Chomsky, Noam - We Own The World

08/01/2008

Information Clearing House.info Zmedia Institute Talk, June 2007

This is a relatively informal discussion from author that was originally a talk given. The paper has one crucial argument: debate and policy decisions in the US are made once specific assumptions have already been made, one of which is that the United States of America owns the world.

Author starts with a discussion about the mid-term elections and how the debate about 'Iranian interference' went, suggested that the sub-text or assumption behind both sides of the debate was that we own Iraq. Author looks back to the Vietnam war and analyzes the debates and memoirs in light of the bombing campaigns that took place in the North and South and interpreted them using the assumption that we owned Vietnam.

Author then posits that the US isn't a functioning democracy, at least in foreign policy. E.g. 2/3 of Americans want an end to the Cuba embargo, a majority want an Iraq pullout, but it doesn't happen. The way to fix countries like Iraq, Iran is to make them more democratic. That is the way to fix America too, ironically.

Author then discusses how this assumption is even in the 'liberal' media like NPR, where the discussion of the missile defense system-- a system that is more geared to make first strikes without retaliations rather than to defend against first strikes-- assumes that installing it is legitimate, since 'we own the world'.

The final discussion is about history, where the author recounts the series of Iran, Iraq, Russian, Chinese-US relations. Author interprets US actions as unilateral and self-excluding-- meaning that we expect other countries to play by the rules, but not the US.

Author finally remarks that eduction in elite institutions might be part of the blindspot that many elites have with unpopular ideas.