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Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire

Book by Noam Chomsky · 9 quotes · Chomsky, Jfk, Vietnam War

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Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire Quotes

“That's one of the reasons why, say, Canada, a very similar country, has a health care system and we don't. In Canada, the unions struggled for health care for the country. In the United States, they struggled for health care for themselves. So if you're an autoworker here in the United States, you had a pretty god health care and pension system. Union workers won health care for themselves in a compact with the corporations. They thought it was a deal. What they couldn't see was that it's a suicide pact. If the corporation decides the compact is over, then it's over. Meanwhile, the rest of the country didn't get health care. So now the United States has a completely dysfunctional health care system, while Canada has one that more or less works. That's a relation of different cultural values and institutional structures in two very similar countries. So yes, the working class did continue to develop and grow here, but with class collaboration, that is, in a compact with the corporations.”

Health CareClass Consciousness
Book:Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire
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“The people who call themselves conservatives say, 'We have to maintain family values by preventing women from having a choice as to whether they will have children, and then by not giving them any support when they have to take care of their children. That's how we preserve family values.' The internal contradictions are amazing.”

ConservativesChomsky
Book:Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire
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“By the time John F. Kennedy became involved in 1961, the situation was out of control. So Kennedy simply invaded the country. In 1962, he sent the U.S. Air Force to start bombing South Vietnam, using planes with South Vietnamese markings. Kennedy authorized the use of napalm, chemical warfare, to destroy the ground cover and crops. He started the process of driving the rural population into what were called 'strategic hamlets,' essentially concentration camps, where people were surrounded by barbed wire, supposedly to protect them from the guerillas who the U.S. government knew perfectly well they supported. This 'pacification' ultimately drove millions of people out of the countryside while destroying large parts of it. Kennedy also began operations against North Vietnam on a small scale. That was 1961.”

Vietnam WarJfkPower Systems
Book:Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire
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“By the time John F. Kennedy became involved in 1961, the situation was out of control. So Kennedy simply invaded the country. In 1962, he sent the U.S. Air Force to start bombing South Vietnam, using planes with South Vietnamese markings. Kennedy authorized the use of napalm, chemical warfare, to destroy the ground cover and crops. He started the process of driving the rural population into what were called 'strategic hamlets,' essentially concentration camps, where people were surrounded by barbed wire, supposedly to protect them from the guerillas who the U.S. government knew perfectly well they supported. This 'pacification' ultimately drove millions of people out of the countryside while destroying large parts of it. Kennedy also began operations against North Vietnam on a small scale. That was 1962.”

Vietnam WarJfk
Book:Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire
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“In 1963, the Kennedy administration got wind of the fact that the government of Ngo Dinh Diem it had installed in South Vietnam was trying to arrange peace negotiations with the North. Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, were trying to negotiate a peace settlement. So the Kennedy liberals determined that they had to be thrown out. The Kennedy administration organized a coup in which the two brothers were killed and they put in their own guy, meanwhile escalating the war. Then came the assassination of President Kennedy. Contrary to a lot of mythology, Kennedy was one of the hawks in the administration to the very last minute. He did agree to proposals for withdrawal from Vietnam, because he knew the war was very unpopular there, but always with the condition of withdrawal after victory.”

Vietnam WarJfk
Book:Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire
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“. . . public education and Social Security are residues of a dangerous conception that we're all in this together and we have to work together to create a better life and a better future. If you're trying to maximize profit or maximize consumption, then working together is the wrong idea. It has to be beaten out of people's heads. Solidarity makes people hard to control and prevents them from being passive objects of private power. So you have to have a propaganda system that overcomes any deviation from the principle of subjugation to power systems.”

Social SecurityPublic Education
Book:Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire
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“Take Ron Paul. He appeals to a lot of progressives. He said on Fox, 'The greatest hoax I think that has been around for many, many years if not hundreds of years has been this hoax on the environment and global warming.' He doesn't provide any argument or evidence as to why he disregards the scientific consensus--just, I say so, period. With that attitude, you really are approaching the edge.”

Climate ChangeChomskyRon Paul
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“In the case of Tunisia, it was indeed this single act that sparked what had been long-standing active protest movements and moved them forward. But that's not so unusual. Let's look at our own history. Take the civil rights movement. There had been plenty of concern and activism about violent repression of blacks in the South, and it took a couple of students sitting in at a lunch counter to really set it off. Small acts can make a big difference when there is a background of concern, understanding, and preliminary activism.”

ChangeActivismSocial Movements
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