Incredibly important interview with Noam Chomsky!
This is Part 3.
— Molly
AMY GOODMAN: This
is Democracy
Now! I’m Amy Goodman. With the U.S. midterm elections a day
away, we continue our conversation with the world-renowned linguist, dissident,
author Noam Chomsky. Democracy Now!'s Nermeen
Shaikh and I interviewed him from Tucson, Arizona, where he now teaches at the
University of Arizona. Noam Chomsky is also institute professor emeritus at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he's taught for more than 50
years.
During Part 1 of the
conversation, that we played on Friday, Noam Chomsky talked about what’s at
stake in tomorrow’s midterm elections.
NOAM CHOMSKY: So,
is it the most gravest moment in my life? Yes. But also in all of human
history. And things like the election will have an impact on this.
AMY GOODMAN: During
our conversation on Thursday, I asked Professor Chomsky to outline some of the
issues he thinks should be followed most closely.
NOAM CHOMSKY: What
are the domestic policies of the Trump administration? They’re very
straightforward: lavish gifts on the rich, powerful corporate sector and try to
undermine and destroy anything that might be of benefit to the general
population. That’s quite explicitly what’s happening before our eyes.
So,
take the legislative achievement that the Republican Party is most proud of:
their tax bill—as economist Joseph Stiglitz described it, the donor relief plan
of 2017. It’s an enormous gift to wealth, corporate power, including real
estate interests, incidentally. Enormous gift, frankly. And it has the
secondary advantage—as the Republican leadership was quick to point out, it has
the advantage of creating a huge deficit, which can be used as a pretext for
getting rid of social spending. U.S. social spending is already very meager by
world standards. We’re down at the bottom of the OECD, the 30 rich countries, along
with Greece and Turkey, in social benefits spendings. But there’s something
there, so let’s get rid of it. Let’s undermine Medicaid, which goes to the
undeserving poor; let’s undermine Social Security, which working people just
rely on for survival—all because we have to lavish gifts on the super-rich and
ensure that the corporations have profits bulging out of their ears. The claim
of the pretext for the tax scam was that it was going to sharply increase
investment. That was pretty outlandish. To start with, corporations already
have—are just overflowing with profits and wealth. And predictably, it did
nothing of the sort.
Those
are the domestic programs. Then come all of these international horrors that
we’re talking about. I shouldn’t—don’t want to suggest that the mainstream
Democrats are all that better in these respects. Somewhat. And there is a
progressive wave among the sectors of the Democratic Party that could lead in a
much more constructive direction. But the midterms next week are going to have
a critical impact on how the country goes and, given the enormous power and
wealth of this country, what happens to the world.
AMY GOODMAN: And
on that issue, you have been extremely critical of Democrats. But with this
whole discussion of whether the House will turn Democrat, and possibly the
Senate, do you think it matters?
NOAM CHOMSKY: I
think it matters. Yes, we have every reason to be critical of the Democrats.
These policies of the last generation, the neoliberal policies that have led to
these conditions we’ve been talking about, the so-called New Democrats, the
Clinton Democrats, have been right at the forefront. Say, deregulation of
financial institutions, one of Clinton’s great achievements, which led directly
to the financial crisis, along with—one of the factors that led to it—his
attack on the welfare program. Lots that we can blame them for.
Please continue this article - or to watch the full interview - please go here: https://www.democracynow.org/2018/11/5/noam_chomsky_on_midterms_republican_party?fbclid=IwAR0soRJfdcAje0V1cw_alCHRgvW_wDf0JbLknAhOajOVZqK7gwWWkbuzFf4
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