Noam Chomsky versus Sam Harris

I have contacted Sam Harris through his site to discuss his meta-ethical example of the chess game. I’ll try to avoid this abstract and philosophical debate here, untill he has replied. I can accept he’s busy. I only mention this, so I won’t get a cease-and-desist for quoting almost an entire chapter from his (though outdated) book. First give me a reply Mr Harris! I’ve never mailed or contacted Noam Chomsky because I feel he’s busy enough, I have too many of his books to read first and he’s old (so I assume his time is too precious).
I’m also looking forward to reading Harris’ new book “Lying”. So far, he seems to be against it: “Even with Nazis at the door and Anne Frank in the attic, Howard [teacher of “The Ethical Analyst", the course Harris was taking] always seemed to find truths worth telling and paths to even greater catastrophe that could be opened by lying”. In the End of Faith, his utilitarian approach of equating do and allowing (which I agree with in principle mind you) is illustrated with Peter Unger, who “made a persuasive case that a single dollar spent on anything but the absolute essentials of our survival is a dollar that has some starving child’s blood on it.” (footnoting: P. Unger, Living High & Letting Die: Our Illusion of Innocence (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1996). Wikipedia (I admit not reading Unger’s book, because I agree as I already stipulated) says: “Unger argues that for people in the developed world to live morally, they are morally obliged to make sacrifices to help mitigate human suffering and premature death in the third world, and further that it is acceptable (and morally right) to lie, cheat, and steal to mitigate suffering”. Obviously, Harris either took the course after he wrote the End of Faith, or he’s using Unger to make a point. The point being that “intentions matter” (making Harris, at most, a rule-utilitarian; the rule being intentions matter, but letting people die is a bad intention and shouldn’t be a rule). However, as Chomsky points out in a conference (to be found on youtube, but I don’t think I need proof to make this general anarchist critique -if you find it; contact me, save me the hassle of looking it up myself and I’ll edit this part-), Hitchens (the war) and Harris are state apologists. I’ll quote Harris in the End of Faith: “But we are, in many respects, just such a “well-intentioned giant.” And it is rather astonishing that intelligent people, like Chomsky and Roy, fail to see this”. I’m currently reading Stephen Jay Gould’s book “The Mismeasure of Man” and most recently “The White Man’s Burden” of Rudyard Kipling was quoted. I don’t think I need to quote the entire poem of the response of Teddy Roosevelt (writing to Henry Cabot Lodge).
The next section of Harris’ book discusses “Perfect Weapons and the Ethics of “Collateral Damage”.
“Consider the all too facile comparisons that have recently been made between George Bush and Saddam Hussein (or Osama bin Laden, or Hitler, etc.)—in the pages of writers like Roy and Chomsky, in the Arab press, and in classrooms throughout the free world”. These “facile comparisons” are what most moral philosophers call “universality”. As Chomsky puts it:”That’s not what I was saying. The statement of mine that you just quoted is a very conservative statement, in fact it was articulated by George Bush’s favorite philosopher, Jesus Christ, who famously defined the notion of a hypocrite. A hypocrite is a person who focuses on the other fellow’s crimes and refuses to look at his own. That’s the definition of hypocrite by George Bush’s favorite philosopher. When I repeat that I’m not taking a radical position. I’m taking a position that is just elementary morality”. Harris continues “What would Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden do with perfect weapons? What would Hitler have done? They would have used them rather differently”. As if these people have a bloodlust and would not try to attain global domination/hegemony if it could be done without needless killing. They are the unhumans, it would seem. To claim the same of our leaders, is the make a mockery of democracy. However, if this is the argument which Harris proposes (and it’s not clear he does), then we are all indeed complicit in the crimes of our leaders and nobody in those towers was innocent. As the terrorists claim. I’d rather go with the analysis that half of the US population doesn’t even vote because “it doesn’t matter”. Of course, Harris claims they’re not crimes. They’re collateral damage. We just haven’t found the perfect weapon yet. But if our enemy had it, he would cause needless bloodshed. I won’t defend Islam. In fact, whenever I meet a believer of anything, I’ll discuss untill they kindly run away:”Any honest witness to current events will realize that there is no moral equivalence between the kind of force civilized democracies project in the world, warts and all, and the internecine violence that is perpetrated by Muslim militants, or indeed by Muslim governments. Chomsky seems to think that the disparity either does not exist or runs the other way”. As if The Troubles were settled with atheists from the Continent and their critique of what was happening in between Europe and America. Perhaps this is a false comparison, but it’s the first one that came to mind and seems plausible enough. I invite you to explain in the comments what’s wrong with it and I’ll come up with a new one if needed. Perhaps I don’t need to. The very next paragraph in Harris’ work relates to Saddam’s rule (so faith seems to be false enemy, it’s secular rule by a mob style ganster and his posse):”Consider the recent conflict in Iraq: If the situation had been reversed, what are the chances that the Iraqi Republican Guard, attempting to execute a regime change on the Potomac, would have taken the same degree of care to minimize civilian casualties? What are the chances that Iraqi forces would have been deterred by our use of human shields? (What are the chances we would have used human shields?) What are the chances that a routed American government would have called for its citizens to volunteer to be suicide bombers ? What are the chances that Iraqi soldiers would have wept upon killing a carload of American civilians at a checkpoint unnecessarily? You should have, in the ledger of your imagination, a mounting column of zeros”. To answer the questions: 1) If they had the same military might, it might not have been so different. But I can’t say with the same certitude as Harris, because we don’t live anywhere near that kind of society. 2) Perhaps they’ve seen more misery than our volunteer army (called mercenary army by Chomsky) and they’ve lost all humanity. 3) Israel seems to be a good case study of doing more with less. They do use human shields. I’ve seen the pictures (teens on the hoods of cars, younger childeren in front of IDF forces). But this questions was in parenthesis. Pure rhetoric and deserves no response as none was expected. 4) Suicide missions only seem to exist in the movie version of the US Army. Marines never leave a man behind, so the issue doesn’t arise. However, if the military is broken and citizens are needed to bomb the enemy, I’m sure they’ll have to risk their lives too. 5) I’m not sure the tearducts or Iraqi soldiers are unable to function. We hear the same stories from anti-war soldiers returning from Iraq. The story being that most of the company don’t care that much about Iraqis and it’s hard to get these stories out. Hate breeds more hate. Being in the war won’t make ‘them’ better people. It’ll make ‘us’ worse. 0) This is the only zero. I’m sorry Sam, but I have some imagination. Harris continues to claim “But you would not know this from reading Chomsky. For him, intentions do not seem to matter. Body count is all”. From reading Chomsky I get the feeling he’s saying the intentions of the population matters and if the population votes to go to war, maybe we should. Body count is relevant. ‘Liberals’ often take about the cost of war, never mentioning the human cost. He’s trying to side-step this “It’s moral, but we’re doing it wrong and it’s costing us too much money” discourse. He seems to be a ‘better’ utilitarian. Nevertheless, as a child of the Enlightement, Chomsky sees Kant as an extension of Hume and Mill and all those guys as one great tradition. He does not claim intentions are not important. He merely points out that geo-political interests (eg. oil) are often the true motivation and noble excuses are thought of later. Intentions are important for Chomsky when, say, he defends attacking fascism in the ’40′s after the fall of anarchism in the ’30′s. But Harris seems to be a libertarian and has his own ideological filter. One that allows for a Pax Americana it would seem. Or as he puts it:”We are now living in a world that can no longer tolerate wellarmed, malevolent regimes. Without perfect weapons, collateral damage—the maiming and killing of innocent people—is unavoidable”.

Traffic quotations

Seth Abrahams is played by the same actor who played Eric Forman on that 70′s show, Topher Grace. Talk about typecasting. Unless you think vague cannabis references are different from using white chemicals that often include baking soda; sugars, such as lactose, dextrose, inositol, and mannitol; and local anesthetics, such as lidocaine or benzocaine, which mimic or add to cocaine’s numbing effect on mucous membranes. And almost always includes ether, ammonia, acetone and kerosine in transforming the coca paste.
Robert Wakefield is played by Michael Douglas. They couldn’t get Nicolos the Second for the part. Either way, the war is on. After all, drugs can ruin your life. And that’s the government’s job.
Source:
Seth Abrahams: [high on coke] We act like we have all the answers and we’re totally invincible, like our parents seem and their parents before them, and I’m sorry, that I have to be the one to say this, but it’s fucking bullshit. For instance I know that you jack-off to Caroline every night instead of Vanessa, who you’re supposed to be in love with. Whatever that… don’t even get me started on that convention, I mean, think about it. What is that convention? We’re this random collection of self-interest all of a sudden , and we just decide that we’re just gonna, we’re just gonna walk two by two down the fucking aisle to you know, Noah’s ark?

Teacher: [Robert Wakefield drags Seth out of class to help look for his missing daughter] Can I help you?
Robert Wakefield: Seth has to be excused. He’s going on a field trip.

Robert Wakefield: I can’t believe you brought my daughter to this place.
Seth Abrahams: Woah. Why don’t you just back the fuck up, man. “To this place”? What is that shit? Ok, right now, all over this great nation of ours, ‘hundred thousand white people from the suburbs are cruisin’ around downtown asking every black person they see “You got any drugs? You know where I can score some drugs?” *Think* about the effect that that has on the psyche of a black person, on their possibilities. I… God I guarantee you bring a hundred thousand black people into your neighborhood, into fuckin’ Indian Hills, and they’re asking every white person they see “You got any drugs? You know where I can score some drugs?”, within a *day* everyone would be selling. Your friends. Their kids. Here’s why: it’s an unbeatable market force man. It’s a three-hundred percent markup value. You can go out on the street and make five-hundred dollars in two hours, come back and do whatever you want to do with the rest of your day and, I’m sorry, you’re telling me that… you’re telling me that white people would still be going to law school?

[walks into building with daughter in it]

[Robert Wakefield has offered the drug dealer a bribe for information about his missing daughter]
Drug Dealer: Who in the FUCK do you think you are? Where the fuck do you think you are, and why the fuck don’t I just put your ass in a dumpster?
Robert Wakefield: [Shaking, scared] … I… I got money…
Drug Dealer: [Infuriated] I got money!
Robert Wakefield: I’ve got a thousand dollars in my pocket; it’s for you.
Drug Dealer: If I want your money man, I will TAKE your money!

Rome is on fire

If we fight fire, we reserve something for it to feast on later on. I do not suggest we let it burn, while building new societies. But there´s something do be said for prevention and leisure.

Journal of a law abiding citizen

In Confoederatio Helvetica, a utupic future (and not so distant past), might look like this.
Morning, get up. Wash with water.
Need soap and shampoo from pant H. It grows on the mountainside and requires no maintenance.
Just water. Which flows because of global warming from our precious glacier.
I like the smell, so I made deodorant (also made from H) also smell like it. I´m not a lavander person.

Time to eat something. Ate last of my personally slaughtered chicken yesterday. Time for something less meaty today. Let´s see. Tomorrow I might eat soy, but for now, something more digestable. I´ll just take some seeds from plant H from the near brook. It´s got energy (567 calories/100g), Protein (30.6/100g), Carbohydrate (10.9) Dietary fiber (6), Fat (47.2), Saturated fat (5.2), Oleic (18:1 Omega-9, 5.8), Polyunsaturated fat (36.2), Linoleic (18:2 Omega-6 27.6), Linolenic (18:3 Omega-3 8.7), Linolenic (18:3 Omega-6 0.8). And zero cholesterol. About 5grams will be water from the near brook, but I’m cool with that.
It’s got Vitamin A, Thiamine (Vit B1) , Riboflavin (Vit B2), Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Calcium and Iron. So that’ll be enough for breakfast. Save some of the seed oil for treatment of eczema.
Also no gluten in it, so I can share it later with people who have celiac disease.

It´s noon. I just worked in the barn, feeding the animals with plant H I brought back from the mountainside. What they don´t eat can be used as hay. I´m exhausted. Still have a long day. Better eat something made of plant C butter. Can´t swallow the painkillers because they have too many side-effects on my stomach.

Evening. Just looked to see if plant C was doing fine. I try to keep it seperate from plant H. Otherwise it all turns H. Far relatives of hop, which I don´t brew. I don´t need to have an industrial only variety to make of for this lacking thirst as they call it. I harldy use Fords T-model. Made it after his and diesels design myself. Same fuel source and all. Made from, mainly plant H and runs on it too.
Time to relax. I eat some more butterscones from C. I throw some of the outdoor variety on the campfire, it was growing too close to H and might start mixing. I take some more blankets to keep warm, also made from H, as are my clothes.

As I write this down on paper made from H, I take some plants C and vaporize it to fight the depressing and grim reality. This isn´t utopia, this is the real world.

My plant H is of course, Herbicide. Plant C, Change.

Update: I couldn´t stop nature from crosspollinating. The plant spreads like a weed. Growing in all climates and deserts. Withstanding the conditions of central asia. Even though it originated from the rainforest. Started growing the domisticated variety, tribes used it a couple of thousand years in this manner. The molecule with medicinal values reaches 8% which is sufficient.

Chomsky On Education

On education

Click on the icon.
Obama Facts: here

I suggest the corporation (moral person) be allowed a maximum of 150 people. Democratic control by the “employees”. Capital should flow in the same way, unless the majority decides otherwise.

Free associations by federation will rule this planet!

Violence as legitimate means

I just saw the clip “Rise Against – Re-Education (Through Labor)” and it reminded me of Fight Club. But also of 24 and Xe.
The clip started with a quotation from John F. Kennedy:”Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

Now, if all of us (wealthy worldcitizens, access to internet etc) were to adopt this principle; the world would be an ugly place.

Don’t get me wrong, I like JFK. But the (cold) war rethoric bothers me. If anarchists (meaning people who identify themselves with the anti-authoritarian tradition) were to use the ‘propaganda of the act’ as it were, we’d all be terrorists.

If ANYBODY, starts adressing their grievances (such as state terror on a massive scale) by mimicing the abhorrent behavior, we’re in for a very long and destructive circle (if not spiral, but I doubt cycle) of violence.

Imagine, the anarchist cookbook and the destructive nature of such literature being applied by all extremes of the political spectrum. From left wing commies, claiming all private property is theft, to right-wing contractors who feel the only way to keep order is to do it themselves.
That doesn’t include the people desecrating public property because they feel what one arm of government does, they should annihilate its legs.

The logic is destructive. Meanly because it’s war logic. If you look at this as a war, we’re all going to be fucked.
But as george carlin points on (on education -must see!-), the owners of this country won’t allow us to learn anything. So if we (the masses) can’t think (if that’s reserved for elites), we’ll have to act. Without rational thought I feel this could easily lead into harsh situations.

However, if one (leftist) would replace say, class warfare with class cooperation, he’d quickly have a fundamental change of position (even it’s its only implemented after nationalising the collectives’ wealth); we’d end up with fascism.

Which is a difficult position to maintain. Of course, if you WANT power and you want to achieve your OWN political agenda: Fascism is the way to go.

It is the only thing that does not tolerate anarchy. It doesn’t even tolerate the mob. CIA had to rebuild that with the french connection (drug money, prohibition excluded liquids again). There was order in the streets. The manifesto had been somewhat realised. People listened, and the ones that didn’t were dealt with.

If I lived in the world wars, I hope I’d have been a pacifist. Maybe I’d had joined the resistance, because there was so much suffering around me and no wealth.

But right now, even if I were to -for the sake of argument- think of the current world regime/empire is more totalitarian than it could have been over 50 years ago, I’d still use non-violent means to address the issue.
Like say, words, ideas, concepts, etc.

There was a massive movement, even followed by the Czar (because his poor weaponry) leading up to the Great War. In the Second World War, it becomes hard to repeat Dwight on the american version of The Office and say that “it was a war we never should have gotten involved with”.
Even Einstein and Chomsky thought fighting it was right, and I kinda look upto these guys. But winning a war never determines who’s right, only who’s left.
In this case, the guys with the nukes won. Thank you a lot, Einstein!
And then there’s an MIT (pentagon budget) professor who teaches linguistics who can’t decide on paying taxes or not (or any other act of civil disobedience) because it might lead to fascism.

Of course, I don’t live in a country with the same budget lay-out (military is lik 15% here and most of it goes to social security and health, my region gives most its money away on education and health), so I pay my taxes (well I don’t because I’m a student and I hardly work, when I do the tariff is low and I give most of it away on causes so I get a refund). So even non-violent oppossition isn’t really an option for me either, either by voicing my opinion (because it’s easier to encounter people who might actually recognize me then in such a small country as mine) or by not paying taxes (even though 147 dossiers of 100000 known fraudulents cases are handed over to the justice department of further selection).

As for violence as legitimate means…To what? For what? What’s the end? In my world view it’s peace and non-violence. It’s dialogue, reason, and above all freedom and justice. The first two being the means. The latter two the goals, incompatible with legitimating violence.

For the ends are the means, and anarchism ought to be about deconstructing institutions of power (when classified as illegitimate), not about repeating mistakes of the past.

Make new ones. Do anything, try anthing. Just try not to infringe on other people’s right to do the same. And violence tends to target the weak. You may feel strong knowing that information is free and it’s surprisingly easy for any individual to destroy a lot of infrastructure, human lives, systems of dominance and whatnot.

If not, I’m sure EVERYONE will be able to find SOMETHING they’d be willing to burn, pillage and rape over.
Albeit, most might not abide by that order.

Overview

Geopolitical powers

comprehensive1

Confidence

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
William Butler Yeats wrote that.

When capitalism was in competition with communism, and consequently embellished. Equal voting rights, minimum wage, pensions, education and pensions were established as part of the welfare state. These marxist principles were adopted without the slightest hint of hypocrisy. Social democracies such as the ones in scandinavia thrived, canada and europe lagged behind.

However, the financial and banking elites remain to rule the regulators. Liberal democracy is as fragile as the next idea. With recession which reminds us of the years running up to another world war, and prohibition of alcohol and the main crop the US since the 1600′s.

Change is not impossible, it’s inevitable.
So is death.

Before you die, don’t you want to be confident enough for a spontanious uprising?
To do, what has not yet been done. To know what has been and to acknowledge that redefining democracy can exist within our lifetime. Participatory democracy, deep democracy, including the economy. That includes the distribution of land. The whole idea that some people ought to be homeless and others ought to have several houses has already been dampend by taxing the inheritance of land (100% in marxist conditions)
and social housing. Taxing goods (flat-tax) is something freemarket proponents like, taxing labor (50% in say belgium) is ineffective and would fuel labor being done without the social benefits (such as ensurance) this implies. Smuggling goods could perhaps be dealt with with capital punishment (together with adultery and thievery this is the main use of it when its particulary brutal).

To steal with your hands is filthy, to do it with a keyboard and a cell phone; it’s white collar crime and should be fined. But not too much, these people are the engine of our economy. I suggest another economy. If you produce with manual labor or with intellectual contributions (this excludes setting up complex systems to funnel money through credit into your pocket). Credit should be given on an individual scale, not to banking institutions such as the Federal banking institutions, in America OR in Europe (ECB).

“The example of a successful elected Marxist government in Chile would surely have an impact on — and even precedent value for — other parts of the world, especially in Italy,” the memorandum warns Nixon just hours before a critical National Security Council (NSC) meeting in which Kissinger urged his boss to reject the ”modus vivendi approach” recommended by the State Department.
They were calling for real socialism. Not communism. Dispersed where it was centralised. Participatory where it was bureacratic.

The ability to have a democratic system, rather than a totalitarian one. To be cooperative, rather than competitive. To have the total sum grow, rather than relying on stealing what’s already there (or made by those who would work the most for the least money). To have the confidence to chose for different, like the voters of Indonesia voted many years ago. This is something we should all strive for.

Because if we don’t make the decisions, someone else will. Somebody who is above you, above the law, above justice. Solidarity with all of humankind can set us free. We can have a freemarket. Free of the, mandatory by law, profit-seeking corporation. NOT to be owned by its employees. Banking institutions and schemes like Enron did pay in shares, rather than inflated money.

Jeffrey Sachs likes Poland, with its 40% unemployment rate. But who cares if you can buy the land and the institutions? People are starving to death, have to migrate all over europe, but prices are stable. The economy is ready to be taken over.

Another historic moment of possibility is the end of apartheid in South-Africa. We can end slavery, racism, unequal wealth distribution. You may end in whatever condition, but the starting conditions have to be equal for all. They’re not yet, let’s fix that first. For all of the human race.

NATO Mission Afghanistan and Obama

It seems clear now that Europe may rebuild Afghanistan escorting military operations conducted by US troops and contractors. NATO will continue to turn over people to the regime which will torture them in many cases (and who knows, maybe before it’s all over, he’ll be a terrorist). Basically, NATO will have to join the fight to control the mass population. This is a mixed strategy because the european army is still more or less mixed. The variants that come into play are along very nuanced and interacting paths. Belgians way of training troops (military or neighbourhood cop) will define the post-revolution (1979) landscape and shape the future junta. Civics lessons are nice idea, law and order is currently the talibans monopoly.
If post-colonial powers cannot succusfully install a stable oilpipeline, there’s no telling what Russia will do. Their willingness to make sacrificies is equalled only by the largest empire history has ever seen, funded by the chinese.
If India gets its tech people to run the japanese fighterdrones (they’re decades ahead, don’t tell me they don’t have transformers fully functioning), there’s no predicting how this will end.
Europe will be sick of getting a lousy oil/gas deal from its Ursidae second-world, almost complete capitalist third-world (those are the only ones that AREN’T protectionist, are weren’t because they were raped and pillaged on a metaphysical level) country.
Seriously, there’s nothing there but rocks. Leave it alone, a good part of the 20th century were moderate. Giving women the right to vote that is, maybe that’s too radical.
Exactly what kind of reaction are we trying to provoke with locals?
“Hello, I’m white and well armed. I’m here to help,”?
The Fundament (Al Qaida) is likely to hold a firm ground where the biggest army decides to draw lines in the sand.
Obama’s adviser (from Carter era) still wants a capitalist state of whatever regime, despite what the populations’ desire for afghan democracy and independance. The Mujahedin were his doing and Bin Ladens’ CIA training was hybris in the making. Breeding this medieval environment is manifest doom.
We will not win. Winning has no parameters, they’re infinite. The afghan civil war has to be thrown aside for securing oil and gas. The history of this region has only one, dominant lesson. It has huge blowback. In the long run, the gorilla movement has owned those caves. Even if we end up nuking every square inch (I think there are enough nukes for that on the planet) of that state, we’ll still end up with radiated oil.
So, what ARE we doing there?

Obama is which mythological president?

Personalities of past presidents have been intertwined with, amongst other things, their death. Lincoln was shot, FDR died in office from polio. Which you would like to see Obama end his career with?
Or is it Kennedy’s escalation in around Vietnam. The middle-east will be the new Indochina. Then again, that guy got shot too. So maybe another policy or charismatic option is required for hopefull change.
Now they(Robert Gates and alike) want to do the same thing to afghanistan as they did in Iraq.
Obama doesn’t want to get into the medical marihuana debate (states allow it) because it would waste political capital. Joe Biden and Clinton are allowed to run affaires that are abroad. How is he going to respond to the very real fact that cannabis has replaced opium as a crop. This major cash crop also has a low THC-variant, hemp. Industrial use of this was common for centuries, many taliban tribes haven’t evolved either the last couple of centuries, mind you. Making the plant illegal has been an on again, off again relationship. The use of any substance that can impair judgement is considered haram, forbidden. Then again, when fighting infidels, Al Qaida and other extremists find no fault in allowing production and storage of opium and cannabis (the variant that can also be used for medicinal purposes) to skyrocket to unseen heights.

Only in being realistic about the facts on the ground can you make adequate decisions. What kind of change will he bring after 72 years of prohibition (wood pulp and corn methanal could be ecologically and economically replaced in a sound manner)? Is there a scientific aspect that ought to enter the dialogue? It is time to reach beyond faithfulness and platitudes.
It is time, for change.

So maybe, Obama is Ron Paul.

Just kidding, unless Obama allows a viable, pluralistic, multi party system to take root; Ron Paul, Ralph Nader, Bob Barr and sorts don’t stand a change in hell