Chomsky: The Assault on Democracy

[Guest guest]

http://www.alternet.org/story/34600/

 

Chomsky: The Assault on Democracy

 

Democracy Now!. Posted April 10, 2006

 

 

Noam Chomsky discusses U.S. policies in Latin America, subverting

elections in Haiti, and why American elections are like toothpaste ads.

 

 

[Editor's Note: this is an edited transcript of Part II of the

Democracy Now! interview with Noam Chomsky. AlterNet reprinted the

first part on April 3, 2006. The original interview can be downloaded

from Democracy Now!.]

 

Amy Goodman: The world-renowned linguist and political analyst Noam

Chomsky has just come out with a new book. It's called " Failed States:

The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy. " In this second part

of our conversation, Chomsky discusses a wide range of issues that are

making headlines today -- including troop withdrawal from Iraq; the

growing rejection of U.S. policies in Latin America; the upheaval in

Haiti; and last week's elections in Israel. We began by talking about

dissent and media control in the United States today.

 

Juan Gonzalez: With public opposition to the Bush administration's

policies at record highs, I asked Professor Chomsky to talk about how

it is that so much discontent with the government has not translated

into larger political mobilization.

 

Noam Chomsky: First of all, on the fact that advertising is designed

to undermine free markets, that everybody knows, anyone who's ever

looked at a television ad. According to what you're taught in

economics courses, our system is based on free markets with

entrepreneurial initiative and rational choices by informed consumers.

Well, the reality is radically different.

 

A tremendous amount of the entrepreneurial initiative, if you want to

call it that, comes from the dynamic state sector on which most of the

economy relies to socialize costs and risks and privatize eventual

profit. And that's achieved by, if you like, advertising. So, it's

presented under the rubric of defense or some other pretext, but it's

essentially a way for the public to pay the costs of research and

development, take the risks and eventually hand over the profit.

There's some entrepreneurial initiative, but not all that much, mostly

at the marketing end.

 

As far as consumers are concerned, I mean, when you look at a

television ad, it is not trying to create an informed consumer who's

going to make a rational choice. We all know that. If they were going

to do that, General Motors would just list the characteristics of its

models and, you know, you're over, you're done. The purpose is to

delude and deceive by imagery -- it's transparent -- meaning to ensure

that uninformed consumers will make irrational choices.

 

And that goes straight to the democratic deficit. The U.S. does not

have elections in a serious sense. It has advertising campaigns, run

by the same industries that sell toothpaste: public relations

industry. When they're selling candidates, they don't tell you --

provide you with information about them, any more than they do about

lifestyle drugs or cars. What they do is create imagery to delude and

deceive. That's what's called an electoral campaign. The result is

that people are just unaware of the stands of candidates on issues.

 

So to take one critical example, take, say, the Kyoto Protocols. I

mean, they're not the be all and end all, but environmental

catastrophe is a serious matter. The public is strongly in favor of

the Kyoto Protocols, so strongly in favor that a majority of Bush

voters -- Bush voters -- thought that he was in favor of it. They are

simply unaware. And it's not because of mental incapacity or a lack of

interest. It's because that's the way campaigns are presented. They're

presented to keep issues off the agenda. Striking cases.

 

Take, say, healthcare, one of the worst domestic problem -- most

serious domestic problems; for most people, a major problem. I mean,

it's the most inefficient healthcare system in the world, double the

per capita cost of other comparable countries, some of the worst

health outcomes, mainly because it is privatized. The public is

strongly against it. For a long period the public has been in favor of

some kind of national healthcare system.

 

Well, you know, Kerry is supposed to be the candidate of, you know --

speaking for whose constituency calls for social spending, and so on

and so forth. The last presidential debate, a couple days before the

election, was on domestic issues. And the New York Times had an

accurate account of it. It described it as -- it pointed out that

Kerry made no mention of any government involvement in any healthcare

system. And the reason, according to the Times reporter, is that the

idea lacks political support, meaning it only has the support of the

overwhelming majority of the population, but it's opposed by the

pharmaceutical corporations, the insurance industry, and so on. That's

what counts as political support. So Kerry didn't mention it, and the

public didn't know his stand on these issues. And so it goes issue

after issue. So, these are not real elections. We'd laugh at them, and

they were some third world country.

 

Now, take the war in Iraq. When you talk about the government

propaganda system we have to recognize that that includes the media.

It includes the media, the journalists and so on. That's all part of

the propaganda system, very closely linked. There is virtually no

criticism of the war in Iraq. Now, that will surprise journalists, I

suppose. They think they're being very critical, but they're not. I

mean, the kinds of criticism of the war in Iraq that are allowed in

the doctrinal system, media and so on, are the kind of criticisms you

heard about, say, in the German general staff after Stalingrad: it's

not working; it's costing too much; we made a mistake, we should get a

different general; something like that. In fact, it's about at the

level of a high school newspaper cheering the local football team. You

don't ask, " Should they win? " You ask, " How are we doing? " You know,

" Did the coaches make a mistake? Should we try something else? " That's

called criticism.

 

But there's a critical question: What right does the U.S. have to

invade another country, in gross violation of international law,

understanding that it's probably going to increase the threat of

terror and nuclear proliferation? But just, you know, it's a supreme

international crime, in the words of the Nuremburg Tribunal, for which

German leaders were hanged. You know, the issue isn't how they are

going to win, it's " What are they doing there in the first place? "

 

AG: Do you believe, Noam Chomsky, in immediate withdrawal, that the

troops should withdraw immediately?

 

NC: I think there is a certain principle that we should adhere to. The

principle is that invading armies have no rights whatsoever. They have

responsibilities. The prime responsibility is to heed the will of the

victims and to pay massive reparations to the victims for the crimes

they've committed. In this case, the crimes go back through the

sanctions which were a monstrous crime, through the support for Saddam

Hussein, right through his worst atrocities, but particularly, those

of the invasion. Those are the two responsibilities of an occupying army.

 

Well, you know, the population has made it pretty clear. Even U.S. and

British polls make that clear. Overwhelming majorities want the U.S.

to set a timetable to withdraw and adhere to it. Britain and the

United States refuse. Reparations, we can't even talk about; that's so

far from consciousness in the doctrinal system. Well, I think that

answers the question. Doesn't really matter what I think.

 

What matters is what Iraqis think, and I think we know that pretty

well. The reason the U.S. and Britain aren't withdrawing are those I

mentioned. You know, the consequences of independence for Iraq would

be an ultimate nightmare for them. And they're going to try to do

anything they can to prevent Iraqi democracy, as they've been trying

in the past.

 

AG: And the argument that they will just descend into civil war and

that the sectarian violence will increase, and the U.S. went in and

now has a responsibility not the leave a mess?

 

NC: Yeah, I mean, the Germans could have given the same argument and

occupied Europe, the Russians in the satellites, the Japanese in Asia,

and so on. Yeah, they could have all given the same argue: well, we

went in, and now we have a responsibility to ensure that terrible

things don't happen, and so on. And the argument had some validity.

So, when the Germans were driven out of France, let's say, there were

thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people killed by -- as

collaborators, and in Asia, even more so. But is that an argument for

them? No. It's none of their business.

 

We don't know what will happen, and it's not our decision to make.

It's the decision of the victims to make, not our decision. Occupying

armies have no right to make the decision. We could have an academic

seminar about it, in which we could discuss the likely consequences.

But the point is it's not for us to say. Well, until that enters into

the discussion, and the critical issues of the war, like what right do

we have to invade in the first place, enter into the discussion, the

media and the journalism and so on are simply part of the government

propaganda system, as I say, like a high school newspaper or like

Pravda during the Afghanistan war.

 

JG: And what of the role of the American people in this process?

Clearly, it seems to me that so much of the antiwar sentiments quickly

gets channeled into one or another political candidates, rather than

into continuing to build a mass movement that, regardless of the

political folks in office, will move to extricate the United States

from this invasion.

 

NC: Yeah, you're absolutely right. But that's our problem. I mean, you

cannot expect power centers, whether in the government or in the

economic system or in the media, which are all closely linked. I mean,

they aren't going to try to stimulate popular movements that will be

critical of power and try to erode power. In fact, their task is the

opposite. So, yes, this has to be done by a popular movement. I mean,

that's the way every constructive change has taken place in the past.

I mean, how did we get civil rights to the extent that they exist,

minority rights, women's rights, the benefits system that does exist,

and so on? I mean, these things are not gifts from above; they are won

from below. And it's going to be the same on this.

 

AG: Noam Chomsky, I was going to say, as you talk about popular

movements, right now we are in the midst of a kind of groundswell that

the -- certainly the U.S. English-speaking media has not dealt with

before. And that is this massive level of grassroots protest against

immigration policy in this country, some of them not just the largest

protests on immigration, but some of the largest protests in the

history of this country are taking place, with upwards of a million

people protesting in the streets of Los Angeles, tens of thousands in

Atlanta and Arizona, the biggest protest perhaps in the history of

Chicago. What about this? The walkout of 40,000 high school students?

 

NC: Well, these protests did have an effect. The bill that went

through the Senate Judiciary Committee, to some extent, reflected

them. Power centers cannot ignore public protests and, even worse from

their point of view, continuing organization. You know, a

demonstration now and then, okay, you can live with it. If it

continues and becomes real grassroots organization, developing a

functioning political system, in which people actually participate in

forming and shaping policy and electing their own candidates, if it

gets to that stage, they're in trouble. And we're far from that.

 

In fact, it's terrible irony. We ought to be ashamed of it. But if you

want to look for democratic elections in the Western hemisphere these

days, you have to look at countries like Bolivia, not the United

States. I mean, in Bolivia, they had a real election. It's the poorest

country in South America. Last December, they had an election in which

well-organized masses of the population -- poor people, indigenous

people and others -- managed to elect a candidate from their own

ranks. There were real serious issues, and people knew the issues. And

they voted on the issues. That's dramatically different from here.

That's real democracy.

 

You want to talk about democracy promotion, we need it here, and we

can learn lessons from them. Actually, the same is true in Venezuela.

Venezuela is bitterly denounced here by the government media

propaganda system as totalitarian dictatorship, and so on and so

forth. Well, you know, you can think what you like about Chavez -- not

our business -- but the question is, what do Venezuelans think about

him? That's the question, if you believe in democracy. Well, we know

the answer.

 

During the Chavez years, support for the elected government has risen

very sharply. It is now the highest in Latin America by a considerable

margin. He's managed to win poll after -- election and referendum

after election, one after another, about half a dozen, despite intense

media opposition of a kind that you can't imagine here, and subversion

by the superpower. After all, the U.S. supported a military coup to

try to overthrow him, had to back down, partly because it was quickly

reversed by popular action, but partly because of a swell of protest

throughout Latin America, where they just don't have the same contempt

for democracy as the leadership and the media do here and don't like

the idea of democratically elected governments being overthrown by the

military.

 

Since then, the U.S. has been dedicated to subversion. The last poll

that I saw, a North American poll a couple of weeks ago, asked people

who are they going to vote for in the next election. And I think it

was about two-thirds said they'd vote for Chavez, and I think 4

percent for the next highest candidate. Well, in those circumstances,

the U.S. is almost certain to turn to the standard operating procedure

when you know you're going to lose an election: try to discredit it,

by getting the opposition to boycott it.

 

JG: Well, you'll be glad to know that when -- you mentioned Hugo

Chavez -- when Amy and I interviewed him several months ago, he

mentioned that his favorite American writer was Noam Chomsky, and he

cited actually some of your books. So, I guess that we -- there ought

to be a poll taken of how many leaders in the third world are reading

Noam Chomsky, because you're obviously having an effect on many of

these leaders.

 

NC: I don't want to be self-serving, but I actually know quite a few

examples.

 

AG: What are the other ones, Noam?

 

NC: Well, it's unfair to mention them.

 

AG: Well, let me ask you --

 

NC: They've got their own problems with the U.S. government.

 

AG: Let me ask you about Haiti. How does this fit he the picture that

you're talking about?

 

NC: Well, I won't run through the whole story, but Haiti actually also

had a democratic election, of a kind that should put us to shame. They

had a real democratic election in 1990, again, like Bolivia. You know,

massive grassroots organizations, poor people that nobody was paying

any attention to, succeeded in electing their own candidate, to

everyone's astonishment. Everyone assumed the U.S.-backed candidate

representing the elites and the power centers would easily win. Well,

he didn't. He got 14 percent of the vote. Very quickly, instantly, the

U.S. moved to subvert the election -- instantly -- by what are called

democracy promotion measures, meaning supporting the opposition.

That's what U.S. Aid did, and so on, try to support anyone opposed to

the government.

 

Other measures were taken. Pretty soon there's a military coup, led to

years of vicious terror. Contrary to what people believe, the U.S.

supported the coup. It continued to trade with the junta and rich

elite increasingly under Clinton. Clinton actually authorized the

Texaco Oil Company to provide oil to the junta and the elite,

overriding formal presidential directives blocking it. Finally, the

Clinton administration decided that the public had been tortured

enough, sent in the Marines. That was called democracy promotion.

 

However, as Allan Nairn right away pointed out, and others, Aristide

was restored on the condition that he accept the policies of the

defeated U.S. candidate in the 1990 election, harsh neo-liberal

policies, which were bound to destroy the economy, as they did, led to

turmoil, disaster, continuing U.S. subversion. Finally, the Bush

administration blocked aid. More turmoil and confusion then came the

-- by now, the country is kind of falling apart. You can go into the

details.

 

But, finally, the U.S. and France simply intervened and removed the

President. France was particularly infuriated, because Aristide had

politely called upon France to do something about the crushing debt

that had been imposed on Haiti back in 1825 as punishment for

liberating themselves from France. They had been bearing this ever

since, and naturally that infuriated France. How can the Haitians dare

to say this?

 

So, the U.S. and France basically kicked him out. Horrible atrocity

since. Now, they're trying to reconstruct somehow. Again, we owe them

enormous reparations, as does France, for the atrocities we have been

carrying out there actually for over a century, after we took over the

project of torturing Haitians from France. Is there any -- it's hard

to know what the possibilities are. I mean, it's just -- I mean, the

society has been really devastated. It's one of the poorest in the world.

 

AG: And the latest of Aristide being taken out of Haiti, after he was

re-elected -- this, of course, February 29, 2004, on a U.S. plane with

U.S. military and security and sent to the Central African Republic?

 

NC: Yeah, not only that, but the U.S. won't even allow him back into

the region. I mean, it's essentially insisted that he be imprisoned in

South Africa. There was tremendous protest by the Caribbean countries

over this. The candidate who won the election is the one who was

closest to him; probably if he had been running, he would have won,

but the U.S. would never allow that, and, as I say, won't even allow

him into the region. Well, that's just another illustration of the

near passionate hatred of democracy, which is consistent and is indeed

recognized.

 

It's even recognized by the scholarship, of the most prestigious

scholarship, by advocates of democracy promotion. They advocated, like

Thomas Carothers, head of the Carnegie Endowment Project, he advocates

it and says it's wonderful. But he also points out that the U.S.

consistently had been opposed to it. There is what he calls a strong

line of continuity in all administrations, namely, democracy is

promoted if and only if it supports U.S. strategic and economic

objectives.

 

In Central America, for example, where he was particularly -- he was

involved in the Reagan State Department. He says, yeah, the U.S.

opposed democracy and the reason he says is the U.S. would tolerate

only top-down forms of democratic structures, in which traditional

elites allied to the United States would remain in power in highly

undemocratic societies. Yeah, that's a kind of democracy promotion

that we promote, that the administration preaches and that the press

and journalists hail as magnificent. Again, this is kind of North Korea.

 

AG: And another region, of course, back to Israel, the election of

Kadima, the media characterizing Kadima as the centrist party that is

going to do away with many of the settlements in the West Bank, and

then the election of Hamas in the Occupied Territories. Your response?

 

NC: Well, I would just urge anyone who wants to look into this to

compare the lead editorial in the New York Times yesterday with the

lead editorial yesterday in the world's leading business journal, the

London Financial Times. They're diametrically opposed. The New York

Times says it's wonderful Israelis agreed to withdraw from the West

Bank. Of course, there is the little matter of borders, but they say

that's of no importance. You know, minor issue, where the borders are.

Yeah, no issue, except for the people who live there. That's the New

York Times.

 

They do -- the Times reported the anguish of the settlers that'll have

to leave. I mean, it's kind of as if the reporting has been -- as if,

say, you know, I broke into your house, took over the whole house,

finally agreed -- tortured you, you know, stole everything from you

and so on, and then agreed to leave you the attic and the cellar, but

keep the rest of the house. And it's -- I do that with great anguish,

because I don't want to leave the attic. I kind of liked it. I mean,

that's the way it's being reported. It's scandalous.