Born in Philadelphia on December 7, 1928, left-wing author and activist Noam Chomsky has seen a lot in his lifetime — from the Great Depression and World War II to the social unrest of the 1960s to Watergate to 9/11. And during an interview with the New Statesman this month, the 91-year-old Chomsky explained why he finds the events of 2020 especially perilous.
“There’s been nothing like it in human history,” Chomsky told the Statesman. “I’m old enough to remember, very vividly, the threat that Nazism could take over much of Eurasia — that was not an idle concern. U.S. military planners did anticipate that the war would end with a U.S.-dominated region and a German-dominated region…. But even that, horrible enough, was not like the end of organized human life on Earth, which is what we’re facing.”
Chomsky spoke to the Statesman before the first summit of the Progressive International, an organization founded by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis in response to the increase in far-right authoritarian movements in different parts of the world. Continue reading.