Failed States by Noam Chomsky

So, Cuckoo's Nest made me cry so much that I had to take in some light reading. Ha! But no, I'm not kidding. Literature hits me heavily, so I often turn to non-fiction, preferably essays, to lighten the emotional toll. I'm weird like that.

My introduction to Chomsky was Imperial Ambitions, which was a collected series of interviews. Also, it was much easier to read because the citations were all verbal references, and not big chunks of quoted text in the middle of what I thought was a sentence, somewhere up there, I think, yeah. What I'm trying to say is, States is dense. I expected dense reading, however, which is why I am going through this book one chapter at a time.

Thus far, I have read the first chapter, and I already feel a sense of helpless desperation. Political essays can do this to me, but I read them, anyway. I'm a very masochistic bookworm. Chomsky's logic is so overwhelming that it almost feels like you shouldn't even read the book - just agree with him.

I have no background in politics, political systems, history, etc etc. All I know is what I've seen, as a very humble layperson. I basically believe anything anyone says to me about politics until someone else comes along to tell me otherwise. I don't become vehement one way or the other, I just sit and listen and try to process things upwards out. By that I mean, I pick and choose which political issues are important to me when they actually breach into my personal life. Thus, I haven't delved into the issue of the death penalty, but I have into the issue of abortion. Marijuana use, yes. Gun control, yes. International taxes, not so much. And so forth.

With that in mind, I can't say whether or not Chomsky is convincing or accurate. I can say that he is very authoritative. He doesn't backtrack. He just relentlessly provides detail after detail outlining the ways in which America fits its own definition of a "rogue state."

Other countries aren't off the hook, though. Their collusions with us and with each other are also mentioned, as historical examples or counterexamples to American policy. I am keeping an ear out for who I don't hear him complain about, because that is where I want to be (although, they probably have their own problems).

I suppose I should get into his ideas about linguistics, because that seems so much more obviously my style. As it is, I like reading what he has to say about politics, even when I have to read each paragraph really really slowly.