NOAM CHOMSKY'S POLITICAL WRITINGS

If we have an industrial nation-state in which greed and the lust for power are what everyman thinks is "reality," if we have a business which regards the transformation of a forest into a parking lot as a sign of progress, then we will have a nation of businessmen run by businessmen for businessmen, and Nixon and Watergate will be the politics it deserves.

American futurist and thinker William Irwin Thompson, Evil and World Order, 1976, p. 96-7 (paperback)

Noam Chomsky (1928-      ) is a distinguished American linguistician. Since 1955 he has been teaching at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) in Boston.

With the exception of Ferdinand de Saussure (1856-1913), Chomsky is perhaps the most important theoretician in the history of his field. In his books Syntactic Structures (1957) and Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965) Chomsky revolutionized linguistics with his theory of transformational-generative grammar. Since these books, he has remained an active, continuing force in linguistics.

But in his avocation -- writing about politics -- he is a uniquely titanic, challenging figure, to the consensus of world -- and especially American -- political thought.

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Apparently the child of Old Left parents, Chomsky seems to be a socialist anarchist. He believes that the government and society of the United States is a "business-run society." In the interests of the corporations that control it, the federal government of the United States runs a vast immoral attempt to influence and control the world order.

The government does this by taking advantage of its corporate backing and connections, through concertedly exercising its diplomatic and military power, and by its access to plutocratic sums of tax wealth. Party does not matter. Chomsky believes the effort is bi-partisan, largely secret, bolstered by propaganda, and counter to democracy and the true interests of the American people.

He believes that the effort is run by the federal government primarily through the executive branch.

One of its prominent arms is the controversial Central Intelligence Agency; another is the Pentagon (i.e., the Defense Department). Chomsky seems to believe that much of the effort is probably illegal. He believes this effort is intended to greatly benefit the corporate order/oligarchy that dominates the United States; this order projects its own interests as American interests.

Chomsky believes that the effort at domination is tolerated by most Americans because they know so little about it. The effort is protected by an enormous bodyguard of propagandistic "patriotic" lies and official "truth;" this, in his phrase, involves the "manufacture of consent."

This realpolitik domination of the world for the sake of gigantic influential corporations (that is, what theoreticians like the Italian Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) used to call hegemony) is what Chomsky thinks is the real foreign policy aim of the United States -- not democracy or freedom.

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So Chomsky is another wacko conspiracy theorist, right? Another loony bothered by the existence of the CIA?

No. He is the ultimate conspiracy theorist. His is the most depressing and convincing analysis of American history I have yet seen. To my surprise, Chomsky's analysis seems to clarify the pattern of much of not only American but recent European history.

Increasingly -- alas -- I fear Chomsky is right.

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Usually, when someone has an unusual view of history involving possible conspiracy, a knowledgeable reader instantly fears that antisemitism will be involved.

No. I hasten to assure you, Chomsky is not just another Internet antisemite or wacko. Recall that he is a distinguished, a world-respected linguistics scholar, the most influential in his field. No Hitler, he.

Further, over the decades that he has been an activist Chomsky has worked out an analysis of how this American effort toward world dominance came about. If one watches this analysis unfold from book to book, and compares it with what one knows, the analysis is gradually frighteningly convincing.

Chomsky's political books, beginning with American Power and the New Mandarins (1969) on the Vietnam war in the 1960s, are supplements -- sometimes genuine alternatives -- to standard histories. Chomsky has delved into rarely seen documents. He seems up to date on all standard sources. Unlike most corporate-owned newspapers and electronic news media, he does not seem beholden to government or corporate interests or contracts. Continually, he has interesting, stunning ideas and points to make.

(If I may give some of his ideas away here, Chomsky believes that, despite the appearance of a wide variety of news media and analysis in the United States, actually few dissenting ideas appear to challenge common sense ideas of how American society works and what its aims are. American media has a limited range of acceptable views, according to Chomsky. Those outside this range are marginalized. This is not a new view, but Chomsky gives the best analysis of some of its features that I have seen.)

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Chomsky's political works divide into his more serious books, long and with many footnotes; and his less serious, shorter propagandistic efforts, which are almost pamphlets. Unfortunately, he does not seem to clearly distinguish one group from the other. This makes some of his work less convincing than it could be.

It can be argued that, had he written some of his books better they would be more convincing.

However, at his best Chomsky is very convincing.

I still read him bemused. What new thing, what amazing, startling new charge will he come up with? What improbable idea will he float that I am supposed to believe? What challenging way of looking at recent history will he promulgate, that I will have to consider in the light of all that I think I know?

I did not start out believing Chomsky. I held his books mentally askance.

But -- alas -- I have come to believe much of what he says is true. I find much of what he says now very reasonable and in keeping with many other books that I have read; to take just one example, the recent pamphlets of American novelist Gore Vidal.

In fact, I have come to fear that Chomsky may be the most indispensable intellectual currently in America.

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Let me hasten to say I do not agree with everything Chomsky says. Nor is everything he says fresh or original. Some of it may not be right. Some of his books are scatter-gun and do not cite references in an adequate manner.

But I urge you to look up his books and read them. Do you want honest, responsible government in the United States and the world? Do you care about a better world? Do you want to know what is really going on? I think you have to read Chomsky.

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A new idea has recently come into my head: Noam Chomsky is winning. Respectable people are coming over to his view of things.

I did not use to think this.

It seems ridiculous to say this at a time when conservatism seems to be everywhere triumphant in America, but I think it is true.

How I Was Seduced

Although I had dipped into his work and found it too radical, it was Chomsky's book Pirates and Emperors which at last managed to turn my head around and convinced me Chomsky was a serious political thinker.

This must have been back in the late 1980s.

[To Be Continued and Revised]

Some Books by and about Noam Chomsky

American Power and the New Mandarins. New York: Pantheon Press, 1969.

For Reasons of State. Pantheon Books, 1972.

Radical Priorities. Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1981.

At War with Asia: Essays on Indochina. New York: Pantheon Press, 1970.

Towards a New Cold War. New York: Pantheon Press, 1982.

The Fateful Triangle: Israel, the United States, and the Palestinians. Montreal: Black    Rose Books, 1984.

Pirates and Emperors: International Terrorism in the Real World. Montreal and    Cheektowaga, New York: Black Rose Books, 1987.

Not to be missed. Chomsky explains how the United States hypocritically violates its own laws abroad to pursue its superpower goals and support dictators in power.

The Chomsky Reader. James Peck, ed. New York: Pantheon Press, 1987.

Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies. Toronto: CBC    Enterprises, 1988.

Chomsky's lectures under the auspices of the University of Toronto, published by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that broadcast them. One of Chomsky's ten or so most important political books.

The Chomsky Update: Linguistics and Politics. Raphael Salkie (Unwin Hyman Ltd, London,    1990).

Deterring Democracy. New York: Verso Press, 1990.

Another pamphlet book of Chomsky's, this one concerns issues taken up earlier in Manufacturing Consent. Chomsky explains the U.S.'s history of using public relations and propaganda, for instance, to cause its entry into World War I. He states the U.S.'s official definition of terrorism, and gives examples of how the U.S. has hypocritically ignored its own definition. He gives some examples of the U.S. and Israel ignoring U.N. Security Council resolutions, and gives numerous examples of the U.S. news media's ignoring important international stories involving U.S. foreign policy. Chomsky believes that this (purely conincidental?) "failure" to cover stories concerning American violations of international law indicates that the U.S. media are acting together to suppress the truth. An expanded 2nd edition (104 pp.) was published in 2002.

Letters from Lexington: Reflections on Propaganda. Toronto: Between the Lines,    1993.

Very interesting, though one of Chomsky's pamphlet books, not one of his major books. Chomsky touches on the Near East, Central America, East Timor, and so on, charging America with hypocrisy in selling arms to countries it knew were committing human rights violations. Especially valuable for its note and allusions to other books.

The Common Good. Tucson, Arizona: Odonian Press, 1998 (?).

One of the books based on six interviews with Chomsky. He outlines the political philosophy of Aristotle. He briefly discusses a wide variety of international subjects, alludes to some interesting books, and makes some charges I have not heard before. Stimulating.

Latin America: From Colonization to Globalization. Melbourne and New York:      Ocean Press, 1999.

This is one of Chomsky's interview books, compiled in conversation with Heinz Dieterich.

The New Military Humanism.

Rogue States: The Rule of Force in World Affairs. Cambridge, Massachusetts:      South End Press, 2000.

A New Generation Draws the Line: Kosovo, East Timor and the Standards of the      West. New York and London: Verso, 2000.

9/11. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2001.

Published just after the events of September 11, 2001, this is Chomsky's bestselling political work, a pamphlet; but it is a lesser work.

The Umbrella of U.S. Power. New York: Seven Stories Press.

Middle East Illusions. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.,      2003.

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