Understanding Power Understanding Power The Indispensable Chomsky Explanatory footnotes available at WWW. understandingpower.com Edited by Peter R. Mitchell and John Schoeffel • THE NEW PRESS NEW YORK © 2002 by Noam Chomsky, Peter Rounds Mitchell, and John Schoeffel All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form, without written permission from the publisher. Published in the United States by The New Press, New York, 2002 Distributed by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York Explanatory footnotes available at www.understandingpower.com ISBN 1-56584-703-2 CIP data available The New Press was established in 1990 as a not-for-profit alternative to the large, commercial publishing houses currently dominating the book publishing industry. The New Press operates in the public interest rather than for private gain, and is committed to publishing, in innovative ways, works of educational, cultural, and community value that are often deemed insufficiently profitable. The New Press, 450 West 41st Street, 6th floor, New York, NY 10036 www.thenewpress.com Printed in Canada 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 Contents Editors' Preface XI A Note on the Events of September II, 200 I XIlI Chapter One Weekend Teach-In: Opening Session 1 The Achievements of Domestic Dissidence I The U.S. Network of Terrorist Mercenary States 4 Overthrowing Third World Governments 6 Government Secrecy 10 The Media: An Institutional Analysis 12 __ Testing the "Propaganda Model" 15 - The Media and Elite Opinion 18 Filters on Reporting 24 Honest Subordination 30 "Fight it Better"; the Media and the Vietnam War 31 Chapter Two Teach-In: Over Coffee 37 "Containing" the Soviet Union in the Cold War 37 Orwell's World and Ours 41 Contemporary Poverty 45 Religious Fanaticism 50 'The Real Anti-Semitism" 51 Ronald Reagan and the Future of Democracy 53 Two New Factors in World Affairs 58 Democracy Under Capitalism 60 The Empire 64 Change and the Future 67 Chapter Three Teach-In: Evening The Military- Industrial Complex The Permanent War Economy 70 70 73 v vi Contents Libyan and American Terrorism 77 The U.S. and the U.N. 84 Business, Apartheid, and Racism 88 Winning the Vietnam War 90 "Genocide": the United States and Pol Pot 92 Heroes and Anti-Heroes 93 "Anti - Intellectualism" 95 Spectator Sports 98 Western European Activism and Canada 101 Dispelling Illusions 103 Chapter Four Colloquy 106 The Totalitarian Strain 106 A Lithuania Hypothetical 109 Perpetuating Brainwashing Under Freedom II I Journalism LeMoyne-Style: A Sample of the Cynical Aspect 115 Rethinking Watergate 117 Escaping Indoctrination 120 Understanding the Middle East Conflict 123 The Threat of Peace 126 Water and the Occupied Territories 129 Imperial Ambitions and the Arab Threat 131 Prospects for the Palestinians 134 Legitimacy in History 135 Qualifications to Speak on World Affairs; A 137 Presidential Campaign Chapter Five Ruling the World 140 Soviet Versus Western Economic Development 140 Supporting Terror 144 "People's Democratic Socialist Republics" 145 Contents vii The Organ Trade 146 The Real Crime of Cuba 148 Panama and Popular Invasions 151 Muslims and U.S. Foreign Policy 154 Haiti: Disturbance at an Export Platform 155 Texaco and the Spanish Revolution 159 Averting Democracy in Italy 160 P.R. in Somalia 163 The Gulf War 165 Bosnia: Intervention Questions 171 Toying With India 172 The Oslo Agreement and Imperialist Revival 174 Chapter Six Community Activists Discussion Circle 177 177 The Early Peace Movement and a Change in the l970s 180 The Nuclear Freeze Movement 184 Awareness and Actions 186 Leaders and Movements 188 Levels of Change 189 Non-Violence 193 Transcending Capitalism 195 The Kibbutz Experiment 196 "Anarchism" and "Libertarianism" 199 Articulating Visions 201 "Want" Creation 203 Dissidents: Ignored or Vilified 204 Teaching About Resistance 211 Isolation 212 Science and Human Nature 214 Charlatans in the Sciences 217 Adam Smith: Real and Fake 221 The Computer and the Crowbar 223 viii Contents Chapter Seven Intellectuals and Social Change 224 The Leninist/Capitalist Intelligentsia 224 Marxist "Theory" and Intellectual Fakery 227 Ideological Control in the Sciences and Humanities 231 The Function of the Schools 233 Subtler Methods of Control 238 Cruder Methods of Control 242 The Fate of an Honest Intellectual 244 Forging Working-Class Culture 248 The Fraud of Modern Economics 251 The Real Market 255 Automation 258 A Revolutionary Change in Moral Values 260 Chapter Eight Popular Struggle 267 Discovering New Forms of Oppression 267 Freedom of Speech 268 Negative and Positive Freedoms 272 Cyberspace and Activism 276 "Free Trade" Agreements 280 Defense Department Funding and "Clean Money" 284 The Favored State and Enemy States 286 Canada's Media 288 Should Quebec Separate from Canada? 291 Deciphering "China" 282 Indonesia's Killing Fields: U.S Backed Genocide 294 in East Timor Mass Murderers at Harvard 298 Changes in Indonesia 299 Nuclear Proliferation and North Korea 301 The Samson Option 303 The Lot of the Palestinians 305 P.L.O. Ambitions 310 The Nation-State System 313 Contents ix Chapter Nine Movement Organizing 31 B The Movie Manufacturing Consent 318 Media Activism 323 Self-Destruction of the U.S. Left 326 Popular Education 331 Third-Party Politics 333 Boycotts 337 "A Praxis" 339 The War on Unions 339 Inner-City Schools 342 Defending the Welfare State 344 Pension Funds and the Law 346 Conspiracy Theories 348 The Decision to Get Involved 351 "Human Nature Is Corrupt" 355 Discovering Morality 356 Abortion 358 Moral Values 359 Chapter Ten Turning Point Bringing the Third World Home Welfare; the Pea and the Mountain Crime Control and "Superfluous" People Violence and Repression International Capital; the New Imperial Age The Fairy Tale Economy Building International Unions Initial Moves and the Coming Crisis Elite Planning-Slipping Out of Hand Disturbed Populations Stirring The Verge of Fascism The Future of History Index 363 363 367 370 373 377 382 383 387 390 395 398 400 403 Editors' Preface This book brings together the work of one of the most remarkable polit- ical activists and thinkers of our time. The discussions span a wide array of topics-from the workings of the modern media, to globalization, the edu- cation system, environmental crises, the military-industrial complex, ac- tivist strategies, and beyond-and present a revolutionary perspective for evaluating the world, and for understanding power. What distinguishes Noam Chomsky's political thinking is not anyone novel insight or single overarching idea. In fact, Chomsky's political stance is rooted in concepts that have been understood for centuries. Rather, Chomsky's great contribution is his mastery of a huge wealth of factual in- formation, and his uncanny skill at unmasking, in case after case, the work- ings and deceptions of powerful institutions in today's world. His method involves teaching through examples-not in the abstract-as a means of helping people to learn how to think critically for themselves. The opening chapter introduces two themes that underlie nearly every aspect of the book: the progress of activism in changing the world, and the role of the media in staving off that activism and in shaping the way we think. The book follows a roughly chronological order, and begins with four discussions that took place in 1989 and 1990-the dawn of the post- Cold War era. These first chapters lay a foundation for Chomsky's subse- quent analysis. The remaining chapters explore more recent developments in U.S. foreign policy, international economics, the domestic social and po- litical environment, as well as activist strategies and problems. The book and its accompanying footnotes bring Chomsky's analysis right up to the present day. The internet has enabled us to place extensive documentation in our footnotes, which appear at the book's website. These vast online notes go well beyond mere citation to sources: they include commentary on the text, excerpts from government documents, significant quotations from newspa- per articles and scholarship, and other important information. Our goal was to make accessible much of the evidence supporting each of Chomsky's factual assertions. The notes also add additional depth for those interested in a given topic. The complete footnotes-which are longer than the text itself-can be easily downloaded from the book's website, www.understandingpower.com x i xii Editors' Preface (they can also be accessed through www.thenewpress.com). Information about obtaining a bound printout of the notes is available on the website, or by writing us in care of the publisher. The book was put together as follows. We transcribed tapes of dozens of question-and-answer sessions, edited them for readability, then reorganized and combined them to eliminate repetition and present the analysis in a coherent progression of topics and ideas. Our aim was to compile an overview of Chomsky's political thought that combines the rigor and docu- mentation of his scholarly books with the accessibility of the interview for- mat. Always we remained faithful to Chomsky's own language and answers-and he reviewed the text-but it was necessary to make superficial alterations for structural and stylistic reasons. Most of the material is from seminar-style discussions with groups of activists, or from question periods after public talks, held between 1989 and 1999. Some of the answers in chapters 6, 7, 8 and 9 are taken from conversations between Chomsky and Michael Albert. Questioners are identified as "Man" or "Woman" because frequently this device reveals when the same person is pursuing a line of questioning, or whether somebody else has taken over. We have personally checked and verified the sources cited in the foot- notes, except for certain foreign language materials. Most of the sources are those Chomsky relied upon when making his comments in the text, but some are not. Emily Mitchell's assistance in retrieving reams of this mate- rial in the final months of our work on this project was invaluable. We di- rect readers to footnote 67 of chapter 1 for discussion of one common misunderstanding regarding the footnotes: that the frequent citation to ar- ticles from the mainstream media is at odds with the "Propaganda Model" of the media, which Chomsky outlines in chapter 1. We want to thank our parents-Emily and George Mitchell and Ron and Jone Schoeffel-whose support made the book possible. -The Editors [...]... indistinguishable from fascism These guys that everybody calls "conservative," any conservative would turn over in their grave at the sight of them-they're extreme statists, they're not "conservative" in any traditional meaning of the word "Special interests" means labor, women, blacks, the poor, the elderly, the young-in other words, the general population There's only one sector of the population that doesn't... from rapid mechanization of agriculture in the South, which drove the black population, the former slaves, off the land Then on top of that, there's also been a major influx of Hispanic immigration So you had these two big waves of immigration coming up to the Northern cities, and nothing for them to do: they couldn't do what my father did, because there wasn't the same kind of manual labor going on which... situation So these are just incomparable advantages, and our economic system has not turned them to the benefit of the population here, particularly-but they're there, and they're going to stay there Now take Japan: Japanese corporations and investors can collect a lot of capital, but they're never going to get their own resources-they don't have their own energy resources, they don't have their own raw... look for other ways to do it, and religion's an obvious one It's strikingly the case in the black communities, actually, where the black churches have been the real organizing center which holds life together: I mean, there's terrible oppression, a lot of families are falling apart, but the church is there, it brings people together and they can get together and do things in that context And the same... I think the Jewish organizations like the Anti-Defamation League basically called them off The point is, these organizations don't ultimately care about anti-Semitism, what they care about is opposition to the policies of Israel-in fact, opposition to their own hawkish version of the policies of Israel They're Israeli government lobbies, essentially, and they understood that these Nazis in the Bush... just proven by the meaning of the words themselves It's like finding a married bachelor or something-you don't have to do any research to show there aren't any You can't have the United States opposing the peace process, because the peace process is what the United States is doing, by definition And if anybody is opposing the United States, then they're opposing the peace process That's the way it works,... we'll proceed that way-now we'll talk about how they defended themselves against the Jews by building Auschwitz, and how they defended themselves against the Czechs by invading Czechoslovakia, how they defended themselves against the Poles, and so on." If anybody tried to do that, you wouldn't even bother to laugh-but about the United States, that's the only thing you can say: it's not just that it's... immigrants It allowed for it briefly during the Second World War, when there was a labor shortage and people could come off the farms in the South and work in the war industries But that ended And since then, the jobs have 48 Understanding Power mostly been in high-tech or in the service sector-which is rotten, you don't go anywhere So there just aren't the same possibilities for people to move up:... single comment on it in the press Well, that tells you something: what it tells you is, there are different sectors of the business community in the country, and they sometimes have slightly different tactical judgments about the way to deal with current problems And when they differ on 58 Understanding Power something, it'll come up in the election; when they don't differ on anything, there won't be any... Wilson that the Bolsheviks are "issuing an appeal to the proletariat of all nations, to the illiterate and mentally deficient, who by their very numbers are supposed to take control of all governments." And since they're issuing an appeal to the mass of the population in other countries to take control of their own affairs, and since that mass of the population are the "mentally deficient" and the "illiterate"-you . Understanding Power Understanding Power The Indispensable Chomsky Explanatory footnotes available at WWW. understandingpower.com Edited by Peter R. Mitchell and John Schoeffel • THE. how they de- fended themselves against the Jews by building Auschwitz, and how they defended themselves against the Czechs by invading Czechoslovakia, how they defended themselves against the. and in the world. The U.S. media devoted huge rage to the attacks and their aftermath. But, overwhelmingly, the media omitted a critical, accurate discussion of the context in which they occurred.