Possibly the most intelligent summary of power in American politics and Iraq are in a new interview of Noam Chomsky by Al Jazeera. Since these are possibly the two most profound "unmentionables" to the MSM, I thought readers might like to have access to it. I don't want to overquote but I also don't want to paraphrase Chomsky in a diary. ( a couple "paragraph" breaks are mine for clarity and page break).
Chomsky starts with his explanation of why we don't have universal healthcare yet in the US even though the vast majority of the population has supported it for a long time:
The last election debate in 2004 was on domestic issues ... and the New York Times the next day had an accurate description of it. It said that [former Democratic presidential candidate John] Kerry did not bring up any hint of government involvement in healthcare because it has so little political support, just [the support of] the large majority of the population. But what they meant was it was not supported by the pharmaceutical industry and wasn't supported by the financial institutions and so on.
It's not a shift in public opinion - that's the same as before, what happened is a big segment of US corporate power is being so harmed by the healthcare system that they want it changed, namely the manufacturing industry. For example General Motors says that it costs them maybe $1,500 more to produce a car in Detroit then across the border in Windsor, Canada, just because they have a more sensible healthcare system there. When a big segment of corporate America shifts its position, then it becomes politically possible and has political support. So, therefore, you can begin to talk about it.
But those aren't changes coming from pressure from below?
No, the public is the same, it's been saying the same for decades, but the public is irrelevant, is understood to be irrelevant. What matters is a few big interests looking after themselves and that's exactly what the public sees.
Next Chomsky talks about Iraq and the ironic mutual interests of the US and Iran there:
It has in fact been catastrophic. The Democrats are now silenced because of the supposed success of the surge which itself is interesting, it reflects the fact that there's no principled criticism of the war – so if it turns out that your gaining your goals, well, then it was OK. We didn't act that way when the Russians invaded Chechnya and, as it happens, they're doing much better than the US in Iraq.
In fact what's actually happening in Iraq is kind of ironic. The Iraqi government, the al-Maliki government, is the sector of Iraqi society most supported by Iran, the so-called army - just another militia - is largely based on the Badr brigade which is trained in Iran, fought on the Iranian side during the Iran-Iraq war, was part of the hated Revolutionary Guard, it didn't intervene when Saddam was massacring Shiites with US approval after the first Gulf war, that's the core of the army. The figure who is most disliked by the Iranians is of course Muqtada al-Sadr, for the same reason he's disliked by the Americans – he's independent.
He goes on to explain how the people of Bolivia actually rose up to oust the corporate interests in their country by a grassroots movement and says that Americans don't realize we actually have the power to do so here in the US if we understand our own power.
Full interview:
http://english.aljazeera.net/...
UPDATE: Thanks ! to Scarce for linking videos of the interview below. (sorry all this is just my 2nd diary- I waited a couple weeks hoping a better diarist would post it)