Tag: Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky: The world is facing the most dangerous moment in human history

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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.

Noam Chomsky: We are racing madly towards total catastrophe under the leadership of sociopathic fanatics

AlterNet logoAs the U.S. coronavirus death toll tops 150,000, we spend the hour with world-renowned political dissident, linguist and author Noam Chomsky, who says decades of neoliberal policies that shredded the social safety net and public institutions left the country ill-prepared for a major health crisis. “We should understand the roots of this pandemic,” he says.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, Democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

Noam Chomsky: Trump’s love of ‘wealth and corporate power’ played a key role in country’s staggering coronavirus death toll

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump has been widely criticized on the left — as well as by centrist Democrats and Never Trump conservatives — for failing to take the threat of coronavirus seriously back in January and February. But left-wing author Noam Chomsky, in an interview with The Guardian, asserts that Trump’s culpability goes way beyond downplaying COVID-19’s severity: as Chomsky sees it, Trump’s love of corporate power is a fundamental reason why he has handled the crisis so badly.

The 91-year-old Chomsky told The Guardian that Trump’s cutting federal government funding for research on infectious diseases is “something that Trump has been doing every year of his term, cutting it back more. So, (his plan is): let’s continue to cut it back, let’s continue to make sure that the population is as vulnerable as we can make it — that it can suffer as much as possible, but will, of course, increase profits for his primary constituents in wealth and corporate power.”

Chomsky told The Guardian that for Trump, not doing enough to help governors who are tirelessly battling the pandemic in their states is “a great strategy for killing a lot of people and improving his electoral politics.” Continue reading.

‘There is a strategy’: Noam Chomsky dismantles the Trump-McConnell Republican party ‘con game’

AlterNet logoEven for Donald Trump, the remarks were almost staggering in their density. Last month, in an exclusive interview with the Financial Times, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that Western liberalism has “outlived its purpose,” adding that “it has come into conflict with the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population.” When asked during the G20 summit in Osaka if he agreed, Trump offered this gleaming ruby: “[Putin] sees what’s going on—I guess if you look at what’s happening in Los Angeles, where it’s so sad to look, and what’s happening in San Francisco and a couple of other cities, which are run by an extraordinary group of liberal people. I don’t know what they’re thinking.”

Trying to deduce any kind of grand strategy from a president who confuses the West with California and believes the moon is part of Mars can feel like a fool’s errand, if not “the purest acid satire.” But as Noam Chomsky argues in an interview with Truthout this week, “there is a strategy”—one that has empowered the far right across the globe and ultimately endangers human life on earth. If Ronald Reagan’s presidency was a tragedy, he speculates, then Trump’s is history repeating itself as farce.

“It’s understandable that the farce elicits ridicule, and no doubt some are relishing the coming photo-op of Trump and Boris Johnson upholding Anglo-American civilization,” claims the celebrated linguist and philosopher. “But for the world, it’s dead serious, from the destruction of the environment and the growing threats of terminal nuclear war to a long list of other crimes and horrors.”

View the complete July 7 article by Jacob Sugarman of Truthout and Noam Chomsky on the AlterNet website here.