Noam Chomsky - The Origins Podcast with Lawrence Krauss - FULL VIDEO

[Music] hello and welcome to the origins podcast I'm Lawrence Krauss what's left to say about Noam Chomsky he's known throughout the world as perhaps the most important living public intellectual and his writing has been cited more than almost any author in their arts and humanities over recent decades and he's literally the father of modern linguistics Noam served as a role model for me since I took a class from him in u.s. foreign policy while doing my PhD in physics at MIT and I watched him speak throughout Cambridge with generosity and intelligence we did a dialogue on stage three years ago for the origins project and we discussed a host of things from language and consciousness to politics that was before Donald Trump and brexit and all that however and I was happy to have the opportunity to update our dialogue as always he was incisive informative provocative and brilliant as well as providing a unique treatment of issues when simply does not hear discussed in the US media making it incredibly important to hear from him today patreon subscribers can find the full video of this program immediately at patreon.com slash origins podcast I hope you enjoy the show [Music] gnome it's great to have you back here we you and I had one of my favorite conversations before the public I think three years ago now it's three years I think it seems hard to believe but I it by knowing that it was before Trump was elected so I because it seems that's what's amazing in three short years it seems like so much has happened in something we BT and B 1880 that's right exactly and it but that's not just all trumpet I mean all the things happen is that what's happening North Korea and Syria and Israel and Venezuela Brazil all over it's just amazing that what seems to have happened in those four years and even in our own countries there's there's free speech debates there's all sorts of things and I want to want to talk about some of that but at the same time the more things change the more they remain the same so there's all sorts of new issues but but the underlying causes and impact may not be so different I wanted to in you know what I was thinking about that I I was looking at what we said to each other and then I was reminded of a book I had been reading recently which is an old book for nineteen sixties by Richard Hofstadter called anti-intellectualism in America and and it was interesting for me to read that because it was written in response to McCarthyism was written in 1961 or so and I thought I'd begin to put this in context in a quote at the beginning of that book from 1961 where he quoted Emerson who wrote let us honestly state the facts our America has a bad name for superficial miss great men great nations have not been bolsters and buffoons but perceivers of the terror of life and of man themselves to face it so I thought I'd ask you to comment on that on that and then and then we can move into recent politics well Emerson was a very interesting thinker but in many respects he unfortunately illustrated the things that he's criticizing I agree so take for example that something not irrelevant today his attitude toward the Civil War at the very beginning was a pacifist in fact he was in a sense in favor of the war he thought it would break down the states it would break down state power so maybe would be beneficial after the Battle of Bull Run he became a enthusiastic super Patriot very much the way intellectuals do all the time as soon as the conflict begins we're enthusiast for our own side in fact if you look back at the transcendentalist his group some of the most distinguished intellectuals in the United States certainly may be anywhere one didn't go along with the tide Nathaniel Hawthorne and he was kind of excluded fact is a very interesting article you might want to read if you haven't in the Atlantic Monthly Hawthorne towards the end of the war about 1964 1864 1864 decided to just travel through the south to see but then the outcome of the war was reasonably clear and he wrote an article which was supportive of the north you know but skeptical for example he interviewed prison southern prisoners of war in a fairly sympathetic way he said look these are just rural farmers and they're not war criminals they were brought up to defend their homes and so on we should treat them decently anyway the interesting thing about the article is not only his commentary which is interesting but the interpolations the editors agreed to have it published but only if they were allowed and this is a liver of the liberal intellectual Journal yeah if they were allowed to interpolate comments criticizing what he wrote along the way so there you have Hawthorne's moderately sympathetic view to people who are too and suffering and the liberal intellectuals interpolating so no you have to be a super Patriot you can't say these things it's very instructive about intellectual history in many ways in fact if you look at the history of intellectuals it works very much like this so shortly after this period came the Dreyfus trial which actually is the first time that the word intellectual starts being used in its modern sense and it's very interesting that we today we honor the Dreyfus ords Emal's old ancestor not then they were bitterly attacked by the Immortals of the Academie Francaise how dare you mere writers and artists criticize our ground institutions you know the state so on fast for a Zola actually had to flee the country yeah sure let's go forward to not long before we met late 60s 66 67 roughly then McGeorge Bundy a former Harvard Dean of leading at electoral national security advisor for Kennedy and Johnson had an article in foreign affairs the main establishment journal in which he said he discussed the criticism of the Vietnam War he said yes there are legitimate criticisms about the tactics and so on and then there are what he called the wild men in the wings people like hofferman Zola who are not only criticizing the tactics but are raising questions about our motives I assume you were one of the wildman' in the wings absolutely very far and this is a theme that runs through basically all of history you go back to classical Greece who drank the hemlock the guy who was corrupting the youth of Athens by asking too many questions yeah right up to the present its and so it's interesting to raise the question of Emerson it was very distinguished honorable figure but not immune well no III liked that coat because of the many sided aspects of it because of his background and also this notion of course great nations have not been bolsters and buffoons which serve resonates in some ways in the current times but this and this idea of whether anti-intellectualism it has been prevalent and to what extent it's good or bad it's a good question and yet for example Li there are several kinds of intellectuals there's the wild men in the wings and there are the what are sometimes called the stenographers of power yeah and one has to make up one's own mind but I think you can certainly have different attitudes towards them well you know I and we were talking about lunch that I learned from you when the first time we met when it was when I was sitting in a course in American foreign policy when I was a student at MIT a shocking fact which to me just surprised me because I'd always kind of revered academia and I've it's been a part of my life ever since but the realization that in some ways during the Vietnam War the last group to accept the immorality of that war was were the academics which which I always thought maybe because I knew a vet you but I'd always thought somehow the academics were leading it but it was the students it was the public maybe you can go into a little bit well I would broaden it beyond academics to the general intellectual community with some exceptions there always or the journals all those and Nathanial often they know Chomsky's another flip to a by and large it's true in fact you get a kind of a vivid picture of it but first of all remember that opposition to the war was very late in coming the the war actually started in the early 50s by 1960 maybe 60 or 70,000 people had been killed in South Vietnam just by repressed the repressive government we were supporting a Kennedy escalated the war in 1961 and 62 authorized the US Air Force to start rural South Vietnam under South Vietnamese markings but nobody was fooled authorized a pom began and this was very serious chemical warfare to destroy crops and livestock to try to drive the rural population into concentrated areas would called strategic Hamlet's where they were being protected against the guerrillas who the US government knew very well they were supporting we know this from internal documents that have been released was no protest none then in fact just to give you an example when 1965 I guess I would a four six 64 65 I happen to be spending a year at Harvard as a visiting fellow on cognitive science senator 19 February 1965 the war against South Vietnam had already half destroyed the country but the u.s. escalated the war to the north and the individual who was primarily responsible for this was McGeorge Bundy nationals you recall evidently coolants yeah a couple of students Bundy it was being invited had been invited to be the commencement speaker at the June commencement for Harvard and a couple of students initiated a very mild petition asking whether it's right to invite someone who's just launched the war against another country without provocation since I was there they asked me to see if I could get some faculty signatures virtually impossible that was 1965 by that time the war was already far advanced in fact in October 1965 there was an international day of protest you were probably in elementary school at the time yeah we're still in elementary school and in Canada that was automated but it wasn't International Day of yet it's interesting because you know it's a 60 so this was 65 yeah cuz one thinks of the protest is being later of course but already and maybe the American media maybe you're gonna get well with what happened is interesting I'm talking about Boston yeah the most liberal city in the country yeah we decided to try to have a demonstration in Boston to join the international demonstration yeah we went to the Boston Common you know that chartered place ever I was supposed to be one of the speakers totally broken up by counter-demonstrators mostly students incidentally interests coming to smash up this demonstration of the Boston Globe may be the most liberal paper in the country you look at the front page the next day was denouncing the demonstrators how dare you very much like the Immortals of the Academy Hall says how dare you attack our noble institutions and so on this is October 1965 by then there was another international day of protest in May in March I think 1966 that we decided we can't have a public meeting we'll have a meeting in the church or on gin Street Church Church was attacked at that time Vietnam had literally almost been destroyed at that just given a Bernard fall who was the most respected military historian Vietnam expert that no dove incidentally but cared about the Vietnamese he wrote at that time that he doubted that Vietnam would survive as a cultural and historical entity under the most serious attack that had ever been launched against an area that size were words roughly like that I think that was at the point when we in liberal city of Boston we couldn't have a demonstration in a church without it being attacked well after that finally a an opposition movement developed mostly young people students and so on but let's fast forward up to 1975 when the war ended it says the war formally ended of course everyone had to write about it yeah yeah what what did it mean and you look across the spectrum of public opinion expressions public media major media and they kind of break up into the Hawks and the doves so roughly the Hawks saying we were stabbed in the back we didn't fight hard enough if he'd fought harder we could have won yeah so on the doves are always much more interesting they set the kind of limits of possible thought yeah this far but not on a limiter probably so you go way to the end say Anthony Lewis New York Times strong critic of the war yeah absolutely Marion a very interesting article he said the war begun he said with blundering efforts to do good blundering because it didn't work to do good because that's a tautology yeah you don't give arguments for that that's kind of like saying two plus two equals four yeah there he's another wild man in the wings yeah they said by 1969 it was clear that it was a disaster we could not bring democracy to Vietnam at a cost acceptable to ourselves so it was really a terrible mistake now up to the present about as far as you can go to the critical side is to say it was a mistake very interestingly at that point public opinion was being carefully sampled the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations does extensive Studies of public opinion very scholarly there 1965-66 roughly then their report also of course asked questions what would you think about the Vietnam War and the answers are interesting about 70% of the population said it was not a mistake it was fundamentally wrong and immoral now that question kept being asked for another 15 years or so up to about roughly 1990 the answers were all approximately the same they stopped asking it after a while yeah the last time they asked at the distinguished Social Sciences serious social scientist who was in charge of the surveys John really asked the question and comments of what do people mean when they say this and he said well what they mean is too many American lives were being lost well that's possible yeah would have been possible to find out yeah ask another question exactly but the other possible answer namely they meant what they were saying it's just totally discounted it's you know this is the history of intellectuals well you know okay well and we'll come back to that cuz I want to circle around to that eventually in a different context but let lets and one of the reasons I was happy to start with historical perspective is of course it's always it's always good to to look at the present in that context I was just reading a when is now one of my favorite quotes of Mark Twain who said that history may not repeat itself but it sure rhymes a lot and I want to talk about the in that context what's happening around the world both what's really happening and the perceptions of what's really happening from domestically to foreign we I mean we could talk for hours about that but we'll see if we can limit this okay but let's pick let's pick what's going on um you pick your favorite we could start with you know Venezuela we could start with North Korea we could start with Israel or Trump I want to I want to sort of sort of go through these and see what what what we're hearing and and and what's really there because this notion of American exceptionalism which just seems to be so prevalent part of it is the notion which which again brings me back to when I when I first met you to this notion that somehow the United States is different because we always want to do good other countries have been imperial powers but their intentions were not to do good and I remember us saying at the time that if you asked a five-year-old is it likely that America's foreign policy is governed by anything different than anyone else throughout all of history they'd say it's unlikely but somehow the perception is that intentionality is that the United States really is altruistic and there and it's interventions around the world which may hadn't had bad consequences were really well intended but they were misplaced and I and I kind of still get I still kind of see that and in the interpretation of much much of what's going on so well blundering efforts to do good yeah yeah and notice that the five-year-old who you invented yeah read with seventy percent of the population at the end of the Vietnam War so so let's take today's newspaper yeah okay there's a article by David Sanger in our York Times the leading one of the leading security analysts yeah which is an article about how to deal with the Russian aggression the new new forms of Russian aggression and intervention and there's some interesting lines in it so for example this sentence not just somewhere in the middle nothing special saying it's about time for these quoting somebody correct positively is saying it's time for NATO to enhance its defensive capacities at the Russian border does that strike anyone is funny I mean is the Warsaw Pact enhancing its defensive actions at the Mexico border yeah yeah well no we're exceptional if we happen to have forces at the Russian border that's because its defensive if we have ABM installations at the Russian border which do actually have to use capacity course and article in the bullet and the atomic scientists the lead article by Theodore Postal recent pointing that oh yeah I know even if their defensive that's a first strike weapon of course it's one of the concerns yes both of those are fine it's not in concern we have them there as President Obama said in order to protect Europe from irani and missiles which don't exist exactly that always amazed me about this notion that we were protecting Europe from missiles zone exist which it just so happens that it's offensive yes you had the Russian border at the Russian border that it so happens that they're pointing at the potentially at yeah exactly if I were but you won't see a comment about this I'm sure because it's it's kind of common sense sir and then well I mean you know the first when you say that of course one thinks about whether was whether maybe putting missiles in Cuba might have been defensive well in fact it was we there's very good scholarship on this but no and it's pretty well agreed by mainstream scholarship what the reasons were for her stuff to make this very reckless move there were basically two one was just what you said the United States was carrying out a major terrorist war against Cuba a very serious terrorist and if the Russians may not have known the details but they certainly roughly news going on certainly Cuba did in August 1962 Kennedy issued a national security memorandum which called on the terrorist operations operation Mongoose to be enhanced leading to an effort to create an insurrection in Cuba which would lead the US intervention in October 1962 well that's when the missiles went in I don't think Castro and Khrushchev read the internal like you could see what was happening on the ground that's one reason there was another in the first Jeff when he took took office recognized something pretty obvious that the Russia could not compete economically yeah the United States United States for more advanced yeah in fact Western Europe alone counterbalanced rush easily yeah let alone the United States and Canada so what he urged was a reduction a mutual reduction in offensive weapons in order to allow Russia to move towards economic development the Kennedy administration considered this rejected it and instead though they knew they were way ahead militarily launched the biggest arms buildup in history that was a very big thing shortly after this one of the reasons for four chefs placing the missiles in Cuba was to try to somehow minimally balance this notice incidentally that there was a crucial issue that almost led to nuclear war the United States had was surrounding Russia with missiles with nuclear weapons of course that's like our defensive behavior of the Russian border yeah including missiles and Turkey Jupiter missiles in Turkey and Kennedy actually didn't know about this he made some comment atomic Bundy saying it would it's as if we had missiles in Turkey and Bundy said we'll mr. president turned out they were obsolete missiles a withdrawal order was already in process because they were being replaced by essentially invulnerable Polaris submarines there's a much more lethal and vulnerable so they were being replaced they're obsolete her chef put missiles in Cuba to sort of try to know her nearer balance yet to compensate slightly for the overwhelming US advantage and its refusal to not only refusal to go along with his offer to reduce missiles but weapons but even enhancing them through the crisis as you recall this issue of the missiles and turkey became critical yeah October 27th peak moment of the crisis first chef actually wrote a letter to Kennedy saying let's get out of this before we blow the world we'll remove the missiles from Cuba you remove the missiles from Turkey we'll do it publicly and it'll all be over at that time Kennedy's subjective estimate of the probability of nuclear war was reported to be about a half third to have you know utterly outlandish yeah he refused this is considered his and then for chef basically back down yeah so they made a kind of a secret agreement but nothing public yeah we a secretive here the meaning is we have a right to keep in on the Russian border obsolete missiles which we're replacing by even more lethal ones but they don't have a right to have anything anywhere near us it's very similar today so we have the right to enhance our defensive capabilities on the Russian border which are already enormous but if the Russians dare to send anything to Venezuela we're going to blow the world up history rhymes exactly it's it's useful to think about it yeah we'll get in fact I was it's a nice segue I'm glad you cuz I was gonna go to Venezuela but at the same time it's also worth mentioning that in terms that the United States also was very by that point it it it I think it it it had subsided but the United States especially during the period of extreme military superiority were very seriously considered for strikes as in order to never renounce truce yeah we've never renounced forest rights most people don't realize that we still have that we've never said we won't strike first but what we've but at the time there were serious discussions of a real first strike in order to before Russia or the Soviet then Soviet Union was able to catch up and all these it then Ellsberg's book which I'm sure well that's later on my list yeah yeah in fact I read it because use I want to come back to that so we'll come back so I think you made the perfect segue because I wanted to hit Venezuela in this concept I mean here we are doing trying to quote-unquote at least if you read the papers do good in Venezuela where end and whether it's blundering or not so so I would like to hear your perspective of our of our doing goodness in Venezuela well what we're doing in Venezuela is imposing extraordinarily harsh sanctions which are cutting off virtually the entire ring the country and strangling the population the populations opposed to the sanctions of the leading economist of the opposition and serious economist Francisco Rodriguez one of the most serious commentators on this he's opposed to the sanctions he says they're turning a serious problem into an utter catastrophe of what we keep doing it because we're trying to do good we want to put into power our own guy quite oh nothing much is known about him except that he's a strong supporter of the neo-fascist bolson ro who was just installed next door Rosella yeah so they're all kind of criticism of the Maduro government which are quite legitimate yeah I was gonna say why should criticize I mean that government is nothing it's very repressive it's carrying out horrible economic policies a lot wrong with it but why do we have the right to impose the government of our choice by strangling the population into submission well there's nothing new that I mean we try that so we try and do it around right I mean I'm doing the same thing in Iran I mean the idea is the POW who's getting hurt by by sanctions in Iran well the population but what again what right do we have to do that in fact you guys the same question about China it's taken for granted across the board I can't find an exception that it's legitimate for the United States and Europe in fact mostly the United States to try to impede China's economic development oh they're moving forward they're trying to move forward with a particular form of economic development say we don't like the way they're doing it so we'll try to block their an economic development is that legitimate in fact there are other questions the sticking point in the negotiations right now according to Trump as intellectual property rights they are not observing intellectual property rights what that means is exorbitant patent restrictions radically opposed to free trade that built into the World Trade Organization system to protect us corporations so we want Bill Gates to be the richest man in the world so therefore there's a essentially monopoly for Windows a pharmaceutical prices have to go out of sight so therefore this huge patent restrictions on for pharmaceuticals suppose China decided not to observe them who suffers well Bill Gates will have a little less money users of computers will be able to find better programs and windows pharmaceutical corporations instead of having you know trillions of dollars will only have a few trillions people will be able to buy cheaper drugs I mean it's argued that this would cut back innovation but if you look into it that's not the way innovation takes place takes a Windows I mean I don't have to tell you the development of computers software or internet and so on that was all a textbook most of it at taxpayer expense for decades it's never the same with pharmaceuticals you there's a good reason why if you'd walk around MIT you see pharmacy you see Pfizer yeah yeah all the artists they're all they were kind of feeding off the the creative scientific work done at the laboratories mostly at government expense if he'd gone back there were 50 years ago you would have seen Raytheon I was an error rate those are the big that's because of electronics was kind of the cutting edge of the economy ya know it's biology so yeah but and this is at every research university in the country not just MIT sure so so going back to China and the intellectual property why should they observe the intellectual property rights which rammed through by the United States and other rich countries and now let's look a little history how did England develop by stealing techno ecology from more advanced countries like India or the Low Countries even Ireland they haven't had the United States developed by stealing technology from India from England that's why we got a textile industry steel industry and so on of course it wasn't called stealing then it was just that's the way it developed every single developed countries developed that way then comes something that economic historians call us taking away the ladder at first you climb the ladder then you kick it away so nobody else can do it well that's kind of what lies behind all of this lies behind the effort to try to impede Chinese economic development by things like demanding intellectual property rights do you see any discussion of this not in the mainstream media that I can of course you can find some yeah yeah Dean Baker yeah good economist he writes about it but it's basically out of off the agenda now I one would assume that well since American isn't exceptional except sometimes maybe exceptionally bad in certain cases but but what what's happened but is that is reverse happening I mean and as and how does he nice states respond I mean I assume other countries are trying to do the same thing the United States impede economic progress it's rational there's a couple of things wrong with the concept of American exceptionalism the one is the facts you know yeah okay yeah the other is it's not American yeah every great power has had the same exceptionalism Britain when it was virtually genocide all over the world was praising itself on its magnificence sure I mean they all had the civilized mission well the French Minister of War was calling on the army to exterminate the population of Algeria if we had records from Mattila the hunt and he would probably be just overwhelmed with good the fact that every country's thought that they've been the unique source of goodness and because of there's nothing exceptional about a matter well but since it is an exceptional what about is diversity giving examples are our other countries I mean other countries are trying to assumedly impede American economic progress and what's the response here how can they impede American economy not let me let me just let me give you I'm not an economist my ignorance is gonna show here but I'm assuming you should know better than to judge specialists but I mean it's to some extent China can impede American progress by being able to produce the same goods and services much more cheaply but Betty was producing them in China US corporations who want a function China if US corporations don't like Chinese rules they can invest somewhere else anyway there's an article in today's New York Times that said exactly that right it was the response to some of the pressure I'm trump one might say I don't know if you saw this article but it was basically saying there's some impact to what's going on and some companies are stopping having made things in China but what they're doing is not bringing back the United States are just finding another place to do it yeah which is yeah but but the idea that it's unfair for China to impose technology transfer restrictions or partial ownership restrictions on say Boeing is it's not a question of national policy if Boeing doesn't like that nobody's forcing them to invest there yeah okay so what right do we have to punish them for trying to do that well quite apart from the fact that the whole is that's how we develop how England develop Oh everybody developed okay let's hit some other hot-button issue we won't spend the whole time in foreign policy because I want to I want to it is in our last I like I want to cover a broad area and I want to do it around books actually so I started with Emerson just for fun but but let's hit North Korea I think I'd like to talk about North Korea Syria a little bit and maybe Brazil because we're talking about and it's and interestingly enough I think because it's something that I haven't read about before and so that may be my ignorant but anyway so what about North Korea well actually the Trump is not my favorite person yeah you know but on North Korea basically I think he's doing the right things and he's attacked for it on all sides that whenever he does something more or less right why I don't know maybe he's shooting arrows ran the blood myself right now and then I get it whatever the reasons are but let's take a look at North Korea on just the recent history April 27th I think it was 2017 the two Koreas met an issue negotiated and issued a very serious document a historic document Panmunjom that declaration were very serious it affected a good article about it and foreign affairs of all places yeah for the first time they not only made rhetorical commitments towards denuclearization towards integration there and as foreign affairs pointed out made concrete proposals here we'll do it step-by-step and then it said the two Koreas will do this on their own accord incursio Lee yeah on their own accord meaning leave us alone we know who they're talking to yeah okay Trump is the one leading figure for whatever reason who's more or less observed this the Singapore Summit for which Trump was bitterly denounced by the Liberals the Conservatives by everyone he basically said will you guys go ahead on your own accord yeah I mean even took steps towards reducing what he recognized to be provocative military operations American military operations in South Korea remember what's going on and these operations the u.s. is flying nuclear capable aircraft bombers right at the border of a country that the u.s. wiped out literally wiped out yeah back in the early 50s I mean by the time the war settled into a kind of a stalemate what was happening was the eustress is bombing massively they couldn't find any more targets you read the official Air Force history they describe how well we nothing a bomb will just bomb the dams which is a huge war crime yes yeah and then it discusses how it's interesting to read how euphoric they were about bombing this huge dam and a massive flood of waters ass whomping all this area and Asians a little bit of racism yeah depend on rice and where they're fleeing and they're screaming and so on this is the country that we're now flying nuclear Iran bombers right on their border so yes it is provocative and the Trump said well let's let's cut back some of this I mean I'm not saying what he said was wonderful but well we accept what he says and what he does or not always exactly the same and and the you know the one thing it's usually to me that after all this bluster the foreign policy is somewhat coming back to what might have been considered more realistic I mean the the last the last dialogue broke off because once again the United States said unless you totally disarmed we're not gonna we're not going to reduce actions that which is just seems to me to be completely unrealistic well that's I think you know I don't know the inside story yet it looks like Pompeo and bold yeah I mean it seems as if Trump's instinct was to say we'll go ahead he was kind of pushed and remember he's under attack from all sides yeah the liberals attack him even more sharply than this sharply as the hawks but as i say of all the major political actors here he seems on this issue i miss to be the one who's closest to being what i would regard as taking the same position letting the two Koreas proceed on their own accord as they've asked it and i think that that's what's going on pinning I guess agrees that that's what if it's gonna if this quote-unquote crisis is gonna resolve itself it's going to happen to some extent internally if we allow it to be the case stay away - that's mean only hope North Korea's idle hours cannot help ya and North Korea I think really recognizes that a greater alliances with South Korea will be beneficial debt and South Korea well I some president moon is following a pretty reasonable path well let's say okay since we since you mentioned the T word let's let's start let's we'll come back to foreign but let's talk about Trump because of course that's all anyone seems to talk about and discussions of Trump dominate all everything else we don't hear about any other issues and I wonder what we maybe we could talk about that a little bit well Trump is a very effective con man isn't doing it gotta praise him for his achievements yeah narrow set of skills but he's using them very effectively he's got the major media completely wrapped around his little finger he manipulates them totally one crazy thing after another they talk about that then they say it doesn't make any sense and everybody's forgotten because he's on to the next one so one day it's let's eliminate the whole health system everybody attacks that two days later says let's stop all traffic across the Mexican border which of course we shut down the economy everyone points that out and then the next day it'll be something else meanwhile he's carrying out a very effective job you probably saw the article in The New York Times a couple days ago about how he's totally taken over the Republican Party yeah and top the bottom there's no his party and remember two years ago the Republican establishment hated him yeah okay now he's taken over the whole party and he's caring he's carrying out something pretty set of all this should not be much of a surprise if you look back for the last 10 or 15 years even little beyond during the neoliberal period since basically Reagan both parties to the right the Democrats are kind of what used to be called moderate Republican has the Republicans have just gone off the edge yeah a Norman Ornstein Thomas Mann of American enterprises to describe them plausibly as a radical insurgency which is given up parliamentary polls yeah I mean the health care plan that now is what and Reagan's time would have been great whale yeah yeah look if you read Eisenhower no he sounds like Bernie Sanders I mean we've gone so forth literally okay so what what's happened either very old or Republicans are so I'm in both parties or essentially business parties but the Republicans just with abject subordination to Wilson corporate power kanka votes that way so they've been forced to try to mobilize constituencies which in the past weren't really major political constituencies and to try to get them to be the base of the party on what are called ridiculously cultural issues so gun rights abortion religious fanaticism xenophobia whatever maybe and this has been showing up in the primaries for quite a while so over the past years in every Republican primary when somebody comes up from the base they're out of way out of the yeah Michele Bachmann Rick Santorum yeah and the establishment has been able to crush them get there Mitt Romney types yeah the difference in 2016 was they couldn't crush this time the crazy guy from the outfield got in now the base he's got the base behind him and he's controlling them and he's carrying out a very effective policy how much he understands what he's doing I have no idea maybe it's just megalomania but likely he's got two constituencies he's got to keep supporting the primary constituency is the one of the Republican Party the very rich the corporate sector so okay we hand that task over to Mitch McConnell Paul Ryan and rammed through the legislation which stuffs pockets with even more dollars and chefs everyone else and so on that's going beautifully the rich and the corporation's have profits assuming they don't know what to do with them trillions of dollars that can't spend the wealthy are doing magnificently the the tax scam the one legislative achievement we don't have to talk about yeah so that's one constituency me and why you've got to control the voting base how do you do that throw him a little red meat build a wall to keep out the rapists and murderers shift you know love Israel shift the embassy for the evangelicals yeah one thing after another he's carrying it off the base adores him while they're getting shafted I mean that's always been the Ameer markable thing is how people could always vote against their own that's doing very well and what are the Democrats doing helping him like actually focus on the Miller investigation which was tactically crazy was obvious from the beginning that if anything's gonna come out of that it'll be the Trump was by trying to build a hotel when the Red Square yeah I think so minor corruption yeah I'm not saying that in retrospect I've been saying it for a long time all right what they've done now is probably maybe even hand from the 20/20 election about just instead of the real issues like hey you're destroying the environment for for future life you're building up your your Nuclear Posture review is greatly extending the likelihood of total catastrophe you're pouring money into the pockets of the super-rich and destroy issuing regulations and executive orders and legislation which is harming the working class and everyone else instead of that Trump is gonna Miller's gonna show that the Russians interfered with the election and you helped you know the Russians couldn't I mean if the Russians interfered with the elections it was undetectable I mean it's trivial um there is after all massive interference with the elections yeah like they're bought yeah okay you can predict the outcome of a pump Ferguson's work as the main work on this your showing you there's a spoilage into what he called the investment theory of politics with remarkable precision way back right through 2016 you can predict electability for the executive and Congress simply with the single variable of campaign spending and that's just the beginning is that interference with elections yeah it means that as for a good working League academic political science shows most of the population is literally unrepresented their own representatives pay no attention to their preferences they listen to other boys think the Supreme Court decision in that regard in terms of in terms of money spent on elections was significant ah it's changed but it's changed some things that already exists yet so maybe you go back to 1895 Maracana who was the famous campaign manager was asked once what does it take to run a run an effective campaign he said there are two things the first thing is money and I forgotten what the second one is that was 1895 of course you know the recent decisions Buckley v Valeo against Citizens United have enhanced that enormous Lee but that's goes way back well the other thing that we talk about history and statements and I forget whether it's growing or gurbles who said that if you want to if you want to get people to do what you want them to do it doesn't matter with Ava democrasy or dictatorship just make them afraid and and that seems to also in some sense being being effect on this whole notion of immigrants being being that greatest danger facing the United States the opposite of most of American history in fact is I'm finding it kind of amazing to see how effects work it works and and again there's a long history Hofstadter talked about anti intellectualism yeah another kind of striking feature of American culture from way back is that although this is the most secure country in the world by any objective standard like efi oceans around probably the most frightened yeah it's a very frightened country that lies behind partly there's a lot more but suppose one of the things that lies behind this kind of in crazed gun culture and why do you have to have 25 assault rifles in your closet they're coming after me you know I gotta protect myself yeah it comes in again it's an issue that I hope we're gonna cut get when we come back in some sense it but you know that this recent book by John Haight and others about the coddling of the American mind if argued that that level of being frightened affects people's behavior on a micro scale as well the notion that every time your kids leave the house they're in danger and they should never be in danger and never be in risk somehow comes in to the notion that they should never be uncomfortable they shouldn't be uncomfortable in school they shouldn't hear ideas they don't want to everything is a threat and it is true I think that I remember when when I meant a year and in in Switzerland when at the at CERN when my daughter was younger she was my daughter was I remember at eight or nine or ten and she was really afraid of going outside the house on her own in living where we lived at the time and it was remarkable to see when she was in Switzerland that you know I would drive my car and I'd suddenly see her and her friends downtown and and so this notion of every time you leave the house the world is terrifying really does seem to be an American kindness it's recent when I was a kid in the 30s and early 40s when I was I lived in Philadelphia yeah when I was maybe 12 years old I used to take the train by myself to New York and spend the day walking around anarchist bookstores my parents didn't know that was the raba that was there you see if you just control is not considered yeah anything like though but I grew up in Canada but it was still the same for me in Toronto I stick the the the subway car down in Spokane but I we moved into the suburbs when my kids were little and this place we I mean you can't imagine a place that's more safe kids were playing in the streets they'd go into each other's houses and so on you go to the same neighborhood now you don't see a child either they're inside looking at the video games or they're being driven somewhere for organized activities kids it's been in fact studied children don't know how to play spontaneously everything has to be controlled they have to be watched all the time if if they're you know somewhere maybe in you know Aragon a kid got kidnapped everything in the country has to close down yeah yeah I mean the dangers back in the 30s and 40s were far greater but it just wasn't an issue yeah I know it's very interesting also business of the Trump knows what he's doing when he builds up fear of the rapists and murderers and Islamic terrorists just to give you an example a couple of weeks ago Steve Bannon you know is yes kind of respite and came down to Arizona where we live in Tucson and there was a meeting he ran a meeting at a very luxurious gated community south of Tucson not too far from the border you know guards gates are very rich and so on the perp had a lot of nice people they were like Crisco botch this guy who's trying to keep people from voting yeah there was a good report of it and kind of a independent Tucson newspaper through Sun Sentinel had a reporter there the goal of the meeting was to try to raise private money to build the wall because Congress is run by communists you know they're not going to do anything so all these super rich people are pitching in money to fill the wall but the discussions were interesting a people were this driving how frightened they are I mean if there's anybody in the world safer than them I don't know how you'd find them yeah but these are people who are frightened we got to protect ourselves in fact there was one legislator there who said I'm not only in favor of the wall I think we ought to have a wall from the border right along the Arizona border against California all the way up to the Canadian border because these people are going to come in from California you know yeah we've got to protect ourselves and not only do maybe we need an army to protect us around the gated community but yeah and when Trump talks to the public at least according to the reports that come up people resume ya know it's it really works affected I never know what's Trump whether it's an accident or whether he's plant you know whether he really knows what he's doing whether they just latches on by luck to an issue that that seems to resonate any and he uses oh yeah and then pick it up he just tests to the water and he's doing that very but meanwhile you have to remember that his primary constituency corporate power yeah wealthy he's serving them with real dedication we'd use would you say that in terms of enemy I don't want to harp on this too much but it in terms of the greatest danger if there is one of Trump being president many people feel that the fact that he's loose can and the fact that he does no no no no reading no knowledge about details about the world around or certainly doesn't read or listen to his advisers would you say that's a bigger danger than the fact that effectively he's apparently implementing underneath all the noise the the an agenda that that that you worry about her no I mean there's a lot of dangers with drunk the worst one which overwhelms everything else is the dedication to destroy the environment yeah yeah I mean that just swamps everything else that ought to be a screaming headline every day wait I'm surprised that if if if if private money wanted to build the wall eight point six billion is not enough money for that could easily be done I mean more than that spent elections that but but interestingly enough when you put in perspective talking about the environment and talking about about progress eight point six billion which is what he's asking for the wall was more is more than the entire amount the entire budget of the National Science Foundation I mean if we talks about what is better for our security in the future how about the subsidies to the fossil fuel industry much bigger than that how about the subsidies to the financial institutions there are some good technical studies IMF and others who point out that the financial institutions which are pretty much predatory they don't they barely help the economy they may harm and they're a huge part of the economy a huge they are maintained effectively by public subsidy by the implicit government insurance policy which raises their credit ratings gives them access to cheap money when you count all of that it's pretty much their profits I mean compared with this the wool and the National Science Foundation aren't even visible yeah no that's I mean it's interesting to think about that I mean and similarly when we come to the climate change and and although this is it that's the the two things that ought to be emphasized by the political opposition if there were one or this dedicated commitment to destroy the prospects for organized human life within a short period and the radical intensification of the already extremely dangerous arms continent I was gonna hit that those I think I know that we're from our discussions those the two things that I think there's another danger that we shouldn't forget I was personally very relieved when the Miller investigation didn't come up with much because if they had come up with something that really implicates Trump we would have been in deep trouble I mean he's a narcissistic megalomaniac he's kind of like the magician behind the and The Wizard of Oz and those that's a very thin cover if anything breaks he could go for broke there's plenty that he could do yeah by Oh people worried about what you know and I don't know who said it in fact that that that well maybe he's James Comey not someone who's I agree with all the time but that that he was worried that that exactly that would happen and it would lead to some kind of and there be violence that would bill he's he's already indicated his dog whistling is worth listening to so take his attacks on John McCain which people are wondering why why is he talking John McCain yes well this very good article on this by verse Franklin for a good analyst who's also the leading specialist on the POWs ethology you know there's a lot of the country still believes that the North Koreans are the North Vietnamese are holding all sorts of American POWs in the terrible thing and McCain is one of their villains because he's part of the myth is that he's the one who sold people out helping keep our brave American boys there Rambo has to go in and rescue them and so on that's a pretty big thing in a sector of the country a sector of the country that Crump openly talks to when he talks about how his bikers are tough guys and they're gonna really cause trouble that's who he's talking to when he attacks McCain he's talking to them he's throwing them the red meat this is clever politics and very dangerous this is a very violent country um their militias all over probably better armed than the National Guard and a lot of desperate angry people people have been hit by the stagnation of the neoliberal period there's economic distress there's concern that somehow that waits that the white population is as they put it facing genocide meaning we might not be a majority in a couple of decades all of this is very real and when these dog whistling attacks on McCain and the you know the the hints about the Mexican rapists over coming us and destroying us all that's talking to a sector of the population that's very real is under a kind of distress stemming largely back from economic policies that right at the top that are creating the kinds of situation which we know or there's something similar in Europe all all of this converges and when you get this again narcissistic megalomaniac who's a clever politician sitting right at the top of it and pulling the strings it's it's a fragile system but it's working and very dangerous okay well so since we're on a lifting area and let me join think of any buttons we haven't pushed yet before we move on and I think it's we probably should push this button at least one so so let's talk about Syria and Israel for a little bit and see if we can alienate the part of the public we haven't so far so Syria Israel well on Syria is a total disaster the countries yeah and virtually destroyed we can look at the history but here again I'm afraid I disagree with many of my friends on the left on this at one of the Trump proposals was to leave a small contingent of troops in a sector of northern Syria which is mostly Kurdish correct yeah I think that's a good idea you know anti interventionist just block out on this we've got to take them out they have no right to be there and so on but think it through for a second the Turkish army is military is carrying out again it's done worse before serious atrocities against Kurds in Turkey itself and in the areas of Syria that they of occupied recently offering if they move on to Roja the other mostly Kurdish areas that will just continue what's stopping them small contingent of US troops which are confined to the Syrian or areas and are not intervening elsewhere in Syrian affairs I don't like US troops to be anywhere but in this case I think it's not out of humanitarian goals whatever the goals may be it may be helping to avert a serious catastrophe I think those are things that are worth thinking about not just kind of an axiom yes get them out gets troops home Puri you have to think about what the meaning is it's not like a justification for humanitarian intervention which is always a fraud yeah this is a matter of assessing the actual situation that exists independent of intentions whether it has a good Hubble nothing to do with intentions you know it so those we can put aside the intentions we know I mean up until under Obama until about 2015 the US and its allies incidentally France England we believed that it would be possible to overthrow the Assad regime and we're committed to doing so finally I think was around 2013 2014 the US the CIA sent advanced anti-tank missiles to the opposition which by then is mostly jawed Iran yeah which did stop the Syrian army advanced predictably the Russians intervened with more force started sending the Air Force took out the tow missiles sold army went on at that point pretty much the West accepted the fact that like it or not this monster or any is a monster I will probably control most of the country and since then whatever planning or negotiations are taking place are mostly out of the West's hands it's Russia Iran Syria or pretty much running the show like it or not and there's not a lot that nope he was gonna do about that the even fit sure but yeah with regard to suit at the Israel there's a lot to say about this but the the support what's called the support for Israel here it's very reminiscent of old-fashioned Stalinism its extraordinary when you look into it up to the level of books published by university presses which are just full of outlandish lies and fabrications at denouncing anybody me of course yeah who dares to raise a minor criticism about the holy state the level of lying is spectacular could go into examples but it's my well knows I mean okay good go on but I wasn't worth talking about that but but the there's a kind of a desperate effort now on the part of those who supported thee will call themselves supporters of Israel I don't think that's the right term I think their supporters of Israel's moral degeneration and maybe ultimate destruction but that's another story who call themselves supporters of Israel since the 1970s have increasingly been finding their backs to the wall because public opinion is changing mm-hmm strikingly especially among younger people polls are very clear even personal experience is very clear so look up till maybe 10 years ago if I gave a talk about Israel Palestine at a university in my own University and I had to have police protection police had to follow me out to my car because meetings were broken up nobody was worrying about free speech at universities yeah well we'll get to that yeah that's changed that's changed in fact among people who identify themselves as liberal Democrats actually support for Palestinian rights is even higher than Israel at this point support for Israel has gone to the most reactionary parts of the population evangelical Christians and xenophobes the Democratic Party used to be the base for as a sport for Israel it still is but nothing like the Republicans they were extreme Trump of courses but what I mean but at the same time when with a recent discussion about you know the Golan Heights I read it and I heard that there was some concern but then I didn't see any big outcry it's pretty interesting I mean the the Golan Heights have been recognized internationally including the United States as occupied territory the u.s. signed supported the Security Council resolutions resolutions declaring that Israeli efforts to take over the heights and in particular their annexation of the heights which they did is absolutely illegal has no basis international law can be accepted that was true up until Trump a couple of weeks ago he just reversed it okay now they're allowed to take it over anybody talking about it no I was amazed I mean meant people mention and then I'm sort of sudden outcry about it after you say well maybe it's not tactically good might alienate somebody then the idea is well israel needs this first defense this is outlandish I mean the Israeli military overwhelms everyone in the area combined you know quite apart from the fact that they have a big nuclear arsenal but they're the military force in the region yeah one of the major of the Golan Heights it's not defense what they want it because it's nice territory you have its economic it's it's a very nice area you have the ski ski low the skis on the Mount Hermon build agricultural communities a nice place to visit and live they want it okay there's there's no military threat there well I'll always I suppose it's about and when people say the husband owes at their border yeah as follows not them insignificant military force but the only respect in which they were threat to Israel the only respect is if Israel attacks Lebanon they'll fight back and that is a threat to Israel so in fact if Israel were to proceed with its occasionally announced plans to attack Iran probably the first thing they do is wipe out Lebanon just to prevent the deterrence of Hezbollah missiles so yes that's a threat if you like we might ask the same question about what the Iranian threat is supposed to be who is around threatening I'm supposed to around had nuclear weapons I mean where's the threat I mean if they dared to arm a missile with nuclear weapons the country would be wiped out yeah yeah you know it's it's a in fact US intelligence is pretty clear about this if you look at their presentations to Congress over many years they've pointed out that basic picture is that Iran has very low military expenditures by the standards of the region well the United States but that's different it's a strategic posture is defensive trying to set up to ensure that it can react to aggression sufficiently so diplomacy will take over they say if it were to develop nuclear weapons they would be part of its deterrent strategy well I've always I mean as someone who's always been concerned about missile defense which is which is an oxymoron in some way in so many ways we could go into it doesn't work first of all but but but that came back to what you said in Europe I've always been remains that the people say that we're defending Europe from Iranian missile what what possible purpose would Iran have to to launch missiles at Europe right yeah if they only want had a suicidal impulse yeah yeah the country to be worried I've never seen that question that's and that's oh that's the Liberals remember this is Obama yeah no he was the one who was putting the missile installations on the okay well we've gone on it foreign affairs that drop more than I might have but I think it was important in this context but let but let me take it back because you raised something interesting that you can now you're finding you're able to give talks without police protection on certain issues at the same time I actually had a quote from one of your books were which I think I used in our last dialogue but but which was originally I think a quote that was set up from Catholic priests in South America talking about the educational system and they said educational systems are oriented to maintaining the existing social and economic structures instead of transforming them and this notion that we started with the notion that intellectuals elites aren't necessarily are sort of by the party line almost more than anyone else but I see another issue that's really become more pronounced since we last had our dialogue which is this issue of free speech and in this case free speech on campuses you may be able to speak more freely but one is finding more and more two things that are remarkable interesting and maybe is some extent disturbing that is first of all that that we're seeing more and more speakers especially on the right to some extent but but almost every subject area being stopped from spigen camp is not but meant by students in this case that the notion that there was there was a there was a lecture that was happening in a university in the West where the speaker was come going to speak about due process and free speech and there were and safe rooms were set up on campus so the students didn't have to hear discussions about this yet it's an issue that seems to now be adopted by the right that that that there if you look at and saying who was speaking out and again one of the try you know Trump's executive order may be impotent but the notion that Trump would would put an executive order saying universities can't get federal funding unless they promote free speeches is kind of interesting this notion that that the left in some ways is is now being seen as not promoting free speech so I thought I we we should have that discussion a little bit well I'd question the notion the list but it's certainly happening yeah and it's it's wrong in principle and beyond that it's just tactically insane it's the best gift that you can give to the right yeah if some right wings speaker tries to go to a campus and is blocked it's a gift it's they love it and you can see the way the using it this is okay weird that we're the good guys they're defending freedom of speech you guys are Nazis trying to protect so if you want if you want to give enormous gifts to the right wing and the to the far right to the neo-fascist that's the way to do it exactly but that is even broader than that I think that there's some concern and you know two people that I obviously am NOT a fan of Trump I'm not a fan of Betsy DeVos I've written about how opposed many of our aspects but she but but there's another aspect of this notion which comes back to the people being afraid in the United States this notion that words have to be protected that words are scary that there needs to be safe zones like trigger warning trigger warnings that when you when you would think and I've always said this in the context of science but I think it's true more generally one of the purposes of Education I used to say of science but one of the purposes of Education is to make people uncomfortable because if you're comfortable you're not pushing that you're you're not pushing the boundaries of what you know understand and if we if we I was just at a lecture where somewhere where where people are saying they've changed their curriculum for because they're if they upset students they're worried that universities will remove them from teaching and and that that seems to me especially an environment where our at least our higher educational system has been very effective in educating students more more so maybe than the public school system I'm as concerned about you I think your your the fact that the right is usurping an issue that will come back to haunt others is one thing but I'm more I'm equally concerned about the fact that people are afraid of ideas or or discussions that make them uncomfortable that's first of all that's always been true but since this was always the mainstream who who was fighting off the wild men and the wings nobody noticed it now we're noticing it it was wrong then and it's wrong now it's even worse now with the idea that somehow like what you said you have to have special places where students won't hear things this is totally crazy I mean if speaker comes in who youth is extremely offensive first of all you don't have to go to the talk if you don't want exactly at the same thing to do which sometimes is done is to use it use the opportunity as an educational opportunity yeah go listen to them meanwhile set up alternative forums where you discuss the issues you think about them you look at the pros and cons nothing is ever 100% obvious let's let's go through it and come out with a reasonable position we'll have a basis if it's the correct outcome to oppose their positions not just shout them down saying well we're so scared of them we can't even hear it exactly shot them down play music so they can't talk even if they're allowed on campus it's I've had enough of that in my own experience but that's not the reason it's wrong whoever does it when the right wing is targeted its tactically crazy when the left is targeted doesn't matter because nobody pays attention anyway yeah but when those who have some basis in power systems are attacked then it's tactically ridiculous because it's giving them an enormous gift well what I what I never see is this recognition well I very rarely see it of the fact that the whole purpose of free speech is to protect the speech of those you detest and perhaps that's what a democracy is supposed to in principle but the people who have upheld that have always been bitterly denounced on every issue well and but you know what's I couldn't give you many examples yeah but I'm pretty sky mean as someone who sort of grew up in the sixties to see that the people that I used to think of as progressive that are now supporting exactly the opposite but that was the 60s yeah and remember the 60s was the period when even the Supreme Court really for the first time took strong positions in support of freedom of speech that's not American history it's worth remembering that first of all the First Amendment does not protect freedom of speech it prevents prior restraint yeah but if I give a talk sizing the government First Amendment permits them to put me into jail as long as they didn't stop me from saying it in the first place First Amendment's a very weak barrier to repression and in fact a freedom of speech issues didn't arise at the court level Supreme Court until the 20th century and if you look at the history it's not uplifting the first protections of freedom of speech sort of were during the First World War the famous dissents of Holmes and Brundle yes notice first of all they were dissents secondly they were very limited so in the shank case the first case where shank is and the guy was being sent you don't sentenced for having written pamphlets against the war the dissenters Holmes voted in favor of the of the decision they said well you know too far was going got to have a little freedom of speech but nevertheless did it it's a very mixed record up until the sixties the first strong defense of freedom of speech by the court was actually in 1964 that's times V Sullivan when of his civil rights issue yeah the state of Alabama declared that they were being libeled by the Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement because you know racist sheriffs were being intact kind of technically they were right by the thinking of the framers but the Supreme Court overruled what's called sovereign immunity yeah that this state is protected from harmful speech which holds in most countries incidentally including Canada including Britain they still have this yeah but the United States struck it down then there was even a further further decisions read advert for Ohio took a very strong position in favor freedom speech that's 1969 that's not American history yeah so yes there is a modern Trudeau of protection of freedom of speech but it's it's not deeply rooted or sturdy and when say Clarence Thomas recently said we got to review these decisions because that's not what the framers had in mind he's not wrong you know if you really look back at the history but nevertheless it's true that among the countries of the world the United States is probably supreme and protection of freedoms yeah I know that's what I grew up in Canada and I used to do history of candidates yeah it's amazing to see how those protections were more Revere than a Solomon Rushdie case huh when this came up in Canada oh there was a question debated about whether he was attacking the state religion and they finally decided he wasn't so it was okay because it was some other religion in fact in Britain that same case the remember this was when he was criticizing his long yes it went to the House of Lords and they considered they said well he isn't liable because he was condemning Islam if he'd been condemning the Anglican Church yeah it would have been a different story that's Britain we're not talking about Nazi Germany yeah yeah no it's so these are very thin reads and like in in France for example there are laws I mean I'm bitterly condemned for having criticized them but there are laws in France that grant the state the right to determine historical truth and to punish deviation from what they determine and that's been used okay and French left intellectuals supported know we got to stop the speech we don't like yes I mean this stuff is very thin and the United States by and large has comparatively a good record but the things you're pointing out or hitting away at some of the best things that have happened here and unfortunately it is coming from students young people who just aren't thinking through what they're doing not thinking through and have been brought up too and I think to fear anything that that the a little bit uncomfortable it makes them a little bit uncomfortable but again in the sciences I mean the whole history of the sciences is people challenging common sense that's what exactly it's what science it's all about if it wasn't you know if we weren't uncomfortable we're not making progress it's yeah so I think okay good I'm glad we got that ELISA because I'm critically concerned about it and then it's run is being at universities I think is seeing it in a way I've never remembered goes on also it's like yeah I teach at the University of Arizona yeah right now the there's a legislation at the state level requiring that at the University of Arizona if a department invites a speaker or if a faculty member invites somebody to come to their tour class they have to inform the legislature yeah so if if I invite somebody to talk on theoretical linguistics I gotta inform the legislature make sure there's no communist infiltrators yeah I know it's a yes was it when I found something similar when I moved to Arizona but okay let's see I wanna we I want to come back to another book I was the two books I wanted to mention that in fact were books that you got me to look at one was Daniel Ellsberg which I think I'll come back to after the other one was this book by Katherine Nick see the dark dark knee age that amazing boom it's an amazing book which shows basically how Christianity effectively in a way that makes Isis look tame destroyed the classical world and and and I bring it up because we've had this discussion before and and I I'm known for my concerns about religion in many ways and I remember you saying to me the one the first times we talked that you didn't it wasn't what people believed that bothered you is what they did and I and I countered by saying that's true but I think what they what they believe radically affects what they do and when I when I and and I I was thinking about that book recently with another article about Mike Pompeo and his how is evangelical Christianity has affected his role as a secretary of state and exactly how he approaches not just the middle everywhere else and so I continue to think that there's just insidious impact of religion in this case Christian religion but it happens obviously in the Islamic world and so I wanted to talk to you about it in this movie you know that's mixed or I mean you know it's a complicated story Morris can't get a couple thousand years of his yeah but if you think about it and abroad we have morning superficial rank and a picture Christianity in the early days was radical pacifist and Christians were persecuted as Nixie points out yeah a lot of it was purposeful martyr not yeah because the Classical period was fairly tolerant yeah I believe was a hollow theistic so you know you believe not God I believe in this God just that's the door doesn't matter and but nevertheless there was persecution sure when Constantine turned Christianity into the religion of the Roman Empire and the Cross shifted from being a symbol of persecution to being on the shield of the Roman Legionnaires yeah everything changed first of all the radical Christians it went on a rampage as you say it makes Isis look pretty tame yeah they virtually destroyed the rich complex pretty tolerant classical culture statues paintings literature philosophy everything had to go and they instituted the dark ages of totalitarian as a literal flow for millenniums yes well you know yeah there was a totalitarian God who not only controlled you but looked into your mind you had to do what he said it's I don't want to over exaggerate there were exceptions what it was a real kind of totalitarian era for a millennium and it's a God who would not only do see why you're on earth but for eternity yeah yeah that's good Augustine st. Augustine's for something like merciful terror or something like yeah it cuz we have to have terror to destroy this but it's merciful because it's saving souls you know well and and when I looked at well I'll interrupt for a second when I looked at because I want to hear the completion but in that context after I read that book I looked around me because you see how effectively in a few hundred years they can completely remake the world it was a world where there was you know philosophy and and I mean religion was amazing yeah and and then where where every place became dominated by a church took a century but we still live in that world in a sense it when every town I go I think I how effectively amazing they were everywhere you go you don't mind that cities are just full of churches and and and it they did it very effectively okay but let's go on mmm-hmm this went on pretty much until you know variations but pretty much until 1962 when pope john xxiii called the second vatican council which is a very important event in modern history very important the Second Vatican Council under Pope John tried among other things to reinstitute the Gospels horrible thing the Gospels have a radical pacifist message mmm-hmm I said let's the theme is what was called the preferential option for the poor this was picked up by Latin American bishops who supported it yeah and pretty soon priests nuns laypeople were going out into the poorer areas countryside starting to organize what we're called base communities and which often illiterate peasants would start thinking about the Gospels listening to what they're saying starting to get to see if they could take some control of their own lives not just the Latin American particular poverty and inequalities extraordinary and repressions extraordinary but I know you I know you were big fan of Latin American of the of the depression that whole aspect of Latin American theology but at the same time the Gospels do sort of say you know the you know it's okay to be poor because and the afterlife you'll be you'll be fine so it's an accepted late talk about yes these activists were doing was saying you can take care of your lives we can listen to the right at the preferential option for the poor but do something about it okay that was the important part and it was important mmm the United States went to war against the church yeah starting then yeah and a lot of the recent history of Latin America reflects that maybe by coincidence but in 1962 Kennedy shifted the mission of the Latin American military from hemispheric defense it's kind of a anachronistic holdover from the Second World War yeah to internal security that as a meaning means war against the population he sent a military mission to Colombia where the worst atrocities were going on then led by a green beret general which came back with the report it recommended paramilitary terror that's the phrase against known communists adherence which is a very broad category in a Latin American context of the the director of counter counterinsurgency for Kennedy and Johnson Charles mate sling had a very strong critique of this he said that this turned tolerance of the rapacity of the Latin American military into support for activities that are reminiscent of the stormtroopers of Hitler you had government after government falling under neo-fascist neo-nazi military regimes a brutal murder for plague spread all over the hemisphere all the way to Central America under Reagan lots of religious martyrs including the Archbishop and all solve adora finally 1989 the murder of six leading Latin American intellectuals at the University and they'll solve other Jesuit priests and finally finally what you have is the school of the Americas which trains Latin American officers has what are called talking points we advertise our achievements one of them is the US Army helped defeat Liberation Theology that's a substantial part of the history so it says like a lot of things the story is complicated it's interesting that one that the Latin American priest who became a pope wasn't it was in fact not as far as you can see not a Liberation Theology but in fact as far if you I think if you look at his history in in Latin America was the offices part of the it's a very striking part of the history the point was when there was an effort to go back to the message of the Gospels and to interpret it as meaning do something about your own lives the hammer came down very hard well but now the hammers somewhere else and I I'm I'm wonder if you're as concerned I am I think both of us in different ways have been attacked I certainly when I've stated this but and you know recently one here is that one is there's much more it's certainly in in domestic terms in the United States and other words more concern among police organizations about about right-wing terrorism than Islamic terrorism and in forward it's far worse then look at the FBI records exactly and and but here we see this incredible connection between evangelical Christianity and not just in Mike Pompeo and in our foreign affairs but in in but the white house in a way that has never been I mean it may have been implicit but now it's incredibly overt well it's it's more than that it's planned yeah so it goes back to what we were talking about before about the parties going to the right and the Republicans going off into outer space they had to organize new constituencies this starts with Nixon on the Southern Strategy since Democrats were associated with civil rights Nixon and his associates figured okay we can pick up the Southern Democrats the southern working class on racist drones then comes the recognition that they can pick up northern Catholics Catholic workers who voted Democratic by pretending to be imposed to abortion I stress pretending you go back to the 60s Republican leadership is what we call pro-choice Reagan George HW Bush who was supposed to have some principles the whole stream of them were thought yeah this is none of the government's business woman's right the poll Wyrick you know the Republican strategist in the mid seventies figured out that if the Republicans pretend to be anti-abortion they can pick up the evangelical in the Catholic vote pretend by now if you're a Republican in Congress or the president you got to be passionately anti-abortion and principle total cynicism but it worked they picked up a large part of the Catholic northern working-class vote the evangelical vote of the evangelicals are now the primary base of trumps electoral voting coalition and this is connected very closely to the Israel again the evangelicals have a very interesting position on Jews and on Israel they're the most extreme anti-semites in human history their theology if you look at it is that it's not a hundred percent of evangelicals were leading part of it they Scott we got a look for Armageddon yeah the second coming that Christ comes what happens when Christ comes back those who are saved go to heaven everybody else goes to eternal perdition what happens to the Jews yeah actually a hundreds according to one of the denominations a hundred and sixty thousand can convert in time the rest go to eternal perdition yeah did Hitler call for them No I mean this is the reservation structure grandma but this is part of the support for Israel we have to support Israel because that's going to lead to the battle that Armageddon between Israel and whoever the next enemy is shifts from time to time and after that will come this wonderful thing in fact the Israeli government has a very interesting policy towards these guys it kind of welcomes them because it wants the support you know they want the embassy in Jerusalem and so on but it's afraid of them because these are crazy lunatics who go up to try to blow up the Temple Mount they've got to stop them before they do it you know because they are super anti-semites and way beyond it like there's an article in The Times today about anti-semitism on the right left yeah yeah what they call anti-semitism on the left is say Jeremy Corbyn being critical of policies of Israel that's any Semitism on the left the right of course neo Nazism Holocaust denial and so on shooting blowing up synagogues that's the right but they don't talk about this which is the most extreme anti-semitism in human history there's nothing like it you know I mean just think it through for a second well that's what I mean by beliefs influence actions and that's why that's I guess ultimately why if every man was an island I where every person was an island I would argue it doesn't matter what people believe but people but but it produces actions it affects national policies and ultimately that's why I think we have to be wary about the impact of organized religion the one thing on which we perhaps differ as I think there are other strains that can develop oh yeah no I look I mean the point is that Martin Luther King is an example I mean you can use a mere religions been used for lots of Enso's liberation theology yeah it's a very interesting development because it did lead to a war against the church with many religious martyrs that's a nasty forgotten yeah who's gonna even name the Latin American intellectuals about their brains blown up yeah none you can name every dissident in Eastern Europe yeah these guys who we killed in this regard when we talked about we talked about dangers of say evangelical terrorism and versus the the threat of Islamic terrorism which which we we both argue but I've certainly argue at one point in other in terms of the day-to-day life of Americans is not a big deal we've both been attacked but particularly I was dismayed by by by Sam Harris's a virulent attack and to some extent you because I know Sam and I've worked with him in different ways but the one statement he made that that that concerned me it was a statement that I was surprised when he said that Ben you know he would prefer ben Carson someone who clearly is so no concept of how the world works no concept of science but he knows how poor people ought to be treated yeah okay yeah but he better you know he says that science is the work of the devil that climate change everything is the you know that evolution is the work of the devil but but Sam who's a you know in otherwise in mind many it said many reasonable things I said he'd prefer him as president versus you because at least he understands the threat of his llama k-- terrorism and I that's a statement that concerns me so I thought I'd bring it up because well let's take the threat of Islamic terrorism let's look at the history Islamic terrorism the modern period it begins basically in Egypt against the government of nineteen seventies it was a it was an internal of Middle Eastern phenomenon until basically until the reaction to 9/11 the reaction to 9/11 at that point Islamic terrorism was pretty much confined to a tribal area in the Pakistan Afghan border the region where al-qaida was sheltered that was the center of Islamic terrorism what where is it now everywhere in the world yeah how'd that happen we did it the invasion of Iraq yeah intelligence agencies predicted across the board this is going to increase terrorism turns out by US government records that Islamic terrorism increased by a factor of seven after the Iraq war yeah I smash people in the face they react something else yeah now it's all over the world every time you you go after it it's like a Hydra you know yeah great more you carry out the drone attacks in northwest Pakistan or Yemen somebody sees their family blown up by something you think they like it okay how do they react and in fact if you want to think about this in some depth there's another book I'd recommend great book by William Polk who's fine a scholar of mainly Middle East Islamic studies but also has a strong background in the in the government he was on the National Security Council for Middle East affairs right through the Cuban Missile Crisis in fact he's the guy who sort of organized for the negotiations between Israel and Egypt very important background on a very smart interesting guy as a book called Crusaders and jihadis that's a very interesting book covering a thousand years of history from the Crusades to the present and what he points out is that this is largely a war of the north against the south and a large part of the south is the Islamic South it's a war in which the north has continually attacked the south brutally viciously destructively the Islamic world has tried all sorts of ways to respond negotiations accommodation one thing or another everything's been smashed down finally they've turned to Islamic terror okay that's yes that's real history the kind you have to think about it's not history is bunk well it's also but it's not it's not untrue that in some sense from a blue religious perspective there is a religious justification that is used in the Islamic world for violence you take careful look at that so the there's been a lot of careful study of the jihadi sharps Scott atrum for yeah I know okay you know what they put what he and others point out is that the Islamic element of it is very thin yeah yeah most of the militant jihadists have just have essentially no Islamic background they picked it up yeah after the judgment okay but the commitment comes from other things the kind of things that William polkas talking about and the repression and so on or even just things like peer pressure well what I wanted to argue is that this nothing new about that in some sense there are newer religion but the Crusades were work were Christian states but there were political just deliberately unless worth they were hideous terror oh exactly the same way but it was six hundred years earlier seven hundred years earlier well Islam's a religion that six hundred years younger it's not to surprise it but but again it's not a political cause its own its own its own history of violence yeah of course the picture that Pope presents is fundamentally correct it is a north-south war thousand years the North wins all the time it beats back now and then and it just gets more and more violent and destructive that's a persistent theme can't forget that well let's let's let's continue with it I want to try and conclude well we bet you know in a few minutes we could go on for a long time but I want to I want to go back in terms of this thrilling and uplifting theme we have of violence and destruction it seems to to the book by Daniel Ellsberg the doomsday machine I think it's called incredibly important book yeah be rude yeah and some of the things in it are really startling um this is his discussion of things he'd discovered when he was right on the inside starting in the 50s and certainly as he points out he was a hawk he believed it well you know it's just appalled by the things he was discovering but one of them was that the psyops you know they the strategic plans for nuclear weapons called for killing 600 million people if we decision you know yeah it was amazing marketing the structure was such that if there was a confrontation in Berlin we would wipe out China yeah literally why because we can do it you know China's vulnerable with all these ships and missiles there so the Russians do something in Berlin will wipe out China you know yeah and this was just this is not the Hawks this is everybody right through probably still the case then comes his discovery that under Eisenhower the the afar authority to use nuclear weapons was sub delegated under Eisenhower to Admirals and Generals but the logic was well if the top gets decapitated somebody else has to do it and that logic happens to proliferate so if it goes down to generals what if they get killed okay you have to permit it down to lower levels turns out it was all the way down to pilots if you look at the memoirs in the of the Cuban Missile Crisis people who are flying the so-called chrome-dome missions b-52s were all over the place ready to wipe out the world you know the shot of an arm the commanders of a b-52 plane it could have decided to do it now in theory it took two of them to agree yeah yeah suppose one of them was asleep something yeah I mean it's just mind boggling Sandy Cohen was unless he points out you know Herman Kahn will have fantasized about doomsday machines well we have it the system is a doomsday machine if anything goes wrong you just blow up the world and once we've learned about nuclear winter you know you can debate the details but something's there well it's it's really it's it's particularly serious I think for Americans who think that I mean who become complacent about nuclear weapons but think well probably the most dangerous place where nuclear weapons my abuses India Pakistan where there really are two states that really are and war that really hate each other that both are nuclear States and what what is important to point out is that is that it's not isolated that a mere use of 200 nuclear weapons and in India and Pakistan will produce a climate change that will probably kill a billion people in terms of the agriculture over the course of a decade so there is no it's not as if a local there's not even the local local option you know you can't think about it yeah and meanwhile the Trump administration is escalating the threat the so-called the low yield nuclear weapons I mean you know people can think about this you can't even imagine what's in their minds suppose you're the opponent and somebody launches a missile which you say has only low-yield nuclear weapons on it yeah how do they know no they're cracked with but but massive violence that you've done you of usable nuclear weapons is a fallacy and it's unfortunately the notion that if they're small enough they're they're indistinguishable from we have to overcome that but that's the as far as I can see that's a myth that's happening now and that's why they dale's per book I think is important because it points out people have become complacent because we've had 75 years of not using them against civilian populations but and it took a look at the record yeah we've come so close slow in control a wonderful book about about how close we've come to domestically and internationally to it is not going to last forever I'm in their case if the case we've come within a couple of minutes of using them well look before we do go to a different area why because I know particularly I know because your wife was interested in it was from Brazil wanted us to talk about Brazil a little bit let's let's talk about it a little bit well Brazil remember is the most important country in the hemisphere outside the United States not a small country it's been called hundred years ago yeah called the Colossus of the south potentially yeah so what's happened in Brazil reason I won't go through the whole history of course but just recently in 2003 they elected Lula da Silva president he's a uneducated union leader a very remarkable person I knew him back in the 90s follow him closely he's very remarkable person very effective you don't take my opinion the World Bank published a study of Brazil in 2016 hey 2016 on which they discussed what they called the golden decade a unique period in Brazil's history under Lula's two terms 2003 to 2011 a period in which there was remarkable improvement poverty reduction enormous poverty reduction large expansion of inclusiveness marginalized but remember these are very unequal countries were rich but incredibly unequal enormous poverty tremendous resources wasted inclusion of people afro-brazilians almost half the population indigenous people and women brought in to educational institutions a sense of dignity of commitment that country just changed if they say it's a remarkable example of the development rarely equal at the same time lula became probably the most respected statesmen in the world a very respected States as a voice for the global self respected everywhere I remember visiting Brazil it seemed like yeah it seemed like the a beacon you know it was an a remarkable period well Brazilian elites couldn't tolerate this and not only that he was very supportive of establishment institutions they didn't but interfere with did not realize Robbie in the country you know he didn't he paid off the debts to the foreign investors he satisfied the IMF he's not a radical yeah I'm his beliefs very straight or you just put money in the hands of poor people that'll take care of things that's his radicalism but the for the Brazilian a lead who are outlandish all the Latin American elite this is intolerable furthermore there's an enormous class hatred how can this uneducated worker who doesn't even speak proper Portuguese dare to be sitting in the presidential palace you know we can these people have to have humility we'll take care of them that sort of thing that's deeply rooted all throughout Latin America and Brazil in particular anyhow as soon as he after a couple of years after he stepped down the oil prices dropped and the commodity prices dropped in China cutting back development there's a lot of claims that the improvements under his rule were just illusory there but the World Bank didn't agree that you look at their analysis they say it's not true in fact if you look more closely I've written about this the Brazilian economist of written about it the it was the mainly the predatory financial institutions who prevented any sensible reaction to this every effort that was taken was beaten back and it did lead to a recession that gave the opportunity for the soft coup that's been going on since then the first step was to impeach his successor Dilma Rousseff on absolutely the riser II grounds I mean you look at them it's not even a joke and she was in each by a gang of thieves of a sort you can't even describe that was the first step then comes the next just a couple months ago there was an election coming up in October October 2018 the Lula was way ahead in the polls I was pretty clear it's going to win the election so what they do put him in jail solitary confinement 25-year sentence of basically a death sentence prevented from reading newspapers and journals and crucially prevented from making a public statement not like murderers and death row this is right before the election next step which is we should look closely cuz it's a test run for the 2020 election here a massive campaign on the social media which are the main source of information for most of the population presses of course mostly right-wing but these are but the media campaign is just unbelievable I mean the the lies the fabrications the vitriol you know the the Workers Party his party is planning to turn every before the boys into homosexuals it's gonna kill religion they're gonna put out baby bottles with penises as the nipples you know on and on like this people believe that you know they finally managed just by these means you know shut up silence the guy who's gonna probably gonna win it's a flood the so-called information system with grotesque lies and attacks that can't be responded to and remember we're going to see this soon we're starting to see it already this is testerone they managed to get into office a guy who's the most outrageous of the right-wing fanatics all over the world I'm just illustrating this is a guy who when he was in the Parliament when he voted for the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff he dedicated his vote to her torturer she was a guerrilla tortured by the military regime he dedicated his vote to her torturer the general who was in charge of the torture he supports the military dictatorship which was vicious mm-hmm but with but he criticizes it too because it didn't go far enough he said it should it should have was too soft they should have killed 30,000 people like the Argentine's did the worst of the military dictators yes he goes back to the 19th century and criticizes the Brazilian cavalry because they didn't do what the Americans did wipe out the indigenous population if they'd done that we wouldn't have these problems today in fact now that he's in office now first of all he's his economics adviser is a ultra-right Chicago boy public ADA's his motto is literally privatize everything sell the country out to mostly foreign investors killed right now they're killing the social security system which is not that strong but something hand everything over to the rich and the powerful the newest legislation has changed the history books so that they don't criticize the military dictatorship they say it was necessary to protect the country from communism he says the whole country has been taken over but what's called cultural Marxism including the right-wing press University you've got a block that science is finished we don't support that we don't waste money on that kind of stuff so the Brazilian science is pretty powerful interesting things coming in current so I mean this is just indescribable and it's happening in the most powerful country important country in Latin America one of the most important in the world with the strong support of the United States very powerful in fact this media campaign and you can't prove it but it has all the fingerprints of the people who've been running these things elsewhere well let's let's I want to try what it's gonna get two linguist what you're not gonna get to but look we've been a sobering conversation in many ways but I wanted to end by by talking about your balance I mean we didn't get to talk much about science a little bit but but you've devoted much of your life to writing your popular writing has been other than interviews with you your popular writing has been primarily on issues that we've been talking about now where is your your scientific writing in linguistics has not been you know as far as I know spend a lot of time on popular books on linguistics okay and so I want to and so I wanted to talk about that balance is someone who also does science and is written about science and and writes about it this balance to ask you wha whether you feel I've often people often asked me if you felt compromised because one takes away from the other yeah and and I have my own answer to that but I wanted to hear about yours whether you felt that the the efforts you've devoted to to exposing what you view as fundamental problems that need to be addressed for society has has of course compromised potentially the time you could have spent on linguistics and philosophy and how you feel about that if the world would go away I'd be much happier just to keep to the scientific philosophical issues that's really intellectually exciting frankly these issues we're now talking we've been talking about are pretty superficial it doesn't take much to figure them out and understand them there's nothing profound about it you don't have to have a PhD and political science to talk about these things the Guild's try to protect themselves but the fact that it's not a criticism of the fields I mean they're yeah they're just too complicated yeah so things are complicated you don't get deep theories I mean physics is lucky if things get too complicated just hand it over to the chemist yeah physics is easiest you can't do that with human life you know so it's but but the point is anybody can understand these things if they want it's not intellectually exciting it's humanly significant and it's there's a lot of frustration because you know that what you're gonna do is going to be smashed and slaughtered in the mainstream with tons of lies and attacks there's all kind of evidence about this I won't go into it so in a way it's you know it's kind of like wasted in a sense except for the whatever effect it may have for the public so if it's wasted why if you do it and it because I think it's just critically important so like six say the Vietnam War when Kennedy started escalating the war I really had I remember a personal decision nobody cares about this am I gonna start trying to do something about it or can I keep to my work which was at a very exciting period at the time it was young person Department developing all kind of new ideas and I knew perfectly well from experience I have an activist history yeah you put your one toe in and pretty soon you're swimming yeah you know just do a lot yeah any better pound I just decided it's got to be done you know it looked hopeless at the time as I mentioned before it took years before you could even talk about these things but they're just too important to let go i fact that Bertrand Russell was asked once around the 19 late 1960s why he's wasting his time on anti-nuclear activities when he could be producing more serious work and philosophy and logic and he said if I don't work on the nuclear activities nobody's gonna look at the philosophy of logic well I think I mean you said it before it looked hopeless in the Vietnam War and ultimately it wasn't it was really social it was really the raising of consciousness about about by that war that have ultimately forced the notice that it's dual it was effective among the population among the intellectual classes basically zero but yet they can't go beyond it was a mistake no well yeah but I nevertheless I think the lesson from this is that we've spent two hours now talking about largely talking about problems that will depress people and they're serious problems in the world today but the fact that you chose that you chose to devote much of your life and time to at least talking about these issues raising consciousness pointing out that people could understand them and that's the first step to action is incredibly important and I think that's why I feel I'm happy we were able to spend this time and I think the world it we're lucky that you did that and I'm hoping that we will continue our conversations and people who agree or disagree will least be motivated to ask the questions simple questions about about the world that need to be asked if we're gonna make if we're gonna try and address the important challenges of the 21st century which are now global which as you said not our just nuclear weapons climate change we need to have these discussions and I and literally millions of people thank you for what you've done thanks a lot no thanks the origins podcast is produced by Lawrence Krauss Nancy doll Amelia Huggins John and Don Edwards and Rob Zeb's directed and edited by Gus and Lou coordi audio by Thomas a misen web designed by Redman Media Lab comm animation by tomahawk visual effects and music by Rick Alice to see the full video of this podcast as well as other bonus content visit us at patreon.com slash origins podcast

Channel: The Origins Podcast

Views: 393,391

Rating: 4.7499089 out of 5

Keywords: The Origins Podcast, Lawrence Krauss, The Origins Podcast with Lawrence Krauss, The Origins Project, Science, Podcast, Culture, Physicist, Video Podcast, Physics, Noam, Chomsky, Lawrence, Krauss, sam harris, Trump, impeachment, Brazil, Syria, Iran, lula

Id: yuVqfKYbGvE

Length: 124min 55sec (7495 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 02 2019

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