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catscradle Feb. 11th, 2004 12:22 pm)
catscradle Feb. 11th, 2004 12:22 pm)Decided to check out the new Chomsky book Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance (The American Empire Project) and came across an interview he did on it.
Excerpt from ZMag.org - Interviewing Chomsky on Hegemony or Survival
Other good Chomsky quotes from the interview:
and:
I believe in this last quote very much. What I don't have faith in is the people to understand and realize this potential. The disempowerment that people feel towards their country and their role in it is truly a frightening thing. I just read an article on those who don't have medical insurance. How they're criminalized. They're expected to pay 500% of the fees that insured people pay. They are arrested for failure to appear in court for summons they've never received. Hospitals receive $4-$65 million to assist patients that are uninsured, yet there is no means for these patients to even apply to this assistance. People, at one time myself and several friends of mine, were terrified to go in for medical treatment because of this. Your bank accounts can be seized, liens can be put on your house if you own one. Read: Uncharitable Care: How Hospitals Are Gouging and Even Arresting the Uninsured
Health care has been a long standing issue here. Why haven't the citizens of this country DONE anything to fight this? Because we feel frightened and disempowered. Or if we're lucky enough to have good insurance then why the fuck care? But if people unified, something might come of it. If we made it an issue, if we kicked the smoke screen of Iraq and terrorists and all the other boogeyman out of the way, we might start to see there are things we can do. All we have to fear is fear itself. Kennedy was right. He's as right now as he ever was. But people forget. They go complacent. And here we are now.
The future frightens me. Because what I see now is Bush for another four years. A part of me thinks lets just go for it. Lets sink to the lowest level because that means it can only get better from there.
Excerpt from ZMag.org - Interviewing Chomsky on Hegemony or Survival
Evan Stone: How will he (Bush) keep public opinion from swinging against him?
Noam Chomsky: Carl Rove, the campaign manager, has already pointed out that the party activists are going have to do the same thing they did in 2002 and in fact same thing they did into the 1980s and that is push the panic button. Their policies, domestic policies are quite unpopular, they're very harmful to the general population, they're devastating to future generations. They're going have to pay the cost of this reactionary stateism where you have a huge state and you cut taxes for the wealthy. And there's a cost to that. And the population doesn't like it, so you've got to get their mind off it, have to frighten them, you have to make them think that some demon's coming after them, so you have to huddle underneath the powerful leader who will protect you.
And if they have to manufacture a crisis they'll do that.
Other good Chomsky quotes from the interview:
"I mean you really have to admire the discipline of educated people who are able to watch all of this and not burst out in laughter, pretend to take it seriously." -- On Bush and his democracy for Iraq.
and:
"Under pressure from their own citizens power systems sometimes do decent things."
I believe in this last quote very much. What I don't have faith in is the people to understand and realize this potential. The disempowerment that people feel towards their country and their role in it is truly a frightening thing. I just read an article on those who don't have medical insurance. How they're criminalized. They're expected to pay 500% of the fees that insured people pay. They are arrested for failure to appear in court for summons they've never received. Hospitals receive $4-$65 million to assist patients that are uninsured, yet there is no means for these patients to even apply to this assistance. People, at one time myself and several friends of mine, were terrified to go in for medical treatment because of this. Your bank accounts can be seized, liens can be put on your house if you own one. Read: Uncharitable Care: How Hospitals Are Gouging and Even Arresting the Uninsured
Health care has been a long standing issue here. Why haven't the citizens of this country DONE anything to fight this? Because we feel frightened and disempowered. Or if we're lucky enough to have good insurance then why the fuck care? But if people unified, something might come of it. If we made it an issue, if we kicked the smoke screen of Iraq and terrorists and all the other boogeyman out of the way, we might start to see there are things we can do. All we have to fear is fear itself. Kennedy was right. He's as right now as he ever was. But people forget. They go complacent. And here we are now.
The future frightens me. Because what I see now is Bush for another four years. A part of me thinks lets just go for it. Lets sink to the lowest level because that means it can only get better from there.
