Architects of War
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Chomsky, I learned, was also interested in languages. But unlike Jackie, his specialty was formal languages; languages which could be broken down and analyzed using logic. I wondered if Jazz could be a formal rather than an informal language.
But his political writings were what I was mostly interested in and they were not formal at all. In fact they had some jazz-like qualities of their own. What I mean is that his style is both repetitive and improvisational. Like John Coltrane’s saxophone style, they sounded very dense and noisy at first, but after reading enough of them I would begin to follow his pattern and his language of evidence. They were not really noisy, just complex.
There were the architects of strategic US imperialism like Robert McNamara and Henry Kissinger. And there were the union-busting business leaders who were seeking to “reclaim control of the workplace.” Control which they had lost as a result of the New Deal. Then there were the economic thinkers like Milton Friedman who brainwashed us. In other words it’s a Tolkienesque universe where we are all pawns in an elaborate game being played between sorcerers weilding otherworldly powers.
There was really no difference between liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans. They were all neoliberals. They were all in together on something called the Washington Consensus. It was an agreement to pursue a particular set of domestic policies. They wanted to cut taxes, especially for the wealthy, and to reduce spending on government programs. They especially wanted to cut welfare programs but also funding for education, and arts education in particular, for some reason.
His writings about mass incarceration and the war on drugs moved me the most. I was horrified to learn how historically and internationally out of proportion the prison population of the United States had become. And how black. It was another Middle Passage-like abuse of human dignity, but it was happening now, under our noses. I could literally feel my bowels becoming inflamed as I read about it. I would meditate to cool off, but it wasn’t enough. And did I mention? They hate democracy. HATE it.
As I read his books, I found myself wanting more detailed evidence to back up his sometimes extraordinary claims about how evil the capitalist elite really were. There were his statements about the US involvement in various unethical military actions, which seemed to be on pretty solid ground.
But on the domestic policy front I wasn’t so sure. For example, he would say that no one really wants a balanced budget and that it was just an excuse to cut social programs. But he would never explain exactly why we don’t need to balance the budget, or how unbalanced the budget should be.
I wanted to know whether there was going to be any funding for arts education in the future because one of the ways musicians make money is by teaching other musicians. But if there is no one funding it this becomes an unsustainable pyramid scheme. It was one thing to be a starving artist but another to be a sick, starving artist without health insurance. Where was the money to pay for arts education supposed to come from? It was not as severe of an issue as mass incarceration, but to me it seemed like a matter of life and death.
Chomsky wasn’t really giving me the answer. But if I were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, I would find his arguments against the neoliberals to be persuasive.
My outrage and my disease were rising together again. I began to want to do something.
