Chomsky Noam - Power and Terror: Conflict, Hegemony, and the Rule of Force

EXPANDED EDITION

POWER AND

TERROR

Conflict, Hegemony, and the Rule of Force

NOAM CHOMSKY

Edited by John Junkerman and Takei Masakazu

First published 2003 by Paradigm Publishers

Published 2016 by Routledge

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Copyright 2003, 2011 by Noam Chomsky

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Parts of this book were originally published in association with the theatrical release of Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in Our Times, a film by John Junkerman, produced by Siglo, Ltd., Tokyo; Yamagami Tetsujiro, producer. Distributed in North America by First Run Features. www.firstrunfeatures.com

It was first published as Noam Chomsky, by Little More, Tokyo, September 2002, in association with the release of the original Japanese version of the film (Japanese title: Chomsky 9.II). The first English-language edition, Power and Terror: Post-9/II Talks and Interviews, was published in 2003 by Seven Stories Press.

This new book includes additional selections made by Noam Chomsky and Paradigm Publishers (Part IV) to further update the book.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data for this book is available from the Library of Congress

ISBN 13: 978-1-59451-970-3 (hbk)

ISBN 13: 978-1-59451-971-0 (pbk)

Designed and Typeset by Straight Creek Bookmakers in Trump Medieval

CONTENTS

Foreword

NOAM CHOMSKY IS AMERICAS GREATEST intellectual. His massive body of work, which includes nearly 100 books, has for decades deflated and exposed the lies of the power elite, the myths they perpetrate, and the complicity of a duplicitous liberal class. Chomsky has done this despite being blacklisted by the commercial media, ignored by academics that he towers above, and turned into a pariah. His influence as a thinker comes from his marriage of moral autonomy with rigorous and exacting scholarship. He has a stunning grasp of detail, a deep understanding of the nature of power and language as well as a remarkable talent to synthesize information into withering and prescient social and political critiques. He correctly dismisses our two-party system as a mirage orchestrated by the corporate state. He excoriates the liberal class for being weak and complicit in the corporate demolition of the country. He describes the drivel of the commercial media as a form of brainwashing. And as our nations most prescient critic of unregulated capitalism, globalization, and the poison of empire, he warns us that we have little time left to save our anemic democracy.

The book Power and Terror is Chomsky at his best. He demonstrates his ability in these interviews and lectures to stand in the shoes of those outside our gates and ask the uncomfortable moral questions that should be asked. He excoriates U.S. intellectuals for blindly supporting the bombing in Afghanistan and correctly asks how many of these same intellectuals would have supported bombing Washington because of the U.S. wars against Nicaragua or Cuba. This is vintage Chomsky. Chomsky believes passionately in justice and the rule of law. The standards we apply to others should, he argues, also be applied to us. And this simple demandthat the rule of law be followedis in the world of foreign policy, and especially our relations with Israel, a radical and unheard of stance. It challenges the assumed moral superiority that has infected the power elite and our intellectual class of mandarins and courtiers, many of whom drift from the university to government and back again. Chomsky has none of it. He exposes a crime as a crime.

Unpopular ideas can be suppressed without the use of force, Chomsky warns, and a good education is an effective means to reach this result. Well, unless we can become capable of thinking the thoughts that are banned by imperial ideology, understanding of whats happening in the world is going to be very difficult to attain.

Chomsky has likened our decayed state to that of Weimar Germany. He points to the widespread apathy and disillusionment with electoral politics and the failure of traditional liberals to advance basic liberal values, serving instead the crushing demands of the corporate state. He warns that the growing distaste for the traditional parties here, as in Weimar Germany, opens up a space that radical groups and the lunatic fringe of the political landscape are beginning to fill.

The United States is extremely lucky that no honest, charismatic figure has arisen, Chomsky told me. Every charismatic figure is such an obvious crook that he destroys himself, like McCarthy or Nixon or the evangelist preachers. If somebody comes along who is charismatic and honest, this country is in real trouble because of the frustration, disillusionment, the justified anger, and the absence of any coherent response. What are people supposed to think if someone says I have got an answer, we have an enemy? There it was the Jews. Here it will be the illegal immigrants and the blacks. We will be told that white males are a persecuted minority. We will be told we have to defend ourselves and the honor of the nation. Military force will be exalted. People will be beaten up. This could become an overwhelming force. And if it happens it will be more dangerous than Germany. The United States is the world power. Germany was powerful but had more powerful antagonists. I dont think all this is very far away. If the polls are accurate it is not the Republicans but the right-wing Republicans, the crazed Republicans, who will sweep the next election.

I have never seen anything like this in my lifetime, Chomsky added. I am old enough to remember the 1930s. My whole family was unemployed. There were far more desperate conditions than today. But it was hopeful. People had hope. The CIO was organizing. No one wants to say it anymore but the Communist Party was the spearhead for labor and civil rights organizing. Even things like giving my unemployed seamstress aunt a week in the country. It was a life. There is nothing like that now. The mood of the country is frightening. The level of anger, frustration, and hatred of institutions is not organized in a constructive way. It is going off into self-destructive fantasies.

I listen to talk radio, Chomsky said. I dont want to hear Rush Limbaugh. I want to hear the people calling in. They are like Joe Stack. What is happening to me? I have done all the right things. I am a God-fearing Christian. I work hard for my family. I have a gun. I believe in the values of the country and my life is collapsing.

Chomsky has, more than any other American intellectual, followed the downward spiral of the American political and economic systems, in works such as On Power and Ideology and Manufacturing Consent. He reminds us that genuine intellectual inquiry is always subversive. It challenges cultural and political assumptions. It critiques structures. It is relentlessly self-critical. It implodes the self-indulgent myths and stereotypes we use to elevate ourselves and ignore our complicity in acts of violence and oppression. And it always makes the powerful, as well as their liberal apologists, deeply uncomfortable.