12/30/21 12/30/21 [captioning made possible amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> the republican party, trump and his minions, basically owns the party, have been in the lead of trying to destroy the prospects for organized human life on earth. amy: in a special broadcast, an hour with noam chomsky. the world renowned political dissident, linguist, and author. we talk about the pandemic, the rise of proto-fascism in the united states,

the climate emergency, and why he is concerned about biden's provocative actions towards china. >> the right measure is not increasing provocation, increasing the threa of an accidental development which could lead to devastating, terminal nuclear war. but that is the direction the biden administration is following. expansion the trump programs. that is the core of their foreign policy programs. amy: today, noam chomsky for the hour. all that and more, coming up. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. today, a special broadcast, an hour with noam chomsky. the renowned political dissident, linguist,

and author just turned 93 years old. nermeen sheikh and i recently interviewed noam as part of democracy now!'s 25th anniversary celebration. noam chomsky joined us from his home in tucson, arizona, where he teaches at the university of arizona. we asked him about the state of the pandemic and why so many americans have refused to get vaccinated. >> it is overwhelmingly a far right phenomenon others have been drawn in. and i think there are many sources. one of them is probably social media, ich does circulate lots of dubious or even false information. and if people are dded to a particular part of it, that's what they'll be fed. but beyond that, there is skepticism, which has justification, about the role of government.

happens to be misplaced in this case, but you can understand the origins of the skepticism. and it's not just the pandemic. much worse than that are the attitudes of skepticism about global warming. so one rather shocking fact that i learned recently is that during the trump years, among republicans, the belief that global warming is a serious problem -- not even an urgent problem, just a serious problem -- declined about 20%. that's very serious. here we're talking not just about the spread of a pandemic, buabout marching over t precipice and ending the prospects for sustained, organized human life.

that's the kind of thing we're facing. you can talk about the origins of the skepticism, but it has to be dealt withnd overce, and very decisively and without delay, or else the whole human species and all the others that we are casually destroying will be in severe danger. amy: can you talk about how you think that skepticism can be overcome? you yourself, serious critic of the corporate government alliance, why people should trust large from several companies like moderna and pfizer that are making billions, why in this case we should trust

that vaccines will save the population? >> if the information came from pfizer and moderna, there would be no rson to tst it. but it just happens 100% of health agencies throughout the world and the vast majority of the medical profession and the health sciences accept the quite overwhelming evidence of the vaccination radically reduces onset of iection. and the evidence on that is very compelling. it is, trefore, not surprising that it is basically universally accepted by authorities. yes, if we -- there would be reason for skepticism.

but you can look at the data available and when you do so, you can understand why there is essential unirsal acceptance among agencies that have no stake in the matter, other than trying to save lives. you can understand w poor african countries who weren't paid off by big pharma are pleading for vaccines. their health agencies. the only exception was bolsonaro's brazil, and he is now under charges of long senatorial investigation for charges of crimes against humanity for his failure to follow the normal protocol of trying to maximize use of vaccines.

i know his reluctance on this matter has been overturned, having the usual effect. vaccinations are increasing. death is sharply declining. that correlation is so clear that it takes the real strange refusal to look at facts to see it. again, as i say, health agencies throughout world are uniform and agreed with the medical on the efficacy of vaccines. there are other things that have to be done. social distancing, masking in crowded places. there are measures that have to be taken. countries where these measures have been followed

carefully are doing quite well. where there is a high level of skepticism, there are serious problems. amy: what do you think the u.s. should do to ensure that countries get vaccines around the world? not only for altruistic reasons, but you can't end this pandemic your or anywhere unless these vaccines get out everywhere. i am talking about moderna and pfizer -- moderna, the u.s. gave billions two, pfizer, the u.s. promised to purchase so much about corporations among others have made billions and yet what can the u.s. do to ensure that these vaccines can be made in other places like requiring that moderna release the recipe? still, they will make a fortune. what has biden not done that would allow people

to have access to these lifesaving vaccines? >> i should say that europe's record is worse than that of the united states. biden has made some effort, but the wealthy countries have not, including the united states, or notrimarily the united states, they have not taken measures that are within their capacity to ensure that other countries that have the resources toroduce vaccines will he accessot only to t products, the vaccines, but also the process of manufacturing. should recognize the wto rul, instituted mainly in the 1990's largely under the u.s. initiative, they are radically protectionists,

radically anti-free market. they provide protection for major corporations, big pharma, not only fothe products they produce but to the processes by which they produce them. and that can easily be broken. the governments have the capacity to insist the processes be available and that vaccines be distributed to the countries that need it, but first of all, this will save uncounted numbers of lives. as you said, it means -- if you let the virus run rampant in poor countries, everyone understands mutation is lily,

a kind of mutation that led to the delta variant and now the delta+ variant in india and who knows what else will develop. we have been kind of lucky so far. the coronaviruses have bn either not too contagious but lethal like ebola or highly contagious but not too lethal like covid-19. but the next one coming down the pipe mht be both. might even be not suppressible with vaccines. we kw the measures that have to be taken to try to prevent this from happening. research, preparation, health systems that work. it is not a small poinlike there are new antivirals coming along which don't stop the disease

but prevent hospitalization, at you have to have a functioning health system. very hard to see. these could even be usable in the united states where the health system simply is not organized that people can get access to what they need. nermeen: you he witnessed low vaccination rates and certain states were hospitals have been unable to provide regular services because all the beds are taken up with covid patients. earlier this year, you needed hospital care but were unable to access a facility because all the events were taken with covid patients. could you explain where this happened and what exactly happened? >> well, i don't want to go into the details but i had mething which was severe,

could not get to the hospital where my doctors are. they were overwhelmed with patients. had to go to a couple of other hospitals and finally they managed. it is not the worst case by any means. i should say even getting a booster shot was not easy. my wife was trying for weeks simply to try to get an appointment. the system -- i am lucky. i am relatively privileged. for others, it is much worse. hospitals are overflowing with almost 100% unvaccinated patients in regions of the country which are mostly red states which have been reluctant

and unwilling to carry out appropriate measures. hospitals have been forced to cancel regular procedures just because of the crash of almost entirely unvaccinated patients filling beds, extra social costs. all of this is under control. we know how to deal with that. it is a social malady, a breakdown of the social and cultural order, which is very serious in the pandemic case, but i want to keep stressing, far more serious in the case of environmental destruction. and we don't have much time. we can survive pandemics at enormous cost. we not going to survive environmental destruction.

amy: noam chomsky, the 93-year-old world renowned political dissident, linguist, and author. when we come back, we talk about climate emgency, the rise of proto-fascism in the united states, and more. ■■ [music break]

amy: "oh my stars" in our democracy now! studios just before the pandemic in 2020. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. we return w to our discussion with world renowned political dissident, linguist, and author noam chomsky. nermn sheikh and i recently spoke to him from his home in tucson, arizona. noam, you have called the republican party the most dangerous organization in human history. give us a call leaders a gang of sadists.

was wondering if you could elaborate on this but also in all of your 93 years, have you ever seen such an anti-science, anti-fact trend in this country for? and if you could talk about how it links up with other such movements around the world and how it should be dealt with. >> it is a fact it has been a strain of anti-science sentiment in snificant parts of the united states for a long time. this is country that had the scopes trial. there is an unusual power in the united states in the evangelical, anti-science extremism.

but as a political movement, nothing has been like what it in the contemporary period. the republican party under trump and his minions, basically owns the party, they have been in the lead of trying to destroy the prospects for organized human life on earth. not just unilaterally, pulling out of the paris agreement, but acting with enthusiasm to maximize fossil fuel use, to dismantle the systems th somewhat mitigated their effect denial of what is happening, reaching a huge number of loyal almost worshipers

partly through their media system and other ways. when the united states was the most powerful, important country in world history, when it races to the precipice, has an impact on others. other things are happening are bad enough, but with the unitestates in the lead and margie to destruction, the future is very dim. it is our responsibility here to control it, terminate it, to turn the country back to sanity. don't even like to say "back" but turn it to sanity on these issues befe it is too late. nermeen: professor, of one of a severe threat from a resurgent proto-fascist right here in the u.s. and spoken -- you have spoken out

agait the general right-wing shift across the politic sperum in the u.s. if y can expin what you think is behind that and ifou see any prospects in the near future for its reveal? >> well, we have been through a 40 year, 45 year sault on the general population within the framework of what is called neoliberalism. it has had a very serious impact. there are even some measures of it through -- thrand corporation, super respectable, did a study recently of what they politely called transfer of wealth from the lower 90% of the population that is working-class and middle-class,

transfer of wealth from them to the very rich during the last 40 years. their estimate is on the order of $50 trillion. they call it transfer of weah. we should call it robbery. there's plenty more like it. keeps being exposed. the pandora pars they cannot revealed another aspect. some small change. ceo salaries, management salaries skyrocketed. large part, probably the majority of the population by now, is basically surviving paycheck-to-paycheck. very little in reserve. if they have a health problem or something else, they're in deep trouble. especially with the lack of social support in the country. even trivial measures that exist everywhere

are very hard to implement in this country. we are seeing it in congress right now. measures like maternity leave, which is everywhere -- i think there are a couple of pacific islands that joined the united states in not having a maternity leave. go to the second largest country in the hemisphere, hardly a site of enormous progress, brazil. women have four months guaranteed pd maternity leave, which can be extended a couple of months paid f by the social security system. in the unitestates, cannot get a day.

the republican party right now is 100% rocksolid opposition of this and other measures, including some weak but at least existing measures to mitigate the clime crisis. 100% republican opposition, joined by a couple of decrats, the coal baron from west virginia, dragging his feet on everything. joining the 100% republican opposition and sinema from my state, hu recipient of big pharma and other corporate funding, so dragginher feet.

evenhe simplest things are very hard to get through in a country that has been poisoned by right wing propaganda, by corporate power, goes way back but it has expanded enormously in the past 40 years. you look up neoliberalism in the dictionary, beli in the market, trust in the market everyone has got a fair shake, and so o you look at e reality, neoliberalism translates asitter class war. that is the meaning of it. everywhere you look, every component of the rand, $50 trillion robbery is just one sign of it.

when reagan and his associate margaret thatcher on the others out of the atlantic, when they came in to power, their first acts were to attack and undermined, severely undermine the labor movement. if you're going to carry out a major class war attacking workers in the middle class, you better destroy their means of self protection and a great major ans are labor unn. that is a way people -- working people can organize to develop ideas and develop programs to act with mutual aid and solidarity to achieve their goals.

so that has to be destroyed. that is the major target of attack from the beginning. many others, what were left with, a society give atomized people, angry, resentful, lucky organization, faced with concentrated private power, which is working very hard to pursue the bitter class war that is led to the current disastrous situation. amy: i want to ask you how january 6, how you see it playing out. do you see it as really not so much the birth but continuation of a proto-fascist movement? you're in arizona, the recounts over and over again of the votes, questioning democratic votes all over the country. where do you see the u.s. going? and do you see president trump becoming president again?

>> it's very possible. the republican stregy, which i described, has been successful -- do as much damage as you can to the country, blame it on the democrats, develop all sorts of fanciful tales about the hideous things that the communists, the democrats, are doing to your children, to society in a country which is subjected to social collapse, to atomization, to lack of organized ability to respond in ideas and actions that can be successful. and we're seeing it right now.

so, yes, it's very possible that the denialist party will come back into power, that trump will be back -- or someone like him -- and then we'll be simply racing to the precipice. as far as fascism is concerned, there are some analysts, very astute and knowledgeable ones, who say we're actually moving towards actual fascism. my own feeling is, i would prefer to call it a kind of proto-fascism, where many of the symptoms of fascism are quite apparent -- resort to violence, the belief that violence is necessary. a large part of the republican party, i think maybe 30% or 40%, say that violence may be necessary to save our country from the people who are trying to destroy it,

the democrat villains who are doing all these hideous things that are fed into their ears. and we see it in armed militias. january 6 was an example of -- these are people from basically petit bourgeois, moderately affluent middle america circles, not -- there were some militia types among them who really feel that it's necessary to carry out a coup to save the country. they were trying to carry out a coup to undermine an elected government. it's called a coup. and came unfortunately close. luckily, the -- and they're now taking -- the republican party is now taking sophisticated measures

to try to ensure that the next time around, it will succeed. notice they are treating the january 6 coup activists as heroes. they were trying to save america. these are signs of massive social collapse, which show up concretely in the fact that people literally do not have enough financial reserves tout themselves through a crisis. of course, it is much worse when you go to really deprived communities like household wealth among blacks is almost nothing. they are in severe problems. all of this in the richest, most powerful untry in the world in world history with enormous advantages

and parallel couldasily lead the way to a much better future. it is not a utopian dream. let's go back to the depression. happens to be my childhood. severe crisis among poverty, suffering much worse thatoday, t a hopeful period. my own family, unemployed. first immigrant, working-class. living with hope. had unions. my aunts were seamstresses, members of a garment workers union. you spent a week's vacation, hope for the future, labor actions, political actions, sympathetic administration led the way to social democracy.

inspired what happened in euro after the war. meanwhile, europe moved to fascism, literally fascism. the united states-under these pressures move to social democrac-- europe is barely holding on to functioning democracy. plenty of their own problems. but at least thewere holding onto it. almost the reverse of what happened in the past and we can certainly go back, not only to the 1930's, but someing much better than that. nermeen: you've spoken about the republican party. could you give an assessment also of the biden administration? you spoke earlier of the climate crisis.

earlier this year, the ipcc, intergovernmental panel on climate change, issued a report after a decade of which the u.n. secretary-general called code red for humanity. and just days after, as you mentioned, called on opec to start increasing production of oil. so if you could comment on that, biden's climate policy but also other issues? >> this domesticrograms are frankly considerably better than i had anticipated. they have already been sharply cut back. the build back better bill that is now being debated without you public pressures, not likely to be passed,

is a sharply pared down version of what first bernie sanders produced, biden more or less accepted, cut it back, now cut much more sharply, may not even get through in its. back form. as i said, republicans are 100% opposed to allowing what their own constituents very much approve of. managing the propaganda system so the constituents don't even know about it. remarkable results showing up in polls about the build back better bill. if you askeople out their particular provisions, strong support. if you ask about the bill, mixed feelings, often opposition of the bill ich contains therovision

they want are likely to hurt them. furthermore, turns out they don't know what is in the bill. they don't know that it ctains the provisions that they approve up. all of this is aassive successful indocination campaign of the kind the goebbels would have been impresd with. the only way to overcome it is by constant dedicated activism. take the climate program. biden's clime program was not what was needed, but it was better than anything that preceded it. and it did not come from above. it was the result of significant activist work. young activists [indiscernible] got to the point of occupying senatorial

congressional offices. nancy pelosi's office. ordinarily, would be kicked out by capitol police. this time they got support from alexandria ocasio-cortez. joined them, made it impossible for the police to thr them out. got further support from, as ientioned, ed markey. soon they were able to press biden to develop, to agree to a climate program that was a big improvement on anything from before. even by world standards, one of the best. the management of the democratic party did not like that, was not having it. they actually cut it out of their webpage before the eleion and tried to block it. it has been reduced by them and the solid republican opposition

demanding the move as quickly as possible toward disaster. well, it is now cut sharply back. you go to glasgow, lots of nice words, including from president biden. take a look at what is happening in the world outside of the halls in glasgow. a different picture. biden came home from glasgow and opened for at least the largest giveaway in u.s. history of petroleum, exploitation of energy corporations. his defense is his effort to stop it was blocked by temporary court decision.

so he had no choice. actually, there were choices. there were other options. but the message that it sends stark and clear is the institutions of society, the federal institution, the executive branch, legislative bran, the judiciary, those institutions are incapable of recognizing the severity of the crises that we face and are committed to a cohort which leads to something like species suicide. the only force that can counter that was present in glasgow. there were two events in glasgow, the pleasant talk but meaningless verbiage inside the halls.

there were the tens of thousands of demonstrators outside the building, young people mostly, calling for measures, real measures to allow a decent, viable society to develop, not be destroyed. those are the two events in glasgow. the questi of which one prevails will determine our future. will it be heading toward disaster, or will it be moving toward a better, more livable world? both are possible. the choice is in our hands. amy: noam chomsky, the 93-year-old world renowned political dissident, linguist, and author. when we come back, we will talk about julian assange, joe biden's foreign policy, and u.s.-china relations. stay with us.

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amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. we are continuing our discussion with noam chomsky. nermeen sheikh and i recently spoke to him from his home in tucson, arizona. we talked to him shortly before a british court ruled in favor of the u.s. government's appeal to extradite

wikileaks founder julian assange to face criminal charges in the united states. i asked noam about julian's treatment and ongoing detention. >> well, this is pretty incredible situation. julian assange as been subjected to years of torture. years in the ecuadorian embassy, which is really not an embassy, it is an apartment house. those were years of torture. visited him there. others did. being stuck in an apartment without even the ability to go out and look at the sky, that's, in many ways, even worse than being in prison. prisoners at least have a couple hours when they can go out and be in a courtyard.

under guard by the british -- sensitive british forces, finally forced into a top-security prison, it's essentially torture. in fact, the u.n. rapporteur on torture called it torture. for years, all for the crime of having exposed to the american people and the people the world things that they should know, things that it's their right to know. that is supposedly the role of journalism. in fact, leading journals did make use of his exposés toeveal a fair amount of material. but he is at the heart of it. the start of the project, continued the project revealing to the public things that ty should be aware of. so for that, he has been subjected to years of torture,

false charges, now the threat of extradition in which he will face a possible lifetime of imprisonment and the press is not coming to his defense, with a few exceptions. not enough people. it is the same story as always, just like glasgow, the voices in the street which can end this trady of the assange torture and persecution. like everything else. like the civil rights moment. like the social democratic initiatives in the 1930's, like the antiwar movement,

like the women's movement -- everhing. always the same answer. it is the activism of individuals joining together, working ainst often very severe odds but for a cause that is obligatory, in the current case necessary for survival. in assange's case, necessary to save an individua from unspeakable torture for the crime of performing e honorable work of journalism. nermeen: professor, lastly, on the question of the -- on u.s. foreign policy under biden, the withdrawal from afghanistan, the defense pa with australia and the u.k., what do you see as a trajectory of american foreign policy

in the coming years? >> well, the trajectory is not optimistic. biden has pretty much picked up trump's foreign policy. he has eliminated some of the more gratuitously savage elements like in the case of palestine, for example, trump s not satisfied with just giving everything away due to the israeli right wing power do what you want and offering nothing to the palestinians, st kicking them in the face. he even had to gbeyond that to truly gratuitous savagery like cutting off the lifeline of -- for palestinians to be able to have

at least minimal bare survival in the gaza -- punching bag. pretty much follow the same policies. on iran, he made some verbal moves toward overcoming the crime of u.s. withdrawal from the joint agreement, but is insisting on pertuating trump's position that it is the responsibility iran, the victim, to move toward harsher agreement because the united states pulled out of an agreement that was working perfectly well. the worst case is the increasing provocative actions toward china. that is very dangerous.

i now there is constant talk about what is called the china threat. you can read it in usually reasonable journals about the terrible china threat. we have to move expeditiously to contain and limit the china threat. what exactly is the china threat? actually, that question is rarely raised here. it is discussed in australia, until recently. distinguished statesman, former prime minister did have an essay in the australian press about the china threat. he concluded realistically it is china's existence.

the u.s. will not tolerate the existence of a state that cannot be intimidated the way europe can be, that does not follow u.s. orders the way europe does, but pursues its own course. that is the threat. when we talked about the threat of china, we are talking about alleged threats at china's orders. china does plenty of wrong things, terrible things. you can make many criticisms but are they a threat? is the u.s. support for israel's terrorist war against 2 million people in gaza where ople areeing poisoned because under a million children are facing poisoning

because there is no drinkable water, is that a threat tchina? it is a horrible crime, but it is not a threat to china. serious abuses that china is carrying out our wrong, you can condemn them. they are not a threat. at the same time, australia's teaching article of australia's leading military correspondent, highly knowledgeable, didn't assessment of the relative military power of china in their own region of china, and the united states and its allies japan and australia isaughable one u.s. submarine --

now being replaced by even more lethal ones. one u.s. submarine can destroy almost 200ities anywhere in the world with its nuclear weapons. china in the south china sea has four old noisy submarines whh can't even get out because they're contained by aied force. in the face of this, the united states is sending a fleet of nuclear submarines to australia. [indiscernible] which have no strategic purpose whatsoever. they will not even be in operation for 15 years, but they do incite china almost certainly to build up

its lagging military forces, increasing the level of confrontation. there are problems in the south china a can be met with diplomacy and negotiations. but the right measure is not increasing provocation, increasing the threat of an accidental develment which could lead to devastating even terminal nuclear war. but that is the direction the biden administration is following. expansion of the trump programs. that is the core of their foreign policy programs. there were others that were mixed on iran.

i mentioned i think it is outrageous the united states is imposing severe destructive sanctions on iran, which as usual harthe population, not the leadership. that is what sanctions d torturing iran because of our withdral from a treaty that was working over the strong objections of other participants. europe strongly objected but the u.s. throws its weight around the way it likes. that is what it means to be a mafia don. if europe doesn't like it, they have to follow it. the united states threatens to throw them out of the financial syste

same with anybody else. torture of cuba has been going on for 60 years because we know why. state department back in the 1960's explained that the crime of castro is sucssful defiance of u.s. policies going back to the monroe doctrine, which declared the u.s. right to dominate the hemisphere. can't tolerate successful defiance, whether it is a small island offshore or whether it is a major power with an enormous economy and potential power and refuses to be intimidated, which is carrying out such crimes as setting up a thousand vocational schools around the world where there are training people in central asia,

in africa, in thailand -- training them in the use of chinese thnology so they will be able to spread chinese technological developments to their own countries. cutting out the united states, which can't counter that. we can only use bombs and sanctions. well, it is another crime. again, plenty to criticize but these are the crimes that are causing the united states to pose the threat of china as the leang problem in world affairs, the greatest danger in world affairs. again, we haveo counter that and we can. there's no reason to allow this to rsist.

at this point, it is not just people who worship trump, it is the democratic leadership. biden's foreign policy team. the major world press. amy: as we wrap up and celebrate your 93rd birthday, let's end with that question, what gives you hope? >> what do i hope? i hope that the young people who are demonstrating in the streets of glasgow, the mine workers who in the united stes are ageing to a transition program sustainable energy, many others like them, i hope that they will be in the ascendancy and can take the measures that are feasible and available

to create a much better world than the one we have and the one that the pple of the world deserve. amy: noam chomsky, the 93-year-old world renowned political dissident, linguist, and author. joining us from his home in tucson, arizona, where he teaches at the university of arizona. to see all of our interviews over the years with noam chomsky, you can go to democracynow.org. and that does it for today's show. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org

or mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible

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