Pre-Election Special with Noam Chomsky

real politics means constant engagement and activism that's what makes things happen so welcome to the program gnome it is wonderful to have you let me begin by asking how you're feeling at this moment meaning what's your take on this election as far as how is it going for the various parties and people well this is an unusual election i think in the voting it's up for grabs despite what the polls say but there's another question hanging over it which has never risen in 350 years of parliamentary democracy in england 250 years here will the incumbent refuse to be willing to leave office if he doesn't like the outcome of the election he's already said he won that's never happened we're already in uncharted territory trump has said if he doesn't think basically if he doesn't like the way it comes out he'll declare it to be fraudulent illegitimate furthermore there's what is called the republican party which years ago used to be a genuine parliamentary party but now has just become a gang of people sitting in the president's pocket psychophants doing whatever he says and the republican party has already began quite publicly organizing ways to undermine the electoral results by legalistic maneuvers of a variety of kinds if they don't like the way the outcome came out so we're in a new situation so should people amongst the populous think their vote doesn't matter if it could be stolen if there could be what amounts to a coup if the forces are ranked against them in the way that you describe why vote if the vote does count the greater the vote against trump the harder it will be to pull off these shenanigans and we certainly don't give up first of all we don't know that this is going to happen secondly we can prevent it from happening just by a substantial vote against trump thirdly even if it does happen doesn't mean game over that means you have to turn to other means of protesting the coup d'etat so i think a lot of options were open so let's talk about that side of this equation you have an essay in a book called turnout mobilizing voters in an emergency it's part of a longer collection that you have coming out later this year around universalizing resistance why is turnout so important to you today and is it simply a matter of just turning out and casting a vote it's always far more important than elections it's just that it's never been posed as an issue before it was just in the traditional left just taken for granted just understood forever that real politics means constant engagement and activism that's what makes things happen now in this particular moment it happens to be of crucial importance because we're in a unique unusual moment but the turnout and the pressure is constant no matter who's president with one exception this one we've seen one of the largest uprisings and most sort of interconnected movements of our times the movement around black lives and calling for a racial reckoning in this country in the context of the covert pandemic those issues of bias and poverty and discrimination and violence and who gets what kind of care have been brought into sharp relief that being the case i would think he would be a bit more hopeful or optimistic about this election in this moment i would be if it were not for the unique phenomenon unprecedented phenomenon of a malignant cancer in the white house that happens to dominate the scene other than that yes you'd be right the mobilizations after the george floyd murder were without any precedent biggest social movement in american history developed very quickly now it didn't just come from nowhere came from years of organizing and activism those are the things you don't see much when they're happening but they're what lay the basis after the assassination of george floyd they broke out with enormous popular support about two-thirds of the population was supporting them that's way more support than martin luther king got at the peak of his popularity and that shows what regular steady activism can produce now if it wasn't for the malignancy which we have to get rid of or we're in deep trouble yes it would be a very optimistic prospect we could move forward on many fronts the same is true incidentally even the biden campaign the dnc the democratic party management that's clintonite donor-oriented they don't want any of this stuff but they've been pressed forced by popular activism to accept reluctantly a party program which is pretty progressive by the standards of the democratic party very progressive goes well beyond precedent not because of religious conversion because of the forces that have been mobilized it's created a situation in which the democratic party managers just like reagan and nixon cannot refrain from offering at least something and if their feet are held to the fire by continued activism they'll have to deliver i've just two last questions one has to do with what has often been called the great man theory of history that there are individuals who turn the tide of history and often that's counterposed to the sense of movements and trends and historic factors that create change which side of that are you on and is this moment a kind of complexity of both well this moment there's a great man who happens to be a wrecker and has tremendous power behind him okay so that's unique it's not the great man theory of history it's uh the great wrecker theory of history sometimes that happens but putting that aside take a look at these people we think of as great men who achieved something there are such people like take martin luther king he achieved a lot okay how did he do it i suppose martin luther king had gotten up out of nowhere and said i have a dream and so on end of story martin luther king was able to make that speech after years of work by people whose names nobody knows i don't know i suspect you don't know the name of the names of the four black kids who sat in at the segregated lunch counter in greensboro north carolina and were dragged off in jail uh others came after them all of this went on for years many years finally it got to the point where martin luther king could set up stand up with the i have a dream speech you get lyndon johnson putting through some legislation so is that a great man theory of history well the fact that he did it was important probably nobody else like him was around and could have done it but on the back of tremendous amounts of work same with the almost anything you can think of one of my favorite lines from my old friend the late howard's inn was that history is made by countless unknown people who lay the bases for the events that finally occur i think pretty much that's the way it works you've seen a lot of history if i'm if i'm right i think you're in your 90s at this point and yet you've called this the most dangerous moment i think the most dangerous moment that you've seen really it's the most dangerous moment in human history we have to think what we're facing we will overcome the pandemic at needless cost we're not going to overcome the fact that the number of co2 particles the atmosphere is mounting very rapidly that's fixed we're not going to overcome the melting of the arctic ice sheets that's fixed this goes on for another 10 or 20 years without any action on our part we're toast continuing the current process say to the end of this century will lead estimated uh probably seven degrees fahrenheit or so above pre-industrial levels which is total cataclysm we're back to the period uh 125 000 years ago when the sea level is 25 feet higher than it is now just unthinkable we have the answers we know how to deal with it we have a couple of decades to implement them either we do it or we don't if we don't the species is essentially finished most other species along with it if we do it we can have a much better society that question has never arisen in human history ever and that's what we're facing now what does universalizing resistance then look like in this context every threat that we face pandemic heating of the environment they're all international there are no borders universalizing resistance means working together with people in other countries facing the same problems to overcome the malicious forces that are driving us to disaster and they're deep a lot of them are just inherent in the system of production for profit a lot of them are inherent in that others are affected by the twist that was given to this by the neoliberal programs of the last 40 years which have been disastrous and are still being implemented for example in the way the subsidy these cares program is being administered uh that are the way uh regulations to mitigate uh the effects of climate uh heating are being eliminated so there's deep problems there's immediate problems we can deal with them we can deal with them here the most important country in the world because of its power but we're gonna have to work with others everywhere beautiful thank you i think we've taken up enough of your time i appreciate it wonderful to see you again good to talk to you you

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Length: 13min 4sec (784 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 02 2020