Deterring Democracy

Rating:
Summary: A relentless analysis of America's imperial project.
Review: All Chomsky's political books have one aim: To show to the world, and to American's in particular, that America's foreign policy is imperial in design. This book is his best. Chapter by chapter he shows how the Cold War was essentially the creation of the USA to cloak its own global ambitions: - to become the first truly world power. He shows how "communist" revolutions were usually nationalist in flavour, including Cuba and Vietnam; how America wants unlimited access to cheap primary markets in the Third World; how America's victims are usually left-leaning politicians, civil-right activists, trade unionists, and peasants, -in other words, people who might harm US investments; and how America prefers democracy - except where democracy may threaten American business interest. When American business interests are threatened by democracy, socialists are pushed out of office and replaced with right-of-centre coalitions, coupled with CIA covert operations to undermine popular organisations such as trade unions.

Noam Chomsky says this: "Democratic forms can be tolerated, even admired, if only for propaganda purposes. But this stance can be adopted only when the distribution of effective power ensures that meaningful participation of the 'popular classes' has been barred. When they organise and threaten the control of the political system by the business-land-owning elite and the military, strong measures must by taken, with tactical variations depending on the ranking of the target population on the scale of importance. At the lowest level, in the Third World, virtually no holds are barred."

This book is uncompromising and Chomsky is relentless in his argument and presentation of facts. Once you get to the end, you will be find it difficult to refute what Chomsky says. If you have never questioned America's foreign policy before-then you are in for a radical shake-up of the intellect. For those of us who care about the world, believe in the self-determination of nations, and want to cut through the pious cant of governments, this is the place to start.

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Summary: Excellent cold war revisionism, overall a creepy book.
Review: Before reading this book, (or any Chomsky for that matter), I would say I was a typical democrat who thought stuff like "Clinton's not perfect, but any republican is a lot worse" and similar opinions. But after reading this book, my somewhat sheltered opinion gave way to a massive distrust of anyone in power. I would say this is a good start for anyone starting to get into the dissident viewpoint, it is relatively easy reading, besides some rambling in parts. Some more reactionary types may attack, but they fail to show an alternative cause for many of the alleged things the US did highlighted in the book. Chomsky starts out by dissecting the causes of the cold war. He repeatedly denounces Leninism, so any hard headed conservative cannot reliably use red baiting against the man. In fact, he actually succeedes in debunking the lefist myth of Lenin's innocence in the authoritarian and despotic strains of Soviet Communism without succumbing to propaganda.
Overall, the book shows the many despotic regimes and human rights abuses that the U.S establishment is calpable in creating, supporting, or maintaining. Chomsky goes on to make the point that much of the cold war was an ideological construct to have U.S citizens and the establishment to support vested interests, namely the "military industrial complex". What sounds like a conspiracy theory to some, becomes very convincing in Chomsky's hands. He doesn't just focus on one cause, and sticks to the point throughout the book. The point becomes very convincing if one considers: 1. why did the US support despotic regimes besides their intentions of fighting one form of despotism, namely communism.
2. What did America's elite interest (corporations) have to gain from exploiting these countries and supporting these regimes?
3. If the U.S establishment is committed to Democracy, why do they CONTINUE to support many regimes where Democracy does not see the light of day?
Even though this book is over ten years old, these questions remain relevant and this book is neccesary reading for everyone.

Rating:
Summary: A very one sided but interesting read
Review: I mentioned the book as interesting because it deviates from the mainstream media's reports. It claims to reveal the 'real democracy' and it does do that to a large extent. What I was disappointed a bit was some of the arguments seem one sided...for eg., I want to know if the so called "US model of democracy" is so fundamentally flawed how come some of the excellent progress have happened ? In some other countries even the mere act of expressing such radical viwes would cause a stir ! Not to say that those are right but it is true that democracy as it exists in the US is not so fundamentally wrong. But then, is US preaching the same policies to others ? I dunno..

All in all, I'd probably read more of Chomsky and I recommend this book too. But I'd also try to read the 'other side' (I want to read more of US interventionist policies in Central America...probably from the state dept website itself..)

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant and thought provoking analysis
Review: I picked up this book because I was quite ashamed at the American political scene at home and quite mystified with its actions abroad. I was angry that our government and the business community seemed to be drifting farther and farther from popular control, and how politicians were condescending, insincere, and corrupt. I wondered if America really was the savior of the world I had been taught to believe it to be, or whether it was all a hoax. I remembered from my childhood how the toughest guys always bullied the weaker individuals, and I was extremely skeptical that the United States could have such power and always use it benevolently. The book proved to be an incredible read, right from the first page. Chomsky did not begin with the assumption that America has acted benevolently in the past, or that it ever meant to. Instead, he started with the facts, and constructed them into a global picture that should irk anybody with a conscience. The US IS a thug and a murderer, an untrustworthy goon, as far as international affairs are concerned. Even now, George W. Bush, the Republican candidate for the presidency, says he will "cancel," or VIOLATE, the treaty the United States signed with Russia that forbids both countries from building missile defense systems. Anybody concerned with the truth would do well to read this book.

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Summary: No Title
Review: In a better world Chomsky's political analysis would be superfluous: facts about US aggression, subversion, terrorism, support for tyranny, profiteering and deception would - along with US successes - be uncontroversial parts of intellectual and historical currency; exhaustive exposures of media hypocrisy and the forensic refutation of familiar liberal pieties would be no more than a casual pastime. In a word, if people in the intellectual community were more honest and judicious about certain topics, then Chomsky could at least be dismissed or ignored for legitimate reasons. Unfortunately for the social sciences, Chomsky's political work, with its glorious, bloody-minded disregard for the principled, equable modesty of humanist scholarship and relentless, caustic irony, most certainly is necessary. Whether or not the reader is put off by the discursive style, heavy use of quotations, disturbing conclusions or the eventual familiarity of most of the arguments, it is hard to read "Deterring Democracy" without a mounting sense of moral indignation.

I include his detractors in this category, though obviously for different reasons. I also doubt whether many of them have the stomach or patience to persevere to the end. Most attempts to criticise Chomsky have been thoroughly dishonest, trivial or just plain ludicrous. If Chomsky is to be disregarded, then it must be for good reasons and on his territory; not because of pathetic, hackneyed slander, innuendo or abuse.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting read...
Review: Now I know where the Democrats got their playbook to oust the GOP. Unfortunately, Chomsky's dementia did not play well in the "Red States"..too bad..I enjoyed the read especially his ideas about the press being complicit with the conservative movement and the crazy references he employs to support his idiotic views..as long as the Dem's stay on message with Chomsky, it will be a long time before they see the White House

Rating:
Summary: All you need to...
Review: Remember about Ronald Reagan is in this book.

Rating:
Summary: Amateurish
Review: This book offers an illuminating alternative to reliance upon the mass media for the facts underlying US international relations in the 80s-early 90s. While certain portions of this book are repetitive, being based upon a series of articles that contain a fair amount of overlap, I did not find it particularly hard to follow. Chomsky's main thesis is that the actions taken by the US government in the name of defending and promoting "democracy" in Central America, East Timor, Iraq and elsewhere are often, when subjected to reasoned analysis, nothing more than acts of outrageous hypocrisy and cynical self-interest. In many cases, this leads to the nonsensical result of toppling genuine democratically elected governments, which are in turn replaced by far less democratic, more authoritarian regimes, which are then ironically hailed by the US government and media as "triumphs" of "democracy". The emphasis in practice is therefore not on actual democracy, but using the label as a cover for supporting governments that meekly follow US orders or are at least are repressive enough to subvert social forces within their territories that otherwise might endanger US business interests. Viewed in light of this analysis, numerous otherwise puzzling US actions, such as the failure to remove Saddam Hussein at the end of the Gulf War, make perfect and chilling sense. Chomsky also forcefully argues that the form of democracy existing at home in the US is also largely a sham, i.e., two major political parties that appear on the surface to offer major differences in philosophy but in reality focus public discussion within an extremely narrow range of debate and, in their virtually identical pro-business mindsets, can be characterized as "two horses with the same owner". Chomsky's book still has great relevance today notwithstanding its early 90s vintage. It passionately and persuasively reaffirms the vital importance of genuine democratic principles while effectively challenging and refuting many false conceptions about the form of "democracy" as it appears in actual practice.

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Summary: No scholarship here
Review: To fully grasp Chomsky's points, and to be able to defend oneself, one must be broadly acquainted with 20th century history, as he surveys Indochina, Africa, Latin America, Central America, and the Caribbean as playgrounds and laboratories for American politics. The book is brimming with interesting insights, and also with unique and sometimes stunning examples of American hypocrisy, ambivalence, and exploitation.

Among his valued insights: American foreign policy considerations are perhaps too foreign; Soviet "interventionism" is the result of a problem in Moscow. But our intervention in, say, Honduras, is the result of a problem in Honduras. Chomsky rightly believes that we rarely take time to turn the microscope upon ourselves. "The basic problems" with our world system, he laments, "are institutional, and will not fade away." Insights of this quality have over time given his work a general scholarly overtone.

The plethora of quotations peppering his paragraphs demonstrates a unique and broad scholarship. It is through his quotations, however, that fissures in his work begin to appear, and any reader is well-advised to spend some time chasing them. Not only are his quotations at times so extensive that they are distracting (a "smoke screen" effect). His references are so frequently set up like targets on a shooting range that one wonders if in fact Chomsky could really dislike so many people. Many quotes are clearly selected solely in pursuit of persuasion to his preconceptions of the evil in American foreign policy, and not an honest elucidation or analysis of his argument. And even when his documentation and footnotes are pursued, they are often inappropriate to a work of such weighty import. Check them for yourself - that's how he resembles the Wizard of Oz in my view. For example, he frequently quotes himself from other books he has written and does so in a deceptive manner. He also makes extensive references to newspapers - not at all golden examples of high scholarship.

He can be fiercely persuasive, oscillating as he does between logic and emotion. Similar skills, however, were put to use by Hitler, Lenin, and Mussolini. Diligence is required to divine the difference between the two and avoid following Chomsky's army of straw men onto very thin ice. Exploring his endnotes, his vocabulary, his conclusions, his facts, and his history make this book a work of relatively poor scholarship but nevertheless with great appeal to closet dissidents lacking similar amounts of newsprint in their file cabinets.

If the world of the last two hundred years, or even the last fifty, had been run according to Chomsky, he would not today be writing as a free man. And neither would Solzhenitsyn, Sakharov, Tertz, Vetokhin, Primo Levi, Elie Weisel, or any number of intellectuals whose pens were enticed or liberated by American ideals, however imperfect and imperfectly pursued. Good authors on topics of such grand scale and import will make the important concession to the readership that, at the very least, he is grateful for the safe haven inside which his literary talents may be put to use. Chomsky appears to willfully retain a measure of ingratitude and bile, which one commonly experiences during adolescence and abandons upon maturation.

There is a difference between a brilliant dissident and one simply well read. Deterring Democracy demonstrates that Chomsky is clearly the latter.

Rating:
Summary: Very important for putting W's policy in perspective
Review: While Chomsky has quite a few books on politics and reading them all is not something that most people are committed to do, I would put Deterring Democracy in the top five of must-read Chomsky books.

A lot of material is covered in this book, but the one persistent them is democracy...how America fights for/against it. I found particularly useful the discussions of Nicaragua, and most importantly Iraq and Haiti. Knowing what has happened to Haiti because of the U.S. over the past 15 years and up until last year is essential for understanding that Bush's talk of democracy is rhetoric. It's to be applied when useful for us, but when it's not (in the case of Haiti), democratic ideals are thrown out the window. Chomsky does a great job at providing background info and putting things in context.

And for the seemingly stuck up political scientists that make relatively minor points about theory, this doesn't change what the U.S. did. This is what's at the heart of Chomsky's work, pointing out what's done in our name and holding the government accountable for it. I also seriously doubt that these critics are able to cover every available point or angle in every piece work that they do (no one can), so get over it.