Chomsky Book Banned From Guantanamo

[TomCanyon]

Source: Washington Independent

By DAPHNE EVIATAR 10/12/09 11:16 AM
The donation of an anthology of post-9/11 commentary by Professor Noam Chomsky has been rejected from the library at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, reports The Miami Herald.

While the prison offers inmates books and videos on Harry Potter and the World Cup, which are among the more than 16,000 items it holds, leftist intellectual commentary from an 80-year-old MIT linguistics professor is apparently taboo. U.S. military censors rejected the donation of an Arabic-language copy of the 2007 anthology called Interventions, donated by a Pentagon lawyer.

A defense department spokesman didn’t say exactly why the book was rejected, but the slip accompanying the book’s return listed among the categories of books banned from the Guantanamo Bay prison library anything promoting “Anti-American, Anti-Semitic, Anti-Western” ideology, literature on “military topics,” and works that portray “excessive graphic violence” and “sexual dysfunctions.”

“This happens sometimes in totalitarian regimes,” Chomsky told Miami Herald reporter Carol Rosenberg in an email after he learned his book had been banned.

Read more: http://washingtonindependent.com/63501/chomsky-book-banned-from-guantanamo

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Aren't our troops allowed to listen to Rush Limbaugh? What's up with that?

[Mari333]

1. That fucking place should have been closed the day Obama took office

instead its a festering symbol of the goddamed war machine that still runs this country.

[mike_c]

5. some DUer actually cited the closure of Gitmo the other day...

...as evidence that Barak Obama merited the Nobel peace prize. Among other laudable accomplishments, most of which were equally fictitious (he ended the war with Iraq!). I don't want to get into yet another argument over the larger issue of the NPP, but it's clear that simply saying it would be good to close down Gitmo-- or fix any other broken aspect of American foreign policy or justice-- is good enough for lots of faux liberal Americans.

[Rude Dog]

7. "faux liberal"

So you're the final arbiter of who is "pure enough" to be liberal?

How nice. Welcome to my ignore list.

[Fumesucker]

13. Someone who thinks Gitmo has already been closed isn't paying a great deal of attention..

And at 139 posts you're already putting people on ignore?

I have over 7000 posts and have never used ignore the first time.

Some people just have different levels of tolerance I guess.

[No Elephants]

21. Profile is not visible, either. When a poster who appears new

is that "in your face, I always check the profile bc I suspect a sock or something else that doesn't ring quite true.

Sometimes, I'll see that the poster has relatively few posts, but has been here a long time. This time, it was a hidden profile.

In any event, truly new Democratic are rarely that bold.

[armyowalgreens]

15. Can I be on your ignore list?

[Mari333]

9. lot of people live in a fantasy world.

of their own making.

[thunder rising]

2. What's funny is that if they put them on the shelf ... nobody would read them. I love Chomsky's

work. I don't agree with all of it. But it does raise questions on the motivations of our overt and covert operations.

They are not an easy read. The works are written by an intellectual for intellectuals.

[BOG PERSON]

3. Chomsky's political work you mean?

Nah, that's stuff is written with ordinary readers in mind.

[EFerrari]

12. Yes, some of it can get pretty dry.

It's not exactly Portnoy's Complaint. lol

[Ozymanithrax]

4. Obama Runs the Country ergo sum Obama is the War Machine.

I would not have put that together without your comment.
:sarcasm:

[No Elephants]

22. "Obama runs the Country ergo sum" means, "Obama runs the country, therefore I am.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito_ergo_sum

I don't get how your comment pertains to the OP, either.

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. Wait a minute. The *inmates* get access to the library?

In between torture sessions, I guess?
And they don't want the inmates to read anything that portray “excessive graphic violence” and “sexual dysfunctions.”
After being there for over 7 years under the sadistic rule of Bush, "violence and sexual dysfunctions"
can't be in a book. Guess that has been reserved for the cells, and torture chamber.
What a sick twisted take on reality goes on in our name.

[pnorman]

8. My all-time favorite Chomsky quote:

CHOMSKY: Well, let me give an example. When I'm driving, I sometimes turn on the radio and I find very often that what I'm listening to is a discussion of sports. These are telephone conversations. People call in and have long and intricate discussions, and it's plain that quite a high degree of thought and analysis is going into that. People know a tremendous amount. They know all sorts of complicated details and enter into far-reaching discussion about whether the coach made the right decision yesterday and so on. These are ordinary people, not professionals, who are applying their intelligence and analytic skills in these areas and accumulating quite a lot of knowledge and, for all I know, understanding. On the other hand, when I hear people talk about, say, international affairs or domestic problems, it's at a level of superficiality that's beyond belief.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky

pnorman

[Echo In Light]

11. My favorites are the ones that are in stark contrast to what most people abide as given "reality;"

Such as:

"If they have the capacity to think freely and understand these types of things, they're going to be kept out by a very complicated filtering system -- which actually starts in kindergarten, I think. In fact, the whole educational and professional training system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out people who are too independent, and who don't know how to be submissive, and so on -- because they're dysfunctional to the institutions."

[Fumesucker]

17. I have a sports nut in my family..

Most of the time he might as well be speaking ancient Etruscan for all I can understand..

If he's talking about football I'll tell him I don't understand baseball.. :evilgrin:

Thing is, he's a very lucky union member and told me a few days ago that he voted for "anyone with an R after their name". I really didn't have the heart to pursue the conversation down the rabbithole I knew it was gonna dive down.

[Echo In Light]

10. Rec for ol Uncle Chomsky! Love this line ...

"A defense department spokesman didn’t say exactly why the book was rejected..."

Uh-huh

[Overseas]

14. K&R.

Love his saying "This happens sometimes in totalitarian regimes." Period. Full stop. Yes indeed.

[Canuckistanian]

16. So, a place that tortures rejects a book it thinks is immoral?

The disconnect is astounding.

[No Elephants]

23. A place that tortures bans a book that doesn't fit the Republican line. No

inconsistency there.

[Mist]

18. K 'n' R.

[Flaneur]

19. More Chomsky and less totalitarianism, please.

[grantcart]

20. You see I smelled pizza when I saw the thread title

I would join in but its too close to dinner time.

[No Elephants]

24. That is the headline of the article. This was originally posted in LBN, where,

by the rules of that forum, the OP has no choice about any thread title. And the last line of the OP, which are the words of the poster, do not seem like those of a Republican.

[No Elephants]

25. Welcome. Both the banning and the Limbaugh rules seem leftover from Dummya.

Let's hope some one with authority sees this and takes appropriate action.