• Noam Chomsky: We are racing madly towards total catastrophe under the l

    From Steve Hayes@21:1/5 to All on Sun Aug 2 12:32:18 2020
    XPost: alt.fan.noam-chomsky, talk.politics.misc, alt.politics.religion
    XPost: alt.christnet.ethics

    Noam Chomsky: We are racing madly towards total catastrophe under the leadership of sociopathic fanatics
    Published 2 days ago on July 31, 2020 By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!

    As the U.S. coronavirus death toll tops 150,000, we spend the hour
    with world-renowned political dissident, linguist and author Noam
    Chomsky, who says decades of neoliberal policies that shredded the
    social safety net and public institutions left the country
    ill-prepared for a major health crisis. “We should understand the
    roots of this pandemic,” he says.

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    AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, Democracynow.org, The Quarantine
    Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

    The U.S. coronavirus death toll has topped 150,000 on Wednesday, the
    highest of any nation by far. The hardest hit states per capita are
    Florida, Louisiana, Arizona, Mississippi, Alabama, Nevada, South
    Carolina, Texas, Idaho, Tennessee and Georgia, a list that includes
    all seven of the original Confederate states.

    Today we talk about COVID and so much more as we spend the hour with
    Noam Chomsky, the world-renowned political dissident, linguist and
    author, Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of
    Technology, where he taught for more than 50 years, now laureate
    professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of
    Arizona. Author of more than 100 books. Professor Chomsky spoke with
    Democracy Now!’s Nermeen Shaikh and I on Thursday, from his home in
    Tucson, Arizona about the coronavirus crisis.

    NOAM CHOMSKY We should understand the roots of this pandemic. If we do
    not understand the roots and extirpate them, there is going to be
    another and worse one coming. So far we have been kind of lucky. The coronavirus, pandemics, epidemics are very serious, and there are many possibilities. So far, all the ones that have happened in the last ten
    or 15 years, either the virus has been very deadly but not very
    contagious, like Ebola, or very contagious but not very deadly, like
    COVID-19. What happens when the next one comes along that is both very contagious and very deadly? We are in deep trouble. Deep. Much worse
    than this. Much worse than the so-called “Spanish flu,” which ought to
    be called the Kansas flu by Trump’s logic. It originated in Kansas the century ago. We may be facing something much worse than that.

    There are ways of dealing with it. After the SARS epidemic in 2003,
    scientists knew that another one is very likely. They warned against
    it. They presented policies that could be carried out. They weren’t implemented, in part because of deep institutional pathologies. The
    drug companies who are the obvious candidates for dealing with it
    can’t, by straight capitalist logic. You don’t spend money to try to prevent a catastrophe ten years from now. What you do is try to make
    money tomorrow. That is the logic of the system. So the pharmaceutical companies were ruled out by capitalist logic.

    The government could step in. The government, in any event, does most
    of the basic research for vaccines and drugs, almost all of them. So
    they could have stepped in, create laboratories, and plenty of
    unlimited resources. But they are blocked by the neoliberal plague.
    Remember Ronald Reagan—that government is the problem, not the
    solution, which means we have to take decision-making and action out
    of the hands of government, which has a flaw; it’s somewhat responsive
    to the population. We have to shift it to unaccountable, private
    tyrannies, which are totally unaccountable to the population. That is
    the meaning of Reagan’s slogan. That is the fundamental principle of neoliberalism. We’ve been suffering—the world has been suffering from
    it for 40 years, except for the tiny percentage who have become super
    rich and extremely powerful. Well, that blocks the government.

    Nevertheless, there were things that the government could do. When the
    Obama administration took office, in the first few days, Obama called
    the presidential scientific advisory board, which had been established
    by George H.W. Bush, the first Bush, who had some respect for science.
    Obama called it. He requested that they put together a pandemic
    reaction program, a way to deal with a pandemic if it comes. They came
    up with a report a couple weeks later. It was implemented. It was in
    place until January 2017.

    Trump came into office, the first few days, dismantled the whole
    system. Nothing. That’s part of the general wrecking ball. “We have to destroy everything that Obama did. We have to wreck everything.”
    Because it is the only way to look like you are doing something.
    Happening all over. So that went.

    There were programs of U.S. scientists working in China with Chinese
    colleagues to try to detect and identify coronaviruses. Most of them
    are deep in caves. It’s very dangerous work. Some have been killed,
    Chinese scientists. But they were finding them and identifying them
    and testing them. The Wuhan Institute of Virology is the main center
    for investigating this. Trump canceled the program.

    There were simulations run of a pandemic as late as October 2019
    warning of what would happen. No attention. The Trump administration
    isn’t interested. So when the epidemic finally hit, the United States
    was singularly unprepared. After that comes a series of grotesque
    inactions and actions. For a couple of months, Trump refused to admit
    that it was happening.

    Other countries were doing things. In Asia, Oceania, Australia, New
    Zealand, they were reacting. Some of it, South Korea, which was one of
    the first places hit, never had to go to a lockdown because they dealt
    with it rationally. They identified the places that were hot spots,
    controlled them, tested, traced people for contacts. Countries pretty
    much functioned. Vietnam has reported zero deaths, and apparently that
    is taken quite seriously by leading U.S. specialists. The Johns
    Hopkins School of Public Health, which monitors the international
    situation, records zero deaths from Vietnam, which has a 1,400-mile
    border with China. South Korea, Taiwan, New Zealand, Australia are
    doing quite well. And Europe, they delayed in quite a way, but they
    did finally act. As you mentioned, the curve has sharply reduced since
    March for most of Europe. Some of them, like Norway, Germany, doing
    quite well in this respect. People are traveling through southern
    Italy almost like normal.

    It has gotten so extreme that, as you know, Europe has banned American visitors. The United States is such a pariah state that Americans are
    not permitted to go to other countries. Other countries won’t allow
    them in. This is kind of mimicked in a horrible way in Brazil.
    Bolsonaro just denies that it’s happening. “It’s just a mild flu.
    Don’t worry about it. Brazilians are strong. We don’t care.” So big meetings of right-wing Bolsonaro supporters dancing in the streets and spreading the virus, and Bolsonaro says fine.

    And one of the really world-shaking crimes that is being carried out
    is the destruction of the Amazon. That affects the whole world, not
    just Brazil. It’s basically genocide to the indigenous populations. Scientific predictions are that on our current course, the Amazon will
    shift in about 15 years from being a net sink of carbon dioxide to a
    net emitter of carbon dioxide, sometimes called the lungs of the
    Earth. The forest absorbs huge amounts of carbon dioxide. It will
    start emitting them instead. A little further down the road, the
    Amazon, under the current course, will just turn into savanna, no
    forest anymore. Devastating for Brazil and the other Amazonian
    countries. Devastating for the world. It’s one of the main oxygen
    producers of the world.

    At every level, we are racing madly towards total catastrophe under
    the leadership of sociopathic fanatics. It is as if some evil demon
    decided to take over the human species and drive them to
    self-destruction. Much of the world is trying to counter it, almost
    all of the world, but the United States and Brazil are the extreme
    cases of racing with dedication towards disaster.

    Going back to this election, that is the reason why it is the most
    dangerous, the most significant election in history. Why Trump is, in fact—this may sound outrageous, but it’s true—Trump is the most
    dangerous figure in human history. The Republican Party today is the
    most dangerous organization in human history. You can compare Trump
    to, say, Hitler, the Wannsee declaration in 1942, called for killing
    all the Jews, tens of millions of Slavs, not destroying humanized
    society. There has been nothing like this. Nothing.

    The Republican Party, we know how they shifted. You go back just a
    decade or so, John McCain, 2008, was running for president. His
    program had some pretty weak, but some policies directed to global
    warming. The Republican Congress was beginning to contemplate global
    warming, policies to restrict global warming. The Koch brothers, a
    superrich energy corporation, got wind of this. They had been working
    for years to prevent it. David Koch, one of the Koch brothers who died recently, launched an incredible campaign to make sure that the
    Republican Party would turn to denialism. They bribed senators,
    intimidated others with the threat of running counter-campaigns
    against them. Huge lobbying campaign. Astroturf campaigns. A massive juggernaut. The party shifted, dropped all of its efforts to deal with
    climate change. It’s now a party led by denialists.

    AMY GOODMAN: As you talk about this denialism and the science
    denialism, first dealing with the climate crisis and then extending to
    the pandemic, both threatening life on Earth, with President Trump now
    holding a daily coronavirus press briefing without the scientists, you
    have Anthony Fauci throwing out the first ball at the Washington
    Nationals game, the chief infectious disease scientist, who won’t play
    ball exactly with the White House, so he is not in the coronavirus
    briefing. You have Dr. Birx. President Trump says she’s right outside,
    but she is not a part of this news conference. Do you think reporters
    who are sitting in the White House briefing room should refuse to be
    there unless scientists are there and unless President Trump wears a
    mask?

    NOAM CHOMSKY: Yes, I think so, and I think they should do much more.
    They should be pointing out constantly what I just said: we’re dealing
    with the most dangerous figure in human history, backed by the most
    dangerous organization in human history, and give the facts. Not only
    the pandemic, but the much more serious threat of environmental
    disaster and the growing, very severe threat of nuclear war.

    In my opinion, every newspaper should have on the front page an image
    of the Doomsday Clock. You know all about this, but every January, the
    Bulletin of Atomic Scientists gathers—the main scientific journal
    dealing with these issues—gathers scientists, political analysts to
    try to give an estimate of the security, the state of the world
    security. Started shortly after the atom bomb, it has been going on
    for 75 years. The minute hand is moved closer or farther—it oscillates—closer or farther to midnight, depending how dangerous the
    world situation is. Midnight means we are finished.

    Every year that Trump has been in office, the minute hand has moved
    closer to midnight. Two years ago, it reached the closest it had ever
    been. This last January, the analysts gave up minutes; they moved to
    seconds. A hundred seconds to midnight. Since January, Trump has made
    every one of the issues that they have brought up worse. There were
    three major issues. One is of course the threat of nuclear war, second
    the threat of environmental catastrophe, the third the deterioration
    of democracy. Which does belong, because it is only with a vibrant
    democracy of informed, engaged public that we can have any hope of
    escaping from the two existential crises.

    Since January, Trump has succeeded in making all three crises worse. I
    mention the nuclear weapons issue, considerably worse thanks to
    Trump’s actions. The environmental crisis of course getting worse, as
    he continues to press for maximization of the use of the most
    dangerous fossil fuels, cuts back through his EPA representatives and
    others, cuts back on the efforts to mitigate the crisis through
    regulatory means. And democracy, it’s pretty obvious; the executive
    branch has been essentially cleansed of independent voices. Nothing
    but sycophants of Pompeo variety. “We were sent by God to save
    Israel.”

    The Inspectors General who were imposed by Congress, by the Republican
    Congress to monitor malfeasance of the executive branches, purged.
    Trump in fact went out of his way to humiliate the senior Republican
    senator, Charles Grassley, who had spent much of his career imposing
    these monitors. The attorney for the Southern District of New York
    looked into the Trump swamp; fired. Congress, turned by McConnell,
    used to be called the greatest deliberative body in the world. Now it
    is a joke. Doesn’t do any deliberation. It does essentially nothing
    except try to race through as many appointments of young, ultra-right
    judges as possible so they can pack the judiciary for a generation.
    The only other thing it does is figure out ways to pour money into the—dollars into the pockets of the rich, like the tax scam. That’s
    the Senate, the greatest deliberative body. Proposals come from the
    House for legislation; McConnell just cans them. Don’t look at them.
    That is not the role of the Senate.

    Going back, that’s why they should be putting the Doomsday Clock on
    the front of every newspaper. Show us what the United States is doing
    to the world. To itself and the world. That should be in front of
    everyone’s attention. And there are many other things that should be
    done. There should be major protests now, everywhere, against the use
    of military force to occupy American cities and to crush peaceful
    dissidents. This is intolerable in a functioning democracy. We can’t
    sit by and let it happen, just let it proceed step by step until we
    reach real catastrophe.

    AMY GOODMAN: Professor Noam Chomsky. When we come back from break, he
    talks about Israel’s threat to annex the West Bank, the upcoming U.S. election and more.

    Source:
    https://t.co/DUBOWzYz8m?amp=1

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    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Siri Cruise@21:1/5 to Steve Hayes on Sun Aug 2 10:08:11 2020
    XPost: alt.fan.noam-chomsky, talk.politics.misc, alt.politics.religion
    XPost: alt.christnet.ethics

    In article <ve5difd155buries12fot5cpeh8oubsq27@4ax.com>,
    Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> wrote:

    As the U.S. coronavirus death toll tops 150,000, we spend the hour
    with world-renowned political dissident, linguist and author Noam
    Chomsky, who says decades of neoliberal policies that shredded the
    social safety net and public institutions left the country
    ill-prepared for a major health crisis. “We should understand the
    roots of this pandemic,” he says.

    It was pointed out last spring that american governments have to
    make real reforms to help people survive the crisis rather than
    another tax cut for the rich. Or people will die from plague and
    starvation.

    We have chosen.

    Letting people have a share of the productivity (profits) they
    created is deemed evil socialism and will not be allowed. So here
    in one of the richest nation poor people are being forced to go
    out to jobs and die from disease or stay at home and starve. And
    now even staying home is not option because vast numbers of poor
    people are being evicted even though nobody has the money to rent
    the vacated apartments. Congress could do something about this,
    but they have more important matters like protecting our precious
    civil war treason statues.

    unlimited resources. But they are blocked by the neoliberal plague.
    Remember Ronald Reagan—that government is the problem, not the

    (As an aside if anything Reagan is meta-liberal, then I don't
    know what liberal means.)

    At every level, we are racing madly towards total catastrophe under
    the leadership of sociopathic fanatics. It is as if some evil demon
    decided to take over the human species and drive them to

    I'm sad to say I have had to drop the 'as if'. People will do
    evil; it is in our nature. People also do good, and people who do
    evil can change and do good. I've never thought people who do
    evil are evil people until this year. I just never considerred
    more than tiny, isolated, irrelevant people to be evil.

    In this year I have seen such blasphemies and heresies of so
    called conservative christians and their delight in hatred, in
    killing and batterring other humans. You will know a tree by its
    fruit. Their fruit is bitter with poison.

    I can no longer dismiss this as doing evil. They are evil; they
    have chosen to turn from Jesus to worship the enemy. It makes me
    so sad.

    --
    :-<> Siri Seal of Disavowal #000-001. Disavowed. Denied. Deleted. @
    'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' /|\
    The first law of discordiamism: The more energy This post / \
    to make order is nore energy made into entropy. insults Islam. Mohammed

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Phantom_View@21:1/5 to hayesstw@telkomsa.net on Sun Aug 2 20:19:47 2020
    XPost: alt.fan.noam-chomsky, talk.politics.misc, alt.politics.religion
    XPost: alt.christnet.ethics

    On Sun, 02 Aug 2020 12:32:18 +0200, Steve Hayes
    <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> wrote:

    Noam Chomsky: We are racing madly towards total catastrophe under the >leadership of sociopathic fanatics

    Is that commie idiot still alive ? I had hoped he'd died
    of something painful and humiliating years ago .....

    The "catastrophe" is the further-left/neo-coms. They
    have ruined and enslaved and destroyed many
    nations and now have their sights on the USA and
    'western democracy' in general.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)