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Today's
Stories
November
1 / 2, 2003
Saul Landau
Cui
Bono? The Cuba Embargo as Rip Off
October 31, 2003
Lee Ballinger
Making
a Dollar Out of 15 Cents: The Sweatshops of Sean "P. Diddy"
Combs
Wayne
Madsen
The
GOP's Racist Trifecta
Michael Donnelly
Settling for Peanuts: Democrats Trick the Greens, Treat Big Timber
Patrick
Cockburn
Baghdad
Diary: Iraqis are Naming Their New Babies "Saddam"
Elaine
Cassel
Coming
to a State Near You: The Matrix (Interstate Snoops, Not the Movie)
October 30, 2003
Forrest
Hylton
Popular
Insurrection and National Revolution in Bolivia
Eric Ruder
"We Have to Speak Out!": Marching with the Military
Families
Dave Lindorff
Big
Lies and Little Lies: The Meaning of "Mission Accomplished"
Philip
Adams
"Everyone is Running Scared": Denigrating Critics of
Israel
Sean Donahue
Howard Dean: a Hawk in a Dove's Cloak
Robert
Jensen
Big Houses & Global Justice: A Moral Level of Consumption?
Alexander
Cockburn
Paul
Krugman: Part of the Problem
October
29, 2003
Chris
Floyd
Thieves
Like Us: Cheney's Backdoor to Halliburton
Robert Fisk
Iraq Guerrillas Adopt a New Strategy: Copy the Americans
Rick Giombetti
Let
Them Eat Prozac: an Interview with David Healy
The Intelligence
Squad
Dark
Forces? The Military Steps Up Recruiting of Blacks
Elaine
Cassel
Prosecutors
as Therapists, Phantoms as Terrorists
Marie Trigona
Argentina's War on the Unemployed Workers Movement
Gary Leupp
Every
Day, One KIA: On the Iraq War Casualty Figures
October
28, 2003
Rich Gibson
The
Politics of an Inferno: Notes on Hellfire 2003
Uri Avnery
Incident
in Gaza
Diane
Christian
Wishing
Death
Robert
Fisk
Eyewitness
in Iraq: "They're Getting Better"
Toni Solo
Authentic Americans and John Negroponte
Jason
Leopold
Halliburton in Iran
Shrireen Parsons
When T-shirts are Verboten
Chris
White
9/11
in Context: a Marine Veteran's Perspective
October 27, 2003
William
A. Cook
Ministers
of War: Criminals of the Cloth
David
Lindorff
The
Times, Dupes and the Pulitzer
Elaine
Cassel
Antonin
Scalia's Contemptus Mundi
Robert
Fisk
Occupational Schizophrenia
John Chuckman
Banging Your Head into Walls
Seth Sandronsky
Snoops R Us
Bill Kauffman
George
Bush, the Anti-Family President
October
25 / 26, 2003
Robert
Pollin
The
US Economy: Another Path is Possible
Jeffrey St. Clair
Outsourcing US Guided Missile Technology to China
James
Bunn
Plotting
Pre-emptive Strikes
Saul Landau
Should Limbaugh Do Time?
Ted Honderich
Palestinian Terrorism, Morality & Germany
Thomas Nagy
Saving the Army of Peace
Christopher
Brauchli
Between Bush and a Lobotomy: Killing Endangered Species for Profit
Laura Carlsen
Latin America's Archives of Terror
Diane
Christian
Evil Acts & Evil Actors
Muqtedar Khan
Lessons from the Imperial Adventure in Iraq
John Feffer
The Tug of War on the Korea Peninsula
Brian Cloughley
Iraq War Memories are Made of Lies
Benjamin
Dangl
and Kathryn Ledebur
An Uneasy Peace in Bolivia
Karyn
Strickler
Down
with Big Brother's Spying Eyes
Noah Leavitt
Legal Globalization
John Stanton
Hitler's Ghost Haunts America
Mickey
Z.
War of the Words
Adam Engel
Tractatus Ridiculous
Poets'
Basement
Curtis, Subiet and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Project Last Stand
October
24, 2003
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft's
War on Greenpeace
Lenni Brenner
The Demographics of American Jews
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Rockets,
Napalm, Torpedoes and Lies: the Attack on the USS Liberty Revisited
Sarah Weir
Cover-up of the Israeli Attack on the US Liberty
David
Krieger
WMD Found in DC: Bush is the Button
Mohammed Hakki
It's Palestine, Stupid!: Americans and the Middle East
Harry
Browne
Northern
Ireland: the Agreement that Wasn't
October
23, 2003
Diane
Christian
Ruthlessness
Kurt Nimmo
Criticizing Zionism
David Lindorff
A General Theory of Theology
Alan Maass
The Future of the Anti-War Movement
William
Blum
Imperial
Indifference
Stew Albert
A Memo
October
22, 2003
Wayne
Madsen
Religious
Insanity Runs Rampant
Ray McGovern
Holding
Leaders Accountable for Lies
Christopher
Brauchli
There's
No Civilizing the Death Penalty
Elaine
Cassel
Legislators
and Women's Bodies
Bill Glahn
RIAA
Watch: the New Morality of Capitalism
Anthony Arnove
An Interview with Tariq Ali
October 21, 2003
Uri Avnery
The
Beilin Agreement
Robert Jensen
The Fundamentalist General
David
Lindorff
War Dispatch from the NYT: God is on Our Side!
William S. Lind
Bremer is Deaf to History
Bridget
Gibson
Fatal Vision
Alan Haber
A Human Chain for Peace in Ann Arbor
Peter
Linebaugh
On the Bicentennial of the Hanging of Thomas Russell
October
20, 2003
Standard
Schaefer
Chile's
Failed Economy: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Chris
Floyd
Circus Maximus: Arnie, Enron and Bush Maul California
Mark Hand
Democrats Seek to Disappear Chomsky
& Nader
John &
Elaine Mellencamp
Peaceful
World
Elaine
Cassel
God's
General Unmuzzled
October
18 / 19, 2003
Robert
Pollin
Clintonomics:
the Hollow Boom
Gary Leupp
Israel, Syria and Stage Four in the Terror War
Saul Landau
Day of the Gropenfuhrer
Bruce Anderson
The California Recall
John Gershman
Bush in Asia: What a Difference a Decade Makes
Nelson P. Valdes
Bush, Electoral Politics and Cuba's "Illicit Sex Trade"
Kurt Nimmo
Shock Therapy and the Israeli Scenario
Tom Gorman
Al Franken and Al-Shifa
Brian
Cloughley
Public Propaganda and the Iraq War
Joanne Mariner
A New Way to Kill Tigers
Denise
Low
The Cancer of Sprawl
Mickey Z.
The Reverend of Doom
John Chuckman
US Missiles for Israeli Nukes?
George Naggiar
A Veto of Public Diplomacy
Alison
Weir
Death Threats in Berkeley
Benjamin Dangl
Bolivian Govt. Falling Apart
Ron Jacobs
The Politics of Bob Dylan
Fidel Castro
A Review of Garcia Marquez's Memoir
Adam Engel
I Hope My Corpse Gives You the Plague
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert, Guthrie and Greeder
October
17, 2003
Stan Goff
Piss
On My Leg: Perception Control and the Stage Management of War
Newton
Garver
Bolivia
in Turmoil
Standard
Schaefer
Grocery Unions Under Attack
Ben Terrall
The Ordeal of the Lockheed 52
Ron Jacobs
First Syria, Then Iran
David
Lindorff
Michael
Moore Proclaims Mumia Guilty
October
16, 2003
Marjorie
Cohn
Bush
Gunning for Regime Change in Cuba
Gary Leupp
"Getting Better" in Iraq
Norman
Solomon
The US Press and Israel: Brand Loyalty and the Absence of Remorse
Rush Limbaugh
The 10 Most Overrated Athletes of All Time
Lenni
Brenner
I
Didn't Meet Huey Newton. He Met Me
Website of the Day
Time Tested Books
October
15, 2003
Sunil
Sharma / Josh Frank
The
General and the Governor: Two Measures of American Desperation
Forrest
Hylton
Dispatch
from the Bolivian War: "Like Animals They Kill Us"
Brian
Cloughley
Those
Phony Letters: How Bush Uses GIs to Spread Propaganda About Iraq
Ahmad
Faruqui
Lessons
of the October War
Uri Avnery
Three
Days as a Living Shield
Website
of the Day
Rank and File: the New Unity Partnership Document
JoAnn
Wypijewski
The
New Unity Partnership:
A Manifest Destiny for Labor
October 14, 2003
Eric Ridenour
Qibya
& Sharon: Anniversary of a Massacre
Elaine
Cassel
The
Disgrace That is Guantanamo
Robert
Jensen
What the "Fighting Sioux" Tells Us About White People
David Lindorff
Talking Turkey About Iraq
Patrick
Cockburn
US Troops Bulldoze Crops
VIPS
One Person Can Make a Difference
Toni Solo
The CAFTA Thumbscrews
Peter
Linebaugh
"Remember
Orr!"
Website
of the Day
BRIDGES
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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Weekend
Edition
November 1 / 2, 2003
Empire of the Men
of Best Quality
The
Ideology of the Polyarchy
By NOAM CHOMSKY
The following is an excerpt from the
book Hegemony
or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance by Noam
Chomsky, published by Metropolitan Books.
A few years ago, one of the great figures of contemporary
biology, Ernst Mayr, published some reflections on the likelihood
of success in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. He
considered the prospects very low. His reasoning had to do with
the adaptive value of what we call "higher intelligence,"
meaning the particular human form of intellectual organization.
Mayr estimated the number of species since the origin of life
at about fifty billion, only one of which "achieved the
kind of intelligence needed to establish a civilization."
It did so very recently, perhaps 100,000 years ago. It is generally
assumed that only one small breeding group survived, of which
we are all descendants.
Mayr speculated that the human form of
intellectual organization may not be favored by selection. The
history of life on Earth, he wrote, refutes the claim that "it
is better to be smart than to be stupid," at least judging
by biological success: beetles and bacteria, for example, are
vastly more successful than humans in terms of survival. He also
made the rather somber observation that "the average life
expectancy of a species is about 100,000 years."
We are entering a period of human history
that may provide an answer to the question of whether it is better
to be smart than stupid. The most hopeful prospect is that the
question will not be answered: if it receives a definite answer,
that answer can only be that humans were a kind of "biological
error," using their allotted 100,000 years to destroy themselves
and, in the process, much else.
The species has surely developed the
capacity to do just that, and a hypothetical extraterrestrial
observer might well conclude that humans have demonstrated that
capacity throughout their history, dramatically in the past few
hundred years, with an assault on the environment that sustains
life, on the diversity of more complex organisms, and with cold
and calculated savagery, on each other as well.
Two Superpowers
The year 2003 opened with many indications
that concerns about human survival are all too realistic. To
mention just a few examples, in the early fall of 2002 it was
learned that a possibly terminal nuclear war was barely avoided
forty years earlier. Immediately after this startling discovery,
the Bush administration blocked UN efforts to ban the militarization
of space, a serious threat to survival. The administration also
terminated international negotiations to prevent biological warfare
and moved to ensure the inevitability of an attack on Iraq, despite
popular opposition that was without historical precedent.
Aid organizations with extensive experience
in Iraq and studies by respected medical organizations warned
that the planned invasion might precipitate a humanitarian catastrophe.
The warnings were ignored by Washington and evoked little media
interest. A high-level US task force concluded that attacks with
weapons of mass destruction (WMD) within the United States are
"likely," and would become more so in the  event of war with Iraq. Numerous
specialists and intelligence agencies issued similar warnings,
adding that Washington's belligerence, not only with regard to
Iraq, was increasing the long-term threat of international terrorism
and proliferation of WMD. These warnings too were dismissed.
In September 2002 the Bush administration
announced its National Security Strategy, which declared the
right to resort to force to eliminate any perceived challenge
to US global hegemony, which is to be permanent. The new grand
strategy aroused deep concern worldwide, even within the foreign
policy elite at home. Also in September, a propaganda campaign
was launched to depict Saddam Hussein as an imminent threat to
the United States and to insinuate that he was responsible for
the 9-11 atrocities and was planning others. The campaign, timed
to the onset of the midterm congressional elections, was highly
successful in shifting attitudes. It soon drove American public
opinion off the global spectrum and helped the administration
achieve electoral aims and establish Iraq as a proper test case
for the newly announced doctrine of resort to force at will.
President Bush and his associates also
persisted in undermining international efforts to reduce threats
to the environment that are recognized to be severe, with pretexts
that barely concealed their devotion to narrow sectors of private
power. The administration's Climate Change Science Program (CCSP),
wrote Science magazine editor Donald Kennedy, is a travesty that
"included no recommendations for emission limitation or
other forms of mitigation," contenting itself with "voluntary
reduction targets, which, even if met, would allow US emission
rates to continue to grow at around 14% per decade." The
CCSP did not even consider the likelihood, suggested by "a
growing body of evidence," that the short-term warming changes
it ignores "will trigger an abrupt nonlinear process,"
producing dramatic temperature changes that could carry extreme
risks for the United States, Europe, and other temperate zones.
The Bush administration's "contemptuous pass on multilateral
engagement with the global warming problem," Kennedy continued,
is the "stance that began the long continuing process of
eroding its friendships in Europe," leading to "smoldering
resentment."
By October 2002 it was becoming hard
to ignore the fact that the world was "more concerned about
the unbridled use of American power than . . . about the threat
posed by Saddam Hussein," and "as intent on limiting
the giant's power as . . . in taking away the despot's weapons.
" World concerns mounted in the months that followed, as
the giant made clear its intent to attack Iraq even if the UN
inspections it reluctantly tolerated failed to unearth weapons
that would provide a pretext. By December, support for Washington's
war plans scarcely reached 10 percent almost anywhere outside
the US, according to international polls. Two months later, after
enormous worldwide protests, the press reported that "there
may still be two superpowers on the planet: the United States
and world public opinion" ("the United States"
here meaning state power, not the public or even elite opinion).
By early 2003, studies revealed that
fear of the United States had reached remarkable heights throughout
the world, along with distrust of the political leadership. Dismissal
of elementary human rights and needs was matched by a display
of contempt for democracy for which no parallel comes easily
to mind, accompanied by professions of sincere dedication to
human rights and democracy. The unfolding events should be deeply
disturbing to those who have concerns about the world they are
leaving to their grandchildren.
Though Bush planners are at an extreme
end of the traditional US policy spectrum, their programs and
doctrines have many pre-cursors, both in US history and among
earlier aspirants to global power. More ominously, their decisions
may not be irrational within the framework of prevailing ideology
and the institutions that embody it. There is ample historical
precedent for the willingness of leaders to threaten or resort
to violence in the face of significant risk of catastrophe. But
the stakes are far higher today. The choice between hegemony
and survival has rarely, if ever, been so starkly posed.
Let us try to unravel some of the many
strands that enter into this complex tapestry, focusing attention
on the world power that proclaims global hegemony. Its actions
and guiding doctrines must be a primary concern for everyone
on the planet, particularly, of course, for Americans. Many enjoy
unusual advantages and freedom, hence the ability to shape the
future, and should face with care the responsibilities that are
the immediate corollary of such privilege.
Enemy Territory
Those who want to face their responsibilities
with a genuine commitment to democracy and freedom -- even to
decent survival -- should recognize the barriers that stand in
the way. In violent states these are not concealed. In more democratic
societies barriers are more subtle. While methods differ sharply
from more brutal to more free societies, the goals are in many
ways similar: to ensure that the "great beast," as
Alexander Hamilton called the people, does not stray from its
proper confines.
Controlling the general population has
always been a dominant concern of power and privilege, particularly
since the first modern democratic revolution in seventeenth-century
England. The self-described "men of best quality" were
appalled as a "giddy multitude of beasts in men's shapes"
rejected the basic framework of the civil conflict raging in
England between king and Parliament, and called for government"
by countrymen like ourselves, that know our wants," not
by "knights and gentlemen that make us laws, that are chosen
for fear and do but oppress us, and do not know the people's
sores." The men of best quality recognized that if the people
are so "depraved and corrupt" as to "confer places
of power and trust upon wicked and undeserving men, they forfeit
their power in this behalf unto those that are good, though but
a few." Almost three centuries later, Wilsonian idealism,
as it is standardly termed, adopted a rather similar stance.
Abroad, it is Washington's responsibility to ensure that government
is in the hands of "the good, though but a few." At
home, it is necessary to safeguard a system of elite decision-making
and public ratification -- "polyarchy," in the terminology
of political science -- not democracy.
Copyright © 2003 Aviva Chomsky,
Diane Chomsky, and Harry Chomsky
Weekend
Edition Features for Oct. 25 / 26, 2003
Robert
Pollin
The
US Economy: Another Path is Possible
Jeffrey St. Clair
Outsourcing US Guided Missile Technology to China
James
Bunn
Plotting
Pre-emptive Strikes
Saul Landau
Should Limbaugh Do Time?
Ted Honderich
Palestinian Terrorism, Morality & Germany
Thomas Nagy
Saving the Army of Peace
Christopher
Brauchli
Between Bush and a Lobotomy: Killing Endangered Species for Profit
Laura Carlsen
Latin America's Archives of Terror
Diane
Christian
Evil Acts & Evil Actors
Muqtedar Khan
Lessons from the Imperial Adventure in Iraq
John Feffer
The Tug of War on the Korea Peninsula
Brian Cloughley
Iraq War Memories are Made of Lies
Benjamin
Dangl
and Kathryn Ledebur
An Uneasy Peace in Bolivia
Karyn
Strickler
Down
with Big Brother's Spying Eyes
Noah Leavitt
Legal Globalization
John Stanton
Hitler's Ghost Haunts America
Mickey
Z.
War of the Words
Adam Engel
Tractatus Ridiculous
Poets'
Basement
Curtis, Subiet and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Project Last Stand
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