LIVE: Noam Chomsky and Amy Goodman Discuss Inequality

good evening everyone and thank you for coming thanks for joining us both here at First Parish Church and online via the forum network my name is Ashley 10 and on behalf of Harvard Harvard bookstore I'm honored to introduce tonight's event with Noam Chomsky presenting requiem for the American dream the 10 principles of concentration of wealth and power joined in conversation by Democracy Now Amy Goodman [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] before we begin I want to take a moment to thank you all for being here your ticket and book purchases tonight support Harvard bookstore Harvard squares landmark independent bookstore and make this acclaimed author series possible visit us at Harvard comm to sign up for our email newsletter and browser upcoming events calendar tonight's event is being filmed by c-span's book TV Democracy Now and the forum network a joint venture of WGBH and the Lowell Institute please know that during Q&A your questions may be recorded those asking questions at the end of tonight's event should form a line at this Center microphone we'll get to as many questions as we can after the discussion MS Goodman will be signing copies of Democracy Now twenty years covering the movements changing America new to paperback please out of respect of those asking questions and those around you do not begin forming a signing line until after Q&A has concluded the signing line tonight will form in this far aisle to my right and wrap around the back of the church anyone joining the line from the center aisle or the aisle to my left should head to the back of the church to join the signing line professor Chomsky is unable to stay for the book signing portion of tonight's event thank you for your understanding to purchase copies of requiem for the American Dream and Democracy Now head to the table at my right after the talk DVD and blue-ray editions of requiem for the American Dream documentary film are available for sale at the book table as well as copies of democracy now's recent interview with Professor Chomsky you can ask how to get a free copy of the DVD at the book table now I'm pleased to introduce tonight's speakers Noam Chomsky is Institute professor professor emeritus in the Department of linguistics and philosophy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he has taught for the past 50 years his work is widely credited with having revolutionized the field of modern linguistics among his widely translated best-selling political works are his most recent books what kind of creatures are we and who rules the world joining professor Chomsky and conversation tonight is Amy Goodman the award-winning and executive producer of Democracy Now the largest public media collaboration in the u.s. today they'll be discussing requiem for the American Dream a series of interviews with Professor Chomsky transcribed over four years for a documentary film by the same name in these timely interviews Daniel Gould of the New York Times writes professor Chomsky focuses on financial inequality in America and what he calls its corrosive effect on democracy this is his first major work on this subject we really look forward to their discussion tonight please join me in welcoming Amy Goodman and Noam Chomsky [Applause] [Music] [Applause] well no it's wonderful to be together with you again in order to ensure that the audience stays to the end do you think we should save that to what we practice for the end of area okay we'll do that we're going to get to the book and I think it's intimately related to so much of what's happening in this country in the world today but I wanted to ask you about this comment that you made that the Republican Party you said is the most dangerous organization in world history can you explain I also said that it's a extremely outrageous statement but the question is whether it's true I mean has there ever been an organization in human history that is dedicated with such commitment to the destruction of organized human life on earth not that I'm aware of is the Republican organization I hesitate to call it a party committed to that overwhelmingly this isn't even any question about it take a look at the last primary campaign plenty of publicity a very little comment on the most significant fact every single candidate either denied that what is happening is happening namely serious move towards environmental catastrophe or there were a couple of moderates so-called Jeb Bush who said maybe it's happening we really don't know but it doesn't matter because fracking is working fine so we can get more fossil fuels then there was the guy who was called the adult in the room John Kasich the one person who said yes it's true global warming's going on but it doesn't matter he's the governor of in Ohio we're going to go on using coal for energy and we're not going to apologize for it so that's a hundred percent commitment to racing towards disaster then take a look at what's happened since the November 8th was the election there was as most of you know I'm sure very important conference underway in Morocco Marrakech Morocco almost roughly 200 countries at the United Nations sponsored conference which was the goal of which was to put some specific commitments into the verbal agreements that were reached at Paris in December 2015 the preceding international conference on global warming the Paris conference did intend to reach a verifiable treaty but they couldn't because of the most dangerous organisation in human history the Republican Congress would not accept any commitments so therefore the world was left with verbal promises but no commitments well last November each they were going to try to carry that forward on November 8th in fact there was a report by the World Meteorological Organization very dire analysis of the state of the environment and the likely prospects also pointed out that we're coming perilously close to the tipping point where which was the goal of the goal of the Paris negotiations was to keep things below that coming very close to it and other ominous predictions at that point the conference pretty much stopped because the news came in about the election and it turns out that the most powerful country in human history the richest most powerful most influential the leader of the free world has just decided not only not to support the efforts but actively to undermine them so there's the whole world on one side literally at least trying to do something or other not enough maybe although some places are going pretty far like Denmark a couple of others on the other side in splendid isolation is the country led by the most dangerous organisation in human history which is saying we're not part of this in fact we're going to try to undermine it and we're going to maximize the use of fossil fuels could carry us past a tipping point we're not going to provide funding for as commited in Paris to developing countries that are trying to do something about the climate problems we're going to dismantle regulations that the impact the devastating impact of production of carbon dioxide and in fact other dangerous gases methane and others okay so the conference kind of pretty much came to a halt of the question it continued but the question was can we salvage something from this wreckage and pretty amazingly the countries of the world were looking for salvation to a different country China here we have a world looking for salvation to China of all places when the United States is the wrecking machine that's threatening destruction in with all three branches of government in the hands of the most dangerous organization in human history and I don't have to go through what's happened since but the in general the cabinet appointments are designed to assign to people whose commitment and beliefs are that it's necessary to destroy everything in their department that could be of any use to human beings and wouldn't just increase profits and power and they're doing it very systematically one after another EPA Environmental Protection Agency has been very sharply cut actually the main department that's concerned with environmental issues is the Department of Energy which also had very sharp cuts particularly in the environment related programs in fact there's even a ban on posting and publishing information and material about this and this is not just at the national level of the Republican Party whatever you want to call it has been doing this at every level so in North Carolina a couple of years ago where the legislature mostly thanks the gerrymandering is in the hands the Republicans there was a study they called for a study on the effect of sea-level rise on what sea-level rise might be on the North Carolina coast and there was a serious scientific study which predicted not will forget how many years not a long time about roughly a meter rise in sea level which could be devastating to Eastern North Carolina and the legislature did react namely by passing legislation to ban any actions or even discussion that might have to do with climate change actually the best comment of this wish I could quoted verbatim was by Stephen Colbert who said if you have a serious problem the way to deal with it is to legislate that it doesn't exist problem solved you know this is this is going on all over the country and it's not just a it's not simply climate change that's bad enough but there's a another huge specter that we're kind of trying to survive under and that's nuclear war and it's a whole other story here both the Obama administration and increasingly Trump are radically increasing that danger this the threat of the particular of of the new developments is captured very effectively in the best simple monitor of the state of the world established at the beginning of the nuclear age by The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists I'm sure you all know about this but the bulletin of Atomic Scientists regularly brings together a group of scientists political analysts others very serious people to try to give some kind of estimate of what the situation of the world is the question is how close are we to termination of the species and they have a clock the Doomsday Clock when it hits midnight we're finished end of the human species and much else and the question every year is how far is the minute-hand for midnight well in at the beginning in 1947 the beginning of the nuclear age it was placed at 7 minutes to midnight it's been moving up and back ever since the closest it's come to midnight was 1953 1953 the United States and Russia both exploded hydrogen bombs which are extremely serious threat to survival intercontinental ballistic missiles were all being developed this in fact was the first serious threat to the security of the United States that interesting story behind that but I'll put it aside unless there's time to talk about it but then it came to two minutes to midnight and it's been moving up and back since two years ago 2014 I think it was the analysts took into account for the first time something that had been ignored the fact that the nuclear age the beginning of the nuclear age coincided with the beginning of a new geological epoch the so-called Anthropocene has been some debate about the epoch in which human activity is drastically affecting the general environment there's been debate about its inception but the world geological organization has recently determined that it's about the same time as the beginning of the nuclear age so we're in these two eras in which the possibility of human survival is very much at stake and with us everything else - of course living all living most living things which are already under very severe threat well a couple years ago I think was 2014 The Bulletin began to take that into account and move the minute hand up to three minutes to midnight where it remained last year a couple of - about a week into Trump's term the clock was moved again to two and a half minutes to midnight that's the closest it's been since 1953 and that means extermination of the species is very much in very much an open question I don't want to say it's solely the impact of the Republican Party obviously that's false but they certainly are in the lead in openly advocating and working for destruction of the human species I agree that's a very outrageous statement so I therefore simply suggest that you take a look at the facts and see if it has any merit or if it just should be bitterly condemned that's up to you my view of the facts are pretty clear at this point as president Trump nears his 100th day North Korea and Iran have been a major focus are you concerned that with the president at the lowest popularity rating I think in any presidents history at this point that he will focus abroad as he has in the last few weeks dropping the Moab the mother of all bombs and Afghanistan bombing the Syrian government and yet focusing specifically on North Korean Iran and North Korea McMaster general McMaster the National Security Advisor saying tensions with North Korea are coming to a head do you think there is a possibility that the US would attack North Korea I mean the this administration is extremely unpredictable Trump probably has no idea what he's going to do five minutes from now so you can't literally so you can't really make predictions with much confidence but I doubt it very much the reason is very simple an attack on North Korea would unleash no matter what attack it is even a nuclear attack would unleash massive artillery bombardment of sold which is biggest city in South Korea right near the border which would wipe it out including plenty of American troops would that doesn't as far I mean I know technical expert but as far as I can as I read and concede there's no defense against that furthermore North Korea could retaliate against American bases in the region with there's plenty of American soldiers and so on also in Japan they'd be devastated North Korea would be finished you know so would much of the region but they but if attacked presumably they would respond very likely in fact the responses might be automatic McMaster at least and mattis understand this how much influence they have we don't know so I think an attack is unlikely but the real question is is there waivers of dealing with the problem there are a lot of proposals sanctions big a new missile defense system which is a major threat to China will increase tensions there military threats of various kinds sending an aircraft carrier the Vinson to North Korea except by accident it happened to be going in the opposite direction but will forget that but these are those are the proposals that kind of proposals is how to solve it actually there's one proposal that's ignored I mean you see a mention of it now and then it's pretty simple proposal remember the goal is to get North Korea to freeze its weapon systems weapons and missile systems so one proposal is to accept their offer to do that sounds simple they've made a proposal China and North Korea proposed to freeze the North Korean missile and nuclear weapons systems and the us instantly rejected it and you can't blame that on Trump Obama did the same thing a couple of years ago same offer was presented I think was 2015 the Obama administration instantly rejected it and the reason is that it calls for a quid pro quo it says in return the United States should put an end to threatening military maneuvers on North Korea borders which happened to include under Trump sending of nuclear capable b-52s flying right near the border maybe Americans don't remember very well but North Koreans have a memory of not too long ago when North Korea was absolutely flattened literally by American bombing that was pregnant there was literally no targets left and I really urge people who haven't done it to read the official American military histories the air quarterly review the military histories describing this what they describe it very vividly and accurately they say there just weren't any targets left so what do we do well we decided to attack the bomb they dams the huge dams a major war crime people were hanged for it a number but put that aside and then comes an ecstatic gleeful description of the bombing of the dams and the huge flow of water which was wiping out valleys and destroying the rice crop on which Asians depend for survival lots of racist common but all with exultation and Glee you really have to read it to appreciate it the North Koreans don't have to bother reading it they lived it so when nuclear capable b-52s are flying on their border along with other threatening military maneuvers they're kind of upset about it strange people and they continue to develop what they see as a potential deterrent that might protect the regime from on the contrary in fact from destruction this has nothing at all to do with what you think about the government so maybe it's the worst government in human history okay but these are still the facts that exist so why is the United States unwilling to an agreement which would end the immediate threats of destruction against North Korea and in return freeze the weapons and missile systems well I leave that to you and remember that's bipartisan in this case could could negotiations go the usual argument as well you can't trust them and so on and so forth but there is a history and I the time to run through the history it's quite interesting begins in 1993 when Clinton under Clinton the North Koreans made a deal with Israel to terminate North Korean missile shipments to the Middle East which is great a serious threat to Israel in the world and in return Israel would recognize North Korea the Clinton administration wouldn't accept that they pressured Israel which has to do what they're told to withdraw from it and North Korea responded by ascending by firing their first intermediate-range missiles I won't go on with the rest it's a very interesting story but there was actually an agreement in 2005 that North Korea would completely dismantle its nuclear weapons and missile systems and the finish dismantled them in return for a non-aggression pact from the United States an end to threats provision but by the West that means by the United States of a a light water reactor which can't produce nuclear weapons but could produce be used for peaceful purposes research medical other purposes and that was basically the agreement 2005 didn't last very long the Bush administration instantly undermined it it dismantled the consortium that was supposed to provide the reactor and it immediately imposed pressured and it when the US pressures it means it happens banks to block North Korean financial transactions including perfectly legitimate trade so the crazy North Korean started producing missiles and nuclear weapons again and that's been the kind of record all the way through so yeah maybe the most horrible regime in human history but the fact of the matter is the regime does want to survive and it even wants to carry out economic development there's pretty general agreement about this which it cannot do at any significant way when it's pouring resources very scarce resources into weapons and missile production so they have considerable incentive including survival - perhaps continue this process of reacting in a kind of tit-for-tat fashion to US actions when the u.s. lowers tensions they do when we raise tensions they go on with these plans how about that as a possibility I mean it is if you look at the press casually mentioned that it was not a bad article in The Washington Post about it recently by US professor teachers in South Korea so occasionally it's this strange possibility of letting the North Koreans do exactly what we want them to do sometimes this is mentioned but it's pretty much dismissed we can't do that sort of thing there are similar questions to raised about Iran so Iran is you know the again the adults in the room like mattis and so on say it's the greatest threat to peace you know the greatest sponsor of terrorism on and on how is it a sponsor of terrorism we'll go through that so for example in Yemen that's claimed that they are providing some aid to rebel tribesmen hooda tribesmen in Yemen okay maybe they are what is the United States doing in Yemen it's providing a huge flood of arms to its Saudi Arabian ally who are destroying the country who have created a huge humanitarian crisis huge numbers of people killed massive starvation the threatening out the Obama port which is the only source of aid for surviving people but Iran is the major source of terrorism and if you look around the world there's many questions like this I don't want to go on too long but very strikingly and this there's one lesson that you discover when you carefully look at the historical record and what I just described about North Korea is pretty typical over and over again there are possibilities of diplomacy and negotiation which might not succeed can't be sure if you don't try them but which look pretty promising which are abandoned dismissed literally without comment in favor of increased force and violence in fact that's also the background for the 1953 moment when the clock moved to two minutes to midnight and the u.s. faced the first serious threat to its security that in fact you know since probably the war of 1812 could have been avoided there's pretty good evidence that it could have been avoided but it was the possibility was literally not even considered and case after cases like this it's worth looking at the historical record from that perspective to ask whether that general comment has some validity I think if you do you'll find that it has considerable merit I last interviewed you on April 4th just a few weeks ago on Democracy Now it was the 50th anniversary of dr. King giving his beyond Vietnam speech why he opposed the war in Vietnam where he called the u.s. the greatest purveyor of violence in the world and I wanted to turn from North Korean Iran to Syria it was the day of the gas attack in Syria so he didn't get to talk about it very much and I'm wondering your thoughts on what you think happened and then the ensuing u.s. bombing that President Trump would later talk about saying he was having chocolate cake with the Chinese President very very good chocolate cake and when they launched the Tomahawk missiles into Iraq he said and he was corrected by the interviewer right who said it was actually sentry ragheads saw about the same but well there are some things we know for sure there was a serious chemical weapons attack nobody doubts that it's plausible that it was the Syrian government which does raise some questions it's not so obvious why the Assad regime would have carried out a chemical warfare attack at a moment when it's pretty much winning the war and the worst dangerous phases is that a counter force will enter to undermine its progress so it does raise some questions it also even though maybe the you can think of some reason why the Assad regime which is a murderous brutal regime might have done it it's eat there's even another question as to why the Russians would have allowed it remember this is a the airbase as a joint Russian Syrian base Russia has plenty of clout in Syria and for them it's a total disaster they have global concerns not just local concerns in Syria so there are some concerns and there are further concern other husband the White House did put out a careful analogous case in an intelligence report to explain an account showing why they had absolute confidence there was Syrian government attack this was analyzed closely by a very serious and credible analyst Theodore postal president MIT who has a long record of highly-successful credible analysis as a highly regarded strategic analyst and intelligence analyst and he gave a pretty devastating critique of the White House report you might you can pick it up online and take a look at it so there certainly are some questions that there's that Syria is capable of a monstrous act like that the Syrian government that much is not in doubt but one question that arises is before doing something could you find out what happened okay I mean let's have an inquiry take a look and see what in fact actually happened there are plenty of cases where things where look that thing as though things happen but they didn't and remember that report reporting from Syria is extremely difficult if reporters go into the rebel-held areas and don't do what they're told can get your head cut off Patrick Coburn and others have written about this just can't seriously report from those areas there are obvious questions when you're reporting from the government side so the reporters are there are very good reporters doing a serious courageous job but there's not much you can do so we just don't know a lot well those are the circumstances in which the 59 Tomahawk missiles were launched that's pretty easy it's easy to sit in Washington and push a button and say go kill somebody that's considered courage you know men macho showing how strong we are what did they actually do well apparently the Tomahawk missiles were targeting a part of the airfield that doesn't seem to be used and in fact the next day that planes were taking off and affect the village that was attacked by the chemical weapons has been even more heavily attacked by straight bombing from the Assad government after the 59 Tomahawk missiles so whatever they were intended to do it doesn't seem to have anything to do with Syria I suspect that what they were intended to do was pretty much what you described to shore up Trump's image as I think was nikki Haley at the UN said there's a new sheriff in town so now we've got Wyatt Earp you know I'm pulling out his gun and getting rid of the bad guys but no more of the soft stuff so it was probably an attempt to shore up that image pretty much like the bomb in Afghanistan nobody knows what it was for or what it had to do with probably destroy a large part of Afghanistan shortly after that there was a massive incredibly brutal and successful Taliban attack which killed a couple hundred recruits most of them unarmed the young draftees didn't know what they were doing they was so bad that defense minister resigned doesn't seem to have any effect on who supposedly aimed at Isis maybe it was maybe it wasn't they don't seem to be affected by it so these look like that doesn't seem to be any strategic analysis behind any of these actions as far as anyone can tell they seem like kind of about at the level of the twitters that keep coming out and something that kind of occurs to me so why not do it it's cheap may kill a lot of people makes me look good you know makes it seem as if I'm defending the country so on it's hard to see it as anything but that that these things help the people of Syria and Iraq is very hard to imagine what do you think has to be done to solve the crisis the humanitarian catastrophe in Syria it's a terrible catastrophe and you know unfortunately there isn't a lot that can be done about it there are some things that can be done I mean the idea that you can send in the Marines and bomb and so on that has a small problem if you do you probably set off a nuclear war and not only a Syria destroy the rest of Syria but the rest of the world too so there's a little difficulty in that scenario whatever one thinks about the justification for it so what can be done well one thing that can be done which is really easy very easy is to take care of the people fleeing from this disaster there are huge numbers of people fleeing from the disaster what do we do about them make sure they don't come here you know kind of like people fleeing from my relatives in fact fleeing trying to flee from Eastern Europe and under the nots before when the Nazis were coming along not we don't want to not here you know so the Syrians don't come maybe a tiny trickle but very few come here Europe's not that much better in fact pretty horrible too so one thing you could do is just take care of the people who are fleeing the disaster another thing you can do is provide humanitarian aid for those in the region there are countries who are absorbing refugees remember like take Lebanon it's not a rich country like us poor country about 40 percent of the population are refugees that many of them fleeing from the Israeli wars as far back as 48 and many a huge number of Syrians Jordan another poor countries absorbed huge number of refugees that Turkey has a couple of million Iran has accepted refugees so there are very there are poor countries that are accommodating refugees but not the rich countries the rich countries it's not our business certainly not us it's even more serious problem with regard from wither for us moral problem with regard to Central America but let's keep the Syrian so another thing you do is provide badly needed aid and assistance for those who have succeeded in fleeing the disaster or who remain in parts of Syria where survival is possible but are living under horrible conditions that's all cheap and easy frack tiny fraction of increasing the military budget to cause more destruction the other thing that can be done and is being done is to try to support local efforts throughout Syria at local ceasefires just to lower the level of violence that's happening in different places maybe the people don't like each other but people sometimes like to survive and there are accommodations worked out and they could be helped a broader possibility is to try to pursue the negotiations that will lead to some kind of diplomatic settlement now there have been efforts but there they're mixed and there probably can't be certain but there seemed to be possibilities that were meant but dismissed so for example in 2012 there were reports from former Finnish minister octa sari has a very credible record of involvement in international peacekeeping who claimed that the one of the Republic that our Russian diplomat had proposed a settlement in which Assad would be eased out in the course of the new she asians and some settlement would be reached in which the assad regime would be ended that was apparently dismissed without comment the US and Britain and France just assumed at that point that they could overthrow the Assad regime they didn't want have anything to do with it that's the report the report appeared in England as far as I know it was never in reported here by good reporters is it true who knows got to look into it to find out a whether it's true you have to inquire you have to pursue the options if they exist and they weren't but there are things that could be done not what we would like to see you know it'd be nice to see here solutions will make everybody happy and in the destruction but those just don't seem on the on the possible agenda because for all kind of reasons including the threat of very serious war if Russia and the United States don't act in a high level of concert in in pursuing whatever they may be doing no I wanted to before we get to your book your latest book ask you about this latest development in the United States the director of the Central Intelligence Agency gave his first major address and he focused on WikiLeaks and it looks like now the u.s. is preparing an arrest warrant for Julian Assange who's been holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for almost five years now Pompeyo calling WikiLeaks a hostile non-state intelligence service calling Julian Assange himself a demon and said he's not protected by the First Amendment your thoughts well I think speaks for itself WikiLeaks has released lots of information that governments don't like it's overwhelmingly information that citizens should have it's information about what their governments are doing and perfectly natural that systems of power don't want to be exposed so they'll do what they can to prevent exposure the I think it's a disgraceful act in fact I think it's disgraceful even to keep Julian Assange holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy he's I did visit him there once but you can guess yourself it's in many ways worse than imprisonment at least if you're in prison you can see other prisoners and you can get out and look at the sunshine now and then he's in a small apartment where you can't go out you know go to the balcony but that's about it the smaller particle couple of rooms inside a small apartments not a big embassy the embassy is like a kind of an apartment in London surrounded by police and so on there's been no credible basis for any of this and to go on to try to cara to raise it to the level of the criminal prosecutions i think is again one of these efforts to look tough at home and the kind of effort that a government would carry out that is dedicated to trying to protect itself from exposure of facts that citizens should have but systems of power don't want them to have i think that's the crucial issue the suggestions are it has to do with his aiding and abetting perhaps chelsea manning and also edward snowden doing that with edward snowden which he openly admits while he's trapped in the Ecuadorian embassy if if the charge is true he should be honored for Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden or carried out heroic courageous acts they fulfilled the responsibilities of somebody who takes citizenship seriously that is who believes that the people of a country or to know something about what their governments up to okay like if their government is carrying out murderous brutal attacks in Iraq people should know about it takes us back to Martin Luther King's talk in 1967 if the government is and corporations to incidentally are listening into your telephone conversations and what you're doing you know tapping this discussion so on we should know about it governments have no right to do things like that and people should know about it and if they think it's okay fine let them decide not do it in secret I think people wouldn't agree to it that's why it's kept secret why else keep it secret you know and these are people who exposed it at great risk to themselves so those are heroic courageous acts if WikiLeaks was abetting them more power to them that's what they should be doing I mean President Trump endorsed WikiLeaks right he said I love WikiLeaks to campaign when it was releasing things that he liked you know any system of power will do that you release information that I like it's great but I don't want to be exposed speaking of entities that President Trump doesn't like he calls the press the enemy of the American people the enemy of the people can you assess as the media assesses President Trump in his first 100 days the media's behavior well I think the media has fallen over backwards to try to give him some protection and leeway I mean you know there are things that are so ludicrous and outrageous that up a reporter simply can't keep from saying something about them like there's one ridiculous claim after another that comes out of the tweets you know three million illegal undocumented refugees voted for Clinton Obama the wiretapped the Trump Tower you know one after another my sense is this is just a guess that this is a media strategy that it's the Bannen Trump spicer strategy to try to keep attention focused on the one or another form of lunacy but not look at what's actually happening at what's actually happening is that Paul Ryan and his associates behind the scenes are systematically and carefully dismantling every element of government that is of any benefit to people and that doesn't maximize corporate power and profit I mean the dedication of the Republican leadership especially the Ryan type leadership their dedication to slavish servility to corporate power and wealth is just phenomenal I mean read this morning's business pages their latest step is to try to prevent exposure of complaints against banks that carry out improper activities it is possible now thanks to consumer protection act for people to criticize when they think a bank has carried out some improper activity but we got to keep that silent you know because we have to protect corporations from any exposure of criminal activities that might carry out I mean down to that level if everywhere you look I mean the healthcare proposal is so shocking that I was a proposal basically to cut taxes for the rich and to ensure that poor and middle class people people voted for Trump in fact don't get medical aid as you saw of course Congressional Budget Office estimated twenty four million additional people uninsured it was an analysis of that by Stephie wool handler David Hamel Stein two health specialists just studying the relationship between lack of insurance and deaths there's plenty of evidence about that and it turns out that would have meant about the forty five thousand in additional deaths a year but that's okay as long as you cut taxes for the rich and step-by-step that's what's happening behind the facade of Trump isms and you know speiser addicts before the press and the press is pretty much falling for it that's what they focus on not what's being carried out there is of course a criticism mild criticism of outrageous lies but I think that just plays the game that's what the lies are for then you can yell about the liberal press that is right under my nose so all the kind of a desperate effort to keep a con game going a Trump does have a base voter base he's kicking them in the face with abandon and the idea is how do you hold on to them while you're doing this not an easy trick and this I think is part of the con and there are people in the press who are pointing it out to Paul Krugman for one but nothing like it it should be which takes us to your latest book requiem for the American dream where you talk about the ten principles of the concentration of power and wealth how it's happening what to watch out for well credit for the ten principles those should go to the producers of the film what they did was take a lot of interviews and discussions about all sorts of things and put them in a coherent and I think pretty effective form including formulating ten principles that's their contribution and including material that discusses them and you can look at the film and see or the book but my feeling is they did a really good job service book is accompanying this film that is now out on Netflix but you talk about for example principle one reducing democracy principle to shaping ideology and principle three redesigning the economy well all of those fall together and they're part of a pretty remarkable development that's taking place in actually in human history humans in the last 60 or 70 years have succeeded in creating a kind of a perfect storm literally - there's a kind of a pincers movement that we've created two major attacks on the prospects for survival global global warming nuclear weapons of the Anthropocene the nuclear age and the third is a set of socio-economic policies designed to undermine the possibility of dealing with the problems the problems could be dealt with only in a functioning democracy of engaged [Music] informed people who could make decisions it would be informed and could make decisions to deal with the crisis but the so called neoliberal programs of the past generation a sort of somewhat market oriented programs designed to undermine the institution's the governmental and popular institutions that might deal with these issues all a unit one result is a very significant decline and democracy you can see it in the its which is almost built into the policies it's perfectly built you can't carry out economic policies of the type that have been there that have been implemented in the past generation in a functioning democracy that's impossible let me just take a look at the numbers so the neoliberal programs were basically taking off right around 1980 escalated started little with the late corridor escalated under Reagan went on more under Clinton and so on 2007 was the peak of supposed success this is right before the crash a lot of euphoria among economists political analysts about the great achievements of neoclassical economics of the Great Moderation the you know the the deal liberal programs dismantling of regulations all these great successes 2007 what was happening to American working people at that time in 2007 wages real wages were lower than they had been in 1979 when the experiment took off in fact for the majority of the population it's a period of stagnation or decline the benefits have declined people had been some of the reasons were explained by Alan Greenspan head of the Federal Reserve who was charged pretty much of managing the economy he testified to Congress that part of the success of the economy the low inflation so on was due to what he called growing worker insecurity people working people were insecure they were intimidated they knew they that they were in a dangerous situation for Carrie situation as a result they didn't press for increase in wages invent for decent wages and benefits they were willing to accept in fact it effective decline in their living standards and greenspan who was a close observer of the economy pointed out that this continued even when jobs were increasing in the late clinton period it was deeply embedded in the nature of the policies being carried out that working people are intimidated the living precarious lives many of them are part-time they're losing security their unions are being destroyed and their wages are declining so it's all great the economy's wonderfully healthy can you carry out policies like that in a democracy I'm going to people going to vote for it salmon Europe even worse in many ways the so-called austerity programs even the economists of the International the IMF International Monetary Fund their own economists say report that these policies make no economic sense but the IMF bureaucrats the ones who are part of the decision-making apparatus they vote for them how do you and the effect on Europe is the same thing as far as democracy is concerned just like in the United States there's anger contempt for major Institute for centrist for you know for the major governing institutions here is Congress there it's as the political parties you just saw in France yesterday the two major parties were barely visible in the election and it's happening all over Europe same kind of thing that's happening here I mean here it's happening in a way which is almost far because of the you know the kind of actions carried out by the leadership in Europe it's being it's being pursued in a way which is really ominous I mean you don't look for Auerbach to find a time when fascist parties actually had power in Europe and we know what happened and now there are neo-fascist parties with fascist roots often which are pretty close to power even in places like Austria and Germany which have some memories of France as well was under the Nazis was extreme very Pro Nazi country the Vichy government was rounding up Jews faster than the Germans one of them really ugly record and seeing these things come back or just seeing a situation in which according to recent polls a majority of Europeans think there should be no more Muslims in Europe I mean that evokes some memories about nice ones and a lot of they can't attributed all to the neoliberal economic policies but a lot of it does follow from that when you impose on people circumstances of this kind you have to make sure that they have no no way of responding politically in Europe it's done pretty straightforwardly the main decisions about socio economic policies are made by the so-called troika IMF European Central Bank and the European Commission which is unelected so three unelected bodies they make the decisions they do listen to voices the voices of the northern banks mostly German banks and the people suffer and they get their angry frightened often reacting in dangerous ways we see similar phenomena here so to go back to the pincers movement what's happened is we've created two huge threats to survival we have systematically not you and me but the leadership has systematically created socio-economic policies which have as a consequence almost immediate consequence the undermining of functioning democracy the one thing that might deal with the disasters like I said it's kind of perfect storm real credit to the human species to have contrived something like this principle four is shift the burden onto the poor in the middle classes principle five attacked the Solidarity of the people six let's special interests run the Euler regulators seven engineer election results eight use fear and power of the state to keep the rabble in line is it necessary to comment I think you're all familiar with it nine is manufacture consent and principle 10 is marginalize the population in fact that's exactly what's happening and it's the and there's a reason for it you cannot carry out the kinds of policies that have been developed in the last generation and have the population function democratically in Europe you can't get people to vote for policies which are undermining their lives which are a limit which are leaving especially the younger people without any hopes of decent employment which are driving people to precarious existences which are undermining wages reducing benefits in England right now undermining threatening what had been the world's most by far the world's most effective and efficient national health system you can't get people to vote for things like this so what you have to do is marginalize them and when we're rather turn them against each other aim turn their anger against vulnerable people that's standard technique get people that don't look at the people who are really doing this to you look at the ones who are more vulnerable immigrants the poor you know Muslims blacks anybody we're familiar with that too there's not a slight history about it so sure that just it's like a it's like an almost logical consequence of the socio-economic policies which have been imposed and lauded in fact by elites including liberal elites a lot of this was done but say by the Clinton administration it was held the deregulation for example which immediate very quickly led to one or after another financial crisis that was initiated by liberal economists who were telling us how wonderful it is and there's actually a you know a theory on the Oakland neoclassical economic theory which says yeah it's fine actually there were people who warned against it there were people who knew a lot of left independent economists like Joseph Stiglitz Nobel laureate back around 1995 or so that he wrote an article actually in a World Bank research journal in which he warned against what he called the religion that the market knows best he says that's the religion as he put it that's being followed by economists and he says you got to take a look at that religion like a lot of religions just doesn't work the economic history and even logic show us lots of things that are wrong about it but that was pursued with abandon on the basis of theories of the efficient markets rational behavior rational expectations and so on none of which had any empirical basis our founding but they were the the doctrines were accepted for the very simple reason that they were highly beneficial to wealth and power that makes them acceptable and you get the results that you have the undermining of the only means possible to try to deal with the existential crises that we have created so again it's a kind of perfect storm part all sorts of sources including just socio economic policies of a bipartisan nature you talk about a perfect storm do you think fascism is rising in the United States I think there's a danger of fascism in Europe but I don't think that it's for one that you have to be a little bit careful about that I mean if you're a black kid in the ghetto yeah you can say it kind of looks like fascism but for most of the country most of us Pete like people like us there aren't stormtroopers in the streets there's no fascist political party there's no ideology of fascism the Trump ideology reduces to pretty much me you know that's not fascism whatever you think it is so there's there are serious dangers but but I think fascism in a way gives it too much credit it makes it look like more of a well-formulated ideology than it actually is I think what we're seeing are the desperate efforts to try to hold together rising disasters that for which the means have been undermined in the resistance from the women's protests massively larger than president Trump's inaugural crowd just the day after you have to look at the tweet to the protest just this week from the March for science on Earth Day on Saturday - the one that's coming up next Saturday April 29th another people's climate March the March for science took place on every continent in the world the people's climate March promises to be much larger does this give you hope oh there's a lot of reasons for hope first of all there is enormous resistance the kind of thing that's happened sometimes before like in the early 80s when there was huge public opposition enormous public opposition to the dangerous increase in nuclear weapons development and it had an effect like I mentioned that the bulla of atomic scientists couple years ago Doomsday Clock went to three minutes to midnight that's the closest it had been since 1984 when there was a major war threat with the increase in nuclear weapons threats and it was significantly attenuated by popular action and then of course there was the activism of the 60s and the 70s it didn't end in the 60s by any means so some of the most effective popular movements with the biggest impact on the society are really developed in the 70s like the women's movement the environmental movements and so on the seeds were in the 60s but they weren't there yet they were just barely beginning all of that has really civilized the society had lots of positive effects and it goes on right to the present so the most I think the most significant fact about the last election it was not Trump's victory which was very serious for the country in the world but the astonishing success of Bernie Sanders campaign it's worth remembering that that broke with over a hundred years of US political history u.s. elections are pretty much bought you can predict with remarkable precision electoral outcomes by looking at simple measures like campaign funding there's very serious work on this the main person many of you know is Tom Ferguson political scientist at UMass done really good work on this and it's very impressive work you can almost predict the outcome of an electoral campaign president House Senate just by looking at campaign funding and of course that's a predictor of policy as well and that's been well known you know from way back among a people who run campaigns and up by now the evidence is overwhelming so what it Sanders do had no corporate support no support from the wealthy no support from the media which mostly either dismissed or denigrated him the unknown person nobody had ever heard of him he was proposing what about to New Deal policies by contemporary US standards that's what he called with some justice of political revolution actually the policies he proposed it wouldn't have surprised Dwight Eisenhower he favored similar policies by and large in fact even said that anyone who doesn't accept the New Deal programs just doesn't belong in our political system every strong supporter of unions and so on we've come quite a ways since then but Sanders was a voice going back to the period when there was very rapid growth the Galit aryan growth the serious beginnings of an attack on some of the deep crimes of the country that go way back like the racist crimes and others then came the 60s the civilizing effect their consequences then a regression the regression of the last 30 40 years the neoliberal programs and all their consequences and then saying that without but not ending activism by any means was plenty of activism and central market solidarity movements for example which was quite effective but Sanders broke with over a century of history that's pretty serious and it's having an effect Fox News informed us should thank them for that they did a poll of popularity of political figures how much do you like various political figures one person was way in the lead Bernie Sanders far above anyone else they even higher among young people those are pretty serious achievements and there's a lot to build on there and in fact out of the Sanders popular movement there are developments growing which I think are quite constructive and are coalescing and integrating with many other things that are happening so there plenty of grounds for hope but the we are in an extremely dangerous situation it's not as some of it let me know if there's a little time just go on with something that isn't reported and is extremely serious last January a couple of weeks into the a week or so into the Trump term the minute-hand was moved at two and a half minutes to midnight but since then we have learned things which I suspect would lead the same group of analysts to push it even closer to midnight what did we learn not that you read about in the press but what did you learn if you looked at what's happening well there was an extremely important article that appeared in The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists which is the main scientific journal that deals with nuclear and other strategic issues what it discussed was the nuclear modernization programs that were initiated by Obama and are being carried forward and explore under Trump and it pointed out it's a technical article but basically what it pointed out is that these modernization programs had already increased the kill capacity the destructive capacity of the US nuclear weapon systems by a large factor by maybe a factor of three enough they said to completely wipe out the Russian deterrent okay it's not that the Russians don't know this Russia does not have our sophisticated early warning system satellite warning systems they're much more primitive ones they don't get much advanced warning of a alleged attack there have been many close calls in the past because of this well now they're aware that the u.s. modernization programs are able to completely wipe out their deterrent because we so expanded already our destructive capacity by a huge factor that would and as they point out in the article this means that the system of stability by which the world has been kind of hanging by a thread a pretty slender thread it's being seriously threatened means that in the event of some rising tension there's plenty of tensions at the Russian border not at the Mexican border at the Russian border plenty of them plenty of provocations they might just out of desperation decide well we better launch a preemptive strike or were gone we don't have a deterrent that's what's being developed it's another great contribution of human intelligence to develop means to make our own destruction far more likely that's what's been that's what we've learned in the last couple months these should be screaming headlines all over the place just like the there should be headlines about the Republican Party trying to destroy the prospects for organized human life that's what journalism would be if it were concerned with bringing to people the things that are significant for people who live in a democratic society who can make decisions about how to deal with the problems they face in their lives almost nothing about it it's not a secret you know it's not classified you can find out about it it's free country in that respect and important respect should respect and honor that but these are the things that are happening right now and it means that the sledgehammers that we've constructed in our brilliance to threaten our survival are getting far more dangerous while the political mechanisms that might lead to a sensible reaction are being destroyed and we see the impact in the rise of anger contempt for institutions irrational reactions of kinds of things at scapegoating you know things that are pretty dangerous we've again constructed a remarkable perfect storm well and we have time for a few questions maybe five or at the most six questions and if you can keep them very brief actually is coming to the mic to organize we have more limited time than we thought so we're going to take about one or two questions if that's okay with everyone thank you hi um I was wondering as an aspiring linguist do you believe that linguistics can provide context to contemporary political occurrences and if so how I think linguistics can make a great many contributions but in another domain it can help us understand the unique human capacity that is the fundamental property that separates us from the rest of the animal world our ability to do things like we're doing right now where does that come from they were the only animal that can do anything remotely like this and it's the source of creative activities if you look at the evolutionary record the real outburst of creative activity appears to be associated with the emergence of language and you can learn a lot about these aspects of human nature and human creativity and so on but as far as analysis of the world political situation is concerned and frankly I don't think anything is required but common sense and a little bit of work common sense open mind some work it's not hidden it's all pretty much on the surface what we understand is pretty much apparent to us if we take the trouble to find out and I don't think any specialized fields whether it's linguistics or political science or economics they can tell you something but almost everything that's happening of significance is pretty easy to ascertain by a person who looks at the world with an open critical mind and is willing to search for things that are not right in the front of you and that are hidden on the sides but are available and final question I I actually was just wondering if you felt that Abraham Lincoln was justified in the suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War it's a it's not a trivial question a lot was at stake but my own feeling is that it was an act of state that was not justified well no thank you not only for this evening but for your decades of commitment to improving the human condition [Applause] [Music] thank you everyone [Music] thank you all for coming once again the signing line will form down this far oh I'll to my right and wrap around the back of the church so if you'd like to join the signing line from the center aisle or the aisle to my left you should make your way toward the back of the church thank you so much

Channel: GBH Forum Network

Views: 74,718

Rating: 4.7906542 out of 5

Keywords: Boston, WGBH, Noam Chomsky, Amy Goodman, Requiem for a dream, Democracy Now!

Id: DFaNajmJ2oc

Length: 81min 1sec (4861 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 25 2017