THE ABSURD TIMES
THE ABSURD TIMES
Illustration: When you think Republican, think Trump.
Lincoln is so 19th Century.
This
is Too Much Shit
By
Czar
Donic
Let’s start with this: he has to go before we all
die. Bernie set the tone so that his
agenda is so deeply accepted that Biden will have no choice but to follow his
usual pattern and do what is popular and compromise this time with wisdom
instead of war with Iraq. Last time, when he was VP and Barack was wondering
about Afghanistan, he argued against a surge while Hillary argued for one.
Hillary won that argument and it is that sort of crap that got her defeated
against the TV guy with the Orange hair.
Biden
knows damn well that the shit that support Mr. TV will never vote Democratic –
they want Robert E. Lee next and never will vote Democratic or in favor of
sanity. Only in Utah, where they hate Trump, for good reason, will Republican
morons not support him again. The rest
of the populace, including Republicans, is ready for flushing Trump down the
bathroom of politics, just be sure he doesn’t clog it up on the way down.
He
is perhaps the most vile and repulsive agent of shit ever to hold the
office. And remember, Biden is not
Hillary. Forget the idiot #metoo
militants, they type that wanted Al Franken kicked out and eschew that blond
bitch that drove him out and support Mr. TVs flushing.
On
to Chomsky, the real genius. The first I ever knew about him was in a
linguistics class where he studied his grammar. I wrote my paper on him, and
sliced it to pieces as his first argument was against the ancient minded
grammarians who were clearly wrong but obscured things with their terminology.
He then went on to explain, in that absurd terminology why they were wrong, so
what the hell was that all about? The
only real sense was that language skills were most available before puberty and
a few other points. Well, I got an A on
the paper and the professor wanted to submit it for publication except for the
fact that Chomsky had retracted almost all the idiocy, called it idiocy, that I
had attacked in the paper!! So I asked this prof what the fuck was I faced with
the damn thing for. He wrote that the changes just came out. I checked the
book’s publication date and it was only a year old. Thanks a hell of a lot.
So,
later on, I found his political writings and they made great sense. I also saw his debate with B. F. Skinner,
the guy who was pushing behavioralism.
They were scheduled for 3 debates and Skinner ran for the hills after
the first one. Chomsky was right with
his cognitive behavioral school, anticipated by Albert Ellis with his REBT
(look it up).
Anyway,
here is discusses what the hell went on with Sanders and Biden and once again,
he is right, so wake up those of you who want a third party now of all times:
“How did the United States — the richest country in the world — become
the worldwide epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, with one person dying
of COVID-19 every 47 seconds? We spend the hour
with Noam Chomsky, the world-renowned political dissident, linguist and author,
discussing this unprecedented moment in history, and its political
implications, as Senator Bernie Sanders announces he is suspending his campaign
for the presidency. Chomsky also describes how frontline medical workers and
progressive organizing are giving him hope.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re
broadcasting from New York City, the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic. The
U.S. itself is now the worldwide epicenter, with one person dying of COVID-19 every 47 seconds. Nearly 16,700 coronavirus deaths
have been recorded in the United States, with the number of confirmed cases
approaching half a million — more than Italy, Spain and France combined.
Of course, the true rate of infections is far, far higher due to a critical
lack of testing. This comes as the Labor Department said Thursday over 6.6
million Americans filed for unemployment benefits over the past week, as the
pace and scale of U.S. job losses is set to rival the Great Depression.
Well,
for more on the political implications of this unprecedented moment, we turn
today to Noam Chomsky for the hour, the world-renowned political dissident,
linguist and author, laureate professor in the Department of Linguistics at the
University of Arizona, Tucson, professor emeritus at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, where he taught for more than 50 years. His recent
books include Global Discontents: Conversations on the Rising Threats
to Democracy, Who Rules the World? and Requiem
for the American Dream: The 10 Principles of Concentration of Wealth &
Power.
Noam
Chomsky joined us for a conversation Wednesday from his home in Tucson,
Arizona, where he is sheltering in place with his wife Valeria. This was just
before Senator Bernie Sanders announced he’s suspending his campaign for the
Democratic presidential nomination, making former Vice President Joe Biden the
presumptive nominee to face Donald Trump in the November election. I began by
asking Professor Chomsky about what’s happening right now in the context of the
2020 elections, and what he sees happening in November.
NOAM CHOMSKY: If
Trump is reelected, it’s a indescribable disaster. It means that the policies
of the past four years, which have been extremely destructive to the American
population, to the world, will be continued and probably accelerated. What this
is going to mean for health is bad enough. I just mentioned the Lancet figures.
It will get worse. What this means for the environment or the threat of nuclear
war, which no one is talking about but is extremely serious, is indescribable.
Suppose
Biden is elected. I would anticipate it would be essentially a continuation of
Obama — nothing very great, but at least not totally destructive, and
opportunities for an organized public to change what is being done, to impose
pressures.
It’s
common to say now that the Sanders campaign failed. I think that’s a mistake. I
think it was an extraordinary success, completely shifted the arena of debate
and discussion. Issues that were unthinkable a couple years ago are now right
in the middle of attention.
The
worst crime he committed, in the eyes of the establishment, is not the policy
he’s proposing; it’s the fact that he was able to inspire popular movements,
which had already been developing — Occupy, Black Lives Matter, many others —
and turn them into an activist movement, which doesn’t just show up every
couple years to push a leader and then go home, but applies constant pressure,
constant activism and so on. That could affect a Biden administration. It could
also — even if it’s just a holding action, it means there’s time to deal with
the major crises.
Take
Medicare for All or, the other major plank in Sanders’s program, free college
education. Across the whole mainstream spectrum, all the way to what’s called
the left in the mainstream, this is condemned as too radical for Americans.
Just think what that means. That’s an attack on American culture and society,
which you would expect from some hostile enemy. What it’s saying is it’s too
radical to say that we should rise to the level of comparable countries. They
all have some form of national healthcare. Most of them have free higher
education — the best-performing countries nationally, like Finland, free;
Germany, free; right to our south, Mexico, a poor country, high-quality higher
education, free. So, to say we should rise to the level of the rest of the
world is considered too radical for Americans. It’s an astonishing comment. As
I say, it’s a critique of America that you’d expect from some super hostile
enemy.
That’s
the left of the spectrum. Tells you that we have really deep problems. It’s not
just Trump. He’s made it much worse, but the problems go much deeper, just
like, say, the ventilator catastrophe, which I described, just based on good
capitalist logic with the extra hammer blow of making the government
ineffectual to deal with things. This is much deeper than Trump. And we have to
face those facts. Some do. I’m sure you reported — I don’t remember
— you probably reported the setting of the Doomsday Clock in January. OK?
AMY GOODMAN: Yes.
NOAM CHOMSKY: Notice
what happened. All through Trump’s term, the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock,
the best general assessment we have of the state of the world, moved closer to
midnight — termination — reached the highest point ever. This
January, it exceeded it. The analysts gave up minutes, moved to seconds: a
hundred seconds to midnight, thanks to Donald Trump.
And
the Republican Party, which is just monstrous, no longer qualifies as a
political party. It simply sheepishly echoes everything the master says. Zero
integrity. It’s just amazing to watch. He’s surrounded himself by a collection
of sycophants who just repeat worshipfully everything he says. Real major
attack on democracy, alongside the attack on the survival of humanity, to quote
JPMorgan Chase again — the nuclear war, raising the threat of nuclear war,
dismantling the arms control system, which has, to some extent, protected us
from total disaster. It’s astonishing to watch.
The
same memo that I quoted about how the policies we’re following are risking the
survival of humanity ended by arguing that the banks should cut back its fossil
fuel support, in part because of the reputational consequences. Their
reputation is being harmed. What does that mean? That means that activists are
putting pressure on them, and they have to maintain some kind of reputation.
Now, that’s a good lesson.
And
it works. We’ve seen some very striking examples. Take, say, the Green New
Deal. A couple of years ago, that was an object of ridicule, if it was
mentioned at all. Some form of Green New Deal is essential for the survival of
humanity. Now it’s part of the general agenda. Why? Activist engagement.
Especially Sunrise Movement, a group of young people, acted significantly, up
to the point of sitting in in congressional offices. They received support from
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other young legislators who came into office as
part of the Sanders-inspired popular wave — another great success. Ed Markey,
senator from Massachusetts joined in. Now it’s a part of the legislative
agenda. The next step is to force it through in some viable form. And there are
very good ideas as to how to do that. Well, that’s the way things can change.
With
a Biden presidency, there would be, if not a strongly sympathetic
administration, at least one that can be reached, can be pressured. And that’s
very important. If you look over the very good labor historian — I’m sure
you know Erik Loomis, who has studied the efforts by working people to
institute changes in the society, sometimes for themselves, sometimes for the
society generally. And he’s pointed out — made an interesting point. These
efforts succeeded when there was a tolerant or sympathetic administration, not
when there wasn’t. That’s a big — one of many enormous differences between
Trump, the sociopath, and Biden, who’s kind of a pretty empty — you can
push him one way or another. This is the most crucial election in human
history, literally. Another four years of Trump, and we’re in deep trouble.
AMY GOODMAN: Back
with professor Noam Chomsky in 30 seconds.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “Ave
Maria,” performed today, Good Friday, inside the burned-out shell of the
Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. It was live-streamed. This is Democracy
Now!, democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report. I’m Amy
Goodman, as we continue my interview with Noam Chomsky. I asked him how the
United States, the wealthiest country in the world, has become the epicenter of
the pandemic.
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well,
the United States is — I mean, countries have reacted to this in many ways,
some very successfully, some more or less successfully. One is at the bottom of
the barrel. That’s us. The United States is the only major country that cannot
even provide data to the World Health Organization, because it’s so
dysfunctional.
There’s
a background. Part of the background is the scandalous healthcare system, which
simply is not ready for anything that’s out of the normal. It simply doesn’t
work. This is exacerbated by the strange collection of gangsters in Washington,
who have — it’s almost as if they systematically took every possible step to
make it as bad as possible. Through Trump’s term, the last four years, he has
been systematically cutting back on all of the health-related aspects of the
government. Pentagon goes up. Building his wall goes up. But anything —
actually, anything that might benefit the general population goes down,
particularly health.
Some
of it is almost surreal. So, in October, for example, just very exquisite
timing, he canceled completely a USAID project
— Predict, it was called — that was working in Third World countries, also
in China, to try to detect new viruses that might turn into the anticipated
pandemic. And in fact it was anticipated since — at least since the SARS epidemic in 2003. So we have a kind of combination
of factors, some of them specific to the United States.
If
we want to ensure or at least hope to avoid new pandemics, which are very
likely to come, more serious than this one, in part because of the enormous
rising threat of global warming, we have to look at the sources of this one.
And it’s very important to think them through. So, just roughly to go back,
pandemics have been predicted by scientists for years. The SARS epidemic was quite serious. It was contained, but
vaccines were — there was the beginning of development of vaccines. They never
proceeded to the testing phase. It was clear at that time that something more
was going to happen, and several epidemics did.
But
it’s not enough to know that. Somebody has to pick up the ball and run with it.
Who can do it? Well, the drug companies are the obvious place, but they have no
interest in it. They follow good capitalist logic: You look at market signals,
and there’s no profit to be made in preparing for a predicted and anticipated
catastrophe. So they weren’t interested.
At
that point, another possibility is the government could step in. I’m old enough
to remember the terror of polio was ended by a government-initiated and -funded
project that finally led to the Salk vaccine, which was free, no intellectual
property rights. Jonas Salk said it should be as free as the sun. OK, that
ended the polio terror, measles terror, others. But the government couldn’t
step in, because there’s another particular aspect of the modern era: the
neoliberal plague. Now, you remember Ronald Reagan’s sunny smile and his little
maxim about how government is the problem, not the solution. So the government
can’t enter.
There
were some efforts, nevertheless, to try to prepare for this. Right now in New
York and other places, doctors and nurses are forced to make agonizing
decisions about who to kill — not a nice decision to make — because
they simply don’t have equipment. And the main lack is ventilators, huge
shortage of ventilators. Well, the Obama administration did make an effort to
try to prepare for this. And this kind of dramatically reveals the kind of
factors that are leading to catastrophe. They contracted with a small company
that was producing high-quality, low-cost ventilators. The company was bought
up by a larger one, Covidien, which makes fancy, expensive ventilators. And
they shelved the project. Presumably, they didn’t want competition with their
own costly ones. Shortly after that, they turned to the government and said
they wanted the contract ended. The reason was it was not profitable enough, so
therefore no ventilators.
We
have the same thing in hospitals. Hospitals, under the neoliberal programs, are
supposed to be efficient, meaning no spare capacity, just enough beds to get
by. And in fact, plenty of people, me included, can testify that even the best
hospitals caused great pain and suffering to patients even before this broke
out, because of this just-on-time efficiency concept that was guiding our
privatized, for-profit healthcare system. When anything hits out of the normal,
it’s just tough luck. And this runs across the system.
So
we have a combination of capitalist logic, which is lethal but could be
controlled, but it can’t be controlled under the neoliberal programs, which
also say the government can’t step in to pick up the ball when the private
sector doesn’t.
On
top of that — now, this becomes specific to the United States — we have a freak
show in Washington, a totally dysfunctional government, which is causing
enormous problems. And it’s not that nothing was known. A pandemic was
anticipated all through Trump’s term, even before. His reaction was to cut back
preparation for it. Astonishingly, this continued even after the pandemic hit.
So,
on February 10th, when it was already serious, Trump released his budget for
the coming year. Take a look at it. The budget continues the defunding of the
Center for Disease Control and other government institutions responsible for
health, continues to defund them. It increases funding for some things, like
fossil fuel production, gives new subsidies to the fossil fuel industries. I
mean, it’s as if the country is simply — maybe not “as if” — the country
is simply run by sociopaths.
And
the result, so, we cut back on the efforts to deal with the pandemic that’s
taking shape, and we increase the efforts to destroy the environment, in which
— the efforts in which the United States, under Trump, is in the lead in racing
to the abyss. Now, bear in mind that that’s — I don’t have to tell you
— is a far more serious threat than the coronavirus. Now, this is bad and
serious, particularly in the United States, but we’ll recover somehow, at
severe cost. We’re not going to recover from the melting of the polar ice
sheets, which is leading to a feedback effect, well known, that increases — as
they melt, there’s less reflective surface, more absorption in the dark seas.
The warming that’s melting increases. That’s just one of the factors that’s
leading to destruction, unless we do something about it.
And
it’s not a secret. Just recently, for example, couple of weeks ago, there was a
very interesting leak, a memo from JPMorgan Chase, America’s biggest bank,
which warned that, in their words, “the survival of humanity” is at risk if we
continue on our present course, which included the funding of fossil fuel
industries by the bank itself, said we’re endangering the survival of humanity.
Everyone who’s got eyes open in the Trump administration is very well aware of
this. It’s difficult to find words for this.
I
should say, other countries have — first of all, it was not a secret. I mean,
it’s become convenient now. Trump is desperately seeking some scapegoat that he
can blame for his astonishing failures and incompetence. The most recent one is
the World Health Organization, the China bashing. Somebody else is responsible.
But
it’s simply — the facts are very clear. China very quickly informed the
World Health Organization last December that they were finding patients with
pneumonia-like symptoms with unknown etiology. Didn’t know what it was. About a
week later, January 7th, they made public the fact to the World Health
Organization, the general scientific community in the world, that Chinese
scientists had found out what the source was: a coronavirus resembling
the SARS virus. They had identified the
sequence, the genome. They were providing the information to the world.
U.S.
intelligence was well aware of it. They spent January and February trying to
get somebody in the White House to pay attention to the fact that there’s a
major pandemic. Just nobody could listen. Trump was off playing golf or maybe
listening — checking his TV ratings. Yesterday, we learned that one very
high-level official, very close to the administration, Peter Navarro, in late
January had sent a very strong message to the White House saying this is a real
danger. But even he couldn’t break through.
AMY GOODMAN: Noam,
you mention Peter Navarro, the trade representative, sending a memo — it just
came out in The New York Times — in late January warning of
the coronavirus, saying that, I think, something like up to a million people
could die. And Trump took from that setting a travel ban on China, but not
doing a corollary, which was ensuring that the United States had the proper
tests and also had the PPE, the protective
personal equipment, that doctors, that nurses, that the custodial staff in
hospitals needed to stay alive, to treat patients, to help them stay alive. And
the intelligence agencies, it came out, at this time, even before Navarro, they
were all warning Trump. If you could go back to even two years ago, when he
disbanded his pandemic unit within the National Security Council, said that
when he’s at the table in China talking about spending money on bombs or a
wall, they’re not saying, “Sir, you also have to look at what’s happening
here”? And that unit, pandemic unit, not only is about how we deal in the
United States, but also ensuring, as the CDC does
and other agencies of the U.S. government, that scientists are sent out to
other countries, like China, to investigate and to help other countries,
because when it comes to a pandemic, we’re all in this together. So, if you
could talk about these early warnings and why testing and this personal
— protective personal equipment is so important?
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well,
remember that it continued even after the pandemic was already in force. Now,
the budget proposal is astonishing. This is February 10th, well into the
pandemic. Trump cuts further the health-related components of the government,
continuing the hit. They were under the ax, just as they were throughout his
term.
Actually,
the clips that you played before are part of a very clever strategy. Whether
this is consciously planned or just intuitive, I don’t know. But the pattern of
simply making one statement today, contradicting it tomorrow, coming out with
something else the next day is really brilliant. It means he’s going to be
vindicated. Whatever happens, he’ll have said it. You shoot arrows at random,
some of them are going to hit the target. And his technique with the Fox echo
chamber and the worshipful base simply tuned to Fox, Limbaugh, etc., they’re
just going to pick whatever happened to be right, and say, “Look, our wonderful
president, the greatest president we’ve ever had, our savior, knew it all
along, and here was his statement.” Can’t miss.
It’s
very much like the technique of producing constant lies. You know, I don’t even
have to go through it. The assiduous fact-checkers tot them up. I think it’s
maybe 20,000 by now or something. And he’s laughing all the way. This is
perfect. You tell constant lies, what happens is the concept of truth just
disappears.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor
Noam Chomsky, world-renowned linguist, political dissident. Back with him in 30
seconds.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “Here
Comes the Sun” by The Beatles. At a hospital in Long Island, it became so
overwhelming every time a patient coded, the staff decided to counter it by
playing “Here Comes the Sun” on the PA system every time a patient was
released. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy
Goodman, as we return to my interview with professor, linguist, world-renowned
political dissident Noam Chomsky.
AMY GOODMAN: So,
this is a clip, Noam, of The Daily Show with Trevor Noah
called “Saluting the Heroes of the Coronavirus Pandumbic.” It’s extended, the
three-minute video, highlighting members of the right-wing media, like Sean
Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Tomi Lahren and others, as well as Republican members
of Congress and the Trump administration, downplaying or mocking the
coronavirus pandemic. It starts on February 24th and ends with Donald Trump
claiming March 17th and Hannity saying March 18th that they had always taken
the pandemic seriously. This is “Saluting the Heroes of the Coronavirus
Pandumbic.”
SEAN HANNITY: Tonight
I can report the sky is absolutely falling. We are all doomed. The end is near.
The apocalypse is imminent, and you’re going to all die. Or at least that’s
what the media mob would like you to think.
RUSH LIMBAUGH: Yeah,
I’m dead right on this. The coronavirus is the common cold, folks. The hype of
this thing as a pandemic, as the Andromeda Strain, as “oh my god, if you get
it, you’re dead.”
PETE HEGSETH: This
is one of those cases where the more I learn about coronavirus, the less
concerned I am. There’s a lot of hyperbole.
LOU DOBBS: The
national left-wing media playing up fears of the coronavirus.
TOMI LAHREN: The
sky is falling because we have a few dozen cases of coronavirus on a cruise
ship? I am far more concerned with stepping on a used heroin needle than I am
getting the coronavirus. But maybe that’s just me.
JEANINE PIRRO: It’s
a virus like the flu. All the talk about coronavirus being so much more deadly
doesn’t reflect reality.
DR. MARC SIEGEL: This
virus should be compared to the flu, because at worst — at worst, worst-case
scenario — it could be the flu.
GERALDO RIVERA: The
far more deadly, more lethal threat right now is not the coronavirus, it’s this
— it’s the ordinary, old flu. People are dying right now.
STEVE DOOCY: The
flu is here, everywhere.
GERALDO RIVERA: Nobody
has died yet in the United States, as far as we know, from this disease.
STEVE DOOCY: That’s
right.
LAURA INGRAHAM: And
the facts are actually pretty reassuring. But you’d never know it, watching all
this stuff.
JESSE WATTERS: You
want to know how I really feel about the coronavirus, Juan? If I get it, I’ll
beat it. I’m not afraid of the coronavirus, and no one else should be that
afraid, either.
MATT SCHLAPP: It
is very, very difficult to contract this virus.
DR. DREW PINSKY: It’s
milder than we thought. The fatality rate is going to drop.
ED HENRY: When
you hear the context, it’s not quite as scary.
AINSLEY EARHARDT: It’s
actually the safest time to fly. Everyone I know that’s flying right now,
terminals are pretty much dead. And then the planes — remember back in the
day when you had a seat next to you possibly empty? You could stretch out a
little more? It’s like that on every flight now.
REP. DEVIN NUNES: One of the things
you can do, if you’re healthy, you and your family, it’s a great time to just
go out, go to a local restaurant.
MARIA BARTIROMO: Yeah.
REP. DEVIN NUNES: Likely, you can get
in, get in easily.
NEWS ANCHOR: Republican
Congressman Matt Gaetz mocked concerns about the spread of the virus by wearing
a gas mask on Capitol Hill.
JOHN KING: [reading]
“When a reporter in the Capitol asked Senator Inhofe of Oklahoma, 85, what
precautions he was taking … [he] extended his arm with confidence: 'Wanna shake
hands?'”
VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: In
our line of work, you shake hands. I expect the president will continue to do
that. I’ll continue to do it.
LARRY KUDLOW: We
have contained this. We have contained this — I won’t say airtight, but
pretty close to airtight.
KELLYANNE CONWAY: It is being
contained. And do you not think it’s being contained?
SEAN HANNITY: Zero
people in the United States of America have died from the coronavirus. Zero.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: This
is a flu. This is like a flu. It’s going to disappear one day. It’s like a
miracle. It will disappear. … I have felt it was a pandemic long before it was
called a pandemic. I took it very seriously.
SEAN HANNITY: By
the way, this program has always taken the coronavirus seriously.
AMY GOODMAN: That
was Sean Hannity and Donald Trump, right before that, on March 17th and 18th,
saying, “We have always taken the coronavirus pandemic seriously.” “Saluting
the Heroes of the Coronavirus Pandumbic” from The Daily Show with
Trevor Noah, who is now doing his show each night from home to protect against
community spread. So, Noam Chomsky, world-renowned political dissident,
well-known linguist, author, activist, as you listen to the Fox News — this is
not just a channel; these are the people that President Trump channels. These
are perhaps his senior advisers, as they continually played this down. Do you
hold President Trump responsible? Would you say he has blood on his hands?
NOAM CHOMSKY: There’s
no question. Trump makes some crazy statement. It’s then amplified by the Fox
News echo chamber. The next day, he says the opposite. That’s echoed; the echo
chamber amplifies that. Notice that the tone — the tone of the reporting is
interesting. It’s all with perfect confidence, not what any sane, rational
person would say — “We really don’t know. There’s a lot of uncertainty.
This is the way things look today.” There’s nothing like that. Absolute
confidence. No matter what the dear leader says, we amplify it. And it’s an
interesting dialogue. They amplify what he says. Sean Hannity can say, “This is
the greatest move that was ever made in the history of the world.” And the next
morning, Trump tunes in to Fox & Friends, listens to whatever
is said. That becomes his thought for the day. It’s an interaction, Murdoch and
Trump moving literally to try to destroy the country and destroy the world,
because in the background, we should never forget, is a far greater threat that
is coming closer and closer while Trump is leading the way to destruction.
He
has some assistance. So, down on the southern part of the hemisphere, there’s
another madman, i.e. Jair Bolsonaro, who’s trying to vie with Trump to see who
can be the worst criminal on the planet. He’s telling the Brazilians, “It’s
nothing. It’s just a cold. Brazilians don’t get viruses. We’re immune to them.”
His health minister and other officials are trying to butt in and say, “Look,
this is really serious.” The governors, many of them, fortunately, are ignoring
what he says. But Brazil is facing a terrible crisis. It’s actually gotten to
the point where in the favelas, you know, these miserable slums, in Rio, where
the government does nothing for the people, others have intervened to try to
impose sensible restrictions, insofar as it’s possible under those miserable
conditions. Who? The crime gangs. The crime gangs, that torture the population,
have moved in to try to impose health standards. The indigenous population is
facing a virtual genocide, which won’t bother Bolsonaro. He doesn’t think they
should be there anyway. Meanwhile, while all this is going on, scientific
papers are coming out warning that in 15 years the Amazon is going to shift
from being a net carbon sink to a net CO2 emitter. That’s devastating for
Brazil — in fact, for the whole world.
So,
we have the Colossus of the North, as it’s called, in the hands of sociopaths,
who are doing whatever they can to harm the country and the world. And the
Colossus of the South, as it’s been called, is, in its own way, doing the same
thing. I’m able to follow this pretty closely because my wife Valeria is
Brazilian and keeps me up to date with the news that’s coming out in Brazil.
And it’s simply shocking to see.
But
meanwhile, other countries are reacting sensibly. So, as soon as the news
started coming out from China — and there was plenty of news right away,
contrary to what is being claimed — the countries on the Chinese periphery
began to react — Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore — quite effectively.
Some of them have it basically under control. New Zealand has apparently
quashed the coronavirus, maybe almost completely, with a lockdown right away,
an immediate lockdown for a couple of weeks, and seems to have come close to
ending it. You look into Europe, and most of Europe just dithered, but some countries,
the better-organized countries, did act right away. It’s very striking. It
would be very useful for Americans to compare Trump’s ravings, of the kind you
illustrated, with Angela Merkel’s, German chancellor, her sober, factual
account and talk to the German people, describing exactly what’s happening and
what has to be done.
AMY GOODMAN: Noam,
we only have a minute, but I wanted to ask you, as we speak to you at your home
in Tucson, Arizona, where you are sheltering at home, where you are staying at
home because we are in the midst of this pandemic, to prevent community spread
and to protect yourself and your family: What gives you hope?
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well,
I should say that I’m following a strict regimen, because my wife Valeria is
taking charge, and I follow her orders. So Valeria and I are in isolation.
But
what gives me hope is the actions that popular groups are taking all over the
world, many of them. Some of them are — there are some things happening that
are truly inspiring. Take the doctors and the nurses who are working overtime
under extremely dangerous conditions, lacking — especially in the United
States, lacking even minimal support, being compelled to make these agonizing
decisions about who to kill tomorrow. But they’re doing it. It’s just a
— it’s an inspiring tribute to the resources of the human spirit, a model
of what can be done, along with the popular actions, the moves to create a
Progressive International. These are all very positive signs.
But
you look back in recent history, there have been times where things looked
really hopeless and desperate. I can go back to my early childhood, the late
'30s, early ’40s. It looked as though the rise of the Nazi plague was
inexorable, victory after victory. It looked like you couldn't stop it. It was
the most horrible development in human history. Well, turns out — I didn’t know
that at the time — that U.S. planners were expecting that the post-war
world would be divided between a U.S.-controlled world and a German-controlled
world, including all of Eurasia — a horrifying idea. Well, it was
overcome. There have been other serious — the civil rights movement, Young
Freedom Riders going out into Alabama to try to encourage black farmers to go
to vote, despite the threat, serious threat, of being murdered, and being
murdered themselves. These were some — this is examples of what humans can
do and have done. And we see many signs of it today, and that’s the basis for
hope.
AMY GOODMAN: Noam
Chomsky, world-renowned political dissident, linguist, author, speaking to us
from Tucson, where he is now sheltering at home, laureate professor at
University of Arizona, taught for more than half a century.
That
does it for our show. Amidst the pandemic, we still want to wish a very safe
and healthy birthday to Democracy Now!'s David Prude, Anna Özbek
and María Taracena. Democracy Now! is working with as few
people on site as possible. The majority of our amazing team is working from
home. Thanks to all. I'm Amy Goodman. Be safe.
One
other thing: Trump wants to do away with the post office.
Posts
