Noam Chomsky: America’s Going Rogue

[marmar]

from In These Times:



America’s Going Rogue
The U.S. snubs treaties, obligations and universal principles.

BY Noam Chomsky


During the latest episode of the Washington farce that has astonished a bemused world, a Chinese commentator wrote that if the United States cannot be a responsible member of the world system, perhaps the world should become “de-Americanized”—and separate itself from the rogue state that is the reigning military power but is losing credibility in other domains.

The Washington debacle's immediate source was the sharp shift to the right among the political class. In the past, the U.S. has sometimes been described sardonically—but not inaccurately—as a one-party state: the business party, with two factions called Democrats and Republicans.

That is no longer true. The U.S. is still a one-party state, the business party. But it only has one faction: moderate Republicans, now called New Democrats (as the U.S. Congressional coalition styles itself).

There is still a Republican organization, but it long ago abandoned any pretense of being a normal parliamentary party. Conservative commentator Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute and Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution describe today's Republicans as “a radical insurgency—ideologically extreme, scornful of facts and compromise, and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition”: a serious danger to the society. ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/article/15842/chomsky_americas_going_rogue