Noam Chomsky Type Book Suggestions

[theBruiser500]

I've read Manufacturing Consentent, The Indispensible Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival, and Rogue Stats and his material is starting to get reused or repetitive or whatever. Any other Chomsky books I should get? How about other authors that write about the same sort of stuff as him?

I'd be interested in reading more about some of the stuff Chomsky brings up but in more detail, like what resources exactly these small countries we take over have that we want, how much importance they are, how exactly we support contras or whatever, detail on specific countries (nicaragua, cuba, etc), i get his point that the media is biased in favor of government but i'm still unclear on exactly why it's biased. Anyway, book suggestions on any of these topics would be very appreciated. The subject doesn't matter so much as it being well written, good author.

To receiprocate the favor, here are 2 books for you all that you absolutely must read though on a different subject completely, Diet For A New America, and Mad Cowboy.

[theBruiser500]

don't even ask for details on those books i recommended, just trust me and read them.

[Broken Glass Can]

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don't even ask for details on those books i recommended, just trust me and read them.

[/ QUOTE ]

We always appreciate your recommendations to go on our "How to Brainwash Ourself" reading list. Thanks /images/graemlins/cool.gif

[theBruiser500]

no trust me read it

[InchoateHand]

I think "The Prize" is a nice, balanced history of Oil, and is a great primer for appreciating debates on energy. It is not as politically incisive, but still good stuff.

I'd try "How the Irish Became White" by Noel Ignatiev--its fun, its easy, and its a fascinating history of internal race relations that bears extrapolation to the wider world.

These are not really related, but good non-fiction books to read anyway.

[Matty]

If you search for these books on Amazon.com, it will give you a list of other books that people who bought the book also liked. Then you can troll around from link to link til you find something you like.

[InchoateHand]

I add "Clash of Fundamentalisms" 'cause Tariq Ali is just hilarious. And on-point.

[vulturesrow]

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I add "Clash of Fundamentalisms" 'cause Tariq Ali is just hilarious. And on-point.

[/ QUOTE ]

This book is pure liberal kool-aid.

[Dead]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I add "Clash of Fundamentalisms" 'cause Tariq Ali is just hilarious. And on-point.

[/ QUOTE ]

This book is pure liberal kool-aid.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're right.

Perhaps this book would be more to your liking:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0895260859.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

LOOK! It's even endorsed by Ann Coulter. /images/graemlins/smirk.gif

[theBruiser500]

haha i love that ann coulter endoresement on the front there

[Dead]

I've read Diet for America. It was a good book. I don't eat that much meat anyway, I eat a mostly vegetarian diet.

But I am not giving up leather. It would mean giving up buying baseball gloves, buying leather shoes, etc. That's just not for me.

[Shami GHC]

Bruiser, I think you would enjoy:

'PARECON - Life After Capitalism' -Michael Albert...if you can handle some economic theory, definately check this book out. PARECON (http://www.zmag.org/ParEcon/pelac.htm)

'Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions since World War II' -William Blum

'A People's History of the United States' -Howard Zinn

Michael Albert also has a webpage with lots of daily essays from numerous interesting authors. Check out zmag.org and im sure you will find something of interest.

[theBruiser500]

thanks shami, i'm reading peoples history now and just saw zmag, i will have to check that out and your other book recommendations. i just went to the bookstore and got

Getting Haiti Right This time (chomsky)
Nickel and Dimed (about poverty and people working for small hourly wages)
Deterring Democracy (chomsky)
On Language (chomsky)
The Prize (pulizter prize winning book on history of oil)

[Dead]

Nickel and Dimed is a fantastic book.

My college just chose it as the summer reading book for this year's incoming freshman class.

You're going to love it. Ehrenreich is a good writer. She really pulls you into the stories.

[MMMMMM]

Bruiser,

If you will just read Walden by Henry David Thoreau, you will come to realize the following:

That 99% of what Chomsky spouts, and 99% of what most philosophers spew, and 99% of liberal social programs, and 99% of conservative political programs, and 99% of what 99% of the people think is generally important and necessary, IS ALL JUST NONSENSE.

FLAT-OUT, SHEER, UNEQUIVOCAL, UNADULTERATED NONSENSE.

[Dead]

MMMMMM, your post is useless.

Do you see why?

I'll let others elaborate. /images/graemlins/smirk.gif

[vulturesrow]

[ QUOTE ]
thanks shami, i'm reading peoples history now and just saw zmag, i will have to check that out and your other book recommendations. i just went to the bookstore and got

Getting Haiti Right This time (chomsky)
Nickel and Dimed (about poverty and people working for small hourly wages)
Deterring Democracy (chomsky)
On Language (chomsky)
The Prize (pulizter prize winning book on history of oil)

[/ QUOTE ]

If you really want to educate yourself why dont you try reading some books from the "other side"?

[MMMMMM]

[ QUOTE ]
MMMMMM, your post is useless.

Do you see why?

I'll let others elaborate.

[/ QUOTE ]

Obviously you have not read Walden.

[Zeno]

Thucydides (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0872203948/qid=1113203918/sr=2-4/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_4/002-2757187-6454402)

Another excellent book is Readings In The Classical Historians by Michael Grant.

The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius would also prove a fruitful read.

-Zeno

[InchoateHand]

I get bored reading a guy who makes up a self-sufficiency shtick, and then bums money off all his friends, all his friends' friends, etc. And transcendentalists in general just make me angry.

[zaxx19]

[ QUOTE ]
Nickel and Dimed is a fantastic book

[/ QUOTE ]

Ha Ha my aunt wrote that.....lol lol lol.

Any other big B. Ehrenreich fans? /images/graemlins/grin.gif

(not my 1st aunt like 2nd or something. Im not up on those technical terms.)

[InchoateHand]

You two must not get along.

[zaxx19]

She gets along with her cousin(my dad) just fine.

He was a maoist in college, ran for a city council seat as a Democrat in the 1980's , and is active in the local Democratic party.

He also grumbles alot about how his generation was too pussy to organize(labor wise). He does tis knowing full well he is part of management and has been a white collar worker 95% of his adult life/.

[EricOF]

I highly recommend the Anti-Chomsky Reader by David Horowitz. I used to be a Chomsky nut before I grew up.

[MMMMMM]

Where did you read he bummed money off everyone? I'd like to read that and rather doubt it.

I understand that Thoreau made pencils, and later was a professional surveyor, and a schoolteacher. When he lived at his cabin by Walden Pond, he grew vegetables.

[theBruiser500]

okay what books? btw i used to, right now i am in "super libreal mode" though

[theBruiser500]

mmmm, i have Walden, i've tried reading it before but his old english is hard for me to understand i think i got bored reading it, i will give it another go at some point for you though

[InchoateHand]

You didn't know that?

The numbers he uses in Walden are made up, his vegetable crops rarely succeeded, and he was dependant on Emerson and crew to eat.

Just like his famous civil disobedeince--sure, he spends a night in jail rather than pay a tax towards an unjust war. Problem is, the penalty isn't a night in jail, he only spent a night because friends paid his tax for him. Its very easy to take the high road when someone is carrying you.

[nicky g]

Didn't he also go to his sister's house regularly to get his clothes washed and eat?

Still a great book.

[vulturesrow]

[ QUOTE ]
okay what books?

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Bruiser,

Here are a few choices, Ive tried to make a mix of social and economics oriented book to try and give you the wide view of the conservative movement.

<ul type="square"> The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot by Russell Kirk Witness by Whittaker Chambers The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis Free to Choose by Milton and Rose Friedman Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton Neoconservativism: The Autobiography of an Idea by Irving Kristol The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich Hayek [/list]

There are many more. Ayn Rand's stuff is good to a degree, George Orwell, A Brave New World by Huxley, and others. Also since you have read all those Chomsky tracts, you should read the Anti-Chomsky reader for some balance. I just wanted to try and give you a cross section since the conservative movement is hardly monolithic in its views.

[ QUOTE ]
btw i used to, right now i am in "super libreal mode" though

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And in spite of what some people in this forum may think, I dont have a problem with this per se. But hopefully by reading some of my books you will either a) change your views /images/graemlins/smile.gif (thats the long shot result I think in your case) or b) have a better understanding of conservative though.

[andyfox]

A very Zeno-like argument. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

["spaceman"Bryce]

Try "The Great Peanut Butter Battle" written by PHD Dr. Suess. Really a classic

[Shami GHC]

When you finish all the chomsky check out 'We are the poors' by Ashwin Desai for a little restoration of faith in social movements /images/graemlins/smirk.gif

[MMMMMM]

I thiunk you may be exaggerating somewhat, InChoate, or have less than complete information, although it is true that he lived at Emerson's house for quite some time, and perhaps some of what else you say is valid. Thoreau only lived in the woods for two years and then returned to civilized life, back to schoolteaching, if I recall. That he may have found it difficult to quite make ends meet living in the woods does not invalidate his essential message. A he put it, living in the woods was 'an experiment'.

Anyway, the book's points are profound and ought to be an answer to much of the nonsense espoused by the doom-and-gloom leftists, as well as to much of the nonsense put forth by the holier-than-holy-super-righteous-conservatives.

[MMMMMM]

Bruiser, Thoeau's prose is among the most compact and brilliant in the modern English language--certainly among American authors, at least. Walden is a highly polished work. It is not 'old English', it is brilliant English--as hopefully you will see if you try it again at some point.

Maybe you were just too young when you tried to read it.

[jason_t]

This book

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y73/jason_t712/7144948.jpg

is fantastic and meets your criteria.

[Chris Alger]

You can buy shelffulls of books on these subjects from South End Press and Black Rose Books, both of which have extensive online catalogues. (Black Rose, for example, came out with a collection of essays called Filtering the News, various applications of the Chomsky/Hermann propaganda model to current topics). If you're particularly interested in the foreign policy Michael Klare is also good.

[Zeno]

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. - Henry David Thoreau

.

[Phat Mack]

These may not be what you are looking for specifically, but will help clense your palate:

The True Believer, Eric Hoffer. The Right and Left hate this book.

History of the War with Hannibal, Livy. The unrelenting tale of morons prosecuting a war lasting decades. As Zeno would say, "Very amusing!" (May be in your public library under the name: History of the Second Punic War, or some such.)

The Proud Tower, Barbara Tuchman. What happens when terrorists and subversives threaten the status quo? WWI!

Enjoy.

[wacki]

Phat Mack,

I enjoy reading your posts. The quality of information in your posts tend to be very high. May I ask, what do you do for a living/what do you study?

[Phat Mack]

May I ask, what do you do for a living/what do you study?

I'm either retired or unemployed, depending on what kind of mood my wife is in. I like the idea of "retired," but as TA (and my wife) would say, "retired from what?"

As to what I study, it's hard to pin down. A chance remark can keep me busy for weeks, decades, or an entire lifetime. My degrees were in math and asian languages.

Thanks for your kind comment.

[Il_Mostro]

[ QUOTE ]
Getting Haiti Right This time (chomsky)

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On the subject of Haiti I'd recomend "Hideous dream" by Stan Goff. An interesting book written by a former master sergeant in the special forces that was a group comander in Haiti.
Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1887128638/104-8746254-9216729?v=glance)