The Death Penalty

You are absolutely right Danr, he isn't trite to say the least. If you are speeking of Avram Noam Chomsky you are referring to one of the most left wing politicals in America. He even describes himself as a 'Liberal Socialist' with a streight face, yet!
Old Aveam is good buddy of the North Vietmanese, thedPathet Lao and the Khmer Rouge to name a few of his buddies. If it has any thing to do with capitalism he's against it and uses dummies to mouth his thoughts in rallies aroung the country and abroad.
He feels that just because he is a Russian Jew, he deserves the freedom to express treason and cause more dummies to express themselves like he thinks it should be said. Any idea who this may be on this forum?
Oh yes, the one thing he feels is good about this country is its freedom to expression and enjoyed by all Americans. Both Patriots and Trators!

After looking through some of his messages I can tell you exctly wher Danr is getting all his B.S. from. Didn't think he was thinking it up or generating any data. Now I know where he is getting his back bone!

If that is the Chomsky you are referring to then, again your right. He isn't trite! He's a full blown OLD fool, like some of his YOUNG followers.

 

A bit long but just a taste of Chomsky:TEACHING NICARAGUA LESSON
Noam Chomsky



It wasn't just El Salvador that was ignored by the mainstream US media during the 1970s. In the ten years prior to the overthrow of the Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979, US television-all networks-devoted exactly one hour to Nicaragua, and that was entirely on the Managua earthquake of 1972.

From 1960 through 1978, the New York Times had three editorials on Nicaragua. It's not that nothing was happening there-it's just that whatever was happening was unremarkable. Nicaragua was of no concern at all, as long as Somoza's tyrannical rule wasn't challenged.

When his rule was challenged, by the Sandinistas in the late 1970s, the US first tried to institute what was called "Somocismo [Somoza-ism] without Somoza"-that is, the whole corrupt system intact, but with somebody else at the top. That didn't work, so President Carter tried to maintain Somoza's National Guard as a base for US power.

The National Guard had always been remark ably brutal and sadistic. By June 1979, it was carrying out massive atrocities in the war against the Sandinistas, bombing residential neighborhoods in Managua, killing tens of thousands of people. At that point, the US ambassador sent a cable to the White House saying it would be "ill advised" to tell the Guard to call off the bombing, because that might interfere with the policy of keeping them in power and the Sandinistas out.

Our ambassador to the Organization of American States also spoke in favor of "Somocismo without Somoza," but the OAS rejected the suggestion flat out. A few days later, Somoza flew off to Miami with what was left of the Nicaraguan national treasury, and the Guard collapsed.

The Carter administration flew Guard commanders out of the country in planes with Red Cross markings (a war crime), and began to reconstitute the Guard on Nicaragua's borders. They also used Argentina as a proxy. (At that time, Argentina was under the rule of neo-Nazi generals, but they took a little time off from torturing and murdering their own population to help reestablish the Guard-soon to be re named the contras, or "freedom fighters.")

Reagan used them to launch a large-scale terrorist war against Nicaragua, combined with economic warfare that was even more lethal. We also intimidated other countries so they wouldn't send aid either.

And yet, despite astronomical levels of military support, the United States failed to create a viable military force in Nicaragua. That's quite remarkable, if you think about it. No real guerrillas anywhere in the world have ever had resources even remotely like what the United States gave the contras. You could probably start a guerrilla insurgency in mountain regions of the US with comparable funding.

Why did the US go to such lengths in Nicaragua? The international development organization Oxfam explained the real reasons, stating that, from its experience of working in 76 developing countries, "Nicaragua was...exceptional in the strength of that government's commitment...to improving the condition of the people and encouraging their active participation in the development process."

Of the four Central American countries where Oxfam had a significant presence (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua), only in Nicaragua was there a substantial effort to address inequities in land ownership and to extend health, educational and agricultural services to poor peasant families.

Other agencies told a similar story. In the early 1980s, the World Bank called its projects "extraordinarily successful in Nicaragua in some sectors, better than anywhere else in the world."
In 1983, The Inter-American Development Bank concluded that "Nicaragua has made noteworthy progress in the social sector, which is laying the basis for long-term socio-economic development."

The success of the Sandinista reforms terrified US planners. They were aware that-as Jose Figueres, the father of Costa Rican democracy, put it-"for the first time, Nicaragua has a government that cares for its people." (Although Figueres was the leading democratic figure in Central America for forty years, his unacceptable insights into the real world were completely censored from the US media.)

The hatred that was elicited by the Sandinistas for trying to direct resources to the poor (and even succeeding at it) was truly wondrous to behold. Just about all US policymakers shared it, and it reached virtual frenzy.

Back in 1981, a State Department insider boasted that we would "turn Nicaragua into the Albania of Central America"-that is, poor, isolated and politically radical-so that the Sandinista dream of creating a new, more exemplary political model for Latin America would be in ruins.

George Shultz called the Sandinistas a "cancer, right here on our land mass," that has to be destroyed. At the other end of the political spectrum, leading Senate liberal Alan Cranston said that if it turned out not to be possible to destroy the Sandinistas, then we'd just have to let them "fester in [their] own juices."

So the US launched a three-fold attack against Nicaragua. First, we exerted extreme pressure
to compel the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank to terminate all projects and assistance.

Second, we launched the contra war along with an illegal economic war to terminate what Oxfam rightly called "the threat of a good ex ample." The contras' vicious terrorist attacks against "soft targets" under US orders did help, along with the boycott, to end any hope of economic development and social reform. US terror ensured that Nicaragua couldn't demobilize its army and divert its pitifully poor and limited resources to reconstructing the ruins that were left by the US-backed dictators and Reaganite crimes.

One of the most respected Central America correspondents, Julia Preston (who was then working for the Boston Globe), reported that "Administration officials said they are content to see the contras debilitate the Sandinistas by forcing them to divert scarce resources toward the war and away from social programs." That's crucial, since the social programs were at the heart of the good example that might have infected other countries in the region and eroded the American system of exploitation and robbery.

We even refused to send disaster relief. After the 1972 earthquake, the US sent an enormous amount of aid to Nicaragua, most of which was stolen by our buddy Somoza. In October 1988, an even worse natural disaster struck Nicaragua-Hurricane Joan. We didn't send a penny for that, because if we had, it would probably have gotten to the people, not just into the
pockets of some rich thug. We also pressured our allies to send very little aid.

This devastating hurricane, with its welcome prospects of mass starvation and long-term ecological damage, reinforced our efforts. We wanted Nicaraguans to starve so we could accuse the Sandinistas of economic mismanagement. Because they weren't under our control, Nicaraguans had to suffer and die.

Third, we used diplomatic fakery to crush Nicaragua. As Tony Avirgan wrote in the Costa Rican journal Mesoamerica, "the Sandinistas fell for a scam perpetrated by Costa Rican president Oscar Arias and the other Central American Presidents, which cost them the February [1990] elections."

For Nicaragua, the peace plan of August 1987 was a good deal, Avrigan wrote: they would move the scheduled national elections forward by a few months and allow international observation, as they had in 1984, "in exchange for having the contras demobilized and the war brought to an
end...." The Nicaraguan government did what it was required to do under the peace plan, but no one else paid the slightest attention to it.

Arias, the White House and Congress never had the slightest intention of implementing any aspect of the plan. The US virtually tripled CIA supply nights to the contras. Within a couple of months the peace plan was totally dead. As the election campaign opened, the US made it clear that the embargo that was strangling the country and the contra terror would continue if the Sandinistas won the election. You have to be some kind of Nazi or unreconstructed Stalinist to regard an election conducted under such conditions as free and fair- and south of the border, few succumbed to such delusions.

If anything like that were ever done by our enemies...I leave the media reaction to your imagination. The amazing part of it was that the Sandinistas still got 40% of the vote, while New York Times headlines proclaimed that Americans were "United in Joy" over this "Victory for US Fair Play."

US achievements in Central America in the past fifteen years are a major tragedy, not just because of the appalling human cost, but be cause a decade ago there were prospects for real progress towards meaningful democracy and meeting human needs, with early successes in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua.

These efforts might have worked and might have taught useful lessons to others plagued with similar problems-which, of course, was exactly what US planners feared. The threat has been successfully aborted, perhaps forever.

***
from the book What Uncle Sam Really Wants, published in 1993
Odonian Press
Box 32375
Tucson, AZ 85751
tel 602-296-4056 or 800-REALSTORY
fax 602-296-0936

other Noam Chomsky books published by Odonian Press

Secrets, Lies, and Democracy
The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many



If you are truly curious about the role of the USA in our world this site has audio video articles, etc...

http://www.chomsky.info/ As for slavery I will let the 400 years speak for themselves.

 

You are referring to false statements used to smear Noam. He exposes these lies in this book (a great read)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/08...102-7550007-5028957?n=507846&s=books&v=glance BTW I am not lock step with Chomsky but I do respect him. He is one of the top thinkers of our time.

 

You may not be in lock-step Danr, but if this old skum bag stopped real quick, you would break your neck when your nose hit his ask!
Your talking about a 78 year old fool who wasn't a "top" thinker even in his day 50 years ago. Here is a very fair critique by some one who had nothing to gain by bad mouthing him. You would do well to read and learn for a change.
What the old Judis is all about. CLICK HERE

 

I looked through that link. I skimmed it. The entire tone is venomous and he appears to use out of context quotes (this is addressed in this book http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/08...02-7550007-5028957?n=507846&s=books&v=glance). the fact that the author minimizes NC's contribution to lingustics shows that he is far removed from the truth.
Old Dan get a hold of anyone (ANYONE) with a phd in applied lingustics and ask them about Chomsky. Even the most conservative linguistist will put him on the level of Einstien and Newton.

 

That is changing though.

Danr,that is actually changing now that the truth about Sinn Fein/I.R.A. is coming out.Unfortunately,there is still a lot of very naive & very gullible people out there these days.The backbone of Unionist support comes mainly from Canada,as far as North America goes.My family & I are of Scots descent,but we're extremely pro-English,as the Nationalist movements in the British Isles have done a lot of harm as far as race relations goes.

Here's a link to an Irish Unionist website,as opposed to an Ulster Unionist website that will get you thinking;

www.irishunionism.org .

Aidan.

 

By what authority or background does a 'linguist' have that would qualify him/her to judge any ones intellegance? They know "language" and how it's used to fool people like you into believing what they say. Before it's too late, i I hope you realize that you are in league with the devil. Only fools tread where you are going. Stop before it's too late. Save your self and become a human being and not one of the robots of this old Lucifer.

 

Danar yes Nigaragua was a long and bloody affair from both sides but yet again it does not run in to millions of dead and yet again you have failed to answer my questions all you are giving is rhetoric.
Would you like me to list much bloodier conflicts were the west & east used proxy's to do there fighting because believe me I can.

SO ONCE AGAIN PLEASE ANSWER THE QUESTIONS, HOW DOES THE US OF A HAVE MORE BLOOD ON IT'S HANDS THAN ANY OTHER NATION!!

De Orc

 

Get a hold of someone with a doc in lingustics and they will tell ya about NC's contribution to our understanding of how people think, it is a huge big deal. You may dislike his politics but his work in his "day job" is beyond reproach. They will still be wrestling with his ideas in 300 years.

 

I will guess that you did not check out the link http://www.chomsky.info/


Spend sometime there if you are really curious.

 

Not that threads don't have the tendancy to devolve around here or anything, but this has what to do with the death penalty??? Maybe Chomsky said something about the death penalty? I know that several of you hate to be jerked back on topic but no one has even addressed the idea of your government having the power to legally kill it's citizens. We've just accepted it as normal. We shouldn't be the kind of country that executes even the sickest criminals because of "our" religious values. Right?

 

Sorry for getting so far afield but to Dr orc millions died in VietNam millions died in the Reagan wars (Central America), and millions died in Iraq (1991-present). Further we make loans to poor countries for unneeded projects (sell them on unneeded projects) and leave them in crippling debt, NAFTA like treaties pull poor people away from traditional crops and forces them to use commodity crops, when prices fluctuate they are left with little or no food. We subvert legit govts and many other terrible things. You should know this.

 

The top estimate by North Vietnam (As it was then) was 1.5 Million Dead on both sides this figure has since been renounced by Hanoi Not Millions. and please do not blame all these casualties on the US.

'Chomsky: Well, it doesn't even come close. I mean, the level of destruction and terror and violence carried out by the powerful states far exceeds anything that can imaginably can be done by groups that are called terrorists and subnational groups.
I mean just take, say, Iraq. The best current estimate of deaths after the invasion is 100,000 maybe more, maybe less.' This is your own boy speaking on the casulty rates in Iraq in 2004 are you now telling us that in just over 12 months the US has managed to kill 900,000 people??

Nigaragua aprox 60,000 dead in the ten year conflict possibly low side figures so lets up them to 200,000 still not the millions you claim (Also this was mainly a war by proxy so lets also blame Russia, Cuba, China).
Again aid and othe policies can come under another thread nothing to do with this one nor is subversion, of which I could proberly give you lessons LOL.
So You still havn't apologised for calling me Dumb when you failed to read my post correctly but I will forgive your obviouse bad manners.

 

Iraq has seen well over a million dead due to embargo (I did say 1991-present). Vietnam lost one million + and we lost about 50,000, and many millions died in central America (they are digging up mass graves to this day). Our economic terrorism has done even more harm than that. Most of the deaths under Mao were due to bad ag policy yet they are called murder, if USA were held to the same standard our death toll would be uncountable.

 

Lets see most of the deaths under Mao happend by forcing them into labour camps and working them to death and we can add to that firing squads, China has exported its terror to the following countries
Tibet, Mongolia, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Korea, Nepal, India etc etc do you want me to go on yet you fail to see this how many Millions died in Cambodia under Pol POt or mayhaps you would like to blame the US for that one as well??
How about Russian supported wars in Vietnam LOL, Cambodia (When Vietnam Invaded) or Afghanistan, Angola, Mozambique and all who died there!!
Again I can find no evidence to support your claims that the US killed millions in Iraq nor in Central America.
I can find evidence of the numbers killed by Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot though. Can I ask you how much does the US give to the third world in aid every year??

De Orc LOL

STILL NO APOLOGY I SEE​

 

But only because of feebleminded people like you Danr!

Before it's too late, I hope you realize that you are in league with the devil. Only fools tread where you are going. Stop before it's too late. Save your self and become a human being and not one of the robots of this old Lucifer.

Now in respect for Moen

 

LOL Stop it Old Dan my side hurts

De Orc

 

"Is "reality an accident"? Could the laws of nature have been other than what they are? Maybe one can make some sense of such questions, but bringing divinity into the story helps not at all. It only adds confusion and deflects serious thought and inquiry." Chomsky.

"Is it "possible that the nature of reality could be a living urge towards freedom"? As Bakunin put it, is an "instinct for freedom" part of human nature, maybe part of organic nature? Could be. I hope so. But we don't know. But again, bringing divinity in just adds confusion and bars serious inquiry and action, in my opinion." Chomsky.

This is all Chomsky from his own online site. The man does not believe in religion, the man does not believe in god. The man attacks those who do for he feels that religion and god prevent people from having true freedom of thought. At least that is how I view his writings over the years. Now I have no problem with someone not believing in religion. I am not a fan of it myself.
But to attack people who do with lies, double talk and faulty reasoning is not freedom of thought but a prison of hate.

After all how can you have freedom of thought if you are telling people that there is no God!

Moen as for your orginal thought line on the state killing people, for that is what it is, I agree with you that it does not work well now. To long to happen and worse to many people with bad lawyers. But perhaps a movement will come someday to reform the legal system with a quick death sentence to those who are found guilty and state paid but highly paid lawyers chosen by the defendent to ensure a real defense to the charges. This will hopefully help prevent the "oops" sorry about that cases.

 

Been there, tried that, but thanks anyway.

 

O.K. lets try this one;

Concerned that a fingerprint identification error could lead to the execution of an innocent person, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is examining all cases of state and federal prisoners scheduled for execution to determine whether FBI fingerprint experts made mistakes that led to death sentences. Eighteen months ago, the FBI discovered that a fingerprint examiner for the Bureau had mistakenly matched a print found near the site of terrorist bombings in Madrid to a lawyer in Portland, Oregon. The case embarrassed the FBI and brought to light the potential for internal error. Since then, the FBI has implemented a new policy of reexamining fingerprint evidence in capital cases to ensure the finding’s accuracy before a scheduled execution proceeds. Since the policy was implemented, the FBI has examined at least 92 death penalty cases and found 10 in which it had analyzed fingerprints. In each of the fingerprint cases, the FBI’s original conclusions were confirmed. Bruce Budowle, the FBI’s chief scientist, has responded to recent criticisms of the scientific value of fingerprint analysis by calling for more specific “validation” to improve fingerprint ID techniques. (USA Today, January 11, 2005).

A good start!