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Hopes and Prospects
Hopes and Prospects is Noam Chomsky's indispensable analysis of the world at present and a roadmap for the future In Hopes and Prospects , Noam Chomsky examines the challenges of our early twenty-first century. He explores obstacles and threats such as the widening gap between North and South America, US exceptionalism (which continues under Obama), the fiascos of Iraq and Afghanistan, the US-Israeli assault on Gaza and the recent financial bailouts. He sees hope for the future and opportunities to move forward, however - in the democratic wave in Latin America and in the global solidarity movements which suggest 'real progress towards freedom and justice'. Hopes and Prospects is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the primary challenges facing the human race in the coming years. 'A treasure-trove of truths that shouldn't be left buried in our sandpit of propaganda and lies' Johann Hari, Independent 'Noam Chomsky is a global phenomenon . . . he may be the most widely read American voice on foreign policy on the planet today' The New York Times Book Review 'The west's most prominent critic of US imperialism . . . the closest thing in the English-speaking world to an intellectual superstar' Guardian
Noam Chomsky is the author of numerous bestselling political books, including Hegemony or Survival , Failed States, Interventions , Perilous Power , What We Say Goes, Imperial Ambitions, Making the Future, How the World Works, and Hopes and Prospects all of which are published by Hamish Hamilton/Penguin. He is a professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT, and is widely credited with having revolutionized modern linguistics. He lives in Lexington, Massachusetts.
Noam Chomsky is the author of numerous bestselling political books, including Hegemony or Survival , Failed States, Interventions , Perilous Power , What We Say Goes, Imperial Ambitions, Making the Future, How the World Works, and Hopes and Prospects all of which are published by Hamish Hamilton/Penguin. He is a professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT, and is widely credited with having revolutionized modern linguistics. He lives in Lexington, Massachusetts.
336 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2010
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About the author
Noam Chomsky
977 books17.4k followersAvram Noam Chomsky is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He is a laureate professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona and an institute professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Among the most cited living authors, Chomsky has written more than 150 books on topics such as linguistics, war, and politics. In addition to his work in linguistics, since the 1960s Chomsky has been an influential voice on the American left as a consistent critic of U.S. foreign policy, contemporary capitalism, and corporate influence on political institutions and the media.
Born to Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants (his father was William Chomsky) in Philadelphia, Chomsky developed an early interest in anarchism from alternative bookstores in New York City. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania. During his postgraduate work in the Harvard Society of Fellows, Chomsky developed the theory of transformational grammar for which he earned his doctorate in 1955. That year he began teaching at MIT, and in 1957 emerged as a significant figure in linguistics with his landmark work Syntactic Structures, which played a major role in remodeling the study of language. From 1958 to 1959 Chomsky was a National Science Foundation fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study. He created or co-created the universal grammar theory, the generative grammar theory, the Chomsky hierarchy, and the minimalist program. Chomsky also played a pivotal role in the decline of linguistic behaviorism, and was particularly critical of the work of B.F. Skinner.
An outspoken opponent of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, which he saw as an act of American imperialism, in 1967 Chomsky rose to national attention for his anti-war essay "The Responsibility of Intellectuals". Becoming associated with the New Left, he was arrested multiple times for his activism and placed on President Richard M. Nixon's list of political opponents. While expanding his work in linguistics over subsequent decades, he also became involved in the linguistics wars. In collaboration with Edward S. Herman, Chomsky later articulated the propaganda model of media criticism in Manufacturing Consent, and worked to expose the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. His defense of unconditional freedom of speech, including that of Holocaust denial, generated significant controversy in the Faurisson affair of the 1980s. Chomsky's commentary on the Cambodian genocide and the Bosnian genocide also generated controversy. Since retiring from active teaching at MIT, he has continued his vocal political activism, including opposing the 2003 invasion of Iraq and supporting the Occupy movement. An anti-Zionist, Chomsky considers Israel's treatment of Palestinians to be worse than South African–style apartheid, and criticizes U.S. support for Israel.
Chomsky is widely recognized as having helped to spark the cognitive revolution in the human sciences, contributing to the development of a new cognitivistic framework for the study of language and the mind. Chomsky remains a leading critic of U.S. foreign policy, contemporary capitalism, U.S. involvement and Israel's role in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and mass media. Chomsky and his ideas are highly influential in the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements. Since 2017, he has been Agnese Helms Haury Chair in the Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice at the University of Arizona.
Born to Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants (his father was William Chomsky) in Philadelphia, Chomsky developed an early interest in anarchism from alternative bookstores in New York City. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania. During his postgraduate work in the Harvard Society of Fellows, Chomsky developed the theory of transformational grammar for which he earned his doctorate in 1955. That year he began teaching at MIT, and in 1957 emerged as a significant figure in linguistics with his landmark work Syntactic Structures, which played a major role in remodeling the study of language. From 1958 to 1959 Chomsky was a National Science Foundation fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study. He created or co-created the universal grammar theory, the generative grammar theory, the Chomsky hierarchy, and the minimalist program. Chomsky also played a pivotal role in the decline of linguistic behaviorism, and was particularly critical of the work of B.F. Skinner.
An outspoken opponent of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, which he saw as an act of American imperialism, in 1967 Chomsky rose to national attention for his anti-war essay "The Responsibility of Intellectuals". Becoming associated with the New Left, he was arrested multiple times for his activism and placed on President Richard M. Nixon's list of political opponents. While expanding his work in linguistics over subsequent decades, he also became involved in the linguistics wars. In collaboration with Edward S. Herman, Chomsky later articulated the propaganda model of media criticism in Manufacturing Consent, and worked to expose the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. His defense of unconditional freedom of speech, including that of Holocaust denial, generated significant controversy in the Faurisson affair of the 1980s. Chomsky's commentary on the Cambodian genocide and the Bosnian genocide also generated controversy. Since retiring from active teaching at MIT, he has continued his vocal political activism, including opposing the 2003 invasion of Iraq and supporting the Occupy movement. An anti-Zionist, Chomsky considers Israel's treatment of Palestinians to be worse than South African–style apartheid, and criticizes U.S. support for Israel.
Chomsky is widely recognized as having helped to spark the cognitive revolution in the human sciences, contributing to the development of a new cognitivistic framework for the study of language and the mind. Chomsky remains a leading critic of U.S. foreign policy, contemporary capitalism, U.S. involvement and Israel's role in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and mass media. Chomsky and his ideas are highly influential in the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements. Since 2017, he has been Agnese Helms Haury Chair in the Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice at the University of Arizona.
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March 3, 2016
When I read Chomsky, I always wonder, fearfully, who I will turn to for the truth when he retires. When I read
Manufacturing Consent
when I was about 18, I was utterly astonished. This isn't the story I've been told, I thought. This doesn't resemble the story I've been told in any way! Where did he find all this out? Reading Hopes and Prospects reminded me that he didn't get it anywhere exotic - just from various press sources and 'the internal [government] record' which anyone could in theory access.
This revelation shows how the way media operates hides events in plain sight. NHS SOS similarly exposed the failure of the media to reflect the public interest, with fake-balanced debates and selective under & over reporting. Chomsky is at pains to show though, that the public isn't so much uninformed as ignored by government. Republicans and Democrats are both 'significantly to the right' of most of the electorate, according to surveys he quotes.
Similarly, while the US (and UK) public are told that populations in countries formerly colonised or currently cast as enemies hate 'us' and our ostensibly liberal democratic values, while a cursory examination of data shows that these values are regarded sympathetically and these populations just want them to actually be upheld in practice, instead of disingenously professed by powers that behave with indiscriminate aggression militarily, wreck indigenous political structures at all levels, and engage in highly protectionist economic practices for long enough to gain an unassailable position and then insist on 'free trade' and 'a level playing field'. A first principle of 'free trade' is freedom of movement of labour, but US immigration restrictions are legendarily harsh, for instance.
I really wish I was good at big-picture thinking and could keep more of Chomsky's arguments and evidence in my head. When I try to repeat them, I always sound unpersuasive, perhaps because I mix in too much of my own radical leanings. There's virtually no ideology here at all. Chomsky doesn't attempt to make a socialist, anarchist or whatever case to condemn the actions of the US, UK and Israeli administrations and the narrow concentrations of power (financial institutions and multinationals) that control them; he generally restricts himself to pointing out that their actions directly conflict with those precepts and the demands they impose on others. Upholding the rights of ordinary people to self determination and decent lives everywhere is the basic precept, too obvious to state.
Terms like "democracy promotion" and "globalization" have doctrinal meanings exactly opposite to their literal ones. When the US "promotes democracy" it actually suppresses populations, installs dictators et cetera, in order to ensure its economic interests are served by brutal exploitation, sweeping power and resources into the hands of local and international elites. States that uphold democratic values in the non-doctrinal sense, and divest from corporate exploitation are harassed and presented as authoritarian in the media - Chomsky uses the examples of Bolivia and Venezuela, where small anti-government protests (generally by minorities of wealthy citizens) are hugely amplified by global attention.
Chomsky does recap a little bit from his earlier books on the history of US behaviour in Latin America particularly under Reagan to make his point, but in general he passes on with phrases like 'no need to mention what happened there' (a wry mood and mildly satirizing use of doctrinal phrases elicited several exclamations of 'HAH!' from me throughout), the lectures in Latin America focus on more positive things happening of late: resistance to US hegemony, economic dominance and attempts to undermine democracy in the region.
I always enjoy Chomsky's defence of Iran. Here he repeatedly mentions that as a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, its right to develop non-weapons tech is enshrined in International law and protected from interference, yet it is continually harassed over any nuclear development, while non-signatory and US arms customer Israel can do as it likes. He explains why Iran would never use a nuclear weapon. However, seeking to acquire an arsenal makes perfect sense in Iran's position: it's demonstrably the only way to get the US off your back...
An important subject of the book is Obama, who arrived promising much, and has in Chomsky's estimation delivered very little but more of the same old injustice when it comes to foreign policy, not least the increase of drone strikes. Headlines suggesting that he would be tough on Israel are belied by actions: the tradition of ignoring Palestinian offers of talks, respect of ceasefires, agreement to previous terms and treaties on the one hand, and Israeli international law and human rights violations on the other continues. Chomsky points out that the Israel and the US are not seeking a diplomatic solution at all (phrasing is instructive: political settlement is a 'danger' to be avoided), just trying to keep the 'peace process'* in process long enough to annihilate any viable Palestinian territory.
*I think I've spotted another term which means its opposite in practice…
This revelation shows how the way media operates hides events in plain sight. NHS SOS similarly exposed the failure of the media to reflect the public interest, with fake-balanced debates and selective under & over reporting. Chomsky is at pains to show though, that the public isn't so much uninformed as ignored by government. Republicans and Democrats are both 'significantly to the right' of most of the electorate, according to surveys he quotes.
Similarly, while the US (and UK) public are told that populations in countries formerly colonised or currently cast as enemies hate 'us' and our ostensibly liberal democratic values, while a cursory examination of data shows that these values are regarded sympathetically and these populations just want them to actually be upheld in practice, instead of disingenously professed by powers that behave with indiscriminate aggression militarily, wreck indigenous political structures at all levels, and engage in highly protectionist economic practices for long enough to gain an unassailable position and then insist on 'free trade' and 'a level playing field'. A first principle of 'free trade' is freedom of movement of labour, but US immigration restrictions are legendarily harsh, for instance.
I really wish I was good at big-picture thinking and could keep more of Chomsky's arguments and evidence in my head. When I try to repeat them, I always sound unpersuasive, perhaps because I mix in too much of my own radical leanings. There's virtually no ideology here at all. Chomsky doesn't attempt to make a socialist, anarchist or whatever case to condemn the actions of the US, UK and Israeli administrations and the narrow concentrations of power (financial institutions and multinationals) that control them; he generally restricts himself to pointing out that their actions directly conflict with those precepts and the demands they impose on others. Upholding the rights of ordinary people to self determination and decent lives everywhere is the basic precept, too obvious to state.
Terms like "democracy promotion" and "globalization" have doctrinal meanings exactly opposite to their literal ones. When the US "promotes democracy" it actually suppresses populations, installs dictators et cetera, in order to ensure its economic interests are served by brutal exploitation, sweeping power and resources into the hands of local and international elites. States that uphold democratic values in the non-doctrinal sense, and divest from corporate exploitation are harassed and presented as authoritarian in the media - Chomsky uses the examples of Bolivia and Venezuela, where small anti-government protests (generally by minorities of wealthy citizens) are hugely amplified by global attention.
Chomsky does recap a little bit from his earlier books on the history of US behaviour in Latin America particularly under Reagan to make his point, but in general he passes on with phrases like 'no need to mention what happened there' (a wry mood and mildly satirizing use of doctrinal phrases elicited several exclamations of 'HAH!' from me throughout), the lectures in Latin America focus on more positive things happening of late: resistance to US hegemony, economic dominance and attempts to undermine democracy in the region.
I always enjoy Chomsky's defence of Iran. Here he repeatedly mentions that as a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, its right to develop non-weapons tech is enshrined in International law and protected from interference, yet it is continually harassed over any nuclear development, while non-signatory and US arms customer Israel can do as it likes. He explains why Iran would never use a nuclear weapon. However, seeking to acquire an arsenal makes perfect sense in Iran's position: it's demonstrably the only way to get the US off your back...
An important subject of the book is Obama, who arrived promising much, and has in Chomsky's estimation delivered very little but more of the same old injustice when it comes to foreign policy, not least the increase of drone strikes. Headlines suggesting that he would be tough on Israel are belied by actions: the tradition of ignoring Palestinian offers of talks, respect of ceasefires, agreement to previous terms and treaties on the one hand, and Israeli international law and human rights violations on the other continues. Chomsky points out that the Israel and the US are not seeking a diplomatic solution at all (phrasing is instructive: political settlement is a 'danger' to be avoided), just trying to keep the 'peace process'* in process long enough to annihilate any viable Palestinian territory.
*I think I've spotted another term which means its opposite in practice…
December 29, 2022
This collection of essays is timely given the amount of heated debate going on about the state of Western democracy, particularly in the US. Chomsky’s perspective - my interpretation: What democracy?
It is true that democracy is a word thrown around with little regard for what it means. Is it a system of election or an ideal?
Either way, of course, the US has never been a pure democracy. When the country was founded only white men who owned property could vote and there was no one who suggested that the government existed to act on behalf of the average citizen.
Today, of course, we have the Electoral College, allowing the presidential candidate receiving the least popular votes to actually win election. And the fact that the least populous state has the same Senate representation as the most populous state. If you live in South Dakota, therefore, you have far more theoretical power over the government than a resident of California or Texas.
And it doesn’t stop there. The US Senate, arguably the more powerful of the two houses, is run by committees, and the committee chairperson, usually chosen by seniority within their party, wield outsized power because they single-handedly control which bills actually make it to the floor for debate and a vote. Most of these chairman and chairwoman, as it turns out, hail from those same least populous states that already enjoy an inflated amount of Senatorial power. The chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, for example, arguably the most powerful committee in the Senate, represents Vermont, the second-least-populous state, home to less than two-tenths of one percent of Americans. (This distortion occurs for a lot of obvious reasons including social homogeneity, less competition for the job, etc.)
The strongest point Chomsky alludes to is that the ideal of democracy is not really a function of how you structure elections. It’s about having politicians who are carrying out the will of the citizens. And it is in this regard that virtually all modern democracies score the lowest.
In part, of course, that is because not all citizens are the same. And the citizens who count the most in today’s political world are the citizens who hold the capital. They are the ones who determine which politicians wield power because their money allows them to control elections, and it is, therefore, their interests that the politicians care most about.
Which is why our elected politicians in Washington refuse to take positions supported by an overwhelming majority of Americans. They don’t care. Unless you can afford to contribute a gazillion dollars to their next re-election, your opinion doesn’t really count.
When it comes to American foreign policy, therefore, Chomsky makes an irrefutable argument that despite all the talk about promoting democracy and protecting the oppressed, the overwhelming objective of our foreign policy is to protect and promote the financial interests of our banks, hedge funds, and corporations. We have actually overthrown democratically elected governments, Chomsky notes, for the simple reason that they refused to do the bidding of our investor class.
Chomsky has one of the most insightful minds putting thought to paper today. The book is extremely well written and thoroughly researched. If you recoil at his basic premise you owe it to yourself to read it.
It is true that democracy is a word thrown around with little regard for what it means. Is it a system of election or an ideal?
Either way, of course, the US has never been a pure democracy. When the country was founded only white men who owned property could vote and there was no one who suggested that the government existed to act on behalf of the average citizen.
Today, of course, we have the Electoral College, allowing the presidential candidate receiving the least popular votes to actually win election. And the fact that the least populous state has the same Senate representation as the most populous state. If you live in South Dakota, therefore, you have far more theoretical power over the government than a resident of California or Texas.
And it doesn’t stop there. The US Senate, arguably the more powerful of the two houses, is run by committees, and the committee chairperson, usually chosen by seniority within their party, wield outsized power because they single-handedly control which bills actually make it to the floor for debate and a vote. Most of these chairman and chairwoman, as it turns out, hail from those same least populous states that already enjoy an inflated amount of Senatorial power. The chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, for example, arguably the most powerful committee in the Senate, represents Vermont, the second-least-populous state, home to less than two-tenths of one percent of Americans. (This distortion occurs for a lot of obvious reasons including social homogeneity, less competition for the job, etc.)
The strongest point Chomsky alludes to is that the ideal of democracy is not really a function of how you structure elections. It’s about having politicians who are carrying out the will of the citizens. And it is in this regard that virtually all modern democracies score the lowest.
In part, of course, that is because not all citizens are the same. And the citizens who count the most in today’s political world are the citizens who hold the capital. They are the ones who determine which politicians wield power because their money allows them to control elections, and it is, therefore, their interests that the politicians care most about.
Which is why our elected politicians in Washington refuse to take positions supported by an overwhelming majority of Americans. They don’t care. Unless you can afford to contribute a gazillion dollars to their next re-election, your opinion doesn’t really count.
When it comes to American foreign policy, therefore, Chomsky makes an irrefutable argument that despite all the talk about promoting democracy and protecting the oppressed, the overwhelming objective of our foreign policy is to protect and promote the financial interests of our banks, hedge funds, and corporations. We have actually overthrown democratically elected governments, Chomsky notes, for the simple reason that they refused to do the bidding of our investor class.
Chomsky has one of the most insightful minds putting thought to paper today. The book is extremely well written and thoroughly researched. If you recoil at his basic premise you owe it to yourself to read it.
December 13, 2025
A critical reflection on global politics and economics, written by one of the most influential leftist intellectuals of our time. Known for his sharp critique of systemic power structures, Chomsky brings his vast knowledge to the table, offering insights into how economic and political systems perpetuate inequality and injustice. What sets this work apart is Chomsky's attempt to make complex economic ideas accessible to a wider audience, breaking down academic jargon and presenting them in a way that is both thought-provoking and readable.
His analysis in Hopes and Prospects is timely, touching on pressing global issues and their historical roots, as well as providing his vision for alternatives to current systems. Unlike many intellectuals, Chomsky doesn't isolate himself within an ivory tower of theoretical discourse; he directly engages with current events, making his arguments relevant and actionable. This work is, therefore, a call to action for those seeking a deeper understanding of the forces shaping our world.
However, while Chomsky’s critique of global economic and political structures remains incisive, there are times when his solutions and predictions feel too rooted in theory, without sufficient attention to the pragmatic realities of change. His critique of neoliberalism is sharp, yet the proposals for systemic transformation, though inspiring, sometimes lack the granularity necessary for implementation in an increasingly complex world.
In conclusion, Hopes and Prospects is an essential read for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of global power dynamics, economics, and activism. Chomsky’s reputation as a leftist intellectual is well-deserved, and his ability to write for a broad audience without sacrificing intellectual rigor is commendable. Though not without its limitations, the book serves as a potent reminder of the power of ideas in shaping the future of our world.
His analysis in Hopes and Prospects is timely, touching on pressing global issues and their historical roots, as well as providing his vision for alternatives to current systems. Unlike many intellectuals, Chomsky doesn't isolate himself within an ivory tower of theoretical discourse; he directly engages with current events, making his arguments relevant and actionable. This work is, therefore, a call to action for those seeking a deeper understanding of the forces shaping our world.
However, while Chomsky’s critique of global economic and political structures remains incisive, there are times when his solutions and predictions feel too rooted in theory, without sufficient attention to the pragmatic realities of change. His critique of neoliberalism is sharp, yet the proposals for systemic transformation, though inspiring, sometimes lack the granularity necessary for implementation in an increasingly complex world.
In conclusion, Hopes and Prospects is an essential read for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of global power dynamics, economics, and activism. Chomsky’s reputation as a leftist intellectual is well-deserved, and his ability to write for a broad audience without sacrificing intellectual rigor is commendable. Though not without its limitations, the book serves as a potent reminder of the power of ideas in shaping the future of our world.
May 4, 2011
Someone recently told me they thought Noam Chomsky was not a credible scholar or source of information and lumped him in with other well known writers and scholars such as Norman Finkelstein and Edward Said. Obviously it's not enough to be a professor at one of the most prestigious universities in the world, and writing countless books on foreign policy, world events and issues we as a planet face isn't enough to impress this person in any way. I would never claim something so stupid. However, I will credit this person with one thing: knowing who Noam Chomsky is. I think this person might have read a page or two of one of Noam's countless essays, but I can't be sure this person even read the whole thing.
What I wish is that everyone knew who Noam Chomsky was, and further, I wish everyone would read his stuff. He is wonderful.
His latest book, Hopes and Prospects, covers some of the old familiar ground as well as new problems and ways of looking at them, all in the usual Chomsky style. That is to say, it's absent the mass-media, repeat-what-the-government-says-without-analysis-or-criticism (i.e. "take this press release and publish it"), propagandized version of events you get from corporate-sponsored and advertiser-directed editorial crap that is spewed from major media outlets.
People say he's anti-this or contra-that, all in an effort to paint him as being against *you* and your best interests. Nothing could be further from the truth. Strip away those labels and preconceptions that people hang around his neck in an effort to discredit truth and listen to what he is actually contending and saying. What you will find is that what Noam wants is a world that is better tomorrow for each and every person living in it today, without exception.
'Establishment' (and its blind and self-defeating agents) will of course disagree with me. In order to promote a position benefiting not me or you or our individual and collective best interests, establishment pushes forth lies, claims them as truth and then uses their vast power and wealth to make sure you believe them. When they are successful (and they always are) people end up supporting what is good for those with power and wealth only. They (the ones who pull our strings) will oversimplify issues so they can be put on a bumper sticker, while other issues they will over complicate to encourage you to stay out of the conversation.
Noam strips all the confusion away, describes events as those in power have documented them and shows you how the US is not only *not* fighting terrorism properly but actually promoting it. When you take their own version of what happens in the world and compare it to what they say, one thing is very clear: they are hypocrites. His evidence is so strong and credible, you discover a reality they don't want you to know.
I've given this 4 of 5 stars for two reasons. First, I listened to the audio version of the book I didn't connect with very well with the narrator. The other reason, and larger point, is that I'm quite familiar with Noam's current articles, interviews, speeches and such and not all of the essays in the book were new to me, and therefore, not as "mind-blowing" as the book might have been. Others not so familiar with his current writings I'm sure will find this book completely and fully mind-blowingly interesting.
This is an important book, one everyone should read, especially in light of the events of this week (i.e. Osama Bin Laden's death). If you hadn't heard of Noam Chomsky before, read this book. If you have heard of him but have yet to read anything of his, this is a good place to start, it's current and very relevant. At that point you and I can sit around a table together and discuss whether you think he's credible or not - at least then we'll be discussing things, a first step on the way to making life better for all of us, everywhere.
What I wish is that everyone knew who Noam Chomsky was, and further, I wish everyone would read his stuff. He is wonderful.
His latest book, Hopes and Prospects, covers some of the old familiar ground as well as new problems and ways of looking at them, all in the usual Chomsky style. That is to say, it's absent the mass-media, repeat-what-the-government-says-without-analysis-or-criticism (i.e. "take this press release and publish it"), propagandized version of events you get from corporate-sponsored and advertiser-directed editorial crap that is spewed from major media outlets.
People say he's anti-this or contra-that, all in an effort to paint him as being against *you* and your best interests. Nothing could be further from the truth. Strip away those labels and preconceptions that people hang around his neck in an effort to discredit truth and listen to what he is actually contending and saying. What you will find is that what Noam wants is a world that is better tomorrow for each and every person living in it today, without exception.
'Establishment' (and its blind and self-defeating agents) will of course disagree with me. In order to promote a position benefiting not me or you or our individual and collective best interests, establishment pushes forth lies, claims them as truth and then uses their vast power and wealth to make sure you believe them. When they are successful (and they always are) people end up supporting what is good for those with power and wealth only. They (the ones who pull our strings) will oversimplify issues so they can be put on a bumper sticker, while other issues they will over complicate to encourage you to stay out of the conversation.
Noam strips all the confusion away, describes events as those in power have documented them and shows you how the US is not only *not* fighting terrorism properly but actually promoting it. When you take their own version of what happens in the world and compare it to what they say, one thing is very clear: they are hypocrites. His evidence is so strong and credible, you discover a reality they don't want you to know.
I've given this 4 of 5 stars for two reasons. First, I listened to the audio version of the book I didn't connect with very well with the narrator. The other reason, and larger point, is that I'm quite familiar with Noam's current articles, interviews, speeches and such and not all of the essays in the book were new to me, and therefore, not as "mind-blowing" as the book might have been. Others not so familiar with his current writings I'm sure will find this book completely and fully mind-blowingly interesting.
This is an important book, one everyone should read, especially in light of the events of this week (i.e. Osama Bin Laden's death). If you hadn't heard of Noam Chomsky before, read this book. If you have heard of him but have yet to read anything of his, this is a good place to start, it's current and very relevant. At that point you and I can sit around a table together and discuss whether you think he's credible or not - at least then we'll be discussing things, a first step on the way to making life better for all of us, everywhere.
September 10, 2013
A VOICE OF SANITY
Eighty-four years old last December, and showing no sign of easing up on his Stahkanovite work rate, Noam Chomsky has recently published "Hopes and Prospects" - his latest collection of writing on global affairs. As usual Chomsky doesn't focus his scrutiny on official enemies, that would be too easy though no doubt rewarding (at least financially), but takes the more serious responsibility of looking into the rhetoric and reality of his own countries contributions to the world.
Rather than referring to Barack "The Audacity of Hype" Obama, the "hope" of the title refers to developments in Latin America that Chomsky covers in the first section of this book. Indeed at least the first two chapters appear to be transcripts of talks given in Chile. When Obama comes into view the prospect is less one of hope, but of the massive gulf between the rhetoric of his campaign (which in all truth was woolly enough) and the reality of his record in government. His treasury team including former architects and direct beneficiaries of the financial deregulation of the 1980's and 90's (e.g. Lawrence Summers and Robert Rubin) is mirrored in the pitiful nature of the changes to the regulatory system (essentially business as usual) and the unaccountable nature of the banks recent feeding frenzy at public expense.
Beyond the hopes in Latin America and the hype of Barack Obama, Chomsky finds space to consider the United States recent and ongoing interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq; developments in the Middle East, with attention to the attack on Gaza, the attack on Lebanon, and the Obama administrations policy vis-à-vis the Palestinian-Israel conflict; the grotesque hypocrisy of the United States policy regarding the Nuclear issue and Iran; the fate of Obamas one radical policy, his attempt to reform health provision; and the twentieth anniversary celebrations of the events of 1989, where he quotes from a Central American writer that if that celebrant of American foreign policy Vaclev Havel had been active in one of the Latin American countries within the United States domain, rather than genuflecting to the Americans at the orgy of self-congratulation that made up the anniversary celebrations, he would have been found dead at the roadside, mutilated and murdered decades ago.
Among the valuable services that Chomsky provides are his endnotes: they are a pointer to many useful resources, publications and books. One example I am looking forward to getting hold of is Malalai Joyas "A Woman Among Warlords". Chomsky quotes from her, and other Afghans at length, and her activism in a hostile environment appears truly awesome. This is a book that I have no problem in recommending to anyone who is serious about some of the most pressing issues facing the world today, and who wishes to get beyond rhetoric and hypocrisy to see what is actually going on.
Eighty-four years old last December, and showing no sign of easing up on his Stahkanovite work rate, Noam Chomsky has recently published "Hopes and Prospects" - his latest collection of writing on global affairs. As usual Chomsky doesn't focus his scrutiny on official enemies, that would be too easy though no doubt rewarding (at least financially), but takes the more serious responsibility of looking into the rhetoric and reality of his own countries contributions to the world.
Rather than referring to Barack "The Audacity of Hype" Obama, the "hope" of the title refers to developments in Latin America that Chomsky covers in the first section of this book. Indeed at least the first two chapters appear to be transcripts of talks given in Chile. When Obama comes into view the prospect is less one of hope, but of the massive gulf between the rhetoric of his campaign (which in all truth was woolly enough) and the reality of his record in government. His treasury team including former architects and direct beneficiaries of the financial deregulation of the 1980's and 90's (e.g. Lawrence Summers and Robert Rubin) is mirrored in the pitiful nature of the changes to the regulatory system (essentially business as usual) and the unaccountable nature of the banks recent feeding frenzy at public expense.
Beyond the hopes in Latin America and the hype of Barack Obama, Chomsky finds space to consider the United States recent and ongoing interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq; developments in the Middle East, with attention to the attack on Gaza, the attack on Lebanon, and the Obama administrations policy vis-à-vis the Palestinian-Israel conflict; the grotesque hypocrisy of the United States policy regarding the Nuclear issue and Iran; the fate of Obamas one radical policy, his attempt to reform health provision; and the twentieth anniversary celebrations of the events of 1989, where he quotes from a Central American writer that if that celebrant of American foreign policy Vaclev Havel had been active in one of the Latin American countries within the United States domain, rather than genuflecting to the Americans at the orgy of self-congratulation that made up the anniversary celebrations, he would have been found dead at the roadside, mutilated and murdered decades ago.
Among the valuable services that Chomsky provides are his endnotes: they are a pointer to many useful resources, publications and books. One example I am looking forward to getting hold of is Malalai Joyas "A Woman Among Warlords". Chomsky quotes from her, and other Afghans at length, and her activism in a hostile environment appears truly awesome. This is a book that I have no problem in recommending to anyone who is serious about some of the most pressing issues facing the world today, and who wishes to get beyond rhetoric and hypocrisy to see what is actually going on.
January 20, 2011
Filled in a lot of blanks of what I already knew, and blew the lid off of so much I didn't... Not a lot of hope or prospect, but at least through knowledge more people will be forced to pay attention and hold one another accountable to be better to ourselves and our society.
It's astonishingly contemporary, insightful, and brutally necessary.
It's astonishingly contemporary, insightful, and brutally necessary.
December 8, 2011
I consider this book a primer for anyone to get a glimpse into foreign policy. Written by an American intellectual the book tells it like it is. It is based on articles, essays and lectures Noam prepared over several years. The ambitious track record and enduring expectations of the USA for global dominance is echoed here over and over again. A great read!
January 3, 2011
A clear analysis of contemporary world events. The major focuses are on the Israel-Palestine conflict and the remarkable development of Latin America out of US interventionist/imperialist policies.
Chomsky frequently asks the question "Would the policies that the US has towards other countries be fair if they were implemented toward the US?"
In every single case, from Latin America to Europe to The Middle East the answer is a resounding "No."
Chomsky frequently asks the question "Would the policies that the US has towards other countries be fair if they were implemented toward the US?"
In every single case, from Latin America to Europe to The Middle East the answer is a resounding "No."
May 17, 2012
"Hopes and Prospects" is a series of lectures given by the brilliant M.I.T linguist Noam Chomsky in a series of lectures given in Chile 2006 and updated to include events as of 2010. A brief summary would be: if the U.S.A was a infant in therapy, we'd say, 'Doesn't play well with others. Claims all of the worthwhile toys for herself while refusing to share. Pathological liar. Hypocritical. Signs of Oppositional Defiance Disorder, Borderline Personality, and Sociopathic tendencies.'
As usual, Chomsky summarizes all of the news our media ignores or under-reports. His writing style is sometimes that of a brilliant professor, but I highly recommend taking the effort to read any one of his books to learn more about how our country behaves in the rest of the world, especially if you want to understand why we are not well liked abroad. He also explains how the culture divide favoring rich corporations undermines real democracy here at home, such as when the majority of Americans want to reduce nuclear arms throughout the world, increase world peace, support real democracies in other countries - not the dictators who favor our big business, at home to provide health care for everyone who needs it including affordable prescriptions, feed our children, let our young have affordable education, respect civil rights and liberties, have access to unbiased news media, and have rules (especially financial) that are fairly applied to everyone. It can be overwhelming to examine the many problems and deceits that plague modern life in the U.S., but Chomsky does give signs of hope that we, as the common people, can still make a difference by working together and participating in grass root movements such as 'Occupy'. He shows how Latin America is finally starting to listen to it's own people as a true democracy and is starting to stand up to the bully we can be in the north. While it can be nearly impossible to be both democratic and capitalist, change is possible, only through us, as the people.
Illustrative Quotes:
Re: Drug War as an Excuse to Invade Latin America
"On August 28, 2009, the newly formed Union of South American Nations, the UNASUR, met in Bariloche, Argentina to consider the military bases . The final declaration stressed that South America must be kept as a 'land of peace,' and that foreign military forces must not threaten the sovereignty or integrity of any nation in the region...A month after the UNASUR meeting, the Panamanian press reported that Obama-Clinton had arranged for two new air and naval bases in Panama for U.S. operations, again near Venezuela.
Bolivian president Evo Morales was particularly bitter about the plans for the military bases. Drawing on his background in a coca growers union, he said he had witnessed U.S. soldiers accompanying Bolivian troops who fired at his union members. " So now we're narco-terrorists," he continued. " When they couldn't call us communists anymore they called us subversives, and then traffickers, and since the September 11 attacks, terrorists." He warned that 'the history of Latin America repeats itself.'
Morales observed that the ultimate responsibility for Latin America's violence lies with U.S. consumers of illegal drugs: "If UNASUR sent troops to the United States to control consumption, would they accept it? Impossible!"
Morales rhetorical question can be extended. Suppose UNASUR, or China, or many others claimed the right to establish military bases in Mexico to eradicate tobacco in the U.S.: by aerial fumigation in N. Carolina and Kentucky, interdiction by sea and air forces, and dispatch of inspectors to the U.S. to ensure it was eradicating this poison - which is turned into products far more lethal than cocaine or heroin, incomparably more than cannabis. The toll of tobacco use, including 'passive smokers' who are seriously affected though they do not use tobacco themselves, is truly fearsome, overshadowing the lethal effects of other dangerous substances (even the second largest killer, alcohol, which like tobacco causes great harm to non-users).
The idea that outsiders should interfere with the production and distribution of these lethal substances is plainly unthinkable. The fact that the U.S. justification for it's drug programs abroad is accepted as plausible, even regarded as worthy of discussion, is yet another illustration of the deep roots of the imperial mentality in Western culture.
Even if we adopt the imperial premises, it is hard to take seriously the announced goals of the 'drug war', which persists without notable change despite extensive evidence that other measures - prevention and treatment - are far more cost effective, and despite the persistent failure of the resort to criminalization at home and violence and chemical warfare ('fumigation') abroad - at least with regard to announced goals.
In Feb 2009, the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy issued it's analysis of the U.S. 'war on drugs' in past decades. The commission, led by former Latin American presidents Fernando Cardoso (Brazil), Ernesto Zedillo (Mexico), and Cesar Gaviria (Columbia), concluded that the drug war had been a failure and urged a drastic change of policy, away from forceful measures at home and abroad and toward much less costly and more effective measures. Their report had no detectable impact, just as earlier studies and the historical record have had none. That again reinforces the natural conclusion that the 'drug war' - like the 'war on crime' and the 'war on terror' - is pursued for reasons other than the announced goals...
...The programs underlie counterinsurgency abroad, with particularly harsh effects in the main target, Columbia; and at home serve as "population control" in part by frightening the population, a standard mode of imposing discipline, in part by removing a superfluous population, mostly Black and Latino, by sending huge and growing numbers to prison - the civilized counterpart to Latin American 'social cleansing' (limpieza social). This neo-liberal phenomenon has led to by far the highest incarceration rate in the world since the programs took off thirty years ago, adding another dark chapter to the History of African Americans..."
Re: Military Spending
"The United States is of course alone in having a vast network of military bases around the world and a global surveillance and control system, and in regularly invading other countries (with impunity, given it's power). From 1999 - 2008, global military spending increased 45%, with the U>S> accounting for 58% of the total. Since 2002, the value of the top 100 arms sales industries, primarily U.S. based, increased by 37% in real terms, until the recession. The United States is also the world's largest arms supplier, with $23 billion in receipts in 2007 and $32 billion in 2008, including the small arms and light weapons that are used in most of the conflicts around the world - 20 out of 27 of the world's major wars, according to the report by the New America Foundation, which released these figures. A congressional study found that in 2008 the U.S. signed weapons agreements valued at $37.8 billion, amounting to over 68% of the global total...Italy was 2nd with $3.7 billion in worldwide weapons sales in 2008. Russia as slightly below Italy, it's sales having dropped by 2/3, from $10.8 billion in 2007. 'The growth in weapons sales by the United States last year was particularly noticeable against worldwide trends,' the press noted...The United States opposes international regulation of arms sales."
"There is however one dimension in which the United States reigns supreme: means of violence, on which it spends almost as much as the rest of the world combined, and is technologically far more advanced."
Re: Budget
"The deficit is arousing huge concern among the right wing and the media, a concern with perhaps some merit, even though running deficits is an appropriate policy to help stimulate the economy in deep recession... The article praises the president for recognizing that it may be necessary to cut entitlement programs and increase taxes - which means letting Bush-era tax cuts for corporations and the rich expire. There is no reference to another 'stunning' number: the military budget, untouchable and virtually unmentionable."
Re: Supreme Court Decision to allow corporations to contribute unlimitedly to politicians
"January 21, 2010, will go down in history as a dark day for what remains of functioning democracy. It is hard to overestimate the severity of this blow by the right-wing Justices."
Re: Economy and Rich Corporations
" It is no great secret that the economy is overwhelmingly in the hands of private corporations. As far back as 1890, it was estimated that 3/4 of the wealth of the nation was in their hands. Two decades later corporate control over the economy and society was so vast that Woodrow Wilson described, 'a very different America from the old...no longer a scene of individual enterprise...individual opportunity and individual achievement,' but an America in which 'comparatively small groups of men', corporate manager, "wield a power and control over the wealth and the business operations of the country', becoming rivals of the government itself..."
"As discussed earlier, the power of financial institutions reflects the increasing shift of the economy from production to finance since the liberalization of finance in the 1970's, one of the root causes of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression: the financial collapse of 2007-2008, deep ongoing recession in the real economy, and the miserable performance of the economy for the large majority, whose real wages stagnated for thirty years, while benefits and social indicators declined. The steward of this impressive record, Alan Greenspan - 'Saint Alan' as he was sometimes called during his glory years - attributed his success to 'greater worker insecurity' which led to 'atypical restraint on compensation increases,' and corresponding increases into the pockets of those who matter."
"Early on, as noted earlier, the chair of the prestigious corporate law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, predicted 'that Wall Street, after getting billions of taxpayers dollars, will emerge from the financial crisis looking much the same as before the markets collapsed.' In fact, strengthened, as it turned out. The reasons were explained by Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the IMF: 'Throughout the crisis, the government has taken extreme care not to upset the interests of the financial institutions, or to question the basic outlines of the system that got us here,' and the 'elite business interests... played a central role in creating the crisis, making ever larger gambles, with the implicit backing of the government, until the inevitable collapse...are now using their influence to prevent precisely the sorts of reforms that are needed, and fast, to pull the economy out of it's nosedive' while 'the government seems helpless, or unwilling to act against them.' ...The outcome was nicely captured by two adjacent front page stories in the New York Times, headlined, '$3.4 Billion Profit at Goldman Revives Gilded Pay Packages' and 'In Recession, a Bleaker Path for Workers to Slog'. "
Re: Healthcare
"The primary concern for the administration was to arrest the financial crisis and the simultaneous recession in the real economy. But there is also a monster in the closet: the notoriously inefficient privatized and scarcely regulated healthcare system, which threatens to overwhelm the federal budget if current tendencies persist. A majority of the public has long favored a national health care system, which should be far less expensive and more effective, comparative evidence indicates (along with many studies). The U.S. is alone in relying on such a system, which, quite apart from its impact on those who are left out, introduces numerous wasteful inefficiencies (complex billing costs, close surveillance of doctors by insurance company bureaucrats, advertising, profits, the expenses of cherry-picking and denial of treatment on the basis of small print, the reliance on expensive emergency room care for the tens of millions of uninsured and under-insured, etc.) Largely for these reasons - and because of the legislation, unique to the U.S. that bars government negotiation of prescription drug prices - per capita health care costs in the U.S. are about twice those of other industrial countries and outcomes rank low among them."
As usual, Chomsky summarizes all of the news our media ignores or under-reports. His writing style is sometimes that of a brilliant professor, but I highly recommend taking the effort to read any one of his books to learn more about how our country behaves in the rest of the world, especially if you want to understand why we are not well liked abroad. He also explains how the culture divide favoring rich corporations undermines real democracy here at home, such as when the majority of Americans want to reduce nuclear arms throughout the world, increase world peace, support real democracies in other countries - not the dictators who favor our big business, at home to provide health care for everyone who needs it including affordable prescriptions, feed our children, let our young have affordable education, respect civil rights and liberties, have access to unbiased news media, and have rules (especially financial) that are fairly applied to everyone. It can be overwhelming to examine the many problems and deceits that plague modern life in the U.S., but Chomsky does give signs of hope that we, as the common people, can still make a difference by working together and participating in grass root movements such as 'Occupy'. He shows how Latin America is finally starting to listen to it's own people as a true democracy and is starting to stand up to the bully we can be in the north. While it can be nearly impossible to be both democratic and capitalist, change is possible, only through us, as the people.
Illustrative Quotes:
Re: Drug War as an Excuse to Invade Latin America
"On August 28, 2009, the newly formed Union of South American Nations, the UNASUR, met in Bariloche, Argentina to consider the military bases . The final declaration stressed that South America must be kept as a 'land of peace,' and that foreign military forces must not threaten the sovereignty or integrity of any nation in the region...A month after the UNASUR meeting, the Panamanian press reported that Obama-Clinton had arranged for two new air and naval bases in Panama for U.S. operations, again near Venezuela.
Bolivian president Evo Morales was particularly bitter about the plans for the military bases. Drawing on his background in a coca growers union, he said he had witnessed U.S. soldiers accompanying Bolivian troops who fired at his union members. " So now we're narco-terrorists," he continued. " When they couldn't call us communists anymore they called us subversives, and then traffickers, and since the September 11 attacks, terrorists." He warned that 'the history of Latin America repeats itself.'
Morales observed that the ultimate responsibility for Latin America's violence lies with U.S. consumers of illegal drugs: "If UNASUR sent troops to the United States to control consumption, would they accept it? Impossible!"
Morales rhetorical question can be extended. Suppose UNASUR, or China, or many others claimed the right to establish military bases in Mexico to eradicate tobacco in the U.S.: by aerial fumigation in N. Carolina and Kentucky, interdiction by sea and air forces, and dispatch of inspectors to the U.S. to ensure it was eradicating this poison - which is turned into products far more lethal than cocaine or heroin, incomparably more than cannabis. The toll of tobacco use, including 'passive smokers' who are seriously affected though they do not use tobacco themselves, is truly fearsome, overshadowing the lethal effects of other dangerous substances (even the second largest killer, alcohol, which like tobacco causes great harm to non-users).
The idea that outsiders should interfere with the production and distribution of these lethal substances is plainly unthinkable. The fact that the U.S. justification for it's drug programs abroad is accepted as plausible, even regarded as worthy of discussion, is yet another illustration of the deep roots of the imperial mentality in Western culture.
Even if we adopt the imperial premises, it is hard to take seriously the announced goals of the 'drug war', which persists without notable change despite extensive evidence that other measures - prevention and treatment - are far more cost effective, and despite the persistent failure of the resort to criminalization at home and violence and chemical warfare ('fumigation') abroad - at least with regard to announced goals.
In Feb 2009, the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy issued it's analysis of the U.S. 'war on drugs' in past decades. The commission, led by former Latin American presidents Fernando Cardoso (Brazil), Ernesto Zedillo (Mexico), and Cesar Gaviria (Columbia), concluded that the drug war had been a failure and urged a drastic change of policy, away from forceful measures at home and abroad and toward much less costly and more effective measures. Their report had no detectable impact, just as earlier studies and the historical record have had none. That again reinforces the natural conclusion that the 'drug war' - like the 'war on crime' and the 'war on terror' - is pursued for reasons other than the announced goals...
...The programs underlie counterinsurgency abroad, with particularly harsh effects in the main target, Columbia; and at home serve as "population control" in part by frightening the population, a standard mode of imposing discipline, in part by removing a superfluous population, mostly Black and Latino, by sending huge and growing numbers to prison - the civilized counterpart to Latin American 'social cleansing' (limpieza social). This neo-liberal phenomenon has led to by far the highest incarceration rate in the world since the programs took off thirty years ago, adding another dark chapter to the History of African Americans..."
Re: Military Spending
"The United States is of course alone in having a vast network of military bases around the world and a global surveillance and control system, and in regularly invading other countries (with impunity, given it's power). From 1999 - 2008, global military spending increased 45%, with the U>S> accounting for 58% of the total. Since 2002, the value of the top 100 arms sales industries, primarily U.S. based, increased by 37% in real terms, until the recession. The United States is also the world's largest arms supplier, with $23 billion in receipts in 2007 and $32 billion in 2008, including the small arms and light weapons that are used in most of the conflicts around the world - 20 out of 27 of the world's major wars, according to the report by the New America Foundation, which released these figures. A congressional study found that in 2008 the U.S. signed weapons agreements valued at $37.8 billion, amounting to over 68% of the global total...Italy was 2nd with $3.7 billion in worldwide weapons sales in 2008. Russia as slightly below Italy, it's sales having dropped by 2/3, from $10.8 billion in 2007. 'The growth in weapons sales by the United States last year was particularly noticeable against worldwide trends,' the press noted...The United States opposes international regulation of arms sales."
"There is however one dimension in which the United States reigns supreme: means of violence, on which it spends almost as much as the rest of the world combined, and is technologically far more advanced."
Re: Budget
"The deficit is arousing huge concern among the right wing and the media, a concern with perhaps some merit, even though running deficits is an appropriate policy to help stimulate the economy in deep recession... The article praises the president for recognizing that it may be necessary to cut entitlement programs and increase taxes - which means letting Bush-era tax cuts for corporations and the rich expire. There is no reference to another 'stunning' number: the military budget, untouchable and virtually unmentionable."
Re: Supreme Court Decision to allow corporations to contribute unlimitedly to politicians
"January 21, 2010, will go down in history as a dark day for what remains of functioning democracy. It is hard to overestimate the severity of this blow by the right-wing Justices."
Re: Economy and Rich Corporations
" It is no great secret that the economy is overwhelmingly in the hands of private corporations. As far back as 1890, it was estimated that 3/4 of the wealth of the nation was in their hands. Two decades later corporate control over the economy and society was so vast that Woodrow Wilson described, 'a very different America from the old...no longer a scene of individual enterprise...individual opportunity and individual achievement,' but an America in which 'comparatively small groups of men', corporate manager, "wield a power and control over the wealth and the business operations of the country', becoming rivals of the government itself..."
"As discussed earlier, the power of financial institutions reflects the increasing shift of the economy from production to finance since the liberalization of finance in the 1970's, one of the root causes of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression: the financial collapse of 2007-2008, deep ongoing recession in the real economy, and the miserable performance of the economy for the large majority, whose real wages stagnated for thirty years, while benefits and social indicators declined. The steward of this impressive record, Alan Greenspan - 'Saint Alan' as he was sometimes called during his glory years - attributed his success to 'greater worker insecurity' which led to 'atypical restraint on compensation increases,' and corresponding increases into the pockets of those who matter."
"Early on, as noted earlier, the chair of the prestigious corporate law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, predicted 'that Wall Street, after getting billions of taxpayers dollars, will emerge from the financial crisis looking much the same as before the markets collapsed.' In fact, strengthened, as it turned out. The reasons were explained by Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the IMF: 'Throughout the crisis, the government has taken extreme care not to upset the interests of the financial institutions, or to question the basic outlines of the system that got us here,' and the 'elite business interests... played a central role in creating the crisis, making ever larger gambles, with the implicit backing of the government, until the inevitable collapse...are now using their influence to prevent precisely the sorts of reforms that are needed, and fast, to pull the economy out of it's nosedive' while 'the government seems helpless, or unwilling to act against them.' ...The outcome was nicely captured by two adjacent front page stories in the New York Times, headlined, '$3.4 Billion Profit at Goldman Revives Gilded Pay Packages' and 'In Recession, a Bleaker Path for Workers to Slog'. "
Re: Healthcare
"The primary concern for the administration was to arrest the financial crisis and the simultaneous recession in the real economy. But there is also a monster in the closet: the notoriously inefficient privatized and scarcely regulated healthcare system, which threatens to overwhelm the federal budget if current tendencies persist. A majority of the public has long favored a national health care system, which should be far less expensive and more effective, comparative evidence indicates (along with many studies). The U.S. is alone in relying on such a system, which, quite apart from its impact on those who are left out, introduces numerous wasteful inefficiencies (complex billing costs, close surveillance of doctors by insurance company bureaucrats, advertising, profits, the expenses of cherry-picking and denial of treatment on the basis of small print, the reliance on expensive emergency room care for the tens of millions of uninsured and under-insured, etc.) Largely for these reasons - and because of the legislation, unique to the U.S. that bars government negotiation of prescription drug prices - per capita health care costs in the U.S. are about twice those of other industrial countries and outcomes rank low among them."
February 17, 2025
Noam Chomsky's detailed analysis of geopolitics especially USA's relations with other poorer countries is quite good and interesting. However it's dense and extreme attention to detail make it a very heavy reading source.
February 6, 2018
I like Noam Chomsky's views in general, but this book is an overwhelmingly-one-sided assault on US policies that I found tedious and tiresome. It ultimately does little to advance any hopes or prospects for the radical left.
Examples abound and are too numerous to get into here. Suffice it to say, I think the book would've been a lot stronger had it not been just a relentless diatribe against the US and Israel, had it stayed focused on the stated topics of each chapter (instead of veering into US imperialist attitudes and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ad naseum, including in chapters ostensibly *about Latin/South America!*), and if Chomsky had spent more than 1-2% of his time outlining any other hopes and prospects beyond mass civil advocacy.
I'm not fan of US foreign policy, but this book does a disservice by not spending more time on a more-balanced attack (e.g., how is it that, if the US corporate-imperialist masters are SO pervasively in control, that Chomsky can cite articles in the mainstream press (NYTimes, Bloomberg, BusinessWeek, etc.) in support of his radical views? And how is it that, if Britain had been such a terrible colonial power, that we can somehow rely on British politicians' statements as beacons of light to counteract the US's current imperialism?).
It would not behoove Chomsky to put his intellect to answer such conundrums directly, but he repeatedly demurs in favor of returning to his favorite topic of demonizing the US. Deserved, to be sure, in many instances, but not by resorting to the same scorched-earth tactics of the propaganda he derides will Chomsky win over converts to his righteous cause.
Examples abound and are too numerous to get into here. Suffice it to say, I think the book would've been a lot stronger had it not been just a relentless diatribe against the US and Israel, had it stayed focused on the stated topics of each chapter (instead of veering into US imperialist attitudes and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ad naseum, including in chapters ostensibly *about Latin/South America!*), and if Chomsky had spent more than 1-2% of his time outlining any other hopes and prospects beyond mass civil advocacy.
I'm not fan of US foreign policy, but this book does a disservice by not spending more time on a more-balanced attack (e.g., how is it that, if the US corporate-imperialist masters are SO pervasively in control, that Chomsky can cite articles in the mainstream press (NYTimes, Bloomberg, BusinessWeek, etc.) in support of his radical views? And how is it that, if Britain had been such a terrible colonial power, that we can somehow rely on British politicians' statements as beacons of light to counteract the US's current imperialism?).
It would not behoove Chomsky to put his intellect to answer such conundrums directly, but he repeatedly demurs in favor of returning to his favorite topic of demonizing the US. Deserved, to be sure, in many instances, but not by resorting to the same scorched-earth tactics of the propaganda he derides will Chomsky win over converts to his righteous cause.
May 4, 2021
This was Chomsky at his best. Hopes and Prospects is an excoriating deconstruction of the early years of Obama's foreign policy and the ways in which it furthered the destructive traditions of US imperialism. The picture he paints is grim, and one totally omitted from the mainstream framing of today's most pressing issues. Have you ever wondered why certain parts of the world seem trapped in endless states of internal conflict and crushing poverty despite all the efforts of our "aid" programs and summer mission trips? Are you disturbed by the fact that over 9,000,000 people starve to death each year in a world that could easily afford to feed them? These realities are not mere speed bumps in the march of human progress. They exist by design.
Even still, Chomsky expresses hope about the Global South's new-found sense of strength and independence. Written in the wake of Latin America's Pink Tide, this book highlighted several of the revolutionary and people-oriented policies of the region's left-wing leaders. In the time since however, the US government has acted to viciously undermine these nations for failing to bow to the whims of global Capital. In Brazil, in Bolivia, in Venezuela, the effects of the subsequent coups and sanctions have been devastating.
I don't know how to wrap this up elegantly, but can I just vent about how fucking insane it is that the US overthrew the Honduran government as recently as 2000-fucking-9? And tried to pull the same shit in Bolivia less than 2 years ago? And the fact that nobody ever talks about these things?
Even still, Chomsky expresses hope about the Global South's new-found sense of strength and independence. Written in the wake of Latin America's Pink Tide, this book highlighted several of the revolutionary and people-oriented policies of the region's left-wing leaders. In the time since however, the US government has acted to viciously undermine these nations for failing to bow to the whims of global Capital. In Brazil, in Bolivia, in Venezuela, the effects of the subsequent coups and sanctions have been devastating.
I don't know how to wrap this up elegantly, but can I just vent about how fucking insane it is that the US overthrew the Honduran government as recently as 2000-fucking-9? And tried to pull the same shit in Bolivia less than 2 years ago? And the fact that nobody ever talks about these things?
June 8, 2022
Well written, insightful and important. I do wish Chomsky would go into more detail sometimes but when he adapts from lectures that doesn't happen as often as I might like. It's a good book if you're willing to Google events or look up articles Chomsky mentions, etc, as you go along. (Or if you know of the events already.) Part of that is because he talks about so much and knows about so much himself that the book would simply be colossal if he went into enough detail to explain everything fully to a complete layman. I would say the book is more insightful in its comparisons than it is detailed in its evidence.
Slightly baffled at times by the structure of the book—it goes back and forth a bit, owing to the book's origins in sundry talks, articles and lectures. However, what this really amounts to (in terms of what the book lacks) is only a slight lack of flow and flair here and there. It's nowhere near as bad as some of Chomsky's other fixup books, and you could *almost* believe it to have been envisioned from the start as one book. The content itself is cogent, covering various subjects, names, time periods, and geographical places, all within the scope of the theme of "Hopes and Prospects" in the modern world (in the face of, and opposed to, hegemony and hypocrisy, particularly of the US). This way of strcuting works far better than the reverse structure which exists in books like On Anarchism or On Palestine, which cover one subject (such as ideology or place, respectively) but examine it through uncorrelated or overlapping analyses.
Slightly baffled at times by the structure of the book—it goes back and forth a bit, owing to the book's origins in sundry talks, articles and lectures. However, what this really amounts to (in terms of what the book lacks) is only a slight lack of flow and flair here and there. It's nowhere near as bad as some of Chomsky's other fixup books, and you could *almost* believe it to have been envisioned from the start as one book. The content itself is cogent, covering various subjects, names, time periods, and geographical places, all within the scope of the theme of "Hopes and Prospects" in the modern world (in the face of, and opposed to, hegemony and hypocrisy, particularly of the US). This way of strcuting works far better than the reverse structure which exists in books like On Anarchism or On Palestine, which cover one subject (such as ideology or place, respectively) but examine it through uncorrelated or overlapping analyses.
January 30, 2019
Amazing!! My head is spinning with new ideas. He has an incredible ability to look at different sides on the scenarios.
Note to self ‘Read more Chomsky’
Note to self ‘Read more Chomsky’
May 31, 2025
contextualizes the impact of american imperialism on other countries. very good to read if you are a u.s. citizen looking to understand the perspective of others!
May 16, 2013
Yet another solid offering from Chomsky, which brings you up to the Post 9/11 years. This includes the Obama years, which are often simply a continuation of Bush's policies both in foreign and domestic affairs.
As I have reacquainted myself with Chomsky's work after years, I've been amazed at how truly thoughtful he is. He seems to be the only major commentator on foreign affairs that has the intellectual wherewithal to really research through top-shelf political science, history and foreign affairs journals. And what he comes up with seems so clear when you see it.
As the saying goes, "The winners write history." And I love the way Chomsky takes apart our popular media and national delusions that have even the best educated colmnists from the New York Times parroting the company line, which Chomsky points out is called "America Exceptionalism." And then goes on to prove rather convincingly that America is no more exceptional than any other country. In fact, we may be worse. Since we bully smaller countries mercilessly, outspending nearly the entire rest of the world in military expenditures -- the mark of a ruthless and military obsessed culture. All while ignoring popular opinion and gutting simple programs meant to ease the lives of the poor and working classes.
Noam Chomsky is a pleasure to read. I've been reading his books since college in the late 80's/ early 90's with joy. And his insights remain entirely relevant. And simple -- if a bit dense with facts and a detached, academic writing style.
As I have reacquainted myself with Chomsky's work after years, I've been amazed at how truly thoughtful he is. He seems to be the only major commentator on foreign affairs that has the intellectual wherewithal to really research through top-shelf political science, history and foreign affairs journals. And what he comes up with seems so clear when you see it.
As the saying goes, "The winners write history." And I love the way Chomsky takes apart our popular media and national delusions that have even the best educated colmnists from the New York Times parroting the company line, which Chomsky points out is called "America Exceptionalism." And then goes on to prove rather convincingly that America is no more exceptional than any other country. In fact, we may be worse. Since we bully smaller countries mercilessly, outspending nearly the entire rest of the world in military expenditures -- the mark of a ruthless and military obsessed culture. All while ignoring popular opinion and gutting simple programs meant to ease the lives of the poor and working classes.
Noam Chomsky is a pleasure to read. I've been reading his books since college in the late 80's/ early 90's with joy. And his insights remain entirely relevant. And simple -- if a bit dense with facts and a detached, academic writing style.
July 26, 2021
"Control of Latin America was the earliest goal of US foreign policy and remains a central one partly for resources and markets but also for broader ideological reasons. If the United States could not control Latin America it could not expect to achieve a successful order elsewhere in the world"
"Colombia has had by far the worst human rights record in the hemisphere since the Central American wars of the 1980's wound down. The correlation between US aid and human rights violations has long been noted by scholarship."
"Among the many reasons for regarding the fabled American exceptionalism with some skepticism is that the doctrine appears to be close to a historical universal, including the worst monsters: Hitler, Stalin, the conquistadors; it is hard to find an exception. Aggression and terror are almost invariably portrayed as self-defense and dedication to inspiring visions."
"Historical amnesia is a dangerous phenomenon not only because it undermines moral and intellectual integrity, but also because it lays the groundwork for crimes that lie ahead."
Noam Chomsky
"Colombia has had by far the worst human rights record in the hemisphere since the Central American wars of the 1980's wound down. The correlation between US aid and human rights violations has long been noted by scholarship."
"Among the many reasons for regarding the fabled American exceptionalism with some skepticism is that the doctrine appears to be close to a historical universal, including the worst monsters: Hitler, Stalin, the conquistadors; it is hard to find an exception. Aggression and terror are almost invariably portrayed as self-defense and dedication to inspiring visions."
"Historical amnesia is a dangerous phenomenon not only because it undermines moral and intellectual integrity, but also because it lays the groundwork for crimes that lie ahead."
Noam Chomsky
August 30, 2011
Typical of Chomsky. As always there are some good ideas and some terrible ideas and I still think he's an idealistic jackass who thinks if the United States would just be nicer then all nastiness and mean people in the world would vanish in a puff of smoke. Sorry Noamsky but a country that doesn't look out for it's own interests above those of all other countries is a country that finds itself beaten, trampled, and failing... hmm, oddly that's the exact road we've been going down as we get more liberal. Chomsky is a joke and he should stick to linguistics.
May 10, 2011
One of the best books I have ever read. It contains a dense collection of knowledge regarding U.S. Foreign Policy. Be ready for a life changing experience.
June 9, 2011
Clear and lucid explanation of what drives contemporary politics and how we arrived here. Compassionate, moral and intelligent.
May 25, 2019
Noam here serving up the usual winning combo of dense educational info and carefully restrained rage on a platter of close reading of every damn thing and a bed of knowing a whole fucking lot about stuff.
Year 514: Globalisation for whom?
Perhaps the most extreme of the many disasters visited upon Haiti since its liberation was the invasion by Woodrow Wilson in 1915, restoring virtual slavery, killing thousands […] and opening up the country to takeover by US corporations. The shattered society was left in the hands of a murderous, US-trained National Guard serving the interests of the Haitian elite […] This is one of the many triumphs of what has passed down through history as ‘Wilsonian idealism’.
History lesson 1.
Latin America and US Foreign Policy
Also close to a historical universal […] is the unwillingness of the educated classes to perceive what they are doing […] Noah Feldman, described Osama’s descent to greater and greater evil over the years, finally reaching the absolute lower depths, when ‘he put forth the perverse claim that since the United States is a democracy, all citizens bear responsibility for the government’s actions, and civilians are therefore fair targets’. Ultimate evil – and quite acceptable practice, as the Times reported two days later, when the United States and Israel announced that all Palestinians bear responsibility for the government they had just elected, so that they are all fair targets for terror and economic strangulation. Like Cuba.
Close reading 1.
Morales observed that the ultimate responsibility for Latin America’s violence lies with US consumers of illegal drugs. ‘If UNASUR sent troops to the United States to control consumption, would they accept it? Impossible!’
Noam likes to do thought-experiments like this, I think he might be the only American to ever do so.
Latin America and Caribbean Unity
A basic principle of modern state capitalism is that cost and risk are socialised the extent possible, while profit is privatised. That prinicple extends far beyond financial institutions, the current focus after the financial meltdown of 2007-8. But much the same is true for the entire advanced economy, which, as discussed earlier, relies extensively on the state for innovation, R&D, procurement when purchasers are unavailable, direct bailouts, and numerous other benefits.
Economics 101.
Century’s Challenges
Ernest Mayr, that higher intelligence is an evolutionary error, incapable of survival for more than a passing moment of evolutionary time.
Elections 2008
Thomas Ferguson’s ‘investment theory’ of politics, which holds that policies tend to reflect the wishes of the powerful blocs that invest every four years to control the state. […] for sixty years the United States has failed to ratify the core principle of international labour law, which guarantees freedom of association. […] contrasted with the intense dedication to enforcement of monopoly pricing rights for corporations (‘intellectual property rights’).
Economics 201.
The antigovernment campaigns have to be nuanced and sophisticated, because the ‘architects of policy’ understand very well the need for a powerful state that intervenes massively in the economy and abroad to ensure that their own interests are ‘most peculiarly attended to’.
WIDE EYE EMOJI.
Alan Greenspan – Saint Alan […] attributed his success to ‘greater worker insecurity’ which led to ‘atypical restraint on compensation increases’ and corresponding increases ito the pockets of those who matter.
Obama on Israel-Palestine
The rich and powerful have their ‘responsibilities’. Among them, the New York Times reported, is to ‘provide security’ in Southern Afghanistan, where ‘the insurgency is home-grown and self-sustaining’. All familiar. From Pravda in the 1980s, for example.
The Torture Memos
The right wing in the United States takes much the same stance, demanding that accused terrorists be tried in military courts because the law grands defendants too many rights, a regular theme of talk radio hosts. It is perhaps of interest that this stance of utter contempt for the values that this country has professed to uphold since its earliest days is called ‘patriotic’.
Year 514: Globalisation for whom?
Perhaps the most extreme of the many disasters visited upon Haiti since its liberation was the invasion by Woodrow Wilson in 1915, restoring virtual slavery, killing thousands […] and opening up the country to takeover by US corporations. The shattered society was left in the hands of a murderous, US-trained National Guard serving the interests of the Haitian elite […] This is one of the many triumphs of what has passed down through history as ‘Wilsonian idealism’.
History lesson 1.
Latin America and US Foreign Policy
Also close to a historical universal […] is the unwillingness of the educated classes to perceive what they are doing […] Noah Feldman, described Osama’s descent to greater and greater evil over the years, finally reaching the absolute lower depths, when ‘he put forth the perverse claim that since the United States is a democracy, all citizens bear responsibility for the government’s actions, and civilians are therefore fair targets’. Ultimate evil – and quite acceptable practice, as the Times reported two days later, when the United States and Israel announced that all Palestinians bear responsibility for the government they had just elected, so that they are all fair targets for terror and economic strangulation. Like Cuba.
Close reading 1.
Morales observed that the ultimate responsibility for Latin America’s violence lies with US consumers of illegal drugs. ‘If UNASUR sent troops to the United States to control consumption, would they accept it? Impossible!’
Noam likes to do thought-experiments like this, I think he might be the only American to ever do so.
Latin America and Caribbean Unity
A basic principle of modern state capitalism is that cost and risk are socialised the extent possible, while profit is privatised. That prinicple extends far beyond financial institutions, the current focus after the financial meltdown of 2007-8. But much the same is true for the entire advanced economy, which, as discussed earlier, relies extensively on the state for innovation, R&D, procurement when purchasers are unavailable, direct bailouts, and numerous other benefits.
Economics 101.
Century’s Challenges
Ernest Mayr, that higher intelligence is an evolutionary error, incapable of survival for more than a passing moment of evolutionary time.
Elections 2008
Thomas Ferguson’s ‘investment theory’ of politics, which holds that policies tend to reflect the wishes of the powerful blocs that invest every four years to control the state. […] for sixty years the United States has failed to ratify the core principle of international labour law, which guarantees freedom of association. […] contrasted with the intense dedication to enforcement of monopoly pricing rights for corporations (‘intellectual property rights’).
Economics 201.
The antigovernment campaigns have to be nuanced and sophisticated, because the ‘architects of policy’ understand very well the need for a powerful state that intervenes massively in the economy and abroad to ensure that their own interests are ‘most peculiarly attended to’.
WIDE EYE EMOJI.
Alan Greenspan – Saint Alan […] attributed his success to ‘greater worker insecurity’ which led to ‘atypical restraint on compensation increases’ and corresponding increases ito the pockets of those who matter.
Obama on Israel-Palestine
The rich and powerful have their ‘responsibilities’. Among them, the New York Times reported, is to ‘provide security’ in Southern Afghanistan, where ‘the insurgency is home-grown and self-sustaining’. All familiar. From Pravda in the 1980s, for example.
The Torture Memos
The right wing in the United States takes much the same stance, demanding that accused terrorists be tried in military courts because the law grands defendants too many rights, a regular theme of talk radio hosts. It is perhaps of interest that this stance of utter contempt for the values that this country has professed to uphold since its earliest days is called ‘patriotic’.
Read
July 16, 2020In "Hopes and Prospects", Noam Chomsky discusses the crises of the early 21st centuries, the role the US played in creating them, and the gas-lighting practices used by our imperial elites to gloss over their crimes against humanity and dodge culpability for the calamity they have bred. Chomsky dissects the concept of American Exceptionalism and how it serves as a blanket justification for the United State's state terrorism doctrine that incites genocide, installs dictators, and keeps world resources in our hands. Chomsky offers two narratives for each major event he discusses: the truth, and what we were told. The latter narrative is carefully constructed by the imperial elites involved and universally propagated by a complicit media. The former will get you called a conspiracy theorist, a freedom hater, or worse. Chomsky tells both, but favors the truth, which is refreshing. He has a very sassy, sarcastic writing style that delivers a dose of bitterness- which could be absent from a fully informed person only if they were an actual sociopath. He talks about how the United States routinely trains rebel armies in Latin America to overthrow democratically elected leaders and install fascist puppets to guarantee US control of resources and labor- including the first 9/11, which happened in Chile, when thousands of people were killed in coup by CIA-trained Juntas. He also discusses the United States' continuous role in the genocide against Palestinians, which is our favorite thing to do with our bestie, Israel. He mentions how we can do these things because we're special, which is the basis of American Exceptionalism. We can silence the poor majority of developing nations to serve corporate interests, because we are better than them. We can torture and imprison people, because we are better than them. We can even bomb entire nations because we're better than them. We can ignore every single International Law protecting Human Rights because no matter who it is, we are better than them.
This relates to my service because at Shoreview Library, there are a lot of older white people who fully buy in to American Exceptionalism, supporting all kinds of red white and blue evil, according to the junk emails I help them sort.
I recommend this book to anyone who cares about human rights, and wants to know more about our Evil Empire.
This relates to my service because at Shoreview Library, there are a lot of older white people who fully buy in to American Exceptionalism, supporting all kinds of red white and blue evil, according to the junk emails I help them sort.
I recommend this book to anyone who cares about human rights, and wants to know more about our Evil Empire.
December 11, 2025
De l'espoir en l'avenir (Hoffnung für die Zukunft)
In diesem Buch untersucht Noam Chomsky die Wahlen und politischen Verschiebungen in Nord- und Südamerika mit seiner typischen Unabhängigkeit und analytischen Schärfe. Er betont, dass „populärer Aktivismus wiederholt erhebliche Gewinne an Freiheit und Gerechtigkeit gebracht hat“. Die „authentische Hoffnung“ der Obama-Kampagne sah Chomsky darin, dass die organisierte „Basis-Armee“, die zuvor strikt den Anweisungen der Führung gefolgt war, „ausbrechen“ und zu den ursprünglichen Wegen der direkten politischen Beteiligung zurückkehren könnte.
Besondere Aufmerksamkeit widmet Chomsky Lateinamerika: In Bolivien und Haiti zeige die direkte Beteiligung der Bevölkerung, wie ein anderes, partizipatives Demokratiemodell etabliert werden könne, von dem auch andere Regionen lernen könnten. Er beschreibt Lateinamerika im letzten Jahrzehnt als „spannendste Region der Welt“, da Südamerika erstmals seit einem halben Jahrtausend begonnen habe, „sein Schicksal selbst in die Hand zu nehmen“.
Gleichzeitig bleibt Chomsky kritisch gegenüber den Mächten Washingtons, deren Politik „Demokratie nur dann unterstützt, wenn sie strategischen und wirtschaftlichen Interessen dient“ – eine Praxis, die nahezu alle Regierungen bis heute prägt. In diesem Kontext lassen sich auch die aktuellen Entwicklungen in Venezuela einordnen: Die anhaltende politische Krise, wirtschaftliche Notlage und internationale Einmischung machen deutlich, wie verletzlich partizipative Demokratie sein kann, wenn äußere und innere Kräfte Interessen über das Wohl der Bevölkerung stellen. Chomskys Analysen rufen dazu auf, die Grundprinzipien von Demokratie, Souveränität und direkter Beteiligung ernst zu nehmen und kritisch zu hinterfragen, wie äußere Interventionen die lokalen Bewegungen und Hoffnungen untergraben.
In diesem Buch untersucht Noam Chomsky die Wahlen und politischen Verschiebungen in Nord- und Südamerika mit seiner typischen Unabhängigkeit und analytischen Schärfe. Er betont, dass „populärer Aktivismus wiederholt erhebliche Gewinne an Freiheit und Gerechtigkeit gebracht hat“. Die „authentische Hoffnung“ der Obama-Kampagne sah Chomsky darin, dass die organisierte „Basis-Armee“, die zuvor strikt den Anweisungen der Führung gefolgt war, „ausbrechen“ und zu den ursprünglichen Wegen der direkten politischen Beteiligung zurückkehren könnte.
Besondere Aufmerksamkeit widmet Chomsky Lateinamerika: In Bolivien und Haiti zeige die direkte Beteiligung der Bevölkerung, wie ein anderes, partizipatives Demokratiemodell etabliert werden könne, von dem auch andere Regionen lernen könnten. Er beschreibt Lateinamerika im letzten Jahrzehnt als „spannendste Region der Welt“, da Südamerika erstmals seit einem halben Jahrtausend begonnen habe, „sein Schicksal selbst in die Hand zu nehmen“.
Gleichzeitig bleibt Chomsky kritisch gegenüber den Mächten Washingtons, deren Politik „Demokratie nur dann unterstützt, wenn sie strategischen und wirtschaftlichen Interessen dient“ – eine Praxis, die nahezu alle Regierungen bis heute prägt. In diesem Kontext lassen sich auch die aktuellen Entwicklungen in Venezuela einordnen: Die anhaltende politische Krise, wirtschaftliche Notlage und internationale Einmischung machen deutlich, wie verletzlich partizipative Demokratie sein kann, wenn äußere und innere Kräfte Interessen über das Wohl der Bevölkerung stellen. Chomskys Analysen rufen dazu auf, die Grundprinzipien von Demokratie, Souveränität und direkter Beteiligung ernst zu nehmen und kritisch zu hinterfragen, wie äußere Interventionen die lokalen Bewegungen und Hoffnungen untergraben.
February 29, 2020
This book is an ideal “snapshot of the American external politics in the Obama age”. It would also serve as a perfect foundation for comprehension of international relations in the North/South America or the Israel/Palestine region. Although the events covered in this book are a bit dated in 2020, nevertheless they still are important to keep in mind when trying to understand these regions.
I have always found Chomsky a hard read. Even though I usually don’t mind technical texts, reading Chomsky is like walking in knee-high snow to me. He is a linguist and thus, the master of the language. But I have not seen him being the master of narration (although I love to listen to him as much as I love reading him).
That being said, his every paragraph carries the weight of a book. He backs his almost every sentence with a reference, and provides multiple logical, factual or historical arguments in defense of any point that he makes. Thus, he is a definition of a scholar.
But it doesn’t end there. He is also objective, honest and fearless in his analysis, conclusions and position.
In that regard, there is an ocean of knowledge to be obtained from every Chomsky book, article or talk. This book is no exception.
I have always found Chomsky a hard read. Even though I usually don’t mind technical texts, reading Chomsky is like walking in knee-high snow to me. He is a linguist and thus, the master of the language. But I have not seen him being the master of narration (although I love to listen to him as much as I love reading him).
That being said, his every paragraph carries the weight of a book. He backs his almost every sentence with a reference, and provides multiple logical, factual or historical arguments in defense of any point that he makes. Thus, he is a definition of a scholar.
But it doesn’t end there. He is also objective, honest and fearless in his analysis, conclusions and position.
In that regard, there is an ocean of knowledge to be obtained from every Chomsky book, article or talk. This book is no exception.
November 15, 2020
So, Chomsky did expose some truths that I was either unaware of or blind to, as a result of western bias (more to follow), however, for most of the book he rambles at length (as he has in previous publications) when a more succinct approach would have got his point across better.
Myths busted/truths exposed:
Globalisation damages Haiti🇭🇹
USA 🇺🇸 hypocrisy regarding ethnic cleansing
USA’s imperial mentality regarding its foreign war on drugs 🇨🇴
US control of IMF funding provided during the 2009 Honduran 🇭🇳 coup
How USA 🇺🇸 commuted war crimes on a par with Van Ribbentrop and the Nazis when they invaded Iraq 🇮🇶 according that is to the Rulings of the Nuremberg Tribunals
The breaking of the Geneva convention on numerous occasions by Israel 🇮🇱
The case of a US anti-Iran 🇮🇷 nuclear stance being about the impact on US/Israeli ambitions in the ME rather than worries about a potential attack.
The “abuse of reality”, is what the naive call history.
The US as a schizophrenic who only supports democracy abroad if it conforms to strategic and economic objectives (soviet satellites), but not in US client states.
Myths busted/truths exposed:
Globalisation damages Haiti🇭🇹
USA 🇺🇸 hypocrisy regarding ethnic cleansing
USA’s imperial mentality regarding its foreign war on drugs 🇨🇴
US control of IMF funding provided during the 2009 Honduran 🇭🇳 coup
How USA 🇺🇸 commuted war crimes on a par with Van Ribbentrop and the Nazis when they invaded Iraq 🇮🇶 according that is to the Rulings of the Nuremberg Tribunals
The breaking of the Geneva convention on numerous occasions by Israel 🇮🇱
The case of a US anti-Iran 🇮🇷 nuclear stance being about the impact on US/Israeli ambitions in the ME rather than worries about a potential attack.
The “abuse of reality”, is what the naive call history.
The US as a schizophrenic who only supports democracy abroad if it conforms to strategic and economic objectives (soviet satellites), but not in US client states.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 29, 2016
When the cold war came to an end, the US planners were faced with a dilemma that they had not anticipated: "How to justify the existence of NATO, now with Kremlin no longer being a palpable threat?" Well, the intellectuals rose to the occasion and coined the notorious catchphrase "war against narco-terrorism" to consolidate the stronghold of America in the southern hemisphere. For the rest of the world, they gave America the carte blache right to "Humanitarian Invention", whenever and wherever the imperialists see fit (which later became the Responsibility to protect or R2P). And thereafter, the Clinton Administration initiated the agressive expansion of Nato eastward to include the unified Germany: a move that undermined post-cold war US-Russia relationship in an insidious way.
I don't have what it takes to review a book from THE NOAM CHOMSKY. But I fear one thing: who will I turn toward to seek wisdom when this guy is gone?
I don't have what it takes to review a book from THE NOAM CHOMSKY. But I fear one thing: who will I turn toward to seek wisdom when this guy is gone?
October 8, 2020
Another illuminating book from Chomsky. His history of America is mostly too uncompromising for me now, but when I read this book as a college freshman I was passionate about these ideas. Looking back, I think Chomsky's prolific nature and wide-reaching commentary is what I find most inspiring. It sometimes feels like he's trying to take on so many enormous issues with his writing and facts alone — but anyone who has really done the reading should be able to realize that such issues cannot be addressed by activist writing alone. In this way, I now find the book super informative but also somewhat puzzling.
A few quality follow-ups are Jonathan Haidt's "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided on Politics and Religion", Ronald Wright's "A Short History of Progress" and Francis Fukuyama's "Political Order and Political Decay".
A few quality follow-ups are Jonathan Haidt's "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided on Politics and Religion", Ronald Wright's "A Short History of Progress" and Francis Fukuyama's "Political Order and Political Decay".
October 19, 2017
I can always count on Chomsky to keep me both continually riveted and utterly depressed at the same time. This book does exactly that, and it does not offer much Hope or many prospects for humanity. However, it did enlighten me and inform me about the many awful things America has done and continues to do in Central and South America, and along with our client states, the atrocities committed in the Middle East as well. I will continue to reflect on how I can do more and what I can do to change this sad state of affairs.
June 12, 2020
Scathing, well written and with a resigned sense of humour. Chomsky threads a needle through a number of issues of American foreign policy that reveals the US as a petulant and vicious imperial force.
Furthermore, he constantly refers back to Walter Lippman's criticism that our current political structure assumes the population is stupid and unable to make decisions for themselves. Chomsky scratches beneath a very shallow surface to demonstrate how this system has failed to be anything less than murderous and corrupt.
Furthermore, he constantly refers back to Walter Lippman's criticism that our current political structure assumes the population is stupid and unable to make decisions for themselves. Chomsky scratches beneath a very shallow surface to demonstrate how this system has failed to be anything less than murderous and corrupt.
May 13, 2020
I bought this at The Strand bookstore in 2011 or 2012 and I think I would have felt much more optimistic at the end if I’d read it then. In chapter 2, I think the original lecture was given in 2006, he says (paraphrased) that the USA would never tolerate foreign interference in an election. That was one hope & prospect that ended up very different from what was predicted. 5/5 for great writing and an ability to communicate the breadth of geopolitics to us novices.
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