home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
- Path: sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!uwm.edu!psuvax1!ukma!mont!pencil.cs.missouri.edu!daemon
- From: Kerry Miller <ASTINGSH%KSUVM.bitnet@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu>
- Subject: Chomskys Crystal Ball
- Message-ID: <1992Dec19.075326.12833@mont.cs.missouri.edu>
- Followup-To: alt.activism.d
- Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Sender: news@mont.cs.missouri.edu
- Nntp-Posting-Host: pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Organization: ?
- Resent-From: "Rich Winkel" <MATHRICH@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu>
- Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 07:53:26 GMT
- Approved: map@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Lines: 30
-
-
- CHOMSKY'S CRYSTAL BALL
-
- "Apologists for state violence understand very well that the general
- public has no real stake in imperial conquest and domination. The public
- costs of empire may run high, whatever the gains to dominant social and
- economic groups. Therefore the public must be aroused by jingoist appeals, or
- at least kept disciplined and submissive, if American force is to be readily
- available for global management.
- "Here lies the task for the intelligentsia. If it is determined
- that we *must,* say, invade the Persian Gulf *for the benefit of mankind,*
- [emphasis in the original] then there must be no emotional or moral objections
- from the unsophisticated masses, and surely no vulgar display of protest. The
- ideologists must guarantee that no "wrong lessons" are learned from the
- experience of the Indochina war and the resistance to it.
- "During the Vietnam war a vast gap opened between the nation's
- ideologists and a substantial body of public opinion. This gap must be closed
- if the world system is to be managed properly in coming years. Thus we are
- enjoined to "avoid recriminations" and serious efforts will be made to
- restrict attention to questions that have no significance or long-term
- implications. It will be necessary to pursue the propaganda battle with vigor
- and enterprise to reestablish the basic principle that the use of force by the
- U.S. is legitimate, if only it can succeed..."
-
- -Noam Chomsky, "Lessons of Vietnam #1, The Remaking of History,"
- published in Ramparts Magazine ~1975.
-
- **************
- Thus the kinder, gentler Somali operation...
- kerry miller astingsh@ksuvm.ksu.edu
-