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Year 501: The Conquest Continues is perhaps one of the most important books written by Noam Chomsky. I put it at equal importance to his and Edward S. Hermans' seminal work, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media and Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies.

The other day I stumbled into a seminar he presented in 1992 introducing the ideas from Year 501. Here's a short transcript from the seminar:

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(@18:20) Chomsky: I did a review of the press in Latin America in the United States and it was kind of interesting. In Latin America the electoral outcome was generally described as a victory for George Bush. Even by those who celebrated it. In the United States, in contrast, the outcome was hailed as "a victory for U.S. fair play, with Americans united in joy" — kind of Albanian style — That's The New York Times headlines. Now it's not that— and that was typical all over the press, no exceptions. It's not that the celebrants were unaware of how the U.S. victory was achieved. Rather there was just unconstrained joy at the grand success of subverting democracy. Here's Time Magazine, for example— It was quite frank about the means that were employed to bring about what they called "the latest of the happy series of democratic surprises as democracy burst forth in Nicaragua. "The method was," they said, and I'm quoting, "to wreck the economy and prosecute a long and deadly proxy war until the exhausted natives overthrow the unwanted government themselves with a cost to us that is minimal, leaving the victim with wrecked bridges, sabotaged power stations and ruined farms and thus providing the U.S. candidate with a winning issue ending the impoverishment of the people of Nicaragua."

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As the quincentenary approached, the traditional apologetics were sounded once again. And they are not entirely without merit. Take say, The Economist in London. It has a point when it lauded what it called the passion for justice of the Spanish murderers and torturers. It is in fact true that they wanted to keep some of their victims alive to slave in the mines, where their life expectancy was about the same as that of forced labourers at Auschwitz, as historian David Stannard observes. And he compares this more humane attitude with that of the English settlers seeking [?]. There goal was simply to rid themselves of the natives entirely, as they carried out what the leading newspaper in the United States in the mid-nineteenth century called "the glorious work of subjugation and conquest."

One of the leading heroes, whose name now graces the capital city of Texas, explained that the American colonists "would be satisfied with nothing short of extermination or expulsion. The U.S. would soon sweep the country of the Indians and drive them, as they always have driven them, to ruin and extermination," Steven Austin explained. He was speaking to what he called the madmen who sought to establish a free red-white society in Texas, where he had already successfully cleared those he called "the natives of the forest."

There were people more humane than Steven Austin, like George Washington who felt that, in his words "the gradual extension of our settlements will as certainly cause the savage as the wolf to retire both being beast of prey, though they differ in shape." Thomas Jefferson advised that the backward tribes at the borders will relapse into barbarism and misery, lose numbers by war and want, and we shall be obliged to drive them with the beasts of the forest to the stony mountains. Meanwhile all blacks would be removed to Africa," Jefferson said, "leaving the country without blot or mixture." Or to Haiti, which Abraham Lincoln recognized in 1862, in part for the same reason.

A modern rendition of all of this is given by a contemporary standard history of American diplomacy published in 1969, by Thomas Bailey, where we read that after winning their independence Americans concentrated on the task of "felling trees and Indians and of rounding out their natural boundaries."

Well, like Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson was a man of enlightenment and humanity, representing the heights of European civilization. Exploring further, we reach the great thinker who discoursed authoritatively on the same topics in his lectures on the philosophy of history, a half century later, in 1830. As we approach what he called the final phase of word history, "when spirit reaches its full maturity and strength in the German world"— German includes England. Speaking from these lofty heights Hegel explains that Native America was physically and psychically powerless, so that it must expire as soon as spirit approached it. Hence the aborigines gradually vanished at the breath of European activity." According to him they were inferior even to the negroes, whose character has nothing harmonious with humanity. Entirely lacking in moral sentiments, they practice polygamy so as to have many children to sell into slavery, which is a benevolent institution, enabling them to become participant in a higher morality and the culture connected with it. "They have such contempt of humanity," he said, "that they allow themselves to be shot down by thousands in war with Europeans. Life has a value only when it has something valuable as its object, which is a thought beyond the grasp of creatures who are at the level of a mere thing, an object of no value."

Such thoughts persist right to the present day.

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To see the entire lecture, go to Noam Chomsky in London - Year 501.

Who's Counting: Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies and Global Economics

Marilyn Waring became a member of New Zealand's parliament in the 1980s. While there, she found that the economic jargon being used confusing, counter-intuitive, and even nonsensical. At some point she researches the official documents that proscribe what comprises GDP/GNP. To her shock, she discovers that a significant contribution to societal well-being is omitted from the books, specifically 'women's work'. Eventually she wrote a book called, originally, Counting For Nothing: What Men Value and What Women are Worth, which was published with the less inflammatory title If Women Counted: A New Feminist Economics. The NFB did a documentary on her while she was touring Canada. Here is a short transcript from early in the film:

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(@4:17) Waring: The more you smoke cigarettes, or the more that you have automobile accidents, the more [economic] growth increases. Now I'd be fairly unlikely, having smashed my car, to come home and say 'Darling, don't worry about it. We've just contributed to the national income of the country. I mean I wouldn't run my household like that and I just can't think like that. I would consider that a loss, you know. I would kind of consider that a debit on my account. A cost, not a benefit. National income accounting doesn't have a debit side. As long as the activity passes through the market it's good for growth. Let me give you a very easy example. The voyage of the Exxon Valdez. The Exxon Valdez is most likely the most productive oil tanker voyage ever know on the face of the planet. Now if had simply loaded up its oil in Alaska and made its way down the west coast and discharged into a bunker, it would have been a moderately productive voyage, in economic terms.

But if you want to have fantastic growth, it's a very good idea to ram your tanker into an iceberg. Immediately there are the insurance costs and the new tanker. This is great for growth. Then there are the civil legal proceedings and the criminal legal proceedings. Immediately, of course, there's the payment for the clean-up operation. Then, down the way a little bit, there are the compensations to fisher people. And the compensations to the tourist industry. And of course there is the film, the television rights, the book; the various newspaper and media exercises that go on. And of course consequently there is the influx of subscriptions to memberships to every greenie organization you can think of.

A fantastically productive oil tanker voyage. You see what I mean? It all added to growth.

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To see and/or purchase the 94 minute film, click the NFB link: Who's Counting? Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies and Global Economics.

Naomi Klein on G20 Policing

The level of policing at the Toronto G20 was astounding, with a huge bill. Why? Why were more arrests made during this protest than for any other action in Canadian history (~1100)? Why were civil rights temporarily suspended, and why have so many activists been kept under arrest, gagged, and facing serious charges? For the unofficial reasons, watch Naomi Klein on G20-Toronto Policing.

Here is a short transcript from early in her speech:

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(2:28) Klein: More fundamentally we are here because we know what happened in this city during the G20 and the wrong people are in jail for it. There are police officers who should be facing charges for assault and harassment. And so should their supervisors who enable and covered up those abuses. So far nobody in authority has paid anything for what happened. According to the parliamentary committee underway in Ottawa, the worst crimes, the crimes the cops committed, was taking off their name tags. That was not their worst crime.

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I find this interesting because it is a concise statement of just how disconnected the media is from reporting the news as it really happens as it fulfills its mandate of presenting economic 'truths' in a certain light.