HELIOLITH

I just finished reading a recent (posted 8/1/04) interview with Noam Chomsky that as always was full of thought-provoking information and perspective. It almost makes me want to go back to school and study politics myself to gain a greater understanding of current events in the increasingly divergent world-view that has become the default in the U.S. As soon as I recover from debt, I’d like to buy a copy of his latest book, Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance.

A student at Columbia, Merlin Chowkwanyun conducted the interview and asked several questions on different subjects. What follows is my filtering of the content of the interview, or a long summary of a brief article, covering the parts most interesting to me and quoting heavily… I’m sure I’m bending or breaking most blogging conventions, but please inform me (comments section) if you think I’ve reproduced too much.

First he asked Chomsky to describe the concept of a permanent war economy, and to relate how that shapes our president’s foreign policy. He answers, explaining that the term was attributed to the CEO of GE at the end of WWII (Charles E. Wilson) when fears ran high that the economy might return to depression without the stimulus of war. It (the permanent war economy) is he says, “a semi-command economy, run mostly by corporate executives, geared to military production.”

From a class perspective military spending is the opposite of social spending, but from a business perspective, social spending has the additional liability of democratizing and redistrubuting wealth. He explains, “People care about hospitals and schools, but if you can “scare the hell out of them,” as Senator Vandenberg recommended, they will huddle under the umbrella of power and trust their leaders when it comes to jet planes, missiles, tanks, etc.” Does this sound familiar to any of you? What about today’s New York Times article, “U.S. Warns of High Risk of Qaeda Attack,” does that count? Or the constant barrage of different color coded alerts since 9/11/01? It’s enough to make Michael Femia walk

…around in a basketball defensive pose… like I’m Ben Wallace trying to guard Shaq one-on-one. I incinerate all incoming mail in case it has anthrax spores (Sorry cable company! That includes my bills!). I’ve asked my boss at work if we have permission to frisk anyone who comes into the store; so far I haven’t received official permission, but I have been doing random searches on an informal basis.

Chomsky goes on to states that both the

…incomparable military force and an advanced industrial economy — naturally provide crucial mechanisms for foreign policy planning, much of it geared to ensuring free access to markets and resources for the state-supported corporate sector, constraining rivals, and barring moves towards independent development.

After discussing the situation in Haiti (about which I know very little), Chowkwanyun asks about current liberal criticisms of the Bush administration at home and abroad, and he questions whether there isn’t actually more continuity than divergence from the years we spent under Clinton. Chomsky answers that, “The Bush administration is at the extreme savage and brutal end of a narrow policy spectrum,” which has drawn fire from all sides.

He illustrates by example, how the government and media conducted a “highly successful… propaganda campaign that drove the frightened population far off the spectrum of world opinion.” He comments how Madeline Albright basically disagrees with his style, all the while knowing that the “Clinton doctrine” was actually more radical, publicly committing to the use of force simply to “…ensure access to markets and resources without even the pretexts of “self defense” conjured up by Bush propagandists…” He continues, ” But Clinton presented the doctrine quietly, and was careful to carry out his crimes, which were many, in ways that would be acceptable to allies and could be justified or concealed by elite opinion, including the media.”

He then compares and contrasts Brazil and the U.S. and the successful activism of the poorest people in Brazil that have achieved much, as a potential source of hope for people everywhere.

This summary is growing FAR longer than I planned, so I will close in shotgun style, with some of the most striking and succinct quotes from Chomsky’s replies in the last third of the article:

“In the forthcoming presidential elections in the US, there is a choice: between two candidates who were born to wealth and political power, attended the same elite university, joined the same secret society that instructs members in the style and manners of the rulers, and are able to run because they are funded by largely the same corporate powers.”

“…there is a continuation of the long process of disengagement mainly on the part of poor and working class Americans, who simply do not feel that they are represented. The Harvard University project that monitors these matters (www.vanishingvoter.org)currently reports that, “the turnout gap between the top and bottom fourth by income is by far the largest among western democracies and has been widening.”

“It should hardly be a secret that neoliberal mechanisms are well designed to restrict very narrowly the threat of democracy.”

“Bitter class warfare in the West is by and large restricted to the highly class-conscious business sector, which is often quite frank about its objectives and understands very well what its publications call “the hazard facing industrialists in the rising political power of the masses.”

“Take, for example, the misleadingly named “free trade agreements.” They are supported by a substantial elite consensus, and generally opposed by the public, so much so that critical analysis of them or even information about them has to be largely suppressed, sometimes in remarkable ways, well documented. The business world is well aware of this.”

“Polls regularly show strong public support for some form of national health care (80% in the most recent poll I have seen), but when that is even mentioned, the “too-liberal press” dismisses it as “politically impossible” (New York Times). That’s correct: the insurance companies and pharmaceutical industry are opposed, and with the effective erosion of a democratic culture, it therefore doesn’t matter what the population wants.

Cuba and Canada both provide health care for their citizens, are we really that savage to believe that the poor should have limited access to medical aid? I guess we’re not, but I forget sometimes how far we’ve strayed from democracy…