Some good stuff on Chomsky: The Sick Mind of Noam Chomsky By David Horowitz FrontPageMagazine.com | September 26, 2001 The Sick Mind of Noam Chomsky By David Horowitz WITHOUT QUESTION, the most devious, the most dishonest and -- in this hour of his nationâs grave crisis â the most treacherous intellect in America belongs to MIT professor Noam Chomsky. On the 150 campuses that have mounted "teach-ins" and rallies against Americaâs right to defend herself; on the streets of Genoa and Seattle where "anti-globalist" anarchists have attacked the symbols of markets and world trade; among the demonstrators at Vieques who wish to deny our military its training grounds; and wherever young people manifest an otherwise incomprehensible rage against their country, the inspirer of their loathing and the instructor of their hate is most likely this man. There are many who ask how it is possible that our most privileged and educated youth should come to despise their own nation â a free, open, democratic society â and to do so with such ferocious passion. They ask how it is possible for American youth to even consider lending comfort and aid to the Osama bin Ladens and the Saddam Husseins (and the Communists before them). A full answer would involve a search of the deep structures of the human psyche, and its irrepressible longings for a redemptive illusion. But the short answer is to be found in the speeches and writings of an embittered academic and his intellectual supporters. For forty years, Noam Chomsky has turned out book after book, pamphlet after pamphlet and speech after speech with one message, and one message alone: America is the Great Satan; it is the fount of evil in the world. In Chomskyâs demented universe, America is responsible not only for its own bad deeds, but for the bad deeds of others, including those of the terrorists who struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In this attitude he is the medium for all those who now search the ruins of Manhattan not for the victims and the American dead, but for the "root causes" of the catastrophe that befell them. Read the rest of the article here: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=1020
David Horowitz, who grew up in New York City as the son of two lifelong Communists, was a founding member of the New Left. During the 1960s he was a prominent editor of Ramparts, the leading radical journal. âI didnât read him when he was a Stalinist, and I donât read him now.â So said Noam Chomsky, responding to a recent smear campaign launched against his anti-war activism by David Horowitz, the radical neo-conservative Zionist who runs the Center for the Study of Popular Culture and who publishes the web zine FrontPageMag.com. Since the 9-11 attacks, Horowitz has been a blizzard of hatred blowing against anyone he considers to be a âFifth Columnistâ, whether it be a lowly university professor preaching love and peace, or a Congresswoman asking uncomfortable questions about the Bush administrationâs new security state. In one ranting response to a letter from a reader he shouted: âThirty Muslim states, thirty states without a democracy. Until the Muslim world gets past theocracy and learns tolerance, the Jews need to be armed to the teeth and much more ruthless with their enemies than they have been, since when it comes to Jews fear is the only kind of respect the Arab world will give them.â David Horowitz Rewrites the Past An American Jew, David Horowitz, wrote a 5,000-word article "proving" that "...Israel Is The Victim And The Arabs Are The Indefensible Aggressors In the Middle East." I always enjoy reading the work of an American Jew who defines himself as non-Zionist, but who is nevertheless ready to sacrifice my life in his hatred towards Arabs. I sometimes have the feeling that some American Jews see Israel as their colonial army: they provide us with weapons and money, and we in return should gratefully kill and die, giving our sponsors both entertainment and something to be proud of. And just like the West was more interested in good fiction (books, films) on the colonies than in their actual situation, so these American Jews seem to be more interested in their own imagined Israel and its fictitious history than in the actual Mid-Eastern realities. It's a safe game they are playing. And a nasty one. full article at http://www.antiwar.com/hacohen/h012302.html regards wild
Noam needs a fact checker Human Rights Watch says Chomsky's wrong, plus responses to E.O. Wilson. - - - - - - - - - - - - Jan. 22, 2002 | Read "The Salon Interview: Noam Chomsky" by Suzy Hansen. Noam Chomsky states in a Jan. 16 interview with Suzy Hansen, "That one bombing [of the al-Shifa plant in Sudan], according to the estimates made by the German Embassy in Sudan and Human Rights Watch, probably led to tens of thousands of deaths." In fact, Human Rights Watch has conducted no research into civilian deaths as the result of U.S. bombing in Sudan and would not make such an assessment without a careful and thorough research mission on the ground. We have conducted research missions and issued such estimates for Iraq and Yugoslavia, after U.S. bombing campaigns there. In our experience, trenchant and effective criticism of U.S. military action requires factual investigation. -- Carroll Bogert, Communications Director, Human Rights Watch ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Noam Chomsky on Christopher Hitchens: He Doesn't Really Believe What He Says By Brian Carnell Wednesday, January 9, 2002 Just another example of Noam Chomsky insisting that those he disagrees with are not only wrong, but that they are disingenuous and really don't believe the arguments they are making. The latest target of this recurring theme is leftist Christopher Hitchens who has been a very vocal supporter of the U.S. war against Afghanistan. In articles in The Nation and elsewhere, Hitchens has defended military action in Afghanistan and attacked Chomsky and others for their claims about the war. In an interview on the Australian Broadcasting Corproation program "Late Night Live," Peter Clarke asked Chomsky about Hitchens. Chomsky replies, Clarke: Many of our listeners had trouble following his [Hitchens'] arguments. I know you did as well. You wrote that they were not only wrong but unintelligible. Chomsky: Well, he can't believe what he's saying. His major claim is that I and presumably others are declaring that the [attack on] the World Trade Center is morally equivalent to actions taken by the United States which have led to huge casualties. Nobody's saying that. In fact, just take a look at the data. Nobody says it. I mean, what he's objecting to is factual statements which he knows are correct. Chomsky lately seems incapable of having a disagreement with someone without invoking the "he can't believe what he's saying"-style attack. As for the claim that Chomsky was not trying to draw a moral equivalence between the 9/11 attacks and U.S. actions, exactly what did he expect listeners to take away from his claim that the the main thing to note about the war in Afghanistan is that, "we are in the midst of apparently trying to murder three or four million people." Source: Doing the sensible thing. Peter Clarke, Interview with Noam Chomsky from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, October 16, 2001.
Heads: Chomsky's Right; Tales: His Critics Are Wrong By Brian Carnell Wednesday, December 5, 2001 Turn the clock back a couple months to October 11. The United States was in the midst of a bombing Afghanistan, which opponents of the war and some international aid agencies said would ultimately make it more difficult to get food aid to parts of Afghanistan that were facing serious problems even before U.S. involvement. Noam Chomsky went so far as to call the U.S. military campaign an act of genocide, After the first week of bombing, the New York Times reported on a back page inside a column on something else, that by the arithmetic of the United Nations there will soon be 7.5 million Afghans in acute need of even a loaf of bread and there are only a few weeks left before the harsh winter will make deliveries to many areas totally impossible, continuing to quote, but with bombs falling the delivery rate is down to 1/2 of what is needed. Casual comment. Which tells us that Western civilization is anticipating the slaughter of, well do the arithmetic, 3-4 million people or something like that. On the same day, the leader of Western civilization dismissed with contempt, once again, offers of negotiation for delivery of the alleged target, Osama bin Laden, and a request for some evidence to substantiate the demand for total capitulation. It was dismissed. On the same day the Special Rapporteur of the UN in charge of food pleaded with the United States to stop the bombing to try to save millions of victims. . . . Well we could easily go on . . . .but all of that . . . .first of all indicates to us whatâs happening. Looks like whatâs happening is some sort of silent genocide. It also gives a good deal of insight into the elite culture, the culture that we are part of. It indicates that whatever, what will happen we donât know, but plans are being made and programs implemented on the assumption that they may lead to the death of several million people in the next few months . . . .very casually with no comment, no particular thought about it, thatâs just kind of normal, here and in a good part of Europe. Now switch to November 3, 2001, when the Northern Alliance captured Mazar-e Sharif and then quickly rolled through the rest of the country. Although the World Food Program reports that it is still difficult to get food aid to Kandahar due to the continuing fighting there, otherwise its food aid operations are proceeding as scheduled. The WFP is on target, for example, to preposition 30,000 tons of food aid in the Central Highlands area before winter weather makes access to that part of Afghanistan virtually impossible. And, something you won't likely hear from Chomsky, thousands of women are returning to work for the first time in years in programs sponsored by the World Food Program. The Taliban had long complicated relief efforts in the region by forbidding women to play any role at all in such efforts. What you might have heard from Chomsky, however, was a bit of rhetorical backpedaling that might best be summed up that even if the U.S. bombing doesn't create hunger and starvation, it still will lead to hunger and starvation if only because that outcome is important to Chomsky's early accusations of "silent genocide." Here's an excerpt from a speech Chomsky gave on November 10, The U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) had already warned, even before the bombing, that over seven million people would face starvation if military action were initiated. After the bombing began, it advised that the threat of a humanitarian catastrophe in the short term was very grave, and furthermore that the bombing has disrupted the planting of 80 per cent of the country's grain supplies, so that the effects next year will be even more severe. What the effects will be, we will never know. Starvation is not something that kills people instantly. People eat roots and leaves and they drag on for a while. And the effects of starvation may be the death of children born from malnourished mothers a year or two from now, and all sorts of consequences. Furthermore, nobody's going to look because the West is not interested in such things and others don't have the resources. For Chomsky, If there are reports of widespread starvation in Afghanistan, that means the United States committed "silent genocide." If the WFP reports that they were able to get food through and there was no starvation, that still means the United States committed "silent genocide." Notice too, how Chomsky conveniently shifts the definition of starvation from the earlier standard of widespread hunger and large numbers of deaths -- which, if they had occurred, would have been easy to assign responsibility for -- to childhood mortality which was already so high in Afghanistan, that it would be all but impossible to accurately measure any slight increases or decreases due to the U.S. intervention. Under the Taliban, in fact, Afghanistan had the fourth worst rate of under five child mortality, with an estimated 25 percent of children not living to see their fifth birthday (more than 15 percent of infants born in Afghanistan die before reaching even their first birthday). Like those he criticizes in the mainstream media, Chomsky is apparently never one to let facts get in the way of his theories. Sources: The New War Against Terror. Noam Chomsky, October 18, 2001. September 11th and Its Aftermath: Where is the World Heading? Noam Chomsky, Public Lecture at the Music Academy, Chennai (Madras), India: November 10, 2001. WFP in Afghanistan: Update from the field no.38. World Food Program, December 4, 2001.
Ultimately, this is another but uniquely toxic version of an old story, whereby former clients like Noriega and Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic and the Taliban cease to be our monsters and become monstrous in their own right. At such a point, a moral and political crisis occurs. Do "our" past crimes and sins make it impossible to expiate the offense by determined action? Those of us who were not consulted about, and are not bound by, the previous covert compromises have a special responsibility to say a decisive "no" to this. The figure of six and a half thousand murders in New York is almost the exact equivalent to the total uncovered in the death-pits of Srebrenica. (Even at Srebrenica, the demented General Ratko Mladic agreed to release all the women, all the children, all the old people and all the males above and below military age before ordering his squads to fall to work.) On that occasion, US satellites flew serenely overhead recording the scene, and Milosevic earned himself an invitation to Dayton, Ohio. But in the end, after appalling false starts and delays, it was found that Mr Milosevic was too much. He wasn't just too nasty. He was also too irrational and dangerous. He didn't even save himself by lyingly claiming, as he several times did, that Osama bin Laden was hiding in Bosnia. It must be said that by this, and by other lies and numberless other atrocities, Milosevic distinguished himself as an enemy of Islam. His national-socialist regime took the line on the towelheads that the Bush Administration is only accused, by fools and knaves, of taking. Yet when a stand was eventually mounted against Milosevic, it was Noam Chomsky and Sam Husseini, among many others, who described the whole business as a bullying persecution of--the Serbs! I have no hesitation in describing this mentality, carefully and without heat, as soft on crime and soft on fascism. No political coalition is possible with such people and, I'm thankful to say, no political coalition with them is now necessary. It no longer matters what they think.
Noam Chomsky ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "a leading dissident political scholar in the United States" Which is really painless. The real dissidents are in places like China and Colombia. He probably doesn't risk being killed by the government like (some of) the Chinese dissidents, but I'd say he's still a dissident. dis·si·dent : disagreeing especially with an established religious or political system, organization, or belief. (http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=dissident) So according to the dictionary the term 'dissident' fits NoamChomsky, even though the word often is only used for people who are oppressed for their opinions. Of course, using the word in this particular dictionary sense also implies that nearly anyone who holds any political opinion is a dissident, because nearly any political opinion disagrees with some established religious or political system, organization, or belief. Chomsky himself makes the point often enough that the penalties for dissidence in free societies are so slight when compared to those faced by courageous dissidents against more oppressive regimes that it's embarrassing to talk about them. Typically we face some degree of marginalisation by society (unless we're really under-privileged/black/whatever, in which case the penalties may be more severe); they face torture, death, murder of family members... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Weirdly enough, Chomsky also thinks of himself as a conservative: "According to Chomsky, classical liberal ideals have been 'perverted into an ideology to sustain the emerging social order' (For Reasons of State, p.156). Since the 1930's, Chomsky notes, the term "liberalism" has come to mean 'a committment to the use of state power for welfare purposes' (Language and Politics, p.656), rather than the restriction of state power. Chomsky also notes that the terms 'liberal' and 'conservative' have switched meanings. ... He comments, 'A modern conservative, like Taft, wants to cut back state power, cut back state intervention in the economy -- the same as someone like Mark Hatfield -- to preserve the Enlightenment ideals of freedom of expression, freedom from state violence, of law-abiding states, etc. (Language and Politics, p. 656)." -- from Chomsky's Politics by Milan Rai. Page 188, note Ch.6 #24 In other words, Chomsky's basic message is "Question Authority". "I think it only makes sense to seek out and identify structures of authority, hierarchy, and domination in every aspect of life, and to challenge them; unless a justification for them can be given, they are illegitimate, and should be dismantled, to increase the scope of human freedom." -- from the interview "Noam Chomsky on Anarchism, Marxism & Hope for the Future" at http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/rbr/noamrbr2.html . This used to be called "Classical Liberalism", None of this shows that Chomsky views himself as conservative. He's described himself as an anarcho-syndicalist often enough. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, I shan't question authority just because someone tells me to. Humorous, to be sure. But Chomsky doesn't tell anyone what to do. He simply lays out the facts, and obviously the autonomous thinking individual can do what she wants with the info. (Including doing nothing.) He does offer his own opinions from time to time, but from what I've seen, he is very careful to make clear when he is doing so. That is why I'm much more likely to trust what he says, than to trust the don't-worry-be-happy facades in leadership. It is obvious from his approach that he is someone who actually values truth and honesty, down to the core. But then again, nothing he says requires that I "trust" him at all. His every piece of information shared exists legitimately and recognizably in the body of knowledge that is the human race. I can start from first principles, and discover it all for myself. No faith required. To me he is truly one of the most courageous citizens that America has. It takes a lot of guts to think for oneself, after all. That a lot of people in this country are equipped with highly blunted critical analysis faculties is not a negative reflection on him (no matter how they might twist his words for mocking effect, or dismiss his point of view entirely), but is precisely a reinforcement of where he comes from as a moral and rational being. I don't think courage enters into this, especially since his kind of thinking is very common in the environment where he works. What I want to know is, if I do think for myself and draw conclusions very different from his, am I to be dismissed as a brainless drone of the System? Actually, his kind of thinking is not very common in the environment where he works. The "conventional wisdom" among conservatives seems to be that academia is a bastion of The Left, but in fact, when it comes down to genuine substantive issues (like U.S. foreign policy, and history), as opposed to issues like... "the correct word to call a gay person"..., academia is in general remarkably subservient to the Official Version. They're as bad as the media, in that department. And as for "brainless drone of the system", that's not Chomsky's style. He doesn't use inflamatory and insulting rhetoric like that. (I do, but he's not me.) You must not have read him. He simply lays out the facts, without forcing any kind of underlying philosophy into the equation. His main focus is to bring out into daylight the ugly sides of our government's and country's history. So if you "challenge" him, all you're doing is challenging facts. Facts that are out there and plain to find, in the government's own records, in sources aplenty. What may be painful is discovering the contradictions in one's own philosophy that allow one to accept "double think" without a moment's hesitation. But I acknowledge it is more comfortable to dismiss the truth as yet another "opinion", so that one can feel comfortable in picking and choosing what one wishes to see, regardless of the reality. (Intellectual courage is a difficult thing to maintain.) But many of what people call facts are open to intrepretation. Intellectual courage is one thing, but taking your opinion (or your interpretation of facts) as facts is intellectual dishonesty. And it's hard to believe that he doesn't hold or teach opinions, otherwise he would not style himself (or his disciples would not style him) as a "dissident." --DroneOfTheSystem?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Whatever his contributions to linguistics, Chomsky is neither a dissident or a free thinker (I would argue that the latter do not exist). He is a reactive critic of US policy but willingly overlooks foreign atrocities. He willingly and knowingly goes through life with blinders on even as he exhorts us to take them off. What's more, the nature of his blindness ("no enemies on the Left") is entirely in tune with the fashion of a significant fraction (if not the majority) of 20th Century intellectuals. His behavior after the American withdrawal from Indochina is a case in point. In 1975 he argued that there were no massacres under the Khmer Rouge and that Americans were being brainwashed by their media to think that there were. He directly attacked the testimony and credibility of Cambodian refugees, and only acknowledged the massacres 3 years later once he had found a way to blame them on the US. This is not the behavior of a true free-thinker but simply of someone who goes with the "US wrong, left-wing dicatorships right" thinking that was so trendy in the 20th century. Gee, at least Chomsky provides sources for his claims. Where, besides the confines of your creative mind, does the above BS come from? Don't get me wrong. If he says people should dig for the facts and make up their own minds, I'm with him. But I believe that he himself does not really operate this way. The real question is, do you believe your own lies? On the above: Chomsky did not deny the massacres under the Khmer Rouge at all. Far from it. He does point out, however, that the US media exagerrated claims, made up statistics, falsified photographs, and basically lied about what was actually happening in such as way as to support the interests of prevailing US power. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is an unrelated episode, but it leaves a really bad taste in my mouth: Chomsky wrote the introduction to a book by Holocaust "revisionist" Robert Faurisson. He argued that the "scholar's" ideas, however distasteful, cannot be censored. I don't want to debate the merits of free speech for Holocaust deniers and other kooks, but if Chomsky wanted to defend Faurisson's right to freedom of expression there were plenty of other venues in which to do this. I don't know if Chomsky actually believes the claims of Holocaust deniers but by writing an introduction to the book he lent his name and credibility to the movement. I am disappointed that someone whose "intellectual integrity" is so highly valued in some circles would have allowed himself to be used in this way. --DroneOfTheSystem? I remember that in the ManufacturingOfConsent? documentary he told a student that holocaust deniers were wrong This really needs to be cleared up: as outlined in the Achbar/Wintonick Manufacturing Consent documentary, Chomsky wrote some "elementary remarks about freedom of speech" which the publishers used, as a pre-emptive defensive measure (knowing the content of the book), as an introduction. Chomsky goes to pains to point out that there's a crucial difference between defending someone's views, and defending their right to express them. He will not give the state the right to determine historical truths. When asked a question on the subject "Are you denying the gas chambers existed?" he responds "Of course not. But if you're in favour of freedom of speech, you're in favour of freedom of speech for views you don't like. Goebels was in favour of freedom of speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you're in favour of freedom of speech, that means you're in favour of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise. Otherwise you're not in favour of freedom of speech." He goes on to say that if someone wants to refute the views of Faurisson, there would be little difficulty in finding the evidence to do so, and points out that he has himself taken the opposite extreme position on the matter, saying "Even to enter into the arena of debate over whether the Nazis carried out such atrocities is already to lose one's humanity." The documentary ends the piece by quoting Chomsky: "It is a poor service to the memory of the victims of the holocaust to adopt a central doctrine of their murderers." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- He was wrong about something in 1975 and he wrote an introduction to a very controversial book to make a point about free speech? Gee... Has he ever admitted he was wrong? Has he ever apologized for being so militant about it? if I were a Cambodian refugee I'd be very slow to forgive. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Noam Chomsky overlooks foreign atrocities? That's rich. -- SteveHowell Yes he did, and he tried to deny them as well. Man, people who try to roast Chomsky sure come up with some zany ways of doing it! But it's humorous, because their very tactics prove Chomsky's points about propaganda again and again. -- ConcernedParticipant? Do we have any sources for Chomsky trying to deny foreign atrocities? I have heard the claim that he was an apologist for Pol Pot, but on some further investigation it seems that he was simply condemning media coverage of such affairs, not condoning the affairs themselves. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seeing as: Chomsky ungratefully criticizes a government that has NEVER ONCE incarcerated, exiled, or even censored him. Chomsky routinely overlooks foreign atrocities. Chomsky has been wrong about stuff before. Chomksy endorses quack scholarship under the insidious guise of free speech. Chomsky makes unfounded allegations of brainwashing against the American media. Chomsky's ideas are often in tune with other 20th Century intellectuals. Chomsky might even have a HIDDEN POLITICAL AGENDA in his writings! Chomsky often makes spurious arguments by authority, citing mainstream press clippings and U.S. government documents to back up his assertions. Chomsky's self-portrayal as a dissident makes a mockery of true dissidents in China and Colombia. Chomsky's contributions to linguistics are largely irrelevant to his political writings. Therefore... You can safely ignore everything the man has to say. You can discredit unpopular ideas by attributing them to Chomsky.
Damn, and I was supposed to have reached Nirvana by page 87. 'sigh' You are as wrong as you can be with that statement. Guess what, you idiot - I'm part Asian myself! My mother is 2nd generation Okinawan, born and raised in the great state of Hawaii. So calling you a gook would be insulting myself. I HATE that word. I've been called it myself, as well as other racial epithets. I could care less if you're black, white, yellow, purple, orange or whatever. And you have NEVER seen a post of mine in which I use such a term. NEVER. AND how is this fairplay - I lived in Indonesia for two years. Djakarta. Some of my fondest memories are of Indonesia. Beautiful country. To this day I long for nasi goreng and satay. One of my best friends is half-Indonesian, (although I never see him anymore, because he's a new father and his wife has him trained like a whipped and quivering poodle - but that's another story). Tell us fairplay, have you ever lived in the US? Have you ever even visited here? Hey wait a minute...you're the one who said you're the "citizen of the world." Such a term implies a rather broad understanding of the world at large, doesn't it? Don't blame me, blame yourself....And isn't "trailer trash" 'insulting language'? You're the one using bad names here. I only insult your intellect. (Laughing) I can't believe we're even discussing this, but for shits and giggles I'll play ball: I never "argued" about German women's armpits. I stated that many German women do indeed have excess foliage stuffed under there. It's not an argument, it's a fact. You obviously haven't been to Germany, have you? Ask your buddy Wild. Even he, in-between cutting and pasting nonsensical articles, has surely noticed the hirsute underarms (and sometimes legs - shudder) of many a fraulein... Also, you're the one who made the huge, ridiculous leap by saying that I was in favor of invading Iraq because of hairy German underarms. It was your tiny little brain that decided to make an argument out of it. Well, like I said, I lived in Indonesia and well, I did see many women there, including their underarms, and I was never thrashed by their brothers...maybe because I hadn't reached puberty yet....still haven't, actually....By the way, you should be VERY careful bringing up the subject of women in any form considering the way they are often mistreated in the Islamic world, including your country. There you go again, putting words in my mouth. I never called you such a thing, but if you want to refer to yourself as "little brown brethren," go right ahead. It won't make any difference as you insult yourself with each post that you write. Finally: You don't. I asked for your background because I genuinely believe we have a right to know if those who are slamming our country are fellow citizens who, despite differences in opinion, share in the trauma of 9/11, or non-Americans like you who were NOT attacked and, frankly, come from or live in regions of the world with strong and growing anti-American tendencies (I'm STILL WAITING, by the way, for WILD to tell us where he was born and grew up). And don't tell me you're not slamming my country, because when you criticize my government you're criticizing the millions of Americans who elected this government. I can handle, albeit with disgust, fellow Americans who deride their government as being evil, uncaring, wholly corrupt, and bereft of any compassion for its citizens. Why? Because I feel sorry for them. They live in the greatest country in the world and have neither faith nor pride in it. Basically, they're spoiled idiots, and I feel sorry for them. You and Wild, on the other hand, have enough problems in your own countries, SERIOUS problems, yet choose to focus your energy endlessly berating mine. You're like vultures at a horrendous traffic accident, stopping by to pick at the carcasses and agitate the wounded. Furthermore, you do not limit yourself to attacks on my government, but you mock my country's culture; http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=172068#post172068(By the way, if not for such American "gems" like the web browser you're undoubtedly using at the moment, you wouldn't even be able to irritate people on a global basis - that's the fairplay idea of "globalization" for you). and have the gall to cheapen the spilt blood of Americans in the military: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=172966#post172966[/url] To you and those like you I feel only contempt. But yes, you CAN participate in this discussion. I would prefer that you didn't, but it is, after all, an American website.