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Chess Master Kasparov To Retire

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the big-blue-relieved dept.

fembots writes "Former world champion Gary Kasparov has announced that he is to retire from competitive chess. The chess grandmaster, a leading critic of Mr. Putin, heads a group of top Russian liberals who have joined forces to keep Vladimir Putin from staying in the Kremlin after 2008."

26 of 320 comments (clear)

  1. Please Note by XanC · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "Liberal" here refers to the classical liberals opposing monarchies and arbitrary power. Not the socialist version of the word "liberal" we have in the US.

    1. Re:Please Note by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Let's see....

      Named George, prone to initiating ill concieved armed conflicts, favors holding prisoners without trial or even reasons, and considering the new bankrupcy bill, thinks all peasents should also be serfs....

      I think the two ideas of liberal are in remarkable coincidence.

    2. Re:Please Note by DarKry · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No i think liberal means the same thing pretty much everywhere..

      1. Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.

      2. Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.

      try here.

      And we "socialist" fit #1 fairly well if I do say so myself.

      --
      Crawl This - http://darkry.net/test/test.php
    3. Re:Please Note by mc6809e · · Score: 4, Insightful

      1. Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.

      2. Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.
      [snip]

      And we "socialist" fit #1 fairly well if I do say so myself.

      Hmmm.

      What happens when the socialist philosophy itself becomes orthodox or dogmatic?

      Maybe you're confusing "liberal" with "leftist". They're not the same thing.

    4. Re:Please Note by Aqua+OS+X · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Because "liberals" in the US are socialists? please.

      Liberal typically refers to people in favor of progressive reform, not reverting back to antiquated practices, ideologies, or institutions of the past.

      --
      "Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
    5. Re:Please Note by bigsteve@dstc · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The problem is that many people don't distinguish between socialism, communism and "Stalinism" or "Maoism". They are all "manifestations of the Evil Empire".

    6. Re:Please Note by ivlad · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Nope, "liberal" here refers to a group of people providing political lobby to anyone with enough money. So, now they're building a foundation for bring their "clients" to the presidency.

    7. Re:Please Note by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Liberal in the international political sense are ideologies limiting government intervention in the activities of the governed. Clinton in the U.S. and Blaire in the U.K.

      Then something is wrong somewhere, because Blair (no e, by the way) is right now in the House of Commons attempting to push through a draconian bill that would allow the Home Secretary to remove a persons right to liberty on at best flimsy "inteligence" and in many cases, without having to present evidence or even tell the suspect what they're accused of.

      If that's "limiting government intervention in the activities of the governed" then paint me red and call me Susan.

    8. Re:Please Note by iamacat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Socialism is an economic system. Democracy is a political system. Liberalism is a way of individual's thinking. The three have little to do with each other. You can have a liberal king in a socialist country who advocates free market reform because he doesn't want to arrest people who just sell stuff they made.

    9. Re:Please Note by johansalk · · Score: 2, Insightful



      You guys in the US have been misinformed and made illiterate enough to think that liberal and socialist are bad words. Liberals are socialists, and neither is a bad word at all. Liberal and Socialist are labels to be proud of; fascist and oligarchic are what should be shameful to you. Liberals or Socialists are secular humanists in favor of progressive reform and enlightening society, not reverting back to antiquated practices, ideologies, or institutions of the past; in fact, if anyone wants to revert back it is the originalists and essentialists (The GOP/Republicans) who want to return the US to a Spartan rural oligarchy. I have just written about this on usenet.

      I'll cut and paste it here

      " I don't care who he is; if he compared Bush to Hitler as reported he's right on this, and he's not being inventive and this isn't new; it is widely known by anyone in the know. Anyone who knows enough about History and Political Philosophy knows for sure that Bush is comparable to Hitler as both are on the same side of History, same side of ideology, and same side of conduct, and the GOP ideologues are not shy about this; they have not hidden their admiration of the chilean fascist economics model, they have not hidden their cultish affiliation around Leo Strauss the protege of Carl Schmitt the prime Nazi ideologue, and they have not hidden their originalist and essentialist fixation on the relevant thought of Aristotle and Plato. Yes, it goes that far back in History, to Ancient Greece; Bush and Hitler, and the Nazi party and the GOP, are upholders of Sparta, the violent rural oligarchic dictatorship, they are not upholders of Athens, the peaceful cosmopolitan liberal democracy.

      He's right.

      Both Hitler and Bush were ultra-nationalist simpletons who exploited the Nation-Under-Attack anxieties and the 'patriotic' impulses of the simple, blood-and-soil masses and enlisted the interests of a corrupt, racketeering cadre of industrialists and financiers that foresaw in their domestic, social restructuring projects at home and warmongering, imperialist ambitions abroad ample profit opportunities. Both Hitler and Bush were messianic men with a passionate 'vision' and a sense of 'mission' who were obsessed with their personal safety and paranoid about the risk of assassination and their parties (Nazi, GOP) were suspicious and intolerant of disagreement and dissent to the extent of using the "treason" label (treason, un-Patriotic, un-American, hates America, and so on) against those who don't tow the party line. Both the parties of Hitler and Bush scapegoated minorities as political devices to forewarn of calamitious dangers to the original integrity of a good and glorious nation, most prominent of whom in Hitler's Germany were the Jews, and in Bush's USA were the Gays. Both parties pushed for legislation that suspended civil liberties and human rights in the name of national security, in Hitler's case it was the Enabling Act, and in Bush's it was the Patriot Act, which presence served to intimidate many ordinary citizens for fear of being suspected of "treason" and being persecuted on mere suspicion without due process, and both leaders and parties maintained an atmosphere of terror, applauded military armament and endorsed doctrines of preemptive war, with which they invaded other countries. Furthermore, Bush is supported by the same wealthy elements that tried to erect a fascist government in the US in the 1933 after the election of a populist president, Franklin D Roosevelt; the businessmen and bankers who admired European Fascism at the time and its heavy-handed stance against communists in its countries, and intensely disliked Roosevelt's "communist" reforms that entailed heavier taxes on the wealthy, concessions to labor rights movements, relief for the unemployed, controls over corporations, a social security program, a legal right for the government to regulate the economy, and so on, and conspired with Major General Smedley Butler to erect a Fascist government in the US. Butler exp

    10. Re:Please Note by 10Ghz · · Score: 3, Insightful
      No i think liberal means the same thing pretty much everywhere..


      In Finland (and pretty much rest of Europe) "Liberals" usually refer to people who support individual freedoms and responsibilities, low taxation, free-market economy and the like. I wasn't aware that socialists support those things as well!
      --
      Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
    11. Re:Please Note by nnnneedles · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Liberal comes from liber which means freedom.

      Liberal here in europe means someone who wants to deregulate markets and strongly embraces freedom of choice and a small state.

      It seems to me that liberal in the US has a different meaning, because the perspective used is from the far-right (i.e. conservatives), while in most of europe the perspective on liberals comes from socialists.

      --
      Will code a sig generator for food
    12. Re:Please Note by Skye16 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Absolutely not. You're thinking of people as a static and 2-dimensional. Liberals think longer-term - especially when it comes to the offspring. Let me elaborate, for you, since you seem to be completely ignorant on what a liberal is.

      John A is a smart, hard working, intelligent man who has amassed himself quite a hefty estate through his own two hands (and brain!). Good for him!

      John B is a plain ol' joe, but also hard working, and hasn't put together an estate, per se, but he has a house and he isn't begging for food. Obviously he would like more money, but, he doesn't need it.

      John C is also a plain ol' joe, he also worked hard, but he didn't get to save up much money, just like the majority of people in America.

      Jack A is a dumbass who also refuses to put in hard work. He spends every cent he has on beer and lives with his family in a trailer. He can't hold down a job, so he lives on welfare.

      Now, according to you, no one should help Jack A, John C, John B, or John A. Let them live for themselves. And, truthfully, I would agree with you. However, once you apply ofspring to the picture, everything changes.

      John A, John B, John C, and Jack A all have children. John A can afford to send his children to a good private school, and then to a good college. They always have new clothes and they always have food in their stomaches. Hooray!

      John B sends his kids to a public school, which aren't terrible (though, perhaps not as good as a private school) and then to a state funded college, heavily banking on federal financial aid. His kids always have clean, newish clothes and they always have food in their stomaches. Still hooray.

      John C dies in a horrible car wreck, leaving behind 3 of his own chillens. Now with only one person working (assuming his wife does), they can barely pay the bills and put food on the table. The kids do without clean, newish clothes and start shopping at Goodwill (let's just hope they're indie hipsters!). If they're lucky, they go to college, but chances are, unless they have a rich aunt or uncle, they aren't going to be able to afford it (unless, of course, it's a community college).

      Jack A's kids end up getting jobs around the age of 15 just to buy their own clothes and their own food. Jack A does nothing and the kids pay for everything. They don't go to college because there is no way they could afford it. A few drop out.

      According to many libertarians, social programs are bad. As such, there goes federal funding for public schools (which may even cease to exist), federal funding for college (which makes it impossible for John B, John C, and Jack A's kids from ever setting foot in college), or even foodstamps/welfare, which may keep Jack A's kids alive, or, less dramatically, from dropping out of highschool or missing college.

      A liberal says "Hey, John A, we're going to take a little more of your millions of dollars and make sure that Jack A and John C's kids get some food and can make it to college". Why? Not just because we feel bad (and, really, making a law just because you feel bad for someone is pretty pathetic, so if that were the only reason, I wouldn't be a liberal either). It's because we know that having 6 kids go to college and become engineers or doctors or lawyers is going to be more beneficial to society, as a whole, than having 6 kids who pack groceries at the local supermarket. More income = more tax revenue, which means better roads, better schools, and, overall, more money throughout the entire country. We also know that by taxing more heavily on top, for the people with 3 BMWs and a Mercedes, instead of taxing the people who don't have enough money to put food on the table, much less pay for roads and schools and college (yes, they use them too, but, frankly, if you can't afford to feed yourself, that's it, game over). We also know that, even though we're going to make sure all these kids have the same opportunities at schooling (grade school and college

    13. Re:Please Note by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Back then it would have made a difference whether the population had guns or not. Today it doesn't. Today the reasoning is that freely available guns allow the illusion of freedom.

    14. Re:Please Note by hey! · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What happens when the socialist philosophy itself becomes orthodox or dogmatic?

      Simple, dogmatic socialism is not liberal.

      A lot of the categorical labels are pretty misleading. They conflate too many things.

      In many ways, "liberalism" and "conservatism" represent personality dispositions, rather than political philosopies or values. The liberal personality believes that things can be improved upon, the conservative thinks that the proven ways are best. That's how political ideas that were liberal in the eighteenth century are now conservative.

      It's also while the necons are so widely reviled. They are essentially right wing liberals. Left wing liberals hate their right wing politics; right wing conservatives hate their liberalism.

      The old Soviet aparachniks were, at least superfially, left wing conservatives. They were in the exact opposite quedrant if you will from the necons.

      Of course the left/right dichotomy is oversimplified too. It should at least be exploded into two dimensions, like the people over at the politicla compass have.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    15. Re:Please Note by Skye16 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Charity implies doing something out of the good of your heart to benefit other people for the sake of doing it.

      This is benefiting the youth of America so that they go on to make our country better than it already is. There is no "goodness of our heart" in this - it's about the benefit of society as a whole, not on a personal level.

  2. Celebrities and Elections by porp · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If his main point is to retire to promote his politics and ensure a head of state does not get re-elected (as the linked, BBC news blurb suggests), shouldn't he realize, just by looking at last year's U.S. elections, that a dissenting, political group spearheaded by a celebrity is a big fucking waste of time.

    I mean, this dude only played chess. He never did stand up comedy or married Susan Sarandon. Come on Gary, at least make a documentary where Putin plays Chess instead of going after terrorists.

    porp

  3. Re: He's not dead.... he's just resting... by WARM3CH · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes, he's just resting but yet he has the top rating in the chess and many consider him as the greatest player in the world. He is in a good shape and although he has lost his last game in the Linares tournament, but has won the tournament.
    Chess like any other game/sport needs sponsors, fans and supporters and Kasparov has been a great name attracting many. His mere presense in a tournament would mean big support and big moneys for Chess. Other active Grandmasters, though not very far from him in theory, could not yet attract so much publicity, support and money to Chess. So I think to the Chess world, his retirement is a very sad news.

  4. Latest News by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful
    In other news, Vladimir Putin has announced that Deep Blue will be joining his cabinet...

    Soon to be renamed deep red.

  5. The difference by leereyno · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The difference is that the celebrities over here were wrong. The country ignored them because they came off as the loony delusional rant monkeys they are.

    I don't know if Kasparov will be able to affect the future of his country, but comparing him to the Micheal Moore crowd over here and telling him to give up is just plain irrational, especially if he is a classical liberal (as opposed to the marxist variety the US is afflicted with).

    Lee

    --
    Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
    1. Re:The difference by Scarblac · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Unfortunately, Kasparov in real life is also into history, and rather close to crackpot science. For instance, he doesn't believe there was 1000 years between the Roman empire and Newton, he thinks history has been artificially expanded by 1000 years.

      See e.g. http://www.world-mysteries.com/garrykasparov.htm.

      I also vaguely remember that he tried to form a political party after the fall of the USSR, and was voted down as chairman on the first day of his own party! Add to that all the political problems that always surrounded him in the chess world (PCA, FIDE, etc), and I think he's not all that much better than them at politics.

      --
      I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
    2. Re:The difference by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      The difference is that the celebrities over here were wrong.
      The way it looks, they were pretty much right on every single point. The problem is that the country as a whole is a dangerous war mongering rogue nation.

    3. Re:The difference by be-fan · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Heh. You don't see marxist liberals in America. The "fringe" is people like Nader, who don't advocate getting rid of corporations, just regulating them. There is an enormous leap from that to "dictatorship of the proletariat". The thing that pisses me off most about American politics is that certain people have managed to replace the rich and varied sphere of political ideologies with a few token carictitures, and have engaged in such a war on names that we are left without any vocabulary with which to intelligently discuss politics.

      --
      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
    4. Re:The difference by hawk · · Score: 2, Insightful

      who don't advocate getting rid of corporations, just regulating them.

      Well, the line between "destroy" and "taxes and regulatory fiat equally 110% of profits" is a bit thin :)

      hawk

  6. Re:More stuff by Scarblac · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Wouldn't it make more sense to title it "How Chess Imitates Life"?

    Not to chess players. Chess is a sort of mathematical construct, it's an idea that was discovered. Life has a starting date.

    As I understand, he's trying to explain how you can turn a chess obsessed mind towards other things, something that he claims to have done. Personally the games in my dreams are about as bad as the ones I play, so I'd rather put the programming obsessed part of my brain to work, but he is Kasparov...

    --
    I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
  7. Re:Deep Blue by mirko · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why do you say he's crazy ? Because of his opinions ?
    Lemme ask you one think: The guy is intelligent : That's a fact.
    He says controversial things.
    People call him crazy because of such things.
    Don't you think what he says should be analyzed before concluding he's crazy ?
    I for one didn't (I don't even know what the man said, BTW).
    I don't know what he claimed but this might have been quite spectacular otherwise he'd still be around : crazy people don't happen to be hunted like he's been.

    --
    Trolling using another account since 2005.