25 Reader Responses

1. J. Puma Says:
   June 20th, 2005 at 4:31 pm

   i’ve never been keen on this kind of argument that requires solutions in exchange for criticisms. if someone i know is coughing up blood, i’m going to say, ‘hey, you’re coughing up blood. you should do something about that!’ i won’t have any idea what they should do– doctors have a better handle on that kind of thing than i– but i’m at least going to mention something about it!

   are you not allowed to say a movie sucks because you can’t provide a solution to the fact that movies suck these days?

   is noam chomsky not allowed to point out that corporate controlled propaganda dictates policy because he has no solution?

   btw, i disagree on chomsky– he *does* offer solutions. they’re just not quick fixes that only one guy at MIT can pull off. his solution is for the us to stop being a muscle-flexing imperialistic corporate state.

2. Occult Investigator Says:
   June 20th, 2005 at 4:46 pm

   i also think the solution really IS to question, to criticize, and to keep doing it as a way to transform your consciousness and your worldview.

3. alistair Says:
   June 20th, 2005 at 5:06 pm

   chomsky`s game is to point out the obvious.he`s feather nesting.criticism is necessary.vital to figuring things out.being a critic in the media is passive though.teaching people how to think is what we need.we need teachers of criticism,logic and plain contrarians to lead us into new discoveries and rediscovering of old solutions.
   the worst part of chomsksy`s action is the radicalising of movements that do things like plan demonstrations against ghosts like the WTO.people die,property is destroyed and commerce is disrupted.it does nothing to the percieved enemy.the people who are harmed are the people who become radicalised.like muslims who explode themselves and leave thier families to bury the bits.
   anarchy just becomes powerful religion.this is not debate,criticism or a lifelong path of inquiry.
   there is something to be said for a peaceful society.i point out some of the reasons why we aren`t working towards that.i provide some solutions to people,one at a time and in small groups.it is a lifetime of work.i was given some gifts and i feel that i have a responsibility to using those gifts to help ease the pain of those who are ready to conspire to have some happiness in thier lives.
   chomsky gets a room full of people together and gets them whipped into an endorphin state useful to nobody.granted they laugh,frown,nod knowingly and raise a fist but when the crowd lets out they are into the night no better off that when they entered the room.
   that was my point.i think he owes them a bit more for thier souls than that.

4. Occult Investigator Says:
   June 20th, 2005 at 5:24 pm

   why does he owe them more? i still dont get it. he’s created a massive amount of creative, insightful work, which opens doors for people that they can then step through on their own. if anything, it seems like they might owe him for that opportunity, and for all that work and dedication

5. human Says:
   June 20th, 2005 at 5:42 pm

   are people not though implying solution with criticism?

   doesnt “dont” imply do? by default?

   my problem with Chomsky is not that he offers NO solution… just his solution seems to be more B.S.

   ala vote Kerry, anybody but Bush.

   one
   human?

6. JK Says:
   June 20th, 2005 at 5:50 pm

   anarchy just becomes powerful religion.this is not debate,criticism or a lifelong path of inquiry.

   I have to entirely disagree. In my own case, it could be said that my discovery of Chomsky came at about the same time I logged onto the Internet for the first time. My first post to a newsgroup was throwing a question and an observation out into the mix, that the problem fundamentalist Christians have with the media is not that it *was* (this is back in 1996 or so) too “liberal”, but that news sources (such as NPR) treated Christianity just a impartially as they treated other belief systems. Like three or four people wound up introducing me to Chomsky that way.

   As you can tell, I’ve yet to give up my lifelong path of inquiry. Chomsky just happens to be along with my ride.

   chomsky gets a room full of people together and gets them whipped into an endorphin state useful to nobody.granted they laugh,frown,nod knowingly and raise a fist but when the crowd lets out they are into the night no better off that when they entered the room.

   Just my opinion, but Chomsky is a very boring man to listen to speak. He has no rhetorical flourishes and exhibits very little emotion.

7. slomo Says:
   June 20th, 2005 at 6:02 pm

   Well, there are no political solutions. Every utopian political system has failed. By ‘failed’ I mean either it has collapsed (e.g. communism) or it has become so corrupt that it bears no resemblance with its original form (e.g. American democracy). I can’t say for sure whether it’s the fault of an Illuminist Conspiracy, the Archons, or just plain human venality. But the fact remains. Humans, and human systems, are corruptible.

   The answer, if there is one, is to become more aware. About everything. Including, perhaps, the uncomfortable fact that existence in this physical plane entails an inescapable biological truth, that we all must either kill or be killed (and usually experience both). All of the fucked-up-ness of this world comes from trying to insulate ourselves from this terrible truth.

8. slomo Says:
   June 20th, 2005 at 6:15 pm

   I’ll throw out another answer: love. Heh, Love is the answer! I don’t mean some starry-eyed hippy-dippy drug-induced New-Age shit*, or orgiastic free-sex predation*, or authoritarian Jesus-freak daddy-worship. I’m talking about something very simple: being in the moment, loving the present moment and its eternal and infinite fullness, and gratitude for the close relationships you have in the here-and-now. Because the pain of life, the pain of knowing that one day worms and microbes will be feeding on your raw dead flesh, that pain evaporates in the eternal moment.

   Plus, nothing pisses the Archons/Illuminati off more than the thought that somewhere, somebody may actually be having fun.

   [*Disclaimer: Not that there is anything wrong with occasional hippy-dippy drug-induced New-Age shit or orgiastic free-sex, if done in moderation and with proper precautions….]

9. slomo Says:
   June 20th, 2005 at 6:18 pm

   Sorry for the double post. Browser behaving badly

10. human Says:
    June 20th, 2005 at 6:20 pm

    love is the answer…

    kill or be killed got me itching to post just that.

    one
    human?

11. Ran Says:
    June 20th, 2005 at 6:30 pm

    If what Chomsky’s pointing out is obvious, why do so few people know it? Every time someone reads his books and learns something they didn’t know (which doesn’t happen in every case but happens often enough), he has been helpful.

    My problem with Chomsky is he doesn’t go far enough — he doesn’t move into a critique of the societal and technological patterns that make Empire possible, and inevitable. He’s treating the symptom. But he’s not responsible for my “lifelong path of inquiry.” I am! He provides a section of the path that we’re walking, and it’s up to us to keep going.

12. slomo Says:
    June 20th, 2005 at 7:00 pm

    I concur with Ran. Chomsky may seem to point out the obvious, but that’s only because it’s obvious to you. Not everybody lives on this side of the veil.

13. Occult Investigator Says:
    June 20th, 2005 at 8:00 pm

    yeah yeah!

14. alistair Says:
    June 20th, 2005 at 11:05 pm

    chomsky is a smart man,full of quite clever insight into political systems.he taught me some history,semantic precision and interesting ways of inducing trance through assumption.all useful ways of communicating.i could see where some may find him boring,especially when they don`t jump on the moral indignance bandwagon.
    i think the social conscience postition is overbought in america and pretty soon people are going to stop trying to help the plight of the homeless etc,because we`ve spent billions on the issue and the poor buggers are still standing on street corners and raising our awareness any higher isn`t going to solve the problem.or the environment.more red herrings to designed to move money around.these are gateway issues to socialism.y`know,marx,stalin,hilary and bill,chairman mao.
    the mechanism is pretty simple.we start voting to move massive amounts of federal capital into social programs(salaries for bureaucrats)which escalates to the point where half the population,or more is getting a government paycheck in the form of salary,welfare,disability or whatever and all of a sudden,no more democracy.we now have a captive voter,pulling levers for a paycheck like some twilight zone version of price is right.who could see that coming?bill and hilary were willing to bet the mansion on it.

15. alistair Says:
    June 20th, 2005 at 11:15 pm

    oh,and yes,there are no political answers.we can`t do anything “good” for our niegbours that they aren`t better at providing for themselves.we have to do good for ourselves.all of us.each.it`s hard to say clearly without saying we all need to get off the shit pile and feel good for no reason.we have it made here.our only issues are with things like stable browser software or which plugins work best.we are spoiled to the point where we are bored and interfereing in shit that`s other peoples problem.thier issues.we aren`t here to help others.they are.
    fuck it.i`m tired.i`m going to sleep now and no part of my sleep will be donated to the insomnacs association.they have to do thier own sleeping,if they want sleep.

16. bill Says:
    June 21st, 2005 at 12:00 am

    I don’t know… I’ve spent a long time thinking about Chomsky (His books having been introduced into my family by my college age sisters when I was ten), and I still really dont know what the hell he is talking about. ‘Open your eyes’ and ‘Wake Up’ and all that lefty-rhetoric means about as much to me as ‘Just Do It’ does coming from Nike. Ultimately, I have concluded that his work is best regarded as a sort of post-modernist concepetualist art collage, given his obvious skill with dealing with massive quantities of information, weaves a world vision out of media himself (precisely what he is accusing them of doing).
    There is one story about Chomsky that I think is tremendously revealing, where he was casually discussing manual labor with a caller on a talk show, and said something to the effect that ‘I once planted some trees in the yard, and after that I could see how a janitor might find his job satisfying’.
    This struck me as very strange that someone could be so removed from that type of work that the only way to conceive of how satisfaction could be obtained from non-intellectual work is that ‘he once planted a tree?’.
    Unfortunately, the main objects of his scathing critiques don’t have the luxury of existing solely in the ‘informational’ world’. Exxon cannot ‘fake’ having gasoline in the pumps. Either there is or there isn’t, and if there isn’t, your car goes nowhwere, and your grocery store has no food deliveries. The president either takes steps to protect the interests of the country or not, and when he does, he has to deal with bets on the future, gambling basically ( albeit with lots of info and resources). This means there is always the possiblity of effing up. This is the thing I think Chomsky utterly fails to realize: he imagines that government and corporations exist in a non-real world where complete knowledge is possible and gambling unnecessary (ie ‘the real world’ not important). In short, he imagines they live in a world like he does, where people dont live or die based on your decisions (or, in the case of corporation, your company lives or dies based on the success of your products in the real world). With that basic assumption, its easy to see why he must conclude that ceos and politicians must be horribly callous and cynical, and that if people mess up , it must be because they conspired too, not because the world is unpredictable.

17. Nathan Says:
    June 21st, 2005 at 2:19 am

    I guess my understanding of Chomsky is kind of the opposite of Bill’s. I’ve understood him as taking basically a modernist, scientific approach in his analysis, looking for the structural aspects that set the contexts within which decision making occurs. If anything, it is Chomsky’s lack of any post-modern sensibility that can make him seem overly rigid and didactic in his pronouncements. And his hostility to anything even remotely conspiratorial in it’s assumptions is well known, Peter Dale Scott has taken him on quite effectively on this issue, pointing out that structural realities that create hierarchies of influence don’t rule out intentional cooperative action by those with great power who may share confluent interests. Rigid though he may be at times, Chomsky’s work allows us to understand that if the contexts within which decisions are made are inimical to what is right, just, fair, peaceful, then the decisions that end up being made, inevitably, will not lead to actions that promote those values, despite the supposed best intentions of those who occupy the seats of power in our various institutions.

    The problem of our times is that everything is inverted - what is best for us is not practical, but what seems practical actually gets us nowhere. When the society you live in is certifiably insane, then the actions you have to take to get by (providing you and your loved ones with food, clothing and shelter, staying out of jail, etc.) in such an environment will ultimately feed the insanity, making it more intractable. But identify the insanity openly, try to resist it in mind, body, and spirit, and you will struggle to get by, and the more you resist, the more problems you will have… but this kind of resistance, practiced on a mass scale, is the only thing that will actually make a difference in the end. And a sophisticated intellectual approach, with no sacred cows, thorough in both it’s span and depth, should be a part of this resistance, we need it now more than ever. But in our insane culture, we are actually taught to have contempt for thinking people. Somehow, they are supposed to be out of touch with “reality”. In fact, the Chomskys of the world are MORE in touch with reality than the average person, not less. That doesn’t mean they should be our gurus, but they can and should be our role models.

18. slomo Says:
    June 21st, 2005 at 6:49 am

    Nathan and Bill are both right, in their own way. We do live in an insane culture, and to resist the insanity means not putting food on your family’s table. Therefore, those who are fortunate to live in sufficient comfort that they can see and comment on the big picture are the very same people who are removed from Reality. Here I am chatting with a bunch of strangers on some core issues, but my day job consists of producing “scientific results” that are abstract and essentially useless because there is no political will to take them seriously. I garden to keep half-sane, but if my life depended on my gardening I’d starve before next spring.

    Alistair, I find myself disagreeing with you now. You have an individualist bent that, while very American, is the product of an illusion. I have no problem with people “taking responsibility” and pulling their share of the weight, but in reality we are not separate. We do not live and die by our own actions. We live in a complex web of interdependencies. Even if we make them into abstractions like “the economy”, “the environment”, etc., they still exist. Every action has a consequence both for you and for other people. If I recall correctly, you earn a living doing Reiki or some kind of similar work? How did you support yourself while you were being trained? Loans? Trust fund? Partner supporting you? If a loan, the money came from a bank funded by some large and complex portfolio. Similar thing with the trust fund. If your wife, then maybe her job involved participation in some economy with ties somewhere else, etc. My own training was funded by both government and private-sector grants, who were investing in research to be used later both by private industry (pharmaceuticals) and government (e.g. CDC). All I’m saying here is that if you carefully and honestly follow the money, you’ll see how interconnected we really are.

    You may disagree with socialism and the “welfare state”. But we already live in a state that provides huge subsidies for corporations. Wherever you stand on the particulars of government subsidy vs. social welfare programs, the fact remains that in a complex civilization such as ours wealth is constantly being transferred from one person to another, from one organization to another. And, as John Fabrizio has recently written about, money is essentially an abstraction of energy.

19. slomo Says:
    June 21st, 2005 at 7:50 am

    Alistair, since I addressed you and your livelihood personally, I should probably add that I’m not impugning you or the hard work you’ve done to get where you are today. But if you’re alive, then energy is flowing into you from somewhere else. Your work is about the energy that flows out of you.

    I’m happy to frame the discussion in terms of the relative quantity of energy that flows into and out of an individual. But before one criticizes the proverbial homeless person for taking more than he gives back, I would ask that one look at the same phenomenon among corporations and the wealthiest 0.1% of individuals.

    Yes, I’m somewhat of a socialist, in the modern European sense of the word. Most of us would be happier and more comfortable if we had universal healthcare, a decent safety net and a safe retirement fund. And our civilization would be more stable and secure if we factored in the true costs of our activities (e.g. oil dependence, externalities imposed on delicate ecosystems, etc.).

    So, I’ll now end my political criticisms and return to being a dispassionate observer…

    Peace

20. alistair Says:
    June 21st, 2005 at 8:07 am

    the subsidies for corporations are provided to protect the jobs of employees,and to protect and control markets.i don`t agree completely with this either,though some subsidy is usefull,as there are situations where welfare for individuals serves to moderate social pressures.selling welfare as a right is what i really have an issue with.
    i am hypnotherapist and nlp practitioner.i was a general contractor for ten years and a realtor for five years.i played professional soccer prior to that in,england and canada.i have been fortunate.i am grateful for those opportunities but i know that i had to include myself in the process to get the rewards.
    that`s what i teach now.
    yes,money is an abstraction of energy or effort,and also of the will and desire of people.maybe it`s an abstraction of conciousness too.
    regarding being responsible for others.i am very community conscious.i volunteer and am involved in fundraising,in fact next year,as of july 1st i will be riding bicycle from vancouver to toronto to raise money and awareness for lung health.i am launching a campaign to raise awareness for the damage that cigarette consumption does,medically and economically to our society.my position is that despite the fact that the cigarette manufacturers have a “legal product”,it doesn`t serve the public`s interest.i will be publishing and lecturing begining in the fall,when my stop smoking seminar season begins.
    i feel i`m providing solutions.

21. alistair Says:
    June 21st, 2005 at 8:34 am

    i don`t know how you managed to respond to my post before i launched it,slomo but i`m impressed.i am not attacking the individual “homeless” person.the plight of people who are in such a situation is horrid.i grew up in england and my formative politics were old style social(ist).we all want the best for others.in a small community we can do good acts and see the results.as communities grow we tend to see agencies managing the efforts.churches,foundations and charities now do our good work and we just cut a cheque.i just don`t think that humanitarian,natural want to help scales up.it becomes usurped by the very types that we tend to decry for being selfish.
    i am taxed already at an extortionate level.i have issues with how those funds(my efforts) are being put to use,or if they`re even being properly directed at all.
    to reduce this discussion to exchange of energy is useful,in that it allows us to abstract out politics,to a degree.
    from the position that energy flows in and out of an individual.i take the position that the individual generates a certain amount of energy by thinking.i believe that is what the act of conciousness is.creativity.this created energy,in my belief,is new to the universe and if moulded and formed will remain in place here.if not,it disappears out.i don`t think it`s a zero sum game.newton wanted it to be that way to suit the games he was playing,politically and alchemically.newton was an interesting cat,by the way.we`ve had a science based on that ever since and it knocks out cold fusion etc.and keeps billions in poverty while 0.1% reap the oil rewards.
    we must remember that we are using the result of billions of dollars of military spending to exchange ideas here.the chinese version makes this a crime.
    thanks for the gentle disagreement.i am pleased to exchange ideas this way.peace.

22. slomo Says:
    June 21st, 2005 at 7:37 pm

    OK, alistair, I suppose we are on different corners of the same page. It’s just that my antennae go up when I hear people criticizing homeless people (which you may or may not have actually been doing, but that’s what I read into your comments). Some of them are in fact (pardon the expression) lazy bums. But some are truly victims.

    And I get really annoyed with the stereotypical selfish American position “it’s mine I worked for it don’t you dare take it away from me” when in fact many Americans have benefited handsomely from subsidies of one sort or another. (Again, not saying that is your position, just what I may have read into it.)

    Re: taxes. It’s not that they are high, per se (much lower than many European countries) but, as you say, the money is often misspent. I would be happier about paying taxes if the money was better spent. For a particularly egregious example of misspent public funds, google “Ohio coingate”.

23. alistair Says:
    June 21st, 2005 at 10:43 pm

    i`ll tell you a little secret.i have lived in my car,for a time,and spent a few nights walking the streets with nowhere to go.i was young and going through some shit and the whole thing made me realise that i wanted some shelter of a more permenant type and didn`t feel comfortable availing myself of the kindness of friends for any length of time.i guess what i`m saying is that some of the homelessness is mental illness,some economic,some drug use and some is willful laziness,resentment,etc.a sullen determination to live in a box rather than work.
    liam gallagher from oasis said that if he gave every penny of his wealth to the cause of aiding the homeless,there would still be people standing on the street corner.i tend to agree.it`s not a problem that money can fix.it`s not a problem that money created.it`s a part of urban and suburban life.
    here`s an example of interesting decisions that the canadian government makes.they(it) decided to build a community of new homes for inuit in a specific area in the yukon,which is almost at the arctic circle.they spent half a million each on these homes and moved the families in.hundreds of them.what where they thinking making luxury homes for aborininals?and why that particular community?
    then they built million dollar wind generators to supply a specific community in the north with free hydro(aero?) and they built one at the canadian national exhibition in toronto,as if to tease the community with the potential of cheap,if not free electricity.there are communities in holland investing in these devices and selling the surplus back to the government.they don`t pollute and they`re quiet and they reduce cost.yet our government fucks about with the idea and deregulates energy costs so that all our energy bills are climbing.
    i`m sick of moralising issues as if to solve the problem.fuck it.we do work hard for what we have and in places like sweden they`re having to bolt the front door to the country shut because like in dawn of the dead,the zombies are coming for the social benifits.it`s happening all over the world.you guys down there in the u.s. have a wide open border to the south and by some estimations california will be part of mexico (again) by 2100.not to mention new mexico and texas.

24. bill Says:
    June 22nd, 2005 at 4:58 am

    I guess I disagree (regarding Nathans post) that an intellectualist approach necessarily puts you more in touch with reality. It can (Einsteins imagination?), but sometimes it can be just as obfuscating as willfully ignoring pertinant info. I guess its called ‘Platonic’ or ‘Cartesian’ to have this ‘I think therefore I am’ idealization of reality as accessed through ideal mental constructs. I think information flows both ways through a dualistic universe; ie sometimes your senses tell you whats what, and sometimes logic and analysis do. I think the interplay between these two worlds leads to the best results. And Chomsky seems to be looking through a monocle instead of binoculars. In that sense, he seems to have the scientific intellect, but not the experimental apparatus. Though I agree completely that examining context and basic assumption is essential to understanding what actions are taken, I think Chomsky is outsmarting himself to a large degree.. its like hes got all the answers, but no clue.
    Btw, I hope I didnt insinuate any lack of respect for the role of the intellectual in society.
    But I think while society in general underestimates the intellectuals importance, university types overestimate it.

25. alistair Says:
    June 22nd, 2005 at 11:11 am

    the intellectuals do run the asy…sorry,i mean universities.we cannot intellectualise spirituality.a.a. says that the mind is a dangerous place to go alone.the scent of a flower doen`t come with a bibliography and references.society needs all of these things,and more,to function.to make one thing more important than another,for whatever reason,makes the system begin to fail.the consumer of society must make that choice,we have to actively live our lives.learn some sociology from poets,comedians and lunatics as well as professors.
    worshipping the moon has gotten a bad name recently.psychiatrists have tought us to ridicule and to marginalise.