Chomsky: Defeat Trump and Build a Popular Movement\

https://vimeo.com/414166067

Transcript

Paul Jay
Welcome to the analysis podcast. I’m Paul Jay. Thirty-eight years ago, a massive rally against nuclear weapons took place in Manhattan, two New York Times reported on June 13th, 1982, that hundreds of thousands of peaceful demonstrators opposed to nuclear arms overwhelmed Central Park in midtown Manhattan yesterday, killing the streets and grew with echoing songs and hopeful slogans. The demonstration was far larger than any during the anti-war movement of the late 1960s and early 70s, and was possibly the largest ever in the city.

The organizers said it was the biggest disarmament gathering in the nation’s history. Late in the afternoon, a police department spokesman said there might be as many as 600 or 700 thousand people around the park. Many of the dozens of speakers during the day urged the participants to continue the movement when they returned to their homes. “We shall not suffer silently the threat of nuclear holocaust,”said City Council President, Carol Bellamy, who addressed the crowd near the United Nations.

That was a report from The New York Times from June 13th, 1982. Other reports said there might have been a million people at the march.

Why highlight this march now during a pandemic that is killing tens of thousands of people around the world because the anti-scientific pandemic denial that exacerbated the current situation, the anti-scientific climate change denial that threatens human civilization is also at work with the denial of the threat of nuclear war that will likely end most life on Earth.

The 1982 march is an example of the kind of popular movement that is required now, but more so. We need a conscious movement that, on a broad national scale, demands urgent action in defense of the unemployed and for economic and racial justice, for immediate and profound action on climate change and concrete moves towards the reduction and eventual elimination of nuclear weapons. We may not be able to march for a while, but online and later in the streets and at the ballot box, such a popular movement will decide if we humans survive. Now, joining me to analyze this most existential moment, is Noam Chomsky.

His latest book is,”Internationalism or Extinction.”

Noam Chomsky
Delighted to be with you.

Paul Jay
So in the early 80s, there is a massive movement focused on the issue of threat, threat of nuclear war. That’s your dog in the background, I guess, is it?

Yeah, that’s OK. He can join the conversation.

Threat of nuclear war, which, you know, in a sense in the short term is the biggest threat. It’s not even being talked about. How do you explain how we go from massive protests in the 80s on this, to not even be not even being part of the discourse?

Noam Chomsky
We should, first of all, remember that those huge demonstrations had an effect, a significant effect. One effect was that their part, an important part of the background for the 1987 Reagan-Gorbachev agreement to establish the INF treaty, which sharply reduced the number of, the threat of war in Europe. The short term missiles, which were short range, were banned, which were extremely dangerous. That gave us a kind of a respite from very likely terminal nuclear war. And, of course, as you know, this was just dismantled by President Trump in last August who thumbed his nose at the world and still more spectacular way by immediately launching missiles, which violated the treaty, essentially inviting others, please create missiles to destroy us and gave a big shot in the arm to the military industry, which, of course, loves it.

Well, there wasn’t. But you’re right. This has severely declined. No matter how hard you try to bring it up. Why do you do what others do? It just doesn’t make a dent. Somehow it’s for people. It just somehow feels too remote. They have immediate problems. How am I going to? I mean, half the population in the United States is living essentially from paycheck to paycheck. They don’t have couple hundred, a couple hundred dollars to spare if anything goes wrong.

This is one of the triumphs of the neo-liberal period, assault on the population that Reagan inaugurated. These people just don’t have time to think about anything else. You remember in the Yellow Vest uprising in France a couple of months ago. People are saying that one of the cities slogan was you’re wearing about the end of the world. We are enduring, worrying about the end of the month. And if people are really in serious trouble, they just can’t think anymore.

That doesn’t answer the question why privileged elites who are getting by fine. And some of them are robbing the bank like gangsters. Why they don’t think about it? And that’s been very troubling, not just you and me, but to many others. A couple of years ago, William Perry, former defense secretary, long, long, many years involvement in trying to deal with the nuclear war issues in the government out of it, he commented. He’s now doubly terrified, terrified by the growing threat, which is very severe and terrified because he can’t seem to get anyone to pay attention to it. Well, that’s very serious. See, we have a president who is dedicated to destroying the last vestiges of arms control. INF treaty went down the tube last August. The Open Skies Treat, initiated by Eisenhower, is on the chopping block. The most crucial one, the new START treaty, which limits the number of missiles for the United States and Russia, actually for everyone. But they’re the only ones that matter, that come even near the threshold.. This is coming up for signing in early, in about a year, early 2021. The Russians have been pleading to negotiate for an extension. The Trump administration refuses to even talk about it, which presumably means they’re going to kill it, if he’s re-elected. That ends it. Then there’s no arms control structure any longer. If you look at the record over the past 70 years, 75 years, it’s kind of, it’s just a miracle that we’ve survived.

We’ve come very close to terminal nuclear war over and over. Threats growing, the arms control system that has reduced the threat has been, is being dismantled by our government, which seems to be bent on killing as many people as it can. The latest step was defunding the World Health Organization, which will have exactly that effect. They don’t care, and the population just seems resistant to seeing what’s before their eyes.

Paul Jay
People that are condemning Trump for pandemic and climate crisis denial. What about the denial of the threat of nuclear war? It seems to be the majority of the intelligentsia, even the progressive intelligentsia, do not say a word about it. And then you get to someone like Barack Obama, who early on in his presidency talked about the elimination of nuclear weapons. In fact, some people think that’s part of the reason he got a Nobel Peace Prize early. Practically before he’d done anything. But then he’s the one that signs off on a budget for 30 trillion, thirty trillion dollar investment in nuclear weapons.

Noam Chomsky
Now, that’s part of his general posture, was to whether to pretend or to claim, I don’t read his mind, that somehow he was making, he was accommodating with the political opposition, and they would forge a joint policy. Of course, they were just laughing at him all the way. Mitch McConnell made it very explicit. Soon as Obama was elected, that his task as Senate majority leader was to block anything that Obama tried to do. And he succeeded in that quite well. But Obama went along with the either pretense or claim? I don’t know what you just described part of it. The excuses the administration was that this was the only way that they could give compromises on other things, which is, of course, perfect nonsense. Kill any of the rhetorical claims that brought him into power. He didn’t do the worst things, but he certainly didn’t do the things he could have done.

Paul Jay
In Kaplan’s book on the nuclear war threat, he says that Biden opposed that investment and modernization of the American nuclear arms arsenal, didn’t believe that it was necessary or that the Republicans would hold up any end of any deals that were made. What expectations do you have for the what might be the Biden presidency?

Noam Chomsky
It’s very hard to say. He seems to have pretty much faded into the background. He doesn’t say much. What he does is pretty tepid. My impression is that in a Biden presidency, the decisions would be made by the people around him, and he would be very much of an empty shell. Probably, at least, I would hope, susceptible to popular pressures. There’s no doubt whatsoever that he would be. Immensely better than the megalomaniac sociopath who’s sitting in the White House now. But you could say that about the nearest lamp post. We happen to be threatened by one of the worst characters in political history. And the highest priorities to get rid of him, or we’re probably all toast. Biden, I suspect, would obviously be a greater improvement, a great improvement.But whether what he would do, I think, would depend very largely on the force of popular movements. Bernie Sanders, in his withdrawal speech, made a very important point, which he emphasized that it should be repeatedly emphasized. He said, “This campaign is ending, but the movement must continue. An electoral campaign is just one moment in an ongoing process.” We’re kind of trained to believe that it’s the end, or you just show up once every four years and then you go home. That’s a great way of inducing authoritarianism and passivity. But it’s not the case. What happens on the quadrennial extravaganza is you take off a little time, push a lever and go back to work on the hard, important things, the kind of activism and pressures that you described at the beginning that were part of the background for the important nuclear deal or the kind that have recently moved to Green New Deal, which something like that is essential for survival, moved it from way out in the margins to the center of the legislative agenda and many other cases.

That has to continue constantly. If it doesn’t, there is a group in the society, the business world, which is constantly, relentlessly fighting a bitter class war, doing it right now. They’re preparing for the future Right now, you know, the propaganda line is we can’t pay attention to the climate crisis because the pandemic is much worse. The rich and powerful aren’t listening to that. They’re taking every opportunity they have to maximize the climate crisis. That’s why the EPA is canceling the regulations to increase profit and deaths and lead to an intensified the climate crisis. That’s why President Trump in his quite astonishing budget proposal in February. I’m sure you’ve looked at that, but it really should be highlighted to mid-February. The epidemic already pandemic is raging. ‘Course Trump is denying it. Now he claims it’s the WHO’s fault. But it was he who was denying it. One can see that clearly. right in the middle of this he comes out with his budget. What does it call for? Increased defunding of the Center for Disease Control and other health related parts of the government. He’d been defunding it since he got into office. New budget, the middle of the pandemic is defunded, further. But he didn’t defund everything. For some things, he called for an increase in funding, including subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. I mean, these guys are really relentless. They never stop.And if we let them go on with our opposition, they’ll win that. We’ll all suffer badly. In fact, human survival is at stake.

Noam Chomsky
You said earlier that you don’t quite understand why the elites don’t get this; whether it’s pandemic, whether it’s climate or nuclear or these are threats to their own system, and there doesn’t seem to be a force within capital, within the elites that would rise the way an FDR did in the thirties That has, even in the defense of capitalism, has a far more far sighted, more rational approach. The narrow, short frame of the pursuit of profit. It’s gonna destroy their own system. And don’t they know that?

Sure. Let’s take J.P. Morgan Chase, America’s biggest bank. Jamie Diamond knows everything relevant. The CEO knows everything relevant about climate change and nuclear war. But he has a job. Maximize profits tomorrow. That’s what his huge salary depends on, his bonuses. That’s what his shareholders want. It’s what the ideology is. Remember, that there was a time. It’s called regimented capitalism, basically from Rosevelt pretty much up to Reagan, in which there actually were serious efforts on the part of the government and even on the part of some corporations to pay some attention to the long term future. That changed sharply when the shift to neo liberalism began. The doctrine announced by people like Milton Friedman. But of course, they’re not the ones who pushed it through; pushed through by corporate power and others with the Friedmanesque, Hayek’s style ideology, which says that your only goal as a corporate manager is greed. Try to make as much money for yourself and your shareholders, all very wealthy. If you pay attention to anything else, you’re undermining the foundations of civilization.

Now, this wasn’t just don’t pay attention to climate change and nuclear war. Reagan did some things that are really right on the in the headlines right now. But they’ve been going on for years. Like there’s a lot of justified protest now about the stimulus bill, which gives, I don’t the exact money. I think it’s 50 billion dollars to the airline industry, which has spent the last 10 years in an orgy of buybacks to raise stock prices and interfere with the market and benefit management at, approximately, the amount that’s being given to them in the stimulus. Why are they allowed to rob the public like this? Right. Stock buybacks. But with putting their money in an office in Bermuda and calling it and using tax haven and so on. That’s not small change. That’s tens of trillions of dollars of robbery. We can thank Ronald Reagan and Milton Friedman and all the rest up until the Reagan administration. All of that was illegal, flatly illegal, and it was enforced. The Treasury Department enforced it, and it wasn’t happening. Reagan’s. Under the neo liberal doctrines, appealing to Friedman and the rest. The idea was, you’ll recall, the government is the problem, not the solution. So get rid of the government. Put all decisions in the hands of unaccountable private tyrannies. Whose purpose? But in principle is to maximize profit. Market share for themselves. Pay attention to nothing else. So open the door to stock buybacks, to tax havens. Any other means you can think of to rub the public. Don’t pay attention to anything that’s happening. A year down the road, if you could maximize profit tomorrow. All of this follows such a devastating effect. That’s one of the reasons why half the population is living from paycheck to paycheck. I don’t have to tell you that wealth has enormously concentrated. And for the general population, it’s been stagnation. GDP increases. Productivity increases. But the population stagnates. It’s part of the background for the anger, resentment and bitterness that’s spreading, not just over the United States, but over much of the world.

In the Web cam Biden did with Sanders. Biden says he wants his presidency to be the most progressive since Roosevelt. What do you think of the possibilities? Conditions for that? And clearly, that doesn’t happen without a mass movement on a scale, perhaps more than there was in the 1960s.What’s been holding back that kind of mass movement?

Well, first of all, I think it is taking place. We should recognize that a lot of things have happened, much of it under the, within the framework of Bernie Sander’s inspiration. He achieved enormous successes. And he just shifted the agenda of discourse and policy well to the left, things that are right in the center of attention. Now, you couldn’t even talk about a couple of years ago.

So let’s take again the Green New Deal. Very significant in one form or another. It’s absolutely essential for survival. Couple years ago, it was either ridiculed or ignored. Now, it is the center of the agenda. The Republicans, of course, want to kill it. Business wants to kill it. But it’s alive and well. Why? Well, we know why. It was a lot of dedicated activism, finally led to the point where the Sunrise Movement activists started even sitting in congressional offices. They were supported by some of the young representatives elected in twenty eighteen. Again, look, with a lot of pressure from the Sanders movement, especially iAlexandria Ocasio Cortez, welcomed them and supported them. Ed Markey, senator from Massachusetts, who’s been interested in this issue, joined, moved to the legislative agenda. We have to recall again, Sander’s words. “This particular campaign may be terminated, but the movement must go on.“ Brought together things that are already existing: Black Lives Matter. Occupy the environmental movements, the ones who carried out the great campaign strike and protest the climate protest, last October shutting down. It was in large parts of the world. It went on here, too. Extinction rebellion. All of these things are there. They kind of coalesced, more or less, under the framework of the Sanders inspired movement. And they have to go on. So they go on. They can make a big difference.

Paul Jay
You mentioned earlier about the concentration of ownership. And I think we’re in a new stage, new phase of concentration of ownership. Where these massive asset manager financial institutions, BlackRock, Vanguard, to some slightly lesser extent, State Street. According to Bloomberg, the three of them have 14 trillion dollars under management. They vote those shares, which gives the three of them essentially control of about 90 percent of the S&P 500. Bloomberg News is projecting that by 2030, they will have 20 trillion dollars under management. Two or three companies essentially controlling most of the corporate world, not just of the United States. The counter to that, if you if you go back to Biden’s claim, wanting to be the most progressive government since Roosevelt, to go back to what Roosevelt said about that kind of concentration of ownership. He said if there’s monopolization in a sector that’s critical to the society, then you have to turn these things into public utilities, either highly regulated, private, or if you can’t do that, public ownership. Is it not time to start having this kind of conversation? Because I have to say, even in the Sanders campaign, there’s very, very little of that. And the sector that needs to be regulated as a public utility. and/or serious public ownership of at least a portion of it would be finance because BlackRock and Vanguard don’t just own banking, they own the nuclear arms industry. If you look at the 18 companies that make nuclear arms, the majority shareholders, I should say that in terms of voting shares are Black Rock, Vanguard, and State Street again. Of course, they own just about everything else as well. So what I’m I’m asking. Shouldn’t we start having this conversation about public ownership, alongside one of democratization?

Noam Chomsky
Absolutely. We should also take a little look back at history, take a look at pre-Reagan history, the period, what’s called regimented capitalism, basically from Roosevelt up through the 70s, beginning to erode in the 70s, just given a body blow by Reagan. One of the first things we had to do was bail out our major bank. His term ended with the massive real estate collapse. It goes on and on through Clinton and on through this millennium. And now we’re right in the middle of another one, the same corporations that have been on a feeding frenzy of stock buybacks, raising increasing wealth management profits are now back to the nanny state, pleading to be bailed out. That interesting thing about being bailed out, as we learn today with Treasury notea being signed by Donald Trump as part of his election campaign. What we see here is a confluence of a number of factors. One is the inherently destructive character of capitalism to suicidal institutions. Now that can be controlled. The regimented capitalism through the 50s and 60s did pretty well. It controlled it. Then comes the second thing, the neo liberal school, which eliminates the possibility of controlling the monster. Then on top of that, you get a. Megalomaniac, sociopath, holding power, surrounded by sycophants, ahead of a political party which is too cowardly and has lost even the slightest element of integrities. Then all, they do is lick his boots. Now you have a huge echo chamber: Fox News. Trump says two plus two equals five. An hour later, Sean Hannity says that’s the greatest discovery in the history of the human race. Then Trump turns to Fox and Friends. The next morning, repeats what he said there. And this structure that’s developed is a kind of a hydra that’s destroying us from many directions. Democrats are doing, essentially nothing, except help. It takes a dedication of all their efforts to an impeachment trial. It was transparent at the beginning that this was going to end up in a victory for Trump. It was almost impossible for anything else to happen. The issue that was raised didn’t mean much to most of the population. Why should it? So the president, who is a certified gangster, we all know that, was putting pressure on some other country to harm a leading figure in the Democratic Party. Okay. Probably impeachable, technically, but nobody cares. It was going to end up with with the Senate, which is in Trump’s pocket anyway, blocking the impeachment. So a great victory. The “Tribune of the People” was saved from the attack by the deep state in try INF to destroy him. Let’s all cheer. I mean, that’s what they’re devoting their attention to. Not his climate policies, which are murderous, will literally lead to the end of organized human life, not his opening the doors to nuclear destruction and not even his steps to destroy democracy, which are pretty astonishing. No. You worry about did he pressure some country that nobody ever heard of to harm Joseph Biden.

Paul Jay
Right

Noam Chomsky
As if they’re working for him, case after case. The only way out of this is essentially Sanders’ advice. The movement has to keep going. The immediate necessity is to get rid of the malignancy in the White House. We don’t do that and nothing else is going to matter.

Paul Jay
Don’t you think that the idea of regulated capitalism, which is more or less what Warren is proposing going back to Bernie too really. Hasn’t that horse left the barn? This turn towards neo liberalism wasn’t because they won an ideological argument? I don’t think. I think the digital revolution computerization, it created the ability to have globalization on such a different scale, to play the workers of China off against the workers of Europe and America. The idea of these fancy derivative products and the enormous expansion of Wall Street and speculation. You couldn’t do that with a pencil and paper. The digital revolution unleashed this enormous strength to the financial sector and enormous new productivity and profits going to this tiny one percent, and the political power that goes with that. I mean, it’s the pandemic now showing us that one way or the other, this society is being moved towards some kind of form of socialism. And, shouldn’t we start talking about that more than honestly, as important as Medicare for All is the concept of Medicare for All,, you know, a government health insurance plan? We have to look at that in other sectors of the economy. Otherwise, I think we’re doomed.

Noam Chomsky
Well, first of all, the digital revolution could be used for this purpose, could be used to break the whole system down.

Paul Jay
Right.

Noam Chomsky
Depends how you use it. Technology doesn’t care. It’s just as amenable to one use as another. Now, it’s not just the middle. There are steps can be taken right away, not just for it to diminish or even eliminate the scale of the financial institutions and break up the banks and have a national bank. All of this is feasible. But what about the fossil fuel industry? Why shouldn’t that be simply bought up by the government? And basically move to put it out of business. That’s feasible.

Paul Jay
Yeah. Add to that. What would U.S. foreign policy be if the government bought up and made public Raytheon and Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Take the profit motive out of war?

Noam Chomsky
Well, it depends what kind of government you had and who runs it. Is the government’s going to be run by the same corporate leaders tht run it now. No. Or will it turn into a democratic government? There is a way for doing it. It sounds kind of utopian, but it is possible for the United States to turn into a democracy. OK. If it does, then socialization of major industries could be a big step forward. It’s not the end. A step right behind. Beyond that already to some limited extent taking place is for, not the government to own them, but for the stakeholders or own them, for the workers in the enterprise. Why don’t they own them? Why don’t they run the enterprise, not the state? Break it up. Turn it over to the people who work there. That’s quite significant. So let’s take a real case. Suppose there’s a, you know, some manufacturing plant in Gary, Indiana, and the idea comes up shifting it to Mexico or China or Vietnam. Who should make that decision? Should it be a bunch of bankers sitting in New York and Chicago who only, you know, who run the enterprise? Or should it be the people there, the workers in the plant and the community who decide what to do? Maybe in coordination with working people in Mexico and China? That’s not impossible either. They remember that unions are all called internationals. No, right, no, that sounds empty. It wasn’t when it was instituted. These were going to be the international working class. The capitalist system is suicidal. We can’t get around that. The question is, can it be controlled? And up until roughly, Reagan, it was pretty much controlled. Then it just blew out of hand. And you’re getting the situation you have now.

Paul Jay
Noam, I promised not to let this go on too long. So let me just ask you one final question. And I also hope we get to do this again sooner than later. What do you say to some of the young people, not only young people that are being very critical of Bernie Sanders right now for endorsing Biden? Even some people that worked with him quite closely are critiquing him. What do you say to them?

I say wait a couple months and then start critiquing him. There is a crucial, urgent problem right ahead of us. Get rid of the malignancy in the White House. If you don’t do that, nothing else is going to matter We’ve been talking about climate change, global warming, which Trump is, of course, going to accelerate, maybe pass tipping points, nuclear war, which he’s accelerating, which be what may wipe us out. But there’s a lot of other things going on. The real evil genius of this administration in many ways is Mitch McConnell, the White House, maybe a freak show. But Mitch McConnell is serious. He knows what he’s doing. He’s doing it very effectively. He’s packing the courts with young, mostly unqualified or limited qualifications, ultra right young jurists who are going to ensure that for the next generation or so, whatever the public wants, it will be killed in favor of the reactionary ideologies that Donald, or those like him typify. Another four years of Trump, that may be beyond the limit of control. That means whatever you’re going to try to do will be shut down. OK, we’re facing a real crisis in November. This election is, without exaggeration, the most important in American or world history. If we don’t get by, then, we’re in deep trouble. Suppose Biden comes in. OK. Then comes the time to hold his feet to the fire. Sanders and popular pressures are probably going to make a mildly progressive Democratic Party program. Make them keep to it, make him go beyond it by the kinds of public pressures that you opened our discussion by bringing up that progress recently, the Green New Deal proposals, many other things. Keep that happening. Follow Sander’s advice to get by this election, then turn to keeping the movement going and growing and expanding and becoming more militant and effective. That’s the hope for the future. It can do all the things we’re talking about> Ir can break up the financial institutions, reduce them to being banks again, and take over the fossil fuel industry, socialize it move to put it out of business. That can socialize other institutions, put them in the hands of working people and communities. All of this is possible. None of it’s, in fact, the whole system that exists now is actually pretty fragile. That doesn’t take much to dismantle. I’ll give you one last example. Then, let me go. You may have seen a memo was leaked recently from JP Morgan Chase, country’s biggest bank. Economists and the bank put out a memo directed to investors and leaked. It’s very interesting. It points out that if, I’m quoting: “The survival of humanity is at risk if we pursue our present course, including the lending policies of the bank” And then it says, “The bank is under reputational pressure to cut back on fossil fuel funding. What’s reputational pressure? That’s the peasants with the pitchforks banging on the doors. That’s the same kind of thing that was in the backgro und with Reagan signing the INF treaty and a million other things. These are things we should remember. The future really is in the hands of energetic, engaged population. If they take the opportunity, if they decide to sit it out, then we’re in deep trouble.

Paul Jay
Thanks very much, Noam. And thank you for joining us on theAnalysis.News podcast. I’d like to thank my friend and wonderful musician Slim Williams, for allowing me to use his music on theAnalysis.news

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