First of all while it is true that China does have an expanding solar sectors one can hardly site the world's most polluted country run by a brutal dictatorship as a some kind of example. Secondly NC is wrong to site France the French Republic has declared war against consumer solar on the behalf of the quasi-fascist nuclear energy French state complex. A new regulation now allows French utilities to pay consumers as little as 20% of the value of solar energy they put into the grid. France is a nuclear gangster state hell bent on opposing solar and wind whenever and wherever possible. The world leader in solar energy is Germany and in fact American solar companies were given the incentives to set up  factories in the former East Germany states of unified Germany. The insanity that American solar firms from sundrenched Arizona and New Mexico have moved to Germany because the terms  are more in their benefit and the official policies are backing solar.
The institutional analysis NC was putting forward is correct but missing the most important issue and example of them all. The CHEVRON OIL PATENT ON THE ELECTRIC CAR BATTERY on all types of electric car batteries. A technology that is also needed to power homes and farms and other applications. There is NO engineering reason why you cannot get 1200 miles of ALL ELECTRIC driving in the heaviest SUV it is entirely due to the imprisonment of EV batteries held hostage by  the CHEVRON OIL PATENT that covers ALL types of advanced EV batteries. GENERAL MOTORS  sold or gave the rights to EV batteries to TEXACO then CHEVRON OIL bought TEXACO and then  rewrote the PATENT to cover all existing and future EV batteries.
It was GM who handed the EV  battery to the OIL MAFIA.
We need a global movement  demanding the abolition of that the CHEVRON OIL PATENT.
This technology is nothing less than the key element  to a total global transformation no new
societal model with work without it., People in the Far North be it Canada or Norway could run
biodomes and greenhouses growing tropical fruits and all forms of vegetables 365 days a year
even if there is deep snow outside. The Far North is light for 22 hours a day in summer and dark
for 22 hours a day in winter. Only the liberated high density batteries could store enough solar
and wind generated electricity to last through the winter the same batteries that can make an
SUV go 1200 miles on a single charge the same technology that is for now in a CHEVRON
OIL prison.

Howard Simon Marks
Manchester UK  xuanvu@asia.com

I greatly respect and admire Noam Chomsky, however, he seems to have a blind spot concerning citizen culpability in all of this. Sure, the American people have been lied to and propagandized by the corporate media, but so what? Why would anyone expect it to be different? A key issue Noam never addresses is the psychology of the average person whereby they seem so gullible, so easily deceived. Faithful followers of elite rule who willingly deceive themselves for psychological reasons. None of what is happening would be happening with a concerned, rational electorate. Endless calls for organizing the workers/citizenry/etc are an admission that the average person is incapable of thinking for herself and needs guidance. They are angry. They are confused. What are the implications for democracy of such a confused and easily led citizenry? And what are the implications of a power elite so fixated on power accumulation that they willingly pursue policies which destroy the planet?

As usual, Noam speaks with honesty and clarity, and as usual, although what he says is in some ways frightening--survival of the species, the utter callousness of much of the political elite, the rich getting richer at great cost to the majority--it is comforting for it confirms what we can observe around us, and we do not waste time denying our own good sense or, perhaps, thinking, "Can it possibly be this bad, and am I getting it wrong?" 

I have been away from the U.S. for many years teaching and doing research, now I am back.  Seeing what is happening in every area, including the current budget deficit crisis, is astonishing and would be almost humorous, or certainly fodder for a clever social satirist, if the situation were not so serious in terms of the declining welfare of large numbers of people.  And, I know that although the U.S. is wealthy and comfortable in comparison to many countries (and I have lived in Latin America so I know something of what this means), the trend is downward and rapid here, and when this happens it has secondary effects in other countries, devastating effects in other countries that are not wealthy and comfortable for more than 10-15% of their populations.

Civilizations and empires decline, much more slowly, for example, than the destruction of a tsunami or earthquake, and for this reason, for a long time large parts of the population make adjustments: we move less, cut a bit out of the budget here and there, seek other part-time jobs to make up for other losses, put off optional health care decisions, and so forth.  Eventually, however, the impact of all of these adjustments adds up, sometimes over a few years, even.  But much is lost and this is eventually seen.  Again, these losses impact on people in other countries in myriad ways, just as increasing global warming and pollution spread their impact over the planet.  I have met people who have lost their homes, businesses, and hopes in just the short time I have been back. 

I know that Noam says what he says not to paint dark pictures, but rather to encourage, even provoke us to working together more, much more.  It is late, too late to wait in inaction.