Hegemony or Survival
Today I finished listening to the audio book of Noam Chomsky's Hegemony or Survival. It is brilliant, thorough and cogent. The information presented is extremely important and I think everyone on the planet should experience it, especially every American (forced if need be).
Chomsky discusses the role of United States foreign policy mainly over the past 50 years, but with an emphasis on recent events. What I heard was infuriated and disheartening. Once again my idealism runs smack into reality and is discouragingly trounced.
There is just so much (ludicrous) indignation and moral righteousness expressed by America while it commits acts of subterfuge and terrorism. Hegemony was an aptly chosen word.
Honestly, it is hard to realistically communicate how many spurious and specious situations/arguments that have been put forth by various US administrations over the years, that in turn justifiably results in a stance of complete mistrust of America as a country acting in the world. Acting on the world is probably more accurate.
The general trend is that it is not terrorism if We do it, but only if They do it (to us, or our interests.) Interesting, if US polices were followed by other countries, there would be numerous 'valid' attacks on American soil.
Another trend is that the United States does what it wants. Then the world court says stop doing it. Then the US says, "Screw you. We'll do what we want." Or, they will vote down various UN resolutions, creating a two-fold effect: (1) the resolution is not passed, and (2) the negation of the bill makes it so the whole procedure barely exists in the historical records. These are not illogical resolutions, but things like non-proliferation of biological weapons, having standards for international law, human rights, and keeping space non-militarized.
Go get this book.
Here are some quotations and some thoughts:
"Destroying hope is a critically important project, and when it is achieved, formal democracy is allowed, even preferred, if only for public relations purposes."
" the weak would have to be insane to implement their rights."
The saddening irony of a bust of Winston Churchill, and man who called the Guantanamo Bay like detaining of prisoner's "odious," faces Bush in the oval office.
The United States decimated Nicaragua, tried to destroy Cuba and terrorized Panama.
Iraq, which had the best food distribution system aid organizers have ever seen, lost the ability to do so. Consequently, infant mortality went way up. Additionally, the US actually stopped water tankers from reaching Iraq when they were experiencing a shortage of drinking water.
Bush is running up debts that might cripple future generations.
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have lead to increases in terrorist recruitment, a decrease in safety for the world, and serve as an indicator that the best way to negate a possible US invasion of oneÂs country is to have nuclear weapons (or WMD). How can these sufferers of psychopathy and narcissism in office say that is
"One always hopes that worst case scenarios will never materialize, and every effort should be dedicated to that end It is the range of likely possibilities that determines the evaluation of policy choices that are made. At least for those capable of entertaining elementary moral standards."
"We confront evil's face by lending it a willing hand, at least if there is something to gain."
They want space. I am not kidding. If they have their way, America will be the sole military force in space and be able to launch an attack anywhere on the Earth.
Learning these things from the work makes me want the Chinese to take over But then 'human rights' suffers and blogging is screened/censored. It's just a bad scene. Hopefully, China and India will bring some balance to the Earth as opposed to having to choose between the lesser of two (or three) evils.
Chomsky discusses the role of United States foreign policy mainly over the past 50 years, but with an emphasis on recent events. What I heard was infuriated and disheartening. Once again my idealism runs smack into reality and is discouragingly trounced.
There is just so much (ludicrous) indignation and moral righteousness expressed by America while it commits acts of subterfuge and terrorism. Hegemony was an aptly chosen word.
Honestly, it is hard to realistically communicate how many spurious and specious situations/arguments that have been put forth by various US administrations over the years, that in turn justifiably results in a stance of complete mistrust of America as a country acting in the world. Acting on the world is probably more accurate.
The general trend is that it is not terrorism if We do it, but only if They do it (to us, or our interests.) Interesting, if US polices were followed by other countries, there would be numerous 'valid' attacks on American soil.
Another trend is that the United States does what it wants. Then the world court says stop doing it. Then the US says, "Screw you. We'll do what we want." Or, they will vote down various UN resolutions, creating a two-fold effect: (1) the resolution is not passed, and (2) the negation of the bill makes it so the whole procedure barely exists in the historical records. These are not illogical resolutions, but things like non-proliferation of biological weapons, having standards for international law, human rights, and keeping space non-militarized.
Go get this book.
Here are some quotations and some thoughts:
"Destroying hope is a critically important project, and when it is achieved, formal democracy is allowed, even preferred, if only for public relations purposes."
" the weak would have to be insane to implement their rights."
The saddening irony of a bust of Winston Churchill, and man who called the Guantanamo Bay like detaining of prisoner's "odious," faces Bush in the oval office.
The United States decimated Nicaragua, tried to destroy Cuba and terrorized Panama.
Iraq, which had the best food distribution system aid organizers have ever seen, lost the ability to do so. Consequently, infant mortality went way up. Additionally, the US actually stopped water tankers from reaching Iraq when they were experiencing a shortage of drinking water.
Bush is running up debts that might cripple future generations.
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have lead to increases in terrorist recruitment, a decrease in safety for the world, and serve as an indicator that the best way to negate a possible US invasion of oneÂs country is to have nuclear weapons (or WMD). How can these sufferers of psychopathy and narcissism in office say that is
"One always hopes that worst case scenarios will never materialize, and every effort should be dedicated to that end It is the range of likely possibilities that determines the evaluation of policy choices that are made. At least for those capable of entertaining elementary moral standards."
"We confront evil's face by lending it a willing hand, at least if there is something to gain."
They want space. I am not kidding. If they have their way, America will be the sole military force in space and be able to launch an attack anywhere on the Earth.
Learning these things from the work makes me want the Chinese to take over But then 'human rights' suffers and blogging is screened/censored. It's just a bad scene. Hopefully, China and India will bring some balance to the Earth as opposed to having to choose between the lesser of two (or three) evils.
posted by That which is called Darren at 10:39 PM
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