in a recent address in New Mexico. For a link to the full speech go to:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/09/1458256
As he points out, the world is in serious, serious danger, and if we the people don't get our acts together soon there won't be much history left for us to discuss. Some themes in his talk include the Old Europe/New Europe debacle of the Iraq war buildup, the militarization of space (aka "missle defense") and the increasing threat of WMDs, public relations and its threat to democracy, and more. Noam sure has a way of brightening my day. Some selections from the speech are included after the jump.
"Old Europe" and "New Europe"
So, at the summit meeting announcing war, declaring the war, virtually, George Bush and his -- I'll say, politely -- associate Tony Blair, were joined by Prime Minister Aznar of Spain to announce that the war was going to start in a couple of days. At that point, Aznar had support of 2% of the population of Spain for joining in the US-British war. And he was therefore hailed as a great leader of what was called the New Europe, the grand hope for democracy. In fact, the performance about New Europe and Old Europe was a very enlightening one...New Europe, were the good guys, the hope of the future, the leaders of the democratic crusade and so on; Old Europe were the bad guys, stuck in their old ways, don't have democratic credentials. The criterion to distinguish them was extremely sharp. Old Europe, bad guys, were the countries where the governments took the same position as the large majority of their population. New Europe were the countries like Spain where the government overruled even larger majorities of their population -- huge ones in the case of Spain and Italy -- and followed orders from Crawford, Texas. So, they were -- therefore, they understood the nature of democracy...What it means about the elite conceptions of democracy shouldn't require any comment. What it means is democracy is fine as long as you do what we say. We, of course, doesn't mean you and me or the people of the United States, it means the political and economic leadership. And that conception is so deeply ingrained that even in an incredible case like this, it literally can't be noticed.
Militarizing space and "missle defense"
Right after the national security strategy was announced, which essentially declared the U.S. intention to dominate the world by force and prevent any threat to that dominance, right after that, part of the implementation of it was a program announced by the Air Force space command shifting policy from Clinton's to a new policy. Clinton's policy was control of space for military purposes. The new announced policy was ownership of space for military purposes. Meaning, as they said, the possibility of instant engagement anywhere, with highly lethal offensive weapons, which can strike anywhere on earth without warning. The whole world is under surveillance by sophisticated satellite and other systems. Sophisticated enough that they can tell if a truck is crossing a street in Damascus or any other place that you pick. So, the world is at constant risk of instant destruction. That's ownership of space, and that's a natural spelling out of the national security strategy. This also was, as far as I know, not reported at all. Certainly not much...a lot of this is called "missile defense," but as everyone knows on every side, missile defense is not a defensive system, it's a first strike weapon. That's understood by U.S. analysts, understood by the Chinese, and other potential targets. And we know how the U.S. reacted when Russia installed a very small missile defense system around Moscow back in 1968. The U.S. immediately reacted by sharply increasing the offensive nuclear military force so as to overwhelm it and destroy all radar positions and there's very little doubt that potential targets will react to our so-called missile defense system in the same way. It's apparently being deployed in early stages right now. There's a lot of debate and discussion about the so-called missile defense. A lot of criticism on grounds that it hasn't been tried, and probably won't work and so on. That may be true or may not be true, but it's kind of missing the point. The system is far more dangerous if there's some appearance that it might work....that's what's going to impel potential targets to do exactly what the United States did in the case of a much more primitive and insignificant missile defense system in 1968. Namely, to expand their offensive military capacities to overwhelm it.
On Australia's "evidence-based" advertising
So, recently, though it wasn't reported here, there were negotiations with Australia to establish what's called a free trade agreement. Nothing to do with free trade and certainly not an agreement, but thats what those things are called. But the negotiations were held up for some time because the United States was objecting to Australia's highly efficient health care system, maybe the most efficient in the world. The prices of drugs are a fraction of what they are in the United States. Very same drug produced by the same corporation, which makes a ton of money in Australia, but makes maybe ten times that much for the same drug here. Why was the U.S. objecting to the Australian system? Well, because the Australian system is evidence-based. It's the phrase that was used. That means if a pharmaceutical corporation wants to advertise, you know, by showing sports heroes saying, you know, ask your doctor if this drug is good for you, it's good for me, or something like that, often not even telling you what it is, they're not allowed to do that. They have to provide evidence that the drug actually does something, that it is better than some cheaper thing that's already on the market. That evidence-based approach, the U.S. negotiators argued, is interference with free markets, because corporations must have the right to deceive. That's crucial. Australia sort of backed off on that, but the claim itself is kind of amusing, I mean, even if you believe the free market rhetoric for a moment. The main purpose of advertising is to undermine markets. If you go to graduate school and you take a course in economics, you learn that markets are systems in which informed consumers make rational choices. That's what's so wonderful about it. But that's the last thing that the state corporate system wants. It is spending huge sums to prevent that, which brings us back to the viability of American democracy.
Everyone feeling better now?