Noam Chomsky - Turning the Tide U.S. intervention in

The Challenge Ahead
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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meaningful participation in democratic politics is to be excluded, other
forms, less threatening to privilege, should be fostered. It is also useful
to maintain the population at a low cultural level, a result that has been
achieved with much success in the United States, where 39% of the
population believe in the Biblical prediction of Armageddon “and accept
it with a certain fatalism” (a belief shared by the President, and one that
is advantageous for policy-makers intent on increasing the dangers of
nuclear war), a mere 9% of the population accept Darwinian evolution
while 44% believe that “God created man pretty much in his present
form at one time within the last 10,000 years,” and so on. 25
Such successes also have their problems, however. Doctrinal
fanaticism may retard scientific progress, as the Soviet experience
illustrates, and segments of the churches have become central elements
in the movements for peace and social justice, a fact that has caused
them to be subjected to unremitting criticism for their “radicalism” if not
“anti-Americanism.” The very existence of the latter phrase, incidentally,
is a reflection of the ideological fanaticism that protects private and state
power; a corresponding concept exists in the USSR and some other
societies, but would be considered laughable in many, as it should be.
Another natural feature of contemporary “conservatism” is, predictably,
an attack on independence of religious institutions. The government is
now engaged in undercover infiltration of churches and worship
sessions, using informants and undercover agents to make tape
recordings of conversations and prayer meetings, apparently an
innovation in American history though familiar practice in the totalitarian
societies that the “conservatives” have taken as their models. 26 The
practice was revealed in the course of a trial of two Roman Catholic
priests, a nun, a Presbyterian minister, a Quaker activist and six others
accused of the crime of offering sanctuary to Salvadoran refugees whom
the government is determined to send back to the fate it has arranged