Noam Chomsky on Midterms: Republican Party Is the “Most Dangerous Organization in Human History”

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

Rebecca Solnit: The American Civil War Didn't End. And Trump Is a Confederate President.

This is an excellent article by Rebecca Solnit!!
— Molly

His supporters hark back to an 1860s fantasy of white male dominance. But the Confederacy won’t win in the long run.

By Rebecca Solnit

In the 158th year of the American civil war, also known as 2018, the Confederacy continues its recent resurgence. Its victims include black people, of course, but also immigrants, Jews, Muslims, Latinos, trans people, gay people and women who want to exercise jurisdiction over their bodies. The Confederacy battles in favor of uncontrolled guns and poisons, including toxins in streams, mercury from coal plants, carbon emissions into the upper atmosphere, and oil exploitation in previously protected lands and waters.

Its premise appears to be that protection of others limits the rights of white men, and those rights should be unlimited. The Brazilian philosopher of education Paulo Freire once noted that “the oppressors are afraid of losing the ‘freedom to oppress’”. Of course, not all white men support extending that old domination, but those who do see themselves and their privileges as under threat in a society in which women are gaining powers, and demographic shift is taking us to a US in which white people will be a minority by 2045.

If you are white, you could consider that the civil war ended in 1865. But the blowback against Reconstruction, the rise of Jim Crow, the myriad forms of segregation and deprivation of rights and freedoms and violence against black people, kept the population subjugated and punished into the present in ways that might as well be called war. It’s worth remembering that the Ku Klux Klan also hated Jews and, back then, Catholics; that the ideal of whiteness was anti-immigrant, anti-diversity, anti-inclusion; that Confederate flags went up not in the immediate post-war period of the 1860s but in the 1960s as a riposte to the civil rights movement.

Another way to talk about the United States as a country at war is to note that the number of weapons in circulation is incompatible with peace. We have 5% of the world’s population and 35%-50% of the guns in civilian hands, more guns per capita than anywhere else – and more gun deaths, too. Is it any surprise that mass shootings – an almost entirely male and largely white phenomenon – are practically daily events? Many synagogues, Jewish community centers, black churches and public schools now engage in drills that are preparations for the gunman who might arrive, the gunman we’ve met in so many aftermath news stories, who is miserable, resentful, feels entitled to take lives and is well equipped to do so. The psychological impact of drills and fear, and the financial costs of security, are a tax on other people’s access to guns. So are the deaths. 

Please continue this article here: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/04/the-american-civil-war-didnt-end-and-trump-is-a-confederate-president?CMP=share_btn_fb&fbclid=IwAR2ji5fasXxjVGAO-Bxct5fynJ_HpdT8tVjcnVYORh5qbgAF_bSjFZSU5p8

May We Understand and Learn the Lessons of History

"All you have to do is to tell them that they are

being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack

of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.

It works the same in any country."

— Hermann Goering

***** 

May we understand history and learn its

lessons and refuse to participate or collude 

in the dehumanization of other human beings. 

— Molly

Poverty Does Not Exist Because We Cannot Feed the Poor

The wealthiest among us - such as the 8 or 6 human beings who own as much wealth as half the global population, or the 3 human beings who hold as much wealth as half the population of the United States - are in late stage addiction to power and greed. How else can one explain their devastating lack of humanity, morality, compassion, caring, wisdom, and their actions which pose a dire threat to life on Earth? It’s so ridiculous to state that there isn’t enough for all! There is! There is enough to provide for the basic needs of all humans, enough to stop the 6th great extinction that we’re in, enough to transition from fossil fuels to renewables, enough to end endless war, enough to radically change the old stories - which fuel fear and scarcity, separation and suffering, dehumanization and the politics of polarization, death and destruction - to new stories which value and respect and care for life, all life. We humans are capable of evolving and becoming part of the Great Awakening that is trying to unfold in our nation and around the world. The time is now, and it begins with each and every one of us. Tag, we’re all it! — Molly
 

A Prayer

Prayers for the highest good for us all. Prayers for each of us who are able to take ongoing steps to alleviate the suffering within ourselves and others. Prayers that we humans may remember our interrelatedness with all our human sisters and brothers, with all beings, and with Mother Earth. Prayers that we will grow more and more deeply rooted in our spiritual practices - whatever that may be - and the work of strengthening our hearts, minds, souls. Prayers that we will be mindful of our triggers, thoughts, words, belief systems, and actions and that we will use the power of our voices and what we do for ourselves and others in ways that nourish and strengthen consciousness, peace, love, wisdom, healing, caring, courage, and compassion. Prayers that we will learn the gifts of the alchemist who finds the gifts hidden in dark places and brings the gifts we all carry within forward for ourselves and the benefit of all beings. In these frightening times may we channel and transform our fear and outrage and grief and trauma into that which contributes to the more beautiful and loving world that is possible. May it be so. 

Bless us all. — Molly

Henry Giroux: Trump’s Love Affair With Violence in the Age of Fascist Nihilism

This is an excellent and brilliant piece by Henry Giroux. These are the vital pieces we need to be connecting and conscious of. I have long appreciated the work of Henry Giroux exactly because of its depth and Henry's consistent demonstration of integrity, courage, and a profound commitment to truth and a higher good for us all. This higher good and the radical change that is urgently needed cannot emerge without first becoming aware of the depth of the problem. May courage and truth be contagious! May these forces push each of us to resist and refuse to collude in all the many faces of violence, and of instead increasingly engaging in the work of creating a just and caring world. — Molly

Fascism first begins with linguistic violence and then gains momentum as an organizing force for shaping a culture that legitimates indiscriminate force against entire groups — Black people, immigrants, Jews, Muslims and others considered “disposable.” In this vein, Trump portrays his critics as “villains” and “enemies,” describes immigrants as “losers” and “criminals,” and has become a national mouthpiece for jingoistic nationalists and a myriad of extremists who trade in hate and violence. Using a rhetoric of dehumanization as a performance strategy to whip up his base, Trump employs endless rhetorical tropes of hate and demonization that set the tone for real violence.

Trump appears utterly unconcerned by the accusation that his highly charged rhetoric of racial hatred, xenophobia and virulent nationalism both legitimates and fuels acts of violence. He proceeds without concern about the consequences of lending his voice to conspiracy theorists claiming that George Soros is funding the caravan of migrant workers, calling Maxine Waters a “low IQ person,” or referring to former CIA director John Brennan as a “total lowlife” and a “very bad guy.” Meanwhile, this inflammatory invective promotes violence from the numerous fascist groups that support him.

Trump thrives on promoting social divisions and often references violence as a means of addressing them. His praise of Montana congressional representative Greg Gianforte for body slamming a Guardian reporter in 2017 speaks for itself, as does his remark that the neo-Nazi protesters in Charlottesville were “very fine people.” No wonder Trump is praised by David Duke, the former head of the Ku Klux Klan, and by the Proud Boys (a vile contemporary version of the Nazi Brownshirts). Needless to say, as Karen Garcia notes, Trump’s “frenzied Nuremberg-style rallies” are a cauldron of race baiting and anti-Semitic demagoguery.

We have heard before this collapse of language into a form of coded militarism and racism — the anti-Semitism couched in critiques of globalization, the call for racial and social cleansing couched in the discourse of borders and walls. The emerging discourse of state terrorism in the US alarmingly resembles that of Europe in the 1930s. Edward Luce rightly reminds us that we have witnessed this in the past. He writes: “Eighty-five years ago on Thursday, Heinrich Himmler opened the Nazi’s first concentrating camp at Dachau. History does not repeat itself. But it is laced with warnings.”

In an age when civic literacy and efforts to hold the powerful accountable for their actions is dismissed as “fake news,” ignorance becomes the breeding ground not just for hate, but for a culture that represses historical memory, shreds any understanding of the importance of shared values, refuses to make tolerance a nonnegotiable element of civic dialogue and allows the powerful to weaponize everyday discourse.

Trump’s language is neither harmless, nor merely a form of infantilized theater. It is toxic, steeped in a racist nationalist ardor that stirs up and emboldens extremist elements of his base. It adds fuel to a culture capable of horrific consequences, as we have seen with the recent killingof two Black people in a grocery store near Louisville, Kentucky; the sending of pipe bombs to a number of high-profile Democrats; and the mass murder in a Pittsburgh synagogue. It is also the language of silence, moral irresponsibility and a willingness to look away in the face of violence and human suffering. This is the worldview of fascist politics and a dangerous nihilism — one that reinforces a contempt for human rights in the name of financial expediency and the cynical pursuit of political power.

Please continue this article here: https://truthout.org/articles/trumps-love-affair-with-violence-in-the-age-of-fascist-nihilism/?fbclid=IwAR15Ei_etiRE0lxTu1Putd2ZITLUhdh-Mi5DHxhCzbURMaxxrblUyGpJOCw

Silence Is Betrayal

Anything published on this website from the James and Grace Lee Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership is worthwhile, powerful, and needed. — Molly

Thinking for Ourselves    
Shea Howell
Against the Darkness

This is a time of accelerating homegrown terrorism. The Massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburg followed closely behind the shooting deaths of two people in a Kroger parking lot in Kentucky. The killer had gone to the store after being unable to enter the First Baptist Church.

These killings, coming so closely after pipe bombs were sent across the US, along with the emerging details of the state directed murder of Jamal Khashoggi, led me to ask students in my university classes if they wanted to have conversations about these events.

I often take time in classes for reflection on current issues. So, I was unprepared for the response this time. In two separate classes most students said they really didn’t want to talk about any of this. They said they were numb. They did not want to think about it. They didn’t like that they were so shut down, but they were afraid. It felt like nowhere was safe.

This kind of reaction to the violence that is becoming normal in our public life is as dangerous as the violence itself. It is the necessary grounds for fascism to flourish. Fascism depends upon our disconnection from each other and from our selves. It not only requires that some of us be willing to commitment unspeakable horrors against each other. It requires that most of us give up reacting to these horrors. It requires we no longer feel it matters if we care.

This is why I was especially glad to see that some students were organizing a public response to these killings. At my university students organized a candlelight vigil. “Our student leaders came up with the idea and the event has grown organically over the past 48 hours to the point where we have Christian, Muslim and Jewish groups working together to participate in the vigil,” said Senior Director, Office for Student Involvement, Jean Ann Miller. Well over 200 people attended the event. People of Catholic, Protestant, Muslim and Jewish faiths spoke about connection, courage, and the need to care for one another.

This group was one of thousands, large and small that have come together to publicly stand against hate, violence, and fear.
Speaking to the overflowing crowd of the small Newton Massachusetts synagogue, Rabbi Robbinson said, “Each of you who made the choice to come here tonight, to stand together, to pray together, are angels of peace. Let us raise our voices against the darkness.” 

Trump’s words foster fear and violence.  They matter. As Henry Giroux recently observed:
“Trump’s language is neither harmless, nor merely a form of infantilized theater. It is toxic, steeped in a racist nationalist ardor that stirs up and emboldens extremist elements of his base. It adds fuel to a culture capable of horrific consequences, …It is also the language of silence, moral irresponsibility and a willingness to look away in the face of violence and human suffering. This is the worldview of fascist politics and a dangerous nihilism — one that reinforces a contempt for human rights in the name of financial expediency and the cynical pursuit of political power.”

But our word matter much more. Through our words we can foster connection and love. Our words, openly offered in the public sphere, become the strands to weave a new democracy, rooted in life affirming values.

Please go here for the original article: http://hosted-p0.vresp.com/386635/623d9f2840/ARCHIVE