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

The Challenge Ahead
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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control capital and resources, means of production and distribution,
while decisions over investment and other crucial matters are removed
in principle from democratic control, with the further consequence that
democratic politics includes a very limited range of social choices,
operating within parameters set elsewhere in the state system. The
groundwork for great social movements of the past was laid through
many years of searching, intellectual interchange, social experimentation
and collective action, organization and struggle. The same will be true of
the coming stages of social change.
Those who wish to play a meaningful role in influencing public policy
or changing its institutional base must begin with honest inquiry, in
community with others if it is to be effective. Whether one sees oneself
as dedicated to reform or revolution, the first steps are education of
oneself and others. There will be little hope for further progress unless
the means to carry out these first steps are preserved and enhanced:
networks of local organizations, media and publishers who do not bend
to state and private power, and so on. These first steps interact: the
organizations will not function without access to information and
analysis, independent media and publishing will not survive without the
participation and intellectual and financial contributions of popular
organizations that grow and develop on the basis of shared concerns,
optimally based in the community, workplace, or other points of social
interaction. To the extent that such a basis exists, a range of possible
actions become available: political pressure within the system,
community organizing, civil disobedience, constructive efforts to create
wholly new institutions such as worker-managed industry, and much
else. As activity undertaken in such domains, including conventional
political action, extends in scale, effectiveness, and popular engagement,
it may well evoke state violence, one sign that it is becoming truly
significant.