The Rag Blog

A group of European politicians and intellectuals have started a new think tank aimed at pushing EU capitals to creating a “more coherent and vigorous” foreign affairs policy in an attempt to make Europe a stronger player on the global stage.

The new think tank – European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) – was launched on Tuesday (2 October) by fifty founding members such as former prime ministers, presidents, European commissioners, MEPs and ministers as well as intellectuals, business leaders, and cultural figures from the EU member states and candidate countries.

They include Martti Ahtisaari, former Finnish president and current special UN envoy for Kosovo; Joschka Fischer, former German foreign affairs minister; Gijs de Vries, former EU counter-terrorism coordinator; Timothy Garton Ash, renowned professor of European studies; and Bronislaw Geremek, MEP and former foreign minister of Poland.

They call on European governments “to adopt a more coherent and vigorous foreign policy in support of European values and interests backed by all of Europe’s power: political, cultural, economic and – when all else fails – military.”

The centre will be based in seven EU capitals – Berlin, London, Madrid, Paris, Rome, Sofia and Warsaw – and headed by Mark Leonard – a writer and former director of Foreign Policy at the UK-based Centre for European Reform.

Why did Canada help overthrow Haiti’s elected government in 2004? That’s a question I heard over and over when speaking about Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority, a book Anthony Fenton and I co-wrote. Most people had difficulty understanding why their country – and the US to some extent – would intervene in a country so poor, so seemingly marginal to world affairs. Why would they bother?

I would answer that Canada participated in the coup as a way to make good with Washington, especially after (officially) declining the Bush administration’s invitation (order) to join the “coalition of the willing” in Iraq.

It is also worth noting that at the start of 2003 the Haitian minimum wage was 36 Gourdes ($1) a day, which was nearly doubled to 70 Gourdes by the Aristide government. Of course, this was opposed by domestic and international capital, but especially Canadian capital. The largest blank T-shirt maker in the world, Montreal-based Gildan Activewear employs up to 5,000 people in Port-au-Prince’s assembly sector. Most of Gildan’s work is subcontracted to Andy Apaid, who was the leader of the Group 184 domestic “civil society” that opposed Aristide’s government.

It is also clear that some Canadian mining companies saw better opportunities in a post-Aristide government (A recent Toronto Star article explained, “Another Canadian-backed company recently resumed prospecting in Haiti after abandoning its claims a decade ago. Steve Lachapelle – a Quebec lawyer who is now chair of the board of the company, called St. Genevieve Haiti – says employees were threatened at gunpoint by partisans of ex-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.”).

Another reason for the intervention came out of the contempt, heightened during the country’s 200-year anniversary of independence, directed at Haiti ever since the country’s revolution dealt a crushing blow to slavery and white supremacy. The threat of a good example – particularly worrisome for the powers that be, since Haiti is so poor – contributed to the motivation for the coup. Aristide was perceived as a barrier to a thorough implementation of the neo-liberal agenda. The attitude seems to have been, “If we can’t force our way in Haiti, where can we?”

But, I was never entirely satisfied with my answers. That was one motivation for spending hundreds of hours over the past year in the McGill University library researching the history of Canadian foreign policy. So, why did Canada help overthrow the elected Haitian government? Here’s what I’ve learned so far:

Historically, countries’ foreign affairs were mostly about “projecting force” in a hostile world. This meant the use of power (military or economic) for protection or to gain advantage. In the modern era, the “advantage” to be gained and then protected was capitalist entitlement, the ability to make a profit. In other words, foreign affairs have mostly been about asserting and protecting the “rights” of a country’s wealth owners.

The Canadian government, from its beginning, was part of the command and control apparatus of the world economic system. At first, Canada served as an arm of the British Empire, but, given the country’s location, quickly became intertwined with the USA. Canada’s role over the past five decades, as assigned by the dominant power, has typically been some sort of “policing” operation, usually called peacekeeping. Since Canada has primarily been a “policing” rather than “military” power one must look to the language of policing to discover the motivations for our Haitian policy.

Over the past decade there has been much discussion of something called “pulling our weight” in external affairs. In laymen’s terms this means spending more of the country’s resources on defending and expanding the ability to make a profit around the world, for Canadian capitalists in particular, but also for the system in general. While the less sophisticated neoconservatives have simply called for more military spending and a pro-US foreign policy, the more liberal Canadian supporters of capitalism have been busy creating an ideological mask, called the “responsibility to protect” that will accomplish the same end.

The “responsibility to protect” is essentially a justification for imperialism using the dialect of policing instead of the old language of empire and militarism. It says there are “failed states” that must be overthrown because they do not provide adequately for their own citizens and because they threaten world order. This is the international equivalent of the “zero tolerance” (also called the “broken window”) strategy of the New York City police department. The policy is to aggressively go after petty crimes in order to create an environment that discourages more serious law breaking. In the same fashion, the international community should go after “failed states” that do not directly threaten other countries by invasion but only create an environment where “crime” may thrive.

(Noam Chomsky has used the Mafia analogy to explain the less sophisticated, older imperialist version of this policy. Any and all challenges, even minor ones, must be met with violence until “order” is established. The “responsibility to protect” differs in form but not in substance.)

The coup in Haiti was a Canadian-managed experiment in the use of the “responsibility to protect” doctrine. Aristide was overthrown precisely because Haiti is so unimportant to the world economic system and because cracking down on it is the international economic equivalent of the New York City police cracking down on graffiti writers. Once again Haiti was an example to the rest of the world, a message from the world’s rich and powerful.

The question to answer now is what next? And one can only hope that history will not be our guide. The first Haitian revolution was the earliest and most successful challenge to the entitlement of capitalist wealth owners in the era of slavery. In the late 1700s Haiti was home to some of the most brutal large-scale labour exploitation the world has ever seen. Stolen and shipped from Africa, nearly half a million slaves worked under horrific conditions as the “property” of approximately ten thousand white landowners and a few thousand property owners of mixed race. Up to 40 percent of France’s GDP came from Haiti in the mid 1700s. The profitability of Haiti’s sugar plantations was that era’s equivalent of Middle East oil.

The slave revolution from which Haiti was born was a rejection of the capitalist system as it then existed. But the country never found its way to an alternative economic system. Instead, within three years of independence the lighter-skinned plantation owners overthrew and murdered the country’s liberation hero Jean-Jacques Dessalines (the French having killed the famous revolutionary, Tousaint Louverture, prior to independence). Excluded from international commerce by the world’s capitalists, and facing threats of invasion, Haiti promised to repay its former exploiters. In 1825 Haiti agreed to pay $21 billion (in 2004 dollars) to compensate French slaveholders for their loss of property (land and now free Haitians). The price for its reintegration into the world economic system was extremely high.

Foreign powers, especially Germany, France and the US, repeatedly sent gunboats into Haitian waters. The most common reason was to press Haiti to pay debts (often to businesses from these countries) it was unable to afford. In one instance, US marines secretly entered Port-au-Prince and took the national treasury. The 1915 US invasion/occupation of Haiti was partly about forcing the country to repay its debt. And during that occupation, the US took over Haiti’s independence debt to France, which was not finally repaid until 1947. The Haitian state became dependent on foreign governments, autocratic and extremely repressive, because its primary role was ensuring the repayment of debt.

Once again the Haitian people and government are being forced along an economic path dictated by the world’s economic elite and I fear the result will be the same as before. Of the $1.2 billion in “aid” for Haiti announced at a Washington donors’ conference in July 2004, more than half was loans, which Haitians must repay. Haitians will have to repay this money even though they did not choose the Gerard Latortue regime that got most of the money, the US, France and Canada did. Much like compensating French slaveholders Haitians will (literally) be paying for the coup in the years to come. Already, under the thumb of Haiti’s debt holders and a foreign occupation, the elected government of Rene Preval is privatizing the last of Haiti’s state-owned companies.

Supporters of capitalism sometimes argue, incredibly, that Haiti’s impoverishment is a result of the country’s lack of capitalism. But, as even a short visit to Haiti quickly demonstrates, the country has no shortage of entrepreneurs or a willingness to work. Rather, a study of history reveals that the economic system commonly called capitalism has only ever been interested in profiting from the super exploitation of the vast majority of Haitians and ignoring their humanity.

10/06/07 “Counterpunch” — — -Ray Suarez (PBS News Hour Reporter, October 2, 2007): “You’re saying that the national legislature of this country, rather than doing the will of the citizens of the United States, passed that Iran resolution, sanctioning the Republican Guard, because of the American-Israeli Political Action Committee?”

Mike Gravel (Democratic Presidential Candidate): “Wait a second. They’ll (sic) be some information coming out about how this thing was drafted. So the answer is yes, the short answer. … This is what’s at stake with this resolution. And it’s the height of immorality, irresponsibility, and the United States Senate, with the Democrats in charge, voted for the passage of this resolution. It doesn’t get any worse than that, Ray.”.

In asking his question, Ray Suarez implies that our Senators capitulated to the desires of AIPAC, knowing their vote negated the expressed will of the American people. Gravel, once a Senator from Alaska during the Vietnam War period, answers unhesitatingly, “yes,” the short answer is yes. The obvious follow-up question would appear to be: “Why do you think that our Senators would vote against the expressed wishes of their constituents in favor of a special interest lobby?” It was never asked. Fortunately, Sy Hersh, in an interview with Amy Goodman that same day, responded to a question posed by Goodman, a question drawn from a Gravel criticism of Hillary Clinton for having voted for this resolution. Goodman pointed to the 76 votes in favor, both Republican and Democrat, asking Hersh to respond to Gravel’s critique: “This is fantasy land,” Gravel commented, “We’re talking about ending the war. My god, we’re just starting a war right today. There was a vote in the Senate today. Joe Lieberman, who authored the Iraq resolution, has authored another resolution, and it is essentially a fig leaf to let George Bush go to war with Iran. And I want to congratulate Biden for voting against it, Dodd for voting against it, and I’m ashamed of you, Hillary, for voting for it. You’re not going to get another shot at this, because what’s happened, if this war ensues, we invade, and they’re looking for an excuse to do it.” Goodman’s question is simple enough, why would 76 senators vote for such a resolution. Hersh’s response: “Money. A lot of the Jewish money from New York. Come on, let’s not kid about it. A significant percentage of Jewish money, and many leading American Jews support the Israeli position that Iran is an existential threat. And I think it is as simple as that. … That’s American politics circa 2007.”

Gravel understands the consequences of giving Cheney and Bush the freedom to attack Iran’s Republican Guard as a terrorist organization rather than as the legally constituted military of the state existing to protect the citizens of that state. They need no act of Congress to attack a terrorist organization and, citing the Encarta encyclopedia description of terrorism, “These violent acts are committed by non-governmental groups or individuals ­ that is by those who are neither part of or officially serving in the military forces ­ …,” they have defanged the definition of terrorism as it cannot be applied to a nation state. Cheney and Bush are now free to invade Iran to wipe out the terrorist organization harbored by that country. Why pretend that an established arm of the government of Iran is a terrorist organization when the opposite is so evident? Because Cheney and Bush and their Neo-con/AIPAC alliance have not been able to convince the American people of the threat to the US should Iran eventually acquire nuclear capability. The Kyl-Lieberman resolution gives this administration license to attack Iran using the original resolution passed by the Congress for the invasion of Afghanistan since Iran now harbors terrorists that threaten America.

How serious is this possibility we might ask. Newsweek carried an article in the October 1 issue about Israel’s “secret” raid on Syria. In it, Sam Gardiner, a former Air Force Colonel, seen as an expert in simulation of military exercises, makes this observation: “Even if Israel goes it alone (attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities), we will be blamed (the United States). Hence we would see retaliation against U.S. interests.” In short, the United States is tied to Israel and its interests by an umbilical cord that determines how and when we go to war and with whom. Iran is Israel’s primary nemesis as well as its primary target. The “mysterious raid deep in Syria” magnifies this point; only the media control created by “a nearly impenetrable wall of silence around the operation” has kept the American public from understanding the potential consequences of the Kyl-Lieberman resolution that passed October 2, only a month after Israel’s “raid.” Should Syria have responded to this unwarranted aggression by a missile or bomb attack on Israel, the U.S. Congress would have been forced to determine how to respond. With the Kyl-Lieberman resolution in place, only Bush has to respond by citing the Iranian terrorist organization’s ties to Syria and especially to Hezbollah. A threat to Israel is a threat to the U.S.

It is this reality that makes the recent study by Mearsheimer and Walt so dangerous to the Israeli lobbies, especially AIPAC. Indeed, they define AIPAC by encompassing the multitude of Jewish lobbies under that umbrella while adding in non-Jewish Neo-cons, Christian evangelicals of the far right and other sympathizers.

Gravel’s awareness of this threat as expressed to PBS represents the rare occurrence when the reality of our total support for Israel’s interests is aired in public. An objective consideration of the “raid” of September 6, 2007 by the Israeli Air Force against Syria as it would have been reported in the American press had it been Syria attacking Israel would not have been headlined “The Whispers of War.” Indeed that report did not focus on Israel’s disregard for international law or its consequences, but rather on how Israel can deliver nuclear or standard bombs as far as Iran. It went further to turn this unprovoked operation to Israel’s cause by noting how that state’s very existence is threatened by one atomic bomb, thus presenting Israel as the potential victim not the perpetrator of an action contrary to the United Nations’ charter. Had Syria attacked Israel, the explosiveness of such an unprovoked and uncalled for attack against an innocent country would have made front page headlines and the cover of all our news magazines. Yet Israel’s unprovoked and uncalled for attack on Syria is presented in U.S. News as “Israel takes a swipe at Syria,” hardly an item that would make the American people aware that they were at risk for their ally’s illegal action against a neighbor. And as if that were not enough, the significance of one nation bombing another without provocation becomes only the 10% hike in Ehud Olmert’s ratings as opposed to the death and destruction caused by this illegal action with an accompanying photo, not of the death and destruction, but of Olmert giving blood for his countrymen. No outcry follows this despicable behavior by the Teflon state ­ not from the United States, not from the United Nations, not from the EU, not from NATO. Only silence.

Consider for example the consequences of Israel using its United States’ gifts of nuclear bunker buster bombs on Syria or Iran, both possible scenarios as this “raid” ( the name of an insect repellent) makes clear: “… huge amounts of radioactive material will be lofted into the air to contaminate the people of Iran and surrounding countries … This fallout will induce cancers, leukemia, and genetic disease in these populations for years to come, both a medical catastrophe and a war crime of immense proportions,”(Dr. Helen Caldicott, Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer.) No outcry, only silence. Why?

What does AIPAC’s control of our Congress mean for the American people? Arguably, that influence propelled the U.S. into war against Iraq with its inevitable consequences in death, destruction and debt leaving the nation bereft of a resolution; it has solidified perception around the world that Israel’s defiance of the UN resolutions demanding that it obey international law regarding right of return for Palestinians and return of occupied territory is not just condoned by the U.S. but is the policy of the U.S., making the United States a co-partner in international crime; it has made Israel’s illegal treatment of the Palestinians in its indiscriminate killing of children and women, in its use of extrajudicial assassination, in its imprisonment of a whole people resulting in extreme poverty, malnutrition, and disease, in its total control of the lives of these people who have no recourse to overcome the occupation since they have no means to do so, practices condoned by the United States, and turned the U.S. from a compassionate and morally responsible nation to one that is amoral and hypocritical; and, in absolute despair, it has placed America on the thresh hold of one more devastating war against a people that has done nothing against the United States, has not occupied another nations’s territory, has not invaded another nation, and has signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, all actions that are diametrically opposed to those of our client state, Israel. Such is the sell out by our representatives of their constituents as they grovel, unlike Mike Gravel, before the insidious lobby that controls our fate. No outcry, only silence. Why?

Ultimately the question comes back to why those 76 senators voted for a resolution that “wipes the desires of the American people off the map,” to borrow an intentionally falsified and reiterated translation of the Iranian President’s message to his people. But those 76 are not alone. Virtually everyone of our representatives are subservient to the same lobbies, passing on average 100 resolutions per year favorable to Israel and written by the lobbyists, obsequiously fawning before AIPAC’s annual meeting where its very existence is touted as of “significant benefit for both the United States and Israel,” and where no one dares to question or criticize the state of Israel lest they suffer the fate of those who have, and lose their seats in Congress. This one might argue is coercion. Can it be documented? One need only research the congressional and senate races that put Paul Findley, Cynthia McKenny, Charles Percy and the few other renegades that dared to be critical of Israel out of their positions. “The handful of members of Congress who have been critical of Israel over the last 40 years have been publicly chastised with a figurative dunce cap or, worse, lost their seats to AIPAC-backed opponents” (NewsMax.com, May 1, 2006. “Israel the Third Rail of American Foreign Policy,” Arnaud de Borchgrava, Editor at large of the Washington Times).

Interestingly, the United States defines terrorism (18 USC 2331) as “violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that … appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by assassination or kidnaping.” Could one not make a case that our Congress in its total support for Israeli policies regardless of their negative impact on the country and its disregard for the expressed desires of its citizens as the Kyl-Lieberman resolution demonstrates is “influenced” by “intimidation and coercion” by these lobbies? Add to this reality the influence they wield in our media where they limit the perception of the public to the lies and mythologies they present that justifies the actions of the Israeli state, and the pervasiveness of the lobbies prevents the American people from controlling their own destinies. Does that not make them terrorists residing on K street in our nation’s capitol?

Isn’t it obvious today that the direction of America’s policies regarding Iran, and our almost certain to be pre-emptive invasion of this nation on behalf of Israel, is directed by the same coterie of men who pushed us into the disastrous war against Iraq — Podhoretz, Wurmser, Perle, Feith, Crystal, Kagan, Krouthammer, Abrams and others too numerous to mention, the hounds of war that find no guilt in sending the sons and daughters of others to fight the wars they wage so eloquently in their heads as they sit in front of their computers guiding to their deaths those they never met.

The Hounds of War are gathered round
To forge the battle plan,
They pat each other on the back,
And grasp their fellow’s hand.

To battle stations they disperse
To carry on the fray,
These warriors of the word sublime
That makes us weep or pray.

They swing behind the keyboard now
That spits out their deceit;
Their goal, the end they desire,
That makes their life complete.

These victors suffer no regrets
As they pen brilliant epithets,
And so they ply their lonely craft,
And carve another’s epitaph.

I’m starting to look forward to our next war. On an average day, you can find me deploring war and all its trappings. But now I have deplored myself silly, and I am very tired. If there’s to be another war, I don’t know if I have the gumption left to oppose it. Actually it might even be a welcome thing, because after eleven-and-a-half score years, we would finally get the definitive answer on what kind of country America has become. Up to now our recent adventures could be considered a ghastly mistake. If we attack yet another nation, there’s no mistake at all. Most of me shudders at the thought, but a part of me, the same part that slows down to look at automobile wrecks on the freeway, is rather enjoying the suspense. It’s a sickness. In this creepy malaise I suspect I’m not alone.

Left-wing web sites are hurting for cash lately. I hear it from many of the long-suffering, ill-groomed people that run these outlets: the money was trickling in for a while, not exactly stacks of loot, but enough to pay some of the bills. Then, what with the popular call to piss money down the mainstream political sewers (after all, it’s almost an election year) and an economy that has turned as sour as Bigfoot’s jockstrap, the famed bastions of the Digital Progressive Movement are crumbling. Is it just because readers are strapped for cash? That’s part of it, certainly. My own time is dominated by the requirement to make as many dollars as I can while there are dollars to be made (it’s not working, but that’s a horse of another currency). I think, however, (clever people always say “however” if they can’t work “indeed” into the text somewhere) there’s more to it than just economics. Indeed, Shakespeare put the anti-war malaise best: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” (He may have mistaken me for a woman, or he may have been speaking of someone else. The problem in my case is from behind I look uncannily like the late celebrity chef Julia Child.) I have protested too much, I admit it. Anti-war fatigue has hit me like a dose of clap, and I’m starting to think there’s an epidemic.

As an American I am satisfied, on some primal level, to have at the ready a nice fierce army with tanks and rockets, some battleships and airplanes and so forth, ready to slaughter any enemy that wades onto American shores for purpose of conquest or similar. As unlikely as the prospect is, we have obviously rather overdone it; I know it’s not the best idea in the world to have a bunch of folks standing around with half a trillion dollars worth of weapons if you can’t think of something useful for them to do, but it’s just bred in the bone. That said, Thomas Jefferson put an interesting line in his draft of the Constitution for Virginia: “There shall be no standing army but in time of actual war.” He ran that little notion up the flagpole, and it was promptly run right down again. We’ve had a standing army ever since. There’s something impressive about a great big military, as long as you never, ever, ever use it.

But war is another kettle of horse color! In my lifetime we’ve had the Cold War, Vietnam, the Bay of Pigs, Grenada, Panama, the Persian Gulf War, Afghanistan, and Iraq, plus assorted other actions martial. That’s a lot of exploding and dying. I oppose war of any kind, unless it is absolutely the only course left to stop an atrocity against mankind from occurring, such as our recent intervention in Myanmar. I mean Iraq. Those Burmese monks will do just fine without our help. Every single war we’ve gotten into since my spawning has been a complete and utter waste of life and resources. One could attempt to argue, if one had the vim, that the Persian Gulf War was necessary to stop Saddam Hussein annexing poor helpless Kuwait. But we were shaking that rat prick’s hand and clapping him on the back a quarter century ago. The Persian Gulf War was blowback.

I must pause here to say: please, pro-war types, don’t bother with the hate mail. It’s not even entertaining any more. I reserve the right to think war in general and our recent wars in particular are useless. This does not mean I think all military personnel are useless, or bad people, or baby killers, or any of that; I will not be at the airport spitting on them once we finally get them home. Instead it is the corrupt and incompetent asshats that start wars and conduct them from afar that I rage against, in my pacifist kind of way. Why do I offer this disclaimer? Same reason. Very tired. Don’t want to argue with the un-examined chickenhawk “I have a cousin in the military” jingoistic pro-death legion of hateloving fetus-fetishist Jesusgobbling fuckwits any more. Which brings me back to the point. I’m so damn tired.

The symptoms are unmistakable. First, one finds oneself repeating the same political and social arguments again and again, usually to people that already agree. An established pattern of obsessive news-watching develops, always aimed at confirming one’s darkest suspicions. These suspicions are generally confirmed. A distaste for the general public comes next, as one realizes that, statistically, most people just don’t give a shit. Symptoms begin to cascade: feelings of alienation, suspicion, and isolation hang overhead like a morning fog that never quite burns off (although it will dissolve in alcohol). Frustration at the lack of popular interest in life-or-death matters leads to a desire to do something drastic, such as flee the country, commit suicide, or post short videos on YouTube. At last, feelings of exhaustion take over. Apathy follows, sometimes accompanied by hives. I additionally broke out in onions, though this could have been unrelated as I had recently visited a farm.

What is to be done? Not only am I not donating money to my favorite leftie outlets, I don’t have any money to donate. I don’t even write for them much, any more. Used to be I’d knock out a polemical screed once a week. Now it’s months between outbursts. This is probably a good thing from a humanistic standpoint, but it’s worrisome. I’ve mostly dropped out of the game, just waiting for the news that we’ve attacked Iran, so I can move to a quieter place where they don’t start wars. As much as I deplore war, and I deplore it a whole bunch, at this point it would almost be a relief to hear we’ve finally gone round the bend and attacked somebody again. So far it’s been death by a thousand cuts, a series of insults to which one almost becomes inured: the magician Jim Steinmeyer describes such a fate as “being nibbled to death by ducks”. I’ve hobbled duck-like in peace marches, stood on a street corner vigil with an Ikea votive candle in a paper cup, written emails to congresspersons, called senators on the phone, scribbled thousands of semi-witted words for the digital thinkspace. None of it has mattered much. Not one bullet has gone unfired as a result.

Some minds have been changed, some ideas have caught on, and in this snail’s progress I may have played some tiny part. For years I’ve said to myself, “keep on keeping on”. Of late I’ve added, “you may stop keeping on if we become embroiled in another war, because keeping on is not working at that point”. There is something weirdly seductive about it. Alloyed with the horror and tragedy of war is the horror and tragedy of losing one’s own country to bad men and evil ideas, and yet there would be a certain catharsis in knowing it was time to get out before the Gestapo starts rounding up dissidents. One hopes for better– to avert catastrophe, to save millions from misery and death. But to have this hideous suspense end, even in disaster (like Julia Child’s recipe for dynamite & asshole soufflé), would signal it is okay to be done with the weary struggle and get the hell out of Dodge. That is how, despite every fiber of my being, I have come to find the idea of another war attractive.

U.S. Representative Bart Stupak, congressman from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, successfully included in recently-passed legislation the “Fallen Service Member Respectful Return Act,” which now requires the Department of Defense to deliver the bodies of fallen military personnel to the military or civilian airport nearest to the final burial location chosen by the family.

The legislation changes current Pentagon policy, which allows the military to deliver a deceased soldier’s body to a point which may be hundreds of miles from the grieving family, leaving it to the family to figure out the remaining delivery logistics.

To his credit, Stupak voted against the Iraq war resolution in 2002, and has supported improved benefits and health care for the troops. Yet he’s a Democrat Leadership Committee congressman who concedes the “need” for an open-ended, “benchmarked” but continuing U.S. occupation of Iraq.

And Stupak recently voted with the overwhelming majority in the House in favor of the “Iran Counter-Proliferation Act of 2007,” which would designate Iran’s 140,000-strong revolutionary guard troops as “terrorists” and which clearly signals President Cheney that Congressional Democrats will not stand in the way of a new, illegal war.

Stupak’s Grateful Dead Body Parts Delivered To Your Door Reform Act epitomizes the lame, compromised position of DLC Democrats. They won’t act to stop the war, prosecute its architects, or impeach its deities, but they remain inordinately willing to improve the quality of the grieving experience for the survivors of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice.

10/05/07 “ICH” — — The barbarous military regime depends on revenue from the nation’s gas reserves and partners such as Chevron, a detail ignored by the Bush administration.

The image was stunning: tens of thousands of saffron-robed Buddhist monks marching through the streets of Rangoon [also known as Yangon], protesting the military dictatorship of Burma. The monks marched in front of the home of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who was seen weeping and praying quietly as they passed. She hadn’t been seen for years. The democratically elected leader of Burma, Suu Kyi has been under house arrest since 2003. She is considered the Nelson Mandela of Burma, the Southeast Asian nation renamed Myanmar by the regime.

After almost two weeks of protest, the monks have disappeared. The monasteries have been emptied. One report says thousands of monks are imprisoned in the north of the country.

No one believes that this is the end of the protests, dubbed “The Saffron Revolution.” Nor do they believe the official body count of 10 dead. The trickle of video, photos and oral accounts of the violence that leaked out on Burma’s cellular phone and Internet lines has been largely stifled by government censorship. Still, gruesome images of murdered monks and other activists and accounts of executions make it out to the global public. At the time of this writing, several unconfirmed accounts of prisoners being burned alive have been posted to Burma-solidarity Web sites.

The Bush administration is making headlines with its strong language against the Burmese regime. President Bush declared increased sanctions in his U.N. General Assembly speech. First lady Laura Bush has come out with perhaps the strongest statements. Explaining that she has a cousin who is a Burma activist, Laura Bush said, “The deplorable acts of violence being perpetrated against Buddhist monks and peaceful Burmese demonstrators shame the military regime.”

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, at the meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, said, “The United States is determined to keep an international focus on the travesty that is taking place.” Keeping an international focus is essential, but should not distract from one of the most powerful supporters of the junta, one that is much closer to home. Rice knows it well: Chevron.

Fueling the military junta that has ruled for decades are Burma’s natural gas reserves, controlled by the Burmese regime in partnership with the U.S. multinational oil giant Chevron, the French oil company Total and a Thai oil firm. Offshore natural gas facilities deliver their extracted gas to Thailand through Burma’s Yadana pipeline. The pipeline was built with slave labor, forced into servitude by the Burmese military.

The original pipeline partner, Unocal, was sued by EarthRights International for the use of slave labor. As soon as the suit was settled out of court, Chevron bought Unocal.

Chevron’s role in propping up the brutal regime in Burma is clear. According to Marco Simons, U.S. legal director at EarthRights International: “Sanctions haven’t worked because gas is the lifeline of the regime. Before Yadana went online, Burma’s regime was facing severe shortages of currency. It’s really Yadana and gas projects that kept the military regime afloat to buy arms and ammunition and pay its soldiers.”

The U.S. government has had sanctions in place against Burma since 1997. A loophole exists, though, for companies grandfathered in. Unocal’s exemption from the Burma sanctions has been passed on to its new owner, Chevron.

Rice served on the Chevron board of directors for a decade. She even had a Chevron oil tanker named after her. While she served on the board, Chevron was sued for involvement in the killing of nonviolent protesters in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. Like the Burmese, Nigerians suffer political repression and pollution where oil and gas are extracted and they live in dire poverty. The protests in Burma were actually triggered by a government-imposed increase in fuel prices.

Another September 11th has been and gone. Flags were waved, tears were shed and silence observed. Generals offered their assessments and politicians blustered. Across the political spectrum, we Americans continue to insist upon our unwavering support for the troops, from the right-wing call for continued funding of their work to the left-wing call to bring them home.

In what can only be called the epitome of American arrogance, concern for the plight of the Iraqi people, particularly the 4 million of whom are now refugees is absent from the rhetoric, the clear implication being that that our suffering, which is the result of our own failed policies, is far more important than the suffering we have inflicted upon others. Missing from the national dialog is any sense of pressing horror at the lack of electricity and potable water in Iraq, or the trauma and malnutrition, especially among children.

Of particular concern is the increasingly dire plight of Iraqi women, whose lives President Bush promised to better. “Violence against women and girls has been an invisible but constant feature of ethnic cleansing, which the US continues to ignore,” according to the human rights organization Madre in their analysis of the Petraeus report, a point made all too clear by the slaughter of women and children by U.S. Marines at Haditha. As Madre points out, that women cannot go out in public without their husbands or that girls are forbidden to attend school in some areas is not a factor in the rosy assessments of progress being made.

In addition, pregnant women face serious dangers because of the constant bombing, curfews, lack of electricity and safe water, hospitals that have been destroyed and lack of medicine and medical personnel. According to reports from Save the Children and UNICEF, rates of maternal mortality, anemia and underweight children have sky-rocketed as have the mortality rates for children under five.

There have been numerous reports of women in Iraq being kidnapped or sold into sexual slavery by families desperate to put food on the table. Widows are particularly vulnerable. Al Jazeera reports that prior to the U.S. invasion, Iraqi widows were provided with financial and housing help and free education for their children. Today, no such safety net exists.

The Organization for Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI) estimates that some 4000 women and girls have disappeared since the U.S. invasion and have likely been trafficked to other countries and forced into prostitution. Honor killings have also risen dramatically since the U.S. invaded Iraq. In Kurdish Iraq alone there have been 350 such deaths so far this year and there were 95 reports of women committing suicide by self-immolation during the first six months of 2007.

As difficult as life is in Iraq, leaving the country poses significant problems for women as well. Iraqi law requires that women have permission from a male relative in order to get a passport, which is only obtainable in Baghdad, a journey that is too difficult and dangerous to be feasible for many women who do not dare risk traveling without a male relative.

For those women who are able to leave, economic realities force many to turn to prostitution in order to feed their families. The Independent (UK) reports that some 50,000 refugee women are now working as prostitutes. While that number seems huge, given that there are an estimated 4 million refugees, the majority women and children who are not being allowed to work in other occupations, the number is sadly believable.

As horrific as the humanitarian crisis that is occurring in Iraq is, in terms of American politics, it is the expected and acceptable collateral damage of war, where the lives of women and children in particular are routinely discounted. Certainly it is not worthy of Congressional attention or media coverage. The unfortunate truth is that it will take much more than bringing the troops home to truly end the war. Yet with persistent myopia, we continue to discuss Iraq in terms of our national honor, refusing to acknowledge the true scope of the carnage and humanitarian disaster that we have inflicted upon the Iraqis, especially women and children. To continue to do so is an act of great folly, one that will ultimately become our greatest national disgrace.

EVA: I read a quote of yours which said power is always illegitimate unless it proves itself to be legitimate. So in Venezuela right now we are in the process of Constitutional reform. And within that reform the People’s Power is going to gain Constitutional rank, above in fact all the other state powers, the executive, legislative and judicial powers, and in Venezuela we also have the electoral and the citizen’s power. Would this be an example of power becoming legitimate? A people’s power? And could this change the way power is viewed? And change the face of Latin America considering that the Bolivarian Revolution is having such an influence over other countries in the region?

CHOMSKY: Your word, the word “could”, is the right word. Yes it “could” , but it depends how it is implemented. In principle it seems to be a very powerful and persuasive conception, but everything always depends on implementation. If there is really authentic popular participation in the decision-making and the free association of communities, yeah, that could be tremendously important. In fact that’s essentially the traditional anarchist ideal. That’s what was realized the only time for about a year in Spain in 1936 before it was crushed by outside forces, in fact all outside forces, Stalinst Russia, Hitler in Germany, Mussilini’s fascism and the Western democracies cooperated in crushing it. They were all afraid of it. But that was something like what you are describing, and if it can function and survive and really disperse power down to participants and their communities, it could be extremely important.

EVA: Do you think it’s just an idealist illusion or can it really be manifested?

CHOMSKY: I think it can. It’s usually crushed by outside force because it’s considered so dangerous…

EVA: But in this case when it’s the government who’s promoting it? The state who’s promoting it?

CHOMSKY: That’s what going to be the crucial question. Is it coming from the State or is it coming from the people? Now, maybe it can be initiated from the State, but unless the energy is really coming from the population itself, it’s very likely to fall into some sort of top-down directed pattern, and that’s the real question. In Spain in 1936, the reason for the very substantial success is because it was popular – it’s a quite different situation from Venezuela. In Spain, the anarchist tradition was very deeply rooted. There had been 50 years of education, experiments, efforts which were crushed, I mean it was in people’s minds. So when the opportunity came they were developing what was already in their minds, what they had tried to do many times, it wasn’t spontaneous, it was the result of decades of education, organizing and activism on the ground. Now Venezuela is a different situation, it’s being initiated from above, and the question is can that lead to direct popular participation and innovative and energy and so on. That’s a real historical experiment, I don’t know the answer.

EVA: I think it’s a combination because the reason that the coup against Chávez was overthrown was because of the people’s power…

CHOMSKY: That’s right

EVA: It’s just been unstructured and very spontaneous, so the idea behind this is to somehow structure that, and I question from that same anarchist perspective, if you structure that power will it….

CHOMSKY: Take off…

EVA: or become corrupted or illegitimate? Or will it Take off?

CHOMSKY: Take off…That’s why the comparison with Spain is so interesting because there it was coming from below, nothing coming from above and it was there because people had been committed to it for decades and had tried it out, organized and so on. There was a live anarchist tradition, actually there is a live anarchist tradition in Latin America but it’s been repeatedly crushed, in Mexico, Argentina, Chile, all over, actually I have a book right over there on the desk on the history of Anarchism in Chile which is not very well known, so it’s been there, it’s hidden, but I don’t think these ideas are very far below consciousness almost anywhere, including the United States. If you talk to working class people they understand the notions. If fact it’s not too well known but in the United States, there was never a powerful organized left, but in many ways it’s one of the most leftist societies in the world. In the mid-19th century for example, right in the beginning of the industrialist revolution right around here in Boston, there was a rich literature of working class people, what were called factory girls, young women coming from the farms to work in the mills, or Irish artesians, immigrants in Boston, very rich literature, it was the period of the freest press ever in the country and it was very radical. They had no connection with European radicalism, they had never heard of Marx or anything else, and it was simply taken for granted that wage labor is not much different from slavery, and if you rent yourself to somebody that’s not different from selling yourself. Actually in the Civil War in the United States, a lot of the northern workers actually fought under that banner, were against chattel slavery and they were against wage slavery. And the standard slogan of the people was “the people who work in the mills ought to own them and run them”. It took a long time to drive that out of people’s heads. In the 1890s there were cities, like Homestead, Pennsylvania, that were taken over by working class people with these ideas, and they’re still there. You know it’s kind of suppressed by lots of propaganda and repression and so on, but it’s just below the surface and I would imagine that may be the same in Venezuela. These are natural beliefs and there’s a possibility they might spring into fruition given the right circumstances.

EVA: That’s actually included in the constitutional reform as well, the concept of creating communal cities, communes, that are worker-run, and including the companies. It will be very interesting to see how it develops.

CHOMSKY: It’s very interesting

EVA: And how it then would change the force of power in the region

CHOMSKY: If it can carry out. In the past it has happened but it’s been crushed by force and even here in the United States it was crushed by State violence.

EVA: On the notion of “crushed by force and state violence”, thinking of Latin America and the changes occurring, the influences of Venezuela, right now President Chávez is mediating the peace process in Colombia. One, how do you view his role as the mediator? And two, do you think that the US is really going to allow for peace in Colombia when there has been an expansion of Plan Colombia and Colombia remains the stronghold of the United States and its military force in South America? Would they react in a more sort of aggressive way?

CHOMSKY: I think the US will do what it can to make sure Colombia remains more or less a client state. But I don’t think the US has a commitment to the internal war in Colombia. They do want to see FARC destroyed. The US does not really want paramilitaries running the country and the drug trade, I mean that’s not optimal from the point of view of an imperial power, you don’t want to have para-powers carrying out State activities. They were useful, and the US not only supported them but in fact, they initiated them. If you go back to the early sixties in Venezuela, in fact in 1962, President Kennedy sent a military mission to Colombia, headed by a Special Forces General, General Yarborough, to advise Colombia on how to deal with its internal problems and they recommended paramilitary terror. That was their phrase: they recommend “paramilitary power against known communist adherents.” Well, in the Latin American context, “known communist adherents” means human rights activists, labor organizers, priests working with peasants, I don’t have to explain to you, and yeah, they recommended paramilitary terror. You can look back and say that Colombia has a violent history, but that changed it, that’s really the initiation of the massive state and paramilitary terror that turned into a total monstrosity in the last couple of decades. But although the United States did implement it and support it right through Plan Colombia, it’s not really in US interests and the interests of US power systems for that to continue. They’d rather have an orderly, obedient society, exporting raw materials, a place where US manufacturers can have cheap labor and so on and so forth, but without the internal violence. So I think there might be toleration at least of mediation efforts that could curb the level of internal violence and control the paramilitaries who will be and are in fact being absorbed into the state.

EVA: But Chávez doing it?

CHOMSKY: Well, that’s going to be interesting. In fact, it’s rarely discussed here. In fact right now there are also negotiations and discussions going on between Brazil and Venezuela about joint projects, the Orinoco River project, a gas pipeline, and so on. Try to find some report about that here. People are afraid of it. The conception, or if you like “party line” on Latin America, has had to shift. Latin America has changed a lot, it’s not what it was in the 1960s. For the first time since the Spanish invasion the countries are beginning to face some of the internal problems in Latin America. One of the problems is just disintegration. The countries have very little relationship to one another. They typically were related to the outside imperial power not to each other. You can even see it in the transportation systems. But there is also internal disintegration, tremendous inequality, the worst in the world; small elites and huge massive impoverished people, and the elites were Europe-oriented or US-oriented later – that’s where their second homes were, that’s where their capital went to, that’s where their children went to school. They didn’t have anything to do with the population. The elites in Latin America had very little responsibility for the countries. And these two forms of disintegration and slowly being overcome. So there is more integration among the societies, and there are several countries taking steps to deal with the horrible problem of elite domination, which has a racial component to it also of course, there is a pretty close correlation between wealth and whiteness all over the continent. It’s one of the reasons for the antagonism to Chávez, it’s because he doesn’t look white. But steps are being taken towards that, and that is significant. The US doctrinal system, and I don’t mean the government, I mean the press, the intellectuals and so on, have shifted their description of Latin America. It’s no longer the democrats versus the communists – Pinochet the democrat versus…. It’s shifted, now it’s conceded that there is a move to the left, but there are the good leftists and the bad leftists. The bad leftists are Chávez and Morales, maybe Kirchner, maybe Ecuador – they haven’t decided yet, but those are the bad leftists. The good ones are Brazil, maybe Chile and so on. In order to maintain that picture it’s been necessary to do some pretty careful control of historical facts. For example, when Lula the good leftist was reelected his first act was to go to Caracas where he and Chávez built a joint bridge over the Orinoco…it wasn’t even reported here, because you can’t report things like that, it contradicts the party line – the good guys and the bad guys. And the same is true in this very moment with the Brazil-Venezuela negotiations. I think they are very important. Colombia is significant. If Chávez can carry it off that’s great for Colombia, but these other things are much broader in significance. If Brazil and Venezuela can cooperate on major projects, joint projects, maybe ultimately the gas pipeline through Latin America. That’s a step towards regional integration, which is a real prerequisite for defense against outside intervention. You can’t have defense against intervention if the countries are separated from one another and if they are separated internally from elites and general populations, so I think these are extremely important developments. Colombia as well, if it can be done, fine, reduce the level of violence, maybe take some steps forward for the people of Colombia, but I think these other negotiations and discussions proceeding at the same time have a deeper and longer term significance.

EVA: Right now Chávez is in Manaus, just yesterday and today…

CHOMSKY: Right

EVA: Well, one of the tactics of US aggression against Venezuela and against the rise of a new leftism or socialism in Latin America is precisely to divide and counteract what Venezuela under Chávez has been leading throughout the region which is now resulting in sovereignty and Latin American integration. I guess to focus that question on a media angle, one of the other tactics of aggression against Venezuela and other countries in the region is obviously psychological warfare, on an internal level in Venezuela, but also internationally to prevent the people around the world from knowing really what’s happening. Within Venezuela under Chávez hundreds of new community media outlets have been created. This has helped us internally to combat media manipulation from corporate media in Venezuela, but on an international level, we haven’t had much advance fighting the war against the media empire. How can we do that?

CHOMSKY: Well, the history of media in the west is interesting. I mentioned that the period of the freest press in the US and England was the mid-19th century, and it was rather like what you were describing. There were hundreds of newspapers of all kinds, working class, ethnic, communities of all kinds, with direct active participation, real participation. People read in those days, working people. Like a blacksmith in Boston would pay a 16 year old kid to read to him while he was working. These factory girls coming from the farms had a high culture, they were reading contemporary literature. And part of their bitter condemnation of the industrial system was because it was taking their culture away from them. They did run extremely interesting newspapers and it was lively, exciting and a period of a really very free vibrant press, and it was overcome slowly, most true in England and the United States, which were then the freest countries in the world. In England they tried censorship, it didn’t work, there were too many ways around it. They tried repressive taxation, again it didn’t work very well, similarly in the US. What did work finally was two things: concentration of capital and advertiser reliance. First the concentration of capital is obvious then you can do all kinds of things that smaller newspapers can’t do. But advertiser reliance means really the newspapers are being run by the advertisers. If the source of income is advertising, the main source, well that’s of course going to have an inordenent influence. And by now it’s close to 100%. If you turn on television, CBS doesn’t make any money from the fact that you turned on the television set, they make money from the advertisers. The advertisers are in effect, the corporation that owns it is selling audiences to advertisers, so of course the news product reflects overwhelming the interests of the corporation and the buyers and the market, which is advertisers. So yeah, and that over time, along with concentration of capital, has essentially eliminated or sharply reduced the diverse, lively and independent locally based media. And that’s pretty serious. In the United States, which has had no really organized socialist movement, nevertheless, as recently as the 1950s, there were about 800 labor newspapers which probably reached maybe 30 million people a week, which by our standards were pretty radical, condemning corporate power, condemning what they called the bought priesthood, mainly those who run the media – the priesthood that was bought by the corporate system offering a different picture to the world. In England, it lasted into the 1960s. In the 1960s the tabloids – which are now hideous if you look at them – they were labor-based newspapers in the 1960s, pretty leftist in their orientation. The major newspaper in England that had the largest circulation, more than any other, was The Daily Herald, which was a kind of social-democratic labor-based paper giving a very different picture of the world. It collapsed, not because of lack of reader interest, in fact it had probably the largest reader interest of any, but because it couldn’t get advertisers and couldn’t bring in capital. So what you’re describing today is part of the history of the west, which has been overcome slowly by the standard processes of concentration of capital and of course advertiser reliance is another form of it. But it’s beginning to revive in the west as well through the Internet and through cheap publishing techniques. Computers, desktop publishing is now much cheaper than big publishing, and of course the internet. So the new technologies are giving opportunities to overcome the effects of capital concentration, which has a severe impact on the nature of media and the nature of schools and everything else. So, there’s revival, and actually the major battle that’s going on right now is crucial, as to who is going to control the Internet. The Internet was developed in places like this, MIT, that’s the state sector of the economy, most of the new economy comes out of the state sector, it’s not a free market economy. The Internet is a case in point; it was developed in the state sector like here, actually with Pentagon funding, and it was in the state sector for about 30 years before it was handed over to private corporations in 1995 under Clinton. And right now there’s a struggle going on as to whether it will be free or not. So there’s a major effort being made by the major corporate centers to figure out some ways to control it, to prevent the wrong kinds of things from their point of view from being accessible, and there are now grassroots movements, significant ones struggling against it, so these are ongoing live battles. There is nothing inherent in capitalist democracy to the idea that the media have to be run by corporations. It would have shocked the founding fathers of the United States. They believed that the media had to be publicly run. If you go back to the…it’s hard to believe now…

EVA: Well, that’s why the airwaves are public

CHOMSKY: That’s right, that’s why the airwaves are kept public and it’s a gift to the corporations to allow them to be used. But if you go back to Jefferson, even Hamilton, Madison and the rest of them, they were in favor of public subsidies to newspapers to enable them to survive as independent sources of information. Postal rates were set by the government in such a way as to give advantages to the newspapers so that the public would be able to have access to the widest possible range of diverse information and so on. The Bill of Rights, which technically established freedom of press, we can talk about whether that works, but technically said nothing about whether the government could intervene to support the media. In fact, it’s not only a possibility but it’s what the framers of the Constitution had in mind. Over the years, attitudes, the dominant culture, the hegemonic culture as Gramsci would have called it, has changed so that the idea of the corporatization of the media is sort of assumed kind of like the air you breathe, but it’s not, it’s a creation of capitalist concentration and the doctrinal system that goes with it……It doesn’t have to exist

EVA: So, in that sense a couple of months ago the Venezuelan government decided not to renew the concession of one of the corporate media outlets for many reasons, tax violations, not paying social security for workers as well as being involved in the coup. Do you think that is a demonstration of the State assuring that those airwaves remain in the public sphere? And that is something that could be replicated in other countries or even in the United States, they didn’t revoke the concession, they just didn’t renew it.

CHOMSKY: You’re talking about the RCTV case. Well, my own view of that is kind of mixed. Formally I think it was a tactical mistake, and for another I think you need a heavy burden of proof to close down any form of media so in that sense my attitude is critical…

EVA: But should corporations have a stronghold on the concessions?

CHOMSKY: Yeah, I know, that’s the other side. The question is what replaces it. However, let me say that I agree with the western criticism in one crucial respect. When they say nothing like that could ever happen here, that’s correct. But the reason, which is not stated, is that if there had been anything like RCTV in the United States or England or Western Europe the owners and the managers would have been brought to trial and executed – In the United States executed, in Europe sent to prison permanently, right away, in 2002. You can’t imagine the New York Times or CBS News supporting a military coup that overthrew the government even for a day. The reaction would be “send them to a firing squad” . So yeah, it wouldn’t have happened in the west because it would never have gotten this far. It seems to me that there should be more focus on that. But as to the removal of the license I think you just have to ask what’s replacing it. In Venezuela, you know better than I, my impression is that it was not a popular move. And the population should have a voice in this, big voice, major voice, so I think there are many sides to it. But it kind of depends how it works itself out. Are you really going to get popular media, for example?

EVA: Should the concessions be in the hands of the people to decide?

CHOMSKY: I think they should, yes, in fact in a technical sense they are, even in the United States. Take the airwaves again, that’s public property. Corporations have no right to it, It’s given to them as a gift by the taxpayer and the taxpayer doesn’t know it. The culture has reached the point where the people assume that’s the natural order of things. It’s not, it’s a major gift from the public. In fact if you look at the history of telecommunications, radio and television, it’s quite interesting. Radio came along in the 1920s and in most of the world, it just became public. The United States is an interesting case, it’s almost the only major case in which radio was privatized. And there was a struggle about it. The labor unions, the educational institutions, the churches, they wanted it to be public, the corporations wanted it to be privatized. There was a big battle, and the United States is very much a business-run society, and uniquely, business won, and it was privatized. When television came along, in most of the world it was public, without question. In the United states it wasn’t even an issue, it was just private because the business-dominated culture by then had achieved a level of dominance so that people didn’t think of what was obvious, that this was public space that we’re giving away to them. Finally, public radio and public television were permitted in the United States in a very small corner, because there had been public pressure to compel the corporate media to meet some level or public responsibility, like to run a few educational programs for children and things like that. And the corporations didn’t like it, they didn’t want to have any commitment to public responsibility, so they were willing to allow a small public, side operation, so they could then claim, well, we don’t have to have any responsibility anymore because they can do it, and they don’t do much of, they are also corporate-funded, but that’s a striking difference between the United States and even other similar societies. It’s a very free country, the United States, maybe the freest in the world, but it’s also uniquely business-run, and that has enormous effects on everything.

EVA: On that note, the theme of the Book Fair in Venezuela this year is “United States: Is a Revolution Possible?” Is it?

CHOMSKY: I think it’s just below the surface. I mean there is tremendous discontent. A large majority of the population for years has felt that the government doesn’t represent them, that it represents special interests. In the Reagan years this went up to about 80% of the population. If you look at public attitudes and public policy, there is a huge gulf between them. Both political parties are far to the right of the population on a host of major issues. Just to take some examples; Read in this morning’s New York Times, September 21st, there’s a column by Paul Krugmann, who’s sort of far left of the media, sort of a left, liberal commentator, a very good economist, who’s been talking for some time about the horrible health system in the United States, it’s a disaster, twice the per capita expenses of any other country and some of the industrial companies and some of the worst outcomes in the industrial world. And he has a column this morning that starts out by saying, hopefully, well now it turns out that maybe universal health care is becoming politically possible. Now that’s a very interesting comment, particularly when it’s coming from the left end of the media. What does it mean for it to become politically possible? For decades it’s been supported by an overwhelming majority of the population but it was never politically possible. Now it’s becoming politically possible. Why? He doesn’t say why, but the reason is that manufacturing corporations are being severely harmed by the hopelessly inefficient and costly healthcare system in the United States. It’s like how it costs a lot more to produce a car in Detroit than a couple of miles north in Windsor Canada because they have an efficient, functioning healthcare system. So by now there is corporate pressure from the manufacturing sector to do something to fix up the outrageous healthcare system. So it’s becoming politically possible. When it’s just the large majority of the population, it’s not politically possible. The assumptions behind that should be obvious, but they’re interesting. Politically possible does not mean the population supports it. What politically possible means is that some sectors of concentrated capital support it. So if the pharmeceutical industries and the financial institutions are against it, it’s not politically possible. But if manufacturing industries come out in favor of it, well then maybe it begins to become politically possible. Those are the general assumptions, we’re not talking about the left liberal commentary. I’m not talking about the editorials in the Wall Street Journal, that’s the spectrum of opinion. Something is politically possible if it’s support by major concentrations of capital. It doesn’t matter what the public thinks, and you see this on international issues too. Like take what may be the major international issue right now: Is the United States going to invade Iran? That could be an utter monstrosity. Every viable presidential candidate – not Dennis Kucinich, but the ones that are really viable, has come out and said yeah, we have the right to invade Iran. The way they say it is, “all options are on the table”, meaning, “we want to attack them, we can attack them.” That’s almost the entire political spectrum, but what does the population think? Well, about 75% of the population is opposed to any threats against Iran and wants to enter into diplomatic relations with them. But that’s off the spectrum, in fact, it isn’t even reported. But it’s not part of the discussion. It’s the same way with Cuba. Every since polls began in the 1970s, a considerable amount of the population wants to enter into normal diplomatic relations with Cuba and end the economic strangulation and the terror, which they don’t know about, but they would be against that too. It’s not an option, because state interests won’t allow it. And that’s separate from the population, and it’s not discussed. Do a search of media and journals, including left journals and you just don’t find it. Well, it’s a very free country but also very much business controlled.

EVA: But how could that change come about?

CHOMSKY: It can come about by the kind of organization that will take public opinion – that will take the public and turn it into an organized force. Which has happened…

EVA: So in the end you need media control?

CHOMSKY: Well, that’s part of it, but media control is in part a consequence of popular organization. So the media, take the Vietnam era, the media did turn into moderate critics of the war, but that was the result of popular mass movements. I could tell you explicit cases, one case I know very well was one of the major newspapers in the country, the editor happened to be a personal friend who was pretty conservative and became the first newspaper in the United States to call for withdrawal. It was largely under the influence of his son who was in the resistance, who I knew through the resistance activities, and who influenced his father. That’s an individual case, but it was happening all over. The shift in the popular movements and popular attitudes led to a shift in the media, not a major shift, but a significant one. For one reason because the journalists are human beings and they live in the culture, and if they’re coming out of a culture of criticism and questioning and challenging and so on, well, that’s going to affect them. So there has been a change in many respects. Take say aggression. There is a lot of comparison now of the reaction to the Iraq war with the reaction to the Vietnam war – it’s almost all wrong, there was almost no opposition to the Vietnam war. When the Vietnam war was at the level of the Iraq war today there was almost no opposition. Public protest of the Iraq war is far beyond that of the Vietnam war at any comparable stage. People have just forgotten. There was protest against the Vietnam war by 1968, lets say, but by that time there were half a million troops in Vietnam. The US had invaded…and it was seven, six or seven years after they had invaded South Vietnam and it had been practically wiped out and the word spread to the rest of Indochina. It was way beyond Iraq today – then there was protest. The first call for withdrawal from Vietnam in the major media was fall of 1969. That’s seven years after the war began. Now you get it in the New York Times, they don’t mean it, but at least you get it. These are changes, and the same changes have taken place in many other domains. Take say women’s rights, it’s pretty important, it’s half the population. Well, the circumstances are very different now than the 1960s. You can see it right at this institution. Take a walk down the halls and you’ll see about half women, about a third minorities, casual dress, easy interchanges among the people and so on. When I got here 50 years ago it was totally different. White males, well dressed, obedient – do your work and don’t ask any questions. And it’s indicative of changes throughout the whole society. Well, those are…the solidarity movements are the same. When you have popular movements, they change the society. If they reach a sufficient scale I think they can challenge fundamental matters of class domination and economic control.

EVA: Do you think the revolution in Venezuela serves as an example for people in the United States? That change is possible from the ground up?

CHOMSKY: It will if two things happen: One, if it’s successful and two, if you can break through the media distortion of what’s happening. Two things have to happen, ok? So, I mentioned that I was in Chile last October. The picture of Venezuela that is presented by the media, say in El Mercurio is about the same as it would have been in the old El Mercurio under Pinochet. So as long as that’s the picture, that’s the prism through which events are perceived, you can’t have much of an effect. But if you can change the prism so that things are reported more or less accurately, and if what’s happening in fact does constitute a possible model, if those two achievements can be reached, then yes, it could be.

EVA: Would you give a message to the people of Venezuela? Anything?