Interview with Primo NutmegSee the full interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EdXNCI51yA== MORE FROM CHOMSKY ==* Chomsky on Wage Slavery: https://www.y...
Yeah stuff like that. This is a correspondence for an article to a book called “The Politics of Genocide” for which Chomsky wrote the forward. In the book the two authors Herman and Peterson argue that the massacre in Srebeniza was not a gencoide, because it did only kill 1% of Bosnians, besides being a clearly planned mass murder, with the state attempt to kill all Bosnians.
Similar story with Rwanda. The book argues that most of the victims were Hutu and that there was a gencoide only not against the Tutsi, but against the Hutu, of which supposedly millions died.
That is the background to these latters and Chomsky a master of the English language, does not apologies for making a mistake, but rather chooses to say, that if US crimes are not considered genocide, none US crimes should not either. When pressed about Rwanda, which is much worse, his defence is to basicly state that nobody really can clearly state who is responsible for nearly a million deaths in Rwanda. Given the context of this exchange, the message is very clear on this one.
OK so I don’t want to defend him too much here, because he was asked something pretty clearly and didn’t put anyone at ease. On top of that, he’s kind of an ideologue, and doesn’t understand that most people aren’t playing 4D chess they’re just doing a shit in the kitchen because we’re all just fancy monkeys. However, I don’t think he’s trying to avoid answering the question. What he’s saying is (IIUC):
The western media keeps saying “Genocide” but if that’s true, then the west itself commits genocide 3 times before breakfast. However, the west is very quick to label something non-western as genocide, but western stuff is not. So which is it? Answer: The western media is just using the term “Genocide” to invoke a visceral reaction (those monsters) rather than a logical one (“we killed some folks”).
I don’t know about the details of the book, but the gist of it was good.
I don’t mind the former point (words mean things, and they are being used carelessly here; why not just use the right words?), but I do object to the latter. Information is the plural of data, and if the data is wrong, then the overall picture has not been constructed fairly. This is a common issue with Chomsky: He works from instinct and goes backwards to attach data, that’s not right.
Is this what you’re talking about? Sometimes I feel like Chomsky is so good at English he loops back around to being really bad at it again.
Yeah stuff like that. This is a correspondence for an article to a book called “The Politics of Genocide” for which Chomsky wrote the forward. In the book the two authors Herman and Peterson argue that the massacre in Srebeniza was not a gencoide, because it did only kill 1% of Bosnians, besides being a clearly planned mass murder, with the state attempt to kill all Bosnians. Similar story with Rwanda. The book argues that most of the victims were Hutu and that there was a gencoide only not against the Tutsi, but against the Hutu, of which supposedly millions died.
That is the background to these latters and Chomsky a master of the English language, does not apologies for making a mistake, but rather chooses to say, that if US crimes are not considered genocide, none US crimes should not either. When pressed about Rwanda, which is much worse, his defence is to basicly state that nobody really can clearly state who is responsible for nearly a million deaths in Rwanda. Given the context of this exchange, the message is very clear on this one.
OK so I don’t want to defend him too much here, because he was asked something pretty clearly and didn’t put anyone at ease. On top of that, he’s kind of an ideologue, and doesn’t understand that most people aren’t playing 4D chess they’re just doing a shit in the kitchen because we’re all just fancy monkeys. However, I don’t think he’s trying to avoid answering the question. What he’s saying is (IIUC):
I don’t mind the former point (words mean things, and they are being used carelessly here; why not just use the right words?), but I do object to the latter. Information is the plural of data, and if the data is wrong, then the overall picture has not been constructed fairly. This is a common issue with Chomsky: He works from instinct and goes backwards to attach data, that’s not right.