Noam Chomsky 101

According to Chris Hedges at truthdig, Noam Chomsky has “Never seen anything like this.” and warns we have very little time to save our democracy. Comparing the current political climate to Weimer Germany, the Conservative and Liberal parties were hated and diminished leaving a vacuum that the Nazis managed to take over. “The United States are extremely lucky that no charismatic figure has arisen.”

“The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people.” Noam Chomsky

If this seems like an extreme statement then take a look around. Arizona’s Immigration law makes it a state crime for illegal immigrants to be in Arizona, requires police to check for evidence of legal status and bars people from hiring or soliciting work on the streets. SB1070 states that if any official or agency has “reasonable suspicion” that someone is unlawfully in the U.S. they can be asked to provide federal verification they are here legally. It also allows that any person may sue any official or agency that does not enforce the law to the full extent. Immigration advocates are scrutinizing the law for weaknesses to challenge it’s constitutionality before the law goes into effect this summer. The wording “reasonably suspicious” is vague and easily manipulated as depicted in this Daily Show Law & Border story. But at the heart of this law is hate and anger. The Arizona law’s sponsor, Russell Pearce, who describes himself as gun loving mormon who only cares about his family, his country and the law, claims as his main passion, illegal immigrants whom he calls “invaders”. Pearce says the new law empowers the police to do their job but to many others it legalizes racial profiling.

“If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.” Noam Chomsky

Then we have Repent Amarillo, a Christian group lead by David Grisham, a security guard at a nuclear-bomb facility. On it’s militaristic website, Repent calls it’s self the Army of God (yep, just like Hezbollah). They target gay pride events, Earth Worship events like earth day, breast cancer events, spring break, Halloween and “any other events that the ministry feels called upon to confront”. The site features a warfare map literally pinpointing businesses and “compromised churches”, a call for Christian soldiers and youtube videos of group members outing targets on the local news. They claim freedom of religion and freedom of speech are justification for their actions, yet they have no problem terrorizing anyone they feel, in their own words “called upon to confront”. Repent Amarillo doesn’t even worry about changing the laws like Arizona. As reported by Salam-News, they’ve violated the privacy of members of a local swingers club, stalking them, taking videos, copying their license plates, digging through their trash and revealing the member’s private activities to neighbors and coworkers. Repent shut down “Bent” a play about the persecution of gays by Nazis by falsely calling the fire marshal regarding the theater permit. They also clashed with the staff at a nature preserve calling them witches.

“I have often thought that if a rational Fascist dictatorship were to exist, then it would choose the American system.” Noam Chomsky

And of course I must mention the Tea Party. Their motto is “A community committed to standing together, shoulder to shoulder, to protect our country and the Constitution upon which we were founded.” But for what? Their members sport t-shirts saying “One Country Under God” but the constitution was founded on freedom of religion. Their slide show has photos of lots and lots of white people, horses, puppies, Sarah Palin firing a machine gun, the words Liberal and Evil intertwined, a little white girl flipping off President Obama and Obama on a poster with Hitler and Stalin all calling for change. Most of the Tea Party members have health insurance, have not lost their jobs and are wealthier and better educated than the general public. Tea Partiers, when interviewed by Michel Martin, said they aren’t racists however they also feel that too much attention is paid to the problems of black people and that the Obama administration is too worried about black people and the poor. They feel the country is headed in the wrong direction and they are angry about it.

“Unlimited economic growth has the marvelous quality of stilling discontent while maintaining privilege, a fact that has not gone unnoticed among liberal economists.” Noam Chomsky

Yet, Chomsky feels liberals, in his words “serve as a smoke screen for the cruelty of unchecked capitalism and imperial war”. He feels the liberal intellectual tradition is “one of servility to power” and that it only sets limits to far right aggression only to increase their own power. Labeling these groups as white, dogmatic Christian bigots simply feeds the liberal illusion of superiority.

“Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it’s from Neptune.” Noam Chomsky

So what do we do now? Chomsky challenges each of us to think for ourselves, to not fall under the pressure of propaganda, not to allow censorship and to detest the attempt to impose American hegemony. This is not accomplished by marching lock step to Christian authority or Capitalism. Chomsky asserts that “power is illegitimate and the burden of proof is on those in authority to demonstrate why their position is justified.”