|
|
|
|
The Average Jane or Joe Can Decide U.S. Policy Better than the “Experts”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
by Polly Mann, W A M M
|
|
After recently listening to Amy Goodman interview an ex-reporter for The New York Times on the power and intractability of the U.S. government, I was reminded of an article in The Chomsky Reader, published in l987. It’s an ongoing, almost never-ending reflection I engage in— lamenting the wars in which this country is engaged. Seventy percent of us want the government to call a halt to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some of us want a total turnabout in U.S. policies both at home and abroad. I think there would be more dissent, more action, if so many of us were not persuaded—by our educational institutions, by the corporate media, and by Wall Street—that the people “running things” were running them for the benefit of not just the American people, but of all people everywhere. This, of course, is not true.
Chomsky contends that “the average person” is qualified to render rational and well-thought-out decisions about the role of government. The intellectuals whom we usually depend on for important decisions about government that affect our daily lives, most often, reflect current opinion. Who are these intellectuals? Journalists, writers, college faculty, heads of think tanks, etc.
The war in Vietnam is a case in point. During the war we were told on every side that the war was about democracy, Communism and freedom. We were lied to by intellectuals. I suspect some of those intellectuals lied to themselves.
Today we’re once again in the same position. Do we never learn? We may eventually stop the daily killing in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we will be left with the continuing problem of preemptive war, with 823 overseas military bases guaranteeing U.S. corporations the freedom to engage in international trade that too often is to the detriment of local economies. It isn’t just fixing the brakes and changing the oil that’s needed but rather a total overhaul of government. Or maybe a new car altogether?
I think not only I but all WAMM members would agree with the following paragraph of Chomsky: “If we had the honesty and the moral courage, we would not let a day pass without hearing the cries of the victims. We would turn on the radio in the morning and listen to the voices of the people who escaped the massacres in El Quiche province, and the Guazapa Mountains, and the daily press would carry front-page pictures of children dying of malnutrition and disease in the countries where order reigns and crops and beef are exported to the American market, with an explanation of why this is so. We would listen to the extensive and detailed record of terror and torture in our dependencies, compiled by Amnesty International, Americas Watch . . .”
Isn’t that what WAMM is all about? Encouraging people to look at what is being done in their name all over the world as other people’s resources are exploited and stolen and the people, themselves, massacred and killed? |
|
|
|
© 2009 Women Against Military Madness. All rights reserved.
|
 |
|
Complete September 2009 Index - click here
|
|
 |
|
|
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
|
|
|
|
|
|
