Christ, I may as well rename this thing to "The Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky blog"
Chomsky argues that the reason why the U.S. is on the decline is because it's losing control of regions it's typically been exploiting. This loosening of imperialism has been going on for decades. He believes that the U.S.'s most recent actions/interests in the Middle East, with Egypt and with Libya, are nothing but power grabs for a region it's trying to gain control over.
A further danger to US hegemony was the possibility of meaningful moves towards democracy. New York Times executive editor Bill Keller writes movingly of Washington’s “yearning to embrace the aspiring democrats across North Africa and the Middle East.” But recent polls of Arab opinion reveal very clearly that functioning democracy where public opinion influences policy would be disastrous for Washington. Not surprisingly, the first few steps in Egypt's foreign policy after ousting Mubarak have been strongly opposed by the US and its Israeli client.
It makes a lot of sense. In the 60s and 70s, post-Chinese revolution, we lost control of the region, and so we just couldn't stop invading countries in Asia. In the 80s, we began losing control of South America, and so we couldn't leave them alone. Now look at us. The only evil dictators we care about are in the Middle East. We're carrying out military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Libya. Maybe more, those are only the ones off the top of my head. In 2007, Dick Cheney tried to convince the president to bomb Syria. Bush refused. Three months later, Israel bombed Syria. I'm now beginning to see why Chomsky has described Israel as basically an American colony.
Furthermore, he demolishes the current political climate.
In parallel, the cost of elections skyrocketed, driving both parties even deeper into corporate pockets. What remains of political democracy has been undermined further as both parties have turned to auctioning congressional leadership positions. Political economist Thomas Ferguson observes that “uniquely among legislatures in the developed world, U.S. congressional parties now post prices for key slots in the lawmaking process.” The legislators who fund the party get the posts, virtually compelling them to become servants of private capital even beyond the norm. The result, Ferguson continues, is that debates “rely heavily on the endless repetition of a handful of slogans that have been battle tested for their appeal to national investor blocs and interest groups that the leadership relies on for resources.”
The post-Golden Age economy is enacting a nightmare envisaged by the classical economists, Adam Smith and David Ricardo. Both recognized that if British merchants and manufacturers invested abroad and relied on imports, they would profit, but England would suffer. Both hoped that these consequences would be averted by home bias, a preference to do business in the home country and see it grow and develop. Ricardo hoped that thanks to home bias, most men of property would “be satisfied with the low rate of profits in their own country, rather than seek a more advantageous employment for their wealth in foreign nations.
In the past 30 years, the “masters of mankind,” as Smith called them, have abandoned any sentimental concern for the welfare of their own society, concentrating instead on short-term gain and huge bonuses, the country be damned – as long as the powerful nanny state remains intact to serve their interests.
[...]
By shredding the remnants of political democracy, they lay the basis for carrying the lethal process forward – as long as their victims are willing to suffer in silence.
You should read the thing for yourself, I think it's pretty brilliant. Here's a video that was embedded in the article, it's an Al Jazeera interview of Chomsky from 2007 where he talks about much of the same stuff.
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