Noam Chomsky - Do the Powerful Know What's Going On?

yesterday you said that in the last 20 or 30 years the standard of living before 80 percent of this country has been either stagnant or declining today said that the particle know what is going on do you think that the significant portion of those people can learn what is going on and well you know I can't say everybody knows what's going on but sit but it's like what I was just described what you just described this is completely open in public I mean this I'm not giving you any news you know this is all over the newspapers if you want real details I mean I'm the place to look for details there's a every two years there's a big study that comes out called state of working America the addition for 1996 just came out I think it's called 1996-97 it's edited by Lawrence Michelle and Jared Bernstein a couple of others and that's like a huge statistical compendium that has all of this data in it if you really want but this basic story is known by everyone you can read it I mean it's nobody anyone who wants to bother to know I mean maybe you don't want to bother to know but it's also perfectly public information right in the mainstream you know completely obvious it's not interpreted the way I interpreted it it's interpreted as the Murrah is the mysterious workings of you know the market and its wisdom and so on and so forth and there's all kind of phrases for it there's much to do with the market it's very definite social policy do the people who are involved know what they're doing well and I mean of course they do it takes a Newt Gingrich this morning okay this morning you read the newspapers you'll I mean even USA Today you know I happen to pick up USA Today in the hotel you know place where they serve coffee so there's an editorial USA Today is not a big radical rag they have an editorial pointing out the obvious you know the obvious I mean to anybody who has one gray cell functioning Newt Gingrich made a speech yesterday in which he called for cutting off capital gains taxes and estate taxes well who benefits by eliminating capital gains taxes and estate taxes well the top one percent of the population overwhelmingly then you know tiny effect going down I mean the editors of USA Today are perfectly aware of that they're also aware they may not if they're aware of it they didn't say it but they may not they say well Gingrich our Gingrich also has a statement which is well this is really important because that'll free up more funds for investment well you know I don't know if he reads like exotic journals like Businessweek but if he does he or maybe somebody in his staff knows that the business world the United States has a big problem though what Businessweek calls a vexing problem they have about six hundred and eighty billion dollars of liquid assets that they don't know what to do with and that's a vexing problem for companies like Intel and Ford and you know GE and a bunch of others that they list so therefore the solution is to free that apparently that two-thirds of a trillion dollars won't do for investment fund so we have to give them some more money for investment funds meanwhile cutting down food stamps for hungry children you know not if you ask the people know this well you know it's it's pretty hard to answer if they don't know it it's even worse than if they do know it because it is so obvious it is so on the surface you know you don't have to look at any hidden document you don't even have to bother reading about the headlines you know so yeah if you want to know it you know and but I think that way you put the question is mistaken at least I think for the reasons I mentioned they know it and it doesn't make sense to ask them to join with other people to try to change it they're the ones who are implementing it and benefiting it from it not because they're bad people because that's the way the institution's work if they weren't doing it somebody it's like suppose you convinced the CEO of General Electric that he shouldn't be doing that he should be a voice for the voiceless he should be organizing in the slums and suppose he agrees with you said okay I'm gonna recognize in the slums what happens to General Electric does it change no somebody else is appointed CEO and it continues to increase profit market share because that's the institutional role and it's got to do that so telling trying to convince these people look to go down to speak to Newt Gingrich and say hey look here's what you're doing he knows that I mean Newt Gingrich knows certainly that he holds the national championship in bringing subsets federal subsidies to his rich constituents he knows that certainly he knows that just as the editors in the New York Times know and they don't report it but they know it to be precise he's actually third for suburban counties in the country the top federal subsidies go to Arlington Virginia which is part of Washington so that's where the Pentagon is and so on so they get it's part of the federal government the second one is Brevard County Florida which is the home of the Kennedy Space Center so that's part of the federal government but as soon as you step out of the federal government Cobb County Georgia is the chief recipient and he's determined to make sure that his rich constituents keep in their cycle of dependency he understands that there's no point telling you they can therefore talk about their conservative values and their entrepreneurial this and that while they're getting more federal subsidies than anyone else in the country okay he knows that no point going down and telling him there's no point going to the newsroom of the editor of The New York Times or for that matter the Star Tribune and telling them because they know what to if they decide not to report it that's their business but they certainly know it okay that's what's point telling him it's for precisely this reason that I think that the slogan of speak truth to power though I admire the people is the wrong idea they're not the people to whom you want to speak truth and in fact you want to speak to anyone but that's not the way to direct one's actions it's exactly the way that us that routine yoga Rhonda Eugene debb's and Archbishop Romero and others were saying that's the way to do it it's the only way that's ever worked in history by working with the powerless

Channel: Chomsky's Philosophy

Views: 36,354

Rating: 4.9699998 out of 5

Keywords: Noam Chomsky (Author), Capitalism (Political Ideology), Corporation (Organization Type), Inequality (Quotation Subject), Wealth (Quotation Subject), Subsidy (Literature Subject), Republican Party (Political Party)

Id: JZ55GlSwQBI

Length: 7min 4sec (424 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 19 2015