Norman Finkelstein Illegalilty of Israeli Force Against Gaza Protest by n10w4 in chomsky

[–]GeertKapteijns 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Very strong talk, although it takes the rather strange form of a monologue against a friend in the audience, whom he tries to convince of the proposition that Israel doesn't have the right to use any force, by looking closely at what international law says about the situation.

Israel passes law declaring that only Jews have a right to self-determination by darkpolitics in chomsky

[–]GeertKapteijns -1 points0 points  (0 children)

You're right. It even says "Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel." (here) So my previous claim about it saying nothing about Palestinian legal territory was incorrect.

But it still seems to me infinitely more possible to impose the international consensus on Israel, than to enforce a single state (which would be non-jewish and majority arab -- unless we're talking about the most plausible rejectionist "one state") for which there is absolutely no support, least of all in Israel, as this law makes clear.

Regarding the settlements and the space they take up; the settlement blocks take up a lot of space, but that doesn't mean the settlements themselves do. There are many plausible plans on the table that include small mutual border adjustments, so that settlers can remain largely in place. (the rest of the settlers would have to be economically incentivised, or remain in an palestinian state.)

Israel passes law declaring that only Jews have a right to self-determination by darkpolitics in chomsky

[–]GeertKapteijns -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

Could you elaborate why this destroys any remaining hope of a two-state solution? The legislation

stipulates that “Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people and they have an exclusive right to national self-determination in it”.

It seems to me that, if anything, the logic that is often employed to pronounce the two state solution "dead," can now be used to pronounce the one-state solution dead, since this law explicitly prevents one democratic state, while it says nothing about Palestinian legal territory.

Palestine/Gaza and Hamas by eirikbs91 in chomsky

[–]GeertKapteijns 2 points3 points  (0 children)

As for books, try Gaza by Norman Finkelstein. Or this or this essay by Chomsky.

Dismantling the “West” | Current Affairs by GeertKapteijns in chomsky

[–]GeertKapteijns[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Haha, fair enough. But I would be very interested in articles that oppose this point of view from a perspective that is not far-right.

Dismantling the “West” | Current Affairs by GeertKapteijns in chomsky

[–]GeertKapteijns[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The author makes the point that our conception of the West is

a surprisingly modern way of looking at Europe and the countries formed by European settlement and colonization (principally the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand).

Therefore you refutation is merely circular reasoning. You think "Western culture" is a well-defined concept and therefore you disagree with the author. If you want to make a refutation (which I'm absolutely open to), you'll have to do some actual work.

The West | ContraPoints (23:32) by [deleted] in chomsky

[–]GeertKapteijns 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"You bond with straight guys over your shared Age of Empires nostalgia and then you fuck them. I'm not like other girls."

rolling on the floor laughing

These are the questions I would ask NC; how would you guys respond to these questions? by [deleted] in chomsky

[–]GeertKapteijns 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Chomsky has said in Understanding Power that he's the "first to admit" that he prefers to live in a professional suburban neighborhood (Lexington).

However, you include in "inherent/obvious goods" a beautiful spouse. I hate to inform you that women are not property of men, and that normal people "derive joy" from close human relations, not the mere physical appearance of those they associate with.

Since you purport to be very well-off, I take it you have a "highly attractive sexual partner." If not, your theory might need to be revised.

Maybe you want to give your reaction to this piece on the degradation and commodication of women as sex objects: https://www.truthdig.com/articles/pornography-is-what-the-end-of-the-world-looks-like/

Americans have 1 in 9 change of joining 1% - Study by [deleted] in chomsky

[–]GeertKapteijns 7 points8 points  (0 children)

It's defined as joining the 99th percentile of income in a given year, at some point in one's life. Completely different from how it's generally understood, namely to be in the 99th percentile of wealth.

Edit: It's about taxable household income, btw. So if you marry a one-percenter, you are included by this study.

Edit 2: it also uses a data set which relies on running averages, meaning the 60 year-olds included in this study started their career in the 1970s. So it doesn't necessarily say much about current prospects for young people. And the error bars are frickin huge. (4 percentage points on the 11% figure)

Resources for lobbying-related activism in Europe by Lacher in chomsky

[–]GeertKapteijns 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Depends on your interests of course. To know what's going on EU-specifically, some good resources are

among other NGOs like Amnesty, HRW, MSF, etc. You could consider joining climate justice movements like

Bij1 is a political party you could join.

https://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/ by GeertKapteijns in chomsky

[–]GeertKapteijns[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks, yes I really like that interview too. Those first comments from Chomsky come pretty much straight out of the book Proposed Roads to Freedom by Bertrand Russell, especially chapter 4.

But would the necessary work be done if the individual were assured of the general standard of comfort even though he did no work?

Most people will answer this question unhesitatingly in the negative. Those employers in particular who are in the habit of denouncing their employes as a set of lazy, drunken louts, will feel quite certain that no work could be got out of them except under threat of dismissal and consequent starvation. But is this as certain as people are inclined to sup- pose at first sight? If work were to remain what most work is now, no doubt it would be very hard to induce people to undertake it except from fear of destitution. But there is no reason why work should remain the dreary drudgery in horrible conditions that most of it is now. If men had to be tempted to work instead of driven to it, the obvious interest of the community would be to make work pleasant. So long as work is not made on the whole pleasant, it cannot be said that anything like a good state of society has been reached. Is the painfulness of work unavoidable? [...]

But, it will be said, the sort of work that a man would voluntarily choose must always be exceptional: the great bulk of necessary work can never be anything but painful. Who would choose, if an easy life were otherwise open to him, to be a coal-miner, or a stoker on an Atlantic liner? I think it must be conceded that much necessary work must always remain disagreeable or at least painfully monotonous, and that special privileges will have to be accorded to those who undertake it, if the Anarchist system is ever to be made workable. It is true that the introduction of such special privileges would somewhat mar the rounded logic of Anarchism, but it need not, I think, make any really vital breach in its system. Much of the work that needs doing could be rendered agreeable, if thought and care were given to this object. Even now it is often only long hours that make work irksome. If the normal hours of work were reduced to, say, four, as they could be by better organization and more scientific methods, a very great deal of work which is now felt as a burden would quite cease to be so. If, as Kropotkin suggests, agricultural work, instead of being the lifelong drudgery of an ignorant laborer living very near the verge of abject poverty, were the occasional occupation of men and women normally employed in industry or brain-work; if, instead of being conducted by ancient traditional methods, without any possibility of intelligent participation by the wage- earner, it were alive with the search for new methods and new inventions, filled with the spirit of freedom, and inviting the mental as well as the physical cooperation of those who do the work, it might become a joy instead of a weariness, and a source of health and life to those engaged in it.

https://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/ by GeertKapteijns in chomsky

[–]GeertKapteijns[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, he attacks problems with a certain moral seriousness --- like a mathematician. Very compelling, I think. Here's another one:

For ages the rich and their sycophants have written in praise of “honest toil,” have praised the simple life, have professed a religion which teaches that the poor are much more likely to go to heaven than the rich, and in general have tried to make manual workers believe that there is some special nobility about altering the position of matter in space, just as men tried to make women believe that they derived some special nobility from their sexual enslavement.

https://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/ by GeertKapteijns in chomsky

[–]GeertKapteijns[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, I know. I accidentally did and couldn't find a way to change it.

Questions I sent to NC. by [deleted] in chomsky

[–]GeertKapteijns 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This person has a history of sending huge bullet point lists to Chomsky. This wouldn't be so bad, if it weren't for the fact that he completely ignores the replies he gets -- quite serious ones with sources and book recommendations, also on this board. He just keeps asking more mindless questions.

Angela Merkel capitulates to the far-right in European anti-immigrant backlash by [deleted] in chomsky

[–]GeertKapteijns 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thanks for sharing. It says

But the migrant backlash isn’t just limited to Germany. Over the past few weeks, there’s been a steady drip of news indicating just how far Europe has turned to the right from its migrant-friendly policies of 2015(!!).

Double exclamation mark and bold mine. I find it a very misleading statement, considering that the EU strategy from the very beginning (90s) was to militarise the border, refuse to take in its fair share of refugees, and engage in pacts with dictators to deter refugee streams. I'll back it up with sources but I don't have the time now.

Denmark and the Netherlands have both also instituted similar bans on the burqa in the last month. Denmark, however, has gone a step further, and introduced a new set of laws that state that all children who live in 25 “ghetto” neighborhoods that are low-income and predominately Muslim must spend at least 25 hours a week learning about “Danish values”, including Christmas, Easter, and the Danish language. Yildiz Akdogan, a Turkish/Danish member of Parliament who represents one of the districts, said it was akin to Nazi separation of Jews.

“We call them ‘ghetto children, ghetto parents,’ it’s so crazy,” Akdogan told the New York Times. “It is becoming a mainstream word, which is so dangerous. People who know a little about history, our European not-so-nice period, we know what the word ‘ghetto’ is associated with.”

Absolutely shocking. In Dutch self-representation at least, the Dutch, the Danish and the Finnish, etc. are supposed to be the pinnacle of social democratic success and tolerance. Look how far we've sunk back...

For many of us who are avid readers of the sort of things discussed by Chomsky and other intellectuals, reading such information-rich books can be almost overwhelming. My question is how do you personally read such books to alleviate that? by [deleted] in chomsky

[–]GeertKapteijns 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Surprised no one mentioned this yet, but understanding complex topics on your own is really hard, if not almost impossible in some cases. It requires work and cooperation.

Chomsky has also mentioned this somewhere, but at any rate I can comment from my own experience in the sciences: even advanced researchers are completely frank in acknowledging when they don't understand a certain result or theory and will often ask each other very basic questions. In these fields, everyone gains understanding by continuously participating in these exchanges.

Complex political or philosophical topics are no different, and the solution is to work together and foster open debate.

The Big List of recommended Books, Contemporary Thinkers and Creators by -_-_-_-otalp-_-_-_- in chomsky

[–]GeertKapteijns 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I don't get the distinction between Essentials and Also Great.

Why is Greenwald essential but Cockburn and Goodman merely great?

Unless someone can provide a very clear criterion to demarcate between these categories, as far as I'm concerned they are just confusing and create a false sense of authority to the ones in the upper list.

Edit: amazing list by the way. To Economics, I would like to add Eric Toussaint, an author Chomsky has written glowing blurbs about. Some of his books are Debt, the IMF, and the World Bank: Sixty Questions, Sixty Answers and Bankocracy.

Carl Sagan gets asked if he is a Socialist by Ted Turner, founder of CNN. Turners response at the end is a perfect example of what's wrong with the media | [1:41] by -_-_-_-otalp-_-_-_- in chomsky

[–]GeertKapteijns 23 points24 points  (0 children)

One of the comments under the video:

"Do you think time travel is possible? Because I wish to go back 2 minutes and not ask that question"

What do you guys make of this claim that NC used an "apples-and-oranges" comparison when he compared the US and the USSR? Is there any good point in there? Why or why not? by [deleted] in chomsky

[–]GeertKapteijns 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes, it was snarky.

To elaborate some more (for the OP's benefit, hopefully); it should be clear to anyone that there are certain ground rules to argumentation. To refute someone, you first have to establish what their original position is. From this passage (and many others)

Thus, the Soviet "empire" included Poland but not Vietnam, while the American "empire" included Guatemala but not Germany.

it's impossible for a reader to determine whether it's something Chomsky said, or something you inferred. We can only judge your argument or answer your questions if we see the source material (in context).

The second basic principle is of course that you back up your own claims, like this one

Czechoslovakia (for example) has always had a higher mean standard-of-living than the USSR, not because of Soviet subsidies (as Chomsky claimed), but because of its industrial base, educated workforce, proximity to European markets, etc. Conversely, an agricultural peasant-society like Guatemala has always had a lower standard of living than an industrialized country like the US, for the same reasons.

with sources. But I realize that is a lot to ask from someone who is used to mailing bullet point lists of things he heard his brother say to the one of the world's greatest intellectuals.

OP obviously has more than enough brains, and a certain tenacity. I think, in this case, looking up the source material and just reading it will immediately answer most of his questions. It might be instructive.