magazine. is this your first book? >> it is my first book. >> how much time did you spend on it? >> i actually started it in the 1990s and worked on it in fits and starts until very recently. >> potomac books is the publisher of "world in the balance: the perilous months of june-october 1940". .. >> attend an event to talk about it with the nation's bravest and

most accomplished public intellectual and political activist, so i'm particularly grateful to professor chomsky for being here. i just want to begin by making a couple of points that will frame the discussion nicely, and i'm not sure what that discussion will be because we haven't talked about it on purpose, but there are a couple of points that will help to highlight i'd like to just briefly describe. so the book really makes the argument that the rule of law as we have always understood it has been radically degraded in a way that wasn't previously true. and the interesting thing about the rule of law is that it's a term that has a pretty clear meaning by consensus. it's not a particularly complex term. it essentially means nothing more than the fact that in a society we are all bound on equal terms by a common set of rules. and you can look to contemporary legal scholars who define it that way, um, you can look more

interestingly to the 1980s and the 1990s when western institutions like the imf and world bank began demanding that countries that received lending comported with the rule of law, and there were lots of lectures issued about what they were required to do in order to comport with the rule of law. and there was a seminal journal article by thomas curt thers in current affairs that warned countries that don't live under the rule of law, elites can use their superior financial power to co-opt political institutions. and that the critical requirement to live under the rule of law is that political and financial elites cease placing themselves above the law and are subjected on equal terms the to everyone else. and you go back to the founders and as much disagreement as they had, what you continuously find is this emphasis, not ancillary or secondary, but really central that the american founding in order to be legitimate and just had to venerate the rule of law. and this was true despite the

fact that founders almost across the board believed in the the inevitability and even desirability and virtue of vast levels of inequality in all sorts of realms, and yet they continuously emphasized the only way that equality would be equal and just would be if everyone were equal before the law. every time you make the argument or point autothat the rule of law and equality in the law was important in the founding you'll be met with the objection which is, obviously, an accurate one as far as it goes though i don't think it goes very far, that the founders violently breached those principles in all sorts of ways and this concept has never been the predominant theme to describe american political reality. and although that is true, um, the reason i don't think it goes very far is because the important part of that writing and that history is that that principle has always been affirmed as being central even

at the time that we violated it radically. and the reason that's important is because if you affirm a principle and deviate from it in your actions, there's an obvious aspect to your behavior that is hypocritical. but if affirmation is sincere and ringing and consistent, then those principles -- even though you're not comporting with them, become aspirational. they become guides to what progress means, how it's understood and how it's achieved. so even though the founders violated that principle in all sorts of ways, the fact they continuously enshrined it, and it was affirmed throughout the next two centuries meant that most of the events we consider to be progress in american history were driven by the reverence for this concept that we're all equal under the law, that equality under the law is how we determine if we're perfecting the union. and there's a real value in affirming principles even if they're not perfectly applied.

and what i think is radically different about today, um, is not that the rule of law suddenly is not being applied faithfully because that's always been true. what's different about today radically is we no longer even bother to affirm that principle. we pay lip service to the phrase the rule of law, but in terms of the substance of what it requires, you can often -- and i would say more often than not in beating opinion-making elite circles -- find an express repudiation of that principle. so you begin with the ford pardon of nixon continuing through the shielding of iran contra criminals into the obama administration's decision to shield all bush crimes of torture and illegal warrantless eavesdropping, obstruction of justice, the aggressive attack on iraq, the decision now not to prosecute wall street criminals for precipitating the 2008 crisis with systematic financial fraud. all of these acts entail very aggressive and explicit

arguments that the most powerful political and financial elites in our society should not be and are not subject to the rule of law because it's too disrupt i have, it's two divisive, it's more important that we find ways to avoid repeating the problem. and so you really see constant arguments, um, and you did, for example, during the debate over whether or not the telecom industry should be retroactively immunized, that the rule of law is not that important of a value any longer. jerry ford, when he addressed the nation, said of course i believe in the rule of law, the law is no respecter of persons, and this was the amendment that was concocted for that episode, the law is also a respecter of reality. meaning that if it's too disruptive or divisive, it's actually in our common good to exempt the most powerful from the consequences of their criminal acts. and that has really become the

template used in each of these instances. and that, i think, radically, um, is different than how things were in the past. the other point i want to make just to begin, then i'll turn the floor over to professor chomsky, is that the other difference is that if we had a society that just decided that we were going to be very lenient and forgiving and merciful when people committed crimes as i just described we do for elites, you could have debates about whether that was an advisable approach to criminality about whether or not that would produce good results or not. but if it were applied across the board at the very least it wouldn't implicate rule of law. there are countries that take lenient approaches to criminal justice, and if we were a country that applied that same leniency to ordinary americans, then there wouldn't be an issue with the rule of law. so, for example, if you went and broke into someone's house and bashed the owner in the head with a baseball bat and stole their valuable belongings, and a

week later or two months later got caught by the police, and you said, looks, officer, you did you think i did, but isn't it more important that we could look to the future? why focus on the past? [laughter] if that were something ha worked for you or for people who sold drugs on street corners and the like, then there wouldn't be a rule of law issue. but the fact that that applies only to, um, to political and financial elites and not to ordinary americans is the reason why there's a rule of law problem. at the very same time that we've created this template of elite immunity over the last four decades, we have in the name of law and order and tough on crime built the world's largest and most sprawling prison state for ordinary americans. and the irony that richard nixon was the one who received this pardon when in the 1960s he rejuvenated his political career by becoming the law and order candidate following, picking up the mantle of barry goldwater,

running against the disruption and the unrest of the 1960s, demanding harsh sentences, lesser opportunity for release from prison. the drug war was really accelerated first under him. the fact that he built his political career based on this harsh law and order mentality and then suddenly when he got caught committing crimes was completely shielded from the consequences, really the personification of this two-tier justice system that i'm writing about. and, of course, the war on terror has wrought all new tiers of justice where people just accused of terrorism can have every right depid of them without any sort of legal rights or legal process of any kind. it's really a new class, a class where there's not even a pretext of due process, a subperson class where the goth can do -- the government can do anything without any legal constraints at all. and it's this contrast between

the shielding and immunity that we've invest inside the elite class or informed -- invested in themselves that is the real menace to the rule of law and that i think is the most responsible factor for the loss of faith in our political institutions and the widespread, accurate belief that you see motivating the occupy movement and other widespread citizen rage that our political institutions have lost all remnants of legitimacy and can no longer be used to effectuate change. i think it's one of the most menacing problems and also one of the most consequential. so -- [applause] >> well, let me just pick up on glenn's last comments and say a few things about the rule of law. it happens that last night i was

reading the current journal, the current edition of the main journal of the american society for historical, historical relations, diplomatic history. and it happens to be devoted, several articles devoted to the nuremberg tribunal, how it developed and so on. and the lead article points out that one of the most honorable and admired elements of the american historical tradition, the legal tradition is the principle of presumption of innocence; that is, a person is presumed innocent, a suspect is presumed innocent until brought to a fair trial and convicted

with proper procedural guarantees. that's the proudest achievement of the american legal and ethical tradition. and, of course, it was recognized as nuremberg. the british wanted to kill the nazi war criminals, but justice jackson, the u.s. chief prosecutor insisted that even though these people are maybe, you know, the worst criminals in history, they should be brought to trial, subjected to a fair trial. couldn't have happened if they were proven guilty. and furthermore, he added, that we are giving these defendants a poisoned chalice. and if we ever sip from it, meaning if we ever do the things that they're accused of, we must

suffer the same consequences, otherwise these proceedings are a complete farce. the core element of the proceedings, the main crime for which the nazi criminals were condemned and hanged was what was called in the tribunal the supreme international crime, namely aggression. free and clearly defined. which they said is, the tribunal said is the worst of all war crimes because it encompasses all the evil that follows. well, i won't run through the way that's been, we've applied that to ourselves. but that point is correct, presumption of innocence is a very deeply-rooted principle not of american law, but of anglo american law. or it used to be. by now it's simply, totally dismissed and with praise. for example, when osama bin

laden was the prime suspect for 9/11, plausibly though the fact of the matter is the government has yet to provide the kind of evidence that would hold up in a credible court and has even more or less conceded it doesn't have it, but undoubtedly he's the prime suspect. a couple of months ago obama invaded another country, commandos apprehended him and murdered him, tossed his body into the ocean without autopsy, and this was praised. this was praised as a great achievement. a great achievement of the obama administration. a couple months later the concept was extended in a manner that glenn talks about in his book which is a terrific book, i should say. that's the case of anwar al-awlaki, an american

citizen, a cleric who was accused not of committing -- although some talk about involvement in crimes, but no evidence was presented. the main charge against him was he was a fluent speaker of english, and he was transmitting, he was giving, offering support for jihadi operations. he was killed a couple of weeks ago, and the general reaction was illustrated adequately in a new york times headline which said west celebrates death of radical cleric. well, it wasn't just death, it was murder along with another american citizen who happened to be near him. and while it's true that -- and there were some who didn't join in celebration completely. almost all of them criticized it because he was an american

citizen which makes him a person in theory as distinct from noncitizens who may look like persons but aren't. that's, incidentally, a core principle of current american law with regard to undocumented aliens. interesting interpretation of the 14th amendment. but, so he was an actual person x maybe we're not supposed to murder people suspected of inciting others to carry out terrorist acts. now, again, there were some critics, and the response who went beyond that and saided we should believe in the principle of presumption of innocence. and the reaction to them, actually, i was one, was quite interesting. most of it was the usual shrieking which you can disregard, but some of it was interesting. and, in fact, the most interesting, i thought, was a column by a well known,

respected left liberal commentator, matthew iglesias, who wrote that it is, as he put it, amazingly naive to criticize the united states for violation of international law or other crimes because the international, the international order is established precisely in order to legitimate the use of violence by the west. and by the west he doesn't mean norway, he means by the united states. so that's the nature of the international order. it's set up to legitimate our criminal resort to violence and, therefore, it's amazingly naive to raise criticisms about this. incidentally, this is not said in criticism, he's praising it. he goes on to say it's silly even to raise these questions. that happened to be directed to me, and i'm happy to accept guilt for that, on that charge.

[laughter] and if you look beyond and ask just what does it mean to be a nonperson, say accused of terrorism, well, this is a striking example -- there's a striking example in glenn's book. as he points out, the first child soldier in american history to be brought to trial for crimes, and that was worth looking at. that's hadr, a 15-year-old boy who was apprehended in afghanistan, and the charge against him is that when american soldiers were invading afghanistan and attacking his village, he picked up a gun to defend his village. so that makes him a terrorist, a nonperson. and interesting concept of terrorism. and he was then first sent to

bagram secret prison in afghanistan, then sent off to guantanamo. eight years in prison, no charges. after eight years in prison he was going to be brought to what's called a trial before a military commission. we'll have to talk about that. but he pleaded guilty and plea bargained and was given an eight-year sentence in addition to the eight years he spent without charges that we all know what it means to plead guilty in a plea bargain after eight years in torture chambers. he acted as a canadian citizen, and canada could extradite him. but they are courageously refusing to step on the toes of the master. the concept of terror and presumption of innocence is, you know, by now so far gone that nobody even bothers to discuss it. it's not -- maybe it was once an

ancient tradition, but not for us. and glenn is quite right that the fact that it's been violated in the past doesn't change the fact that by now we've changed the principle. we've abandoned even the principle. not only abandoned it, but forcefully rejected it even to the extent of saying the international order is established precisely to legitimate our violation of elementary, legal and moral principles. well, it goes beyond. one of the -- give one last example. one of the -- there was an article recently by a law professor who, in fact, glenn cites a couple times in the book, jonathan turley, who argues that obama may be breaking the record for a u.s. president for violation of civil rights and law. and you could make a case.

one example which actually involves the former dean of the harvard law school is, has the obama's latest supreme court appointee elena kagan, he argued a case brought by the justice department against a group called the humanitarian law project. holder, the humanitarian law project, with the support of the far right justices, obama won that case. the charge is one that might implicate plenty of people here. it, the charge is they provided material assistance to a group that's on the terrorist list. the material assistance in this case was legal advice to the pkk, a group that's on the -- a turkish group -- a kurdish group

that's on the u.s. terrorist list. which means they expanded the concept of material assistance from, say, you know, providing guns or something like that to providing the legal advice and even advice to turn to nonviolent means. that's now criminal under u.s. law thanks to president obama, and it extends very broadly. in fact, shortly after this supreme court decision dozens of fbi agents raided homes in chicago and other cities, destroyed documents, the usual thing when a couple dozen fbi agents raid your home. the charge was -- they were trying to find evidence of the people that were finally indicted with the grand jury for supporting palestinian group and a colombian group, pflp and the

farc. maybe they are, maybe they aren't, but the idea of expressing support for groups on the terrorist list is a crime is material assistance, that's novel. and the justice department position was explained by kagan that if you provide legal advice to a terrorist group, say advising them to refrain from terror and pursue nonviolent means, you're legitimizing them and freeing up their resources to carry out terrorist acts. just think how broadly that can apply. as in these cases which are, in fact, underway. and a final comment that has to do with the notion of the terrorist list. that's accepted in the united states as a legitimate category. why is it a he jet mate

category? -- legitimate category? it's established by executive fiat. they don't have to give any justification for it. those on the terror i list can't say i don't belong there. this is just a decision by the executive that i don't like you, and we're going to prosecute -- we're going to kill you and prosecute anyone now who advises you not to pursue terror. and the ill effect of the history of the terrorist list, it's very striking. i mean, one person who was just removed from it two years ago is nelson mandela. the reason is that the african national congress was characterized by the reagan administration in 1988 -- right near the end of apartheid -- as one of the more notorious terrorist groups in the world. therefore, the u.s. was with entitled to support apartheid south africa as it did and not

only its atrocities internally, but in it attacks on neighboring countries which, apparently, killed about a million and a half people. but that's all okay. it's part of the war on terror. in fact, reagan had declared. and we have to defend the apartheid regime against one of the more notorious terrorist groups in the world including nelson mandela. by today's standards, almost anyone who was involved in anti-apartheid activity could be regarded as a terrorist giving material support for terrorism. as i said, mandela was just removed from the terrorist list two years ago. he can now come to the united states without special dispensation. there are other equally dramatic cases. take 1982. there was a state that had been on the terrorist list, saddam hussein's iraq. but the reagan administration

want today provide aid and assistance to saddam. so they removed iraq from the terrorist list and proceeded to provide aid and assistance right through his worst crimes, denying the crimes. and, in fact, rather strikingly when saddam was tried, it was for crimes that he committed in 1982, by his standards pretty minor crimes, excluding the major crimes -- i presume because those were all supported by the united states and, in fact, even denied by the reagan administration. well, there was a gap in the terrorist list because iraq was removed, had to be filled. so it was filled by a cuban. cuba was added to the terrorist list partly in order to give some justification for outlandish claims about why we were entitled to support murderous terrorist regimes in central america which left a couple hundred thousand corpses.

much worse thanks to our involvement. so the argument was, well, they're being supported by cuba, so it must be a terrorist state. fabrication, but it doesn't matter in these cases. however, cuba was a pretty good choice in the preceding years. cuba had been the target of more international terrorism than probably the rest of the world combined a lot of it coming from right here. so cuba went into the terrorrest list, and saddam was taken off so we could support his major crimes which were coming. well, these ought to, we ought to think about why we even tolerate the concept of a terrorist list. and it's just not questioned. the government says someone's on a terrorist list, period, end of discussion. and now if you give legal advice or other advice to somebody that they so designate, you're a criminal. and if you're a 15-year-old

child who's picking, allegedly picking up a gun to defend a village under attack by you as soldiers, he's sent off for 16 years of prison, torture and so on, if that's what the rule of law has come to, it's a sad situation. [applause] >> so i think we want to, do we have a few minutes to start before we get to the question and answer? i want to make sure it'll be a substantial sometime. but unsurprisingly, what we just heard has provoked a lot of thoughts that, um, i want to make because i i think so many interesting points were just raised. so one of the interesting aspects of this two-tiered justice system and the idea that elites can impose standards on everyone else from which they exempt themselves is something that is, obviously, mirrored in

the foreign relations and, i think, probably was even pioneered there. this idea that the united states imposes standards on everybody else and exempts itself is really the template that then got imported domestically. and one of the fascinating things to do is to go and look at what current political leaders say about things like war crimes investigations and accountability when they're in other countries doling out sermons and lectures about what those other countries should do. for example, president obama who promulgated and gifted us all with the slogan that we as good citizens should look forward and not backward or in order to justify shielding bush era crimes from accountability gave an interview last year on television in indonesia, and the obama administration has been pushing the indonesian government to prosecute certain war criminals whom the united states has long disliked. and what he told the indonesians was it is impossible to move forward into a prosperous future

until you've resolved the past. and is secretary of state clinton has visited both kenya and cambodia where the united states is similarly urging war crimes investigations to proceed and has told them the same thing, essentially, that you cannot be among the nation -- the community of decent nations while you continue to harbor and shield war criminals from accountability. and i think the time that she visited kenya and said that was the time that george bush's book was released, and he was on every major television station being heralded as a great statesman. and be, of course f be you read -- and i would really recommend that you do -- i did this because i heard professor chomsky many years ago talk about it and went and read it, the opening and closing statements by robert jackson at the nuremberg tribunals. it's incredibly enlightening because that was supposed to be the education presentation of modern justice. and not only did jackson point out that aggressive war was the

kingpin crime, the crime above all others, but he also said that the nuremberg tribunals would have value only if they were applied not only to the defendants, but also to all the nations here assembled, meaning the united states and its allies. and yet if you were to cite that and argue that that meant that george bush and dick cheney and don rumsfeld should be prosecuted as war criminals for the aggressive attack on iraq, there's almost nothing you could do that's more self-marginalizing than that. even people sympathetic to the idea that they should be investigated criminally for the torture regime somewhat recoil at the idea that they should be held criminally accountable further at least 100,000 dead innocent iraqis, i think because they view the act of congress authorizing it and the large majorities of the american citizenry cheering for it as something that ought to immunize them. i think it shows just how lawless we've become that you

can't even cite the nuremberg tribunals and argue for applicability without becoming self-marginalized. just a quick point about fascinations and the like. i certainly agree with professor chomsky that from a moral and ethical perspective there's zero difference between sending a sky robot over another country and eradicating the lives of noncitizens as opposed to doing that to citizens based upon mere suspicion or even a lack of suspicion, just a desire to kill them. but i do think there's a practical difference. that is, that there's a greater and enhanced danger on several levels when the government begins murdering it own citizens as opposed to citizens of other countries on foreign soil. and the difference is that i think, you know, just legalistically the supreme court for right -- for better or worse, right or wrong, has said that the constitution applies to foreigners on u.s. soil and to american citizens wherever they are found in the world. but more importantly than that

is when the government starts acting against its own citizens, it really can escalate a climate of fear that can lead to political suppression. and i think that's one of the things that you've really seen in the united states. one of the most striking experiences that i've had since i began writing about politics was the first time that i ever wrote about wikileaks. this was, um, back in early 2010. and this was before really almost nobody knew who wikileaks was at the time. this was before they had released any of their news-making disclosures inside the united states. they had released several important documents and had exposed wrongdoing among corporations and governments in other parts of the world, but not in the united states and nobody, including me, knew much about them. the pentagon had prepared a top secret report, they literally classified it top secret in 2008 that declared wikileaks an enemy of the state. and it's incredible because the way in which wikileaks has been

rendered all but inoperable pretty much goes along with this 2008 report. this top secret report, ironically, was leaked to wikileaks which then published it -- [laughter] and "the new york times" wrote about it. and the article basically said there's a pentagon report that's been leaked that declares wikileaks an enemy of the state and talks about ways to destroy it. i didn't know much about wikileaks at the time, but i kind of assumed any organization that had been targeted that way by the pentagon was one that merited a lot more attention and probably a lot more encouragement and even support. so i went and read a lot about them, and i interviewed julian assange for the article that i wrote, and i wrote about it, and i posted the audio interview. and at the end i encouraged people to coand donate to wikileaks because they had budgetary restraints. it takes a lot of time and energy to authenticate the document. one of the things the pentagon

talked about was submitting fraudulent documents to them so it would forever destroy their credibility and the credibility of future disclosures. and in response to my recommendation that people go and donate to them, and i provide add link electronically online and through paypal, dozens of people, literally, told he in many different venues in the comment section to what i had written, by e-mail, at events like this that although they agreed wholeheartedly what about about what i'd written, that they were afraid of donating money to wikileaks especially electronically because they would end up on some government list somewhere. or that they could even be subjected to criminal liability under the extraordinarily broad material support for terrorism statutes that professor chomsky just talked about. and these were not people prone to conspiracy theories, these were very sober americans who i had an interaction with in the past on other issues, and lot of them were, and they were very

rational people, and these fears were well grounded. and the reason it was so amazing to me was because it really highlighted how this extraordinary climate of fear has been created in the united states. wikileaks is a group that had never been and still has never been charged with a crime, let alone convicted of one. and they couldn't be because what they're doing is pure first amendment activity. "the new york times" and washington post in theory do it every day, publicize leaks that are given to them by other people. and yet these were american citizens who were petrified of exercising core first amendment rights which is what donating money to an organization whose political cause you support is. and they were, basically, intimidated from the things we've seen over the last ten years in terms of lawlessness, by what the government has done from exercising these rights. so you can offer all the rights in the world on a piece of paper that you want. you don't need to eliminate those rights if you can intimidate and bully the population into refraining from

exercising them. and this really occurred to me even more when i wrote for the first time about the extremely harsh and oppressive conditions in which bradley manning was being detained. and i remember when i first wrote about it, a lot of people wondered, and i actually wondered myself, why would the obama administration basically turn bradley manning into almost a martyr and jeopardize its own ability to prosecute him by subjecting him to this extremely severe -- at the very least it's inhumane treatment. he was in prolonged solitary confinement, forced to stand naked for many of those days. just completely punitive measures. and at some point shortly thereafter i realized the reason that was done was the same reason that the bush administration took people who were completely innocent by the hundreds and shipped them thousands of miles away to a caribbean island and dressed them in orange jump suits and shackles and showed the world what we had done.

it's a way of signaling to the world and to would-be challengers to american power both domestically and internationally that we are not constrained by law, we don't have any limbs on what we can do. -- limits on what we we can do. take a look at these pictures of people at guantanamo who are going to be there for as long as we want to keep them there, even if they're innocent. or if you're somebody who discovers wrongdoing and fear of a illegality at the highest levels of our government, and you want to expose it to the world, think about and look at what we've done to bradley manning without any even pretense to legal authority and without any constraint whatsoever. it's really the use of law as a mean of coercion which is the exact antithesis of what the supposed to be. it's those in power using law to entrench their power and to shield their ill-gotten gains. and the fact that we can call terrorism whatever we want it to be, the fact that people who, as professor chomsky said, take up

arms and fight against american troops are terrorists, the fact that we just indicted someone nine months ago for raising funds to kill american troops in iraq. this was an iraqi who had raised money to defend his own homeland, so if you're an iraqi, and the american army invades your country, and you take up arms against them, you're a terror i. nidal hasan who attacked a military base and killed soldiers about to be deployed to war, he is a terrorist as well. and yet when the united states or israel, our allies, directly target and kill civilians by enormous numbers whether recklessly or deliberately, it would be a radical act to describe that as terrorism. this is all designed to be able to criminalize whomever the united states wants, namely those who challenge it in any meaningful way. and that really is the use of law coercively to entrench those in power rather than to equalize the playing field. the final point i want to make and then i think we can turn it

over to questions and answers is professor chomsky referenced this post by matt iglesias who is a by-product of this school near where we're talking. and he also works for the center for american progress which is, basically, an organization run by john podesta, the former clinton white house official, that was founded, in essence, to justify and defend whatever the obama white house does. with some exceptions here and there if you search hard enough but, basically, that's its function. and the fact that people who write for them do things and say things to mitigate or defend things like assassinating an american citizen with no due process, probably the most radical act that you can think of, really underscores an important point about the way the obama legacy is being defined and the way that lawlessness has become normalized. so if, you know, three years ago, and i say this as somebody who was doing it, if you were to go to an event and fill the room with 50% republicans and 50%

democrats and you were to condemn things like wild assertions of executive authority, the idea that the president can't act against anyone he wants including killing him, that he can do so in total secrecy ask with to -- and with no transparency. two weeks later his son and cousin were killed in yemen. if you were to talk about those things and the other radical secrecy doctrines the bush administration used, you would have 50% of the room -- the ones self-identified as republicans -- supporting it, cheering for it, justifying it, apologizing for it and being happy with it. but 50% of the room -- the ones self-identified as democrats -- one feigning anger over it. they'd be objecting to it as shredding the constitution and radicalism and all of this. if you were to take that same exact group of people and talk about those same exact things that i just described, you would

now have 90% of the room cheering for it and supporting it, or at least justifying it and mitigating it the way matt iglesias in that post did or at least acquiesce sent to maybe 10% of the room continuing to be angry about it because they were angry about its being done the first time around and not pretending to be angry for partisan gain. and this has really changed the way these issues are discussed, the fact that now it's not just the republican party standing for this form of lawlessness, but that it's become under president obama bipartisan consensus which means it's removed from political debate, it is hardly controversial any longer, and it's entrenched as orthodoxy in american political life for at least a generation. there's jack ball kin who's a yale law professor has talked about how when one party objects to a policy and the other poses it or supports it, what happens when the other party gets into office and starts continuing it? it becomes no longer a controversial policy, it becomes

american consensus and endures without much challenge for at least a generation. that is what has happened to these policies of lawlessness and wild theories of executive power and the right of the american president to target anyone for violence or interrogation or incarceration without any oversight. it has now taken on the face of both parties and is, therefore, likely normalized for a very long time. and, to me, that's one of the most significant legacies of the obama presidency. so with that, i think it's a good time to take questions. i think the mechanics were described at the start. i didn't hear it, so i will rely on you to -- >> well, first, thanks to our speakers. [applause] we have about 15, 20 minutes for questions, so just head down to this mic, and try to keep your questions brief so we can get to as many of you as possible. thanks.

>> so how do you feel after all these years seeing -- and all that you've done, seeing what's happened to our country? yes, to you, mr. chomsky, first. >> well, i've had more years. [laughter] well, actually, it's, it's pretty bad, but we should recognize that it's not really all that new. go back to the modern conception of international law was pretty well founded right after the second world war. the nuremberg tribunal charter, the united nations, so on. what was the position of the united states then? well, the united states was instrumental in setting up the

world court, international court of justice. but at once the united states declared that it is not subject to any charges based on international treaties meaning the u.n. charter, the charter of the organization of american states or others. and, in fact, that actually came to the court. it came to the court during the reagan years when the government of nicaragua brought charges against the united states for, essentially, war against nicaragua or international terrorism if you want to lower the charge. the nick rag began case was presented by a distinguished harvard law school professor. most of it was thrown out, and it was thrown out because the case appealed to the core principles of modern international law. u.n. charter, oas and so on. so, in fact, when the case was

finally, you know, judged, it was restricted to very narrow grounds. the u.s./anything rag began treaty. common international law was generally understood. even on that narrow basis, the u.s. was accused of unlawful use of force, ordered to pay substantial reparations. well, how did the bipartisan congress react? by increasing aid to the contras, increasing the actions just condemned as criminal. meanwhile, "the new york times," for example, dismissed the court as a hostile forum, proof that it's a hostile and, therefore, insignificant,s hostile forum because it made charges against the u.s. a couple of years earlier the same times and other commentators were praising the court because it supported the u.s. in a charge against iran.

well, that's, in fact, the united states went on to veto, i think, two security council resolutions which called on all states to observe international law. well, all of that passed with virtually no comment, almost nobody knows about this except -- and it goes beyond. in 1948 the, you know, the united nations passed a genocide , condemnation of genocide. major crime. forty years later the united states ratified it. but with a reservation; inapplicable to the united states. and that came to the courts, too, a couple of years later. yugoslavia brought charge against nato for bombing. and among the charges was a reference to genocide. the united states represented an appeal to the court and said

that the united states would withdraw from the proceedings because the united states was formerly entitled to commit genocide which is true by this reservation. and the court accepted that correctly, the court rules are that they can't begin with a trial ls unless they agree to the proceedings. so the united states was excluded from thes charges. the rest of the nato powers weren't. that was reported but with no comment. if with declare that we're entitled to carry out genocide, fine. then we're entitled to carry out genocide. now, these things are pretty deep -- it's perfectly true that bush broke, let's take even the torture charges. if you look carefully, it's not so clear that bush was this serious violation of u.s. law when they carried out torture at

guantanamo or at abu ghraib because the u.s. never really signed the torture convention. the rewritten by the senate to exclude certain category of torture. and if you look at those categories, they are the categories that the cia carries out. the cia back in the '50s basing themselves on kgb manuals and so on that redefined torture to allow what's called mental torture, you know, the kind that doesn't leave marks. so, for example, actually even waterboarding. so, you know, take bradley manning in solitary confinement which, of course, is torture by any reasonable means. but not by u.s. law. and that was then signed into legislation under clinton. so what's called torture here is a very narrow category, and a good deal of the torture that the u.s. actually carries out is

legal under u.s. law. this is discussed by specialists in constitutional law, levinson and others, but almost nobody knows about it. well, you know, these are things everyone ought to know about. >> okay, yep. >> i wanted to ask you about two implications or suggestions that i drew from you your book. the first is, excuse me, um, there's really the unmistakeable conclusion that our officials, judges, politicians won't or can't -- um, which is more scary -- hold powerful, powerful criminal behavior accountable even in the most egregious examples such as torture. and the possibility that the cognitive dissonance that this raises in our officials, that there's not constant awareness that they're not fulfilling their role as officials may be driving this scapegoat to find the most vulnerable, the least politically powerful for the most trivial offenses

accountable. so to be able to demonstrate, look, we are holding a lot of people accountable, they're just not holding accountable to this kind of charade of judiciousness that sort of passes for lawfulness and this kind of vigorousness behind it, this knowledge of this imbalance may be driving this kind of and perpetuating the imbalance. and the second implication was that when our officials give up on law enforcement as their role, that perhaps law breaking, greater, greater extremes of law breaking becomes a means of expressing power so that, yes, you know, our financial system engages in widespread fraud but only the president can violate the constitution. >> yeahment -- yeah, those are both interesting and important points. it is true that law and order basically tends to mean get drug dealers off the corner who are selling small quantities of drugs to other adults who want to buy them. and, of course, that as all

kinds of implications. i mean, the drug war's incredibly racist, has incredibly disproportionate effect on the poor, but at the same time l l the rule of law means pepper spraying protesters and putting them into prison for peacefully assembling at the same time the police are protecting the criminals on wall street who destroyed the economy and committed fraud on an incomprehensible scale. so i think you're right that, searchly, these kind of -- essentially, these kind of petty transgressions is a way of obscuring the fact the most significant criminalses, the most consequential crimes are shielded and that the biggest criminals are allowed to continue to run rampant with their criminality. the other point about as a way of expressing power, you know, one of the fascinating things about this whole idea of look forward, not backwards and the like is that at the same time the very same administration that has invoked this orwellian

slogan as a means of saying we shouldn't look to political crimes of the bush era has waged the most, the harshest and the most unprecedented war on whistleblowers, people who are leaked what unquestionably is evidence of serious wrongdoing. so, for example, the nsa scandal that revealed the bush administration was spying on american citizens without the warrants, the criminal law said is required and that the law calls a felony if you do. the only person to suffer any consequences from that scandal is someone named thomas tam who was a mid-level department of jus us the lawyer who found out the bush administration was doing this and one day called the new york times to tell them that this was going on. he was -- a grand jury was convened, he was continuously subpoenaed, he lost his job, he couldn't afford lawyers and had serious or emotional and psychological problems as a result of that persecution. all of the people who broke the law have been completely shielded, went on to write books

and get very rich. only the person who exposed them has been subjected to any form of sanction and punishment. and that absolutely is about, um, expressing power and saying that, um, you know, if you expose any of the things that we're doing that are criminal and wrong, you will be the one who will be punished using the dressings of law to do it while we simultaneously shield ourselves. >> hi. i hope you both have time to answer this, but first to professor chomsky, i came down from occupy burlington, vermont, today to be here -- [applause] and i'm really inspired by the thurm of people that have risen up to protest the bullying, as you put it, of american elites in many respects through the occupy movement. do you think that the occupy movement has the potential to

revolutionallize the system to the point that we can topple the power that has so corrupted the rule of law? what do you think the movement will need to achieve in order to -- achieve and overcome in order to do this? >> for me? for me? yeah? well, i think the occupy movements which are now all over the country, in fact, all over the world are very exciting development. in fact, inspiring in a lot of ways. really unprecedented. i don't know of anything quite like them in the past which is, makes sense. this is an unprecedented period in many ways. what can they achieve? they've already achieved a lot, i think. they've put things, they've shifted the range of discussion which is quite important. they've at the very least are laying down a legacy from which you can move on.

there are short-term things that they might be able to achieve which are quite urgent. so to take one, in just a couple of weeks the deficit commission is due to reach its decision which will probably be stalemate. but whether it reaches the decision or stalemates, it's a real dagger pointed at the heart of the country either way. because if it doesn't reach a decision, you go into kind of an automatic trap that's been set up which is aimed at doing exactly the opposite of what americans want. so it's a rather striking fact. you take a look at polls. first of all, a large majority of the people think that the deficit is the problem anyway, and they're right. the problem is joblessness. there shouldn't be a deficit commission. but even if you keep to this minor question of the deficit, very large majorities have a

solution: tax the super rich, bring taxes back to what they once were during our period of growth and preserve benefits. even tea party supporters take that position. support, protect the benefits which are not great, but are crucial for people. well, the commission if it reaches a decision or the automatic process if it doesn't reach a decision are going to do just the opposite. they'll cut away at the limited benefits, incidentally ignoring the reason why they're in fiscal problem. social security's not a problem at all, that's just thrown in order to try to destroy it. medicare is a problem because it works through the private guys, unregulated or virtually unregulated insurance-based health care system which is a complete international scandal. if u.s. had a health care system like other industrial countries,

there wouldn't be any deficit, in fact, there'd be a you are plus. [applause] surplus. but that can't even be discussed because the financial institutions are against it. and this goes back to things that glenn outlines very well in his book. the, but that's coming right away. and it's possible. it's a long shot. but if occupy movements get enough kind of force and energy and influence, they might do something about this short-term problem. now, that's very far from revolutionizing the society. when you talk about deeper problems, more long-term ones, it has to be understood and, i think, is that you don't get these things overnight. take the civil rights movement. i mean, that really began in a militant form in the 1930s. it was years of struggle before it even, you know, reached the possibility where we could discuss it. finally, thanks to very

courageous activityies -- students sitting at lunch counters, the freedom riders, all sorts of other things -- it was possible to get to the point where martin luther king, a great figure in modern life, was able to give a talk, "i have a dream" talk and some gains were won. they shouldn't be underestimated. the south is a different place from what it was. and, in fact, let's take people right around here, boston. as long as the civil rights movement was aimed at racist alabama sheriffs, a lot of support for it. as soon as king began to move on to opposition to the vietnam war and class issues, remember that when he was killed, he was on his way to organize a poor people's movement, and he was killed in supporting a sanitation strike. as soon as he moved on