[Peace-discuss] WaPo: Liberals, Dems, Women Abandon Afghan War

[C. G. Estabrook]

[From an interview in The progressive [sic] five years ago.  Full text at 
<http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/200405--.htm>.  --CGE]

Q: Why do so many people in the United States just go along with U.S. policy?

Chomsky: What's striking is that this view is accepted without coercion. If 
you're living in a dictatorship or under kings and princes or in a place run by 
murderous bishops, you'd better take that view or you're in deep trouble. You 
get burned at the stake or thrown into the gulag or something.

In the West, you don't get in any trouble if you tell the truth, but you still 
can't do it. Not only can't you tell the truth, you can't think the truth. It's 
just so deeply embedded, deeply instilled, that without any meaningful coercion 
it comes out the same way it does in a totalitarian state.

Orwell had some words about this in his unpublished introduction to Animal Farm. 
He says straight, look, in England what comes out in a free country is not very 
different from this totalitarian monster that I'm describing in the book. It's 
more or less the same. How come in a free country? He has two sentences, which 
are pretty accurate. One, he says, the press is owned by wealthy men who have 
every reason not to want certain ideas to be expressed. And second--and I think 
this is much more important--a good education instills in you the intuitive 
understanding that there are certain things it just wouldn't do to say.

I don't think he goes far enough. I'd say there are certain things it wouldn't 
do to think. A good education instills in you the intuitive comprehension--it 
becomes unconscious and reflexive--that you just don't think certain things, 
things that are threatening to power interests.

Not everyone accepts this. But most of us, if we are honest with ourselves, can 
look back at our own personal history. For those of us who got into good 
colleges or the professions, did we stand up to that high school history teacher 
who told us some ridiculous lie about American history and say, "That's a 
ridiculous lie. You're an idiot"? No. We said, "All right, I'll keep quiet, and 
I'll write it in the exam and I'll think, yes, he's an idiot." And it's easy to 
say and believe things that improve your self-image and your career and that are 
in other ways beneficial to yourselves.

It's very hard to look in the mirror. We all know this. It's much easier to have 
illusions about yourself. And in particular, when you think, well, I'm going to 
believe what I like, but I'll say what the powerful want, you do that over time, 
and you believe what you say.

Q: Someone reading this interview may say, "Chomsky has all this command of 
facts and history. But what do I do as an individual?" How would you respond to 
that?

Chomsky: The first thing you ought to do is verify what I present. Just because 
I say it doesn't make it true. So check it out, see what looks correct, what 
looks wrong, look at other material which wasn't discussed, figure out what the 
truth really is. That's what you've got a brain for.

If you think that the general thrust of it is correct, there should be no 
problem in doing something about it. We're not going to be thrown into prison 
and face torture. We're not going to get assassinated. We have enormous 
privilege. We have tremendous freedom. That means endless opportunities.

I should tell you that every night I get many letters, and after every talk I 
get many questions from people who say, "I want to change things. What can I 
do?" I never hear these questions from peasants in southern Colombia or Kurds in 
southeastern Turkey under miserable repression or anybody who is suffering. They 
don't ask what they can do; they tell you what they're doing.

Somehow the fact of enormous privilege and freedom carries with it a sense of 
impotence, which is a strange, but striking, phenomenon. The fact is, we can do 
just about anything. There is no difficulty, wherever you are, in finding groups 
that are working hard on things that concern you.

But that's not the kind of answer that people want. The answer that they want, I 
think, in the back of their minds is, what can I do that will be quick and easy 
and bring about an end to these problems? They remind me of Columbia students 
whom I used to argue with back in 1968, who literally thought, "Look, we're 
sitting in the president's office for a couple of weeks. After that, it's all 
going to be peace and love." Or people who say, "I went to a demonstration, and 
it's the same as it was before. Fifteen million people marched in the streets on 
February 15, and the war went on. It's hopeless."

That's not the way things work. If you want to make changes in the world, you're 
going to have to be there day after day doing the boring, straightforward work 
of getting a couple of people interested and building a slightly bigger 
organization and carrying out the next move and suffering frustration and 
finally getting somewhere. That's how the world changes.


Ricky Baldwin wrote:
> Thanks for this, Bob.
> 
> I think this is good evidence that the oft-repeated (here and elsewhere) 
> assertion that the anti-war movement has been totally "coopted" or 
> "destroyed" and "liberals" have been suckered in is off the mark.
> 
> There is definitely a decline, nationwide, in turnout at anti-war 
> events, but I think it's more complex than it might appear.  Some are 
> fooled, sure.  A big part of the anti-war movement leading up to the 
> Iraq invasion (I felt at the time) was mistrust of Bush partly related 
> to the election, etc., temporarily overridden by the events of 9/11/01 - 
> for many, that is.  (It was easy to be confused about what to think or 
> do in those days, which speaks to the importance of AWARE and others who 
> spoke out.) 
> 
> Another big part was of course the different circumstances around the 
> Iraq invasion vs the Afghan invasion.  I talked to a number of fellow 
> protesters on those famous Saturdays on Prospect when we had 300-plus 
> every single week for weeks on end, who told me: "I supported the attack 
> on Afghanistan, but this is crazy," or words to that effect.  This comes 
> into play now, too, I think.  True, the US is still not out of Iraq, and 
> in reality may not be on its way out at all, but the focus has shifted 
> to "AfPak" - which people have felt differently about, at least until 
> now - and there is or has been a feeling or a hope that Obama would get 
> us out of Iraq if not "AfPak" (a lesser version of the snookering, 
> perhaps, that has become such a commonplace argument here).
> 
> It's also true of course that Bush's rhetoric alone excited rightwing 
> support and even centrist condemnation, while Obama's feelgood stuff 
> works on a much broader audience, as far as the talk goes.
> 
> Well, that's all my speculation, but I do want to point out one more 
> fact.  We noticed a dramatic dropoff a couple weeks after the invasion 
> of Iraq, too, in fact much more dramatic than the dropoff since 
> January.  Locally our numbers at protests went from over 300 every week 
> to 30-40 once a month within a matter of weeks after the invasion.  
> That's worse than decimation by my count.  Why?
> 
> Was the anti-war movement coopted?  Were liberals suckered in?  I hardly 
> think so.  (And while we're at it, where were conservatives then, in 
> numbers?  Tea parties?  Town hall meetings?)  Nope, people were pretty 
> clear if you asked them.  They didn't see what good it would do; they 
> had their lives to return to; they'd be back when it was useful; and so on.
> 
> I think they turned out at the polls to do what they could.  Now it's 
> hard for folks to tell what to do, or what they are willing to do - 
> after EIGHT SOLID YEARS OF WAR, let's don't forget.  They're tired.  I'm 
> tired.  We have all tolerated one another for a long time, and many of 
> us just don't want to sit through endless pointless painful meetings any 
> more, unless it's for some good specific purpose.  I don't think we're 
> ready to forget about people whose lives are much harder than ours by a 
> long shot, victims of US foreign policy etc., not at all.  We wouldn't 
> be who we are if we could do that.
> 
> But the question, I believe, is not our moral staying power.  It's how 
> to be most effective at organizing, that is not just planning events or 
> expressing opinions but mobilizing people.  What can we do that would 
> best 'demonstrate' opposition to these endless wars?
> 
> I'll post my suggestions separately.
> 
> Ricky
> 
> "Speak your mind even if your voice shakes." - Maggie Kuhn
> 
> --- On *Wed, 8/19/09, Robert Naiman /<naiman.uiuc at gmail.com>/* wrote:
> 
> 
>     From: Robert Naiman <naiman.uiuc at gmail.com>
>     Subject: [Peace-discuss] WaPo: Liberals, Dems, Women Abandon Afghan War
>     To: "Peace-discuss List" <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
>     Date: Wednesday, August 19, 2009, 5:19 PM
> 
>     Among liberals, his rating on handling the war, which he calls one of
>     "necessity," has fallen swiftly, with strong approval cratering by 20
>     points. Nearly two-thirds of liberals stand against a troop increase,
>     as do about six in 10 Democrats.
>     …
>     Beyond ideological and partisan divisions on the war, women have
>     shifted against the war more sharply than men and are far more apt to
>     say troop levels should be decreased (51 percent) than are men (38
>     percent). Nearly six in 10 women say the war was not worth fighting,
>     up from just under half last month.
> 
>     Majority in Post-ABC Poll Say Afghan War Not Worth Fighting
>     Few Express Confidence in Lasting Results From Thursday's Election
>     Jennifer Agiesta and Jon Cohen, Washington Post, Wednesday, August 19,
>     2009 4:58 PM
>     http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/19/AR2009081903066.html
> 
>     A majority of Americans now see the war in Afghanistan as not worth
>     fighting and just a quarter say more U.S. troops should be sent to the
>     country, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
>     …
>     The new poll comes amid widespread speculation that the top U.S.
>     commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, will request
>     more troops for his stepped-up effort to root the Taliban from Afghan
>     towns and villages. That is a position that gets the backing of 24
>     percent of those polled, while nearly twice as many, 45 percent, want
>     to decrease the number of military forces there. (Most of the
>     remainder say to keep the level about the same.)
> 
>     In January, before President Obama authorized sending an additional
>     17,000 troops to the country, public sentiment tilted more strongly
>     toward a troop increase.
> 
>     Should President Obama embrace his general's call for even more U.S.
>     military forces, he risks alienating some of his staunchest supporters
>     While 60 percent of all Americans approve of how Obama has handled the
>     situation in Afghanistan, his ratings among liberals have slipped and
>     majorities of liberals and Democrats alike now, for the first time,
>     solidly oppose the war and are calling for a reduction in troops.
> 
>     Overall, seven in 10 Democrats say the war has not been worth its
>     costs, and fewer than one in five support an increase in troop levels.
>     Nearly two-thirds of the most committed Democrats now feel "strongly"
>     that the war was not worth fighting. Among moderate and conservative
>     Democrats, a slim majority say the United States is losing in
>     Afghanistan.
>     …
>     Among all adults, 51 percent now say the war is not worth fighting, up
>     six points since last month and four points above the previous high,
>     reached in February. Less than half, 47 percent, say the war is worth
>     its costs. Those strongly opposed (41 percent) outweigh strong
>     proponents (31 percent).
>     …
>     Among liberals, his rating on handling the war, which he calls one of
>     "necessity," has fallen swiftly, with strong approval cratering by 20
>     points. Nearly two-thirds of liberals stand against a troop increase,
>     as do about six in 10 Democrats.
>     …
>     Beyond ideological and partisan divisions on the war, women have
>     shifted against the war more sharply than men and are far more apt to
>     say troop levels should be decreased (51 percent) than are men (38
>     percent). Nearly six in 10 women say the war was not worth fighting,
>     up from just under half last month.
> 
> 
>     --
>     Robert Naiman
>     Just Foreign Policy
>     www.justforeignpolicy.org
>     naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
>     </mc/compose?to=naiman at justforeignpolicy.org>
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