Chomsky: The U.S. Behaves Nothing Like a Democracy, But You'll Never Hear About It in Our 'Free Press' August 15, 2013 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. The following is a transcript of a recent speech delivered Noam Chomsky in Bonn, Germany, at DW Global Media Forum, Bonn, Germany. I'd like to comment on topics that I think should regularly be on the front pages but are not - and in many crucial cases are scarcely mentioned at all or are presented in ways that seem to me deceptive because they're framed almost reflexively in terms of doctrines of the powerful. In these comments I'll focus primarily on the United States for several reasons: One, it's the most important country in terms of its power and influence.
American power is diminishing, as it has been in fact since its peak in 1945, but it's still incomparable. According to received doctrine, we live in capitalist democracies, which are the best possible system, despite some flaws.
Noam Chomsky: If Nuclear War Doesn't Get Us, Climate Change Will. US Still Fighting Liberation Theology: Wikileaks Revelations. (Since his death on March 5, I’ve learned a hundred times more about Hugo Chavez than I ever had when he was alive. Added to that, I’ve been learning about the Central and South American revolutions, CIA death squads, coups and their connection to Liberation Theology). I’ll get back to it after this brief message from Noam Chomsky.) This post’s title came from a piece by Daniel Kovalik at Counterpunch. As a long-time human rights attorney, he’d been keeping track of the many murders of priests and nuns in Central and South American, and had concluded that it is ‘both state policy of Colombia as well as the United States which is propping up that military with billions of dollars of assistance, and which views organized movements for social justice in Latin America as a threat to its economic domination of the region.’
He wrote that Noam Chomsky, a close friend of Father Javier Giraldo, had first opened his eyes to it during a lecture at Columbia in 2009. (This may be the one.) War Drums Beat Ever More Loudly Over Iran. A thunderstorm surrounded the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln as it sailed in the Persian Gulf during the early days of the Iraq war in March 2003. The carrier battle group has been in the Persian Gulf since April, 2012. The United States has quietly moved significant military reinforcements into the Persian Gulf to deter the Iranian military.
(Photo: Vincent Laforet / The New York Times)It is not easy to escape from one's skin, to see the world differently from the way it is presented to us day after day. But it is useful to try. Let's take a few examples. The war drums are beating ever more loudly over Iran. Iran is carrying out a murderous and destructive low-level war against Israel with great-power participation. Iranian leaders are therefore announcing their intention to bomb Israel, and prominent Iranian military analysts report that the attack may happen before the U.S. elections. Like its patron, Israel resorts to violence at will. . © 2011 Noam Chomsky. Noam Chomsky: Destroying the Commons: How the Magna Carta Became a Minor Carta. How the Magna Carta Became a Minor Carta Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com Down the road only a few generations, the millennium of Magna Carta, one of the great events in the establishment of civil and human rights, will arrive.
Whether it will be celebrated, mourned, or ignored is not at all clear. That should be a matter of serious immediate concern. What we do right now, or fail to do, will determine what kind of world will greet that event. It is not an attractive prospect if present tendencies persist -- not least, because the Great Charter is being shredded before our eyes. The first scholarly edition of Magna Carta was published by the eminent jurist William Blackstone. Blackstone’s edition actually includes two charters. After a bitter conflict between King and Parliament, the power of royalty in the person of Charles II was restored.
As often is the case, apparent defeat nevertheless carried the struggle for freedom and rights forward. The Second Charter and the Commons.