Had to go to Southport. Grabbed a book for the train. Not read it for ages.
HEGEMONY OR SURVIVAL, AMERICA’S QUEST FOR GLOBAL DOMINANCE, 2003. By Noam Chomsky.
He ends the book by quoting Bertrand Russell. My paraphrase would be that Mother Earth was happy before the humans arrived and will be happy again after they have destroyed themselves.
In fact Chomsky begins the book with the same point.
In between we are provided with example after example of the rationalisation of self-harm. Successive US governments find reason after reason for relying on massively expensive weaponry to accelerate what used to be referred to as MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction.
Let me repeat myself. I write this a lot. On the first Sunday of August 1914 my wife’s family were, as usual, in their non-conformist chapel in Kendal. The minister said that he wanted “All you young lads” to sign up.
The entire family stood up and walked out.
Why, a question I keep asking, should teenage lads from one country be given a rifle to point at teenage lads from another country and told that if they did not pull the trigger they would be arrested for cowardice?
Did those lads start the war? How many rifles were held by the Emperors, Kings and Prime Ministers who ordered them Into battle?
Was a poppy worth all that?
Certain politicians ought to be forced to watch Oh What A Lovely War.
I remember a scene in which the character played by Dirk Bogarde announces his patriotic act of giving up German wine for the war effort.
But Chomsky is not, I think, simply denouncing war. He lives in, is a citizen of, a country that has convinced itself that it is THE country and that to keep all other countries inferior to it sabres must be rattled. And it’s sabres are bigger than the sabres of other countries.
If yours is THE country what does that mean? It does not mean a country to follow. It means a country to which all must submit.
I admit that I am no admirer of the USA. It breaks treaties, tells lies, commits genocide and has a Constitution designed to control the peasants while stuffing their heads full of bullshit about Freedom and Liberty.
The U.K., of course, used to do all this with far more style.
It is ten years since Chomsky published that book. Are things now better?
I believe that I am seeing a USA closer and closer to a realisation that it’s hegemony is now fragile, but still unable to even attempt to try talking and negotiating with other countries who no longer accept US hegemony.
When the playground no longer automatically bows before you what do you do? Try charm? Smile when losing a few arguments?
Or do you put your trust in your old fists and threaten everybody?
Be careful if you do, the playground was not built to last for ever.
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