Friday, April 28, 2006

Noam Chomsky's seven imperatives for America's true world citizenship

In his brilliant essay, Afterword: Failed States, Noam Chomsky deconstructs popular but discredited forms of 'democracy' that are current in Bush's America.

In doing so, he defines the democracy deficit devastating the world today, a crisis he traces to American policy, foreign and domestic.

In his summation, Chomsky presents concrete proposals in the form of a prescription for the reorientation of American policy crystallized into seven crisp, succinct and salient points.

1) Accept the International Criminal Court,

2) Accept the Kyoto Protocols,

3) Accept UN leadership in international crises,

4) Abandon counterproductive military options and deploy diplomatic and economic strategies for dealing with terror,

5) Adhere to Article 51 of the UN Charter: disavowing the use of force unless authorized by the UN Security Council or when the nation is under imminent threat of attack,

6) In order to reach a deeper level of planetary consensus as proposed in the Declaration of Independence which advises, "a decent respect for the opinions of mankind," America should abandon the veto powers of the UN Security Council, and

7) Cut back decisively on military spending and decisively increase social spending for: health, education and renewable energy, etc.

This essay is simply imperative for anyone concerned about the political misdirection of the planet.