The Austin Chronicle Politics: "It's Extremely Easy to Frighten People" -- An interview with Noam Chomsky

The Bush administration is carrying out a significant assault against the American population. They very quickly drove the country into a big deficit, just the way they did when they were running the Reagan programs 20 years ago. That means that social spending will have to be cut back, which is in fact their main purpose -- but that means there will be a serious cutback in health care, education, infrastructure development, protection of the environment, and so on. But people don't like that sort of thing -- it harms them. This is an assault on the general population for the benefit of very small sectors of power, and you have to keep people's attention away from that. The best way to do that -- everyone knows this, whether it's a democratic leader or a military dictator -- the best way to keep people's attention away from what you're doing to them is to frighten them.