>
>from: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: 1. Chomsky tells you
>===================================================
>"Latin America: From Colonization to Globalization. (Publisher 1999)"
>-- Noam Chomsky in conversation with Heinz Dieterich --
>===================================================
>Available from Ocean Press.
> Australia: GPO Box 3279, Melbourne 3001, Australia
> USA : P.O. Box 834, Hoboken, NJ 07030
> Fax: 201-617 0203 email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> --- PART I ---
>
>~~ Preface ~~
>
>It is 20 years since the Nicaraguan revolution swept the Sandinistas
>to power, presenting the people of Latin America with a fragile
>glimmer of hope in an otherwise horrendous period. Against
>tremendous odds the new government pursued an ambitious program of
>social and economic development, increasing spending on health and
>education and carrying out extensive land reform. The following
>report, based on an interview with Esmilda Flores, a peasant woman
>living on a cooperative, captures something of the spirit unleashed
>by the Sandinistas' victory:
>
>"Before the revolution, we didn't participate in anything. We only
>learned to make tortillas and cook beans and do what our husbands
>told us. In only five years we've seen a lot of changes - and we're
>still working on it!" Esmilda Flores belongs to 'an agricultural
>cooperative in the mountains north of Esteli, Nicaragua. Together
>with seven other women and fifteen men, she works land that was
>formerly a coffee plantation owned by an absentee landlord. After
>the revolution in 1979, the families who had worked the land became
>its owners. They have expanded production to include corn, beans,
>potatoes, cabbages, and dairy cows. "Before, we had to rent a small
>plot to grow any food," Flores said, "and we had to pay one-half
>of our crop to the landlord! Now we work just as hard as before -
>both in the fields and at home - but there's a difference, because
>we're working for ourselves..."
>
>After returning from a trip to Nicaragua in 1986, Chomsky described
>it as "one of the few places where a decent person can live with a
>certain sense of integrity and hope." For the United States, however,
>Nicaragua's "integrity and hope" posed a threat, which demanded a
>severe response - 'a country of this sort is an enemy," Chomsky
>noted. For more than a decade, the United States waged a bitter war
>against people like Esmilda Flores throughout Latin America. Several
>hundred thousand people were killed.
>
>Throughout this period, as Chomsky and Edward Herman have
>extensively documented, the U.S. propaganda system attempted to hide
>the true nature and significance of these battles from the public.
>Thus, when the Sandinistas finally lost power in the 1990 elections,
>the U.S. media recorded the event as a victory for burgeoning Latin
>American democracy, notwithstanding the fact that "the US government
>repeatedly announced that if their favored party, the UNO coalition,
>did not win, the economic embargo, which had already caused $3
>billion worth of damage, would continue, as would US sponsorship of
>Contra terrorism." Similar U.S.-sponsored "free and fair" elections
>were held in El Salvador and Guatemala, and were greeted with acclaim
>by dutiful media.
>
>In the face of such systematic distortions of history, this
>collection of eleven interviews with Noam Chomsky is particularly
>valuable. Chomsky has spent a good part of his life helping to
>"counter the deluge of propaganda" by exposing the truth about U.S.
>policy in Latin America and elsewhere. Among Chomsky's many works on
>Latin America, this collection is unusual in that the interviews span
>a period of 14 years, allowing the reader a glimpse at the issues
>which preoccupied activists at different times from 1984 to 1998 -
>from the height of the Contra insurgency and Reagan's new Cold War
>to the devastation of the Asian economic crisis and the renewed U.S.
>assault on Cuba. More importantly, perhaps, the interviews stress
>the continuity of the colonial process, from 1492 to the present day,
>from Columbus to Clinton. This emphasis on persistent themes is one
>of the hallmarks of Chomsky's analysis of U.S. foreign policy. His
>position is summed up well by the following extract from a lecture he
>delivered at the Universidad Centroamericana in Managua in 1986:
>
> What the United States is doing today in Central America is not at
>all new, and it is not specific to Latin America. We mislead
>ourselves by viewing these matters in too narrow a focus, as is
>commonly done in journalism and much of scholarship, both in the
>United States and elsewhere.
>
>Surveying the historical record, we do find some variation in U.S.
>policies. The continuities, however, are much more striking than the
>variation, which reflects tactical judgments and estimates of
>feasibility. The persistent and largely invariant features of U.S.
>foreign policy are deeply rooted in the domestic society of the
>United States. These factors determine a restricted framework of
>policy formation that admits few departures.
>
>Planning and action are based on principles and geopolitical analyses
>that are often spelled out rather clearly in internal documents.
>They are also revealed with much clarity by the historical record.
>If these principles are understood, then we can comprehend quite well
>what the United States is doing in the world. We can also understand
>a good deal of contemporary history, given the power and influence of
>the United States. Current U.S. policies in Central America also
>fall into place, fitting historical patterns that change very little
>because of the relatively constant nexus of interests and power from
>which they arise."
>
>Chomsky goes on to explain the principles which have animated U.S.
>foreign policy since its inception. His discussion of the first of
>these principles is worth extracting at length since it encapsulates
>one of the major themes in this collection of interviews and, indeed,
>in Chomsky's other political writings.
>
> The first principle is that U.S. foreign policy is designed to
>create and maintain an international order in which U.S.-based
>business can prosper, a world of "open societies," meaning societies
>that are open to profitable investment, to expansion of export
>markets and transfer of capital, and to exploitation of material and
>human resources on the part of U.S. corporations and their local
>affiliates. "Open societies," 'm the true meaning of the term, are
>societies that are open to U.S. economic penetration and political
>control.
>
> Preferably, these "open societies" should have parliamentary
>democratic forms, but this is a distinctly secondary consideration.
>Parliamentary forms... are tolerable only as long as economic, social
>and ideological institutions, and the coercive forces of the state,
>are firmly in the hands of groups that can be trusted to act in
>general accord with the needs of those who own and manage U.S.
>society. If this condition is satisfied, then parliamentary forms in
>some client states are a useful device, ensuring the dominance of
>minority elements favored by US elite's while enabling the
>US political leadership to mobilize its own population in support of
>foreign adventures masked in idealistic rhetoric ("defense of
>democracy") but undertaken for quite different purposes. In its
>actual usage, the term "democracy," in U.S. rhetoric, refers to a
>system of governance in which elite elements based in the business
>community control the state by virtue of their dominance of private
>society, while the population observes quietly. So understood,
>democracy is a system of elite decision and public ratification, as
>in the United States itself.
>
> Correspondingly, popular involvement in the formation of public
>policy is considered a serious threat. It is not a step towards
>democracy; rather it constitutes a "crisis of democracy" that must be
>overcome. The problem arises both in the United States and in its
>dependencies, and has been addressed by measures ranging from public
>relations campaigns to death squads, depending on which population is
>targeted...
>
> What all of this means for much of the third world, to put it
>crudely but accurately, is that the primary concern of U.S. foreign
>policy is to guarantee the freedom to rob and exploit.
>
> Elsewhere, I have referred to this as "the Fifth Freedom," one that
>was not enunciated by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt when he
>formulated the famous Four Freedoms, which were presented as the war
>aims of the Western allies during World War II: Freedom of Speech,
>Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear. The
>history of Central America and the Caribbean - and not these regions
>alone - reveals just how these fine words are to be understood: as a
>means to gain public support for crusades in defense of the Fifth
>Freedom, the one that really counts.
>
>Yet, despite the apparently awesome power of the propaganda system,
>"public support" for U.S. "crusades" is not always forthcoming. In
>this collection, and elsewhere, Chomsky emphasizes the crucial role
>which domestic dissent can play in constraining U.S. terror. In
>Chomsky's view, U.S. intervention in Latin America during the 1980s
>might have been even more devastating without the widespread popular
>opposition that emerged: "What took place is bad enough. B-52
>bombing would have -been worse, much worse."
>
>This collection, and Chomsky's other writings, are not a counsel of
>despair, but a call to action accompanied by a message of cautious
>hope:
>
>... I just try to describe as best I can what I think is happening.
>When you look at that, it's not very pretty, and if you extrapolate
>it into the future, it's very ugly.
>
>But the point is... it's not inevitable. The future can be changed.
>But we can't change things unless we at least begin to understand
>them.
>
>This collection of interviews is based on an earlier Spanish edition
>which was published as Noam Chomsky habla de America Latina by Casa
>Editora Abril, Havana, 1998. Unfortunately, the original transcripts
>of some of the interviews were unavailable for use in the preparation
>of this edition of the collection. Consequently, the interviews
>included in chapters one, six, seven, eight and nine had to be
>translated from Spanish to English. This task was skillfully
>performed by Roque Grillo. Diane Chomsky and Moises Espinoza also
>assisted with translation. The editors would like to thank Noam
>Chomsky for reading the final version of the manuscript and making
>some valuable corrections.
>
>The editors have included explanatory notes, which appear as
>footnotes to the interviews. Noam Chomsky and Heinz Dieterich are
>not responsible for any errors that may appear in the explanatory
>notes or the Preface. The quotations, which appear at the beginning
>of each of the interviews were selected by the editors from a variety
>of works by Noam Chomsky and, in one case, from a work co-written by
>Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman.
>
>Julian Sempill and Denise Glasbeek (July l999)
>
> ~~ Introduction ~~ Noam Chomsky on the Liberation of Latin America
>
>If you assume that there is no hope, you guarantee that there will be
>no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, that
>there are opportunities to change things, then there is a possibility
>that you can contribute to making a better world. That's your
>choice. -- Noam Chomsky -
>
>There is no better way to sum up Noam Chomsky's philosophy of life.
>In this capitalist world where our youth's best talents are consumed
>by the neoliberal creed that the meaning of life resides in acquiring
>business, purchasing and political power, the scientist's
>pronouncement is a light in the darkness. Not only for its inherent
>ethical value, but also for the degree to which its author has put
>his beliefs into practice.
>
>In this sense, it is no exaggeration to speak of Chomsky's philosophy
>of practice, even if he never intentionally elaborated one as such.
>Just as Marx's logic of the social sciences was never explicitly
>written up but is present throughout his work, so Noam Chomsky's
>philosophy of praxis penetrates all his writings. It centers on
>three necessary imperatives for the democratic society of the future.
>First: to put an end to exploitation and economic inequality, this
>society must be anticapitalist; second: to put an end to political
>elitism and create a participatory democracy, the society must be
>non-statist; and third: to ensure the enlightenment of all citizens,
>all feudal and pre-industrial structures must be eliminated.
>This architecture will guarantee that the new society's ultimate aim
>is reached: the personal realization of each individual citizen.
>
>Based on this philosophy of praxis, Noam Chomsky provides us with
>the epistemological and political keys to the liberation of our
>America: a scientific understanding of the history of Latin America
>and the history of the United States. Chomsky destroys the enslaving
>power that the word wields in the myths of domination by the American
>elite, and restores it's liberating force through reason. Faced with
>his analysis, the chains of propaganda fall to pieces and the real
>cause-and-effect relations in the politics of the system's rulers are
>revealed, rebelling against the doctrinaire strait-jacket which
>suffocates them.
>
>Therefore, this work is more than a living memory of recent decades
>of the empire's foreign policy; it is a reminder and an appeal to
>acknowledge once again the systematic place that Latin American and
>U.S. history occupy in the liberation of La Patria Grande [the Great
>Motherland of the Americas]. They are a prism revealing the logic
>behind the elite's behavior, which represents the key to Latin
>America's anti-democracy and misery since the wars of independence
>against Spanish colonialism. Without understanding this logic there
>will be no chance of "contributing to make a better world" in La
>Patria Grande.
>
>Noam Chomsky's reasoning leads to profound questions. For example,
>how long can a national-popular project survive the subversive and
>destabilizing efforts of the White House, under a bourgeois
>democracy? Jacobo Arbenz's government in Guatemala lasted only three
>years (1951-54) before it was overthrown by a U.S. coup d'6tat; the
>Salvador Allende government lasted two-and-a-half years (1970-73)
>before suffering the same fate; the Sandinista revolution resisted
>for six years (1984-90) and the Bolivian revolution held out for 12
>years (1952-64) before being overthrown by a Washington coup d'etat.
>
>The time differences among these examples are due to a simple fact:
>Allende and Arbenz controlled governments but not the state, while
>the Sandinistas and Bolivians controlled both elements of power, thus
>prolonging the White House's subversive work. In light of these
>reflections, the Cuban experience - resisting 39 years of U.S.
>aggression - acquires dimensions beyond those that arise from a
>simple abstract reflection on the desirability and undesirability of
>Latin America's bourgeois democratic and socialist structures.
>
>Another example that compels us to reflect is the following: when
>Salvador Allende won the elections in 1970, the Nixon-Kissinger
>government tried to prevent the democratically elected president from
>taking and maintaining power. But it was not possible for Washington
>to arrange a "preventive" military coup due to what the CIA referred
>to in its secret documents as the "constitutionalist inertia" of the
>Chilean armed forces. The White House needed three years to destroy
>the economy of the country and organize a pro-coup faction that would
>end the popular regime. In order not to repeat that experience, the
>United States is currently forming pro-coup factions - using the
>absurd pretext of the war against drug barons - so that "preventive"
>coups d'etat can occur rapidly whenever needed to destroy democratic
>governability by neoliberalism.
>
>The German philosopher Schelling used to say that the "beginning and
>end of philosophy is freedom," warning that "human beings are born to
>act and not to speculate." Chomsky complies with both imperatives and
>this gives him a place in the ranks of the great thinkers and
>liberators of La Patria Grande, from Jose Marti and Manuela Saenz to
>Che Guevara. " JC
>
>
>
>
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