Who Rules the World? (American Empire Project)

by Noam Chomsky

As long as the general population is passive, apathetic, and diverted to consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable, then the powerful can do as they please, and those who survive will be left to contemplate the outcome.

The costs of the Bush-Obama wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are now estimated to run as high as $4.4 trillion—a major victory for Osama bin Laden, whose announced goal was to bankrupt America by drawing it into a trap.

The United States somehow finds it difficult to appeal to the poor with its doctrine that the rich should plunder the poor.

It also illustrates the moral calculus of contemporary state capitalism: the fate of our grandchildren counts as nothing when compared with the imperative of higher profits tomorrow.