Good piece from Noam Chomsky on the problems going on back home.

Very timely, as I see a huge amount of doublethink in Thailand’s politics, Red shirts are demanding a fully-democratic government, but they support Taksin who strong-armed congress and had a horrible record of press-freedom. The taking of the airport by the yellows was seen by many as a perfectly legal form of protest (for which nobody was put in jail), but the taking of shopping malls is considered illegal by those same people.

Even the coup that ousted Taskin was supported by people called the People’s Alliance for Democracy … sure Taksin deserves to rot in jail forever, but supporters of democracy should support the democratic process and use laws and the courts to deal with criminals, not the military.

California today is a dramatic illustration. The world’s greatest public system of higher education is being dismantled. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says he’ll have to eliminate state health and welfare programs unless the federal government forks over some $7 billion. Other governors are joining in.

Meanwhile a newly powerful states’ rights movement is demanding that the federal government not intrude into our affairs—a nice illustration of what Orwell called “doublethink”: the ability to hold two contradictory ideas in mind while believing both of them, practically a motto for our times.

But in a brilliant exercise in doublethink, people are led to hate and fear the deficit. That way, business’s cohorts in Washington may agree to cut benefits and entitlements like Social Security (but not bailouts).

At the same time, people should not oppose what is largely creating the deficit—the growing military budget and the hopelessly inefficient privatized healthcare system.

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/5938/rustbelt_rage/