[Peace-discuss] Chomsky arguments.

Tue Feb 1 12:11:50 CST 2005

The role of the media in crafting opinions regarding the presence of WMD's 
and sincere reasons for going to war cannot be stated enough. These opinions 
are not political opinions but rather misconceptions shoveled down our 
throat by the global media industrial complex.
When you probe the public at large for their actual political belief (being 
sure to separate political opinion from factual misconceptions) you do 
realize that neither party accurately represents the United States at large.
The facile idea has it that the U.S. is far to the right of Europe. I find 
this to be incorrect for multiple reasons: for one, I think Americans 
demonstrate a much healthier skepticism about government and heirarchies in 
general and their effectiveness in @representing@ the public at large, the 
U.S. is much much more feministic than any country i've seen in Europe (both 
in cultural practice and political practice), and Americans actually have a 
richer history of rebellion and resistance by workers, intellecuals, 
students, anarchists, communists, and even Left Liberals (which has been 
actively squashed by the government through time). This is a country of 
immigrants who arrived and had to fight hard for their right to basic 
principles of human dignity (you can sense my Chicago Eastern European/Upton 
Sinclair vibe coming in here...), and I think that this has effectively 
painted America with a healthy color of rebellion.
In sum, while Europe has parties that are certainly far to the Left of 
either of America's, the U.S. has an un-institutionalized Left which is much 
stronger, diverse, and vibrant than exists in Europe. In fact, existing 
outside of the institutionalization of party politics has helped in 
strengthening this resistance to the power heirarchies that exist in 
America. Unfortunately, the mainstream NGO-driven Left failed to realize 
this in 2004 when they stopped with their principled resistance and began 
pandering to Kerry.
And, of course, those pandering to Kerry included Noam Chomsky: who 
effectively embraced the ABB crowd, claiming that the vote was the least 
important thing anyone could do, but demonstrating no real personal 
commitment to any particular alternative.

-
matt

>From: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at alexia.lis.uiuc.edu>
>To: "Morton K.Brussel" <brussel4 at insightbb.com>
>CC: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Chomsky arguments.
>Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 09:16:22 -0600
>
>You're right, Mort: one should not be too sanguine (nor bloody-minded)
>about what the American people believe. One should be accurate.  A
>majority of Americans do *not* accept what the administration has been
>parroting.  The most recent CNN/USAToday/Gallup poll shows as other polls
>have that a clear majority of Americans say that it was a mistake to send
>troops to Iraq. Of course the Administration insists strenuously (as we'll
>hear again in the State of the Union address) that it was not a mistake
>but a splendid triumph in the Global War on Terrorism.  But Americans know
>it isn't so. Only those who mindlessly accept what the corporate media
>have been parroting about Americans think that they support this war.
>
>We have to distinguish the information that Americans think they know
>about the war from the principles they hold.  The latter are remarkably
>resistant to the corruption of the former by the corporate media.  How
>many trillions of dollars are spent each year in the greatest propaganda
>system in history ("marketing")? It's hardly surprising that such a system
>can produce programmatic ignorance about the war -- the existence of WMD,
>the connection between Iraq and 911, that Iraq was in a "threat," etc.
>(But of course the US *is* trying to bring democracy to Iraq, if you
>define your terms right...). What's amazing is that Americans' political
>principles endure under such a media barrage.
>
>A *large majority* of the public believe that the US should accept the
>jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and the World Court, sign
>the Kyoto protocols, allow the UN to take the lead in international
>crises, and rely on diplomatic and economic measures more than military
>ones in the "war on terror." Similar majorities believe the US should
>resort to force only if there is "strong evidence that the country is in
>imminent danger of being attacked," thus rejecting the bipartisan
>consensus on "pre-emptive war" and adopting a rather conventional
>interpretation of the UN Charter. A majority even favor giving up the
>Security Council veto, hence following the UN lead even if it is not the
>preference of US state managers.
>
>On the eve of the 2004 elections, "three quarters of Americans say that
>the US should not have gone to war if Iraq did not have WMD or was not
>providing support to al Qaeda, while nearly half still say the war was the
>right decision" (Stephen Kull, reporting the PIPA study he directs). But
>this is not a contradiction, Kull points out.  Despite the quasi-official
>Kay and Duelfer reports undermining the claims, the decision to go to war
>"is sustained by persisting beliefs among half of Americans that Iraq
>provided substantial support to al Qaeda, and had WMD, or at least a major
>WMD program," and thus see the invasion as defense against an imminent
>severe threat.  Much earlier PIPA studies had shown that a large majority
>believe that the UN, not the US, should take the lead in matters of
>security, reconstruction, and political transition in Iraq.
>
>Last March, Spanish voters were bitterly condemned for appeasing terror
>when they voted out of office the government that had gone to war over the
>objections of about 90% of the population, taking its orders from
>Crawford, Texas, and winning plaudits for its leadership in the "New
>Europe" that is the hope of democracy.  Few if any commentators noted that
>Spanish voters last March were taking about the same position as the large
>majority of Americans: voting for removing Spanish troops unless they were
>under UN direction.  The major differences between the two countries are
>that in Spain, public opinion was known, while here it takes an individual
>research project to discover it; and in Spain the issue came to a vote,
>almost unimaginable in the deteriorating formal democracy here.
>
>With the US media overwhelmingly trumpeting the Kerry-Bush interpretation
>of the Iraq/GWOT, nevertheless 70% of Americans did not vote for George
>Bush in November.  It's unfortunate of course that the American political
>system is so corrupt that there wasn't an alternative, but then we never
>accepted one-party elections in eastern Europe a generation ago as an
>indication of the will of the people.  Nor should we now. It's better to
>listen to people and talk about what they really think. That's what I
>think Chomsky's doing, the appropriate source of his sanguineness, if
>that's what it is.
>
>[Paragraphs 3-5 above are lifted directly from Chomsky, with emphasis
>added, and draw on surveys by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations
>(CCFR) and the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the U. of
>Maryland (PIPA). Chomsky follows them immediately with the observation,
>"These results indicate that activists have not done their job
>effectively."  That, it seems to me, should be a vademecum for AWARE.]
>
>Regards, Carl
>
>
>On Mon, 31 Jan 2005, Morton K.Brussel wrote:
>
> >
> > No real disagreement here, but one should not be too sanguine, as
> > Chomsky tends to be, about the American people. After all a majority
> > does, mindlessly, accept what the administration has been parroting.
> > About 40% (a large proportion in any case) or more still believe that
> > WMD's existed in Iraq in 2003 and that Iraq WAS a real threat to the
> > U.S. ; moreover that Saddam was behind the 9/11 attacks, and that the
> > USA is trying to bring "democracy" to Iraq. So, despite reservations
> > about the Iraq disaster, a majority are still not ready to resist
> > current policies.
> >
> > The Germans in WWII also had their reservations about Hitler and his
> > policies, but went along. In a sense, living under a dictatorship,
> > they had more excuse.
> >
> > The world wanted a repudiation of the Bush cabal in the election, and
> > can't comprehend that it didn't happen, no matter how
> > bad/wimpy/haughty was Kerry. They saw the issues clearly, yet
> > Americans couldn't. Why?  Ignorance? Indifference? Misguided sense of
> > nationalism/patriotism?  Insecurity? …? Their mass news sources were
> > almost as bad as ours. As several have remarked, for the first time
> > majorities around the world are now assimilating Bush government
> > attitudes and actions with American attitudes. Simplistic of course,
> > but understandable.
> >
> > mkb
> >
>
>
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