Introductory summary of this article
President Obama recently sent his new jobs proposal to Congress with a plan to pay for the $447 billion package by raising taxes on the wealthy. The healthcare system, the huge military spending as a result of 9/11 and the stupid foreign policy that provoked it, the very low taxes for the rich and corporations -- are fundamental problems that have to be dealt with if there's going to be anything like successful economic and social development in the United States, he points out. As Texas Gov. Rick Perry calls Social Security a "Ponzi scheme," and Democrats buy into the narrative that the program is in crisis, Chomsky notes that "to worry about a possible problem 30 years from now, which can be fixed with a little bit of tampering here and there, as was done in 1983, makes absolutely no sense at all -- unless you're trying to destroy the program."
The origins of 9/11 according to Ron Paul, with a follow-up from Chomsky
Congress Member Ron Paul of Texas recently drew boos from the crowd and a rebuke from other candidates on the podium when he criticized U.S. foreign policy in pointing out the roots of 9/11 that most Americans don't want to face:
We're under terrorist threat because we occupy so many countries, he said. We're in 130 of them. We have 900 bases around the world. And we're going broke because of it.
The purpose of al-Qaeda was to attack us so that we would go over there where they can target us more easily. And they have been doing exactly that and have been bleeding our economy of resources and bankrupting our country at the same time. They have initiated more attacks against American interests per month than occurred in all the years before 9/11. But what would you expect them to do? Our troops are there, in the hundreds of thousands, occupying their land! And if we think that we can do that and not have retaliation, we are deluded.
To be honest with ourselves we must squarely face the obvious question: What would we do if another country, say China, did to us what we are doing to all those countries over there?
This idea that the whole Muslim world is 'responsible' for attacking us just because we're "free' and prosperous is silly. Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda clearly told us that they attacked America because, a) we had military bases on their holy land in Saudi Arabia, b) we militarily and financially assist the Israelis in their persecution of the Palestinians, and c) we have been bombing and otherwise killing hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Iraq, including thousands of children, for more than a decade, with sanctions as well as bombs.
If this had been done to America, what would your reaction be? So how can we blame them for their reactions, without being stupid?
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