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Hopes and Prospects

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As not only American foreign policy but its domestic economy accelerates its decline to a point that only the blind or obtuse can ignore, people who have dismissed Noam Chomsky in the past as "too radical" may now want to read Hopes and Prospects in order to understand what is really going on. The term "hopes" is an ironic reference to President Obama's "politics of hope", a politics that has disappointed millions who worked for his election and have since dropped out, as the right has openly declared class war. Chomsky's new book includes material on Obama's first year in office, and makes it clear that the powerful corporations and their intellectual apologists, who control both U.S. foreign and domestic policy, remain as powerful as ever in protecting their own interests - at the mounting expense of both the American people and hundreds of millions of others around the world.Chomsky goes far beyond exploding the incredible fact that Tea Partiers and others could remain blind to the fact that it is CORPORATIONS, NOT GOVERNMENT which caused the financial crisis, the oil spill, and a disastrous U.S. foreign policy, and that a government truly representing the American people is the only hope for Tea Partiers and everyone else. Mass media and "manufactured consent" explanations are inadequate to explain America's financial crisis and why it is likely to occur again, why America continues to torture and illegally imprison, despite Obama's promise to end it, why the U.S. empire continues to dramatically weaken, and why today it harms the interests of the vast majority of Americans not to mention those suffering under it abroad, and why the situation in the Middle East - not only Israel/Palestine but Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan - will continue to deteriorate as long as national security planners and corporations are able to continue manipulating public opinion and pursuing their own career and economic interests at the expense of everyone else. You may not agree with everything Chomsky says, but the power of his overall analysis and framework is undeniable. His observations on elite behavior explain far more about the deepening climate, financial, Mideast and domestic social crisis facing America than anything you're likely to read in the mainstream media. You owe it to yourself to read this book, whether or not you agree with it all, if you want to have at least a fighting chance to understand the world around you. By all means, take Chomsky on .Argue with this or that point if you will, explain how he leaves out such and such if you must, but disregard his overall framework at your peril. For if you do you will continue to remain blind about the key issues that will determine not only how, but whether, you, your children and your grandchildren will live.

This book is a compilation of essays that Chomsky also updated just before its release here in May 2010. Each essay has a topic of focus; Chomsky weaves in and out of different subject material throughout each, highlighting moral principles and hypocrisies of the United States, and the West in general. The issues are grotesque and in need of addressing by us - the public.

Contents:

PREFACE ..... VII

PART I: LATIN AMERICA
01. Year 514: Globalization for Whom? ..... 3
02. Latin America and US Foreign Policy ..... 39
03. Democracy and Development: Their Enemies, Their Hopes ..... 75
04. Latin America and Caribbean Unity ..... 103

PART II: NORTH AMERICA
05. "Good News," Iraq and Beyond ..... 121
06. Free Elections, Good News and Bad ..... 143
07. Century's Challenges ..... 165
08. Turning Point? ..... 177
09. Elections 2008: Hope Confronts the Real World ..... 207
10. Obama on Israel-Palestine ..... 251
11. The Torture Memos ..... 259
12. 1989 and Beyond ..... 269

Notes ..... 281
Index ..... 315

For forty years, Noam Chomsky's erudite insights into politics and language have proved to be an invaluable contribution to ongoing social reflection. Hopes and Prospects is Chomsky's latest work, warning readers about the latest risks and challenges facing America and humankind during the early twenty-first century. Chapters address the growing divide between America's North and South, American exceptionalism (which still has a strong hold in the era of President Barack Obama), the morass of problems (to put it lightly) with Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S.-Israeli aggression toward Gaza, the controversial governmental bailouts - and suggestions to improve the future, as well as reflections on positive developments such as democratic movements in Latin America and global solidarity efforts. Thought-provoking, measured, and grounded in rationality, Hopes and Prospects is strongly recommended as a vital nexus for social debate over vitally pressing national and global issues.

Noam Chomsky yet again tells us far more about our world than our media ever do.

He writes, "A well-documented conclusion is that sovereignty, hence ability to control internal economic development and to enter international market systems on one's own terms, is a crucial prerequisite to economic development." 25 years of economic sovereignty, backed by exchange controls and managed currencies, did better than the succeeding 25 years of Thatcherism. Protectionism brings growth; imposed liberalisation harms growth.

In 1985 the World Bank said that in its standard `development' strategy, domestic consumption should be `markedly restrained', support for education `minimized' and `less emphasis should be placed on social objectives'.

The US National Intelligence Council's Global Trends 2015 (2000) said globalisation will lead to `a widening economic divide' and `deepening economic stagnation, political instability, and cultural alienation'. In law, predictable consequences are evidence of intent. Amnesty International's Secretary-General says that poverty is the worst of all the world's many human rights abuses.

In Latin America, Obama plays the usual US role. In June 2009, the largely US-controlled IMF at once gave a $150 million loan to the coup regime in Honduras. The IMF had earlier withdrawn loans from the elected government because it opposed that government's policies. In 2002, during the (failed) coup against Venezuela's elected government, the IMF had at once offered aid to the coup regime. France and the USA backed the 2004 coup in Haiti, which overthrew the elected government, causing 8,000 violent deaths in the next two years.

By contrast, Chomsky praises Cuba's `remarkable record of genuine internationalism over many years', especially its Operation Milagro, which has restored sight to more than a million people.

He denounces Israel's vicious and illegal siege of Gaza. Israel, with the USA, is destroying any viable Palestinian state. The USA and the EU voted against the International Atomic Energy Agency resolution calling on Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and to open its nuclear facilities to inspection.

In the recent US election, the best-funded candidate won 9 out of 10 contests, and Obama was the presidential candidate with most Wall Street funding. This January, the US Supreme Court voted to allow corporations to spend shareholder money directly in future elections.

Chomsky's most recent book, Hopes and Prospects, is his best work yet (keep in mind, I've read a lot of Chomsky). He's the only scholar I know of who can take on the daunting and seemingly impossible task of describing the "state of the world," and do it successfully.

The book is broken up into two sections: the first focuses on Latin America and the second North America. He covers key topics such as: the connection between neoliberalism and development and democracy; the Obama phenomenon; the new U.S. administration's policy on the Israel/Palestine conflict; the democracy movements in Latin America; the current state of the nuclear threat; and other topics of crucial importance. As usual, he brings forth a seemingly innumerable amount of historical examples to build his basic arguments, which makes this book an excellent place to search for references on a wide-range of topics (as with all of his works).

In short, if you're interested in understanding the current global context (its most key elements at least), and how it dictates local conditions, then this book is a must read.

e book is full of the traditional themes of Chomsky's work, such as US support for terrorism, dictators, war crimes, Islamic fundamentalists, nuclear proliferation, human rights violations,etc. Citing Ahmed Rashid, he notes Reagan's support for the fundamentalist Pakistani dictator Zia Al Haq, whose rule laid the groundwork for the maladies that afflict Pakistan today. He notes that Gullubdin Heckmatyar, the favorite Afghan fundamentalist terrorist of Reagan, is now at the forefront of the political process in Afghanistan. He cites new evidence from the Spanish press about the murder of the 6 Jesuit priests, their cook and her daughter by the US trained Altacatl Battalion in November 1989. He quotes Michael Kinsley's and Time Magazine's positive portrayal of the attacks on civilian targets by the Contras in Nicaragua that terrorized the Nicaraguan people into voting out the Sandinistas in 1990. The Contra war was all part of the effort by the Reagan administration, backed by the Vatican, to restore the poor majority of Central Americans to misery and passivity. He notes that Bernard Fall, the right wing military historian described Vietnam in the 1960's being threatened with extinction "as a cultural and historic entity" as the Vietnamese countryside "literally dies" under massive US bombing.

Chomsky has a great deal to say in this book about Israel, Obama's continuation of Bush's policies toward its settlement building, extreme violations of the Geneva Conventions and the context of Israel's attack on Gaza in December 2008 and its economic strangulation of Gaza. Chomsky has always stressed that Israel's main goal is not security but stealing all the best land and resources from the territories. He quotes Moshe Dayan from the early days of the occupation as saying privately that Israel should make Palestinians live "like dogs" and invite them to leave the territories if they didn't like it. He also has a few words about the BDS. He suggests that the boycott movement against South Africa wasn't exactly the rousing success that some BDS advocates assume it was.

There are other subjects discussed in this book. Chomsky notes Obama's continuation of Bush style militarism and the terrible toll on civilians of Obama's drone strikes on Pakistan and air strikes in Afghanistan. He points out the important ways the Obama administration supported the coup in Honduras. He describes the horrendous toll of Haiti's January 2010 earthquake as rooted in the economic policies the US has forced on Haiti. He quotes a number of mainstream strategic analysts, including former weapons inspector David Kay and the neoconservative Reuel Marc Gerecht, that Iran has very rational reasons for building up its nuclear capacity as a deterrent. Chomsky explores the possibility for a peaceful settlement in Afghanistan. He quotes with admiration Malalai Joya, the feminist human rights activist now in hiding from the misogynist fundamentalist Northern Alliance warlord gangsters Rumsfeld re-installed in power. He quotes an observation made by the last British ambassador to the Soviet Union, that from the ambassador's conversations with pro-Western Afghans, these Afghans greatly prefer life under the Soviet backed regime, when women achieved significant gains and the country seemed to be modernizing.

. Chomsky writes that financial industry interests are clearly reflected in the policies of the Obama administration. He notes that the financial industry has taken up a disproportionate share of our economic life. Economic growth during the Bush years relied on an 8 trillion dollar housing bubble whose extreme danger Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, and other official geniuses did not fathom. Meanwhile, American manufacturing capacity has declined significantly in recent decades. The real wages of most American workers have declined since the late 70's, except for a spike during the Clinton tech stock boom of the late 90's, Chomsky notes. One of the quotes Chomsky often uses in his works (as he does in this book) is taken from Alan Greenspan's senate testimony from 1997 about the stagnating wages and "greater worker insecurity" fueling American economic growth. Chomsky cites an interesting story from the Wall Street Journal relating to Obama's stimulus and the decline of American manufacturing. On the health care bill, the Obama administration made a deal with the pharmaceutical industry whereby the health care reform bill would contain no mandate for the government to negotiate drug prices downward or demand rebates. Chomsky cites a Business Week article of August 2009 which said the health care industry had "already won" the health care debate. Health care industry lobbyists worked intensively behind the scenes to make sure the bill didn't seriously threaten their interests. Chomsky quotes the chairman of the Business Roundtable as saying that the bill that came out of Max Baucus's committee was closely aligned to his group's own vision for a proper reform bill. The Business Week article predicted that the health care industry would come out of the reform process more profitable than ever.

Chomsky also discusses one of my favorite topics: how the most successful economies in the world, including the United States, have routinely violated free market principles in order to become successful. He points out that Chile's following of the principles of Milton Friedman under Pinochet led to complete disaster by 1982. Since then, he notes, Chile has achieved some economic success by placing controls on capital flow and relying on its copper export industry, the largest company in which is the government run CODELCO.

I do wish Chomsky would go into more depth on health care. In his works, he often likes to cite polls showing that a majority of Americans have views that are often significantly more left wing than the Democrats. In this book, for example, he cites polls on Obama's health care plan, including polling relating to the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts. These polls show that many Americans opposed to Obama-care base their opposition not on Republican style arguments but on the feeling that the legislation does not go far enough.

Chomsky is a nice relief from the insanity and imbecility of mainstream political discourse.

I'm not usually a huge fan of Chomsky but his new collection of essays Hopes and Prospects is really good. The first part of the book deals with Latin America. Chomsky outlines the colonial past and present of Latin American countries and their valiant efforts to rid themselves of neo-imperialist domination by the United States. He states correctly that today's struggles of Latin American countries (Bolivia, Argentina, Venezuela) to oppose the depredations of the US-inspired version of globalization offer hope for the rest of the world. He is also absolutely right in pointing out that "Latin America is not merely the victim of foreign forces. The region is notorious for the rapacity of its wealthy classes and their freedom from social responsibility." Here, Chomsky echoes Eduardo Galeano's classic work Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continentthat decades ago offered a brilliant analysis of how Latin American power elites sold out their own countries to the predatory forces of the US neo-liberalism. Today, Chomsky points out "Latin America has real choices, for the first time in its history." And this is great news for the entire planet.

In the second part of the book, Chomsky analyzes the influence that the imperialist mentality in the US exercises over the discussions of the US military presence in Iraq. I was particularly pleased to see that Chomsky decided not to follow in the footsteps of most liberal commentators in their refusal to see that Russian imperialism is in no way "better" or more justified than the US imperialism. Chomsky qualifies Putin's actions in Chechnya as "murderous", which they most definitely are. I only wish that more progressive analysts dared to depart from the tendency to praise everybody who opposes the US regardless of the atrocities they perpetrate. It is definitely right that the US imperialism and Russian imperialism should be discussed together since there are glaring similarities between them.

Chomsky then segues into what I consider the weakest part of the book: the discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As usual, Chomsky's analysis of the issue is one-sided and biased. Israelis are all villainous nationalists and religious fanatics, while the Palestinians are without an exception languishing and tolerant victims. While Chomsky is right in suggesting that the Israelis do everything they can to make sure the conflict continues, he forgets to say that so do the Palestinians. When he describes the Israeli "information campaigns to instruct the world on its errors and misunderstanding, arrogant self-righteousness, circling the wagons, defiance . . . and paranoia," he avoids mentioning that this exactly the pattern adopted by every single nation-state with a very weak and diluted national identity (Russia is a great example of precisely this kind of paranoid nation building. Closer to home, so is the US.)

Starting from Chapter 9 of Part II, Chomsky offers a brilliant analysis of the 2008 presidential elections and the job Obama's presidency has done since then. He points out correctly that both Democrats and Republicans are considerably to the right of the American population on many major issues, both international and domestic. Hence, it is not surprising that Obama's tepid efforts to defend his intentions to introduce some kind of change don't convince Americans any longer. Chomsky talks about how the American people have been brilliantly manipulated into being suspicious of public welfare programs that would be of invaluable use to themselves while supporting the "nanny state for the rich."

The fact that the two main candidates in the 2008 Democratic primary were a woman and an African American were a welcome sign, Chomsky acknowledges, that the country has managed to get at least somewhat civilized. Still, we cannot expect the joy from this reality to keep us perennially blind to the numerous ways in which Obama has not been living up to his promise. Chomsky reminds us that "Obama's message of 'hope' and 'change' offered a virtual blank slate on which supporters could write their wishes." And write we did, only to be disappointed in most of our expectations.

The book is composed of a series of essays and as a result is very repetitive in places. It could have done with a lot of editing because many sentences are simply repeated over and over. This lack of editing is the main reason for the four-star rating I give to the book.

I had only a vague idea of Chomsky and a limited knowledge of international affairs so stumbled on this book pretty much by accident. I found it riveting. Chomsky has a great grasp of his subject and portrays very clearly what international relations is really about. Such an authoritative if disconcerting source is sorely needed and one would hope that it is widely read. I bought several copies to pass around.

Any book on essays based on speeches, or written topically for a particular issue runs the risk of being historical as soon as publication hits the bookstores. While some of the essays in "Hopes and Prospects" are no exception (though remaining historically relevant) others manage, sadly, to maintain currency.

Chomsky is the world's conscience. His depressive realism is so forthright, so unabashed, so consistent and truthful I have to wonder how he manages to maintain enough optimism to get out of bed each morning.

"Hopes and Prospects" is short on hopes, and long on prospects, mostly negative ones. We in the West maintain the health of our psyches by pretending that life is okay, that it's all right, that it's not so bad, that generally things are acceptable and people mostly manage to get by. We are afforded this luxury because we can insulate ourselves from the fact that the vast majority of the world lives in a raging sea of violence and a squalor of opportunities.

Chomsky doesn't hold back, but points this out to us, over and over again. He finds all the things we do wrong with the world, and forces us to look at them, and at least for the moment when one is reading this book, our illusions are stripped and the world is laid bare in all of its terrible reality.

He describes the political, economic and social inertia that maintains the status quo in the world, despite many of the problems (of poverty, violence and ignorance) seeming at first glance to be so soluble. He describes the crippling conservatism, the fear of losing our wealth bound in those of us who are lucky enough to have it, the vested interests, the double standards, the hollow rhetoric, and generally the (at best) weakness and (at worst) criminality that blights our leaders.

This is essential reading for anyone fortunate enough to be born in the West. Chomsky's writings elucidate the world, but more than that, they instruct us that the biggest contributors to our host of geo-political problems are a lack of ethics and compassion. If we can increase compassion and reduce fear just a little in each of us here in the West, we could go a long way to fixing the world.

Chomsky is definitely a glass-is-half-empty kind of bloke. He is the pessimist (or depressive realist, if you will) who fears that we live in the best of all possible worlds. On that note, while he is tireless in deconstructing our problems for us, he rarely if ever provides a practical solution or a helpful idea to allow his readers to get out and do something positive. In this regard, he would do well to acquire the services of a marketing expert or someone else skilled in eliciting practical and positive reactions from people.

His is bitter medicine to swallow, but unfortunately, acknowldgement is only half the cure.

Once again a well informed piece of literature that will stand the test of time as well as encapsulating a host of sources and references (regarding instances of the modern wars) that can be accessed. I am always confused when I read the ratings of 1 suggesting Chomsky doesn't back up what he says. I seriously stop and wonder if such reviewers actually read the ideas and follow the references. I am not validating Chomsky's claims, and in many cases he carefully words assertions in light of academic integrity (I think). This book is once again brilliant.

I especially enjoyed Year 514 (unit 1) and the background on Haiti; I am interested to read more on this area. I also enjoyed the inclusion of Obama perspectives and this led me to think we are able to start concluding that Obama's Nobel Speech Prize was a bit premature as actions now contradict future prospects.

Chomsky eloquently revisits important names and events, as in his other books on politics, and I think these are relevant and important for readers like me whom are building backgrounds in such areas. As a reader, such spaced repetition between books, helps me remember and rethink of relevant names and dates.

This would make a good first Chomsky reader if you have not yet read his work. It's interesting, it's historical, and it's easy/enjoyable to read - if you are interested in such matters.