Noam Chomsky has made a name for himself (and justified) as being a deep
thinker who believes in democracy and also the fact that everyone should be
able to view and comment on political directions. Unfortunately we know this
is not a universal situation.
His latest book (and in hardback on the Bookazine Big C Extra shelves) is
Making the Future (ISBN 978-0-241-14510-4, Hamish Hamilton-Penguin, 2012).
Chomsky give us over 50 essays to digest and ponder covering such diverse
topics as Gaza and the future of a Palestinian-Israeli peace, Iraq oil, a
Deal with the Devil?, War, Peace and Obama’s Nobel and America in Decline,
and that is only three of the 50 odd which range from 2007 up till 2012.
“Historical amnesia,” writes Chomsky in one essay centered around Guantanamo
Bay, “is a very dangerous phenomenon, not only because it undermines moral
and intellectual integrity, but also because it lays the groundwork for
crimes that lie ahead.” I certainly would not disagree with that.
Are you being led up the garden path? Definitely so, according to Chomsky in
the essay entitled “Good News from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan” where he
shows the quoted up-beat figures from General Petraeus showing the Iraqi
government’s spending on reconstruction was greatly accelerating, when in
actual fact, the US Government Accountability Office found that the true
figure was one sixth of General Petraeus’ figures, representing a decline of
50 percent.
He shows in the essay The Arab Word is On Fire, that America will support
foreign powers that are patently non-democratic such as “Ferdinand Marcos,
Jean-Claude Duvalier, Chun Doo Hwan, Suharto and many other useful
gangsters,” but when the allegiance becomes untenable, the US hails the
overthrow “while the past was erased.”
In one collected in 2010, Chomsky writes on The Unelected Architects of
Policy and discusses the US deficit and points out that around half of the
US deficit is due to military spending, an item that seems as untouchable as
the US gun lobby. Chomsky also describes the US health care system as
dysfunctional and an international scandal. Words are not minced! President
Obama’s about turn when ascribing blame for the financial meltdown in the
housing mortgage industry came after threats of funds being diverted to the
opposition if he did not toe the line. Nothing has changed since Tammany
Hall, despite it losing its apparent powers. He wonders when the capitalist
system of domination and control will cease
At B. 743 for a hardback is not over the top, and at that price is good
value for what is there for the reader between the hard back covers. It is a
book that late teenage students should be forced to read, to make them
expand their minds. It is not a book to be taken lightly. Perhaps the best
description is on the front cover from John Pilger who writes “Noam Chomsky
is an inspiration all over the world - to millions I suspect - for the
simple reason that he is a truth-teller on an epic scale.” And I know that
in today’s world, “truth” is not a commodity in over-supply!