Chomsky on US Imperialism, Boston University, 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1hRwQvGPx8&feature=related

You should start from part #1.... I posted this third part (of 7) only
because he started talking about how the US --- right after WWII, when
England and France had taken a backseat to the USA in terms of the
ability to project power, overwhelming power, in crushing ANY country
around the world and subjugating it to its will --- was beginning to
think about REPLACING both England and France in many parts of the
world.

At first, the *replacement* was in terms of acting as the CHIEF
FINANCIER mostly, of course. After all, England and France still had
colonies everywhere around the world, and physically displacing your
allies (European/White allies with whom you've just defeated Hitler)
was not necessary.

But being the central banker, through which England and France had to
go through in their activities to borrow and to finance their digging
up and shipping away of billions of tons of RAW resources.... from a
bit of South America, to largely Africa and the Mid East, to an ever
great part of Asia, from India all the way to SE Asia and
Australia.....

THAT's what America was going to be: the lender/financier the French
and English would use.

Remember that both England and France were TOTALLY bankrupt after
WWII, as was Germany, Italy, the Soviets.

America was the only country that THRIVED during and after WWII.

On this part, #3, towards the middle of the show, about 4 minutes into
it.... you'd see/hear (if you have the general historical education
covering from the 1940s through the 60s).... Chomsky articulating why
the USA stabbed Ho Chi Minh in the back, when Ho came out of his caves
--- right after his triumph over the Franks at Dien Bien Phu --- and
started his MOVING SPEECH about Liberty, Equality, and the Pursuit of
Happiness:

If those words and phrases sounded awefully fimiliar, it's because Ho
Chi Minh was basically paying tribute to America's Constitution, in
particular, articulating the US Constitution's awe-inspring
Preamble.... And Ho did this with sincerity, because, after all, he
had just kicked the shit out of the French, after many years of
suffering under the Franks unjust imperialism.....

But as Chomsky said --- although he did NOT say it in so many words:
you HAVE TO have the historical background to see and to hear what
he's saying --- the USA wanted to slowly and ultimately replace the
French.... so instead of being a true friend to Ho, who, by the way,
was MISTREATED by French and Russians and Chinese during his years of
growing up and learning with and from them.... so Ho's first choice
WOULD LIKELY HAVE BEEN THE AMERICANS, in terms of borrowing from in
the building of a free, democratic, pluralistic Vietnamese society....

Indeed, again, he basically read the Preamble to the US Constitution,
word for word, in HIS OWN vision for the Vietnamese people.

But it was not to be, since the USA had already, by the time of the
French formal defeat/surrendered, put together the South Vietnamese
PUPPETS who would run South Vietnam and, eventually, the whole REGION,
including Cambodia and Laos --- and possibly even Thailand ---
Americans were NOT there to be friends with Ho Chi Minh; they were
there to make SE Asians slaves, servants, and laborers who would grow
the opium for cash for them, dig the mines for gold silver, and other
precious metals and minerals; grow and harvest sab for rubber making
for them; wash their feet and tend to their gardens; etc.

+++++++++++++++++++++

For me, his observations and treateses on CONTEMPORARY societies ---
particularly his critique of the most powerful people and nations and
how they divide, dominate and terrorize smaller nations and less
powerful people into submission, in whatever fancy names the powerful
nations and people like Americans, French, and Brits want --- were/are
the things that generations from now students, historians and ordinary
people alike all over the world would remember him for....

But for scientists, his "real contribution" to humanity --- the thing
that made him being referred to, sometimes, as "one of the great
minds" of the 20th century, to use the English evolutionary biologist
(who was also a great mechanical/rocket engineer, before switching to
biology) John Maynard Smith's description --- was actually Chomsky's
LINGUISTICs theory (or, rather, his ELUCIDATION) on "universal
grammar," developed and worked on, from the 1940s through the 50's,
when he was still very young.... in effect, carrying on waht others
had postulated before him.

By the 1940s --- and particularly in the 50s and 60s --- the SCIENCE
of cognitive/behavioral studies has matured enough to be able to more
accurately describe whta's goiing on in the physical head, and not
just "the mind," that allow BOTH evolutionary biologists (like Maynard
Smith, et al) and human behavioral/cognitive theorists (like Chomsky)
to compare notes, to take their tweaking to degrees/heights people
could only dreamed about a generation or two previously...
.

Relevant Pages

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