you ought to read more of Chomsky's serious critics. Granted, they can be hard to find since mainstream thinkers dismiss him and his fans out of hand.

This piece by Hitchens points out many gross errors in Chomsky's most ridiculous recent assertion --- that the Sept. 11 attacks considered as an atrocity do not "reach the level" of Clinton's bombing of the Sudanese pharmaceutical factory. (To me the most astounding thing was that Chomsky said this back when it was believed that over 10,000 people were murdered in the Sept 11 attacks!)

This is not to defend Clinton's bombing of the Sudan, but to show Chomsky's ultimate lack of credibility.

One of Chomsky's factual errors is to assert that the US blocked inquiries into the number of people dying from lack of drugs in the Sudan. This is easily verified as false. What the US blocked was an inquiry into what the factory produced.

One clear error in Chomsky's reasoning is his accounting of how death and suffering is to be compared. In the case of the Sudan, Chomsky counts indirect deaths caused by lack of medicine (he calls them direct). But with the destruction of the WTC he does not consider the staggering blow it has had on the world economy. Markets are held back. Foreign investments are curtailed. With decreased tax revenue in Europe, Japan, and the US, governments are forced to cut back on new programs to help the developing world.

Just where does he think $100M pharamaceutical factories come from? For that matter, how is it that new medicines are developed in the first place? The actual attack, as well as the fear of more attacks, has set back the entire world. It is in the developing world that people will suffer most of the continuing indirect effects of the Sept. 11 attacks. But although Chomsky finds these effects vitally important in the toll of the Sudanese bombing, but does not begin to consider them for the Sept. 11 attacks.

Worst of all, Chomsky wrote a reply which turns out to be more ad hominem than anything else. Chomsky does not respond to factual errors that Hitchens pointed out. Chomsky says he need not discuss the question of "Can the attacks of September 11 be compared to an earlier outrage committed by Americans?". But Chomsky did in fact compare the two events. (In his published note "On the Bombings".) Hitchens' question is legitimate and must be answered in any valid defense of Chomsky's statements on the Sept 11 attacks. In spite of earlier interest in the topic, Chomsky now declares the conversation ended, the question irrelevant and, in my view, forfeits both his position and his credibility as a serious, reasonable thinker.

what stands out are his highly rational arguments, as well as his meticulous documentation

Clearly you ought to read more of Chomsky's serious critics. Granted, they can be hard to find since mainstream thinkers dismiss him and his fans out of hand.

This piece by Hitchens points out many gross errors in Chomsky's most ridiculous recent assertion --- that the Sept. 11 attacks considered as an atrocity do not "reach the level" of Clinton's bombing of the Sudanese pharmaceutical factory. (To me the most astounding thing was that Chomsky said this back when it was believed that over 10,000 people were murdered in the Sept 11 attacks!)

This is not to defend Clinton's bombing of the Sudan, but to show Chomsky's ultimate lack of credibility.

One of Chomsky's factual errors is to assert that the US blocked inquiries into the number of people dying from lack of drugs in the Sudan. This is easily verified as false. What the US blocked was an inquiry into what the factory produced.

One clear error in Chomsky's reasoning is his accounting of how death and suffering is to be compared. In the case of the Sudan, Chomsky counts indirect deaths caused by lack of medicine (he calls them direct). But with the destruction of the WTC he does not consider the staggering blow it has had on the world economy. Markets are held back. Foreign investments are curtailed. With decreased tax revenue in Europe, Japan, and the US, governments are forced to cut back on new programs to help the developing world.

Just where does he think $100M pharamaceutical factories come from? For that matter, how is it that new medicines are developed in the first place? The actual attack, as well as the fear of more attacks, has set back the entire world. It is in the developing world that people will suffer most of the continuing indirect effects of the Sept. 11 attacks. But although Chomsky finds these effects vitally important in the toll of the Sudanese bombing, but does not begin to consider them for the Sept. 11 attacks.

Worst of all, Chomsky wrote a reply which turns out to be more ad hominem than anything else. Chomsky does not respond to factual errors that Hitchens pointed out. Chomsky says he need not discuss the question of "Can the attacks of September 11 be compared to an earlier outrage committed by Americans?". But Chomsky did in fact compare the two events. (In his published note "On the Bombings".) Hitchens' question is legitimate and must be answered in any valid defense of Chomsky's statements on the Sept 11 attacks. In spite of earlier interest in the topic, Chomsky now declares the conversation ended, the question irrelevant and, in my view, forfeits both his position and his credibility as a serious, reasonable thinker.

true, there is no oil in Afghanistan to speak of (though there is some gas) - but oil and gas are a crucially important part of the current unpleasantness there.

why? simple. there are very large oil and gas reserves in Turkmenistan (and surrounding nations), directly to the north of Afghanistan, and for years American oil companies have been maneouvring to have a pipeline built from Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan, south to Pakistan and thence to the giant markets in North America, Europe, etc.

by "very large", read oil deposits similar to those of Saudi Arabia, and the largest gas reserves in the world.

when the stakes are this high, a lot of the strange stuff going on in this region recently starts to make sense...

Pipeline Politics: Oil, gas and the US interest in Afghanistan

Oil and Gas International editorial

Control of Central Asia's oil is the real goal

The oil behind Bush and Son's campaigns

Please, get a clue.

Consider the clue already gotten.

And if you don't still believe me...Read the topmost story here.

In some ways, our involvement in Afghanistan has a clear moral justification and purpose...

Ah yes. Kill more civilians than were killed on Sept 11th, and replace one band of thugs with another (only these ones are on our side (in much the same way that bin laden himself was on our side...)). Also, don't cry too hard when you can't actually get your man, so that the massive increase in political power at home and internationally can stick around for a while longer.

Very clear. Very moral. Very justified.

Jeez, Katz. I expected better of you.

Okay, so you pay a lot more in taxes than your dad did. Does that give you more money?

Or does that, via the state subsidies that keeps the free-market illusion alive, give private corporations more money?

Maybe I'm missing something here, but isn't the amount of money you actually get to keep what actually counts?

And if you really are paying that much more, don't you think some of that should end up benefitting yourself, and your family? But that isn't where the money goes.

Please get a reality check.

Anyone who believes a single word of the predictions stated in this review needs an immidiate reality check.

Please get one.

The only way things are going to get better is if we all 1) realize that all the time more of our last shreds of freedom and rights are being taken away from us, and 2) there is no one else but you and me who can or will do anything about it.

The year is 1984, and the matrix has you...

Check here for starters, and read some Noam Chomsky if you think you're smart enough to handle objective thinking with evidence to back it up.

Oh, I forgot, you don't get paid to think. You get paid to vote for .NET in online polls, and flood newsgroups and Slashdot with reports of how stable XP is. My mistake. Go about your business.

Adolph Hitler

It may not be over oil this time but if the texas oil tycoons and others get their way to build an oil pipeline to the Indian Sea through afghanistan and pakinstan you better believe that the next time it will be over oil.

So does the Japanese, Korean, etc. Why aren't you critising them as well?

Uh..maybe because this topic is about censorship in China?

Also, you seem to have missed the point of my post. I advocated for the acceptance of criticism. You respond with

1. obscenities

2. pointing out the faults of the japanese/koreans

3. blaming me for not being critical of the japanese/koreans

4. repeat 2-3 for the US,

5. lots of shouting that you are pissed off

Obviously your blood is boiling at the slightest suggestion of criticism of China. I hope that you're not an official with some power, but even if you are not -- you are the problem. It's people like that which were waving their little red books in the sixities, ready to shout down anyone who was an enemy of the state. If you don't realize that, then you don't understand the first thing about McCarthyism. You're infected, buddy.

Now, about the personal attacks. I've posted almost 80 comments. All but the last few have been critical of the US and it's allies. Hell, I give money every month to z magazine which is a portal containing loads of articles which protest and criticize US govt. actions. That's my main job. Since I live in the US, my primary responsibility is to try to stir opposition to US abuses. Read my other posts if you don't believe me. I haven't "conveniently" neglected anything. The difference between me and you, is that when someone suggests that my govt is doing something wrong, I look for the facts, find out what the problem is (to the best of my abilities) and then thank them for letting me know. I put the stuff on the web, tell my friends, and organize to try to draw attention to the problem. I volunteer my time to maintain websites which protest US foreign policy. 90% of my interests have nothing to do with China or Japan.

On the other hand, when you hear criticism of China you 1. get defensive
2. blame the foreign news media
3. blame me for bringing it up.
3. don't investigate
4. draw attention to what other countries are doing.

You are like those people who shout "America love it or leave it." You don't want to live in an open society. You claim that my criticisms are somehow helping hard-liners, but your actions (1-4) above tell me that you are as much of a hard-liner as anyone else. You ask me how do I know that you are not working to promote freedom of speech and protest? Well, just look at your own post. If this is how you react when someone protests your govt.'s policy, then you are certainly not respecting their rights do so. Or perhaps only ethnic chinese are allowed to do that? If that's what you think, then you're pretty far down on the evolutionary ladder. And no, please don't generalize my comments to mean "all chinese" when I'm referring to you -- that sort of groupthink is why I posted in the first place.


You cannot take criticism. You are the problem.

What I'm saying is that these extremists want us dead and our society destroyed. And there is absolutely nothing we can peacefully do, politically or otherwise, to change that. There is no reasoning with these extremists because their end goal is the complete and utter destruction of our (re: most average Americans') way of life.

Oh, and as far as military action in the Middle East for centuries goes...don't forget war amongst the tribes, fueding warlords, etc, etc. It ins't just the West that's been fighting there.

If there were effective alternatives to forcefully protecting ourselves, then I'd love to hear them.

And just what is the West trying to accomplish in Afghanistan?

• whatreallyhappened.com
• WAR ON TERROR: THE REAL VICTIMS
• Boom, Bust and Echo: A Dark Theory Behind Black Tuesday (This one is a little over the top, but there is some interesting information)
• Asking "Why?"
• Explaining Arab anger
• They can't see why they are hated
• Who did it? Foreign Report presents an alternative view
• When Will We Learn?
• Why we should reject American propaganda
• emperors-clothes.com
• zmag.org, see especially:
  • The New War Against Terror

But, you can make it clear to other nations that a given government will not be allowed to exist if said government either turns a blind eye to terrorists operating in its borders or, even worse, endorses and supports terrorists.

What I'm saying is that these extremists want us dead and our society destroyed. And there is absolutely nothing we can peacefully do, politically or otherwise, to change that. There is no reasoning with these extremists because their end goal is the complete and utter destruction of our (re: most average Americans') way of life.

Oh, and as far as military action in the Middle East for centuries goes...don't forget war amongst the tribes, fueding warlords, etc, etc. It ins't just the West that's been fighting there.

If there were effective alternatives to forcefully protecting ourselves, then I'd love to hear them.

And just what is the West trying to accomplish in Afghanistan?

• whatreallyhappened.com
• WAR ON TERROR: THE REAL VICTIMS
• Boom, Bust and Echo: A Dark Theory Behind Black Tuesday (This one is a little over the top, but there is some interesting information)
• Asking "Why?"
• Explaining Arab anger
• They can't see why they are hated
• Who did it? Foreign Report presents an alternative view
• When Will We Learn?
• Why we should reject American propaganda
• emperors-clothes.com
• zmag.org, see especially:
  • The New War Against Terror

But, you can make it clear to other nations that a given government will not be allowed to exist if said government either turns a blind eye to terrorists operating in its borders or, even worse, endorses and supports terrorists.

Guys, the reason the US is hated in the middle east is not because the rest of the world hates freedom (sorry Dubbyah) and it's not because the US has lots of modern technology (sorry Katz). It's because US foreign policy has been a kind of terrorism on the middle east.

US funding of Israel and the US habit of vetoing the hundreds of UN resolutions that otherwise would have been passed against Israel have both funded and ligitimised the loss of countless Arab lives.

I would guess that a lot of the rest of the world (I'm a New Zealander BTW) would be unimpressed at other bits of US foreign policy: ignoring the world court when it finds against them (e.g.: bay of pigs), the treatment of Cuba (the Red peril is past, okay?), the unjustified bombing of the pharmaceutecal capabilities of the Sudan (which supplied 90% of the anti-malarial drugs in that country), using trade as a weapon (that why New Zealand was drawn into Vietnam, for example)

I am amazed and saddened by the lack of insight Americans have into the misery caused by American foreign policy. I'm not saying that everything American is bad - far from it, I'm all for the global village and US technology has had a lot to do with making that happen. What I am saying is that Americans should wake up. To say that someone would attack you because they either hate freedom or are jealous of big American cars is either dangerously naive or willfully blind.

Wake up! Read ZMag for some insight.

That's a very Chomskian viewpoint - "I don't know what to do, but what the US is doing is wrong."

I've read a lot of Chomsky, and that's not what he's been saying. The first step is to ask the right questions. If you don't, you can't possibly hope to make an informed decision. The first question that must be asked is "Why were the crimes of Sept. 11th committed?" Only then can we hope to stop the violence.

Hint: It has nothing to do with America being the land of the free and the home of the brave.

More hints: Palestine and Isreal. 10 years of sanctions and bombing of Iraq. U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia. Supporting oppressive regimes that are friendly to oil interests.

As Chomsky has made very clear, there are more choices than attack, aid, or ignore. But any solution should start with the basic premise of "first, do no harm."

Bombing an already starving population ruled by an oppressive regime right before winter sets in is going to result in the deaths of millions of civilians by winter's end. Is that helping or doing harm? We haven't taken out the Taliban, and now there's talk of keeping some of the "moderates" in poower to rule with the Northern Alliance. Hello?! The Northern Alliance is the world's major heroine producer.

Before the U.S. began its viscious revenge (God bless America -- He's on our side), Afghanis were at least receiving U.N. food aid and aid from Pakistan. That stopped soon after 9-11. In fact we demanded that Pakistan stop its food shipments to Afghanistan and close its borders to contain the anticipated massive refugee flight.

Yes, but only one of those places hosts a group that murdered 5000 US civilians.

And that's the key isn't it? That the U.S. has murdered -- either directly or through military training and aid -- millions of civilians in the past fifty years alone isn't a problem because they weren't U.S. civilians. We've overthrown democratically-elected governments, targeted civilians with cluster bombs, and flagrantly disregarded international law and U.N. resolutions to keep the profits flowing. But as long as we always export our terror, all is well.

Keep reading. ZNet. IndyMedia. Listen to the rhetoric Bush is spouting. Take a Bush speech and replace "God" with "Allah" and "U.S." with "Islam" and you can't tell him apart from bin Laden.

You are correct in that the media is made up of humans, and prone to make mistakes. But I think you misrepresent the entire situation with this statement, in implying that human error is the most significant factor in misreported news.

If you are not already aware, virtually all major news sources are intimitely tied in with large corporations that have major interests in slanting the media. Bias is a much larger problem than error.

If you check the CNN web page, you most likely see that the anthrax stories overshadow what is happening in Afghanistan. They are taking advantage of the current local scare to distract people from more important events happening elsewhere.

I suggest that you look into independent sources of media as well. They are error prone as well, but at least have a different bias than the conglomerates (unbiased media is a myth):

Independent Media

DMOZ: News -> Alternative Media
ZMag: Left Wing media resources
Indymedia: Non-Corporate news coverage
Guerrilla News Network
Project Censored: Censored news stories
Alternet: Alternative news, opinion, and investigative journalism
MediaChannel: "MediaChannel exists to provide information and diverse perspectives and inspire debate, collaboration, action and citizen engagement"
Common Dreams: "Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community
The Public i: An Investigative Report of the Center for Public Integrity
Pacifica Network News
The Onion: Media Satire

Media Analysis

"Propaganda" at the University of Washington School of Communication
PROMO: Project on Media Ownership
Military school article on Psychological Operations (PSYOPs)
Media Access Project: "A Non-Profit Public Interest Telecommunications Law Firm
Reporters Committee For Freedom of the Press
FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
The Poynter Institute: What journalists read
Columbia Journalism Review
Who Owns What
People for Better TV: "69 percent of Americans say TV is the most trusted source of information"

LS

ksheff said:
"The starving people of Iraq only have Hussein to blame for their condition. It's obvious he has no problem letting them die if it makes him look good in the eyes of other radicals and it makes the whiny bleeding hearts in the West turn against their governments.

Pacifism can act more effectively against democracy than for it. -- George Orwell, 1941"

I don't want to see Orwell's name attached to the type of non-critical thinking, nationalist(otherwise known as Orwellian) point of view that you are promoting. Therefore, I feel the need to correct you on this:

Orwell's own phrase "objective pro-fascist" (from a 1942 publication in the Partisan Review) is exactly the kind of standard-issue Stalinist polemic that Orwell ended up so vigorously rejecting in his best work. Orwell was never a Stalinist, but later said that he was driven to use language he regretted by "the lunatic atmosphere of war" (Partisan Review, 1944). That same year he specifically rejected the Stalinist use of the word "objective fascist" to smear people who are not Fascists at all, but who do things which others believe are helpful to Fascism ("As I Please", Dec. 1944)."
Source: http://www.mediawhoresonline.com/main.htm

"The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them."
Source: George Orwell, "Notes on Nationalism," 1945 http://www.zmag.org/quotes/quotesResults.cfm?topic 1=War

As for myself, I am neither a Hawk nor a Dove but something in the grey area, between. I have heard that this position is called an Owl. I seek justice, not revenge, and I question and research everything in support of the U.S.