"The Republicans have a problem. The economic program of American Conservatives, if enacted in its entirety, would devastate the middle class while helping the American overclass [aka the ruling elite]. Income would be redistributed upward, while taxes would be redistributed downward.... How can conservatives expect to win votes for an economic program so inimical to the middle class? The answer is they cannot--and they know it. Therefore, most conservative ideologues... have done their best to change the subject from the economy to what they like to call, 'the culture'..."

"If further proof is needed for my contention that much of today's conservative political theory is merely Marxism with the substitution of `bourgeois' for `proletariat' and `culture' for `class,' it can be found in [the] call for enlisting art and literature in the service of Republican conservatism, a program that is indistinguishable, except in its content, from the aesthetic orthodoxy of American [communist] communities during the 1920's and 1930's..."

"American conservatism, then, is a countercommunism that replicates, down to rather precise details of organization and theory, the communism that it opposes..."

Michael Lind, UP FROM CONSERVATISM
From Chapter Three, "The Triangular Trade: How the Conservative Movement Works" and Chapter Ten, "Soaking the Middle: The Conservative Class War Against Wage-Earning Americans"

"Similar questions [to Woodrow Wilson's WW I writings that "most men are (now) servants of corporations" in an America "very different from the old"] are very much alive in the international arena today....A century ago, corporations were granted the rights of persons by radical judicial activism, an extreme violation of classical liberal principles. They were also freed from earlier obligations to keep to specific activities for which they were chartered. Furthermore...the courts shifted power upward from the stockholders in a partnership to the central management, which was identified with the immortal corporate person. Those of you familiar with the history of Communism will recognize that this is very similar to the process that was taking place at the time, very much as predicted, in fact, by left-Marxist and anarchist critics of Bolshevism. People like Rosa Luxemburg warned early on that the centralizing ideology would shift power from working people to the party, to the central committee, and then to the maximal leader, as happened very quickly after the conquest of state power in 1917, which at once destroyed every residue of socialist forms and principles..."

"It's quite natural that a dismantling of the post-[World War II] economic order should be accompanied by a significant attack on substantive democracy--freedom, popular sovereignty, and human rights--under the slogan TINA (There Is No Alternative). It's kind of a farcical mimicry of vulgar Marxism. The slogan, needless to say, is self-serving fraud. The particular socioeconomic order that's being imposed is the result of human decision in human institutions. The decisions can be modified; the institutions can be changed. If necessary, they can be dismantled and replaced, just as honest and courageous people have been doing throughout the course of history...

"The propagandists on both sides prefer a different story for self-serving reasons, but I think that's the more accurate one."

Noam Chomsky
ROGUE STATES
From essays "Power in the Domestic Arena"
and "Socioeconomic Sovereignty"

This Chomsky book, as another reviewer mentioned, may be best suited for those already familiar with his work. I still however recommend it highly to everyone, regardless of experience or educational level.

The deeply detailed and voluminously footnoted structure of Chomsky's seventy other books is a practice continued here religiously. (The sources of his findings, facts and opinions-much of which come from declassified files from our own government-are more disturbing than he is.) This is obviously done, in part, him knowing to what degree the very concept of evidentiary/factual truth must be defended by charlatans in intelligentsia in the modern world. However, despite the complexities of his subject matter and his research/source material, he writes in such a clear and intelligible way that anyone can be gradually educated on the specifics and profoundly enlightened on the true meaning of the general topics simultaneously. Noam is essentially riffing here. Much of ROGUE STATES consists of transcriptions of papers and speeches he has given over the past five to seven years. Make no mistake, however; we are still talking about Noam Chomsky (Scientific Linguistics icon of MIT). An intellectual jam session by him consisting of solo improvisations on paradigm-shifting themes is not only worth reading but seriously worth owning.

ROGUE STATES is split up into fourteen essay chapters totaling approximately 215 pages of more truth about the real world than you are likely to find anywhere else. They are all built upon the introductory essay chapter from which the book's title is derived. Like a world master linguist can be expected to do, he devotes a considerable amount of the book to the deconstruction of recycled slogans in the media and political world. Slogans that, when looked at their actual world application, would make Orwell spin in his grave. "Rogue State" and "Humanitarian Intervention", for example, when deconstructed in the light of day by Chomsky--who again, always uses a slew of government, Pentagon paper and international sources to prove his point--reveal an entirely different meaning from the one you may think you know.

Using the basic principal of universality underlying both human language and law as a context for the definition of political terms and international socioeconomic realities (without which both language and law become irrelevant), what is a "rogue state", and what modern states actually qualify as one? Chomsky proves that our United States routinely fits the description of one better than our enemies--when looking at actual history, not propaganda. He shows, with brilliant clarity and detail, the principles of military and covert economic warfare practiced by strong countries against the resource-rich weak. And, how such structural principles of parasitism and force are used as the facilitators of neo-colonialism. Masquerading, via Information Society technology, as "globalization".

A shocking; infuriating...redemptive book.

Quite impressive as ussual. I suggest also to read The Bewildered Herd: Media Coverage of International Conflicts & Public Opinion.

Chomsky is fabulous at pointing out stinging ironies in the American political landscape, not to mention the media landscape. Those are indeed his two main topics, and he makes you think about these things as you watch your local or national news, (which gets harder to do after reading Chomsky). For instance, if you watch CNN right now, you'll be watching a lengthy report and analysis on a woman from North Dakota who is missing and believed to have been kidnapped and furthermore believed to be dead. The images of this young woman splash across the screen, then there's a shot of the suspect, then a shot of a hundred people scouring a field looking for clues, then a shot of the local sheriff hugging the woman's dad, and finally another image of the woman followed by a picture of the parking lot where it is supposed she was kidnapped. It's a tragic story to be sure, and many people must find it interesting, but not by any definition can this be news. All of the cable news companies are doing this, and while it is simply a device to boost ratings and appeal to the lowest interests of the masses, it also creates a massive distraction from the huge tragedies and ironies in the world.