The Washington Connection by Noam Chomsky

Sometimes at work, I will listen to the Democracy Now! headlines. The show is about an hour long and the news is a straightforward, unabridged version of key events. If we compare them to the daily headlines I read in the NYT or NPR Morning Edition’s, there are some...er...differences. It isn’t that Democracy Now! is too partisan - NYT and NPR can hardly be denied a partisan standing - rather Democracy Now! is not gunning to entertain with the news. The charge that it is radical is as much from form as it is content. It is devoid of any band profiles or stories about cupcake stores and at the same time, it doesn’t spare any details when describing death and destruction taking place across the globe. It should surprise no one that Noam Chomsky gives regular interviews almost exclusively to Democracy Now.

Reading Part One of the Washington Connection it is easy to see that Noam Chomsky is not out to entertain. Like Democracy Now, he and his co-author are in the business of speaking truth to power, often contradicting the official government and mainstream media’s version of events with specialists and primary sources. This is truly important work and it comes with a great risk of being wrong (any right-winger worth their salt will remind you that Chomsky denied Cambodian genocide for fourteen years). It is also very difficult to read, and I’m not just talking about density. Chomsky takes on the mainstream media, the United States Military, and public officials of all kinds, breaking US involvement with 3rd world fascism down into benign and constructive terror. Since World War II, our foreign policy of intervention has either been benign, where we allow tyrannical regimes to carry out atrocity because we get 80% of our coffee supply from them (like in Burundi) or it is constructive, in which case we supply anything from weapons (like in Indonesia) to ground troops and bombing campaigns (like in Vietnam) to protect our business interests/investment opportunities and those of our allies.

I certainly don’t believe that history, politics, or current events have to be packaged in a fun and entertaining way, but the depth of cover up and propaganda that Chomsky claims is staggering. Many of the reports he refutes - outside of maybe Vietnam - are still officially on the record, it is way easier to believe these accounts than it is to acknowledge the conspiracy that Chomsky is trying to demonstrate. Many would love for Chomsky to be wrong both factually and morally, even those who would likely be sympathetic to his leftist message, simply because it would allow us to continue living in a world where our elected officials aren’t partnering with major corporations to perpetuate the conditions of a necessary (for capitalism) underclass around the word.These people especially should be reading the Washington Connection if only to ask the pivotal question: “what if he’s right?”