...I'm okay with being REALITY-based.




Thursday, June 05, 2003
      ( 8:38 AM )
 
Noam Chomsky on Iraq

MADRE has a really great interview with Noam Chomsky on the war in Iraq. It was taken last month, but his words never get old because they ring so true no matter what current events happen. Here's a taste:

Fear of Saddam Hussein in the US is a public relations
triumph that can be attributed to a very aggressive propaganda
assault begun in September 2002 at the start of the mid-term
election campaign. Karl Rove, the administration's campaign
manager, has pointed out that national security is the ticket
for Republicans to campaign on because voters, frightened by
the threat of terrorism, see the Republican Party as more capable
on that issue. If social and economic issues dominated the election,
the Bush Administration did not stand a chance. So it was necessary
to concoct a huge security threat. In fact, polls reveal that voters
maintained their preferences, but suppressed concerns over jobs,
pensions, benefits etc., in favor of security. Be on the lookout for
something similar just before the presidential campaign.

Look at what happened in the 1980’s when the same people
were running the government. They were pursuing the same
economic programs domestically, which were very harmful to
the population and were strongly opposed, just as they are now.
If you look at polls on socio-economic issues today, you see
that most people are very strongly opposed to these policies,
and for good reasons, just as they were in the eighties. So how
did those guys stay in power? By pushing the panic button every
year. One year it was Libyan hit men wandering Washington to
assassinate our leader. Another year it was the Nicaraguan army
two days’ marching time from Texas. Supposedly Nicaragua was
about to conquer us, and the Reagan administration declared a
national emergency because of the threat posed. If somebody were
watching this from Mars they wouldn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
After that, there was an air base in Grenada, which the Russians
were going to use to bomb us. Black criminals, welfare queens, South
American drug traffickers, one thing after another to try to terrorize the
population into submission. It’s not that hard to control people when
they are afraid. That’s what they are doing now.

Why are the citizens of the most prosperous nation (generally speaking) and with the most rights (on paper) so easily scared brainless? I know there must be some sort of sociological factor here regarding how we're so comfortable in our lifestyles and so unaware of the realities of life for most people on this earth that when confronted with things we are uneducated about, our automatic reaction is fear. But still... if it is so easy for the American population to be duped by someone like George Bush, I am hesitant to invest much hope in the future of this nation. The reign of fear has got to stop with those of us who see through the veil and know that the true danger lurkes in our government's corridors, not from across the sea.

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