dd-c10-s13

Deterring Democracy Copyright © 1991, 1992 by Noam Chomsky. Published by South End Press.
Chapter 10: The Decline of the Democratic Ideal Segment 13/13

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The policy is routine. Once the rabble have been tamed, once the dream of a better future is abandoned and "the masses" understand that their only hope is to shine shoes for Whitey, then it makes good sense to allow a "democratic process" that may even bring former enemies to power. They can then administer the ruins, for us. A side benefit is that populist forces are thereby discredited. Thus the U.S. was quite willing to permit Manley to take over after the dismal failure of the Reaganite free market experiment, and would have observed with equanimity (indeed, much pride in our tolerance of diversity) if Juan Bosch had won the 1990 elections in the Dominican Republic. There is no longer any need to send the Marines to bar him from office as in 1965, when the population arose, defeating the army and restoring the populist constitutional regime that had been overthrown by a U.S.-backed coup. After years of death squads, starvation, mass flight of desperate boat people, and takeover of the rest of the economy by U.S. corporations, we need not be troubled by democratic forms. On the same reasoning, it is sometimes a good idea to encourage Black mayors -- if possible, civil rights leaders -- to preside over the decline of what is left of the inner cities of the domestic Third World. Once demoralization is thorough and complete, they can run the wreckage and control the population. Perhaps Ortega and the Sandinistas, having come to their senses after a dose of reality administered by the guardian of order, will be prepared to take on this task if the chosen U.S. proxies fail.

Years ago, a Jesuit priest working in Nicaragua, who had been active in Chile prior to the Pinochet coup, commented that "In Chile, the Americans made a mistake," killing the revolution there "too abruptly" and thus failing to "kill the dream." "In Nicaragua they're trying to kill the dream," he suggested.⁵⁵ That is surely a more rational policy, because if the dream is not killed, trouble might erupt again. But once the hope of a more free and just society is lost, and the proper habits are "ingrained" (as in Manley's Jamaica, according to the World Bank official whose satisfied evaluation was quoted earlier), then things should settle down to the traditional endurance of suffering and privation, without disturbing noises from the servants' quarters.

If all works well, Maynes's establishment left will once again be able to celebrate what he calls the U.S. campaign "to spread the cause of democracy." It is true, he observes, that sometimes things don't quite work out. Thus "specialists may point out that the cause of democracy suffered some long-run setbacks in such places as Guatemala and Iran because of earlier CIA `successes' in overthrowing governments there." But ordinary folk should not be troubled by the human consequences of these setbacks. More successful is the case of Grenada, where the cause of democracy triumphed at not too great a cost to us, Maynes observes, "and the island has not been heard from since." There has been no need to report the recent meaningless elections, the social dissolution and decay, the state of siege instituted by the official democrats, the decline of conditions of life, and other standard concomitants of "the defense of freedom." Perhaps, with luck, Nicaragua will prove to be a success of which we can be equally proud. Panama is already well along the familiar road.

With proper management, then, we should be able to leave the Sandinistas, at least in anything like their earlier incarnation, down somewhere in "the ash heap of history" where they belong, and "return Central America to the obscurity it so richly deserves" in accord with the prescriptions of the establishment left (Alan Tonelson, Maynes's predecessor at Foreign Policy).⁵⁶

Outside of the official left-right spectrum, the non-people have other values and commitments, and a quite different understanding of responsibility to something other than themselves and of the cause of democracy and freedom. They should also understand that solidarity work is now becoming even more critically important than before. Every effort will be made to de-educate the general population so that they sink to the intellectual and moral level of the cultural and social managers. Those who do not succumb have a historic mission, and should not forget that.

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Go to the next chapter.

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55 See Turning the Tide, 145f.

56 See chapter 8, section 5. KEYWORDS terrorist democracy elections cia mossad bnd nsa covert operation 911 mi6 inside job what really happened wtc pentagon joint chiefs of staff jcs centcom laser hologram usa mi5 undercover agent female sex exploitation perception deception power anarchy green social democratic participation japanese spy black-op false flag gladio terror.

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