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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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today.
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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