Pro-reason.info

Mayor Livingstone v. Finegold and The Evening Standard

Irrational elements within the press are fond of maligning Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London. Livingstone has many flaws, among them political opportunism, but he tends towards progressive causes. He has made very many enemies with his courageous environmental policy, and his support for the Palestinian cause.

The favourite tactic of anti-Palestinians is to label those who disagree with them as ‘anti-Semites’, i.e. racists who hate Jewish people. We have personal experience of this. Mayor Livingstone has too. (more…)

Jay Bennish is a social studies, American history and political geography teacher at Overland High School in Aurora, Colorado.

In February 2006, a student, Sean Allen, recorded one of Bennish’s lectures on his iPod, to back up his notes (or so he claimed). Allen took to the media his objections regarding Bennish’s class, and this developed into a national story in the USA. (more…)

Why is it that people often find others’ views so incomprehensible? Why do other people often seem to have everything back to front? Why do some people express views that seem to be self-contradictory? Why do people on the far Left/Right/etc. seem to be speaking another language?

Our answer is that they are. When two people have a fundamental political disagreement, part of the reason is that they are not speaking exactly the same language. (more…)

In response to ‘Livingstone affirms anti-Semitic remarks’
by International Christian Assembly Jerusalem, 23/3/2006

Also in response to ‘Livingstone renews anti-Jewish slurs’
by George Conger, Jerusalem Post, 23/3/2006.

These two articles, and similar ones in various publications, explain how the Mayor of London got annoyed at the poor performance of contractors hired to build London’s Olympic City, complaining that the Reuben Brothers were the ‘main impediment’ to the successful completion of the project and that the taxpayer might have to ‘pick up the bill of £600m to £700m’ because of their actions.

Venting his frustration with the contractors, he said that they should go back to Iran (they are of Iranian descent) if they refused to accept the Mayor’s planning régime for the Olympic City. (more…)

In response to: ‘Anti-Semitic attitudes in Sweden’
by Susanna Abramowicz, YnetNews, 22/3/2006.

Abramowicz’s article is one of many on the Internet reporting the findings of a survey carried out by the Forum for Living History, a group set up by the Swedish government apparently to raise awareness regarding the genocidal acts of the Nazis against Jews. The group also has some general anti-racist rhetoric, but no real attempt is made to hide the fact that it is essentially a pro-Jewish group. (We would be grateful to any Swedish readers if they could provide us with more information on this group.)

Abramowicz goes further than most journalists covering this survey, in that she quotes more data from it. We are, however, interested not in her journalism but in the survey itself, and would be happy to receive a copy of the survey results.

The first thing to strike the critical reader is the absurdly flawed nature of the survey. It purports to measure ‘anti-Semitism’, but in reality it is a hodgepodge of a few questions actually gauging such racism, and many others that are unrelated. A whole series of facts and opinions about modern international politics are labelled as ‘anti-Semitic’. (more…)

Next time someone tries to make some humanitarian case for the invasion of Iraq, point out that some people are more honest about the reasons for the invasion.

See http://www.cafepress.com/rightwingstuff/311226 for such merchandise.

See http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=2635 for an example of a loony right-winger who is actually angry at Arabs for controlling the ‘Western oil’ under their feet.

In response to: ‘The Chomsky Paradox’
by Vasko Kohlmayer, The American Thinker, 17/3/2006

In turn in response to:
‘Latin America and Asia are at last breaking free of Washington’s grip’
by Avram Noam Chomsky, The Guardian, 15/3/2006

Kohlmayer opens by claiming that Chomsky’s article turn on a ‘mind-boggling premise’. This premise is that Latin America and Asia are becoming less influenced by the United States. You might be forgiven for failing to see what is mind-boggling about this. Indeed, one has to be an highly indoctrinated individual to see anything mind-boggling in this. To understand Kohlmayer, one has to realise that Chomsky sees freedom from foreign influence a generally good thing; whereas to Kohlmayer, U.S. influence is by definition good. To him, therefore, a country free of U.S. influence sounds less like a dog free of fleas and more like a dog free of fur — that is to say, the thing is so positive and necessary that to speak of being free of it is nonsensical.

No modern person’s mind would be boggled by talk of Britannia becoming freer of Roman influence after AD410, whether or not they judged the Romans to have been on the whole positive or negative in their effects. On the other hand, I imagine that Emperor Valentinian back in Rome would have been scandalised by the idea of being ‘free’ of the glorious influence of the sole source of civilisation in the world. It is apparently in the nature of rulers and their lapdogs to be incapable even of comprehending language which is not in line with their twisted view of the world — let us call it the Roman or imperial view.
(more…)

One of the things that leads one to give great weight to the writings of Noam Chomsky is the incoherence of those vilifying him. One asks oneself, ‘surely, if Chomsky is wrong on the issues, there will be people pointing it out.’ One then looks through material critical of Chomsky, in search of some good points made against him. When one finds virtually nothing but incoherent attacks stuffed full of fallacious reasoning, one is tempted to conclude that there is indeed no major criticism to be levelled at the man.

So, in our quest to find some valid criticism, we have taken advantage of Google News Alerts to receive an e-mail every time an on-line article with the word ‘Chomsky’ in it is published. You will find analysis of the logic of each one in the ‘Chomsky’ category on this site.

In response to:
‘The meaning of Milosevic: how the Butcher of the Balkans changed us’
by David Aaronovitch, The Times, 14/3/2006

Reprinted as:
‘Tyrant gave nations steel to intervene’
The Australian, 20/3/2006

Aaronovitch presents a version of the typical centrist position on the former Yugoslavia. Whilst claiming allegiance with the Left (‘anti-fascists’ and ‘internationalists’), the position chosen is on the Right, in that the righteousness of Western powers is assumed, and international law is disregarded.

Consider the following sentence: ‘There were the lawyers arguing that military action without the imprimatur of the United Nations might be illegal.’ In reality, this means ‘There were lawyers pointing out that aggression is illegal in that it breaches the Geneva Convention, the cornerstone of international law.’

Aaronovitch’s sentence is that of a journalist disdainful of the rule of law. The only alternative to the rule of law is the rule of might.

With this fundamental attitude comes a corresponding tendency to defame those who disagree with it. Aaronovitch objects to The Guardian’s decision to retract an article that defamed the world’s №1 intellectual, Noam Chomsky. The retracted article contained that lie that Chomsky did not believe that the Srebrenica massacre (Bosnia, July 1995) happened. (more…)