throwaway_dang
Joined 1 year ago
Joined 1 year ago
The list of US acts of terrorism goes beyond the Trump presidency; it's convenient for liberals to blame everything on Trump but the bombing of Nord Stream occurred under Biden; Obama was droning weddings while Hilary Clinton was setting fire to Libya (using NATO, the "defensive" alliance that strikes first!)
All the previous cases of cable cutting, alleged by Western news papers without any shred of evidence, is a good way of beating the war drums. The war propaganda and hysteria this time is more intense than the Iraq war, which I think you are too young to remember. It is unclear what material advantage Russia would get from cutting cables, but with hysteria, reason is not required.
"Pro-Russian people" like me .. well I'm pro-peace actually rather than pro-Russian and have seen that the Russians offered negotiations with the US and Europe multiple times that were rejected. Negotiations that might have averted bloodshed. It's interesting that a "non-binary" person like you (according to your Github) wants to view people in a binary category as pro/anti-Russian rather than perhaps having a different perspective.
As to the substance of your last point: I remember Europe actually arguing against the US during the 2003 invasion of Iraq and now seeing Europe being a bunch of kept poodles that would prefer to commit economic, moral and geopolitical suicide rather than stand up for themselves.
For example, during the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, Germany and France were opposed to the invasion, leading to "Freedom Fries" to insult French opposition to the war. The British public was also opposed to the war, although the the Blair government went along with it anyway. Australia had a similar position - public opposition but government went along with it anyway. Canada official refused entry into the Iraq war. Chomsky was also opposed to the Iraq war. Does this mean that France, Germany, Canada and the British and Australian general public are "anti-Western"? Since Chomsky agreed with these countries, does that make him anti-Western or pro-Western? Does it make the US anti-Western since they proceeded with a war despite formal or popular opposition in many Western countries?
I fear you have a certain definition of the "Western" that simply excludes Western opinions that don't fit your understanding.
As to who Chomsky met him; well as part of this Epstein story, Chomsky met with former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak. In your opinion, does this make him anti-Western? Indeed, prior to his stroke Chomsky explained that this kind of meeting is why Chomsky associated with Epstein - for the contacts.
I suspect Chomsky is just generally interested in understanding an issues and not bothered by what it's seen as, seemingly to his detriment in this Epstein story.
It's difficult to summarise so many years of writing in a few sentences but from my own reading, he pointed out
a) many things done by the US lead to death or destruction b) many of these things are justified in the name of good that doesn't stand up to scrutiny c) the US government is often hypocritical d) US citizens are heavily propagandized both for foreign policy and domestic policy e) as a US citizen, it his duty to try and oppose these actions and since he's not a citizen of Iran, he isn't in a position to do anything about Iran f) a) through d) explain why he is often seen as an apologist, to use your word, for Iran; he tries to explain, from his point of view, why Iran etc. do the things they do g) a strong support of freedom of speech and opposition to censorship, including what he regards as private censorship as opposed to merely government censorship.
It's innuendo and guilt by association, mainly by his political opponents, both on the left and right, that are taking advantage of his inability to defend himself due to his stroke. I think many people are being _justly maligned_ by their association with Epstein, but in a way that distracts from the wider issue of what exactly does it mean when so many powerful and prominent people are found in compromising or potentially compromising situations and to what ends it served. It's US kompromat and the discussion is largely restricted to maligning people without discussing the significance of it.
In terms of Chomsky himself, given his career spanned both linguistics and politics, an honest critique would either deal with their disagreements with Chomsky like how Norvig did in this essay, or how Hitchens did over the Afghan and Iraq wars rather than saying "he had dinner with Epstein" or "he had dinner with Bannon".
In terms of the Epstein issue, the best criticism I can see is that his association with Epstein, Bannon etc. makes him a hypocrite although I don't find this personally convincing. Part of the problem for me here is that his present infirmities make it difficult for him to defend or explain himself and I find it poor form to kick the man when he's down, mainly by people who just didn't like that Chomsky didn't agree with them personally. Especially when he largely made a contribution to the debates even if one doesn't agree with him.
Many parts of Africa have below 80% literacy rates[1] and that's in their respective language; coming to Europe would likely mean learning a new language as well as learning a completely foreign country. If we're speaking about Germany specifically, Germany didn't colonize as many places as the British, Dutch or French so they are unlikely to speak German.
If you want skilled workers, why not simply train those workers locally?
[1]: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/literacy-...