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Interesting that this seminal book is to be found on the CIA website, of all places.
by Synaesthesia 3y ago
Interesting that this seminal book is to be found on the CIA website, of all places.
- PaulHoule 3y agoFunny that these kind of people don’t really disagree with Chomsky on a lot of things. There is a book On Target which is an official USAF of the first Gulf war and in the preface it explained that Saddam Hussein was driven to invade Kuwait because of debt, he figured his debt to Kuwait would be annulled and he could use oil money from Kuwait to pay off the rest, the kind of explanation you’d expect from Chomsky.
- hackernewds 3y ago[flagged]
- cyberbanjo 3y agoPlease open the link.
- hackernewds 3y agoI did. Is it to imply that, because Chomsky's Kuwait thesis is debatable, all of his publications are to be dismissed?
- cyberbanjo 3y agoIt's a book by Chomsky, are you sure you did? His name and face are on page 1
- wesleychen 3y agoThe reason why Chomsky is relevant is because this post is a link to a book by Chomsky...
- lambdasquirrel 3y agoWhy would they? At the end of the day, the CIA is driven by realpolitik. Chomsky sees things as they are, and is also an idealist. Where they intersect is that part about seeing things as they are.
- TulliusCicero 3y ago> Chomsky sees things as they are No he doesn't? Chomsky's views on Ukraine are batshit.
- TexanFeller 3y agoHe's one of the few people strenuously warning about the possibility of this war escalating to a nuclear exchange and reminding us that preventing this is the only thing that matters. In my book that makes him less batshit than most. Example: https://youtu.be/L7IHiJBIkns https://youtu.be/L7IHiJBIkns
- _kbh_ 3y ago> He's one of the few people strenuously warning about the possibility of this war escalating to a nuclear exchange and reminding us that preventing this is the only thing that matters. In my book that makes him less batshit than most. This is also very conveniently a Russian talking point to just make Ukraine bend over and take it. If we want to stop the risk of nuclear war from increasing drastically in future we need to help defend Ukraine itself from Russia to the fullest. If we don't, it will become clear to the world that only nuclear weapons can defend a country from having their land grabbed by Russia and other countries and nuclear proliferation will go through the roof. Nuclear proliferation going through the roof will drastically increase the chance of a nuclear exchange in the future.
- TexanFeller 3y ago> it will become clear to the world that only nuclear weapons can defend a country from having their land grabbed by Russia and other countries That cat's out of the bag, it has been common wisdom for decades that countries with nukes don't get invaded and other deterrents aren't nearly as effective or economical. Mutually assured destruction is one of the biggest reasons the world's been so peaceful recently. No major wars, just various nuclear powers occasionally invading various non-nuclear powers. MAD is mad effective.
- lo_zamoyski 3y agoA good critique can also double as a playbook. Consider Augustine's "The City of God". One of its more famous passages[0] can set a man on a virtuous path, or serve as the basis for political control in the form of, say, sexual liberation. [0] "The good man, though a slave, is free; the wicked, though he reigns, is a slave, and not the slave of a single man, but, what is worse, the slave of as many masters as he has vices. "
- dariusj18 3y agoI feel it's a silly thing to say, as a bad man with power makes all a slave to their vices.
- nonononotno 3y agoAt least some are not copying AI-thought-models, not? heck It must be damn cool to insert an AI into a foreign system, and see it all crumbles down... (-; Must be: new Weekend-book-stuff, or ? regards...
- CTDOCodebases 3y agoChomsky just says the quiet part out aloud. I’m always amused by people who think that if the USA ceased its war mongering efforts no nation would try to fill that void and everyone would just get along nicely.
- msla 3y ago> I’m always amused by people who think that if the USA ceased its war mongering efforts no nation would try to fill that void and everyone would just get along nicely. Orwell said it pretty well: > It is also worth emphasising once again that nationalist feeling can be purely negative. There are, for example, Trotskyists who have become simply enemies of the U.S.S.R. without developing a corresponding loyalty to any other unit. From "Notes On Nationalism" My point is that some people just hate the USA, think everything bad is somehow the USA's fault (even to the point of thinking all revolutions or coups are CIA plots, as if Those People had no agency of their own) and base their whole worldview on that hatred.
- pydry 3y ago>My point is that some people just hate the USA, think everything bad is somehow the USA's fault Some people write off every CIA plot as a harebrained conspiracy theory until they publish the papers about it 50 years later.
- msla 3y ago"Nothing happens without the CIA" is just as comforting as "Nothing happens without God" I suppose; both presuppose the existence of an all-powerful entity controlling everything, as a ward against having to acknowledge randomness and absurdity.
- pydry 3y agoYou seem to be implying that you fall into this group.
- pydry 3y ago
- FrustratedMonky 3y agoBush W., used this same logic for second Gulf War. He actually said that the war would pay for itself. Even if illegal, he is on video stating this, (video from before fakes).
- ttyprintk 3y agoThis in particular has quite a bit of overlap with the influences on James Comey.
- miguelazo 3y agoPlease elaborate.
- benzible 3y agoUh, yeah. I'd love to hear more. Comey's major influence was Reinhold Niebuhr [1], whose politics [2] bore little resemblance to Chomsky's. [1] https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/a-few-theories-about-why-james-comey-might-call-himself-reinhold-niebuhr-on-twitter https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/a-few-the... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhold_Niebuhr#International https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhold_Niebuhr#International
- ttyprintk 3y agoChomsky named the book after a Niebuhr quote, https://noam-chomsky.tumblr.com/post/17941530897/walter-lippmann-described-what-he-called-the https://noam-chomsky.tumblr.com/post/17941530897/walter-lipp...
- benzible 3y agoIt’s used because it’s the subject of the book, not because he approves of it. Quite the opposite. The point of the book is that propaganda is used to maintain complicity in a democratic society, in order to influence people to support policies that are against their own interests. The Niehbur quote illustrates that US intellectuals were quite open about this.
- ttyprintk 3y agoI haven’t read Necessary Illusions, but I posted this before the CIA explained this PDF arrived with bin Laden’s documents. I was mistakenly connecting the promotion of this work with the supposition that the CIA was broadly interested in the influence Niebuhr had on Comey (and Obama, McCain, …) in the previous era of American politics.
- ttctciyf 3y agoChomsky's publishers: > All other reproduction, whether by printing or electronically or by any other means, is expressly forbidden without the prior permission of the publishers. This file may only be used as part of the CD on which it was first issued. CIA: > Arr!
- underanalyzer 3y agoAs noted by the current top comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36544024 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36544024) this is a small part of a dump of all files found during the Bin Laden compound raid that is publicly available on the CIA's website. Check the url to verify that claim. There is no other reason this content is there, it's just a coincidence.
- lo_zamoyski 3y agoIt's from this raid: https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad-compound/index.html https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad-compound/index.html