Chomskys faulty "there was no JFK assassination conspiracy" logic

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

Chomsky goes to great lengths to sound anti-elitist. All of that is undermined, however, by his wholesale purchase of the fundamental assumptions that underlie Cold War, elitist liberalism, which he regards as the anti-christ.

Doc heal thyself!

WHY IS SO MUCH OF TODAY'S FOUNDATION FUNDED (IMO)- FAKE-LEFT UNCRITICALLY REFLECTING THE WORST ASPECTS OF COLD WAR, ULTRA-ELITIST LIBERALISM? "A large block of American intellectuals evolved an original theory of politics in reaction to McCarthyism.Many American intellectuals found McCarthy's roots in the agrarian radical tradition -- emerging from Populists, La Follette progressives, the non-Partisan League. The present study challenges the notion that McCarthy had agrarian radical roots. The book concludes by suggesting that fear of popular uprisings and radical protest has divorced political analysis from the specific issues around which protest forms. These issues determine whether mass movements will be dangerous or valuable. Ignoring the issues of politics, Rogin argues, leads to a reliance on established institutions unhealthy and unrealistic in a free society." http://www.amazon.com/The-Intellectuals-...ap_title_0

[Albert Rossi]

Do you remember where you saw/heard Chomsky profess some skepticism on the assassination?

I'll try to dig this up (your consternation is understandable). But there is something in the back of my head about conversations he had with an early critic (Mark Lane? Ray Marcus?) in which he seemed open to the idea, but this was not long lived.

Thanks to Kara Dellacioppa for posting this on another thread about similar matters.

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/HWNA...pVIII.html

It was Ray Marcus. Chomsky never said he was on board, but he did meet with Ray twice. This was the article I remembered.

[Richard Coleman]

It's one thing to read about Chomsky's rather insane and inane imo, views about JFK; it's another to hear them from his own mouth. This may be old news but for any new folks lurking about, I thought I'd post this Youtube video of Noam mocking the assassination as something that didn't matter (!!!).

The early part deals with 9/11 in which he also says that if it was a conspiracy or inside job it doesn't matter (!!!). His snide dismissal of JFK starts at 7:18.

[Dawn Meredith]

Do you remember where you saw/heard Chomsky profess some skepticism on the assassination?

I'll try to dig this up (your consternation is understandable). But there is something in the back of my head about conversations he had with an early critic (Mark Lane? Ray Marcus?) in which he seemed open to the idea, but this was not long lived.

Thanks to Kara Dellacioppa for posting this on another thread about similar matters.

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/HWNA...pVIII.html

It was Ray Marcus. Chomsky never said he was on board, but he did meet with Ray twice. This was the article I remembered.

I recall also that way back he and Vince Salandria were discussing this then Chomsky did an about face. I know Vince wrote him many times to try to bring him back on board, to no avail.
Dawn

[Phil Dragoo]

Michael Morissey

http://educate-yourself.org/cn/morrissey...2000.shtml

Morissey cites Marcus and Salandria's interactions with Chomsky.

Describes Chomsky's pattern of studying the critics (JFK assassination, AIDS/CIA, JFK vis-a-vis Vietnam) then feigning surprise before simply dummying up.

Chomsky uses weasel words to justify "no change in Vietnam policy"

The article's author describes Chomsky's rhetorical gymnastics:

Article excerpt:

Chomsky and Vietnam


Chomsky's argument is that

1. Vietnam policy did not change after the assassination (until 1968, of course)

2. Only tactics changed, quite coincidentally, at the same time as the assassination, in response to the changed military situation.

3. The change in tactics was first made by JFK, not LBJ.

1 is justified by Chomsky's definition of the word policy to mean "withdrawal if and only if victory is assured." This is his interpretation, from which he refuses to budge an inch, of one sentence in the McNamara-Taylor recommendations approved by NSAM 263:

This action [troop withdrawals] should be explained in low key as an initial step in a long-term program to replace U.S. personnel with trained Vietnamese without impairment of the war effort.

Chomsky insists that the last six words constitute an "explicit condition" of victory before any withdrawal would take place, and that this was the policy of both JFK and LBJ.

This is pure linguistics. Now, Chomsky is the greatest linguist in the world, but look at the linguistic facts he ignores in his interpretation:

First, the sentence can easily be understood to mean "This is the way we should explain it, but not necessarily the whole truth." Obviously, McNamara and Taylor (and JFK) would not have wanted it to look like they were simply abandoning the South Vietnamese.

More importantly, the phrase "without impairment of the war effort" is not an explicit condition, even if the most famous linguist in the world says it is.

Consider:

My plan is to wash the windows without hurting the plants.

Does this mean (Chomsky's interpretation)

My plan is to wash the windows if and only if I can do so without hurting the plants.

or does it mean, as I am quite certain it does,

My plan is to wash the windows and not hurt the plants (and I think I can do so).

This is what the sentence means, and it is what McNamara and Taylor meant:

"The plan--at least the way we should explain the plan--is to withdraw and do so without impairment of the war effort (which as we have said should be taken over completely by the Vietnamese by the end of 1965)."

But Chomsky wants us to understand it as: "The plan is to withdraw if, and only if, victory is assured."

Who is right? You be the judge.

The second argument is meant to back up the first. If the policy never changed, it does not matter when the tactics changed, whether under JFK or LBJ, but we would still be left with the troublesome coincidence that the change in tactics (in fact a reversal, from withdrawal to escalation, from not fighting the war to fighting the war) took place immediately after the assassination.

But lo and behold, on Jan. 31, 1991, right out of the blue, apparently, a draft of NSAM 273 appears from the black box that houses "national security" secrets, with no explanation as to why it was being released 13 years after the final document was released (NSAM 273 was declassified in 1978), or who or what was causing it to be released (an interesting question in itself, as is the question of its authenticity).

This is all Chomsky needs for his third argument: If anyone should insist that even a reversal of tactics, if not of policy, so close on the heels of the murder of the head of state in charge of both the policy and the tactics, could be suspicious, thanks to the Bundy draft we now know that the person behind the change in tactics was not Johnson, but Kennedy.

Why? Because Bundy wrote the draft on Nov. 21, one day before the assassination! Therefore, Chomsky concludes, JFK would have signed it (although he never saw it or discussed it with Bundy or anyone else). Therefore, Chomsky further concludes, the people who say NSAM 273 shows a change in policy (Peter Dale Scott, John Newman, Arthur Schlesinger) are right, but wrong about who was responsible for it.

Chomsky's third argument actually contradicts the first. It's like saying, "I don't care what flavor it is, but make sure it's vanilla." If "tactical" changes don't matter, they don't matter. If they don't matter, there is no reason to make the further point--dubious in itself--that JFK made the change. By adding this third argument, Chomsky allows for the possibility that the "tactical" change was indeed significant, which destroys the premise expressed in the first argument.

[Tracy Riddle]

As Mark Lane recalled, many on the doctrinaire Left never liked the Kennedys (a lot of it had to do with the politics of the father, and Bobby's brief involvement with McCarthy). They still dreamed of Adlai Stevenson or Eleanor Roosevelt or Henry Wallace - some ideal person who would never be allowed to become President in the first place.

They can't accept the idea that the Oligarchy churned out a candidate who would presumably follow orders, and then refused to do so. So finally he had to be removed.


Anyone here seen the black comedy Winter Kills?