Noam Chomsky: US Might Face Ultimate Nightmare/DemocracyNOW!

[tlcandie]

Guess I will TRY to post it here. The date is today, yet it's not fit for LBN it seems since it was just locked...

Wednesday, February 9th, 2005
Noam Chomsky: U.S. Might Face "Ultimate Nightmare" in Middle East Where Shiites Control Most of World's Oil

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/09/1458256

<snip>
Well, these threats are leading to much more dire warnings than those that I quoted, again, from the heart of the establishment. So, last summer, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, which is very sober and respectable and not given to hyperbole, ran an article by two prominent strategic analysts, John Steinbrenner and Nancy Gallagher, in which they pointed out, these are mostly quotes, that the military programs and aggressive stance of the administration, carry in their words, “appreciable risk of ultimate doom,” and they go on to say that you have to look very hard -- in fact, I can't think of a case where such words have ever been pronounced in establishment -- respectable establishment circles. They go on to say that, "If the United States is to remain a democracy worthy of the name, the political system will have to acknowledge that the United States is now the dominant threat to everyone else." Their words. The “super outlaw state.” They go on to explain that the terrifying technology that is being developed in Donald Rumsfeld's transformation of the military will “assuredly defuse to the rest of the world. There will be a competition in intimidation and action/reaction cycle creating rising dangers, potentially unmanageable ones, for Americans as well,” and, in fact, that's already been happening. Russia, a year ago had its first military -- serious military exercises in 20 years. They deployed new offensive weapons, more sophisticated missiles, nuclear arms aimed at the United States. U.S. military analysts estimate that Russia may have tripled its military expenditures since the Bush administration came in with its militaristic stance. They have officially adopted the Bush administration's so-called preemptive war strategy, meaning asserting the right of a first strike, even the first nuclear strike, without pretext of defense. Washington's aggressive stance is compelling the Russians, who are much weaker, of course, to transfer missiles thousands of miles from one part of their territory to another repeatedly. This is over very lightly defended areas.
<Snip>

[alittlelark]

1. I listened to that this morning...

Scary, intense and amazingly well thought out. I donated (KPFA fund drive) and got the $200 pack.

[kohodog]

2. Truth is not the same as "late breaking" I guess.

Great Post.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. Chomsky is able to see the reactions to Amurkas actions beforehand.

Funny the empire cannot do this. Too bad for all of us the empire cannot control its greed. Too bad they try to cover their tracks with the purported "democracy added" malarkey. Hooligans. It's only going to be democracy if they bend to our economic will, nothing more nothing less.

http://www.michaelparenti.org/Imperialism101.html
The Dynamic of Capital Expansion
Imperialism is older than capitalism. The Persian, Macedonian, Roman, and Mongol empires all existed centuries before the Rothschilds and Rockefellers. Emperors and conquistadors were interested mostly in plunder and tribute, gold and glory. Capitalist imperialism differs from these earlier forms in the way it systematically accumulates capital through the organized exploitation of labor and the penetration of overseas markets. Capitalist imperialism invests in other countries, transforming and dominating their economies, cultures, and political life, integrating their financial and productive structures into an international system of capital accumulation.

A central imperative of capitalism is expansion. Investors will not put their money into business ventures unless they can extract more than they invest. Increased earnings come only with a growth in the enterprise. The capitalist ceaselessly searches for ways of making more money in order to make still more money. One must always invest to realize profits, gathering as much strength as possible in the face of competing forces and unpredictable markets.

Given its expansionist nature, capitalism has little inclination to stay home. Almost 150 years ago, Marx and Engels described a bourgeoisie that "chases over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere. . . . It creates a world after its own image." The expansionists destroy whole societies. Self-sufficient peoples are forcibly transformed into disfranchised wage workers. Indigenous communities and folk cultures are replaced by mass-market, mass-media, consumer societies. Cooperative lands are supplanted by agribusiness factory farms, villages by desolate shanty towns, autonomous regions by centralized autocracies.

Consider one of a thousand such instances. A few years ago the Los Angeles Times carried a special report on the rainforests of Borneo in the South Pacific. By their own testimony, the people there lived contented lives. They hunted, fished, and raised food in their jungle orchards and groves. But their entire way of life was ruthlessly wiped out by a few giant companies that destroyed the rainforest in order to harvest the hardwood for quick profits. Their lands were turned into ecological disaster areas and they themselves were transformed into disfranchised shantytown dwellers, forced to work for subsistence wages--when fortunate enough to find employment.

[KG]

4. Noam Chomsky knows what time it is.

[Vidar]

5. Chomsky nails it yet again.

"If the United States is to remain a democracy worthy of the name, the political system will have to acknowledge that the United States is now the dominant threat to everyone else."