[Peace-discuss] Chomsky on New American Imperialism

[Laurie Solomon]

Good point Stuart even if it may be a little optimistic.  It is good to 
understand and respect one's enemies and their capabilities; but it is not 
so good to hope in the face of past history and experience for those who are 
easily deceived to become less so or for those who went along to get along 
before to suddenly see the light and stand up against the machine.  It is 
certainly optimistic to assume that the masses will take up arms against the 
establishment and become anything more than "paper tigers" armed with words 
until their personal interests are at stake in a real and immediate way. 
Should that happen, they will become frightened sheep who will follow anyone 
who appears to offer simple answers and courses of action that play to the 
fears.  The tea party movement, the Arizona reaction to immigration, the 
white power movements, etc. tend to give evidence to this and serve as 
potential examples and illustrations just as the McCarthyism, the racist, 
and the anti-immigrant  movements of the past did.

The almost complete bureaucratization, transformation from an industrialized 
society into a high tech service society, and the corporatization of the 
U.s. and most of the Western world has changed the conditions drastically 
from what existed even in the 1960 so as to alter the possibilities for 
rebellion and revolt of the masses back then which influenced the 
establishment and brought the Viet Nam war to a close.  The substantive 
disregard for the beliefs, interests, and desires of masses (or even those 
who voted for him) by the Obama administration with respect to policies, 
practices, and actions gives ample evidence of this change in that we hear 
all kinds of disparaging comments and talk but little actual rebellion by 
the masses - even the collage age members of the public.  We certainly do 
not see the working classes or the poor out on the streets disrupting 
business as usual, refusing to volunteer for service in the military 
establishment, cutting back on their conspicuous consumption and 
consumerism, etc. The fact that they are hurting economically has 
effectively restricted their ability to engage in consumerism and 
conspicuous consumption; but it has not curbed their desire to do so if they 
were given the capability to do so.  They complain about losses of jobs to 
China, Mexico, and other third world countries while on their way to shop at 
Wal-Mart so as to buy cheap products produced by low wage workers in those 
third world countries.



--------------------------------------------------
From: "Stuart Levy" <slevy at ncsa.uiuc.edu>
Sent: Monday, June 28, 2010 3:40 PM
To: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at illinois.edu>
Cc: <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Chomsky on New American Imperialism

> On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 02:35:33PM -0500, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>> Of course, it's not an excuse for 'staying' (i.e., continuing to kill
>> people) or a justification of aggression and occupation to say that that 
>> is
>> the policy of the entire US political establishment.  That's what we've
>> been saying all along, in the face of those who thought Obama would save 
>> us
>> from the Awful McCain (or Palin! or the Teapartiers!) - and so we had to
>> support him...
>>
>> Like Ophelia, we were the more deceived.
>
> Right -- it's nothing like an excuse.  But it is good for us to understand
> the dynamics of wars, who gains what from them, and how they're sustained,
> in order to be able to fit arguments against them.
>
> If the strongest thing sustaining our Af/Pak war is US "political 
> necessity",
> that actually seems encouraging, because a raucous movement saying that
> it's a war that the American people don't want could change that political 
> fact.
>
>>
>> On 6/28/10 1:58 PM, Stuart Levy wrote:
>>> ... One comment that surprised me was that, from Obama's point of view,
>>> Chomsky thinks the dominant reasons for sticking with the war in
>>> Afghanistan,
>>> at this point, are domestic ones: backing out would be political 
>>> suicide.
>
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