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The rough transcript:
Industrial Worker: You wrote that Obama “broke ground” in supporting
the Honduras coup last June. I was wondering if you could explain what
you meant.
Noam Chomsky: I don’t remember putting it that way. His reaction was a
little different than it had been in earlier years. I mean in earlier
years the U.S .just outright supported coups or carried them out for
that matter. In fact, in 2004 they carried out the coup in Haiti and
in 2002 openly supported the coup in Venezuela. Obama sort of did it
kind of indirectly. He did join the Organization of American States in
criticizing the coup. He wouldn’t call it a military coup. He kind of
dragged his feet. Almost every country, even in Europe, withdrew their
ambassadors. The US didn’t. The U.S. of course has enormous influence
in Honduras. The military’s trained by the United States. They have
very close connections…But they didn’t do much. They didn’t try to use
their influence. And then as it proceeded, the Obama administration
ended up essentially supporting the coup regime. The U.S. was almost
the only country that recognized the elections under military rule… It
was sort of the usual support for right-wing military coups but in a
softer way than usual. That’s partly just a reflection of the change
in power relations.
IW: What do you mean by that?
NC: Well, you know, Latin America’s just become a lot more
independent. I mean, take say, Brazil. Forty-five years ago the
Kennedy administration didn’t like the government in Brazil. It was a
kind of mildly social democratic government not very different from
(President) Lula. So they just organized a military coup and
established a neo-Nazi style national security state. That was the
norm, one country after another through the ‘80s. We don’t have to
talk about it; it was a monstrosity…Now Latin America, finally, and
after 500 years, is moving towards integration for the first time and
paying a little attention--and in some cases, like Bolivia, a lot of
attention—to the needs of the poor majority, which is new. That’s all
made the continent a little more independent of the U.S. The U.S. was
kicked out of its last military base in Ecuador last September. It now
has seven new ones in Colombia, which is the last hold-out.
IW: I’m just curious, having read recently about (Venezuelan
President) Chavez’s crackdown on TV stations. As a libertarian, how do
you see that?
NC: Well, it’s been going on for a while…I agree with the mainstream
opinion that he shouldn’t have done it. I also agree with the
mainstream that it couldn’t have happened here. But the reason it
couldn’t have happened here--and this is why my comments are never
quoted--is that here the managers and directors of the station would
have been taken out and lined up before a firing squad. Suppose there
was a military coup in the United States that overthrew the government
and that CBS publically supported it and was part of it. And then it
was overturned. What do you think would happen to CBS? Would they have
their license withheld? They’d be lucky if they didn’t get a death
sentence.
IW: Just recently, in Citizens United vs. the Federal Election
Commission, the U.S. Supreme Court gave corporations free rein to
spend however much money they wanted in elections. I was wondering
what effect you think this will have, or do you even think that it’s
anything new?
NC: Well, it’s a significant step beyond what was already intolerable.
I mean, elections are pretty much bought. You can pretty well predict
the victor in an election by who’s outspending who. And the funding,
of course, mostly traces back to corporations in one way or another.
But up until now they had to do it in kind of indirect, you know,
devious ways. The Supreme Court said, “Look, you can buy them off
directly if you like.” What they said is that you can run ads in favor
of a particular candidate with corporate money. That’s even more
extreme than campaign funding.
IW: In the mainstream media, they’ve tried to almost balance what’s
obviously going to be a huge influx of corporate spending by saying,
“Well, the unions are going to be able to do it too.” But the idea
that the unions are going to be able to raise anything comparable…
NC: Well, not only that, but with all of their flaws, unions…in simple
they’re democratic. Its workers who get together and are supposed to
be able to make decisions. That’s not what a corporation is. First of
all, shareholders are themselves highly skewed towards the extreme
wealth. I mean, corporate ownership is very narrowly concentrated, but
furthermore, shareholders are left out. A century ago, corporations
were identified by the courts with the management. The management is
the corporations. For this campaign spending, the management doesn’t
even have to consult with shareholders. So they’re just pure
tyrannies. Furthermore, labor unions, are supposed to at least, work
for the benefit of their members. Corporations are required by law to
work only for profit and for material gain. They’re not allowed to do
anything else. How you can compare them? It’s just a joke.
IW: After the Republican’s victory in Massachusetts, Democrats have
said they don’t think they have the votes for healthcare…What’s your
take on the situation?
NC: Well, first of all, the election in Massachusetts was interesting.
The statistics came out on the voting. Brown won because of very
strong support in the wealthy suburbs and because of pretty much
apathy in the poorer, urban, Democratic areas. So, you know, the rich
want even more; nothing’s ever enough. And the population is saying,
“Look, we don’t like the way you’re giving everything away to rich.”
So they just mostly stayed home. But the voting is interesting. The
Republicans are not like any political party in American history.
There’s only one word in their vocabulary: “no.” Anything the
Democrats propose, “no.” They’ve gotten the Democrats to concede on
issue after issue--primarily because they don’t disagree all that
much. But one of the things they’ve gotten them to agree on is that
everything has to go to a filibuster. Filibusters have been used in
the past, but they’re not the routine way of responding to proposed
legislation. And the Republicans are like the old Communist Party:
it’s uniform. Everybody has to vote the same way. So what you get is a
Republican minority (that) can block any legislation, just by
threatening a filibuster. Brown ran on saying, “I’m the 41st vote.”
But when you go back to healthcare, a majority of the population is
opposed to Obama’s healthcare program. That’s what the headlines say,
and that’s true. But if you look at the polls, they’re mostly opposed
to it because it doesn’t go far enough. He gave away everything. They
gave away the public option, which there’s strong support for, you
know, a strong majority. They gave away the Medicare buy-in, you know,
buy in at 55. Again, very strong majority. I mean, he made a deal with
the drug companies saying, “Yeah, we’ll continue the policy of not
negotiating with you.” There’s about 85 percent opposition to that.
The public wants cost-cutting, which makes sense. The program’s out of
sight. But you can’t have cost-cutting when you hand it over to
private insurance companies that are unregulated. I mean, you can cut
around the edges somewhere, but you can’t deal with the essence of the
problem. So sure, the public is very disillusioned about the
healthcare.
IW: On the right, there’s been a lot of talk about the “Tea Party
Movement.” Do you see an opportunity for a third party alternative
coming from the left these days?
NC: Well, the Tea Party thing is a real sign of the failure of the
left. Those people, they’re a mixed group, but many of them, I would
say probably most of them, are the people who ought to be organized by
the left. These are people with real grievances. For the past thirty
years, years of financialization and Neo-liberalism, for the majority,
wages have stagnated. Benefits, which were never very great, have
declined. Working hours have shot way up. They’ve gone way into debt
to try to preserve the consumerist lifestyle that’s rammed down their
throats by the advertising industry. So they’re in bad shape. You
know, not Third World style bad-shape, but bad-shape by the standards
of the way a rich, industrial country ought to be. Those are
grievances. Well, those are the things the left ought to be organizing
them around. Right now, people are very upset, and rightly, about the
giveaway to the banks and the very high unemployment. And if you look
at unemployment figures, which are always understated of course, in
manufacturing industry it’s back to the level of the Great Depression.
And people are not going to get those jobs back with the hollowing out
of manufacturing and increasing financialization. So they have every
right to be mad, but the left is not offering them anything.
IW: Do you think it’s kind of a “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” type
thing? Have you read that book?
NC: Yeah, I don’t really think so. Say the Brown vote, or the Tea
Parties, they’re not talking about, you know, abortion rights, and
religion, and so on. They’re talking about straight economic populist
issues. If there was a functioning, liberal left, that’s what they’d
be organizing around.
IW: Emma Goldman…I’m going to mess up the right quote because I’m
improvising, but she said that “If voting changed anything, they’d
make it illegal.” You call yourself an anarchist, and I totally
respect that. But do you subscribe to that kind of non-participation
in electoral politics?
NC: Often. You know, I often don’t vote, or vote Green or something
like that. But there are times when I think it matters. So, say in
2004, I thought it mattered to keep Bush out. If you were in a swing
state, I thought it would be important to vote for Kerry, holding your
nose. I’m in Massachusetts, so I didn’t have to. And similarly in
2008, I thought it was important to keep McCain and Palin out. This is
bad, but that would be a lot worse. So it’s not as extreme as Goldman
said. There’s a limited functioning democracy which gives the
population some voice, and sometimes a lot of voice when they get
active and organized…
IW: Overall, how would you rate Obama’s first year in office?
NC: I don’t have a measure, but it’s about what I’d expected. I in
fact wrote about it even before the primaries. My impression from his
writings and his website and so on is that he’s a fairly familiar,
centrist Democrat, with very strong ties to the financial industry
which is where most of his funding comes from. And that’s pretty much
what he’s been…
IW: I guess I’m thinking also in terms of foreign policy. I think I
remember a quote from you…I think you were actually quoting Condi
Rice. You were saying you saw it as an extension of the second Bush
term.
NC: I think that’s about what’s happened. You know, a little variation
here and there, but not much. So he’s escalated the war in Afghanistan
and Pakistan beyond what Bush was at least saying he was going to do.
He’s been a little bit more open to negotiations on Iran. He’s done
nothing on Israel/Palestine, on Latin America. He’s approximately the
same as Bush. I just don’t see much difference.
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