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The Deceptions and DIsguises of Noam Chomsky


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Regarding access to media, I think it's a most important issue. Roadblocks are huge because of career choices for sure. I have some ideas for people in the media, and in entertainment, who I think might have enough courage and enough job security to be recruitable. The opening may occur this November, should in any case. If Trump could be convinced to ignore the inevitable attempt by CIA and others to withhold some key documents from the scheduled release that would be a good start. But if, as I suspect, he goes along with CIA, there needs to be a plan in place to make this a mainstream media story. The attacks by Trump on media like CNN might open up some avenues. I have to believe there are journalists all over that are damned sick of the muzzling.

 

Edited by Paul Brancato
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3 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

I have to believe there are journalists all over that are damned sick of the muzzling.

Not only that, but I have sustained for long that young CIA OFFICERS are damned sick of the muzzling.

See this post, scroll down to "the healing to begin", Paul:

     No Horse Heads in Our Beds !!

-Ramon The Freakin' Sick of the Muzzling Who Has Experienced It.

 

Edited by Ramon F. Herrera
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22 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Yes, it made a lot of careers.  And not just Rather's.

For example, Peter Jennnings was also a reporter on the JFK case when he was up in Canada.

I have come to believe in the whole Hallin's Spheres, view of our MSM, which I alluded to in my  Powerpoint presentation on Vietnam.  Except that, as I believe happened with Vietnam, that was a subject that eventually did penetrate into the MSM, simply because LBJ and RMN allowed saturation press coverage of the war.  Later on, with Iraq, the Power Elite learned their lesson, and there was only controlled junkets allowed.  And, as some people have written, journalists who tried to break that rule were targeted, quite literally.

On the JFK case, after 1967, with the double hit by CBS and NBC in primetime, it was hard to get any fair coverage in the MSM on the JFK case.  Which was not the case before. Therefore, the avenue for prominence on the left was the Vietnam War. I mean when you can get 500,000 people in Washington, that is quite an audience.  And it happened twice.  

IMO, Chomsky and the late Alex Cockburn made a practical choice. And it worked for them.  But for me it stripped them of any kind of intellectual or moral stature.  Which is usually the trademark of left/liberal writing.  

Which is why I respect Mike Parenti and not those guys.

 

"The power elite learned their lesson"  Yes Sir they did.  They bought up the rest of the Press.  While Operation Mockingbird heavily influenced the National Press most mid and smaller market newspapers and TV stations were owned by local millionaires or less at the time.  The bigger MSM picture of today makes me consider how ownership of it all by half a dozen corporations (e.g. Disney) by the .01% of us influences current perceptions/interpretations of previous events.    

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And by the way Ron, let us never forget who signed that horrid telecommunications law: it was Bill Clinton.

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On 6/24/2017 at 6:58 PM, James DiEugenio said:

 

And what to make of his association with Faurisson? And his plea that the Holocaust happened without any gassings?  

 

To his credit and like others did to support David Irving and his problems publishing his own research, all Chomsky did was defend the right for people like this to be heard regardless of how tasteless certain people find their opinions. He wrote a forward that could be placed in any controversial book, it was not designed for Faurisson but just happened to be exactly what the book needed, Regarding this affair Chomsky himself said that just by looking into that particular subject and those claims is beneath him but to defend the right to express them? Forever and without hesitation.

As for Robert Faurisson himself, if his work was instead related to JFK I feel he would be what we might call, a researcher's researcher. Studious does not even cover it, the man is completely dedicated, meticulous and consistent. It's only the subject matter itself that cripples him, even Chomsky dare not touch it but you know in private he has to have.

 

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A second notable aspect of Chomsky’s work is his association with the notorious Holocaust denier Professor . When Faurisson’s writing on this subject became public, he was suspended from his position at the University of Lyon. Chomsky then signed a petition in support of Faurisson’s reinstatement. He followed that up in 1980 with a brief introduction to a book by Faurisson. Chomsky later tried to say that he was personally unacquainted with Faurisson and was only speaking out for academic freedom. But, unfortunately for Chomsky and his acolytes, this was contradicted by Faurisson himself. For the Frenchman had written a letter to the New Statesman in 1979. It began with: “Noam Chomsky ... is aware of the research work I do on what I call the ‘gas chambers and genocide hoax’. He informed me that Gitta Sereny had mentioned my name in an article in your journal. He told me I had been referred to ‘in an extraordinarily unfair way’.” (This unpublished letter was quoted in the October, 1981 issue of the Australian journalQuadrant.)

I'm reading this part right now, do so with me.

I couldn't help but notice it starts by calling Robert Faurisson a "notorious Holocaust denier" which to some readers is akin to rapist, pedophile or even yes, "conspiracy theorist" but when it needs a quote from him to support it's case it refers to him as the quaint "Frenchman" and takes him on his word, So let's say Chomsky was aware of him and his work before he wrote the forward for a controversial book that doesn't mention the subject matter once and could be written for any argument for free speech. So what? Anyone that has looked at all the evidence and is convinced there were actual gassings cannot be taken seriously. If the hard evidence is not then there must be doubt.

So, like I suspected he had looked into it, what is he quoted as saying?

Quote

: “Someone might well believe that there were no gas chambers but there was a Holocaust ... ” (ibid) In defending Faurisson’s writings Chomsky then wrote that anyone who found them lacking in common sense or accepted the established history, was exhibiting “an interesting reflection of the totalitarian mentality, or more properly in this case, the mentality of the religious fanatic.” (Ibid) Rubinstein replied that to hold that there were no gas chambers but there was a Holocaust was an absurd tenet. Chomsky went ballistic. He wrote back that the respondent was lacking in elementary logical reasoning, and he was falsifying documentary evidence. He then said that the Nazis may have worked these Jews to death and then shoveled their bodies into crematoria without gas chambers. He concluded his blast with this: “If you cannot comprehend this, I suggest that you begin your education again at the kindergarten level.”

Rubinstein knows that in his world no gas chambers means no holocaust, he can't gat around it. The above isn't a stain on Chomsky's record but a blessing, he knows the evidence just isn't there and relates the belief in the gassings to those that blindly believe in Jesus. On this at least he's correct.

Quote

The idea that there were no mass gassings and crematoria at the Nazi death camps was thoroughly debunked at the trial of David Irving. Irving was a friend and colleague of Faurisson. That court action was instigated by Irving himself. There has been a very good web site constructed from the materials devoted to that trial. I strongly recommend reading the reports given to the court by Robert Jan van Pelt, Christopher Browning, and Richard Evans. They seem to me to be models of what scholarly research should be about.

If you know what Irving was up against when he defended himself you'd know he stood no chance. Experts like Van Pelt paid hundreds of thousands just to give evidence and at the end, no jury just one man to decide. If Faurisson was there or others like him, you know, the real revisionists,  they may have made a difference but guess who didn't want that? Yes, David Irving his "friend and colleague".

Obviously I have problems with this particular part of your piece.  I mean. Irving lost his trial so by default the gassings at Auschwitz were real after all? It's that simple? That's how it reads. Millions of man hours spent studying his books to find errors, they came up with around two dozen, from scores of books many of which dealing with manuscripts and documents in German and some in old German script that no one can read and certainly not Browning, Evans or Van Pelt, These errors were dismissed by the judge, all expect six or more. That is, less than one error per book, making Irving the most accurate historian of all time, who says? His former peers who have all shunned him for his involvement in this.

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9 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

And by the way Ron, let us never forget who signed that horrid telecommunications law: it was Bill Clinton.


In fairness to Bill Clinton...

  • The bill was supported by nearly every person in Congress. They thought it was a good thing. So they passed it.
  • The law led to the explosive growth of the Internet. And this led to the explosive growth in computer sales. Which paved the way for tablets and smart phones.
  • The law allows competition betweenInternet service providers: DSL, cable, wireless, satellite, and eventually fiber (e.g. Google Fiber). Which keeps the price in check.
  • Other good things came about due to the law. For example, anybody with an internet connection can get free telephone service via VOIP. (I am currently in the process of switching my $35-per-month landline to VOIP.)

The law was designed to foster competition. Unfortunately that part backfired due to the law not effectively regulating monopolistic practices.

 

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My reply to the above:

1.  Sandy,   This is the same excuse that Clinton backers give when confronted with the fact that he signed the repeal of Glass Steagall, and also allowed deregulation of derivatives.  

The fact is this, in all three instances, Bill Clinton signed onto legislation originally introduced by REPUBLICANS!  Which makes sense since by then Billy was saying words to the effect, "You have to work with the GOP".  And in fact he was once plotting with Gingrich to limit Social Security benefits and even talked about privatizing them.

One group criticized the FCC bill as pretty much a giveaway to merger mania.  That laws had been stirpped away which limited ownership and then banned regulations on cable tv rates--like paying a hundred bucks a month for nothing? It also extended license terms for years.

 That was some competition it allowed wasn't it?

2. Clive,

My article undermines the whole, "Chomsky did what he did purely out of free speech motives".  I do that with evidence from Faurisson himself, and also Rubinstein and also Werner Cohn. I don't know how anyone can ignore that. Its pretty clear that Chomsky misrepresented his associations with both Faurisson and that Holcoaust Denial publishing house.

To my knowledge, the only person at Irving's trial that got that kind of money was Evans.  And that is because he spent two years of his academic life reading every word that Irving ever wrote on the subject, plus all of his books. People like Browning and Van Pelt and the others, they had been doing this for years before.  So they did not do a heck of a lot of original work for that trial.

Edited by James DiEugenio
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23 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

1.  Sandy,   This is the same excuse that Clinton backers give when confronted with the fact that he signed the repeal of Glass Steagall, and also allowed deregulation of derivatives.  

 

Jim,

Well, it is true... most congressional Democrats supported repeal of Glass Steagall, as they did the Telecommunication Act of 1996. My point wasn't that therefore it was a great bill. My point was that most Democrats in Congress thought it was. It wasn't like Bill Clinton was in the hands of the Republicans. (Unless you contend that most the Democrats were as well.)

 

23 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

The fact is this, in all three instances, Bill Clinton signed onto legislation originally introduced by REPUBLICANS!  Which makes sense since by then Billy was saying words to the effect, "You have to work with the GOP".  

And in fact he was once plotting with Gingrich to limit Social Security benefits and even talked about privatizing them.


Thanks for bringing that to my attention. I couldn't confirm the part about Clinton wanting to "limit benefits," but I was able to confirm that Clinton was trying to make a deal with Gingrich for privatizing Social Security. Had I known Clinton was open to that idea, I wouldn't have voted for him (in the primaries). Because I believe that privatization would be a monstrous mistake.

In the same article where I read about that, it was pointed out that 74% of Democrats at the time were in favor of some form of privatization. Mostly young people. So Clinton would have had plenty of voter support for his proposal. Regardless, the thought that individuals could play roulette with their retirement saving sends shivers down my spine.

If I find that Hillary Clinton is in favor of SS privatization, I won't be voting for her again. (Assuming there is an "again.")

 

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Some background on David Irving v. Gitta Sereny, a formidable investigator and admirable historian:

[wiki]

Books[edit]

The Case of Mary Bell was first published in 1972 following Mary Bell's trial; in it Sereny interviewed her family, friends and the professionals involved in looking after Mary during her trial. This book was edited by Diana Athill who would also edit Sereny's Into That Darkness.

Into That Darkness (also following an initial article for the Telegraph magazine) was an examination of the guilt of Franz Stangl, the commandant of the Treblinka and Sobibor extermination camps.[9] She spent 70[10] hours interviewing him in prison for the article and when she had finished he finally admitted his guilt; he died of a heart attack nineteen hours later.

Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth (1995) is a biographical work on Albert Speer, German minister of Armaments during World War II. In it, Sereny explores how much Speer knew about the Holocaust. During the Nuremberg trials, Speer had avoided a death sentence, claiming all the while that he knew nothing of the Holocaust. However, Sereny concludes that Speer must have known based on a letter he wrote to the Jewish community in South Africa (after the war), and the fact that his closest assistant attended the Wannsee Conference (where the details of the genocide of the Jews were worked out) who could not have failed to inform him about the proceedings.

In 1998, she was embroiled in a controversy in the British press when her second book on Mary Bell, Cries Unheard[11] was published and she announced that she was sharing the publishing fee, from MacMillan Publishers, with Mary Bell for collaborating on the book. Sereny was initially criticized in the British press and by the British government, though the book quickly became, and remains, a standard text for professionals working with problem children.

Sereny wrote of her final book, The German Trauma (2002): "The nineteen chapters in this book, all intimately concerned with Germany before, during and since the end of the Third Reich, describe more or less sequentially what I saw and learned from 1938 to 1999, thus almost over a lifetime."[12]

David Irving libel suit[edit]

British writer David Irving initiated a libel case against Sereny and the Guardian Media Group for two reviews in The Observer where she asserted he deliberately falsified the historical record in an attempt to rehabilitate the Nazis. Irving maintained a personal animosity for Sereny, whom he calls "that shriveled Nazi hunter", for successfully refuting his claims since the publication of his book Hitler's War. When, in 1977, Sereny cross-checked the source he cited for his assertion that Hitler knew nothing about the Final Solution, and therefore could not have ordered it, she found he had excised a caveat which would have contradicted his claim. "I know many of the same people as he does who were of Hitler's circle," Sereny said. "That is scary for him. He says we jostle at the same trough. The difference is that he loves that trough, and I don't... There is, I think, [for him] despair in all of this." Although the case did not go to court, the cost to the Guardian Media Group of preparing its legal defence amounted to £800,000.[13]

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