Who Rules the World?

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Of particular concern to Russia are plans to expand Nato to Ukraine. These plans were articulated explicitly at the Bucharest Nato summit of April 2008, when Georgia and Ukraine were promised eventual membership in Nato. The wording was unambiguous: “Nato welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in Nato. We agreed today that these countries will become members of Nato.” In the process, Chomsky provides a brilliant anatomy of just how U.S. elites have grown ever more insulated from any democratic constraints on their power. While the broader population is lulled into apathy—diverted to consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable—the corporations and the rich have increasingly been allowed to do as they please. Noam Chomsky was recently named the world's number-one public intellectual in a poll by Prospect magazine. He is the author of numerous bestselling political works, including Hegemony or Survival, Imperial Ambitions and Failed States, all of which are published by Hamish Hamilton and Penguin. Noam Chomsky is a professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT, and is widely credited with having revolutionized modern linguistics. However, Chomsky closes his deliberations with the powerful alternative question to the opening one - i.e. "What principles and values rule the world?'

If we adopt to the perspective of the world we might ask which criminal are 'wanted the world over'. The US has mainly seen its torture done for it by proxy - paying, arming, training and foreigners doing it but usually being careful to keep America at least one discreet step removed. Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, political activist, author, and lecturer. He is an Institute Professor and professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Fierce, unsparing, and meticulously documented, Who Rules the World? delivers the indispensable understanding of the central issues of our time that we have come to expect from Chomsky. There are good reasons to believe that a well-constructed police action, or even serious diplomatic negotiations with the Taliban, might have placed those suspected of the 9/11 crimes in American hands for trial and sentencing. But such options were off the table. Instead, the reflexive choice was large-scale violence – not with the goal of overthrowing the Taliban (that came later) but to make clear US contempt for tentative Taliban offers of the possible extradition of bin Laden. Bits of the book were repetitive. Its arguments were strongly stated - which I understand, but the result was a metaphorical bludgeoning which I kept waiting to be equally balanced with a "Next Steps, what you can do" section. That wasn't part of this book and, for me, that lessened it. If there was no path forward at the end, then I think the earlier bits that hammered the point of failure and evil, needed to include what the alternative, non-evil (sorry for the clumsy wording) actions might have been.The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance. But again who rules “the world”? Is it ruled by the people? The normal Americans who go to vote every four years? Nope. Actually, in the 2016 election, about 94 million eligible US voters avoided the election because they believed their vote won’t make a difference. No matter who the president is, the policies especially the foreign policy of the US will not change because it is controlled by “Masters of Mankind” as the author calls them. And these are the big corporations and financial institutions. They are the principal architects of government policy and who pursue their “vile maxim”: “All for ourselves and nothing for other people”. They represent what they term “the national interest”. A term that is used again and again to represent their interests and not the people, just like how “the world” does not represents the actual world. Horrifying. Whether you're inclined to believe the author's (Noam Chomsky) analysis or the views of those he opposes, I doubt anyone can read unmoved this rollcall of suffering. So much violence, so many deaths. It does demand an answer: what motivates us as societies and individuals to commit and/or tolerate the abuse of people present and future, and of the environment that sustains us?

urn:lcp:whorulesworld0000chom:epub:9f70e70f-7d1c-4922-b94f-01af49f5fa53 Foldoutcount 0 Identifier whorulesworld0000chom Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t81m2493d Invoice 1652 Isbn 9781627793810 Gaza provides Palestine the only access to the outside world so once they are separated any autonomy that Isreal might grant to Palestinians to the West Bank would leave them effectively imprisoned between two hostile states, Isreal and Jordan. Isreal is in a fine position today to reverse its decade old policy of separating Gaza from the West Bank and observe a major ceasefire agreement for the first time. How serious these offers were we do not know, since the possibility of exploring them was never entertained. Or perhaps the US was just intent on “trying to show its muscle, score a victory and scare everyone in the world. They don’t care about the suffering of the Afghans or how many people we will lose”. Unprecedented protest in the US was a manifestation of the opposition to aggression that began decades earlier in the condemnation of the US wars in Indochina, reaching a scale that was substantial and influential, even if far too late. US invaded Iraq resulting in hundreds of thousands killed and millions of refugees along with barbarous torture and destructions. Meanwhile igniting sectarian conflict that is tearing the region to shreds and laying the basis for ISIS monstrosity along with their ally Saudi Arabia is categorised as 'stabilization'. On the other hand, Iran poses no military threat, its strategic doctrines are defensive and its nuclear program (have no effect to produce bombs as far as intelligence can determine) are a central part of US's deterrent strategy.The European Union (EU), one of the more promising developments of the post-world war II period, has been tottering because of the harsh effect of the policies of austerity during recession, condemned even by the economists of the International Monetary Fund (if not the IMF’s political actors). Ninety-five percent of Turks opposed that course of action and, to the amazement and horror of Washington, the Turkish government adhered to their views. Turkey was bitterly condemned for this departure from responsible behavior. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, designated by the press as the “idealist-in-chief” of the administration, berated the Turkish military for permitting the malfeasance of the government and demanded an apology. Unperturbed by these and innumerable other illustrations of our fabled “yearning for democracy”, respectable commentary continued to laud President George W Bush for his dedication to “democracy promotion”, or sometimes criticized him for his naivete in thinking that an outside power could impose its democratic yearnings on others. Noam Chomsky is the author of numerous bestselling political works including Hegemony or Survival, Failed States, and On Western Terrorism. A professor emeritus of linguistics and philosophy at MIT, he is widely credited with having revolutionized modern linguistics. It is possible that, if the United States goes the way of nineteenth-century Britain, Chomsky's interpretation will be the standard among historians a hundred years from now." —The New Yorker This collection of previously published essays was re-issued two years ago, with an Afterword to the 2017 edition so it is unfortunate that earlier chapters have not been updated in light of later events which now shed a different light on some of Chomsky's analyses. For instance, the mood of angry impotence and rebellion across Europe against the imposition of austerity measures and mass immigration is only now gathering momentum, which shifts the emphasis onto globalisation as a current threat to world stability.