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Der Spiegal: Professor Noam Chomsky, cathedrals of capitalism have collapsed, the conservative government is spending its final weeks in office with nationalization plans. How does that make you feel?

Noam Chomsky: The times are too difficult and the crisis too severe to indulge in schadenfreude. Looking at it in perspective, the fact that there would be a financial crisis was perfectly predictable, its general nature, if not its magnitude. Markets are always inefficient.

DS: What exactly did you anticipate?

NC: In the financial industry, as in other industries, there are risks that are left out of the calculation. If you sell me a car, we have perhaps made a good bargain for ourselves. But there are effects of this transaction on others, which we do not take into account. There is more pollution, the price of gas goes up, there is more congestion. Those are the external costs of our transaction. In the case of financial institutions, they are huge.

DS: But isn’t it the task of a bank to take risks?

NC: Yes, but if it is well managed, like Goldman Sachs, it will cover its own risks and absorb its own losses. But no financial institution can manage systemic risks.
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Aghast at the atrocities committed by US forces invading the Philippines, and the rhetorical flights about liberation and noble intent that routinely accompany crimes of state, Mark Twain threw up his hands at his inability to wield his formidable weapon of satire. The immediate object of his frustration was the renowned General Funston. “No satire of Funston could reach perfection,” Twain lamented, “because Funston occupies that summit himself… [he is] satire incarnated.”

It is a thought that often comes to mind, again in August 2008 during the Russia-Georgia-Ossetia war. George Bush, Condoleezza Rica and other dignitaries solemnly invoked the sanctity of the United Nations, warning that Russia could be excluded from international institutions “by taking actions in Georgia that are inconsistent with” their principles. The sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations must be rigorously honored, they intoned – “all nations,” that is, apart from those that the US chooses to attack: Iraq, Serbia, perhaps Iran, and a list of others too long and familiar to mention. (more…)

In the chronology of the Bush administration’s record of manipulation and willful distortion of evidence, the apparent revelation – revealed in a recently declassified National Intelligence Estimate – that Iran ceased its nuclear program in 2003 promises to usher in a renewed phase of White House propaganda. While the cautious pundits and news anchors of the television media may predict this new information to initiate a sea-change in Washington’s antagonistic posturing, I am more skeptical. This administration will somehow find a way to interpret the development as “proof” of their wolf-crying.

Leaving aside the obvious outrage we should express at the government’s failure to rely on solid evidence and the colossally ignorant manner in which Bush threatened to launch WWIII based on shoddy intelligence, it would be prudent to review the case Washington has made against Iran thus far… (more…)

I received this message from Professor Noam Chomsky this summer in response to my article Security or Demography: The West Bank Barrier as a Demographic Tool.

From: chomsky[at]MIT.EDU
Subject: Re: West Bank Barrier
Date: June 16, 2007 19:27:29  IDT
To: kris[at]harmonicminor.com

Interesting, and well done, but I’m quite skeptical about the value of such inquiries, for a number of reasons.  Here’s a few.
 
You say it is a “highly contentious point” whether a barrier on the Israeli side of the Green Line would have achieved whatever security effects the Separation Wall does.  I don’t agree with that at all.  It’s an obvious point.  In fact it could have achieved far better results, since it could be impregnable, patrolled heavily on both sides of the fence, etc. Furthermore, even accepting (for argument’s sake)  the idea that for security Israel somehow needs intrusion into the West Bank, then why not just build a wall a fixed distance from the Green line, say 5 km (or whatever number one wants), thereby excluding the Maaleh Adumim salient and the Ariel salient, and the many other illegal communities?  Plainly, that would be at least as effective for self-defense.  The whole discussion seems absurd.  I’ve followed the arguments, and they don’t stand up to a moment’s inspection.  About as clear an evasion of the obvious as can be imagined.  We should also be more than a little disturbed, I think, by the universal acceptance in the West that the question of “security” reduces to the security of Israelis, that is, to the rich and powerful state closely linked to the US and EU, while there is no security problem for those under the jackboot.  The racism is stunning, even given the ineradicable imperial mentality. (more…)