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Bobby Fischer FBI Files Released Under FOIA
An anonymous reader writes: "Philidelphia Inquirer has a stroy detailing the results of a FOIA request for chess great Bobby Fischer." Turns out they thought the anti-semitic chess grandmaster(and his mother) was a soviet spy.
Just in case anyone was wondering whether the FBI were getting this guy all wrong here's Bobby Fischer's radio call-in on 9/11 applauding the terrorists [mp3] [Newspaper report on Bobby Fischer's 9/11 radio call].
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
How did that dude get so fucked up.
For someone who is capable of such incredible reasoning you would think he would turn out much different than a southern white trash redneck.
I'm not totally informed on all of the details but when I hear him say "dirty jew" and other nasty things about the Israelis I just wanna slap him and say "WTF happened to you?!?!"
"Bobby Fischer got underneath it like no one before and found at its center, art. I spent my life trying to play like him. Most of these guys have. But we're like forgers. We're competent fakes. His successor wasn't here tonight. He wasn't here. He is asleep in his room in your house. Your son creates like Fischer. He sees like him, inside."
And in the words of Homeless Fishburne, "COME ON GRANDMASTER.. All right, CHECK to his majesty, no, no, no, no, check yourself before you wreck yourself, you can't have it, HELLO! That's right, run, run, somebody call the police, this man is loitering!"
1. A conventional, formulaic, and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image.
Actually, I don't think that word applies here. It's not a stereotype, because it's not an opinion or an image. It's just a statement of fact. Look at any elite university in the country and you will probably find that Jews represent a greater proportion of the student population than they do of the population at large. Does this mean that "Jews are smarter than other people" or "all Jews are smart" or some other clearly fallacious bullshit? Of course not, that's crazy, as crazy as saying "all Blacks are thieves". Do more Black people, proportionally, commit certain kinds of crimes than White people? Yes - statement of fact, you can back it up by pretty solid statistics.
Prejudice is "an adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the facts." according to the American Heritage dictionary. I don't believe that observing cultural behavior patterns among certain ethnic groups and their statistically verifiable results amounts to prejudice. Saying that "Jews are dirty cheats" or "Asians are passive little math nerds" or "all Blacks are thieves" are all fundamentally opinion-laden, overly broad statements that are not verifiable (the first or second) or just plain not true (the third). The only opinion-laden part of my statement was the phrase "work hard", and while there are certainly other ways to explain some of the observable consequences, many others can be explained by no other means.
If you want facts and figures and so forth, go to Google, I am sure you can find some. And of course, note that according to the definition of the word, noting positive accomplishments of certain groups is NOT prejudice, and if it consists primarily of facts rather than opinions, it is not a stereotype either.
Bobby Fischer's wild paranoid anti-semitic rants really make him come across as a total asshole.
Some time after he was locked out of the USA by the state department, he would go onto foreign radio shows and say the most outrageous things.
In his own opinion, he did more for the image of the US during the cold war than any other individual. Indeed.
And they fucked his family and him over. Instead of respect he got suspicion and hounding.
So perhaps in his own opinion, he can do more to damage the image of the USA by spouting off. Retracting and degrading everything he did for the US image.
Trying to take back what he gave them.
Pure hate spews out of this guys mouth. Listen to the audio MP3. Unreal.
One of his final gems: "The Jews made up the Holocaust". How nice, and a pure lie. What a horrible thing to say, from any angle, whatever his past was like. This guy is in the same league as the Timothy Mcveighs of the world. NUTS.
Either you mean what you say or not. This has nothing to do with PCness. This guy is insane and filled with rage. We need less of those people around.
Violent talks just lead to violent acts. USA doesn't need someone like him. They've got enough of those to deal with already
Well, no one wants to hear about what happened in vietnam. It was one of the ugliest wars in history. Its a vast and complex issue that brings up a lot of feelings, good and bad.
Ultimately, both sides were wrong. However there are a lot of people that just wanna beat America down, for a multitude of personal reasons, so America is the bad guy.
No one wants to hear about how South and North Vietnam were at war long before we came into the picture. That we were asked to help because of our minor success in Korea.
I think a true testament of what we are made of as a country is the fact we came together after vietname. Russie fell apart after its war in Afghanistan, literally. America learned a lot of lessons in the 60's and 70's and so far hasn't repeated any of those same mistakes.
Blah, whatever, no matter what we say in a slashdot thread, the world still hates the top dog. Just part of life I suppose.
Fischer just doesn't seem to understand that his insightful opinions are drowned in his ludicrous conspiracy theories and anti-semitism.
Lemon curry???
The FBI did have a legitimate national security interest in the Fischers. His mother lived and attended medical school in the Soviet Union. The KGB and GRU recruited agents from foreign students attending schools in the Soviet Union. His father fought against the fascists in the Spanish Civil War. That in itself isn't a problem, but it puts him in a group that was heavily infiltrated and influenced by the Communist Party and Soviet intelligence operations. The FBI didn't have the right to harass the Fischers, but I think they had a legitimate national security interest in investigating their activities to see if they were involved in espionage or other crimes. The CPUSA (Communist Party USA) was heavily involved in Soviet espionage operations.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
While I think the WTC attacks were totally fucked up, and that the people who did it are assholes, and should be killed; Its not as if they weren't provoked. Palestine and Israel have been fighting with each other for a long long time. We support Israel. Israel was created in 1948. We, the USA, and other allied powers / league of nations, put the israelis there, in palestine! Check up on some WW1, WW2 history. This and our continued support for israel is the reason for the WTC attacks, and for the turmoil in the middle east as I understand it. How long was palestine there before we decided to just make part of the country israel? Long long long before the USA was ever created. The first arab-israeli war was in 1948. 1948 they have been fighting for half a century. For some reason no one seems to have a perspective of the ammount of chaos and killing we helped to bring about in their part of the world. Israel and Palestine do the same shit to each other. But we label attacks by Palestine terrorism. BS. Both countries engage in it, we just support one of them.
Now, as for him hating the USA? How about this line of the story: He resurfaced in 1992 to beat Spassky again, in Yugoslavia. That got Fischer indicted: The Justice Department alleged he had violated U.N. sanctions imposed on Yugoslavia. If Fischer reenters the United States, prosecutors say, he faces arrest. Add that up with our FBI thinking his mother was a soviet spy, and I'd say they just wanted to fuck with the guy. We all think we're free until we do something the government doesn't want us to do. If I were him, I'd be pissed at the USA also. The USA is a great place to live, the best in the world. And I love the USA. But that doesn't mean we're always right, or that someone doesn't have a legit reason to hate our country/government. Unfortunately/sadly, in this democracy for the people by the people, the people aren't always the ones who are to blame for the wrong doings, but are usually the ones who pay the price. Its to bad we can't all just get along.
Entered Vietnam at S. Vietnams request? Uh no. The french told us that unless we supported french colonialism in IndoChina (vietnam) there was a good chance france would fall to the communists. So we supported france. Before any of that happened, Ho Chi Minh asked the US for help. It was only after he was ignored by our government, and we supported the french, that he went to the alternative, Soviet Union, and China. If you read some history about minh, you'll see that he was far more a nationalist than a communist, and arguably, was only using the soviets/chinese to get independence for vietnam. Check your own fucking history, how are we NOT the worlds police. Thats all we do is go around and get up in other peoples shit.
Note for example that he is still being hounded for the sin of visiting Yugoslavia!
Bobby Fischer is a jerk and always was one, and his remark is typical. But I can see why he hates the American government.
As to "anti-semitic", its a word people like to throw around a lot. In this case it says more about the accuser than the accused. Even Arabs are often referred to as "anti-semitic"! I guess that's why they become suicide bombers... they hate themselves.
I bragged about my Karma at a job interview but I didn't get the job.
Oh bullshit. ... it was because God chose THIS land for them, and for some completely fucked up reason, this is good enough justification for the rest of the Western world. Fuck!.
The Jews want more and more and more of Palestine to be 'cleansed' of anything Palestinian so they can establish 'settlements' and claim more for themselves. The Palestinians are willing to settle for 15% of what used to be Palestine, but the incursions continue. Palestinians are denied the ability to travel freely in their own (the 15% bit) land. They are assaulted daily by the Jewish army (who use American weapons). The Jews do not want peace. Not the ones in control of the place anyway.
As for Ariel Sharon, he is one of the worst of them. I wouldn't trust that idiot as far as I could kick him. He fully backs the continual incursions. He gives direct orders to attack Palestinian schools, hospitals and cultural centres in the name of killing all the terrorists (sounds like a certain Bush).
And who the fuck gave the Jews the right to say whether Palestine can become a separate state or not? The Palestinians were there FIRST. It was they Jews / Americans who invaded. Why didn't America invite all Jews into their own borders? No, wait
I don't know about the most wanted list, but go check out our list of Terrorist Cells. A good portion of them are only on there because they are anti israel. You weren't around in the 1900's and neither was I. So you might be surprised to find out that we(with the league of nations) created israel for the jewish people around the 1920's. I think this is a moral argument, we assisted in transplanting these people into another country( palestine), and now they are at war over the land. Its pretty twisted... Israel and Palestine have been fighing for a long time, their first war was in 1948, about 50 years ago. And I'd say that we don't turn a blind eye to the atrocities against palestine, we just don't label it terrorism. Our support for israel is a very large part of the reason for the WTC + other attacks.
One of the fun things in grad school is that tv, if and when you watch, is in a room full of smart, noisy people heckling the screen. Kind of like those Mystery Science Theater movies.
The Fischer-Spassky chess matches were a zoo, with half of us shouting moves at the screen, and the other half groaning, hissing, etc. In the din, over a period of days, I noticed one guy, relatively quiet--but when he did say something, his guesses were usually right. I thought, "There is a smart and interesting guy."
Anyway, 30 years and two great nerdy kids later, I still think he's a super smart interesting guy, also gorgeous, and I remain grateful to Bobby Fischer for his role in this.
And it is easy to make generalizations if one is unknowledgeable about the history of Palestine. I think you should read this in order to understand the roots of the present Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Keep this in mind: In the beginning of the 20th century only one person in 10 living in Palestine is a Jew. Now it is exactly reversed.
Put yourself in the shoes of the Palestinians: you have no american supplied F-16s, no Merkava tanks, no way of waging a Geneva Convention type war. How are you going to fight for your beliefs, your people and your history? Is it a wonder that the only way a desperate people can fight is through suicide bombings?
Please do not immediately label me an anti-semitic. I do not hate Jews, but I do deplore how the Israeli (and specially the Sharon) government's treatment of the Palestinian problem seems to mirror the way Hitler treated the Jewish problem. One has only to read Israeli newspapers to realize that many Israelis themselves are aware of these and actually criticize their own government.
I know many Jews here will agree with me. The problem with Israel is that it is not a nation of Israelis but a Jewish state. For as long as the Israeli government refuses to make itself into a truly representative, truly non-discriminatory nation it will continue to hold the entire world hostage to its ailment.
I'm going to stay out of the politics and take this time to discuss another aspect of Bobby Fisher's many methods of winning...
I read Bobby Fisher's book on chess as well as the NY Times account of his famous match against Spassky. He was brilliant. And devious. He totally psyched out Boris Spassky. According to my recollection, Spassky had the first move. But Fisher didn't show up right away. So Spassky made his move and then had to wait. And wait. And wait... A full half-hour later Fisher shows up and makes his move. The psychological impact of showing up half-hour late was worth losing the time on the clock.
In his rematch, he did something very similar. He argued and argued the terms of the rematch. He fought and fought and fought to get TV coverage and media and the location and and and... He got everything he requested...then when time began for the match to happen, the set up which was to his exacting demands was the very thing he complained about. The TV camera was killing his concentration. Move it back. No move it farther. No, out of the room altogether. Put it in the next room filming through the glass in the door!
Caveat, this is from my recollection of the events I read about, so I may have a detail or two off, but it's correct in the general outline...
Newton was a classic Victorian prude and mysogynist-- and probably a closet homosexual. He was quite proud of his 'virginity' and proclaimed upon his death bed that no woman had soiled him. (I need to look up the exact quote.)
After his landmark physics theories, Newton spent an unreasonable amount of time trying to use numerology to calculate the end of the world based on passages in the Bible. Despite his intelligence, he had many unreasonable fears hatreds.
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"Palestine" has never been a nation, and you know it. Calling it a nation is like calling a random selection of MP3 on a script kiddie's computer a cross-section of popular music. Palestine was a name given to a land reduced to desolation after the fall of the Roman Empire, and there has never been a nation of Palestinians. If you'd bothered to look it up, the West Bank and Jordan were all part of a British mandate called "Trans-Jordan".
Plenty of borders were made up by colonials, by drawing lines on a map. Yet somehow this is only a big issue with Palestine.
Palestinians are ARABS, they have always been ARABS and just because Arabs set up camp in a area and name themselves after it doesn't make it a nation.
But if a group of Europeans set up camp in an area then it suddenly becomes a nation? Sounds rather a racist position.
True, but the great thing about freedom of speech is you're allowed to blanket-label a population. I'd rather live in a nation where you're allowed to hate, than one that wouldn't let you. That said I'm allowed to dislike (hate is such a strong word) people who are anti-semetic. In that case I'm making a blanket-statment that I dislike people that hold that view, even though they may be upstanding humans in every other sense, I choose to judge people that way. Generalizations are just our way of simplifying the world.. if we were smarter we wouldn't have to, but we're not.
There is an earlier story about the suspicion that Regina Fischer was a Soviet spy. The title is Was Fischer's Mother a Communist Spy (pdf file) written by someone who knew Joan Fischer (Bobby's sister).
You sound like an ultra-extremist just like Fischer.
Sure, as a human, he does have a right to play chess in a sanctioned nation. I don't think there's any doubt about that. However, the US has a right to arrest him if he does that. Why? Because those are laws that we create by politicians we put into office. That is the voice of the people. That is the voice of the nation. If Fischer doesn't like it he can keep his ass in Yugoslavia/Iraq or wherever he is now (Phillipines/Germany/etc).
I don't think there's any argument whether or not he can hold his opinions about Jews or 9/11. Just because he was a great chess champion shouldn't buy him any favor when violating US laws.
I'm not going to justify the US government's actions like you tried justifying Bobby Fischer's racism, but this was during a time where there was a lot of "red" threat. And, as a government, I'd be keeping my eyes on people who are very anti-US. That's how terrorists within the US get created.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King, Jr.