In a sweeping state of the world address, America's leading foreign policy critic surveys the role of the US in a post 9/11 world—and finds nothing has changed. Ranging over American intervention in the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America since World War II, Chomsky deftly sketches the logic behind our foreign policy and its tragic results across the globe, and at home. Whether its globalization, oil, or a monopoly on real terror, it's business as usual, and we—not to mention the rest of the world—have to pay. Now more than ever, the venerable professor stands as the voice of reason in an apparently insane world.
"It can also be reasonably argued, I think, that the evolving system of state-corporate power, based in Washington, is a threat to its own population, us. The tendencies that lead in that direction are very real—they're not inexorable and there are others that strongly counter them. If you look over the centuries there has been significant expansion in the realm of freedom and justice—there are periods of regression—but the cycle is generally upward.....The emerging framework of world power should not be an object of detached contemplation, but has to be forged by dedicated work and struggle, always based on an effort to dismantle doctrinal constraints to see what's before our eyes, which is not really very deeply hidden." —Noam Chomsky, from the CD