Appalling Guardian hatchet-job on Chomsky
- Thread starter blamblam
- Start date
ska invita
back on the other side
I really wonder if this is part of the new blue-top Guardian policy to "appeal to a broader base", as the G editor was quoted in Private Eye.
Certainly their sales are pretty small in comparison, they seem to spend a lot of money on new colour presses, they dont charge for their website (the only non-tabloid paper to do so I think), they must be short of a quid or two...Anyone know how their accounts are looking?
Certainly their sales are pretty small in comparison, they seem to spend a lot of money on new colour presses, they dont charge for their website (the only non-tabloid paper to do so I think), they must be short of a quid or two...Anyone know how their accounts are looking?
gurrier said:
What, other than the title of the thread? If you mean evidence people seem to think it's wrong to criticise him, that is. If you mean evidence for him having shit views on Srebrenica, it's been on record for years - I'm not going to google for you what's under your nose.
I sent this to the letters pagecatch said:
Dear Sir,
I'm sure I wasn't the only reader to be puzzled by the closing remarks to Roy Hattersley's October 31st column. Apparently the Blairite education reforms are "the first attempt at government-imposed anarchy since the Spanish civil war". I feel it necessary to correct Mr.Hattersley's rather bizarre misconceptions. The Spanish state did not attempt to impose anarchy during the civil war, anarchist workers in resisting Franco's rebellion instituted the practice for themselves, to the horror of the Republican government. In the midst of the civil war the government attacked this self-same anarchy in the May '37 Barcelona streetfighting described in George Orwell's Homage to Cataluna.
Additionally, I'm not entirely sure what anarchist workers seizing factories and farms under workers control has to do with Blair's plan to hand schools over to the rich and pious. I'd like to think that Hattersley's distaste for Blair's "anarchy" does not extend to the Spanish anarchists serving as his rhetorical device, who were first to take up arms in defence of liberty and against Fascism in Spain, but as you might expect I'm rather distrustful of politicians.
Jack Ray
International Editor
Freedom Newspaper: Anarchist News and Views
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
What an elegantly constructed attack kasheem. It almost makes sense.
dylanredefined
Not a house elf a tiger
Anyone who came on here saying the khmer rouge weren't that bad
and sebrenica is over stated would be shouted down .I have to admit knew little about him other than he was some left wing intelectual giant .On the grounds of that interview can't say I want to know more about him .Came across as a smug acedemic who deserves a smack in the gob.
and sebrenica is over stated would be shouted down .I have to admit knew little about him other than he was some left wing intelectual giant .On the grounds of that interview can't say I want to know more about him .Came across as a smug acedemic who deserves a smack in the gob.
pilchardman
Dances With Penguins
Brockes' article is so ill-structured it's actually hard to follow at times. She stuffed in the "well why do you live in a capitalist state" schtick at the end rather abruptly. And the "I'd discuss the propaganda model but ...ermm... I didn't" just made her look stupid. As did the fig roll quip at the beginning.
If she'd wanted sensible things to criticise Chomsky on, she only had to email me. As it was she had obviously been given a crib sheet by a David Horowitz clone, and didn't really understand it.
If she'd wanted sensible things to criticise Chomsky on, she only had to email me. As it was she had obviously been given a crib sheet by a David Horowitz clone, and didn't really understand it.
pilchardman
Dances With Penguins
Has it occurred to you that that was the point of the article?dylanredefined said:
Sorry. said:
Cool that's a goody. I've sent this less good one, but I figure if they get loads (well more than one) they're more likely to print:
Roy Hattersley's column "The enemy of liberty", where he attempts to give Tony Blair a lesson in liberal philosophy also displays his own woeful grasp of history. The Spanish Civil War was not an "attempt at government-imposed anarchy", in fact it was a (sadly unsuccessful) attempt by the CNT-FAI and Republicans to repel a fascist coup. The CNT-FAI, which controlled large areas of Spain, was a directly democratic union, not a government. Blair's neo-liberal education reforms are much closer to Franco's corporatism than the anarcho-syndicalism of the CNT-FAI, but one need not go back 70 years to see examples of that.
pilchardman
Dances With Penguins
What gibberish do you prefer?
i don't normally read papers, but was on my lunch break today and the g2 bit of the guardian was lying there, so i read that article, and got wound up by the shitness of the article/interview, and the fact that shit like it gets printed in something apparently intelligent folk are meant to think of as a quality newspaper, so it's reassuring to see others pissed off at it, and brings me back round to the opinion that instead of reading bits o f it and getting wound up, i should just accept that it's shit and let the folk who like that stuff get on with reading it.
as for the whole srebrenica side to it, i don't know enough about what he's said and in what context; i don't have any problem wi folk taking a shot at chomsky, and don't agree with some stuff he says (ie supporting a democrat vote to keep bush out, for example); it was more just the general tone, attitudes, and leaps of logic in the specific guardian article that annoyed us.
as for the whole srebrenica side to it, i don't know enough about what he's said and in what context; i don't have any problem wi folk taking a shot at chomsky, and don't agree with some stuff he says (ie supporting a democrat vote to keep bush out, for example); it was more just the general tone, attitudes, and leaps of logic in the specific guardian article that annoyed us.
neilh said:
fuck same here with the main paper and that Hattersly article. I used to read it few years ago but have got increasing pissed off with it over the past couple of years so only ever read stuff that's syndicated/linked elsewhere usually. Pick it up for the first time in ages and I'm sending disgruntled letters to the editor.
pilchardman
Dances With Penguins
Yeah, as I said, there are things you can tackle Chomsky on. But that article just didn't cut it as worthy of serious consideration.
pilchardman
Dances With Penguins
catch said:Pick it up for the first time in ages and I'm sending disgruntled letters to the editor.
Me too. And I'll be checking tomorrow to see if they print me.<Goes off to sharpen green pencil>
Larry O'Hara
Well-Known Member
Really?
So some of you are finally realising what a tedious rag the Guardian is. Wonders never cease. And certainly, Chomsky's thought does need analysing/deconstructing properly--in the near future I intend to perform that service for one part of it. Not, of course, that such serious work would ever grace the pages of the Guardian. In the end, the best thing is to largely ignore the rag, and read it only as/if something interesting appears. Sadly, approval from the Guardian/appearance on its letters page seems to be a life-long goal of many on the Last Century Left. Pathetic.
So some of you are finally realising what a tedious rag the Guardian is. Wonders never cease. And certainly, Chomsky's thought does need analysing/deconstructing properly--in the near future I intend to perform that service for one part of it. Not, of course, that such serious work would ever grace the pages of the Guardian. In the end, the best thing is to largely ignore the rag, and read it only as/if something interesting appears. Sadly, approval from the Guardian/appearance on its letters page seems to be a life-long goal of many on the Last Century Left. Pathetic.
pilchardman
Dances With Penguins
Yeah. You're the only one who has ever spotted that. Well done, you're everyone's hero.Larry O'Hara said:
DaveCinzano
WATCH OUT, GEORGE, HE'S GOT A SCREWDRIVER!
very modest of you, larry 
Larry O'Hara
Well-Known Member
pilchardman said:
Indeed--presumably including your doppelganger who a couple of posts ago declared they have just written to that self-same letters page....
Larry O'Hara
Well-Known Member
bristle-krs said:very modest of you, larry
No problem--modesty's my middle name...
pilchardman
Dances With Penguins
I did indeed. But it wasn't my lifelong goal. Being as cool as you is.Larry O'Hara said:
Larry O'Hara
Well-Known Member
neilh said:
Noted: the bit I intend to focus on is, using the BBC as a paradigm, how useful/not his critique of the 'corporate media' is. In particular, to what extent can the bland compromised media-ocrity of much BBC investigative journalism be helpfully explained/not by his theories. I have an open mind on this question to date, and a few references to help from a past U75 debate.
Larry O'Hara
Well-Known Member
pilchardman said:
Don't give up the day job..
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