Food For Thought
Last week I was reading Noam Chomsky's 2003 work Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance. Chomsky is a leading US intellectual, an activist, although cosidered a "dissident" in some circles. He must surely be a thorn in the side of the Bush administration.
There were a number of points in Chomsky's book that I thought were overly one-sided: there can be fear-mongering on the "left" as well as fear-mongering on the "right," however, overall it is a hard-hitting analysis of US foreign and domestic policy that traces its historical development from the end of the Second World War right up till today's involvement in Iraq.
Chomsky says that what the US wants - its stated strategy - is permanent global hegemony, with force if necessary, and, he warns, this threatens the survival of humanity eventually because it can only lead to an escalation of hostilities between the US and those countries that become its unwilling "victims."
We can only hope that Chomsky is wrong and that it is not an "either/or" choice. Does Chomsky hold out any hope? Yes, against the world's only military superpower, he holds that there is another superpower and this is world public opinion. Thus, our only option is to educate ourselves about the aims of the US, present alternative viewpoints, speak out against violent solutions, and influence (in any way we can) the American populace that has little understanding of how it is being manipulated to support an outrageously costly militarization at the expense of social programs.
Chomsky believes that the only solutions against "terror" are addressing underlying grievances, seeing things from the other side's perspective, trying to find honourable solutions, mutual respect, and applying to ourselves the standards we impose on others. (An example of the last might be that if the US does not want other countries to have "weapons of mass destruction," it must be willing to get rid of its own.)
Chomsky does point out that it is not the American people but the the policies of the US government that are at fault. His argument is that the US is hated (and feared) by much of the world because it supports corrupt and brutal governments and opposes political and economic progress which is opposed to its own interests.
There were a number of points in Chomsky's book that I thought were overly one-sided: there can be fear-mongering on the "left" as well as fear-mongering on the "right," however, overall it is a hard-hitting analysis of US foreign and domestic policy that traces its historical development from the end of the Second World War right up till today's involvement in Iraq.
Chomsky says that what the US wants - its stated strategy - is permanent global hegemony, with force if necessary, and, he warns, this threatens the survival of humanity eventually because it can only lead to an escalation of hostilities between the US and those countries that become its unwilling "victims."
We can only hope that Chomsky is wrong and that it is not an "either/or" choice. Does Chomsky hold out any hope? Yes, against the world's only military superpower, he holds that there is another superpower and this is world public opinion. Thus, our only option is to educate ourselves about the aims of the US, present alternative viewpoints, speak out against violent solutions, and influence (in any way we can) the American populace that has little understanding of how it is being manipulated to support an outrageously costly militarization at the expense of social programs.
Chomsky believes that the only solutions against "terror" are addressing underlying grievances, seeing things from the other side's perspective, trying to find honourable solutions, mutual respect, and applying to ourselves the standards we impose on others. (An example of the last might be that if the US does not want other countries to have "weapons of mass destruction," it must be willing to get rid of its own.)
Chomsky does point out that it is not the American people but the the policies of the US government that are at fault. His argument is that the US is hated (and feared) by much of the world because it supports corrupt and brutal governments and opposes political and economic progress which is opposed to its own interests.
posted by mamie @ 8:46 PM
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