By Dr Tim Themi:
Myths about the benevolence of Anglo-American foreign policy were utterly exploded last Friday night in Melbourne, as Professor Noam Chomsky thundered out his latest critique of the changing contours of global order.
Invited out for the second time by Deakin for only his second ever appearance in Melbourne, Professor Chomsky began the analysis with a United States at the peak of its imperialist powers and ambitions following the catastrophes of WWII.
But then a “double decline” set in, Chomsky explained, firstly without and then within. Outside their borders China was “lost,” it became “independent,” and others were keen to follow suit. While deep inside, America underwent a de-industrialisation period, outsourcing its labour to the many slave trades it had created around the world, and eventually handed over control of its economy to speculative financial hustlers.
The facts were grisly and oft-recounted with masterful detail: the stagnating wages in the face of record CEO profits; the lack of health care; the smashing of unions; the Republican race-to-the-bottom with the politics of fear and stupidity; the invasion of Vietnam and Indochina; the terrorist assaults on Latin America; the installing of a fascist dictatorship in a freshly liberated Greece; subversions in Italy; and the illegal wars on Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan – the latter which continues with bi-partisan Australian Government, and therefore media, support.
Myths about America’s noble deeds and intentions in these incursions fell away as Chomsky cited from the internal records of Washington planners and their declassified documents, revealing an elite obsessed with controlling all the world’s material resources, regardless of any human toll.
Right up till today, Chomsky remarked, where the Occupy movement just went global in an unprecedented wave of popular resistance. His praise of this was unreserved. “Keep doing what you are doing,” he told one Australian Occupy group. “It’s very important.”
Share on FacebookTim Themi is a PhD in Philosophy & Psychoanalysis from the School of International & Political Studies at Deakin. He also holds honours degrees in Philosophy from La Trobe and the Engineering Sciences from Melbourne. His doctoral dissertation enjoined the psychoanalysis of Lacan and the philosophy of Nietzsche on the question of desire and ethics. He is also a committed activist at large and in the social media. See his Facebook Page here.
Good article Tim. I thoroughly enjoyed Chomsky's talk, though I've heard most of it before from his many other lectures and books. His answers are so long that he could only deal with four questions. If he had the time, he probably would've spent hours answering the audience's many questions. Too bad Chomsky won't be back again.
It was a real laugh to hear about the people of Indiana fearing that the UN would swoop in with black helicopter to commit genocide, using serial numbers on roadsigns as part of the attack strategy.
As for the person commenting above, if one is to remain independent, one firstly criticizes the crimes of your own state before any other. This is exactly what Chomsky does. Those who don't are pretty much the equivalent of Soviet commissars, who would denounce the evils of Western state capitalism but completely ignore the very real crimes of Bolshevism.
As for the spurious claim about the spread of state communism being worse than state capitalism, it has been known for decades that the world's large capitalist democracy, India, has produced a death toll in half a century equivalent to the total number of deaths attributed to state communism in the 20th century.
The economist Amartya Sen has shown that India produces as many skeletons as Mao's Great Revolution did – every eight years. The La Trobe academic Gideon Polya has shown that hundreds of millions of Indians have died over the last couple of centuries due to the violent implementation of state capitalism in India due to British imperialism. Mike Davis has shown that forcing markets for food upon Indians created a major famine every four years, whereas there only occurred one every century for the last couple of millennia.
The doctrinal system only allows one side of the story to be heard, while the other half disappears down the drain. Chomsky has done a terrific job of detailing the vast number of crimes committed by his own state.
On this matter, the best catalog of US crimes ever composed is William Blum's Killing Hope, well worth the read, along with his Rogue State.
"crimes we commit", "justify US corporate-capitalist atrocities in third world countries", "US State-corporate elite", "environmental destruction", and "destroying too many people's lives". A pre-determined premise appears to exist which I do not concur with.
I presented a critical message and as always the messenger gets shot when criticism threatens to shatter the illusion of concensus for progressives. You don't know what I have read or anything else.
Globalization which has provided greater democratization of finance and communications has lifted more people in the third world out of poverty than any political/diplomatic aid program transfer from western countries. At times it has come at the expense of "middling" class labor in the west with job losses. The invisible hand of the market still wins out over the visible fist of government.
Not trying to shoot you, Greg. Just think the claims you make are rubbish, those that are coherent enough to comprehend. A scholar can tell the amount of quality publications one has read by the standard (or lack thereof) of his argumentation (i.e., your first paragraph). Chomsky’s own evaluation of “globilisation” can be found in his “Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order” (New York: Seven Story Press, 1998). If you have access to the journal data-bases through your local university library, this would be the best way to test and extend your views on politics and international relations. There’s some good one’s out there on Chomsky’s work. See, for instance, RONALD OSBORN, “Noam Chomsky and the realist tradition,” Review of International Studies (2009), 35, 351–370. Or ERIC HERRING AND PIERS ROBINSON, “Too polemical or too critical? Chomsky on the study of the news media and US foreign policy,” Review of International Studies (2003), 29, 553-568. Chomsky has also published some good ones in the peer review literature. See his “Simple Truths, Hard Problems: Some thoughts on terror, justice, and self-defence” Philosophy 80 (2005). Or “Commentary: moral truisms, empirical evidence, and foreign policy” Review of International Studies (2003), 29, 605-620.
There’s more, but I think we should leave it there. Thank you for your comments, and good luck.
Well here is a guy who definitely stands opposed to the idea of American Exceptionalism. Criticism allows for a healthy dose of self-reflection but honest comparisons to existing alternative courses of action in the post "catastrophic" WWII is always lacking. China's Great Leap Forward, Soviet crackdown on dissidents, crushing of revolts in the Eastern Block "occupied" countries of Eastern Europe, and murderous spread of communism in SE Asia and Latin America was taking its toll on the intellectual likes of Chomsky. He knows how to enjoy his freedom in biting the hands that nurture him.
Rubbish, Greg. He knows how to incorporate the ample empirical evidence of the crimes we commit as well. Do you? He also knows to examine critically the pretext of "stopping the spread of communism or terrorism" that is always trotted out to justify US corporate-capitalist atrocities in third world countries. Again, do you? He is on the record many times expressing his contempt for Bolshevism, referring to Stalinist Russia as a great big "dungeon," which you would know if you'd bothered to actually read his work. He also has no sympathy for the way the authoritarian capitalism of China treats its workers. No decent person does; which does not include the CEOs of Western Corporations like that much lauded APPLE Steve Jobs who are only too happy to exploit this. I suggest you read the articles he has published in the peer review (i.e., serious) literature. Freedom brings with it responsibility. The US State-corporate elite are nurturing nothing, but rather driving civilisation towards the edge of a cliff with the rate of environmental destruction they wreak while destroying too many people's lives. It takes courage and nobility to speak out about this; weakness and subservience to take the ostrich policy of head-in-the-sand.