Noam Chomsky on the cruelty of American imperialism
I respect Chomsky very much, and I have learned a lot from him. But I do wonder to what extent his views are based on a possibly over-optimistic view of the world's potential, and a refusal or inability to accept that the the universe might be fundamentally unjust and that life is not always dignified or sacred. I would like to share his hopeful outlook (hopeful in the sense that he seems to think there ought to be a counterfactual world where everyone behaves decently towards each other and the planet), but it seems to me that it is in the nature of life to want power, and it is in the nature of power to control anything that threatens it, and so conflict, struggle and might making right are intrinsic (but perhaps deplorable) features of the world.