Chomsky As the Rest of the World Knows Him

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Kolhatkar: I noticed in your op-eds, and in your writing and speaking generally, you cite the results of polls like this very often, bringing up what exactly Iraqis want and what they have said about the occupation, much more so than we hear in the mainstream media. Can you comment on the mainstream media's downplaying of the aspirations of Iraqis?

Chomsky: They're available in other sources too. For example, Iraq has a very lively, courageous labor movement which has managed to survive the occupation miraculously. The United States, when they invaded, reinstated, in fact imposed again Saddam Hussein's harsh anti-labor laws and Iraqi workers have been resisting. Oil workers for example have bitterly condemned the oil bill that the United States is trying to force the Iraqi parliament to accept and workers' organizations are struggling elsewhere. We can learn about that but you won't find much in the press. I think the reason is-it's not a matter of simply not reporting this or that and if you look carefully you can find information here and there. It's the whole framework that's just outlandish.

All of this is based on a presupposition, which sort of determines the entire framework of reporting. It's unspoken but it's accepted and it's deep. The presupposition is "We own the world." Read the headlines. They've had a lot of news about the first discussions between, meetings between the United States and Iran. How are they framed? Well, here's one headline that I clipped that happens to be in front of me from a national newspaper. "After talks, US seeks action by Iran." Is that the issue in a country that is under foreign occupation? You see action but the invaders ask for action from someone else. That's not considered strange in the United States. Because we're there by right. And everything we do is right by necessity and there maybe some mistakes here and there but basically, it's ours, we're there. And if anyone's interfering, it's their problem, they're the ones who are the criminals.

So, whether Iran is interfering or not, who knows -- that's what the debate is about. But that's not the right debate. And it's that framework of interpretation and understanding that colors all commentary -- not just the media but the journals and so on.

Kolhatkar: One of the parts of the world that we seem to be losing our grip over is Latin America. And you talk about that in several of your op-eds. "South America: The Tipping Point," "Latin America declares its independence and alternatives for the Americas," etc. You talk about the increasing independence of the Latin American countries from the US. One of those avenues is through joining Mercosur. How optimistic are you that Mercosur is a viable economic path for Latin America and will the United States allow these countries to pursue their own path to shake off the shackles of recent US imperialism?

Chomsky: Well, certainly the United States is not going to allow it easily to happen. On the other hand, Mercosur has not very bright prospects right now. Too much internal antagonism -- it hasn't gotten off the ground. It might and there are steps towards it. And there are further steps.

One of the other essayists discusses a very important meeting that took place, which I don't think we received any report in the US. At Cochabamba, Bolivia last December, there was a meeting of Latin American and South American leaders. [They] patched up differences, laid plans for a kind of a European union-style federation for closer integration and cooperation, constructive proposals. Cochabamba is more than a symbolic place. That's the center of successful resistance against World Bank, US corporate efforts to essentially take over the economy.

There's major struggle there over attempts by the World Bank, basically US accessory to privatized war. I think Banktel was the company that was involved and was in fact driven out by popular resistance. So Cochabamba means something and the meeting means something, therefore I suppose it wasn't reported. Can the US stop these developments? Well, you know, things are not the way they used to be.

The US training of Latin American officers is probably at the highest -- it's gone up sharply and maybe at the highest level, even through the Cold War. And they're being trained for what's called the "control of the radical populism," and we know what that means in the context. But whether they can use that weapon or not is not clear. And also the economic weapon, the other major weapon, has been greatly weakened.

The IMF particularly, the International Monetary Fund, which is virtually a branch of the US Treasury, has held much of the continent in a stranglehold through-as creditor's community enforcers, one of its directors calls it. And they're freeing themselves from that. Argentina's president announced a year or two ago that, 'We're ridding ourselves of the IMF, paid off the debt, restructured and paid off the debt.' The same with Venezuela. Brazil in a different way did the same. Bolivia will do the same. Probably Ecuador.

Country after country has simply been building up reserves, getting rid of the debt, getting rid of the IMF. The IMF is in trouble now. That weapon of control has greatly weakened. For Latin America to overcome 500 years of one or another form of colonization and of internal disarticulation between tiny, wealthy elite and the mass of impoverished people -- that's not going to be easy. But there are steps towards it as there were in the early '60s. And this time, the steps cannot just be crushed by force.

Kolhatkar: Finally, Professor Chomsky, these op-eds that we've been discussing-gathered for the first time in this book "Interventions"-are not op-eds that Americans regularly have the chance to read. But people in other countries do. Why is that?

Chomsky: We cannot expect the media to try to destroy themselves. They'll allow a little bit of dissent and criticism. And in fact, in self-criticism, I could do more ...

Kolhatkar: Such as?

Chomsky: If I devoted myself to it. But there's a question of -- that would mean I do less of this, less of speaking, less of traveling around and so on. So you pick and choose. But in general, what you say is correct there.

And it's not just me. Do you read op-eds by Edward Herman, by Alex Cockburn, by dozens of other people I could mention?No, you don't. Do you read Robert Fisk's reporting on the Middle East? Patrick Cockburn's reporting on Iraq? No, you don't. Occasionally, you may get a word here and there. But that's not the picture the media want to present.

To go back to our first few moments, they do not want op-eds that will point out that everything, all discussion that is going on in the United States, virtually all the media, the journals, everywhere, is based on assumptions so outlandish that if any other country produced them, we'd collapse and ridicule or maybe nuke them or something. Namely, the idea that we own the world. It's extremely hard to find any discussion or commentary that does not tacitly accept that it isn't ridiculous unless you accept that, as in the examples we mentioned. There's no interest in having that pointed out and hammered home day after day. The media are not monolithic. It's not a totalitarian system and you can learn a lot from them. But you can't disregard the institutional structure that shapes their character, and it's not just the media. The same is true with journals, with opinion, with most academic scholarship.