Noam Chomsky on Masters of Mankind (2015)

It has been 70 years since the end of the most horrible war in history, which ended with the use of an ultimate weapon that can end the history of humanity, a day that I remember very well as we have been living under that shadow since so. Twenty years later, two of the leading figures in 20th century intellectual life, Bertrand Russell Albert Einstein, appealed to the people of the world, urging them to face a stark, terrible, and inescapable choice: do we end the human race or If humanity renounced war, they of course recognized that work and very quickly turned to a terminal nuclear war in 1947.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists set their famous Doomsday Clock at 7 minutes to midnight. Midnight is the end last January. It moved forward to three minutes before midnight. that is a threat level that had not been reached for thirty years in a dark time to which I will return the attached explanation invoked the two main threats to human survival nuclear war nuclear weapons and rampant climate change the call condemned the leaders worlds that are endangering every person on Earth by failing to fulfill their most important duty of ensuring and preserving the health and vitality of human civilization, Russell Einstein's call differs from the current declaration in two crucial respects: one is that did not include the environmental threat of the Astra tariff that 50 years ago was not sufficiently understood and, secondly, it is addressed directly to the people of the world, not to political leaders, that is the difference that has some importance, There is substantial evidence that on climate change, international nuclear weapons policy planning in general, the population seems much more concerned than political leaders. who do not consider it their most important duty to ensure and preserve the health and vitality of human civilization, as ample evidence reveals, it is no secret that even in the most free and democratic societies governments respond only to a limited extent to the popular will of the United States.

He claims that it is well established in academic studies that a considerable majority of the population at the lower end of the income and wealth scale is effectively disenfranchised; His views are simply ignored by policymakers. Influence increases slowly as one moves up the ladder and at the top, which means a fraction of 1% politics is quite determined that, that being so, the attitudes at the top of the ladder are of great importance, as dramatically revealed in a CEO survey released last January at the Davos conference in Switzerland. of Masters of the Universe, as described by the business press, by a rather ominous coincidence, this was just at the moment when the Doomsday Clock was advanced to three minutes to midnight, the survey revealed that climate change did not deserve be included among the top 19 risks that concern CEOs.

Worse still, at the top of their perceived risk ranking was regulation, which is the primary method of addressing the environmental catastrophe. His main concern was the growth prospects of his companies, which is not surprising, whatever their individual beliefs about their institutional role, CEOs are forced to adopt. policies that are designed to pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity, in the words of the Doomsday Clock declaration, and given their enormous role in determining state policy, it is less surprising that the policy goes lagging behind public opinion on the concerns that move the clock so much.

Around midnight, the effects are before our eyes every day, so let's take the typical example of last Sunday's Wall Street Journal: there is a weakened review section. Presents an article titled Fossil fuels will save the world. Actually, the top story in the news section is headed by Ready American Producers. new wave of oil the glory of the article is in the idea of ​​what they call an ocean of American shale oil while American energy companies are about to unleash a new flood while exuberantly driving us to the precipice, scientists are well aware that Most oil must be left in the ground if there is to be any hope of a decent life for our grandchildren, but who cares as long as there are spectacular benefits for tomorrow in international affairs and popular opinion differs significantly from that of the decision-making classes among many In other examples, a sizable majority in the United States has argued that the United Nations, not the United States, should take the lead in international crises.

Such views are so far removed from Aelita's opinion that they are barely articulated publicly. A good part of the reason is nature. of a mainstream opinion and, as is often the case, the critical end of the spectrum is the most informative, so here is an example of a featured article by the former director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in the current issue of the New York Review of Books that bring us rather left-liberal intellectual magazine and orientation this is what she writes American contributions to international security, global economic growth, freedom and human well-being have been so evidently unique and have been so clearly directed to profit from others that Americans have long believed that the US equates to a different type of country where others push their national interests to the US attempts to promote universal principles;

Well, comments should be superfluous, but the important thing is that this is what many in so-called enlightened circles really believe. It is quite a surprising fact in a free society where information is readily available and the impact on policy is not obscure. Nuclear weapons policy reveals very dramatically how governments and also the internal concentrations of power that largely dominate governments regard the principle that securing and preserving the health and vitality of human civilization is their most important duty. When we investigated, we found that unfortunately governments have consistently and did not even consider the safety of their own populations as a particularly high priority, it is quite illuminating to review the record.

I'll start with some high points or maybe low points, so let's start with the early days of the ultimate weapon at a time when the United States had overwhelming wealth and power, notable security, yet there was a potential international ICBM threat with nuclear warheads. there is a standard academic review of spy nuclear policies McGeorge Bundy was national security advisor to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson had access to the highest level In the documents in which he cites him he now says that the timely development of ballistic missiles during the Eisenhower administration is one of the best achievements of those eight years, but it is good to start by acknowledging that both the United States and the Soviet Union could be in much less nuclear danger today if these missiles had never been developed and then add a notable comment: it says: "No I am aware of no serious contemporary proposal within or outside either government that ballistic missiles should be banned in any way by agreement;

In short, there was apparently no thought given to trying to prevent the only serious threat to the United States: the threat of total destruction, but rather the institutional imperatives of state power prevailed, as in the case of CEOs for whom the fate of the species is of so little importance that it does not matter. not even go into the risk classification, furthermore, these shocking facts seem to arouse little interest or comment, in fact, I have never seen a reference to them, if the development of these missiles could have been avoided, there could have been opportunities, an indication Suggestive is a proposal by Stalin in 1952 that offered to allow the unification of Germany through free elections on the condition that it not join a hostile military alliance, which was not an extreme condition in light of the history of the previous half century.

Stalin's proposal was taken seriously by the respected political commentator James Warburg but apart from him it was ignored or ridiculed in reality recent studies have just begun to take a different view the bitterly anti-communist Soviet academic Fall Fulham Harvard considers that the state of the Stalin's proposal is an unsolved mystery Washington said it was wasted Little effort to flatly reject Moscow's initiative for reasons that were embarrassingly unconvincing, leaving open the basic question: Was Stalin really willing to sacrifice the newly created German Democratic Republic? (East Germany) at the altar of real democracy with consequences for world peace and for American security that could have Melvin Lafleur is one of the most respected scholars of the Cold War and recently published a review of research in published Soviet archives.

He notes that many scholars were surprised to discover, quoting him now, that Lavrentiy Beria, the sinister and brutal head of the secret police, proposed that the Kremlin offers the West to negotiate the unification and neutralization of Germany by agreeing to sacrifice the communist regime of East Germany to reduce tensions between East and West and improve internal political and economic conditions in Russia, opportunities that were squandered in favor of securing German participation in NATO. a shocking decision that is being relived right now in the circumstances of the early 1950s; It is not impossible that agreements could have been reached that would have protected the security of the American population from the most serious threat on the horizon, but apparently the option was not even considered and possible opportunities were dismissed with ridicule, another indication of the little role it plays. true security in state politics and, to highlight the extraordinary importance of this failure, it was just at that moment that the Apocalypse Clock was advanced to two minutes to midnight, the closest it gets.

These events from the early days of the Cold War have considerable resonance at the moment and right on Russia's borders, in Ukraine, four serious crises occurred dating back to the end of the Cold War, a crucial issue at the time, circa 1990. to do with the fate of NATO now that the supposed threat of Russian invasion had disappeared one might have believed that NATO would have been dissolved, on the contrary radically expanded mikhail gorbachev agreed to allow a unified germany to join the nato quite significant concession but there was a quid pro quo, namely that NATO would not expand even one centimeter to the east, that was the phrase that was used in high level internal discussions referring to East Germany and NATO expanded immediately to East Germany.

Naturally, Gorbachev objected, but Washington informed him that these were only verbal commitments and nothing in writing, the sort of tacit implication being that if you are naïve enough to accept the verbal gentlemen's agreement with the United States, that's your problem. Clinton came and expanded NATO to Russia's borders and, as another prominent international relations scholar put it. John Mearsheimer recently noted in the leading establishment magazine Foreign Affairs that signs that Ukraine could be assimilated into the Western system, possibly even NATO, could not fail to be a threat to any Russian leader; we just need to imagine how the United States would do it.

I would have reacted at the height of Soviet power if the Warsaw Pact had taken over most of this hemisphere and now Mexico was preparing to join the Russian-led military alliance. Last December, the Western-backed Ukrainian Parliament voted 303 to 8 to rescind the adaptive non-alignment policy adopted by the ousted president and in their words committed Ukraine to deepening cooperation with NATO to achieve the criteria required to be a member of this organization the growing crisis affecting Ukraine is not a minor threat and is avoidable diplomatic steps to guarantee the neutrality of Ukraine steps that unfortunately are not being taken well returning to the 1950s other events reveal the decline Priority assigned to genuine security When Nikita Khrushchev came to power after Stalin's death he recognized that Russia could not compete militarily with the United States and that if Russia hoped to escape its economic backwardness and the war's devastating effect of the arms race would have to be reversed accordingly, he proposed sharp mutual reductions in offensive weapons, the incoming Kennedy administration considered his offer and rejected it, resorting instead to rapid military expansion.

Thepolicies are summarized by distinguished international relations scholar Kenneth Waltz noted that the Kennedy administration undertook the largest peacetime strategic and conventional military buildup the world has yet seen, even as Jeff for the first time attempted to immediately carry out a major reduction in conventional forces and move forward. a minimum deterrence strategy and we did it even though the strategic arms balance greatly favored the United States and once again the American decision. The decision seriously harmed national security and at the same time enhanced state power. The severity of the damage to national security was revealed in 1962, when Khrushchev sent missiles to Cuba in part.

It was a reckless attempt to balance the scales. In part it was due to the very clear threat of American invasion on the course. of a great terrorist campaign that Kennedy was waging against Cuba in some ways erased from our history but very much alive in real history Khrushchev's effort triggered what Arthur Schlesinger called the most dangerous moment in history and what happens happened then emeritus clear There is no time for careful consideration. Let us go over the details, but it is worth remembering that at the height of the crisis, on October 26 and 27, 1962, Kennedy received a letter from Khrushchev offering to peacefully end the crisis by public withdrawal. simultaneous use of Cuban and Russian missiles from Cuba and the United States.

Turkey's missiles these were liquid-propelled Jupiter missiles, i.e. slow to get moving, meaning they were first-strike weapons that were not intended for a deterrent effect. They were also obsolete weapons. The United States had already issued an offer and a conservative order was issued to withdraw them because they were being replaced by even more lethal weapons, invulnerable Polaris submarines, so that was Kennedy's choice. Will we publicly remove Turkey's obsolete first-strike missiles on Russia's border that are being replaced by even more lethal mass missiles or should we refuse? He rejected his own estimate. The subjective estimate of nuclear war at that time was between 1/3 and 1/2 that is, in my opinion, one of the most egregious decisions in history and even more egregious is Kennedy being praised for his cold bravery and good handling of the crisis 10 years later Henry Kissinger called a nuclear alert this was in the final days of the 1973 Arab Israeli War the purpose of the alert was to warn the Russians not to interfere with their delicate diplomatic maneuvers These were designed to ensure an Israeli victory, but a limited victory for the United States The United States still had unilateral control of the region and the maneuvers were delicate.

We have learned a lot about them from recent declassified sources. The United States starts with the United States and Russia had jointly imposed a ceasefire, but Kissinger secretly informed Israel that they could ignore it, hence the need for a nuclear alert to scare off the Russians. Unfortunately, they were chased away. The safety of the population was a matter of little concern, as always, ten years after that. The Reagan administration launched operations to probe Russian defenses, which meant simulating air and naval attacks against Russia. These actions were carried out at a very tense time, just at that time, two missiles were being installed in Western Europe, these with a flight time of five to ten minutes to very destructive missiles from Moscow.

Reagan had announced his so-called Star Wars program, which is presented here as if it were defensive, but strategic analysts on all sides understand that missile defense is a first-strike weapon if missile defense ever worked, which it might not. be like that. it couldn't stop a first strike, but it could possibly stop a retaliatory attack, meaning it is a first strike weapon and was being set up at the time. All of this caused very serious alarm in Russia, especially with the simulated attacks that led to a major war scare in 1983, which was the last time the Doomsday Clock reached three minutes, three minutes before midnight in 1984, the Newly released Russian archives reveal that the danger was even more serious than historians had previously assumed.

There is a recent comprehensive study by US intelligence that analyzes the evidence. now available and concludes in his words that the fear of war was real and concludes that American intelligence underestimated Russian concerns and underestimated the threat of a preemptive Russian nuclear strike that would have been the end. We have recently learned that it was even more dangerous than that in the midst of these world-threatening events Russia's early warning systems detected an incoming missile attack from the United States sending the highest alert level the duty officer the Russian officer Duty officer Stanislav Petrov decided it was a false alarm and did not transmit the warnings, violating the protocol that was the difference between survival and extermination.

Russian air defense systems are much less sophisticated than those of the United States. They rely heavily on radar, which means straight line-of-sight detection of incoming missiles. The systems depend on satellites, we can detect them at the launch point, so the Russian systems are on much more tense alert of great danger to us, of course, twenty years before that, back in the Cuban missile crisis, a Russian submarine commander named Vasili Arkhipov blocked the launch of nuclear-tipped torpedoes that could have triggered a terminal nuclear war: there were three submarines. The Russian submarines the other two commanders had authorized the launch when the three submarines were under attack by the US destroyers during the Missile Crisis according to the protocol the agreement of the three was required Arkhipov refused to agree another signal more than how thin the thread we cling to for survival is there are chilling estimates of failures of American systems which, as I mentioned, are surely far more reliable than the Russians there is a recent review in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists from several years of data on accidental American reports of Soviet military launches by automated systems aborted by human intervention, the hundreds of these were right in those years of greatest dangers 1979 to 1983 the author of the review Seth bomb concludes that nuclear war is the black swan we can never see except in that brief moment when it is killing us we delay eliminating the risk at our own risk now is the time to address the threat Because now we are still alive, former Stratcom commander General Lee Butler recently reviewed his long career as a strategic weapons planner and wrote that he had been among the most avid of these defenders of faith in nuclear weapons, but now it is his burden. declare with all the conviction I can muster that, in my opinion, we were served extremely poorly and describe reasons such as those I have mentioned and then pose a troubling question: by what authority through successive generations of leaders in the nuclear weapons?

States usurped the power to dictate with greater urgency the likelihood of life continuing on our planet. Why does such stunning audacity persist at a time when we should stand trembling at our folly and United in our commitment to abolish its deadliest manifestations? I conclude that we have so far survived the nuclear age thanks to some combination of skill, such as luck and divine intervention, and I suspect the latter is in greater proportion. By reviewing the history you can understand his view that these are clearly not risks that would be accepted by any sane decision maker, they are being accepted by decision makers who are perfectly sane, just like the devastating risks of an environmental catastrophe.

They are faced with open eyes and ignored by the Masters of the Universe, they are all trapped by an institutional logic that is deeply pathological and that must be cured and quickly if we do not want to end the human race in the words of Russell and Einstein thanks again These lights are super bright well, what is it like to be a Sufi sage or what is it like to be a Sufi sage? Sufi except I just promise to do something different and present it but you finished that happy talk, did I miss something? We are all trapped by an institutional logic that is deeply pathological and that must be cured quickly if we do not want to put an end to the human race.

How do we achieve this? It's easy, everything is in our hands in the case of nuclear weapons, in fact, the answer is known, there are ways to end the threat of nuclear weapons, furthermore, as many of you know, it is an obligation of the nuclear weapons. weapons states carry out good faith efforts to completely eliminate nuclear weapons, that is Article 6 of the 1970 non-proliferation treaty, which is also a legal obligation, as the International Court of Justice ruled some years later, in 1996, and those efforts could be carried out. Unfortunately, we are going in the opposite direction, so President Obama recently announced a trillion dollar program to modernize and upgrade our nuclear weapons to their capability, our strike capability, other powers are acting more or less similarly, policies are being carried out right now.

I mentioned Ukraine, but it is not the only one that is taking the global situation to the point where it could lead to perhaps accidental rifts, perhaps an intentional nuclear attack. By the way, it has been known for many years that if a power launches a nuclear attack first, it will be the first to attack. destroyed by the effects of nuclear explosions so there is no escape it is any nuclear war that between any power with any capacity leads to virtual extermination we know how to end it but the steps that are being taken are in the opposite direction and there are Unfortunately, there have been some Possibly aborted efforts to implement measures that would reduce the danger, so a major threat at this time has to do with Iran.

In the United States, senior commentators and others commonly assert that Iran is the greatest threat to world peace. It is interesting to compare this with global opinion. There are global opinion polls conducted by American polling agencies. Gallup has one of the biggest, most recently about a year ago asking people around the world which country poses the greatest threat to world peace. The US won by a huge margin, no one else was even close, a second was Pakistan, which was probably inflated by the Indian vote, but fortunately the Americans don't know these facts, the press refused to report them, but they are facts, anyway Anyway, Iran is the biggest threat here.

For world peace there are interesting questions one can ask about what the threat is, but let's say there is a threat, whatever it is, is there a way to end it? Yes, there are ways to end it if you don't want me to leave. but there have been potential steps that have been blocked by the United States that is unfortunate anyway in the case of nuclear weapons we know how ending the problem is feasible it is a matter of implementing policies that are understood and can be carried out if there would be enough popular pressure to force them to be carried out.

The world's populations worry about survival. Their leaders usually don't care about power. And we can influence those decisions, especially in countries like this more free and open societies with respect to an environmental catastrophe it is not so obvious that there is a solution there are measures that can be taken to mitigate the threats and perhaps overcome them that is a question open but again politics goes in the opposite direction What I quoted from The Wall Street Journal is unfortunately quite typical: you read it in the economic presses in the business pages of the press across the spectrum New York Times Financial Times others a lot of euphoria about how the United States can become the Saudi Arabia of In the 21st century, energy independence can be achieved, we can flood the world with oil.

All great, and if the price of oil is going down, which is great, it means good for American consumers, who can drive more, and all of these wonderful things are driving us very directly. towards a precipice that will fall and that will be extremely damaging, it can be devastating for generations not too distant, the generation of our grandchildren, much worse, of course, for the poorest countries, but here too, Senator Cotton of Arkansas is one of The many intellectual giants in that esteemed legislative body of the legislature recently announced that we have much to fear from Iran because they control Tehran.

I know that's great, but I should add that if you read the Washington Post this morning you will discover that Senator Cotton received a real pedigree even a Harvard graduate is positioning himself tobeing the future foreign policy specialist of the Republican Party taking on the mantle of McCain and Graham has other interesting warnings I don't know how long he continued his career but when he ran for the Senate in Arkansas he warned the citizens of Arkansas that the Mexican drug cartels are linked to Isis and together they are working to send terrorists across the border into the United States where they can kill Arkansas citizens and of course this is all the forum.

Full of blame on President Obama for leaving a porous order and so on, if that's true, we should move that clock forward to two minutes to midnight, yes, elections in Israel. Netanyahu won a third consecutive term. That of the fourth general author of Haymarket and co-founder of the Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah. He says that Netanyahu is good for the Palestinians because it is very clear that there is no Palestinian state, there is no compromise. Haaretz correspondent Amira Hass sees only cosmetic differences between the two main Israeli parties and says the now moribund two-state solution is actually a 10th stage solution, a bunch of Bantu styles, she says inside the West Bank, What is your opinion on what happened in Israel?

Well, what happened is that one question is how much difference there is between the sides of the parties and they are all more or less on the right. a very small peace party won four seats that barely made the point for admission. There is the Arab party, which is the third largest, but is practically excluded from any coalition simply for racist reasons. No coalition will accept the Arab party as a major party. constituent, but there are some differences. One difference is that if you read Netanyahu's appeal to the electorate that led him to victory after some pretty lukewarm election results, it was a combination of outright racism and extreme scaremongering, which is why you probably read in the newspapers that he warned the electorate that Arab citizens of Israel are being brought to the polls by leftists with the support of foreign governments, all in an effort to undermine their policy of defending Israel from terrorists, etc., and that combination of scaremongering and racism works, it worked In Israel, we don't know it here and it is a very dangerous sign about the nature of Israeli society, which has been drifting very far to the right and is a great nuclear threat. state of arms is a violent state that has carried out many aggressions is a direct violation of international law and the occupied territories that is accepted essentially by everyone with the exception of Israel in the United States and can be an extreme danger since It is a A very dangerous state can be much more benign according to Amira Hass's conclusions, I think they are slightly Israeli analysts, the Palestinians, others, that there are two options, or a two-state agreement according to the overwhelming international consensus that includes essentially everyone outside the United States and Israel, that is one possibility and the other possibility is assumed This is what is called a one-state solution.

Israel takes over all of former Palestine, Jordan to the sea, and then there will be what in Israel is called a demographic problem too many Arabs in a Jewish state that very soon, in fact, perhaps the majority will be among the Palestinians, the Palestinians and Palestinian supporters like the one you mentioned, who view this positively, say that then it will be possible to carry out a fight against apartheid. a civil rights struggle to reclaim the rights of Palestinians within this state the problem with that analysis is that these are not the two options the two options are quite different one of them is the second option a state is not an option not there is a reasonable possibility that Israel will take over all the territory and face this demographic problem, they do not want it, the second option, the alternatives to the States, is something quite different, it is exactly what is happening before our eyes, they are implemented policies daily before our eyes. we can see them, we can see where they are going now that they have been in motion for almost half a century and their purpose is clear what the policies that they take are doing Oh, first of all, Israel is taking control, has taken control in what called Jerusalem is an area approximately five times the size of historic Jerusalem that includes substantial areas of the West Bank, many of our former villages are supposed to be an internationalized territory.

Israel has taken it everywhere except the most remote, they say. Yes, this is a permanent and indivisible capital of Israel, that is one thing, so if you look at the development programs that are quite systematic, very obvious, one of them developed is the development of a corridor that extends to the east of Jerusalem to include a great ground city. Miam was built primarily during the Clinton years, its purpose is to subdivide the West Bank to virtually divide it. The borders of the Mala domain reach virtually as far as Jericho, which will remain in Palestinian hands. It's right on the border, so it's a corridor that extends to the east and practically divides the West.

Bank, if you look at the map, there are other corridors to the north, including other new Israeli cities, REO, who further divide the region, plus the Israelis take control, are committed to seizing everything inside the so-called wall of separation, it is a wall of annexation. declared illegal by the World Court by international opinion, but the United States continues to support the policies, it does not matter, it is a large part of the arable land that excludes Palestinians from their agricultural gardens, etc., in addition, Israel is systematically seizing From the Jordan Valley, which is about a third of the West Bank, much of its arable land, Palestinians are constantly being expelled under one pretext or another, sometimes simply expelled, Jewish settlements are being established, wells are being drilled, etc. ., the traditional method for a hundred years of ultimately incorporating In some region within Israel, well, if you look at that pattern, you can see what is happening.

Israel is carrying out a perfect reason: the Dan Telogen program aimed to integrate into Israel everything that could have any value in the West Bank, but exclude the Palestinian population. The areas that Israel is taking over do not have many Palestinians and those that were there are being largely expelled, which will leave the Palestinian population in a sort of limbo, not within Israel, no, there is no demographic problem, no state, the Palestinians lose everything, that is the alternative of life there. Unfortunately, this is the assumption being made across the board, but if you think about it carefully you can see that it is extremely unlikely to be the likely alternative to the cunning state. the agreement is what I just described the policies that are being implemented now what could stop them actually one thing is in the hands of the United States, as long as it is known that the United States officially opposes these policies, so The official policy of the USA says that it is not useful for peace, but the USA continues to support them, it is providing them with military, economic, diplomatic and even ideological support because of the way in which the problems are raised in the The United States, which is quite different from the rest of the world, as long as the United States continues to support the policies there is no reason to expect Israel to withdraw from them, whether it is Netanyahu or Isaac Hara or anyone else, there are some differences in the policies, the racist and extremely alarmist rhetoric of Netanyahu, who is not chaired by others, so there are some differences, but there is a mirror Chamber. correct and saying that they are not fundamental differences in New Mexico under US law.

Native American and Spanish land grant heirs have lost common lands and acequia water rights have been separated from land for commercial use. What hope for the future do you see in the traditional? people continue to defend the rights of the Commons and the shared use of natural resources instead of exploitation for profit well, same story again, it's up to you these are decisions that the American people can make in the case of the United States and of course in the case of us We all know that this has been going on for 500 years, 400 years since the first English settlers arrived, there has been a constant attack on the Indian nations, driving them off their lands, exterminating them , expelling them, sending them the reserves, that has been good, that is the history of the United States. two profound and fundamental crimes in the history of the United States, one is the removal or extermination of the indigenous population, the other, of course, slavery and its impact still persist.

The United States is what is called a separate colonial society, it is an unusual form of imperialism, it is a form of imperialism. in which the imperial power originally England establishes the country that is being taken, expels or exterminates the population, that is an extreme form of imperialism, it is true in what is called the Anglosphere, the countries that in a way extend it from England through the United States, Canada. Australia New Zealand almost did not completely exterminate the indigenous population, which is an unusual form of imperialism, very dangerous for the indigenous people and yes, they are fighting back and need support;

However, there is another point to be made about preserving the Commons is the environment we live in, if the Commons is privatized, if it is handed over to Exxon Mobil and Chevron, etc., and we are dead for whatever reasons. I just mentioned. It is quite obvious that if the Commons are preserved for the common good, we have a chance of surviving. If we look around the world, almost everywhere it is the indigenous populations that are at the forefront of trying to protect the Commons from destruction by of the industrial capitalist powers, mainly China. others, in Canada, are the First Nations, in Australia, the Aboriginal people of India, tribal peoples around the world, countries that have significant majorities and indigenous populations have taken steps to try to preserve the Commons, Bolivia, for example , which actually has rights of nature written into its constitution Ecuador made an interesting effort to keep some of its oil in the ground where it should be if the rich countries, the European countries, paid Ecuador a fraction of the profits it would have received from our commercialization of fossil fuels.

Rich countries refused and are now destroying valuable forests too. It is quite a surprising fact and what really embarrasses us is that it is the indigenous peoples who have been pushed to the margins of survival who are at the forefront of trying to protect them. of the madness we are committing now and which will very likely destroy the chances of dignified survival, which is the most crucial aspect of protecting the Commons the day after the great Climate March in New York and in September, the day after , the Rockefeller brothers' fund. the Rockefeller brothers fund divested from fossil fuels, the importance of that cannot be missed, given John D Rockefeller's background, is this the start of a major movement in terms of divestment from fossil fuel corporations?

I was recently in Portland, Oregon, and an activist told me this is one of the hottest topics on campuses from Stanford to Harvard, yes, MIT, my campus, is a hot topic on campuses and yes, it's important, it's In some symbolic but meaningful way, these are some of the steps that can be taken to prevent the race to the Cliff. How important it is, as if everything else depended on people like you, would you do something about it? I want to talk to you about two ships, one fictional and one real, the Pequod, Moby Dick and the Titanic.

I think it was Edward Sayid. this stage that years ago talked about Ahab's monomaniacal impulse to destroy Moby Dick no matter what and take the crew with him, he didn't care and what do you think of that metaphor that Moby Dick is nature and that a hob is out , there is a type of capitalism out of control and when it comes to the Titanic the reforms offered by the centers of power are merely cosmetic, they are moving deck chairs on the Titanic, they recycle their cardboard Prius driver and things like that, sorry, Prius drivers. they like any kind of model and metaphor, there is some point, but some differences, the crucial thing that we are not, I mean, you could say that Hitler was an Ahab, let's say he was, especially towards the end of the war. dedicated to continuing in the war even if Germany was totally destroyed and it was the Germans' fault if they failed to win the war, okay, that's a habit in a way, but in our case it's something different, it's really institutional.

Logically, it is not a question of individuals, those CEOs who voted in the Davos poll, if asked personally, perhaps they contribute to the Sierra Club and perhaps they are in favor of thedisinvestment, but in their institutional role as managers of large corporations they have a In fact, the duty is a requirement, even a legal requirement, to maximize profits and market share and ignore what economists call externalities: the impact of a transaction in others that does not fit well into market calculations. In this case, the externality turns out to be the survival of the grandchildren, but in their institutional role they cannot address that problem because their task is to maximize profits and market participation;

Of course, there are a variety of options and there is some variation between corporations as to how they operate, but this overwhelming institutional ownership turns out to be lethal in its nature and cannot continue if we are to serve and survive in the case of state power; No different, it is quite typical for state governments to consider their own populations as a major enemy; Snowden's revelations, for example, will reveal the extent to which the US government views the US population as an enemy that must be monitored and controlled, the pretext of defending terrorism is very weak, as you will remember, When Snowden's revelations first came to light, the government claimed that NSA surveillance had prevented between 50 and 50 terrorist acts. under investigation they narrowed it down to maybe a dozen or so under further investigation it finally came down to one in a case where someone had sent $8,500 to Somalia, which was the net return of this massive program, which is a program aimed at the population to ensure their control and obedience and that is very typical of governments and it is understandable that leaders are committed to power, the power of the state, if you think about the history of nuclear policy, I tried it, if you look in detail , it is much worse, but the record is one of a surprising record of disregard for security, the well-being of the population and measures to enhance the power of the state, this is how powerful institutions work and these things have to overcome the pathologies institutional is much more difficult than overcoming an individual pathology, in the case of Ahab, you know that you can throw them into the ocean or subject them to psychoanalysis or institutionalize them there are remedies but in the case of institutional pathology it is much more serious in terms of rearranging the deck chairs on the beach is not a bad image but some measures are being taken that are not insignificant, the development of solar energy, for example, is underway, great efforts are being made to try to block it, but unfortunately it is underway, this is not It is the center where the largest production of solar panels is taking place in China and this means that there are more sophisticated panels.

We are at the forefront of advanced technology and solar panel production should be here, but some steps are being taken. There are some environmental rules, but overall the main thrust of the policy is in the wrong direction. Years ago, philosopher John Dewey said that politics is the shadow cast on society by big business, how would you evaluate that shadow today in light of Citizens United and McCutcheon vs. FEC and other Supreme Court rulings? Well Dewey's comment was accurate, it dates back to the 1950's, someone will remember there was an Equipe. I think maybe it came from Seawright Mills, I don't remember, who said that the United States is a one-party corporate party state that has two factions, Democrats and Republicans, and that was pretty accurate at the time, but it's less accurate today, United States.

United is still a one-party state, the business party, but in reality there is only one faction, the Republican Party has moved quite far from being a functional parliamentary organization, but that is not just my judgment, the very highly respected political analyst Conservative Norman Ornstein of the right-wing think tank American Enterprise Institute recently noted that I think the Republican Party has been resourceful and has become what he called a radical insurgency that is no longer committed to parliamentary participation. There is a lot of truth in that. we've seen it pretty dramatically in recent years, we're seeing it right now, just take a look at today's newspaper, the description of the House budget, basically, the Ryan budget, what is the Ryan budget? , through all kinds of tricks.

On the one hand, economists just make fun of balanced budgets, but what it actually does is undermine Medicare by privatizing it, meaning it's the only part of the health care system that more or less works because it's not privatized, its inefficiencies and costs are due to the fact that you have to work through the highly inefficient bureaucratized privatized system in the United States, so privatize, move to privatize Medicare or say: let's undermine the system, it more or less works, cutting Medicaid under the guise of federalism, repealing the Affordable Care Act. that does not send wonderful legislation but an improvement that will send tens of millions of people to the lists of onion words cutting food stamps and so on and enriching the rich that is the only policy of the radical Republican insurgency to do everything can to enrich the rich and powerful and attack the population in general, you cannot win votes that way, so what has happened is that in recent years the leaders of the Republican Party have mobilized sectors of the population that They have always been present but have never been mobilized in a significant way.

The political force, one part is the evangelical Christians, the main component of part of the base of the Republican Party today, we see it in the upcoming Iowa primaries, but in general, another is the nativists, people who fear that they are taking away our country, which has a In fact, the white population is a beacon, very soon it will become a minority and for extreme nativist ultranationalists, this is a crime that cannot be tolerated by people who are sectors of the population who They are so scared that they have to carry weapons. Starbucks because who knows will come after them, in fact there is legislation being debated right now in Nevada to allow guns into daycares and maybe some of these three year olds were trained by Isis, so you note, but these are, you know, they are They are not small sectors of the population, it is a very strange country in many ways, it is a large part of the population, people can mobilize around these issues and not realize that the policies that are applying their leaders attack them and support the super-rich and the Well, that is one of the two previous factions.

What is the other faction? They are not Democrats, they are what used to be called moderate Republicans. If you look at the programs of the Democratic Party, there are some exceptions, like Bernie Sanders and others, but if you take the core of the Democratic Leadership Council of the Democratic Party and so on, these are the policies that used to be called moderate Republicans, in fact, someone like Richard Nixon would be on the left of American politics today. Eisenhower would be outside the spectrum. Eisenhower was like that. Even saying that no crazy person could think of dismantling the New Deal programs, that is, those that are being dismantled right now.

The current Republican programs are efforts to dismantle programs that were started under Nixon, drifting to the right throughout this neoliberal period, roughly since Reagan. It's quite extreme, I actually find it quite surprising in the public's health attitudes toward US health programs. The health system is an international scandal, with approximately twice the per capita costs of comparable countries and relatively poor outcomes. Additionally, the U.S. government spends about as much per capita as comparable countries, but that's a small portion of health costs because everything has to be figured out. the privatized health system that is inefficient, bureaucratized and in the hands of tons of accounting administration and so on, and so on, and in the hands of institutions, we have no interest in health, an insurance company is not dedicated to health, it dedicated to making money.

No wonder they do things, try to make money well. If we look back, there's a long history of polling public attitudes about health care and over a long period since World War II there have been substantive considerations or issues that you're very familiar with. Polls depend on exactly how the question is asked, but a large part of the population often a majority has been in favor of national healthcare. They date back to the late 1980s. The majority of the population thought that there should be a constitutional guarantee for health care. health care national health care and in fact I think it was 40% of the population thought that was already in the Constitution in the late 80's and take a look today when Obama introduced his affordable health care program, you'll remember that from the beginning A Of the parts of the program was a public option that allowed people to choose something like Medicare, the national health care.

At the time, almost two-thirds of the population were in favor of it, but it was abandoned without discussion and never entered the discussion. The United States has a very unusual, perhaps unique, law that prohibits the government from negotiating drug prices. Other things can be negotiated, but not drug prices, so of course drug prices are out of sight and much higher than in comparable countries. The population is overwhelmingly opposed. Yes. There haven't been many polls, but the only ones I've seen show more than 80 percent opposition. There was never even an attempt to address this. The power of the pharmaceutical corporations is so enormous that there was not even an effort to try to include it in the so-called Obamacare, if you look at the attitudes towards the so-called Obamacare, they have been quite negative, the majority of the population has opposed it.

Although for years the population has been strongly in favor of national health care and this Of course, now it is not national health care, part of that opposition is because it did not go far enough, we do not know how much, because the Questions aren't asked in surveys, but a lot of that is the kind of stuff you see. reflected in this famous City Hall comment where someone stood up and said, "I'll keep your hands off my Medicare," you know, that kind of thing people don't understand what the government is doing and what the private corporations are doing and the The effect is a significant shift in expressed attitudes toward policies, which is a remarkable triumph of propaganda when you think about it, especially when you consider how vital healthcare is to everyone's lives.

Well, those numbers have been at zero for quite some time and there's a light there that says exit, but I'm going to take moderator privilege here and continue for another minute or two if you'll allow me, okay, in this long trip you've been on, have you ever imagined the kind of crowds you usually encounter? drawing or displaying his books in airports, I actually began giving public talks on these topics too late, in the early 1960s, in the early days of the Vietnam War. I started giving talks about the Vietnam War and, as you know, they were talks with three people. like someone's living room or a church with three or four people or something like that and that never and none of us who were involved could have guessed at the time that a couple of years later there would be a big protest against the war. movement but there was and the same has happened on other issues with all the negative things that have happened in recent years this neoliberal reaction since Lee Carter mainly during the Reagan years there has also been a lot of progress the audiences are very different than they were in The concerns of the past are different, many issues that were fought in the 60s, could barely be discussed, now women's rights, gay rights, are accepted and taken for granted, there was no concern for environmental issues in the 60s, there is now substantial concern about the years that have passed.

There have been periods of great popular activism to try to end the nuclear weapons madness. The general atmosphere of the public has changed a lot and you know that the public reflects that well, this is all positive. There are basically two trajectories. There is a trajectory. I have been describing which is a constructive positive and offers hope that there is another trajectory that I talked about that goes in the opposite direction and the question is which will prevail, but again, as I have said several times and as everyone knows without I say it, that is in your hands.

You were in Argentina and you met with some. You were in Argentina and you met with some activists from the Podemos movement in Spain. What were your impressions? Well, this was an international conference of activists from all over the world, mainly from South America, but some from Spain, some from Greece, Arisa and others, and it reflects some of the positive developments in the world, one of themajor positive developments internationally in the past for a long time, what you like has been what has happened in South America in the past approximately 15 years South America for 500 years since the early conquest had been dominated by foreign powers the countries themselves South Americans were the typical structure was a small Europeanized elite mostly white extremely rich in a sea of ​​misery and poverty the elites were outward oriented they had their second homes on the Riviera they sent their money to Zurich, you know, etc., There was very little interaction between the South American countries.

The South American countries were the most religious students of neoliberal politics, the structural adjustment policies of the World Bank and the IMF and the Treasury Department and they were the ones who suffered the most naturally, but in the Last 10 or 15 years they pulled out of this for the first time. It is a major change in world affairs. South America used to be considered here as what it was called in our backyard they did everything we told them we didn't pay attention to them now South America is out of control take a look at the hemispheric conferences the United States is isolated in fact the The main reason why Obama took some steps towards normalizing relations with Cuba is that the US was completely isolated on that issue - the entire hemisphere was trying to reach some kind of arrangement before the summit of the Americas that was to be held. will celebrate soon, they did not achieve it, but that is the goal, this is a big change and that is why the conference was in South America but there were participants particularly from Podemos and Syriza.

These are in Greece. Europe has been subjected to a kind of savage economic program that is seriously undermining European democracy. It has been devastating for the weaker peripheral countries. It is beginning to dismantle the important post-second world of Europe that social democratic welfare state programs were achieving and I think that is the purpose of the policies, it is economically destructive, these are the austerity policies in times of recession, even the of the International Monetary Fund, is it crazy from an economic point of view? From the point of view of class war, they are enriching the big banks, they are dismantling social programs, etc.

Well, there is a reaction, the reaction was unleashed first in Greece, which has suffered the most, and in Germany. The banks that are basically responsible for these crises are reacting in an absolutely savage way to try to prevent Greece from taking measures that can get out of the disaster that has been imposed on it. The call for Greece to restructure its debt, you know, delay debt payments, etc., this is particularly ironic because in 1953 the European countries allowed Germany to cancel its major debts, that is the basis for the German recovery, that's why it is the dynamic center of Europe, secondly, Germany practically destroyed Greece during World War II, well, put all this together, Greece now asks for a limited element of what was granted to Germany in 1953 and the Germans, the powers in Germany, the bank, the Bundesbank, just flat out refuse in a very savage way, now they can get away with it in Greece because Greece is a pretty weak country.

Spain is going to be a harder nut to crack, it is a bigger country, a more powerful economy and in Spain, in the last few years, two or three years, a new political party was developed for them, which now occupies first place in the polls and it is also a policy that a party has dedicated in a quite pragmatic and sensible way to reversing austerity programs, supporting the reconstruction of the social economy, welfare state programs and moving the ideas of the country and the constructive development in Spain, as well as the criminals who caused the crisis.

The banks were the Spanish banks and the German banks, but they want the population to pay attention that none of them believe in capitalism in a capitalist society, say if I lend them money and since I know them I know that it is a risky loan and therefore and therefore Therefore I get a lot of interest and I make a lot of money with it, if at a certain moment you can't pay, it is my problem in a capitalist society, but not in the societies in which we live, the problem is your problem and your neighbor's problem your neighbors They didn't take the debt the debt but they had to pay because that's how our radically anti-capitalist system works it makes sense in terms of class warfare but it doesn't look like markets or capitalism and that's what's been happening but there's a fight against that and we can be worth keeping an eye on, they have sensible programs.

You could win the next elections that will be held soon and it will not be easy for the Brussels bureaucrats and the North German banks to crush the Spanish initiatives one last question you grew up in the 30s in a time when solidarity meant something there was mutual support there was an active labor movement, what will it take in

2015

to rekindle that spirit of solidarity? Remember what happened in the '30s, the labor movement was actually underway because from then on the CIO organized strikes and so on. They had a sympathetic administration, so the Roosevelt administration was willing to adapt to some extent to the pressures developing among the public labor movement that led it, which led to the New Deal legislations that were very beneficial to the population. and the economy, but they retreated.

Until the 1920s, the labor movement had been destroyed, there was nothing left, practically nothing left of it. One of the leading labor historians, David Montgomery, died recently. He has a book full of the fall of the House of Labor and it was around the 1920s. There had been a lively vibrant and active quite radical American labor movement, but it had been crushed by a brutal attack. This is very much a business-run society and the business classes are highly class-conscious and constantly fighting a class war. They have state power behind them and they were able to crush and destroy. the labor movement but it revived and can revive again and other popular movements can too and there is a basis for it, the basis for it is the quite positive changes that have taken place since the 1960s in many ways, it is a very much a society more civilized than it was at that time and many issues and I think it is a basis for recreating the kind of solidarity, mutual aid, working together, dedication, commitment that is very necessary today and we cannot ignore the fact that we are in a time of human crisis. story that is completely unique for the first time in human history we are in a position where the decisions we will make will determine whether the species survives has not been true in the past it is definitely true now these are not trivial questions it is quite a Note sobering and as we close this evening in Hindi there is a word called Saiva which means service and I can't think of anyone who has performed more flavor and service to humanity than you.

Thank you so much.