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A Revolution Just Below the Surface: Golinger Interviews Chomsky
Via NY Transfer News Collective All the News that Doesn't Fit
Venezuelanalysis - Sep 28, 2007
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2659
A Revolution is Just Below the Surface
By Eva Golinger
[On September 21, 2007, I had the extraordinary opportunity to
interview Noam Chomsky in his office at Massachusetts Institute of
Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The interview will be aired on
Venezuelan and Latin American television as part of the promotion for
the III International Book Fair in Venezuela, which this year focuses
on the theme: "United States: Is Revolution Possible?" The
transcription of the interview follows.]
EVA: I read a quote of yours which said power is always illegitimate
unless it proves itself to be legitimate. So in Venezuela right now we
are in the process of Constitutional reform. And within that reform the
People's Power is going to gain Constitutional rank, above in fact all
the other state powers, the executive, legislative and judicial powers,
and in Venezuela we also have the electoral and the citizen's power.
Would this be an example of power becoming legitimate? A peoples
power? And could this change the way power is viewed? And change the
face of Latin America considering that the Bolivarian Revolution is
having such an influence over other countries in the region?
CHOMSKY: Your word, the word "could", is the right word. Yes it
"could" , but it depends how it is implemented. In principle it seems
to be a very powerful and persuasive conception, but everything always
depends on implementation. If there is really authentic popular
participation in the decision-making and the free association of
communities, yeah, that could be tremendously important. In fact that's
essentially the traditional anarchist ideal. That's what was realized
the only time for about a year in Spain in 1936 before it was crushed
by outside forces, in fact all outside forces, Stalinst Russia, Hitler
in Germany, Mussilini's fascism and the Western democracies cooperated
in crushing it. They were all afraid of it. But that was something like
what you are describing, and if it can function and survive and really
disperse power down to participants and their communities, it could be
extremely important.
EVA: Do you think it's just an idealist illusion or can it really be
manifested?
CHOMSKY: I think it can. It's usually crushed by outside force because
it's considered so dangerous...
EVA: But in this case when it's the government who's promoting it? The
state who's promoting it?
CHOMSKY: That's what going to be the crucial question. Is it coming
from the State or is it coming from the people? Now, maybe it can be
initiated from the State, but unless the energy is really coming from
the population itself, it's very likely to fall into some sort of
top-down directed pattern, and that's the real question. In Spain in
1936, the reason for the very substantial success is because it was
popular - it's a quite different situation from Venezuela. In Spain,
the anarchist tradition was very deeply rooted. There had been 50 years
of education, experiments, efforts which were crushed, I mean it was in
people's minds. So when the opportunity came they were developing what
was already in their minds, what they had tried to do many times, it
wasn't spontaneous, it was the result of decades of education,
organizing and activism on the ground. Now Venezuela is a different
situation, it's being initiated from above, and the question is can
that lead to direct popular participation and innovative and energy and
so on. That's a real historical experiment, I don't know the answer.
EVA: I think it's a combination because the reason that the coup
against Ch!vez was overthrown was because of the people's power...
CHOMSKY: That's right
EVA: It's just been unstructured and very spontaneous, so the idea
behind this is to somehow structure that, and I question from that same
anarchist perspective, if you structure that power will it....
CHOMSKY: Take off...
EVA: or become corrupted or illegitimate? Or will it Take off?
CHOMSKY: Take off...That's why the comparison with Spain is so
interesting because there it was coming from below, nothing coming from
above and it was there because people had been committed to it for
decades and had tried it out, organized and so on. There was a live
anarchist tradition, actually there is a live anarchist tradition in
Latin America but it's been repeatedly crushed, in Mexico, Argentina,
Chile, all over, actually I have a book right over there on the desk on
the history of Anarchism in Chile which is not very well known, so it's
been there, it's hidden, but I don't think these ideas are very far
below consciousness almost anywhere, including the United States. If
you talk to working class people they understand the notions. If fact
it's not too well known but in the United States, there was never a
powerful organized left, but in many ways it's one of the most leftist
societies in the world. In the mid-19th century for example, right in
the beginning of the industrialist revolution right around here in
Boston, there was a rich literature of working class people, what were
called factory girls, young women coming from the farms to work in the
mills, or Irish artesians, immigrants in Boston, very rich literature,
it was the period of the freest press ever in the country and it was
very radical. They had no connection with European radicalism, they had
never heard of Marx or anything else, and it was simply taken for
granted that wage labor is not much different from slavery, and if you
rent yourself to somebody that's not different from selling yourself.
Actually in the Civil War in the United States, a lot of the northern
workers actually fought under that banner, were against chattel slavery
and they were against wage slavery. And the standard slogan of the
people was "the people who work in the mills ought to own them and run
them". It took a long time to drive that out of people's heads. In the
1890s there were cities, like Homestead, Pennsylvania, that were taken
over by working class people with these ideas, and they're still there.
You know it's kind of suppressed by lots of propaganda and repression
and so on, but it's just below the surface and I would imagine that may
be the same in Venezuela. These are natural beliefs and there's a
possibility they might spring into fruition given the right
circumstances.
EVA: That's actually included in the constitutional reform as well, the
concept of creating communal cities, communes, that are worker-run, and
including the companies. It will be very interesting to see how it
develops.
CHOMSKY: It's very interesting
EVA: And how it then would change the force of power in the region
CHOMSKY: If it can carry out. In the past it has happened but it's been
crushed by force and even here in the United States it was crushed by
State violence.
EVA: On the notion of "crushed by force and state violence", thinking
of Latin America and the changes occurring, the influences of
Venezuela, right now President Ch!vez is mediating the peace process in
Colombia. One, how do you view his role as the mediator? And two, do
you think that the US is really going to allow for peace in Colombia
when there has been an expansion of Plan Colombia and Colombia remains
the stronghold of the United States and its military force in South
America? Would they react in a more sort of aggressive way?
CHOMSKY: I think the US will do what it can to make sure Colombia
remains more or less a client state. But I don't think the US has a
commitment to the internal war in Colombia. They do want to see FARC
destroyed. The US does not really want paramilitaries running the
country and the drug trade, I mean that's not optimal from the point of
view of an imperial power, you don't want to have para-powers carrying
out State activities. They were useful, and the US not only supported
them but in fact, they initiated them. If you go back to the early
sixties in Venezuela, in fact in 1962, President Kennedy sent a
military mission to Colombia, headed by a Special Forces General,
General Yarborough, to advise Colombia on how to deal with its internal
problems and they recommended paramilitary terror. That was their
phrase: they recommend "paramilitary power against known communist
adherents." Well, in the Latin American context, "known communist
adherents" means human rights activists, labor organizers, priests
working with peasants, I don't have to explain to you, and yeah, they
recommended paramilitary terror. You can look back and say that
Colombia has a violent history, but that changed it, that's really the
initiation of the massive state and paramilitary terror that turned
into a total monstrosity in the last couple of decades. But although
the United States did implement it and support it right through Plan
Colombia, it's not really in US interests and the interests of US power
systems for that to continue. They'd rather have an orderly, obedient
society, exporting raw materials, a place where US manufacturers can
have cheap labor and so on and so forth, but without the internal
violence. So I think there might be toleration at least of mediation
efforts that could curb the level of internal violence and control the
paramilitaries who will be and are in fact being absorbed into the
state.
EVA: But Ch!vez doing it?
CHOMSKY: Well, that's going to be interesting. In fact, it's rarely
discussed here. In fact right now there are also negotiations and
discussions going on between Brazil and Venezuela about joint projects,
the Orinoco River project, a gas pipeline, and so on. Try to find some
report about that here. People are afraid of it. The conception, or if
you like "party line" on Latin America, has had to shift. Latin America
has changed a lot, it's not what it was in the 1960s. For the first
time since the Spanish invasion the countries are beginning to face
some of the internal problems in Latin America. One of the problems is
just disintegration. The countries have very little relationship to one
another. They typically were related to the outside imperial power not
to each other. You can even see it in the transportation systems. But
there is also internal disintegration, tremendous inequality, the worst
in the world; small elites and huge massive impoverished people, and
the elites were Europe-oriented or US-oriented later - that's where
their second homes were, that's where their capital went to, that's
where their children went to school. They didn't have anything to do
with the population. The elites in Latin America had very little
responsibility for the countries. And these two forms of disintegration
and slowly being overcome. So there is more integration among the
societies, and there are several countries taking steps to deal with
the horrible problem of elite domination, which has a racial component
to it also of course, there is a pretty close correlation between
wealth and whiteness all over the continent. It's one of the reasons
for the antagonism to Ch!vez, it's because he doesn't look white. But
steps are being taken towards that, and that is significant. The US
doctrinal system, and I don't mean the government, I mean the press,
the intellectuals and so on, have shifted their description of Latin
America. It's no longer the democrats versus the communists - Pinochet
the democrat versus.... It's shifted, now it's conceded that there is a
move to the left, but there are the good leftists and the bad leftists.
The bad leftists are Ch!vez and Morales, maybe Kirchner, maybe Ecuador
- - they haven't decided yet, but those are the bad leftists. The good
ones are Brazil, maybe Chile and so on. In order to maintain that
picture it's been necessary to do some pretty careful control of
historical facts. For example, when Lula the good leftist was reelected
his first act was to go to Caracas where he and Ch!vez built a joint
bridge over the Orinoco...it wasn't even reported here, because you
can't report things like that, it contradicts the party line - the good
guys and the bad guys. And the same is true in this very moment with
the Brazil-Venezuela negotiations. I think they are very important.
Colombia is significant. If Ch!vez can carry it off that's great for
Colombia, but these other things are much broader in significance. If
Brazil and Venezuela can cooperate on major projects, joint projects,
maybe ultimately the gas pipeline through Latin America. That's a step
towards regional integration, which is a real prerequisite for defense
against outside intervention. You can't have defense against
intervention if the countries are separated from one another and if
they are separated internally from elites and general populations, so I
think these are extremely important developments. Colombia as well, if
it can be done, fine, reduce the level of violence, maybe take some
steps forward for the people of Colombia, but I think these other
negotiations and discussions proceeding at the same time have a deeper
and longer term significance.
EVA: Right now Ch!vez is in Manaus, just yesterday and today...
CHOMSKY: Right
EVA: Well, one of the tactics of US aggression against Venezuela and
against the rise of a new leftism or socialism in Latin America is
precisely to divide and counteract what Venezuela under Ch!vez has been
leading throughout the region which is now resulting in sovereignty and
Latin American integration. I guess to focus that question on a media
angle, one of the other tactics of aggression against Venezuela and
other countries in the region is obviously psychological warfare, on an
internal level in Venezuela, but also internationally to prevent the
people around the world from knowing really what's happening. Within
Venezuela under Ch!vez hundreds of new community media outlets have
been created. This has helped us internally to combat media
manipulation from corporate media in Venezuela, but on an international
level, we haven't had much advance fighting the war against the media
empire. How can we do that?
CHOMSKY: Well, the history of media in the west is interesting. I
mentioned that the period of the freest press in the US and England was
the mid-19th century, and it was rather like what you were describing.
There were hundreds of newspapers of all kinds, working class, ethnic,
communities of all kinds, with direct active participation, real
participation. People read in those days, working people. Like a
blacksmith in Boston would pay a 16 year old kid to read to him while
he was working. These factory girls coming from the farms had a high
culture, they were reading contemporary literature. And part of their
bitter condemnation of the industrial system was because it was taking
their culture away from them. They did run extremely interesting
newspapers and it was lively, exciting and a period of a really very
free vibrant press, and it was overcome slowly, most true in England
and the United States, which were then the freest countries in the
world. In England they tried censorship, it didn't work, there were too
many ways around it. They tried repressive taxation, again it didn't
work very well, similarly in the US. What did work finally was two
things: concentration of capital and advertiser reliance. First the
concentration of capital is obvious then you can do all kinds of things
that smaller newspapers can't do. But advertiser reliance means really
the newspapers are being run by the advertisers. If the source of
income is advertising, the main source, well that's of course going to
have an inordenent influence. And by now it's close to 100%. If you
turn on television, CBS doesn't make any money from the fact that you
turned on the television set, they make money from the advertisers. The
advertisers are in effect, the corporation that owns it is selling
audiences to advertisers, so of course the news product reflects
overwhelming the interests of the corporation and the buyers and the
market, which is advertisers. So yeah, and that over time, along with
concentration of capital, has essentially eliminated or sharply reduced
the diverse, lively and independent locally based media. And that's
pretty serious. In the United States, which has had no really organized
socialist movement, nevertheless, as recently as the 1950s, there were
about 800 labor newspapers which probably reached maybe 30 million
people a week, which by our standards were pretty radical, condemning
corporate power, condemning what they called the bought priesthood,
mainly those who run the media - the priesthood that was bought by the
corporate system offering a different picture to the world. In England,
it lasted into the 1960s. In the 1960s the tabloids - which are now
hideous if you look at them - they were labor-based newspapers in the
1960s, pretty leftist in their orientation. The major newspaper in
England that had the largest circulation, more than any other, was The
Daily Herald, which was a kind of social-democratic labor-based paper
giving a very different picture of the world. It collapsed, not because
of lack of reader interest, in fact it had probably the largest reader
interest of any, but because it couldn't get advertisers and couldn't
bring in capital. So what you're describing today is part of the
history of the west, which has been overcome slowly by the standard
processes of concentration of capital and of course advertiser reliance
is another form of it. But it's beginning to revive in the west as well
through the Internet and through cheap publishing techniques.
Computers, desktop publishing is now much cheaper than big publishing,
and of course the internet. So the new technologies are giving
opportunities to overcome the effects of capital concentration, which
has a severe impact on the nature of media and the nature of schools
and everything else. So, there's revival, and actually the major battle
that's going on right now is crucial, as to who is going to control the
Internet. The Internet was developed in places like this, MIT, that's
the state sector of the economy, most of the new economy comes out of
the state sector, it's not a free market economy. The Internet is a
case in point; it was developed in the state sector like here, actually
with Pentagon funding, and it was in the state sector for about 30
years before it was handed over to private corporations in 1995 under
Clinton. And right now there's a struggle going on as to whether it
will be free or not. So there's a major effort being made by the major
corporate centers to figure out some ways to control it, to prevent the
wrong kinds of things from their point of view from being accessible,
and there are now grassroots movements, significant ones struggling
against it, so these are ongoing live battles. There is nothing
inherent in capitalist democracy to the idea that the media have to be
run by corporations. It would have shocked the founding fathers of the
United States. They believed that the media had to be publicly run. If
you go back to the...its hard to believe now]
EVA: Well, that's why the airwaves are public
CHOMSKY: That's right, that's why the airwaves are kept public and it's
a gift to the corporations to allow them to be used. But if you go back
to Jefferson, even Hamilton, Madison and the rest of them, they were in
favor of public subsidies to newspapers to enable them to survive as
independent sources of information. Postal rates were set by the
government in such a way as to give advantages to the newspapers so
that the public would be able to have access to the widest possible
range of diverse information and so on. The Bill of Rights, which
technically established freedom of press, we can talk about whether
that works, but technically said nothing about whether the government
could intervene to support the media. In fact, it's not only a
possibility but it's what the framers of the Constitution had in mind.
Over the years, attitudes, the dominant culture, the hegemonic culture
as Gramsci would have called it, has changed so that the idea of the
corporatization of the media is sort of assumed kind of like the air
you breathe, but it's not, it's a creation of capitalist concentration
and the doctrinal system that goes with it...]It doesnt have to exist
EVA: So, in that sense a couple of months ago the Venezuelan government
decided not to renew the concession of one of the corporate media
outlets for many reasons, tax violations, not paying social security
for workers as well as being involved in the coup. Do you think that is
a demonstration of the State assuring that those airwaves remain in the
public sphere? And that is something that could be replicated in other
countries or even in the United States, they didn't revoke the
concession, they just didn't renew it.
CHOMSKY: You're talking about the RCTV case. Well, my own view of that
is kind of mixed. Formally I think it was a tactical mistake, and for
another I think you need a heavy burden of proof to close down any form
of media so in that sense my attitude is critical...
EVA: But should corporations have a stronghold on the concessions?
CHOMSKY: Yeah, I know, that's the other side. The question is what
replaces it. However, let me say that I agree with the western
criticism in one crucial respect. When they say nothing like that could
ever happen here, that's correct. But the reason, which is not stated,
is that if there had been anything like RCTV in the United States or
England or Western Europe the owners and the managers would have been
brought to trial and executed " In the United States executed, in
Europe sent to prison permanently, right away, in 2002. You can't
imagine the New York Times or CBS News supporting a military coup that
overthrew the government even for a day. The reaction would be "send
them to a firing squad" . So yeah, it wouldn't have happened in the
west because it would never have gotten this far. It seems to me that
there should be more focus on that. But as to the removal of the
license I think you just have to ask what's replacing it. In Venezuela,
you know better than I, my impression is that it was not a popular
move. And the population should have a voice in this, big voice, major
voice, so I think there are many sides to it. But it kind of depends
how it works itself out. Are you really going to get popular media, for
example?
EVA: Should the concessions be in the hands of the people to decide?
CHOMSKY: I think they should, yes, in fact in a technical sense they
are, even in the United States. Take the airwaves again, that's public
property. Corporations have no right to it, It's given to them as a
gift by the taxpayer and the taxpayer doesn't know it. The culture has
reached the point where the people assume that's the natural order of
things. It's not, it's a major gift from the public. In fact if you
look at the history of telecommunications, radio and television, it's
quite interesting. Radio came along in the 1920s and in most of the
world, it just became public. The United States is an interesting case,
it's almost the only major case in which radio was privatized. And
there was a struggle about it. The labor unions, the educational
institutions, the churches, they wanted it to be public, the
corporations wanted it to be privatized. There was a big battle, and
the United States is very much a business-run society, and uniquely,
business won, and it was privatized. When television came along, in
most of the world it was public, without question. In the United states
it wasn't even an issue, it was just private because the
business-dominated culture by then had achieved a level of dominance so
that people didn't think of what was obvious, that this was public
space that we're giving away to them. Finally, public radio and public
television were permitted in the United States in a very small corner,
because there had been public pressure to compel the corporate media to
meet some level or public responsibility, like to run a few educational
programs for children and things like that. And the corporations didn't
like it, they didn't want to have any commitment to public
responsibility, so they were willing to allow a small public, side
operation, so they could then claim, well, we don't have to have any
responsibility anymore because they can do it, and they don't do much
of, they are also corporate-funded, but that's a striking difference
between the United States and even other similar societies. It's a very
free country, the United States, maybe the freest in the world, but
it's also uniquely business-run, and that has enormous effects on
everything.
EVA: On that note, the theme of the Book Fair in Venezuela this year is
"United States: Is a Revolution Possible?" Is it?
CHOMSKY: I think it's just below the surface. I mean there is
tremendous discontent. A large majority of the population for years has
felt that the government doesn't represent them, that it represents
special interests. In the Reagan years this went up to about 80% of the
population. If you look at public attitudes and public policy, there is
a huge gulf between them. Both political parties are far to the right
of the population on a host of major issues. Just to take some
examples; Read in this morning's New York Times, September 21st,
there's a column by Paul Krugmann, who's sort of far left of the media,
sort of a left, liberal commentator, a very good economist, who's been
talking for some time about the horrible health system in the United
States, it's a disaster, twice the per capita expenses of any other
country and some of the industrial companies and some of the worst
outcomes in the industrial world. And he has a column this morning that
starts out by saying, hopefully, well now it turns out that maybe
universal health care is becoming politically possible. Now that's a
very interesting comment, particularly when it's coming from the left
end of the media. What does it mean for it to become politically
possible? For decades it's been supported by an overwhelming majority
of the population but it was never politically possible. Now it's
becoming politically possible. Why? He doesn't say why, but the reason
is that manufacturing corporations are being severely harmed by the
hopelessly inefficient and costly healthcare system in the United
States. It's like how it costs a lot more to produce a car in Detroit
than a couple of miles north in Windsor Canada because they have an
efficient, functioning healthcare system. So by now there is corporate
pressure from the manufacturing sector to do something to fix up the
outrageous healthcare system. So it's becoming politically possible.
When it's just the large majority of the population, it's not
politically possible. The assumptions behind that should be obvious,
but they're interesting. Politically possible does not mean the
population supports it. What politically possible means is that some
sectors of concentrated capital support it. So if the pharmeceutical
industries and the financial institutions are against it, it's not
politically possible. But if manufacturing industries come out in favor
of it, well then maybe it begins to become politically possible. Those
are the general assumptions, we're not talking about the left liberal
commentary. I'm not talking about the editorials in the Wall Street
Journal, that's the spectrum of opinion. Something is politically
possible if it's support by major concentrations of capital. It doesn't
matter what the public thinks, and you see this on international issues
too. Like take what may be the major international issue right now: Is
the United States going to invade Iran? That could be an utter
monstrosity. Every viable presidential candidate - not Dennis Kucinich,
but the ones that are really viable, has come out and said yeah, we
have the right to invade Iran. The way they say it is, "all options are
on the table", meaning, "we want to attack them, we can attack them."
That's almost the entire political spectrum, but what does the
population think? Well, about 75% of the population is opposed to any
threats against Iran and wants to enter into diplomatic relations with
them. But that's off the spectrum, in fact, it isn't even reported. But
it's not part of the discussion. It's the same way with Cuba. Every
since polls began in the 1970s, a considerable amount of the population
wants to enter into normal diplomatic relations with Cuba and end the
economic strangulation and the terror, which they don't know about, but
they would be against that too. It's not an option, because state
interests won't allow it. And that's separate from the population, and
it's not discussed. Do a search of media and journals, including left
journals and you just don't find it. Well, it's a very free country but
also very much business controlled.
EVA: But how could that change come about?
CHOMSKY: It can come about by the kind of organization that will take
public opinion - that will take the public and turn it into an
organized force. Which has happened...
EVA: So in the end you need media control?
CHOMSKY: Well, that's part of it, but media control is in part a
consequence of popular organization. So the media, take the Vietnam
era, the media did turn into moderate critics of the war, but that was
the result of popular mass movements. I could tell you explicit cases,
one case I know very well was one of the major newspapers in the
country, the editor happened to be a personal friend who was pretty
conservative and became the first newspaper in the United States to
call for withdrawal. It was largely under the influence of his son who
was in the resistance, who I knew through the resistance activities,
and who influenced his father. That's an individual case, but it was
happening all over. The shift in the popular movements and popular
attitudes led to a shift in the media, not a major shift, but a
significant one. For one reason because the journalists are human
beings and they live in the culture, and if they're coming out of a
culture of criticism and questioning and challenging and so on, well,
that's going to affect them. So there has been a change in many
respects. Take say aggression. There is a lot of comparison now of the
reaction to the Iraq war with the reaction to the Vietnam war - it's
almost all wrong, there was almost no opposition to the Vietnam war.
When the Vietnam war was at the level of the Iraq war today there was
almost no opposition. Public protest of the Iraq war is far beyond that
of the Vietnam war at any comparable stage. People have just forgotten.
There was protest against the Vietnam war by 1968, lets say, but by
that time there were half a million troops in Vietnam. The US had
invaded...and it was seven, six or seven years after they had invaded
South Vietnam and it had been practically wiped out and the word spread
to the rest of Indochina. It was way beyond Iraq today - then there was
protest. The first call for withdrawal from Vietnam in the major media
was fall of 1969. That's seven years after the war began. Now you get
it in the New York Times, they don't mean it, but at least you get it.
These are changes, and the same changes have taken place in many other
domains. Take say women's rights, it's pretty important, it's half the
population. Well, the circumstances are very different now than the
1960s. You can see it right at this institution. Take a walk down the
halls and you'll see about half women, about a third minorities, casual
dress, easy interchanges among the people and so on. When I got here 50
years ago it was totally different. White males, well dressed, obedient
- - do your work and don't ask any questions. And it's indicative of
changes throughout the whole society. Well, those are...the solidarity
movements are the same. When you have popular movements, they change
the society. If they reach a sufficient scale I think they can
challenge fundamental matters of class domination and economic control.
EVA: Do you think the revolution in Venezuela serves as an example for
people in the United States? That change is possible from the ground up?
CHOMSKY: It will if two things happen: One, if it's successful and two,
if you can break through the media distortion of what's happening. Two
things have to happen, ok? So, I mentioned that I was in Chile last
October. The picture of Venezuela that is presented by the media, say
in El Mercurio is about the same as it would have been in the old El
Mercurio under Pinochet. So as long as that's the picture, that's the
prism through which events are perceived, you can't have much of an
effect. But if you can change the prism so that things are reported
more or less accurately, and if what's happening in fact does
constitute a possible model, if those two achievements can be reached,
then yes, it could be.
EVA: Would you give a message to the people of Venezuela? Anything?
CHOMSKY: Yeah, make it succeed. The task for the people of Venezuela or
for Latin America all together is to carry forth the programs of
integration, of overcoming repression, inequality, poverty. lack of
democracy, which is happening in various ways in different countries.
Carry it through to success, and in collaboration and solidarity with
people of the rich powers. Make it reach the point where it is
understood there as well, that requires both sides, and they interact.
Take liberation theology, it was mostly Latin America, and it had an
influence in the United States, a big influence in the church and in
the society, and the same can be true of other developments. There is a
lot of interaction possible. More so now than before because of the
existence of intercommunications and solidarity movements and so on.
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A Revolution Just Below the Surface: Golinger Interviews Chomsky
Via NY Transfer News Collective All the News that Doesn't Fit
Venezuelanalysis - Sep 28, 2007
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2659
A Revolution is Just Below the Surface
By Eva Golinger
[On September 21, 2007, I had the extraordinary opportunity to
interview Noam Chomsky in his office at Massachusetts Institute of
Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The interview will be aired on
Venezuelan and Latin American television as part of the promotion for
the III International Book Fair in Venezuela, which this year focuses
on the theme: "United States: Is Revolution Possible?" The
transcription of the interview follows.]
EVA: I read a quote of yours which said power is always illegitimate
unless it proves itself to be legitimate. So in Venezuela right now we
are in the process of Constitutional reform. And within that reform the
People's Power is going to gain Constitutional rank, above in fact all
the other state powers, the executive, legislative and judicial powers,
and in Venezuela we also have the electoral and the citizen's power.
Would this be an example of power becoming legitimate? A peoples
power? And could this change the way power is viewed? And change the
face of Latin America considering that the Bolivarian Revolution is
having such an influence over other countries in the region?
CHOMSKY: Your word, the word "could", is the right word. Yes it
"could" , but it depends how it is implemented. In principle it seems
to be a very powerful and persuasive conception, but everything always
depends on implementation. If there is really authentic popular
participation in the decision-making and the free association of
communities, yeah, that could be tremendously important. In fact that's
essentially the traditional anarchist ideal. That's what was realized
the only time for about a year in Spain in 1936 before it was crushed
by outside forces, in fact all outside forces, Stalinst Russia, Hitler
in Germany, Mussilini's fascism and the Western democracies cooperated
in crushing it. They were all afraid of it. But that was something like
what you are describing, and if it can function and survive and really
disperse power down to participants and their communities, it could be
extremely important.
EVA: Do you think it's just an idealist illusion or can it really be
manifested?
CHOMSKY: I think it can. It's usually crushed by outside force because
it's considered so dangerous...
EVA: But in this case when it's the government who's promoting it? The
state who's promoting it?
CHOMSKY: That's what going to be the crucial question. Is it coming
from the State or is it coming from the people? Now, maybe it can be
initiated from the State, but unless the energy is really coming from
the population itself, it's very likely to fall into some sort of
top-down directed pattern, and that's the real question. In Spain in
1936, the reason for the very substantial success is because it was
popular - it's a quite different situation from Venezuela. In Spain,
the anarchist tradition was very deeply rooted. There had been 50 years
of education, experiments, efforts which were crushed, I mean it was in
people's minds. So when the opportunity came they were developing what
was already in their minds, what they had tried to do many times, it
wasn't spontaneous, it was the result of decades of education,
organizing and activism on the ground. Now Venezuela is a different
situation, it's being initiated from above, and the question is can
that lead to direct popular participation and innovative and energy and
so on. That's a real historical experiment, I don't know the answer.
EVA: I think it's a combination because the reason that the coup
against Ch!vez was overthrown was because of the people's power...
CHOMSKY: That's right
EVA: It's just been unstructured and very spontaneous, so the idea
behind this is to somehow structure that, and I question from that same
anarchist perspective, if you structure that power will it....
CHOMSKY: Take off...
EVA: or become corrupted or illegitimate? Or will it Take off?
CHOMSKY: Take off...That's why the comparison with Spain is so
interesting because there it was coming from below, nothing coming from
above and it was there because people had been committed to it for
decades and had tried it out, organized and so on. There was a live
anarchist tradition, actually there is a live anarchist tradition in
Latin America but it's been repeatedly crushed, in Mexico, Argentina,
Chile, all over, actually I have a book right over there on the desk on
the history of Anarchism in Chile which is not very well known, so it's
been there, it's hidden, but I don't think these ideas are very far
below consciousness almost anywhere, including the United States. If
you talk to working class people they understand the notions. If fact
it's not too well known but in the United States, there was never a
powerful organized left, but in many ways it's one of the most leftist
societies in the world. In the mid-19th century for example, right in
the beginning of the industrialist revolution right around here in
Boston, there was a rich literature of working class people, what were
called factory girls, young women coming from the farms to work in the
mills, or Irish artesians, immigrants in Boston, very rich literature,
it was the period of the freest press ever in the country and it was
very radical. They had no connection with European radicalism, they had
never heard of Marx or anything else, and it was simply taken for
granted that wage labor is not much different from slavery, and if you
rent yourself to somebody that's not different from selling yourself.
Actually in the Civil War in the United States, a lot of the northern
workers actually fought under that banner, were against chattel slavery
and they were against wage slavery. And the standard slogan of the
people was "the people who work in the mills ought to own them and run
them". It took a long time to drive that out of people's heads. In the
1890s there were cities, like Homestead, Pennsylvania, that were taken
over by working class people with these ideas, and they're still there.
You know it's kind of suppressed by lots of propaganda and repression
and so on, but it's just below the surface and I would imagine that may
be the same in Venezuela. These are natural beliefs and there's a
possibility they might spring into fruition given the right
circumstances.
EVA: That's actually included in the constitutional reform as well, the
concept of creating communal cities, communes, that are worker-run, and
including the companies. It will be very interesting to see how it
develops.
CHOMSKY: It's very interesting
EVA: And how it then would change the force of power in the region
CHOMSKY: If it can carry out. In the past it has happened but it's been
crushed by force and even here in the United States it was crushed by
State violence.
EVA: On the notion of "crushed by force and state violence", thinking
of Latin America and the changes occurring, the influences of
Venezuela, right now President Ch!vez is mediating the peace process in
Colombia. One, how do you view his role as the mediator? And two, do
you think that the US is really going to allow for peace in Colombia
when there has been an expansion of Plan Colombia and Colombia remains
the stronghold of the United States and its military force in South
America? Would they react in a more sort of aggressive way?
CHOMSKY: I think the US will do what it can to make sure Colombia
remains more or less a client state. But I don't think the US has a
commitment to the internal war in Colombia. They do want to see FARC
destroyed. The US does not really want paramilitaries running the
country and the drug trade, I mean that's not optimal from the point of
view of an imperial power, you don't want to have para-powers carrying
out State activities. They were useful, and the US not only supported
them but in fact, they initiated them. If you go back to the early
sixties in Venezuela, in fact in 1962, President Kennedy sent a
military mission to Colombia, headed by a Special Forces General,
General Yarborough, to advise Colombia on how to deal with its internal
problems and they recommended paramilitary terror. That was their
phrase: they recommend "paramilitary power against known communist
adherents." Well, in the Latin American context, "known communist
adherents" means human rights activists, labor organizers, priests
working with peasants, I don't have to explain to you, and yeah, they
recommended paramilitary terror. You can look back and say that
Colombia has a violent history, but that changed it, that's really the
initiation of the massive state and paramilitary terror that turned
into a total monstrosity in the last couple of decades. But although
the United States did implement it and support it right through Plan
Colombia, it's not really in US interests and the interests of US power
systems for that to continue. They'd rather have an orderly, obedient
society, exporting raw materials, a place where US manufacturers can
have cheap labor and so on and so forth, but without the internal
violence. So I think there might be toleration at least of mediation
efforts that could curb the level of internal violence and control the
paramilitaries who will be and are in fact being absorbed into the
state.
EVA: But Ch!vez doing it?
CHOMSKY: Well, that's going to be interesting. In fact, it's rarely
discussed here. In fact right now there are also negotiations and
discussions going on between Brazil and Venezuela about joint projects,
the Orinoco River project, a gas pipeline, and so on. Try to find some
report about that here. People are afraid of it. The conception, or if
you like "party line" on Latin America, has had to shift. Latin America
has changed a lot, it's not what it was in the 1960s. For the first
time since the Spanish invasion the countries are beginning to face
some of the internal problems in Latin America. One of the problems is
just disintegration. The countries have very little relationship to one
another. They typically were related to the outside imperial power not
to each other. You can even see it in the transportation systems. But
there is also internal disintegration, tremendous inequality, the worst
in the world; small elites and huge massive impoverished people, and
the elites were Europe-oriented or US-oriented later - that's where
their second homes were, that's where their capital went to, that's
where their children went to school. They didn't have anything to do
with the population. The elites in Latin America had very little
responsibility for the countries. And these two forms of disintegration
and slowly being overcome. So there is more integration among the
societies, and there are several countries taking steps to deal with
the horrible problem of elite domination, which has a racial component
to it also of course, there is a pretty close correlation between
wealth and whiteness all over the continent. It's one of the reasons
for the antagonism to Ch!vez, it's because he doesn't look white. But
steps are being taken towards that, and that is significant. The US
doctrinal system, and I don't mean the government, I mean the press,
the intellectuals and so on, have shifted their description of Latin
America. It's no longer the democrats versus the communists - Pinochet
the democrat versus.... It's shifted, now it's conceded that there is a
move to the left, but there are the good leftists and the bad leftists.
The bad leftists are Ch!vez and Morales, maybe Kirchner, maybe Ecuador
- - they haven't decided yet, but those are the bad leftists. The good
ones are Brazil, maybe Chile and so on. In order to maintain that
picture it's been necessary to do some pretty careful control of
historical facts. For example, when Lula the good leftist was reelected
his first act was to go to Caracas where he and Ch!vez built a joint
bridge over the Orinoco...it wasn't even reported here, because you
can't report things like that, it contradicts the party line - the good
guys and the bad guys. And the same is true in this very moment with
the Brazil-Venezuela negotiations. I think they are very important.
Colombia is significant. If Ch!vez can carry it off that's great for
Colombia, but these other things are much broader in significance. If
Brazil and Venezuela can cooperate on major projects, joint projects,
maybe ultimately the gas pipeline through Latin America. That's a step
towards regional integration, which is a real prerequisite for defense
against outside intervention. You can't have defense against
intervention if the countries are separated from one another and if
they are separated internally from elites and general populations, so I
think these are extremely important developments. Colombia as well, if
it can be done, fine, reduce the level of violence, maybe take some
steps forward for the people of Colombia, but I think these other
negotiations and discussions proceeding at the same time have a deeper
and longer term significance.
EVA: Right now Ch!vez is in Manaus, just yesterday and today...
CHOMSKY: Right
EVA: Well, one of the tactics of US aggression against Venezuela and
against the rise of a new leftism or socialism in Latin America is
precisely to divide and counteract what Venezuela under Ch!vez has been
leading throughout the region which is now resulting in sovereignty and
Latin American integration. I guess to focus that question on a media
angle, one of the other tactics of aggression against Venezuela and
other countries in the region is obviously psychological warfare, on an
internal level in Venezuela, but also internationally to prevent the
people around the world from knowing really what's happening. Within
Venezuela under Ch!vez hundreds of new community media outlets have
been created. This has helped us internally to combat media
manipulation from corporate media in Venezuela, but on an international
level, we haven't had much advance fighting the war against the media
empire. How can we do that?
CHOMSKY: Well, the history of media in the west is interesting. I
mentioned that the period of the freest press in the US and England was
the mid-19th century, and it was rather like what you were describing.
There were hundreds of newspapers of all kinds, working class, ethnic,
communities of all kinds, with direct active participation, real
participation. People read in those days, working people. Like a
blacksmith in Boston would pay a 16 year old kid to read to him while
he was working. These factory girls coming from the farms had a high
culture, they were reading contemporary literature. And part of their
bitter condemnation of the industrial system was because it was taking
their culture away from them. They did run extremely interesting
newspapers and it was lively, exciting and a period of a really very
free vibrant press, and it was overcome slowly, most true in England
and the United States, which were then the freest countries in the
world. In England they tried censorship, it didn't work, there were too
many ways around it. They tried repressive taxation, again it didn't
work very well, similarly in the US. What did work finally was two
things: concentration of capital and advertiser reliance. First the
concentration of capital is obvious then you can do all kinds of things
that smaller newspapers can't do. But advertiser reliance means really
the newspapers are being run by the advertisers. If the source of
income is advertising, the main source, well that's of course going to
have an inordenent influence. And by now it's close to 100%. If you
turn on television, CBS doesn't make any money from the fact that you
turned on the television set, they make money from the advertisers. The
advertisers are in effect, the corporation that owns it is selling
audiences to advertisers, so of course the news product reflects
overwhelming the interests of the corporation and the buyers and the
market, which is advertisers. So yeah, and that over time, along with
concentration of capital, has essentially eliminated or sharply reduced
the diverse, lively and independent locally based media. And that's
pretty serious. In the United States, which has had no really organized
socialist movement, nevertheless, as recently as the 1950s, there were
about 800 labor newspapers which probably reached maybe 30 million
people a week, which by our standards were pretty radical, condemning
corporate power, condemning what they called the bought priesthood,
mainly those who run the media - the priesthood that was bought by the
corporate system offering a different picture to the world. In England,
it lasted into the 1960s. In the 1960s the tabloids - which are now
hideous if you look at them - they were labor-based newspapers in the
1960s, pretty leftist in their orientation. The major newspaper in
England that had the largest circulation, more than any other, was The
Daily Herald, which was a kind of social-democratic labor-based paper
giving a very different picture of the world. It collapsed, not because
of lack of reader interest, in fact it had probably the largest reader
interest of any, but because it couldn't get advertisers and couldn't
bring in capital. So what you're describing today is part of the
history of the west, which has been overcome slowly by the standard
processes of concentration of capital and of course advertiser reliance
is another form of it. But it's beginning to revive in the west as well
through the Internet and through cheap publishing techniques.
Computers, desktop publishing is now much cheaper than big publishing,
and of course the internet. So the new technologies are giving
opportunities to overcome the effects of capital concentration, which
has a severe impact on the nature of media and the nature of schools
and everything else. So, there's revival, and actually the major battle
that's going on right now is crucial, as to who is going to control the
Internet. The Internet was developed in places like this, MIT, that's
the state sector of the economy, most of the new economy comes out of
the state sector, it's not a free market economy. The Internet is a
case in point; it was developed in the state sector like here, actually
with Pentagon funding, and it was in the state sector for about 30
years before it was handed over to private corporations in 1995 under
Clinton. And right now there's a struggle going on as to whether it
will be free or not. So there's a major effort being made by the major
corporate centers to figure out some ways to control it, to prevent the
wrong kinds of things from their point of view from being accessible,
and there are now grassroots movements, significant ones struggling
against it, so these are ongoing live battles. There is nothing
inherent in capitalist democracy to the idea that the media have to be
run by corporations. It would have shocked the founding fathers of the
United States. They believed that the media had to be publicly run. If
you go back to the...its hard to believe now]
EVA: Well, that's why the airwaves are public
CHOMSKY: That's right, that's why the airwaves are kept public and it's
a gift to the corporations to allow them to be used. But if you go back
to Jefferson, even Hamilton, Madison and the rest of them, they were in
favor of public subsidies to newspapers to enable them to survive as
independent sources of information. Postal rates were set by the
government in such a way as to give advantages to the newspapers so
that the public would be able to have access to the widest possible
range of diverse information and so on. The Bill of Rights, which
technically established freedom of press, we can talk about whether
that works, but technically said nothing about whether the government
could intervene to support the media. In fact, it's not only a
possibility but it's what the framers of the Constitution had in mind.
Over the years, attitudes, the dominant culture, the hegemonic culture
as Gramsci would have called it, has changed so that the idea of the
corporatization of the media is sort of assumed kind of like the air
you breathe, but it's not, it's a creation of capitalist concentration
and the doctrinal system that goes with it...]It doesnt have to exist
EVA: So, in that sense a couple of months ago the Venezuelan government
decided not to renew the concession of one of the corporate media
outlets for many reasons, tax violations, not paying social security
for workers as well as being involved in the coup. Do you think that is
a demonstration of the State assuring that those airwaves remain in the
public sphere? And that is something that could be replicated in other
countries or even in the United States, they didn't revoke the
concession, they just didn't renew it.
CHOMSKY: You're talking about the RCTV case. Well, my own view of that
is kind of mixed. Formally I think it was a tactical mistake, and for
another I think you need a heavy burden of proof to close down any form
of media so in that sense my attitude is critical...
EVA: But should corporations have a stronghold on the concessions?
CHOMSKY: Yeah, I know, that's the other side. The question is what
replaces it. However, let me say that I agree with the western
criticism in one crucial respect. When they say nothing like that could
ever happen here, that's correct. But the reason, which is not stated,
is that if there had been anything like RCTV in the United States or
England or Western Europe the owners and the managers would have been
brought to trial and executed " In the United States executed, in
Europe sent to prison permanently, right away, in 2002. You can't
imagine the New York Times or CBS News supporting a military coup that
overthrew the government even for a day. The reaction would be "send
them to a firing squad" . So yeah, it wouldn't have happened in the
west because it would never have gotten this far. It seems to me that
there should be more focus on that. But as to the removal of the
license I think you just have to ask what's replacing it. In Venezuela,
you know better than I, my impression is that it was not a popular
move. And the population should have a voice in this, big voice, major
voice, so I think there are many sides to it. But it kind of depends
how it works itself out. Are you really going to get popular media, for
example?
EVA: Should the concessions be in the hands of the people to decide?
CHOMSKY: I think they should, yes, in fact in a technical sense they
are, even in the United States. Take the airwaves again, that's public
property. Corporations have no right to it, It's given to them as a
gift by the taxpayer and the taxpayer doesn't know it. The culture has
reached the point where the people assume that's the natural order of
things. It's not, it's a major gift from the public. In fact if you
look at the history of telecommunications, radio and television, it's
quite interesting. Radio came along in the 1920s and in most of the
world, it just became public. The United States is an interesting case,
it's almost the only major case in which radio was privatized. And
there was a struggle about it. The labor unions, the educational
institutions, the churches, they wanted it to be public, the
corporations wanted it to be privatized. There was a big battle, and
the United States is very much a business-run society, and uniquely,
business won, and it was privatized. When television came along, in
most of the world it was public, without question. In the United states
it wasn't even an issue, it was just private because the
business-dominated culture by then had achieved a level of dominance so
that people didn't think of what was obvious, that this was public
space that we're giving away to them. Finally, public radio and public
television were permitted in the United States in a very small corner,
because there had been public pressure to compel the corporate media to
meet some level or public responsibility, like to run a few educational
programs for children and things like that. And the corporations didn't
like it, they didn't want to have any commitment to public
responsibility, so they were willing to allow a small public, side
operation, so they could then claim, well, we don't have to have any
responsibility anymore because they can do it, and they don't do much
of, they are also corporate-funded, but that's a striking difference
between the United States and even other similar societies. It's a very
free country, the United States, maybe the freest in the world, but
it's also uniquely business-run, and that has enormous effects on
everything.
EVA: On that note, the theme of the Book Fair in Venezuela this year is
"United States: Is a Revolution Possible?" Is it?
CHOMSKY: I think it's just below the surface. I mean there is
tremendous discontent. A large majority of the population for years has
felt that the government doesn't represent them, that it represents
special interests. In the Reagan years this went up to about 80% of the
population. If you look at public attitudes and public policy, there is
a huge gulf between them. Both political parties are far to the right
of the population on a host of major issues. Just to take some
examples; Read in this morning's New York Times, September 21st,
there's a column by Paul Krugmann, who's sort of far left of the media,
sort of a left, liberal commentator, a very good economist, who's been
talking for some time about the horrible health system in the United
States, it's a disaster, twice the per capita expenses of any other
country and some of the industrial companies and some of the worst
outcomes in the industrial world. And he has a column this morning that
starts out by saying, hopefully, well now it turns out that maybe
universal health care is becoming politically possible. Now that's a
very interesting comment, particularly when it's coming from the left
end of the media. What does it mean for it to become politically
possible? For decades it's been supported by an overwhelming majority
of the population but it was never politically possible. Now it's
becoming politically possible. Why? He doesn't say why, but the reason
is that manufacturing corporations are being severely harmed by the
hopelessly inefficient and costly healthcare system in the United
States. It's like how it costs a lot more to produce a car in Detroit
than a couple of miles north in Windsor Canada because they have an
efficient, functioning healthcare system. So by now there is corporate
pressure from the manufacturing sector to do something to fix up the
outrageous healthcare system. So it's becoming politically possible.
When it's just the large majority of the population, it's not
politically possible. The assumptions behind that should be obvious,
but they're interesting. Politically possible does not mean the
population supports it. What politically possible means is that some
sectors of concentrated capital support it. So if the pharmeceutical
industries and the financial institutions are against it, it's not
politically possible. But if manufacturing industries come out in favor
of it, well then maybe it begins to become politically possible. Those
are the general assumptions, we're not talking about the left liberal
commentary. I'm not talking about the editorials in the Wall Street
Journal, that's the spectrum of opinion. Something is politically
possible if it's support by major concentrations of capital. It doesn't
matter what the public thinks, and you see this on international issues
too. Like take what may be the major international issue right now: Is
the United States going to invade Iran? That could be an utter
monstrosity. Every viable presidential candidate - not Dennis Kucinich,
but the ones that are really viable, has come out and said yeah, we
have the right to invade Iran. The way they say it is, "all options are
on the table", meaning, "we want to attack them, we can attack them."
That's almost the entire political spectrum, but what does the
population think? Well, about 75% of the population is opposed to any
threats against Iran and wants to enter into diplomatic relations with
them. But that's off the spectrum, in fact, it isn't even reported. But
it's not part of the discussion. It's the same way with Cuba. Every
since polls began in the 1970s, a considerable amount of the population
wants to enter into normal diplomatic relations with Cuba and end the
economic strangulation and the terror, which they don't know about, but
they would be against that too. It's not an option, because state
interests won't allow it. And that's separate from the population, and
it's not discussed. Do a search of media and journals, including left
journals and you just don't find it. Well, it's a very free country but
also very much business controlled.
EVA: But how could that change come about?
CHOMSKY: It can come about by the kind of organization that will take
public opinion - that will take the public and turn it into an
organized force. Which has happened...
EVA: So in the end you need media control?
CHOMSKY: Well, that's part of it, but media control is in part a
consequence of popular organization. So the media, take the Vietnam
era, the media did turn into moderate critics of the war, but that was
the result of popular mass movements. I could tell you explicit cases,
one case I know very well was one of the major newspapers in the
country, the editor happened to be a personal friend who was pretty
conservative and became the first newspaper in the United States to
call for withdrawal. It was largely under the influence of his son who
was in the resistance, who I knew through the resistance activities,
and who influenced his father. That's an individual case, but it was
happening all over. The shift in the popular movements and popular
attitudes led to a shift in the media, not a major shift, but a
significant one. For one reason because the journalists are human
beings and they live in the culture, and if they're coming out of a
culture of criticism and questioning and challenging and so on, well,
that's going to affect them. So there has been a change in many
respects. Take say aggression. There is a lot of comparison now of the
reaction to the Iraq war with the reaction to the Vietnam war - it's
almost all wrong, there was almost no opposition to the Vietnam war.
When the Vietnam war was at the level of the Iraq war today there was
almost no opposition. Public protest of the Iraq war is far beyond that
of the Vietnam war at any comparable stage. People have just forgotten.
There was protest against the Vietnam war by 1968, lets say, but by
that time there were half a million troops in Vietnam. The US had
invaded...and it was seven, six or seven years after they had invaded
South Vietnam and it had been practically wiped out and the word spread
to the rest of Indochina. It was way beyond Iraq today - then there was
protest. The first call for withdrawal from Vietnam in the major media
was fall of 1969. That's seven years after the war began. Now you get
it in the New York Times, they don't mean it, but at least you get it.
These are changes, and the same changes have taken place in many other
domains. Take say women's rights, it's pretty important, it's half the
population. Well, the circumstances are very different now than the
1960s. You can see it right at this institution. Take a walk down the
halls and you'll see about half women, about a third minorities, casual
dress, easy interchanges among the people and so on. When I got here 50
years ago it was totally different. White males, well dressed, obedient
- - do your work and don't ask any questions. And it's indicative of
changes throughout the whole society. Well, those are...the solidarity
movements are the same. When you have popular movements, they change
the society. If they reach a sufficient scale I think they can
challenge fundamental matters of class domination and economic control.
EVA: Do you think the revolution in Venezuela serves as an example for
people in the United States? That change is possible from the ground up?
CHOMSKY: It will if two things happen: One, if it's successful and two,
if you can break through the media distortion of what's happening. Two
things have to happen, ok? So, I mentioned that I was in Chile last
October. The picture of Venezuela that is presented by the media, say
in El Mercurio is about the same as it would have been in the old El
Mercurio under Pinochet. So as long as that's the picture, that's the
prism through which events are perceived, you can't have much of an
effect. But if you can change the prism so that things are reported
more or less accurately, and if what's happening in fact does
constitute a possible model, if those two achievements can be reached,
then yes, it could be.
EVA: Would you give a message to the people of Venezuela? Anything?
CHOMSKY: Yeah, make it succeed. The task for the people of Venezuela or
for Latin America all together is to carry forth the programs of
integration, of overcoming repression, inequality, poverty. lack of
democracy, which is happening in various ways in different countries.
Carry it through to success, and in collaboration and solidarity with
people of the rich powers. Make it reach the point where it is
understood there as well, that requires both sides, and they interact.
Take liberation theology, it was mostly Latin America, and it had an
influence in the United States, a big influence in the church and in
the society, and the same can be true of other developments. There is a
lot of interaction possible. More so now than before because of the
existence of intercommunications and solidarity movements and so on.
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