Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg Discuss Nuclear War

Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg Discuss Nuclear War

Betsy Reed, the editor-in-chief of The Intercept, is moderating a discussion between Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg on the topic of nuclear policy and war. 

Chomsky, a laureate professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona, and Ellsberg, the Pentagon Papers whistleblower and author of “The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner,” are appearing onstage together for the first time. 

The event was held at the University of Arizona College of Social and Behavioral Sciences on Tuesday, April 24, at 10 p.m. ET.

Trump's Quest to Enrich the Richest: An Interview With Noam Chomsky

Trump's Quest to Enrich the Richest: An Interview With Noam Chomsky

Tuesday, October 03, 2017By Noam Chomsky and David Barsamian, TomDispatch | Interview

President Donald Trump looks on from the clubhouse during Sunday singles matches of the Presidents Cup at Liberty National Golf Club on October 1, 2017 in Jersey City, New Jersey. The most dangerous of Trump's antics have barely been reported. (Photo: Cliff Hawkins / Getty Images)

This interview has been excerpted from Global Discontents: Conversations on the Rising Threats to Democracy, the new book by Noam Chomsky and David Barsamian to be published this December. 

David Barsamian: You have spoken about the difference between Trump's buffoonery, which gets endlessly covered by the media, and the actual policies he is striving to enact, which receive less attention. Do you think he has any coherent economic, political, or international policy goals? What has Trump actually managed to accomplish in his first months in office? 

Noam Chomsky: There is a diversionary process under way, perhaps just a natural result of the propensities of the figure at center stage and those doing the work behind the curtains.

At one level, Trump's antics ensure that attention is focused on him, and it makes little difference how. Who even remembers the charge that millions of illegal immigrants voted for Clinton, depriving the pathetic little man of his Grand Victory? Or the accusation that Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower? The claims themselves don't really matter. It's enough that attention is diverted from what is happening in the background. There, out of the spotlight, the most savage fringe of the Republican Party is carefully advancing policies designed to enrich their true constituency: the Constituency of private power and wealth, "the masters of mankind," to borrow Adam Smith's phrase.

Global Struggles for Dominance: Noam Chomsky on ISIS, NATO and Russia

Global Struggles for Dominance: Noam Chomsky on ISIS, NATO and Russia

Noam Chomsky interviewed by C.J. Polychroniou

Truthout, August 17, 2016

C.J. Polychroniou: The rise of ISIS (also known as Daesh or ISIL) is a direct consequence of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq and represents today, by far, the most brutal and dangerous terrorist organization we have seen in recent memory. It also appears that its tentacles have reached beyond the “black holes” created by the United States in Syria, Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan and have now taken hold inside Europe, a fact acknowledged recently by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. In fact, it has been estimated that attacks organized or inspired by ISIS have taken place every 48 hours in cities outside the above-mentioned countries since early June 2016. Why have countries like Germany and France become the targets of ISIS?

Noam Chomsky: I think we have to be cautious in interpreting ISIS claims of responsibility for terrorist attacks. Take the worst of the recent ones, in Nice. It was discussed by Akbar Ahmed, one of the most careful and discerning analysts of radical Islam. He concludes from the available evidence that the perpetrator, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, was probably “not a devout Muslim. He had a criminal record, drank alcohol, ate pork, did drugs, did not fast, pray or regularly attend a mosque and was not religious in any way. He was cruel to his wife, who left him. This is not what many Muslims would typically consider reflective of their faith, particularly those who consider themselves religiously devout.” ISIS did (belatedly) “take credit” for the attack, as they routinely do, whatever the facts, but Ahmed regards the claim as highly dubious in this case. On this and similar attacks, he concludes that “the reality is that while ISIS may influence these Muslims in a general way, their animus is coming from their position as unwanted immigrants in Europe, especially in France, where they are still not treated French, even if they are born there. The community as a whole has a disproportionate population of unemployed youth with poor education and housing and is constantly the butt of cultural humiliation. It is not an integrated community, barring some honorable exceptions. From it come the young men like Lahouaiej Bouhlel. The pattern of [the] petty criminal may be observed in the other recent terrorist attacks in Europe, including those in Paris and Brussels.”

For A Majority Of Americans, US Government Has Lost Legitimacy

For A Majority Of Americans, US Government Has Lost Legitimacy

September 26, 2015  

For A Majority Of Americans, US Government Has Lost Legitimacy.

Noam Chomsky (33:30 point on the video) tells us that in the November 2014 Congressional elections, US voter participation was at the level of 1830 when only white male property owners had the vote. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2dw7OZD-mg&spfreload=1

A September 25 Gallup Poll tells us why: http://www.globalresearch.ca/gallup-60-of-americans-want-a-new-political-party-but-why-a-crisis-of-legitimacy/5478211

These are hopeful signs. They mean that the American people are beginning to see through the propaganda that confines them within The Matrix. A majority now understands that the US government represents a small oligarchy and not the citizens of the United States. Change requires awareness and knowledge of reality, and this awareness is now forming.

Noam Chomsky -- “The Iranian Threat” Who Is the Gravest Danger to World Peace?

“The Iranian Threat” Who Is the Gravest Danger to World Peace?  By Noam Chomsky August 20, 2015 "Information Clearing House" - "TomDispatch" -   Throughout the world there is great relief and optimism about the nuclear deal reached in Vienna between Iran and the P5+1 nations, the five veto-holding members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany. Most of the world apparently shares the assessment of the U.S. Arms Control Association that “the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action establishes a strong and effective formula for blocking all of the pathways by which Iran could acquire material for nuclear weapons for more than a generation and a verification system to promptly detect and deter possible efforts by Iran to covertly pursue nuclear weapons that will last indefinitely.” There are, however, striking exceptions to the general enthusiasm: the United States and its closest regional allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia. One consequence of this is that U.S. corporations, much to their chagrin, are prevented from flocking to Tehran along with their European counterparts. Prominent sectors of U.S. power and opinion share the stand of the two regional allies and so are in a state of virtual hysteria over “the Iranian threat.” Sober commentary in the United States, pretty much across the spectrum, declares that country to be “the gravest threat to world peace.” Even supporters of the agreement here are wary, given the exceptional gravity of that threat.  After all, how can we trust the Iranians with their terrible record of aggression, violence, disruption, and deceit? Opposition within the political class is so strong that public opinion has shifted quickly from significant support for the deal to an even split. Republicans are almost unanimously opposed to the agreement. The current Republican primaries illustrate the proclaimed reasons. Senator Ted Cruz, considered one of the intellectuals among the crowded field of presidential candidates, warns that Iran may still be able to produce nuclear weapons and could someday use one to set off an Electro Magnetic Pulse that “would take down the electrical grid of the entire eastern seaboard” of the United States, killing “tens of millions of Americans.”