Yesterday, I posted an interesting article by Jonathan Capehard on racism in America. Today, I was just describing to some of my Spanish co-workers how Don Imus was fired from NBC for his racist and chauvanistic statements about the Rutgers women’s baskball team. I brought this up to discuss how racist remarks are treated differently in the U.S. and in Spain — in particular those of Luis Aragonés. Luis Aragonés is coach of the Spanish national team who, when trying to motivate one of his players during a practice session, called a black French player a “negro de mierda”. According to my co-workers, the use of these words: (i) did not make Aragonés a racist just because he had used the word “negro”, (ii) were used in jest, and (iii) they were not offensive. Their inability to see the inherent racism in Aragonés’ statement boggles my mind.
Nevertheless, what I have noticed is that the U.S. notion of “political correctness” and “offensive speech” does not coincide with those in Spain, and that the American standards are considered by the Spanish as exaggerations and often times hypocritical. I am sure, though, that with increased immigration in Spain people will be forced to become more sensitive.
Without sounding to pro-Washington Post, here is another excellent Op-Ed. Eugene Robinson explains how Amus’ words are unacceptable, how there is not in fact a double standard, and why Americans are no longer accepting racist slurs as mere inoffensive humor. Diversity is not only good for business, it is also the reality.
By Eugene Robinson
Friday, April 13, 2007; A17
Now that the networks have pulled the plug on Don Imus, let’s have no hyperventilation to the effect that the aging shock jock’s fall from undeserved grace raises some important question about just who in our society is permitted to say just what. Wherever “the line” delineating acceptable discourse might be, calling those young women from Rutgers University “nappy-headed hos” is miles on the other side.
Especially for a 67-year-old white man with a long history of racist, sexist and homophobic remarks.
For young black hip-hop artists to use such language to demean black women is similarly deplorable — and, I would argue, even more damaging. But come on, people, don’t deceive yourselves that it’s precisely the same thing. Don’t pretend that 388 years of history — since the first shackled African slaves arrived at Jamestown — never happened. The First Amendment notwithstanding, it has always been the case that some speech has been off-limits to some people. I remember a time when black people couldn’t say “I’d like to vote, please.” Now, white people can’t say “nappy-headed hos.” You’ll survive.
While we’re at the business of blunt truth, do the big-time media luminaries who so often graced Imus’s show have some explaining to do? You bet, and so do the parent news organizations, including my own, that allowed their journalists to go on a broadcast that routinely crossed the aforementioned line. All these trained observers couldn’t have failed to notice Imus’s well-practiced modus operandi. “He never said anything bad while I was on” doesn’t cut it as a defense.
Nor is there much exculpatory power in Imus’s defense of himself, which can be paraphrased as “I’m not a racist, I just keep saying racist things.” What characteristics, do you suppose, could possibly identify a person who was indeed a racist? You think maybe that saying racist things might be a fairly reliable clue?
One of the most interesting things about the Imus meltdown is how MSNBC and its parent company, NBC Universal, moved from sluggish inaction to ordering a two-week suspension to bidding Imus, his cowboy hat and his unfunny entourage an abrupt adios. A day later, CBS Radio followed suit and canceled Imus.
The pressure applied by Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and other activists certainly got NBC and CBS’s attention, and the news conference held by the offended Rutgers team was devastating. News stories citing Imus’s past transgressions were embarrassing. And the withdrawal of Imus’s biggest advertisers — General Motors, GlaxoSmithKline, American Express, Ditech.com, Procter & Gamble, Staples, Sprint Nextel — removed any financial incentive for MSNBC to keep the show on the air.
It would be logical to conclude that money talked and therefore Imus walked. But I tend to believe NBC News President Steve Capus when he says that the biggest factor was the internal reaction from NBC News employees, who told him in no uncertain terms that enough was enough.
Two of the network’s on-air stars — “Today” weatherman Al Roker and NBC correspondent Ron Allen — authored strong anti-Imus posts on NBC blogs. Producers of NBC and MSNBC news shows gave the controversy nonstop coverage. Meanwhile, Capus was hearing from dozens of NBC employees who worried about what continued association with Imus would do to the network’s reputation. Among them were women and minorities who told Capus they felt the sting of Imus’s attacks personally.
Which is a sign of how the world has changed.
Four decades ago, when Imus started his long and lucrative radio career, there were few women and minorities at NBC in a position to influence the company’s decision on an issue like this one. Take it another step: There were few women and minorities in positions of authority at the firms that advertised on Imus’s show.
In think tanks and on college campuses, intellectuals still argue about diversity, but in corporate America the issue is settled: Diversity is a fact of today’s world. In the nation’s two most populous states, California and Texas, minorities already form a majority. Companies realize they cannot survive, let alone thrive, without courting diversity among their employees and their customers. You certainly can’t run a television network these days without taking diversity into account.
Imus’s advertisers couldn’t afford to be associated with racist, misogynistic views, and neither could NBC. This doesn’t portend any sort of chilling effect on free speech, as some have suggested. It doesn’t mean that white males are being relegated to the dustbin of history. Last time I checked, guys, you still ran most of the world. You just have to be a bit nicer these days, and you have to share.
Grave Error 
This is yet another example the ubiquitous nature, role and power of corporations in all aspects of society. And as a consequence of this more blatant reality- how this move to fire the bastard was motivated by dollar bills.
on another topic have you heard ‘dollar day’ by Mos Def (and the whole album is pretty good) & I mentioned Amy Winehouse before- have you heard of her?
Now how about an equally stunning story on how the Duke Lacrosse players, completely innocent of any wrong doing, are also the subject of racism … but you can’t say anything about that aspect.
When it’s Rev. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, the racism is okay, and that’s not a double standard.
Pragmatic reality and logical perspective never killed anyone, but their irrefutable absence from the minds of Americans, most certainly will.
Here are my two takes on the topic, first after MSNBC announced it would no longer be simulcasting Imus’ show, and then after he was axed by CBS>
Hypocrisy on airwaves
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 04/10/07
No one should have been surprised that talk-show host Don Imus uttered some racially disparaging remarks on his WFAN radio program last week. He and the regulars on his show have been doing it for years.
What is surprising — and disturbing — is that the undercurrent of bigotry that has been a long-standing feature of the “Imus in the Morning” program hasn’t kept some of the nation’s most prominent politicians and journalists from regularly appearing on it.
Black activist the Rev. Al Sharpton, the National Association of Black Journalists and other black organizations have called on Imus to be fired for his on-air comment last week that members of Rutgers’ mostly black women’s basketball team were “nappy-headed hos.” On Friday, two days after the remarks were made, Imus apologized and WFAN issued a statement promising to “monitor the program’s content.” CBS Radio and MSNBC, which broadcasts the radio show, announced Monday they were suspending the program for two weeks beginning April 16.
The show has long used gays, blacks and women as fodder for its often sophomoric humor. The most offensive lines have been delivered by Imus’ bigoted regulars — producer Bernard McGuirk foremost among them — or by characters in the show’s satirical bits. While the program has evolved over the years into a venue for some of the most in-depth, topical discussions of issues with newsmakers and journalists on the airwaves, it has been unable to shake its shock-jock roots.
The show’s frequent forays into bad taste have failed to keep presidential contenders, U.S. senators, network news anchors and newspaper columnists from phoning in regularly to promote their latest books or campaigns, or themselves.
Sharpton and others say they will call for a boycott of the show if Imus isn’t taken off the air. It’s doubtful he will be fired. Listeners should decide for themselves whether they want to continue tuning in to his show. But it would be refreshing to see some of the nation’s most influential politicians and opinion-shapers — many of whom pontificate about the need for tolerance and civility in public discourse — speak out against one of the leading mass-market purveyors of bigotry.
Taking stock of airwaves
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 04/15/07
Story Chat Post Comment
Imus is off the air. End of story?
Not by a long shot.
Imus was fired by CBS Thursday, the day after MSNBC removed his simulcast show from its morning cable lineup, prompting a firestorm over whether his canning was proportional to the offense. If one limited the offense to Imus’ single “nappy-headed ho” comment, it may not have been. But the networks, their employees and their advertisers apparently looked at Imus’ entire body of bigoted work. After finally being forced to confront it, they decided it was time to stop being complicit.
In no small way, Imus has been made to pay for everyone’s sins and excesses on the airwaves — the racism, the homophobia, the sexism, the vulgarity, the vitreol, and the videos and music that romanticize thuggery and hate. America has had enough of it. CBS responded by finally severing ties with someone whose show traded in bad taste and worse for years.
To be sure, Imus wasn’t the most egregious offender. The airwaves are loaded with people whose sole purpose is getting a laugh or a rise out of someone for their ratings-obsessed masters. It would be hypocrisy of the highest order if CBS, and its recently separated sister, Viacom, didn’t apply the same standard used to evaluate Imus’ work to all the properties in its media-entertainment empire, which includes MTV, VH-1, BET, Paramount Studios, Comedy Central and other wellsprings of American mass culture. All media and entertainment companies would do well to engage in some serious soul-searching.
Much of the discussion of Imus’ remarks and subsequent firing turned back on those who spoke out most loudly against him, including the Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, who were labeled, not at all inaccurately, as world-class hypocrites. Many people, including whites who are not bigots, decried what they saw as a double standard in effect for blacks who make racist remarks about whites, Jews and others without consequences, and for corporations that have exploited their audiences’ basest instincts.
To argue that Sharpton is a self-promoting rabble-rouser or that a double standard for racism exists misses the larger point: Public discourse in this country has become increasingly uncivil, hateful and divisive. If Sharpton has succeeded in getting the conversation started on what can be done to elevate it to a higher plane, he will be owed a debt of gratitude.
Al Sharpton will never be anything but a self-aggrandiser and a racist. Status quo.
I’ll flatly disagree with your summation that the failure of present discourse is found in the pronouncements of the known double-standard.
Two things missed in the journalistic editorialism:
1. As long as Rap and Hip Hop music can continue, unabated, to use racist ideology and language, no one in the black communities has a basis for comment.
2. Instead of succumbing to the weak aspect of editorialism and soft, (bogus), sceinces, try shifting into facts from empiricism, (i.e. yearly research from the EU shows that with all their socialist, leveling, appeasement legislation, racism is not only not getting better, it is getting worse. http://www.expatica.com/actual/article.asp?subchannel_id=49&story_id=37692, just one for the record, enact a bit of “google-fu” and you can have a library.)
The real problem with racism is that it is two levels below what behavioral sciences can ascertain. First, it resides in the genetics that maintain the reptilian mind within humans, it’s called fight/flight instinct. The second is in the brain development from mirror neurons, which not only address functional positioning and motor reactive behavior based on environment, but are also being shown in research to enact predictive scenarios.
The likely reality of this situation is that it won’t go away in a few generations, it will take a few hundred years, if it can happen at all. Ethnocentricity is one of the strongest impulses we have, and with good reason, it helped us survive for many hundred thousand years in a hostile world. Unforgiving and deadly environments where nothing demands courtesy, except for the hominid, with its biologically defective imaginative capacity.
On the last note, if you see public discourse as increasing in vitriol and venom, it is because the hominid, like any animal, doesn’t like to have its instincts forcibly suppressed: we like to compete openly, we’re built like every other animal. Take that away from us, and we’ll construct another method for letting our dominance show.
Randy, thanks for the links to the two articles. I had read the first already, and overal, I pretty much agree with. Imus’ statements are not isolated. We do have the right to freedom of speech, and so does CBS have the right to remove content and content providers who they do not want on the air. Is there a double standard? Maybe. Jesse Jackson once used the term “HymieTown” to describe NYC. Rappers tend to be male chauvanists, and MTV is mainly rap.
The thing is that more people are offended by Imus than rap, hence Imus is fired. When people start protesting rap, I assume that it will also be banned, but that will only happen if African Americans protest it. Whites will not and cannot, and that’s the legacy of racism in American and a reality.
James,
Nice to see you back again. I was wondering where you were. I don’t know too much about Sharpton (I have been living too long outside the States), but I think that he is just like every other politician out there — he sees a window of opportunity and takes advantage of it. Nothing else.
Hola cugino,
Been busy with my website, plus, my version of dialogue tends to be a bit abrasive, so it’s fair to give people a break from me. 🙂
“he is just like every other politician out there — he sees a window of opportunity and takes advantage of it. Nothing else.”
I’d argue with that if I could, but there is no logical means available. Well stated.
” I assume that it will also be banned, but that will only happen if African Americans protest it. Whites will not and cannot, and that’s the legacy of racism in America and a reality.”
Again, no room for disagreement. (You’re on fire!!!) Ethnocentricity wins again.
Beatitudine
Couz, if you are going to agree with me then I don’t mind you disagreeing with everyone else as much as please!
I would like to refer to my first post… Imus was not taken off the air until CBS lost corporate sponsors, dollar bills baby. Like Randy said, Imus and his crew, have been up to this for a long time and CBS never seemed to care.
Sharpton and Jackson are not perfect, but we can thank them, at least in part, for making this happen.
I am glad James is back in the mix and I enjoyed Randy’s articles a lot too.
I don’t think that rap music compares to Imus.
But i do think that if i owned a radio company i wouldn’t hire Imus (and nor would i play music i found offensive), but i do think that both Imus and offensive music should have the right to be on the radio.
In NYC public access t.v. is like no where else. They have everything from the jew haters, to nudity, to the pro-israel Jewish Task Force- these guys are so bad that you will reconsider free speech. http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=%22jewish+task+force%22+&hl=en
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Task_Force
Anyway.
Comment Killer,
I agree with you that these people have the right to speech, just as CBS, sponsors and listeners to shut them out. Where there is a public there will be money to get them on the air. Let Imus and other creeps finance themselves. CBS employers were right to complain if they felt offended by him.
Even when the great Charles Mingus tried to record his version of Fables of Faubus in protest to the Arkansas governor, his record label censored him. But, Mingus knew he had a public so he financed his own uncensored album himself, “Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus.”
In time the listening public will decide whether they want their labels and content providers to give them Mingus or Imus. I trust that they will choose Mingus, and eventually the Imuses’ private labels will fizzle away and the politicians will find another opporunity to rally us.
“I don’t think that rap music compares to Imus.”
I think I would like to see the logic of how this determination was ascertained.
What makes one form of racial hatred less/worse than another, or are we just going the “it’s okay to be racist if you aren’t white” route … the rationalisation should be interesting.
I think that what is at issue is not just “racist” speech but inherently “offensive” speech. So, some rap music is offensive in its depiction of women, ie, use of terms like “ho” just as Imus did. That is pretty much where the comparison had arisen in the debate. That where the question as to whether there was a double standard in that Imus could not use the term “ho” and rappers could?
Randy also had a good post on his blog today highlighting the hypocracy of it all in mentioning how Imus was interviewed 10 years ago on 60 minutes showing his true colors and it isn’t until now that CBS decides he is unacceptable. Then again, better late than never.
“In NYC public access t.v. is like no where else. They have everything from the jew haters, to nudity, to the pro-israel Jewish Task Force- these guys are so bad that you will reconsider free speech. http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=%22jewish+task+force%22+&hl=en
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Task_Force”
This is what is meant by the double standard. For Israeli’s or Jews to take active, (albeit logically tenuous), positions against the denigration of their ethnicity is considered wrong, “unfair”, “unacceptable”. But yet, the U.N., (pronounced “International Council of Anti-Semitic scumbags and pukes”), is never fulminated for their racism/ethnicism.
Sorry, I’ll have no unkind words for Israeli’s who teeter on the edge of lucidity trying to protect what little they are afforded. They have few enough allies as it is.
“That where the question as to whether there was a double standard in that Imus could not use the term “ho” and rappers could?”
I talked to some of the blacks at Lexis, and their take was more that it was the “knappy headed” which signified a racial slur. None of them even mentioned the “ho” part.
“Offensive” speech is just a part of life, cugino. Far better it is to realise that the only words that have power, are the ones that you instill with power. I’ll have to side with you friends in Espana; Americans are so pathetic in their lack of anything useful to do, they construct “offense” from words, just to give their abject, plebius maximus, ganglia something of entertainment.
Israelis are anything but victims.
Nothing, in any conflict, is ever black or white. And always remember to distinguish between people and their governments.
isn’t Israel a democracy?
LMMFAO ~
“Israelis are anything but victims.”
And you think I’m bigoted.
Israel was conquered by the Assyrian ruler Shalmaneser V in the 8th century BCE.
The kingdom of Judah was conquered by a Babylonian army in the early 6th century BCE.
Judea under Roman rule was at first an independent Jewish kingdom, but gradually the rule over Judea became less and less Jewish, until it became under the direct rule of Roman administration (and renamed the Iudaea Province), which was often callous and brutal in its treatment of its Judean subjects.
2nd century when Julius Severus ravaged Judea while putting down the Bar Kokhba revolt. 985 villages were destroyed.
Byzantine period
Jews at this time in Israel were living under the oppressive rule of the Byzantines
In 613, a Jewish revolt against the Byzantine Empire coming into aid of the Persian invaders erupted. The Jews gained autonomy in Jerusalem for 5 years but were frustrated with its limitations. At that time the Persians betrayed the agreements with the Jews and Jews were again expelled from Jerusalem. The Byzantine Emperor Heraclius then managed to overcome the Persian forces with the aid of Jewish leader Benjamin of Tiberias. Nevertheless, he betrayed the Jews too and put thousands of Jewish refugees to flight from Palaestina to Egypt.
In 638 CE, the Byzantine Empire lost control of the Mideast. The Arab Islamic Empire under Caliph Omar conquered Jerusalem.
Jews were not allowed to hold land in the Crusader period but concentrated their efforts on the commerce in the coastal towns during times of quiescence.
In the years 1260-1516, Palestine was part of the Empire of the Mamluks who ruled first from Turkey, then from Egypt. War and uprisings, bloodshed and destruction followed. Jews suffered persecution and humiliation but the surviving records cite at least 30 Jewish urban and rural communities at the opening of the 16th century.
Many of the gains achieved by Islamic Jewry during the 16th century were lost over the next 200 years … as Ottoman rule became more inefficient, corrupt and religiously conservative.
In 1947 Britain announced its intention to withdraw from Palestine, and on 29 November the United Nations General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state (with Jerusalem becoming an international enclave). The Jewish Agency accepted the plan, while the Arabs of Palestine and the neighboring countries rejected it and commenced to use force to abort the establishment of a Jewish state in the area allotted to it by the UN.
Since 1948, Israel has been involved in a series of major military conflicts, including the 1956 Suez War, 1967 Six-Day War, 1973 Yom Kippur War, 1982 Lebanon War, and 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, as well as a nearly constant series of ongoing minor conflicts to preserve its national interests.
2007, they are still the target of Arab hatred, with Iran, Syria, Jordan and Palestine leading the charge to have “the nation of Israel wiped from the map, and Jews erased.”
It’s okay to be wrong, happens to all of us. But to be completely FOS because of personal agenda, is a cerebral crime. Mind you, I didn’t even bother to add in the Holocaust.
Israel is parliamentary democracy, always on the brink of failure due to socialist infrastructure. (i.e. the democracy is merely a ruse, much like Britain, which is now a police state socialism reaching the final stages of entropy.)
Feel free to attempt to find another ethnicity of hominids that have faced this amount of outright hatred, all over differing beliefs of a Cosmic Bran Muffin, which can never be proven to exist.
James, you conveniently left a key part of the wikipedia article:
“Between 1882 and 1948, a series of mostly illegal Jewish migrations to what is the modern nation of Israel commenced. These migrations preceded the Zionist period.
In 1917, at the end of World War I, Israel (known at the time as Palestine) changed hands from the defeated Ottoman Empire to the occupying British forces. The United Kingdom was granted control of Palestine by the Versailles Peace Conference which established the League of Nations in 1919 and appointed Herbert Samuel, as its first High Commissioner in Palestine. During World War I the British had made two promises regarding territory in the Middle East. Britain had promised the local Arabs, through Lawrence of Arabia, independence for a united Arab country covering most of the Arab Middle East, in exchange for their supporting the British; and Britain had promised to create and foster a Jewish national home as laid out in the Balfour Declaration, 1917.
In 1947 Britain announced its intention to withdraw from Palestine, and on 29 November the United Nations General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state (with Jerusalem becoming an international enclave).”
Now, where is this Arab state discussed above?
And what role has the West played in history of the middle east and for what reasons? And what does the West have to gain by meddling in such affairs? And preventing peace from occurring?
Chomsky gives a nice speech about the relevant history of conflict in the middle east and answers most of these questions: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4895253299085526286&q=chomsky+israel&hl=en
And to clarify my stance of mine, historically Jews have been victims of the worst forms of hatred and xenophobia, but I distinguish between Jews in general and Israelis (and/or their democratic government which represents Israeli citizens).
James- we need our own column or t.v. show- Crossfire style.
Israel is democracy and even though its is said that a people have the government they deserve, am I to blame for the war in Iraq by nature of being a US citizen? Maybe.
Re Middle Eastern history, have you seen http://www.mapsofwar.com/ind/imperial-history.html
The migrations to Israel in the early 20th century were often a result of pre-Nazi persecution in Eastern Europe. Immediately after the Second World War, European migration to Israel was due to the obvious: persecution throughout Europe by the Nazis and by occupied governments in France, Italy and Greece to send Jews to Aushwiz. Then after the end of French colonialism in the Magreb, Jews escaped persecution by migrating to Israel (and to France).
But everywhere from Morocco to Persia (and further India, Pakistan, Afghanistan) were all European colonies. Ironically, they hate the Americans and not the Russians, English, French and Germans. Go figure.
Eric,
All US citizens should assume varying degrees of blame for the war in Iraq, not just for voting and allowing this administration to stay in power, but for our dependence on oil and many other issues. Citizens need to stop taking passive victim-like roles in society.
To recap on the middle east conflict (and this has been discussed at length in numerous other posts in the blog)… the middle east conflict motivated more by geopolitics than the history of the Israels and Palestinians… and the two groups (particularly the Palestinians) are primarily pawns in a much larger struggle for money, power, resources, etc.
Holla
I don’t disagree with you either, but the Israelis are just as much pawns in the bigger picture, and yes in general the Palestinians are the most to suffer as a result.
But, weren’t we talking about Imus and his statements?
You are correct, we were talking about freedom of speech.
McCain exercised this freedom recently. He answered a question about military action against Iran with the chorus of the surf-rocker classic “Barbara Ann”. He said: “That old, eh, that old Beach Boys song, Bomb Iran,”… “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, anyway, ah …”
Ermmm. My apologies for the stray in the discourse cugino, unfortunate natural effect of long replies. Too many possibilities in the unwritten parameters.
Ryan, I like your idea. Feel free to visit with us at http://www.maliciousintellect.com, and we could set up a “weekly” editorial betwixt our antithetical perspectives. I’ll link it back out from the fora to the portal. Should make for an interesting exhange to say the least.
P.S. I can’t stand McCain, but that is certainly funny … LMAO.
James,
I’ll check out the link.
Yeah, i am not a fan of McCain’s either. But i have utilized his trick… he tells everyone that he is a ‘straight shooter,’ when in reality he is anything, but that… i use that all the time in court and opposing attorneys always seems to believe me when i say it.
Are you a Chomsky fan? He considers himself a bit of an anarchist… i thought that might make you like him.
anyway
Chomsky? He’s not an anarchist, he’s just a MO-ron. He and Sharpton should be lovers, they would make the best of mates. Neither of them has a clue, and they both know everyone who doesn’t agree with them is wrong.
I want logic and lucidity, not anarchy.
I like both Sharpton and Chomsky, but would never put the two in the same cateogory. And other than they fact that they both don’t hate Muslims they have little in common.
There are few people that use more logic and factual support than Chomsky. And although his writings and speeches can be hard to follow b/c of his style and depth content- his reasoning and conclusions are quite lucid.
And one certainly can be completely logical and lucid and be an anarchist. The various branches and doctrines of anarchism are actually quite complex and entail much more than wearing a t-shirt that says anarchy or putting a bumper sticker on a car w/ the symbol of anarchy.
I like both Sharpton and Chomsky, but would never put the two in the same cateogory. And other than they fact that they both don’t hate Muslims they have little in common.
More than that, they are Muslim apologists, which is sad and pathetic on a whole new level.
There are few people that use more logic and factual support than Chomsky. And although his writings and speeches can be hard to follow b/c of his style and depth content- his reasoning and conclusions are quite lucid.
I’ll never agree with that, he has zero lucidity, and is a known conspiracy theorist. Logic alone doesn’t work, and that is why Chomsky is a failure. In order for the process to be complete, not only must ontological exigencies be met, but perhaps more importantly, as outlined by Wittgenstein, the tautological exigency must be met. Chomsky hardly ever meets the first requirement, and never the second.
And one certainly can be completely logical and lucid and be an anarchist. The various branches and doctrines of anarchism are actually quite complex and entail much more than wearing a t-shirt that says anarchy or putting a bumper sticker on a car w/ the symbol of anarchy.
Possible but not likely, and your definition of “anarchism” is the same one used by people like Chomsky who fail to understand the definition: anarchy is the absolute destruction of all social and political regulations – true freedom is anarchy, because not only are there no rules, but there is no morality either. Common mistake.
Damn those Muslim apologists!
I love the way you defend Sharpton, it’s telling of the agenda, held by so many in our society today:
“White folks was in caves while we was building empires … We taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it.”
Still no comment on his involvement in the Duke Lacrosse scandal, of which he tried to make himself a major player … oh, and no apologies from the “Reverend” for his foul and racist dialogue …
Hypocrisy knows no bounds.
yeah they should lock up Sharpton and all of those Muslim apologists… The Patriot Act certainly calls for this.
In 2002 i had a client that the FBI swore in an affidavit was a terrorist based on the fact that he had “Jihad materials.” At trial it turned out that those Jihad materials were nothing more than the Koran and the Koran was his roommates.
I say we lock up all of those Muslim apologists, groups that support Muslims (like CAIR- those are the real bad guys, just like the NAACP) and don’t forget we need to lock up the Muslims (every last one of them). And we should have a monthly book burning day where we burn the Koran, particularly b/c it lacks Ontological (the study of being and existence) exigencies and Tautology (propositional logic).
It is an a priori certainty that all Muslim are terrorists. If Wittgenstein were alive he would support all of this.
alright, end of discussion. Continue if you wish offline. Thanks.
My commentary is now done here.
You might want to take some more time to learn about ontology and tautology. Spouting definitions does nothing when it is shown that they are not understood, and skills in support of those definitions are so painfully in absence.
Free Theo Van Gogh!