Chomsky

A Summary of Chomsky's Book Called What Uncle Sam Really Wants

      What Uncle Sam Really Wants, 1992, Noam Chomsky, Odonian Press, Berkeley CA. People, institutions, governments, business, and ideas are divided into two camps: the fascist camp and the anti-fascist camp.

      On the one hand, Noam Chomsky sees the following as part of the fascist camp: "American planners" of the US government; "the US-Nazi alliance" after WWII (page 8); "the postwar alliance between the US and the SS" (page 19); a "prewar Fascist regime" in Italy; "the Vatican and fascist priests"; influence of George Kennan of the US State Department; the Marshall Plan; "industrial capitalist societies"; a free enterprise which is really "a public subsidy for high-technology industry" and for agriculture; "treating Japanese as 'honorary whites'"; installing right-wing dictatorships; "US-supported police states . . . modeled . . . on the Third Reich"; "the need to overcome democratic excesses" or "excessive liberalism of Third World countries"; opposition to "real democracies" in the Third World; "the real commitment is to 'private, capitalist enterprise'"; support of military coups; "support for aggression, terror and subversion"; "racism"; an opposition to "democratic capitalist governments" in the Third World when they seek too much independence; teaching methods of the Gestapo and "Heinrich Himmler's extermination squads"; seeking to "destroy Brazilian democracy"; instituting a "neo-Nazi-style national security state with torture"; supporting the contras in Nicaragua; quashing the "support of Communist and anti-American activities"; employing "gangsters" in the Third World; supporting "government terrorists" in the Third World; "the US-run terrorist army"; totalitarianism; business leaders; "the rich white elite"; "the right-wing European press"; "the demonization of Qaddafi"; blocked "free elections" in Laos and Vietnam; "to maximize repression and suffering" in the Third World" (page 58); "some kind of Nazi or unreconstructed Stalinist" (page 46); "Washington sadists"; the "global enforcer"; "President Bush, the invader of Panama"; "Israel's illegal occupation of southern Lebanon" (page 64); aid to Israel, a nation "that secretly develops nuclear weapons" (page 65); "deeply racist societies like Western Europe and the United States"; international corporations and finance; the rich; US military power; "Western violence" in the Third World; "undermining the anti-fascist resistance and the labor movement"; the Mafia (page 85); "a CIA mercenary army"; "a welfare state for the rich"; "the US backed Israel's rejection of Sadat's offer" (page 89); corporations and business; Republicans using tactics to control the general population; dominant elites; "Kennedy launched a huge international terrorist campaign against Cuba" (page 96); "the state terrorists"; "clandestine terror"; "near-totalitarian control"; and "the wealthy and powerful people."

      The "fascist" camp has acted, writes Chomsky, to stop the spread of what "US planners" call "Communism," and "Communism" is, according them, "the idea that the government has direct responsibility for the welfare of the people." (Page 10.) After WWII in regions throughout the world, Chomsky writes, the US was "installing fascists and Nazi collaborators" in place of "the antifascist resistance," installing in one instance a "Nazi collaborator" who had been "the author of the antisemitic laws promulgated by the Vichy government." Chomsky writes the following when arguing that Moscow during the Cold War was not a party to unspeakable acts but that the US was: "while the Moscow-imposed government in Prague would degrade and humiliate reformers, the Washington-made government in Guatemala would kill them." Chomsky describes Iraq's invasion of Kuwait as "well within the range of many similar crimes conducted by the US and its allies, and nowhere near as terrible as some." (Page 61.) Later on the book, Chomsky describes the invasion of Kuwait as Saddam Hussein's "sole crime" and as "the crime of disobedience." (Page 77.) The USSR permitted "popular movements" and "encouraged them." (Page 69.) The USSR publicly apologized for the invasion of Afganistan," but the US has not apologized for "the attacks against Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia." (Page 70.) "For many years," writes Chomsky, "the UN has been blocked by the great powers, primarily the United States--not the Soviet Union or the Third World." (Page 62.) The "commissar class" supported George Bush for supporting South Africa even while "South Africa was looting and destroying Namibia." (Page 66.) Billions of more dollars transfer from Latin America to the US than vice-versa. (Page 72.) It is "hypocrisy for the United States to export Tobacco" while pleading with nations to stop the flow of cocaine. (Page 84.) The "well-oiled Republican PR systems of the 1980's," writes Chomsky, "regularly accused the Democrats of being the party of the special interests:women, labor, the elderly, the young, [and] farmers--in short, the general population." (Page 89.) Democrats have been outmanuevered by Republicans because Democrats lack "the single-minded class consciousness of their Repliblican opponents." (Pages 89-90.) The "major media" or the "elite media" are described as "large corporations" which appeal to "privileged audiences," in one fashion, and to the general population, in another fashion. (Pages 93-95.)

      On the other hand, Chomsky sees the following as part of the anti-fascist camp: "the antifascist resistance with its radical democratic ideals"; "a worker-and peasant-based movement [in Italy], led by the Communist party"; "the unions and other democratic forces"; the Third World; "democratic" governments in Latin America, "the underground French Communist party"; the French labor movement; "popular forces" that push for "meaningful democracy"; social revolution; "bringing about a better life" for people living in the Third World; independence and justice; "freedom and justice"; "struggle for freedom"; the "good example"; "the workers and peasants in a victorious struggle against the upper classes and large foreign enterprises"; a "commitment to democracy"; raising "the threat of democracy"; "real progress towards meaningful democracy"; "establishment of a democratic government [in Guatemala] . . . modeled . . . on Roosevelt's New Deal"; "the only mass-based political party" in Indonesia; "shrill anti-Western rhetoric of the Third World"; Democrats (page 90); the general population; and libertarian socialist thought.

      The "antifascist" camp seeks "independence" for Third World nations, which has been a threat, writes Chomsky, to "the new US-led world order." Chomsky writes that he thinks that there are legal grounds "for impeaching every American president since the Second World War" because they have all been "outright war criminals." (Page 32.) The Soviet Union did not practice real socialism, he says, but had too much central authority due to Lenin, and Chomsky calls the fall of the Soviet Union "an opportunity to revive the lively and vigorous libertarian socialist thought." (Page 92.) Chomsky describes the end of the Soviet Union as "a small victory for socialism, much as the defeat of the fascist powers was." (Page 93.)

      Chomsky encourages readers to change the system by voting, letter writing, demonstrations, and forms of civil disobedience such as office sit ins. He says that change happens only if efforts are "sustained and organized." He writes the following: "we can provide them ['people of the Third World'] with a margin of survival by internal disruption in the United States". (Page 100.)

Posted at http://home.att.net/~phosphor on August 13, 1999.

Last editing was posted August 31, 1999.

Go back to list of artists awarded GRAMMY's.

Go to homepage.