WEBVTT

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From Pacifica,
this is Democracy Now!

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In the last 10 years, for the
first time in—since the Spanish

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and Portuguese
conquerors—that’s

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half a millennium—Latin
America has freed itself,

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substantially freed itself from
Western domination and control.

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MIT Professor Noam Chomsky
for the hour, on Latin America,

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the massive Palestinian
prisoner hunger strike,

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WikiLeaks, the
militarization of police,

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as well as the
historical significance

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of Occupy Wall Street.

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So, issues that had been,

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you know,
marginalized—they’re familiar,

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but you didn’t talk about
them—like inequality,

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shredding of the
democratic process,

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you know, financial corruption,
environmental issues,

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all these things,

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they became—they moved
to the center of discussion.

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And as the United States

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carries out another deadly
drone strike in Yemen,

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we’ll speak with Noam Chomsky

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about President Obama
and assassinations.

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The Bush administration
didn’t like somebody,

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they’d kidnap them and send them
to torture chambers;

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if the Obama
administration decides

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they don’t like somebody,
they murder them.

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Noam Chomsky for the hour.
All that and more coming up.

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Welcom to Democracy
Now!, democracynow.org,

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The War and Peace Report.
I’m Amy Goodman.

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Mexico has seen one of
the worst single atrocities

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in its long-running drug war

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with the discovery of at least
49 mutilated bodies

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near the northern
city of Monterrey.

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Mexican police say
the victims’ remains

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were stuffed into bags
and dumped on a highway.

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The killings are believed
to be a part

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of a string of drug
gang murders across Mexico.

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Last week, 18 people
were found decapitated

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and mutilated
in the city of Guadalajara.

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At least 11 people have been
killed in a pair of apparent

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U.S. drone attacks
in southern Yemen.

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Yemeni officials
said the victims

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were alleged al-Qaeda militants.

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The attack would mark
at least the second U.S. drone

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strike in the past week

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following the killing
of a suspect

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wanted in the 2000 bombing
of the USS Cole.

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President Obama’s top
counterterrorism adviser,

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John Brennan,
is currently in Yemen

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for talks with
the Yemeni government.

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The Obama administration is
proceeding with military sales

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to Bahrain despite
the ruling monarchy’s

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ongoing repression of
pro-democracy protests.

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On Friday, the State Department
announced it will allow

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a multi-million-dollar
weapons shipment

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to the Bahraini government,

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citing "national
security interests."

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The announcement
came just days

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after the Bahraini government
vowed "tougher action"

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in its crackdown
on protesters.

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As the United States
confirmed the weapons sale,

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thousands of Bahrainis
marched near the capital

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Manama to call for the release
of political prisoners.

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Protester: "Of course,
our demands in Bahrain,

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demands of all the people,

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are the demands
of everybody for years:

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democracy, change of regime,
the release of prisoners.

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These are the demands
by everyone else in the world.

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We want the same things."

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In response to the announcement
of more weapon sales to Bahrain,

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the group Human Rights First
issued this statement:

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"The U.S. can be in no doubt

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about the reality of
the repression in Bahrain.

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Where is the progress that
warrants the reward of arms?"

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Representatives of
Palestinian prisoners

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have reportedly reached a
tentative agreement with Israel

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that could end
a massive hunger strike

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by some 2,000
people behind bars.

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Al Jazeera reports a draft
deal mediated in Egypt

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would see Israel change
its administrative detention

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policies

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to no longer hold Palestinian
prisoners without charge.

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The deal will
reportedly be presented

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to the prisoners
today for a vote.

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Over the weekend, Palestinians
in the West Bank and Gaza

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continued to hold demonstrations
of support for the prisoners.

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On Sunday, Israeli
activist Jonathan Pollack

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and an unidentified
Palestinian protester

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rallied near
an Israeli settlement

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in the occupied
West Bank.

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Jonathan Pollack:

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"We’re here today to support the
prisoners in their hunger strike

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and to say that it cannot be
that life in settlements,

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in these police stations
that are right behind us,

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will continue as usual

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while thousands of
Palestinian prisoners

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are striking,
are hunger-striking,

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are dying of hunger
for their most basic rights."

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Protester: "Two thousand
Palestinian prisoners

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are on hunger
strike for 30 days.

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Where is the media?
When [Israeli soldier]

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Gilad Shalit was kidnapped,
all the world stood by him.

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We are protesting
for prisoners."

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Three executives at
the financial giant JPMorgan

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Chase have resigned over risky

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derivatives trading that cost
the bank at least $2 billion.

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The ousted executives
include Ina Drew,

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the head of risk
management at JPMorgan

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and the bank’s chief
investment officer.

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The loss has renewed calls

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for tougher regulation
of Wall Street,

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with critics saying JPMorgan
would have avoided the loss

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under regulations that
it successfully opposed.

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JPMorgan was among
a number of large banks

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to lobby against
the Volcker Rule,

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which would prevent banks from
certain kinds of risky trading.

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Speaking on NBC’s
"Meet the Press,"

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JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon

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says he expects increased
scrutiny from regulators.

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Jamie Dimon: "We’ve had audit,
legal, risk, compliance,

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some of our best people
look into at all of that.

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We know we were sloppy.
We know we were stupid.

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We know there was bad judgment.

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We don’t know if any
of that is true yet.

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Of course regulators should look
at something like this,

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that’s their job.

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So, you know, we are totally
open kimono with regulators,

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and they will come to
their own conclusions.

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But we intend to fix it,
learn from it,

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and be a better company
when it’s done."

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At least 100,000 people marched
in Spain over the weekend

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to mark the one-year anniversary
of the protest movement

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that arose in response
to crippling austerity measures

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and economic stagnation.

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The so-called "Indignados"
movement swept Spain a year ago

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and helped inspire similar
protests across the globe,

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including the Occupy movement
in the United States.

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On Saturday, Spanish protesters
celebrated the one-year mark

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with rallies in 80 cities.

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Jose Maria:
"Everyone looks aside.

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When there is a crisis,
people are the hurt ones.

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They don’t do anything about it.

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They have an 80,000-euro
salary a year.

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What do you expect them to do?

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They can have a nice dinner,
and we pay for it.

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The people always pay for the
crisis, and we are fed up."

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Greece appears headed toward
a new round of elections

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with the ongoing failure
of rival political parties

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to form a government coalition.

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The impasse centers
on an international bailout

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that offers Greece billions
in loans in return for harsh

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austerity measures
gutting the public sector.

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At a rally on Sunday,
the head of Greece’s Coalition

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of the Radical Left party,

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Alexis Tsipras,

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renewed his vow
to refuse any coalition

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that agrees to
the bailout terms.

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Alexis Tsipras: "We will take
our responsibilities,

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and the biggest responsibility
we have to the people

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is for the people
not to lose their hope.

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The biggest responsibility
we have is not to appear

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that we are backtracking on what
we said before the elections

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and what we do
after the elections.

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And we won’t."

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In Germany, voters have
handed a defeat

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to the party of
Chancellor Angela Merkel

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in what is being called a rebuke

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of Merkel’s Europe-wide
austerity agenda.

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The results from Germany’s
most populous state,

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North Rhine-Westphalia,
show Merkel’s opponents,

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the center-left Social
Democrats and the Greens,

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have won enough to form
a majority coalition

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in the state legislature.

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Germany’s federal elections
are due next year.

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The former editor of the News
of the World newspaper

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has acknowledged close ties
to top British politicians

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in testimony
on the hacking scandal

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that has engulfed the media
empire of Rupert Murdoch.

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Speaking before an ongoing
British inquiry,

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Rebekah Brooks admitted
to receiving messages of support

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from British Prime
Minister David Cameron

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and former Prime
Minister Tony Blair

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after revelations of phone

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hacking at her newspaper
forced her to resign.

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Robert Jay: "Did you receive
messages of commiseration

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or support from politicians?"

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Rebekah Brooks: "I received
some indirect messages

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from Number 10,

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Number 11, Home Office,
Foreign Office."

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Robert Jay: "So you’re talking
about secretaries of state,

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prime minister, chancellor
of the exchequer,

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obviously, aren’t you,
Mrs. Brooks?"

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Republican presidential
candidate Mitt Romney

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spoke at Virginia’s Liberty
University on Saturday

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in a bid to court
the evangelical Christian vote.

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Delivering a
commencement address

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that focused heavily
on his campaign,

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Romney renewed his opposition
to same-sex marriage

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in the face of President Obama’s
public support for it last week.

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Mitt Romney:

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"Culture — what you believe,
what you value, how you live —

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matters.

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Now, as fundamental
as these principles are,

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they may become topics
of democratic debate

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from time to time.

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So it is today with the enduring
institution of marriage.

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Marriage is a relationship
between one man and one woman."

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An online gun retailer
has sparked outrage

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over the sale of
a shooting target

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based on the likeness
of Trayvon Martin,

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the unarmed black teenager
shot dead in Florida

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earlier this year.

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The site, GunBroker.com,

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carried an advertisement
from a Florida man

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offering a paper silhouette

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depicting a hooded man
holding skittles and iced tea —

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the same items
Martin was holding

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when self-appointment
neighborhood

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watchman George Zimmerman
shot him dead.

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The unidentified seller

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says he sold out of
the targets in two days.

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They are no longer
being listed online.

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Trayvon Martin’s mother,
Sybrina Fulton,

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issued a Mother’s Day
appeal this weekend

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for a nationwide review
of "Stand Your Ground,"

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the purported "self-defense"
law that critics say

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enabled the killing of her son.

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Sybrina
Fulton: "Just like me,

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30,000 mothers
lost their children

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this year to senseless
gun violence.

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Nobody can bring
our children back.

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But it would bring us comfort

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if we can help spare
other mothers the pain

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that we will feel
on Mother’s Day

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and every day for
the rest of our lives.

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I’m asking you to join Florida

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by calling upon
the governor of your state

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to reexamine similar

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'stand your ground' laws
throughout the nation

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to keep our families safe."

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Since losing her son,
Fulton has tirelessly campaigned

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for justice in his case

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and for the tightening
of gun control laws

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in the United States.

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It was revealed this weekend

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that a large number
of Fulton’s colleagues

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at Miami-Dade County

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have collectively donated
their vacation days

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to give Fulton eight months
of paid vacation,

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worth over $40,000
in days off of work.

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In news from Florida,
a 31-year-old mother of three

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has been sentenced
to 20 years in prison

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for firing what she maintains

00:11:07.140 --> 00:11:09.770
was a warning shot
at her abusive husband.

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Marissa Alexander has maintained
she was defending herself

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when she fired a gun
into a wall near her husband,

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who had allegedly had
a history of physical abuse.

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Alexander, who is
African American,

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had turned down
a plea bargain

00:11:20.450 --> 00:11:22.760
that would have seen her
jailed for three years.

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On Friday, she was sentenced
to two decades behind bars

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under a Florida law
known as 10-20-life

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that carries a mandatory
minimum for certain gun crimes

00:11:31.870 --> 00:11:33.590
regardless of the circumstance.

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And those are some of the
headlines this is Democracy

00:11:56.020 --> 00:11:58.830
Now, Democracynow.org,
the War and Peace Report.

00:11:58.830 --> 00:12:00.380
I’m Amy Goodman.

00:12:00.380 --> 00:12:01.540
AMY GOODMAN: Today
we spend the hour

00:12:01.540 --> 00:12:03.580
with world-renowned
political dissident,

00:12:03.580 --> 00:12:05.730
linguist, author, Noam Chomsky.

00:12:05.730 --> 00:12:08.470
I interviewed him
last week here in New York

00:12:08.470 --> 00:12:11.090
at the 45th anniversary
celebration of NACLA,

00:12:11.090 --> 00:12:13.160
the North American Congress
on Latin America.

00:12:13.850 --> 00:12:15.270
Chomsky was this year’s winner

00:12:15.270 --> 00:12:16.470
of the Latin America Peace

00:12:16.470 --> 00:12:17.750
and Justice Award.

00:12:17.750 --> 00:12:20.040
NACLA said they gave him
the honor because, quote,

00:12:20.040 --> 00:12:22.280
"Chomsky’s work has
influenced generations

00:12:22.280 --> 00:12:23.710
of concerned citizens

00:12:23.710 --> 00:12:26.390
who are committed to social
justice in the Americas."

00:12:26.390 --> 00:12:29.570
Also honored was the
Mexican poet Javier Sicilia,

00:12:29.570 --> 00:12:32.840
who founded the Movement for
Peace with Justice and Dignity

00:12:32.840 --> 00:12:35.990
after his son was murdered last
year in the drug war in Mexico.

00:12:36.610 --> 00:12:39.840
Visit democracynow.org
for our two-part interview

00:12:39.840 --> 00:12:42.160
with the renowned Mexican
poet, Javier Sicilia.

00:12:42.810 --> 00:12:45.860
Noam Chomsky is author of more
than a hundred books,

00:12:45.860 --> 00:12:48.090
most recently, Occupy.

00:12:48.090 --> 00:12:50.970
He is Institute Professor
Emeritus at Massachusetts

00:12:50.970 --> 00:12:52.230
Institute of Technology,

00:12:52.230 --> 00:12:54.190
where he’s taught for more
than half a century.

00:12:54.710 --> 00:12:57.220
I began our interview
by asking Noam Chomsky

00:12:57.220 --> 00:13:00.460
about the approximately
2,000 Palestinian prisoners

00:13:00.460 --> 00:13:03.300
who have been on hunger
strike since April 17th.

00:13:03.300 --> 00:13:04.750
Representatives
of the prisoners

00:13:04.750 --> 00:13:07.690
have reportedly reached a
tentative agreement with Israel

00:13:07.690 --> 00:13:09.180
that could end the strike.

00:13:09.180 --> 00:13:10.930
Many of the
Palestinian prisoners

00:13:10.930 --> 00:13:13.510
are being held by Israel
without charge under a procedure

00:13:13.510 --> 00:13:15.450
known as "administrative
detention."

00:13:15.450 --> 00:13:17.040
The strike is intended
to pressure

00:13:17.040 --> 00:13:18.300
Israeli prison authorities

00:13:18.300 --> 00:13:20.700
to end the use
of solitary confinement

00:13:20.700 --> 00:13:23.090
and ease a wide range
of restrictions.

00:13:23.090 --> 00:13:25.320
We did the interview
in a courtyard

00:13:25.320 --> 00:13:28.050
outside a building
at New York University.

00:13:28.050 --> 00:13:30.020
I asked Professor
Chomsky to comment

00:13:30.020 --> 00:13:31.470
on the Palestinian
hunger strike.

00:13:32.740 --> 00:13:35.230
NOAM CHOMSKY: Among the many
atrocities going on

00:13:35.230 --> 00:13:37.310
in the Occupied Territories,

00:13:38.130 --> 00:13:41.560
one of them is
administrative detention,

00:13:42.370 --> 00:13:48.090
and another is very harsh,
punitive prison conditions.

00:13:51.820 --> 00:13:54.510
Israel acknowledges
several hundred prisoners

00:13:54.510 --> 00:13:56.580
under administrative detention.

00:13:56.580 --> 00:13:59.480
There’s basically no inspection,
so we don’t know.

00:14:00.180 --> 00:14:01.600
Some of them have
been there for years.

00:14:03.410 --> 00:14:04.780
That means no charges,

00:14:04.780 --> 00:14:08.490
just suspected of something
and locked up,

00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:10.340
some of them over
and over again.

00:14:11.060 --> 00:14:15.380
And the hunger
strikes are a protest

00:14:15.380 --> 00:14:18.930
against these violations

00:14:18.930 --> 00:14:22.480
of elementary human rights

00:14:22.480 --> 00:14:24.480
and of law, in fact.

00:14:25.600 --> 00:14:28.190
AMY GOODMAN: Overall,
the situation in the West Bank

00:14:28.190 --> 00:14:29.620
and Gaza?

00:14:29.620 --> 00:14:32.460
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, Gaza
remains a prison.

00:14:33.200 --> 00:14:35.590
It’s completely under siege.

00:14:36.150 --> 00:14:40.500
I mean, Egypt has opened up
a little of the borders,

00:14:40.500 --> 00:14:43.030
so there’s some entry
up and back,

00:14:43.030 --> 00:14:46.040
but basically it’s the same
as it’s been for years.

00:14:46.550 --> 00:14:52.030
They can’t export their produce.
They can’t have a live economy.

00:14:52.030 --> 00:14:55.020
The Israeli navy
pretty much bars fishing.

00:14:56.130 --> 00:14:58.700
The place is—nothing
can be reconstructed,

00:14:59.300 --> 00:15:01.490
because you can’t bring
any construction material.

00:15:02.020 --> 00:15:05.410
I mean, there is in fact wealth,
through the tunnel system,

00:15:06.090 --> 00:15:10.650
but which has enriched,
you know, kind of entrepreneurs,

00:15:10.650 --> 00:15:12.350
if you want to call them that.

00:15:12.350 --> 00:15:14.390
It’s a small sector
of the population.

00:15:14.390 --> 00:15:15.620
But most of them are living

00:15:17.350 --> 00:15:20.590
under kind of a forced
hunger strike.

00:15:20.590 --> 00:15:23.960
The way the Israeli officials
put it a couple years ago

00:15:23.960 --> 00:15:25.350
is pretty accurate:

00:15:25.850 --> 00:15:28.750
we don’t want to kill them all,
as it won’t look good,

00:15:28.750 --> 00:15:32.840
but we’ll keep them on a diet,
so just at a survival level.

00:15:33.390 --> 00:15:37.480
A very young population,
no future, can’t get out.

00:15:39.120 --> 00:15:43.300
It’s, in a way, not unlike
the refugee camps in Lebanon,

00:15:43.300 --> 00:15:47.670
which are—they’re not
torture chambers,

00:15:47.670 --> 00:15:53.910
but the hopelessness and
the—when you go through them,

00:15:53.910 --> 00:15:55.940
you see kids playing
in the dirt,

00:15:56.560 --> 00:15:58.550
and you know they’re going
to be there all their lives,

00:15:58.550 --> 00:16:00.670
and their children are going
to be there all their lives.

00:16:00.670 --> 00:16:03.660
They’ll never get out.
That’s what Gaza is like.

00:16:03.660 --> 00:16:09.320
The West Bank is being—the
U.S. and Israel have a plan.

00:16:09.320 --> 00:16:11.700
They’re slowly implementing it:

00:16:11.700 --> 00:16:13.400
systematically take over

00:16:14.040 --> 00:16:15.880
whatever is of value
in the West Bank.

00:16:16.720 --> 00:16:19.570
And it’s clear what it is;
it’s never been a secret.

00:16:21.490 --> 00:16:24.410
The structure has been
entirely obvious.

00:16:24.410 --> 00:16:26.240
Just go step by step.

00:16:26.240 --> 00:16:30.400
So you take over everything
within the means,

00:16:30.400 --> 00:16:31.800
annex ultimately,

00:16:31.800 --> 00:16:36.040
the illegal annexation—they call
it a separation wall;

00:16:36.040 --> 00:16:38.830
actually, an annexation
wall—that includes

00:16:40.610 --> 00:16:44.430
much of the arable land,
water resources,

00:16:44.430 --> 00:16:47.500
the pleasant
suburbs of Jerusalem

00:16:47.500 --> 00:16:49.260
and Tel Aviv and so on.

00:16:49.260 --> 00:16:52.790
So, take that over.
Take over the Jordan Valley,

00:16:53.390 --> 00:16:57.180
where Palestinians are
being slowly driven out

00:16:57.180 --> 00:16:59.630
and Israeli settlements
are being built

00:17:00.130 --> 00:17:02.720
and, you know, hundreds
of wells are being sunk

00:17:02.720 --> 00:17:04.970
and so on, more arable land.

00:17:04.970 --> 00:17:06.760
That basically
imprisons what’s left.

00:17:08.870 --> 00:17:12.600
And in the region that’s left,
about over half

00:17:12.600 --> 00:17:15.830
is essentially Israeli
territory area C,

00:17:17.310 --> 00:17:19.630
and the Palestinians
virtually no access to it.

00:17:20.640 --> 00:17:25.540
And there are salients
cut through—first of all,

00:17:25.540 --> 00:17:30.550
Jerusalem itself is far larger
than Jerusalem ever was,

00:17:30.550 --> 00:17:34.140
and it’s been
annexed—illegally, of course,

00:17:34.140 --> 00:17:36.230
even in violation
of Security Council orders.

00:17:36.740 --> 00:17:39.410
So there’s this vastly
expanded greater Jerusalem,

00:17:39.410 --> 00:17:40.660
which includes East Jerusalem.

00:17:42.350 --> 00:17:47.000
To the east of that is
a salient going to a town

00:17:48.280 --> 00:17:49.480
founded in the '70s,

00:17:49.480 --> 00:17:52.280
but mainly constructed
under Clinton in the ’90s,

00:17:52.280 --> 00:17:53.750
Ma'ale Adumim.

00:17:53.750 --> 00:17:56.930
Its borders reach
virtually Jericho,

00:17:56.930 --> 00:18:00.590
kind of bisects the West Bank.
And if you go further north,

00:18:00.590 --> 00:18:02.000
there are a couple
of other salients,

00:18:02.000 --> 00:18:06.200
which cut what’s left
into unviable cantons,

00:18:06.200 --> 00:18:09.770
what Ariel Sharon,
the architect of the policy,

00:18:09.770 --> 00:18:12.330
he honestly—he called
them "bantustans,"

00:18:12.850 --> 00:18:15.000
which is not quite accurate,

00:18:15.000 --> 00:18:20.820
because South Africa
relied on the black labor,

00:18:20.820 --> 00:18:22.500
so they took care
of the bantustans,

00:18:24.920 --> 00:18:27.400
just kind of the way
slave owners took care

00:18:27.400 --> 00:18:29.860
of slaves—they’re
your kind of capital;

00:18:29.860 --> 00:18:32.520
you’ve got to keep them going,
let them reproduce and

00:18:32.520 --> 00:18:33.810
so on—and they also hoped

00:18:33.810 --> 00:18:37.240
that the bantustans would be
recognized by other countries,

00:18:37.240 --> 00:18:40.470
so they sort of, more or less,
kept them viable.

00:18:40.470 --> 00:18:43.040
But Israel has absolutely
no interest in the Palestinians.

00:18:43.960 --> 00:18:48.070
They can—you know, if they
disappear, that’s just fine.

00:18:48.920 --> 00:18:52.410
So, they’re kind of left
in these cantons.

00:18:52.410 --> 00:18:57.160
There’s major infrastructure
developments.

00:18:57.160 --> 00:19:00.670
I mean, an Israeli
or an American tourist

00:19:00.670 --> 00:19:02.620
can go from, say,

00:19:02.620 --> 00:19:07.190
Ma’ale Adumim to Tel Aviv
on superhighways.

00:19:07.190 --> 00:19:08.760
No Palestinians, of course.

00:19:09.400 --> 00:19:13.850
Maybe you see a man
with a goat up in the distance,

00:19:13.850 --> 00:19:15.490
a kind of biblical landscape.

00:19:16.170 --> 00:19:18.040
But that’s the direction
it’s moving.

00:19:18.040 --> 00:19:19.690
AMY GOODMAN: So what do you
think needs to happen?

00:19:20.270 --> 00:19:21.280
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well,
what needs to happen

00:19:21.280 --> 00:19:22.740
is very straightforward.

00:19:22.740 --> 00:19:25.060
I mean, there are a lot of
complex problems in the world

00:19:25.060 --> 00:19:28.240
where it’s hard to think of
the solution, like, say, Kashmir

00:19:28.240 --> 00:19:32.110
or eastern Congo—try
to figure out a solution,

00:19:32.110 --> 00:19:33.520
it’s not so easy.

00:19:33.520 --> 00:19:35.250
But Israel-Palestine,
it’s transparent.

00:19:35.970 --> 00:19:39.800
There’s been an overwhelming
international consensus,

00:19:40.330 --> 00:19:45.940
for about 35 years, on the
basic structure of a settlement,

00:19:46.680 --> 00:19:49.200
a two-state settlement,
international border,

00:19:50.290 --> 00:19:52.130
means pre-June '67 border,

00:19:52.860 --> 00:19:56.950
maybe some—to use official
U.S. terminology,

00:19:56.950 --> 00:19:59.230
when the U.S. was
still part of the world

00:19:59.740 --> 00:20:01.400
back in the early ’70s,

00:20:01.400 --> 00:20:03.500
"with minor and mutual
adjustments,"

00:20:04.090 --> 00:20:06.280
so straighten out
the ceasefire line,

00:20:06.930 --> 00:20:12.240
and then various arrangements
made for other issues.

00:20:12.240 --> 00:20:13.560
That's the basic structure.

00:20:14.070 --> 00:20:17.160
Actually, that came to the
U.N. Security Council in 1976.

00:20:17.820 --> 00:20:19.750
It was brought by
the major Arab states.

00:20:20.520 --> 00:20:23.860
It was vetoed by the United
States, vetoed again in 1980.

00:20:23.860 --> 00:20:26.210
I won’t run through
the rest of the story,

00:20:26.210 --> 00:20:30.140
but there’s been
consistent barring

00:20:30.140 --> 00:20:31.440
of a political settlement

00:20:31.440 --> 00:20:33.580
by U.S. rejectionism.

00:20:34.240 --> 00:20:37.040
And until that changes,
nothing much is going to change.

00:20:37.040 --> 00:20:39.640
AMY GOODMAN: So what do you
think of the BDS movement,

00:20:39.640 --> 00:20:42.510
the Boycott, Divestment,
Sanctions movement?

00:20:42.510 --> 00:20:44.660
NOAM CHOMSKY: I think BDS
is a very valuable tactic.

00:20:45.510 --> 00:20:48.070
I’d be a little cautious
when it comes to be a movement.

00:20:48.590 --> 00:20:50.510
So, for example,
if you go back to South Africa,

00:20:51.730 --> 00:20:54.410
BDS was used,
and used effectively,

00:20:54.410 --> 00:20:55.940
but there was never
a BDS movement.

00:20:56.780 --> 00:21:00.780
A movement begins to mean,
you know,

00:21:00.780 --> 00:21:04.170
we’ve got a plan
and a commitment,

00:21:04.810 --> 00:21:06.290
principles you have
to adhere to,

00:21:06.940 --> 00:21:08.210
we apply the tactics

00:21:08.770 --> 00:21:11.640
without considering
the consequences, and so on.

00:21:11.640 --> 00:21:14.600
Now, BDS, as a tactic,
can be very effective.

00:21:15.260 --> 00:21:17.590
And in the case of South Africa,
if you take a look,

00:21:17.590 --> 00:21:20.670
it was effective and targeted.

00:21:21.340 --> 00:21:25.700
So, for example, there was
no boycott of universities,

00:21:26.350 --> 00:21:28.730
but there were boycotts

00:21:28.730 --> 00:21:31.020
insofar as they had
racial hiring practices.

00:21:32.060 --> 00:21:34.860
There were boycotts of sports
teams for the same reason.

00:21:36.270 --> 00:21:40.070
Also, it’s important to remember
that boycott, divestment,

00:21:40.070 --> 00:21:43.700
sanctions began significantly,
in the case of South Africa,

00:21:44.300 --> 00:21:46.570
after decades of preparation.

00:21:47.450 --> 00:21:49.400
By the time these tactics began,

00:21:49.930 --> 00:21:52.710
there was no support for
apartheid anywhere in the world.

00:21:53.880 --> 00:21:56.890
Congress was passing
sanctions legislation.

00:21:57.700 --> 00:22:00.290
The U.N. had imposed
an arms embargo.

00:22:00.290 --> 00:22:03.070
And in fact, if you look
through the ’80s—this

00:22:03.070 --> 00:22:06.680
is when the tactics were
used—the Reagan administration

00:22:06.680 --> 00:22:08.730
had to violate
congressional sanctions

00:22:09.440 --> 00:22:14.070
in order to keep supporting
South Africa as it did.

00:22:14.070 --> 00:22:15.460
And it’s interesting to remember

00:22:15.460 --> 00:22:18.570
why the United States
supported South Africa:

00:22:18.570 --> 00:22:20.340
it was part of
the war on terror.

00:22:21.550 --> 00:22:24.460
George Bush didn’t start the
war—declare the war on terror,

00:22:24.460 --> 00:22:26.070
he re-declared it.

00:22:26.070 --> 00:22:30.070
Reagan declared it in 1981,
very frankly and openly.

00:22:30.070 --> 00:22:32.040
Nobody likes to talk about it

00:22:32.040 --> 00:22:34.400
because of the horrors
that emerged,

00:22:34.400 --> 00:22:36.480
but it’s true.

00:22:36.480 --> 00:22:38.500
And in 1988, for example,

00:22:39.370 --> 00:22:42.940
the African National
Congress, Mandela’s ANC,

00:22:42.940 --> 00:22:45.630
was declared to be
one of the more

00:22:45.630 --> 00:22:47.560
notorious terrorist
groups in the world,

00:22:48.170 --> 00:22:50.930
so we naturally had to
support white nationalists

00:22:50.930 --> 00:22:53.930
against this horrible
terrorist force.

00:22:53.930 --> 00:22:55.170
It was 1988.

00:22:56.220 --> 00:22:59.660
By that time, overwhelming
opposition to apartheid.

00:22:59.660 --> 00:23:02.740
And in fact, U.S. policy

00:23:02.740 --> 00:23:04.900
did change in the next
couple of years.

00:23:05.950 --> 00:23:09.460
And when U.S. policy changed,
the system collapsed.

00:23:10.300 --> 00:23:13.350
What came out of it is not
very beautiful, by any means,

00:23:14.410 --> 00:23:16.870
but at least
apartheid collapsed.

00:23:18.050 --> 00:23:21.740
But—and that could happen
in this case, too.

00:23:21.740 --> 00:23:23.460
In fact, as I’m sure you know,

00:23:24.180 --> 00:23:27.320
Mandela himself
was just removed

00:23:27.320 --> 00:23:29.860
from the terrorist list
about two years ago.

00:23:29.860 --> 00:23:31.410
He can now come
to the United States

00:23:31.410 --> 00:23:32.970
without special dispensation.

00:23:34.620 --> 00:23:36.410
AMY GOODMAN: Professor
Noam Chomsky.

00:23:36.410 --> 00:23:40.310
We’ll continue the discussion
with him, as he addresses

00:23:40.310 --> 00:23:43.380
WikiLeaks, the militarization
of police in the United States,

00:23:43.380 --> 00:23:45.960
and the historical significance
of Occupy Wall Street,

00:23:45.960 --> 00:23:48.220
but he’ll begin by talking
about President Obama,

00:23:48.220 --> 00:24:07.430
in a moment.

00:24:44.530 --> 00:24:55.040
AMY GOODMAN: We return
to my conversation

00:24:55.040 --> 00:24:56.870
with the activist, scholar,

00:24:56.870 --> 00:25:00.280
author, Noam Chomsky,
professor of linguistics

00:25:00.280 --> 00:25:02.520
at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology.

00:25:02.520 --> 00:25:05.710
I asked for his assessment
of President Obama’s presidency.

00:25:07.020 --> 00:25:08.480
NOAM CHOMSKY: In many ways,
it’s a little worse

00:25:08.480 --> 00:25:10.720
than what I expected,
but I didn’t expect anything.

00:25:11.550 --> 00:25:15.330
After I wrote about Obama
before the primaries,

00:25:15.330 --> 00:25:18.250
just looking at his webpage—so,
take the Middle East.

00:25:19.440 --> 00:25:21.700
Take a look at his webpage
before the primaries.

00:25:21.700 --> 00:25:23.040
A lot of stuff about
the Middle East.

00:25:23.990 --> 00:25:29.040
Most of it is how—you know,
his undying love for Israel,

00:25:29.040 --> 00:25:32.010
which just, you know,
overcomes everything else.

00:25:32.950 --> 00:25:36.040
There’s almost no mention of the
Palestinians—I mean, a phrase.

00:25:36.610 --> 00:25:39.660
This was, remember,
the time—this was right

00:25:39.660 --> 00:25:42.640
after the last—the last

00:25:42.640 --> 00:25:43.870
of the Israeli invasions

00:25:43.870 --> 00:25:47.000
of Lebanon—actually,
the fifth—in 2006.

00:25:47.730 --> 00:25:50.650
And one of the things he’s proud
of about the Middle East

00:25:50.650 --> 00:25:54.240
and he boasted about
is that, he says—in fact,

00:25:54.240 --> 00:25:55.680
he did very little
in the Senate.

00:25:55.680 --> 00:25:58.850
But one of the things
that he did was co-sponsor

00:25:58.850 --> 00:26:01.350
a resolution
in the midst of the war,

00:26:03.200 --> 00:26:05.970
insisting that
the United States do nothing

00:26:05.970 --> 00:26:08.920
that might impede
the Israeli attack on Lebanon

00:26:09.580 --> 00:26:15.510
until it reaches its objectives,
and censuring Syria and Iran

00:26:15.510 --> 00:26:17.960
because they’re allegedly
supporting the resistance

00:26:17.960 --> 00:26:19.760
to the Israeli attack.

00:26:19.760 --> 00:26:24.030
That’s his one great achievement
with regard to the Middle East.

00:26:24.030 --> 00:26:27.050
So nothing that’s happened
there is any surprise.

00:26:28.230 --> 00:26:30.200
With regard to other issues,
he was,

00:26:31.620 --> 00:26:33.290
as he himself put it sometimes,

00:26:33.290 --> 00:26:34.910
a kind of a blank slate,
didn’t say anything.

00:26:35.960 --> 00:26:40.140
There was vague talk about
all kind of nice things.

00:26:41.770 --> 00:26:45.490
I don’t usually
admire Sarah Palin,

00:26:45.490 --> 00:26:50.390
but when she was making fun
of this "hopey-changey" stuff,

00:26:50.390 --> 00:26:52.900
she was—she was right.
There was nothing there.

00:26:53.570 --> 00:26:55.520
And it was understood
by the people

00:26:55.520 --> 00:26:57.690
who run the political system.

00:26:58.470 --> 00:27:02.990
So it’s no great secret
that the U.S. electoral system

00:27:02.990 --> 00:27:05.300
is mainly public relations
extravaganzas.

00:27:05.930 --> 00:27:09.850
They keep away from issues.
It’s sort of a marketing affair,

00:27:09.850 --> 00:27:11.730
and the people who run it
are the advertisers.

00:27:12.360 --> 00:27:14.790
And they had their
national convention

00:27:14.790 --> 00:27:16.550
right after the 2008 election,

00:27:17.320 --> 00:27:21.030
and it revealed that
they understood

00:27:21.030 --> 00:27:22.940
perfectly what was going on.

00:27:22.940 --> 00:27:24.760
They gave Obama the award

00:27:24.760 --> 00:27:27.190
for the best marketing
campaign of the year.

00:27:27.870 --> 00:27:29.250
And if you go to
the business press,

00:27:30.070 --> 00:27:32.950
they were reporting how
executives were really excited.

00:27:32.950 --> 00:27:36.080
I mean, we have this
new model as to how to,

00:27:36.660 --> 00:27:38.870
you know, delude people,

00:27:38.870 --> 00:27:41.550
enacted in the—we used
to use the Reagan model,

00:27:41.550 --> 00:27:42.980
now we can use the Obama model

00:27:43.590 --> 00:27:46.130
for our delusional systems

00:27:46.130 --> 00:27:47.580
that we construct,

00:27:48.130 --> 00:27:51.250
which is pretty much what
the PR industry is about.

00:27:52.410 --> 00:27:54.530
So, that captured it properly.

00:27:55.210 --> 00:28:00.730
I mean, he’s—there are a couple
of things that he did that are,

00:28:01.510 --> 00:28:04.350
I think—he had
a couple good appointments

00:28:04.350 --> 00:28:07.200
to the NLRB, National
Labor Relations Board.

00:28:08.540 --> 00:28:12.190
There are a few actions here

00:28:12.190 --> 00:28:15.580
and there that, you know,
you can kind of clap.

00:28:15.580 --> 00:28:17.570
AMY GOODMAN: He just
announced his support

00:28:17.570 --> 00:28:18.880
of same-sex marriage,

00:28:18.880 --> 00:28:20.320
first U.S. president to do that.

00:28:20.320 --> 00:28:21.540
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, not quite.

00:28:21.540 --> 00:28:23.610
Yes, he did, but he said
it has to go to the states.

00:28:24.580 --> 00:28:26.500
So, a states’ rights version.

00:28:26.500 --> 00:28:29.630
That kind of means that states
can do what they like.

00:28:29.630 --> 00:28:31.020
He said something.

00:28:31.020 --> 00:28:33.050
AMY GOODMAN: And 30 states
have constitutional amendments

00:28:33.050 --> 00:28:34.190
against same-sex marriage.

00:28:34.190 --> 00:28:35.780
NOAM CHOMSKY: Another one just
a couple of days ago, yeah.

00:28:36.580 --> 00:28:39.170
But, I mean, you know,
I’m glad he said it,

00:28:39.960 --> 00:28:41.640
but it’s a pretty safe stand.

00:28:43.880 --> 00:28:48.470
Labor—there was a huge effort
by the labor movement

00:28:48.470 --> 00:28:49.960
to get him into office.

00:28:50.710 --> 00:28:52.990
The first thing he did
was kick them in the face,

00:28:54.280 --> 00:28:55.860
the no card check.

00:28:57.030 --> 00:28:59.270
In fact, what happened
with the health program

00:28:59.270 --> 00:29:02.230
was quite interesting,
because, you know, of course,

00:29:02.230 --> 00:29:04.410
there was a very important
senatorial election

00:29:04.410 --> 00:29:06.910
in—must have been January 2010,

00:29:07.650 --> 00:29:12.380
after Senator Kennedy
died—in Massachusetts,

00:29:12.380 --> 00:29:13.730
liberal state.

00:29:13.730 --> 00:29:17.460
And what was at stake
was not just Kennedy’s position,

00:29:18.110 --> 00:29:21.890
but the filibuster-proof
majority,

00:29:23.230 --> 00:29:24.910
which was quite critical.

00:29:24.910 --> 00:29:27.020
Well, the Democrats
lost that election,

00:29:27.020 --> 00:29:28.820
which was pretty dramatic.

00:29:28.820 --> 00:29:30.590
And if—that was
carefully analyzed.

00:29:31.200 --> 00:29:34.310
One of the main—there was,
first of all,

00:29:34.310 --> 00:29:36.310
a ton of money pouring in

00:29:36.310 --> 00:29:40.590
to support the
Republican candidate,

00:29:40.590 --> 00:29:43.190
who was a kind of a vacuum.

00:29:43.190 --> 00:29:44.980
I don’t know if you followed it.

00:29:44.980 --> 00:29:47.170
"I’m Scott Brown.
Here’s my truck."

00:29:47.170 --> 00:29:48.470
You know, that was the campaign.

00:29:49.090 --> 00:29:55.570
But what was quite interesting
was the—and in the suburbs,

00:29:55.570 --> 00:29:57.950
more or less affluent suburbs,
voting was pretty high.

00:29:58.910 --> 00:30:03.110
In the downtown areas,
the urban areas,

00:30:03.110 --> 00:30:05.940
where the working class
and poor people live,

00:30:05.940 --> 00:30:07.600
voting was quite low.

00:30:07.600 --> 00:30:09.600
And what was quite interesting
was the union vote,

00:30:10.180 --> 00:30:12.210
which was analyzed.

00:30:12.210 --> 00:30:14.530
Union members,
the majority of them,

00:30:14.530 --> 00:30:17.320
voted against—well,
for the Republican,

00:30:17.320 --> 00:30:19.210
meaning against Obama.

00:30:19.210 --> 00:30:21.990
Why? That was investigated, too.
They were furious.

00:30:22.720 --> 00:30:26.060
They had worked really hard
to put Obama into office.

00:30:26.890 --> 00:30:28.410
He broke all his
promises to them.

00:30:29.400 --> 00:30:33.050
But furthermore, the health
plan—one of the promises

00:30:33.050 --> 00:30:35.480
was there would be some
kind of national healthcare.

00:30:36.260 --> 00:30:38.680
And he could have—I think
he could have achieved that.

00:30:40.320 --> 00:30:42.880
For example, support
for the public option

00:30:42.880 --> 00:30:44.830
was about three to two, I think.

00:30:44.830 --> 00:30:46.910
If he made any effort,
he could have gotten it through.

00:30:48.000 --> 00:30:49.970
But not only did
he not put that through,

00:30:50.650 --> 00:30:52.850
but the one thing
that he insisted on

00:30:53.530 --> 00:30:57.720
was cutting back what were
called "Cadillac health plans,"

00:30:57.720 --> 00:31:01.170
that actually should be called
"Chevrolet health plans."

00:31:01.920 --> 00:31:03.460
And those are the health plans

00:31:03.460 --> 00:31:06.480
that union workers
had fought for,

00:31:06.480 --> 00:31:07.890
for years.

00:31:07.890 --> 00:31:09.780
You look at the history
of the American labor movement,

00:31:10.450 --> 00:31:13.170
it’s kind of abandoned
all sorts of things

00:31:13.170 --> 00:31:15.110
all along the way—you know,

00:31:15.110 --> 00:31:19.590
the rights of workers in the
workplace, all kinds of things.

00:31:19.590 --> 00:31:22.220
But it insisted—it
did make one gain:

00:31:22.220 --> 00:31:23.930
it made a compact
with management,

00:31:24.700 --> 00:31:28.350
a contract that they’d get
good benefits—all benefits

00:31:28.350 --> 00:31:30.070
for themselves,
not for the country.

00:31:30.640 --> 00:31:32.940
Of course, a compact
like that lasts

00:31:32.940 --> 00:31:35.690
only as long as business
decides to keep it.

00:31:35.690 --> 00:31:37.380
I mean, give it up, it’s over.

00:31:37.380 --> 00:31:40.420
But they did have reasonable
health plans for themselves.

00:31:40.950 --> 00:31:42.350
Those are the Cadillac
health plans.

00:31:42.920 --> 00:31:45.020
So the one thing
Obama wanted to do

00:31:45.720 --> 00:31:49.680
was to kill the health plans
that they had sacrificed for

00:31:49.680 --> 00:31:52.480
and fought for for 50 years,

00:31:52.480 --> 00:31:54.400
giving up plenty of other
things in the struggle.

00:31:54.400 --> 00:31:56.820
And they were pretty angry
about it, and understandably.

00:31:57.970 --> 00:32:00.560
And I think if you look
at other constituencies,

00:32:00.560 --> 00:32:02.270
it’s approximately the same.

00:32:02.270 --> 00:32:03.680
Take, say, environmental issues.

00:32:04.630 --> 00:32:08.360
I mean, you know,

00:32:09.040 --> 00:32:11.880
his attitude
toward the tar sands

00:32:11.880 --> 00:32:15.270
and the fracking, the
XL pipeline, is characteristic.

00:32:16.210 --> 00:32:17.800
So, in his State
of the Union address,

00:32:18.340 --> 00:32:19.700
last State of the Union address,

00:32:19.700 --> 00:32:25.260
he emphasized the fact
that we’re in a great position.

00:32:25.260 --> 00:32:29.230
We have maybe a hundred years
of energy independence

00:32:29.230 --> 00:32:32.350
ahead of us using these methods,

00:32:32.350 --> 00:32:34.320
which are going to
destroy the environment.

00:32:34.320 --> 00:32:37.310
So, who knows what things will
be like in a hundred years?

00:32:37.310 --> 00:32:42.400
Maybe unlivable.
But that’s—but it sounded nice.

00:32:42.400 --> 00:32:45.040
"I’ll put off the decision
for a couple months

00:32:45.040 --> 00:32:47.460
and just have the southern
part of the pipeline built,

00:32:47.460 --> 00:32:49.580
not the part that
crosses the border."

00:32:49.580 --> 00:32:51.220
That’ll come next,
when you’re not looking.

00:32:52.890 --> 00:32:54.830
But it’s been that way
on issue after issue.

00:32:55.900 --> 00:32:58.360
AMY GOODMAN: And yet,
it’s under President Obama,

00:32:58.360 --> 00:33:01.460
or you might say because
of President Obama,

00:33:01.460 --> 00:33:04.990
that the Occupy movement
has blossomed in this country.

00:33:04.990 --> 00:33:07.040
Talk about
the significance of Occupy.

00:33:08.340 --> 00:33:09.500
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well,
the Occupy movement

00:33:09.500 --> 00:33:11.920
is—it was a big surprise.

00:33:11.920 --> 00:33:16.440
You know, if anybody asked me
a year ago, "Is this possible?"

00:33:16.440 --> 00:33:18.000
I would have said,
"It’s crazy. Don’t even try."

00:33:18.940 --> 00:33:21.860
But it lit a spark, took off.

00:33:22.530 --> 00:33:27.810
There are now Occupy movements
in thousands of American cities,

00:33:27.810 --> 00:33:29.740
spread overseas.

00:33:29.740 --> 00:33:31.410
I was in Australia recently,

00:33:31.410 --> 00:33:34.650
went to the Occupy movement
in Sydney, in Melbourne.

00:33:34.650 --> 00:33:36.920
There’s one in Hong Kong.
You know, everywhere.

00:33:36.920 --> 00:33:39.000
And there are parallel
movements in Europe.

00:33:40.420 --> 00:33:43.900
It’s the first—and it’s very
significant, I think.

00:33:43.900 --> 00:33:46.710
Already in—it’s only been around
for a couple of months,

00:33:46.710 --> 00:33:49.590
so, you know, you can’t talk
about huge achievements.

00:33:49.590 --> 00:33:51.720
But there are two kinds
of the achievements

00:33:51.720 --> 00:33:54.790
which I think are—have already

00:33:54.790 --> 00:33:56.140
had an effect

00:33:56.140 --> 00:33:58.300
that probably is permanent,

00:33:58.300 --> 00:33:59.920
but anyway significant.

00:33:59.920 --> 00:34:01.950
One is, they just changed
the national discourse.

00:34:02.710 --> 00:34:04.710
So, issues that had been,

00:34:05.250 --> 00:34:08.150
you know,
marginalized—they’re familiar,

00:34:08.150 --> 00:34:12.110
but you didn’t talk about
them—like inequality,

00:34:13.850 --> 00:34:16.090
shredding of the
democratic process,

00:34:16.850 --> 00:34:20.400
you know, financial corruption,
environmental issues,

00:34:20.980 --> 00:34:21.580
all these things,

00:34:21.580 --> 00:34:24.860
they became—they moved
to the center of discussion.

00:34:24.860 --> 00:34:29.110
In fact, you can even see it
from the imagery that’s used.

00:34:29.110 --> 00:34:32.250
You read about the 99 percent
and the 1 percent

00:34:32.250 --> 00:34:35.440
in the considerable press
of the business press.

00:34:36.530 --> 00:34:39.690
That’s just changed the way lots
of people are looking at things.

00:34:39.690 --> 00:34:44.360
In fact, the polls show
that concern over inequality

00:34:45.040 --> 00:34:46.750
among the general public rose

00:34:46.750 --> 00:34:50.050
pretty sharply after
the Occupy movement started,

00:34:50.050 --> 00:34:52.820
very probably as a consequence.

00:34:52.820 --> 00:34:56.200
And there are other policy
issues that came to the fore,

00:34:56.200 --> 00:34:57.690
which are significant.

00:34:58.290 --> 00:35:02.480
The other aspect,
which in my estimation

00:35:02.480 --> 00:35:04.380
may be more significant,

00:35:04.380 --> 00:35:08.940
is that the Occupy movement
spontaneously created

00:35:08.940 --> 00:35:12.060
something that doesn’t really
exist in the country:

00:35:12.970 --> 00:35:17.920
communities of mutual
support, cooperation,

00:35:19.660 --> 00:35:21.650
open spaces for discussion.

00:35:23.480 --> 00:35:27.470
They just developed
a health system,

00:35:27.470 --> 00:35:31.780
a library, a common
kitchen—just people doing things

00:35:31.780 --> 00:35:33.330
and helping each other.

00:35:33.330 --> 00:35:35.070
That’s very much missing.

00:35:35.070 --> 00:35:38.080
There is a massive
propaganda—it’s been going on

00:35:38.080 --> 00:35:39.240
for a century,

00:35:39.240 --> 00:35:42.960
but picking up
enormously—that you really

00:35:42.960 --> 00:35:44.410
shouldn’t care
about anyone else,

00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:47.120
you should just care
about yourself.

00:35:47.120 --> 00:35:50.290
You pay attention to yourself;
we don’t want anything else.

00:35:50.800 --> 00:35:53.130
You take a look at the attitudes
among young people,

00:35:53.880 --> 00:35:55.950
that’s—it’s polled,
it’s studied.

00:35:56.500 --> 00:35:58.510
It’s remarkably high.

00:35:58.510 --> 00:36:00.910
So, there was just
a study that came out

00:36:00.910 --> 00:36:03.450
from the Harvard Public
Policy Institute,

00:36:03.450 --> 00:36:07.530
found that—pretty scary
results, I thought.

00:36:08.090 --> 00:36:11.760
Less than—this is kids 18 to 24,

00:36:11.760 --> 00:36:13.040
you know, college
students, basically.

00:36:14.050 --> 00:36:16.390
Less than half of them think

00:36:16.390 --> 00:36:19.200
that the government
has a responsibility

00:36:19.200 --> 00:36:24.540
to deal with things like
healthcare or food, and so on.

00:36:25.250 --> 00:36:28.020
When they say the government
doesn’t have a responsibility,

00:36:29.020 --> 00:36:30.610
that’s kind of
an interesting concept.

00:36:31.470 --> 00:36:33.750
If people thought they were
living in a democracy,

00:36:34.730 --> 00:36:37.050
they would say—they
would ask the question

00:36:37.050 --> 00:36:38.920
whether it’s a public
responsibility.

00:36:39.800 --> 00:36:45.200
But again, the propaganda system
is designed to make you feel

00:36:45.200 --> 00:36:47.800
that the government
is some alien force,

00:36:48.300 --> 00:36:49.490
and it’s against you.

00:36:49.490 --> 00:36:52.560
You know, you want to keep it
away from your affairs.

00:36:53.130 --> 00:36:55.260
In a democratic society,
it would be quite different.

00:36:56.150 --> 00:36:58.090
Like, you can see it
on April 15th.

00:36:59.090 --> 00:37:04.420
And a good measure of the extent
to which a democratic system

00:37:04.420 --> 00:37:07.090
is functioning is how
people feel about taxes.

00:37:08.400 --> 00:37:10.920
If you had a functioning
democratic society,

00:37:11.710 --> 00:37:14.390
April 15th would be
a day of celebration.

00:37:15.100 --> 00:37:17.390
It’s the day on which
we get together

00:37:18.820 --> 00:37:22.230
and fund the policies
that we’ve decided on

00:37:22.230 --> 00:37:25.460
and that we’ve gotten our
representatives to approve of.

00:37:26.050 --> 00:37:28.750
It’s not what it is here.
It’s a day of mourning,

00:37:29.270 --> 00:37:32.500
because this alien force is
coming to steal things from you.

00:37:32.500 --> 00:37:34.140
Well, that’s the kind of thing

00:37:34.140 --> 00:37:36.090
that the Occupy movement
began to break.

00:37:36.970 --> 00:37:38.450
It said, "Yeah,
we’re in it together."

00:37:38.450 --> 00:37:40.330
That’s what the old
labor movement used to be.

00:37:40.840 --> 00:37:43.530
I mean, I can remember,
as a kid in the '30s,

00:37:44.050 --> 00:37:47.220
when the situation was
objectively much worse.

00:37:48.280 --> 00:37:50.410
But then, my family
was mostly unemployed

00:37:50.410 --> 00:37:51.770
working-class here in New York.

00:37:52.800 --> 00:37:55.200
But there was a sense
of hopefulness,

00:37:55.200 --> 00:37:57.360
largely because
of labor organizing,

00:37:58.120 --> 00:38:02.030
which not only provided benefits
to the people involved,

00:38:02.030 --> 00:38:03.590
but also made them
part of something

00:38:04.100 --> 00:38:05.400
in which we can work together.

00:38:05.400 --> 00:38:09.160
The term "solidarity"
wasn't just a vacuous term.

00:38:10.880 --> 00:38:12.810
And to rebuild
that kind of thing,

00:38:14.640 --> 00:38:17.040
even if it’s in small
pieces of the society,

00:38:17.550 --> 00:38:18.770
can become very important,

00:38:19.510 --> 00:38:21.200
can change the conception

00:38:21.200 --> 00:38:22.670
of how a society
ought to function.

00:38:23.330 --> 00:38:25.810
AMY GOODMAN: There’s this whole
issue of the Posse Comitatus,

00:38:25.810 --> 00:38:28.830
which most people
agree with this act,

00:38:28.830 --> 00:38:31.280
that U.S. soldiers
should not be marching

00:38:31.280 --> 00:38:33.020
in the streets
of the United States.

00:38:33.020 --> 00:38:35.270
But do you think authorities
are getting around this now

00:38:35.270 --> 00:38:37.310
by militarizing the police,

00:38:37.310 --> 00:38:38.680
the kind of response
we’re seeing

00:38:38.680 --> 00:38:41.190
to the Occupy encampments
all over this country

00:38:41.190 --> 00:38:44.410
and—well, we’ll see what happens
as the protests build

00:38:44.410 --> 00:38:47.040
around the Democratic
and Republican conventions,

00:38:47.040 --> 00:38:49.880
NATO, that’s happening
in Chicago, and beyond?

00:38:49.880 --> 00:38:52.530
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, power
systems don’t say "thank you"

00:38:52.530 --> 00:38:53.850
and disappear.

00:38:53.850 --> 00:38:55.900
Of course they’re
going to respond.

00:38:55.900 --> 00:38:58.940
And they’ll respond
in various ways.

00:38:58.940 --> 00:39:01.480
I mean, what’s happening
now is wrong,

00:39:01.480 --> 00:39:03.290
but we ought to bear in mind
that it’s nothing

00:39:03.290 --> 00:39:05.070
like what happened
in the recent past.

00:39:05.760 --> 00:39:07.910
So, for example,
we don’t have COINTELPRO.

00:39:08.630 --> 00:39:12.770
Remember, not many years ago,
the national political police,

00:39:12.770 --> 00:39:17.440
the FBI, was organizing
Gestapo-style assassinations

00:39:17.440 --> 00:39:19.300
of organizers,
like Fred Hampton,

00:39:21.820 --> 00:39:25.090
totally undermined the New Left.

00:39:25.090 --> 00:39:26.710
They tried to destroy
the women’s movement.

00:39:26.710 --> 00:39:28.270
They were all over the place.

00:39:28.270 --> 00:39:30.880
That’s—mostly
the black movements

00:39:30.880 --> 00:39:33.540
were just pulverized
by government repression.

00:39:34.130 --> 00:39:36.420
Well, what’s happening now
is bad, but it’s not that.

00:39:37.450 --> 00:39:40.220
And sure, but there’s
going to be responses.

00:39:40.870 --> 00:39:42.760
And that’s not the only case,
after all.

00:39:42.760 --> 00:39:46.940
I mean, the part—you’re
looking at Obama’s programs,

00:39:47.660 --> 00:39:49.400
the part that really
did surprise

00:39:49.400 --> 00:39:51.340
me—and I don’t, frankly,

00:39:51.340 --> 00:39:54.040
understand it—is his attack
on civil liberties,

00:39:54.920 --> 00:39:57.490
which is extreme.
He’s gone beyond Bush.

00:39:59.110 --> 00:40:02.440
Some of the worst cases
aren’t even discussed,

00:40:03.270 --> 00:40:04.960
like one—I think one
of the worst cases

00:40:04.960 --> 00:40:07.000
is the Supreme Court case,

00:40:07.800 --> 00:40:09.170
Holder v.

00:40:09.870 --> 00:40:11.370
Humanitarian Law Project,

00:40:11.370 --> 00:40:13.800
which was initiated by
the Obama administration,

00:40:14.310 --> 00:40:16.230
brought to the court
by the administration,

00:40:16.980 --> 00:40:19.420
argued for the government
by Elena Kagan,

00:40:19.420 --> 00:40:22.430
you know, his latest
Supreme Court appointee.

00:40:22.430 --> 00:40:26.320
And if you look at the decision,
it was kind of welcomed

00:40:26.320 --> 00:40:28.120
by the—even
the right-wing justices

00:40:28.120 --> 00:40:29.480
didn’t accept all of it,

00:40:29.480 --> 00:40:30.690
but they accepted part of it.

00:40:31.290 --> 00:40:34.420
The crucial—at issue
was whether this group,

00:40:35.020 --> 00:40:36.610
Humanitarian Law Project,

00:40:36.610 --> 00:40:42.240
was criminally liable for
giving material support

00:40:42.240 --> 00:40:43.530
to a terrorist group.

00:40:44.500 --> 00:40:50.020
The material support in question
was legal advice to the PKK,

00:40:50.020 --> 00:40:52.760
a Turkish group,
giving them legal advice.

00:40:52.760 --> 00:40:54.700
That was material support.

00:40:54.700 --> 00:40:56.800
You read the wording,

00:40:56.800 --> 00:41:00.980
you and I, many people we know,
are liable under this.

00:41:01.580 --> 00:41:05.140
If we’ve met people who
the government calls or claims

00:41:05.140 --> 00:41:07.740
are terrorists—they don’t have
to give any reason for it,

00:41:07.740 --> 00:41:09.280
they just say,
"You’re a terrorist,"

00:41:09.280 --> 00:41:12.550
like Mandela, for example—if
you meet with them

00:41:12.550 --> 00:41:16.650
and you talk to them
and you advise them,

00:41:16.650 --> 00:41:21.130
in fact, if you advise them
to carry out nonviolent tactics,

00:41:21.130 --> 00:41:25.220
you’re giving material support
under the Obama interpretation

00:41:25.220 --> 00:41:27.210
of "material support."

00:41:27.210 --> 00:41:30.870
Material support used to mean
giving them arms or something,

00:41:30.870 --> 00:41:34.690
but it was extended by this
to your speech to them.

00:41:35.500 --> 00:41:42.700
That’s a very wide-ranging
and ominous stand.

00:41:42.700 --> 00:41:46.980
And it was—I should add,
on the side,

00:41:46.980 --> 00:41:50.940
that the whole concept of
on the terrorist list

00:41:50.940 --> 00:41:52.340
or being accused of a terrorist

00:41:52.340 --> 00:41:55.650
is something that should not
be tolerated in a free society.

00:41:56.310 --> 00:42:00.750
I mean, you know,
Mandela is a good example.

00:42:00.750 --> 00:42:03.970
If the government says you’re
a terrorist, that ends it.

00:42:04.740 --> 00:42:08.880
No recourse, no argument needed,
no justification.

00:42:08.880 --> 00:42:11.270
They can put anybody they like
on the terrorist list.

00:42:11.880 --> 00:42:15.250
The idea that they decide
who’s a terrorist

00:42:15.250 --> 00:42:18.290
is a granting to state power

00:42:18.290 --> 00:42:20.160
something we’ve never had
in a free society.

00:42:20.970 --> 00:42:25.120
So, not only is that—should
that be intolerable—and

00:42:25.120 --> 00:42:26.320
that’s, of course, not Obama,

00:42:26.320 --> 00:42:30.510
it goes way back—but extending
the notion of material support

00:42:30.510 --> 00:42:34.200
to discussions with them
or advice to them,

00:42:36.760 --> 00:42:41.480
I mean, that’s—it should be
beyond discussion.

00:42:41.480 --> 00:42:43.580
It’s barely discussed.

00:42:43.580 --> 00:42:45.290
There are others that
are pretty bad, too,

00:42:45.290 --> 00:42:48.650
like the attack
on whistleblowers.

00:42:48.650 --> 00:42:50.060
As I’m sure you know,

00:42:51.400 --> 00:42:53.960
more whistleblowers
have been under attack

00:42:53.960 --> 00:42:54.930
by this administration

00:42:54.930 --> 00:42:58.730
than all of American
history put together.

00:42:58.730 --> 00:43:02.910
This is an attempt
to strengthen executive

00:43:02.910 --> 00:43:04.540
power and executive privilege,

00:43:04.540 --> 00:43:07.000
keeping secret
from the population.

00:43:07.000 --> 00:43:09.330
And if it was—and
there’s another case.

00:43:09.330 --> 00:43:11.000
I mean, it’s not
his initiative,

00:43:11.000 --> 00:43:14.330
but [inaudible].

00:43:14.330 --> 00:43:19.210
But all of these extensions
of state power and violations

00:43:19.210 --> 00:43:20.980
of civil rights
are significant.

00:43:21.530 --> 00:43:24.940
But we should bear in mind
that we’re a lot freer

00:43:24.940 --> 00:43:26.270
than people here

00:43:26.270 --> 00:43:27.900
have been in the past,

00:43:27.900 --> 00:43:30.000
and certainly a lot freer
than other countries.

00:43:30.520 --> 00:43:34.700
So, it’s bad, but we
shouldn’t exaggerate.

00:43:34.700 --> 00:43:37.210
There’s plenty of
opportunities to do things.

00:43:37.970 --> 00:43:39.660
AMY GOODMAN: MIT
Professor Noam Chomsky.

00:43:39.660 --> 00:43:41.270
If you’d like a DVD
of today’s show,

00:43:41.270 --> 00:43:43.500
you can go to our website
at democracynow.org.

00:43:43.500 --> 00:43:45.220
Coming up, he speaks
about WikiLeaks,

00:43:45.220 --> 00:43:46.540
the assassination
of bin Laden,

00:43:46.540 --> 00:43:48.980
Occupy, Latin America
and what gives him hope.

00:44:25.600 --> 00:44:41.070
AMY GOODMAN: We return to our
interview with Noam Chomsky.

00:44:41.070 --> 00:44:43.160
I spoke with him last week
in the courtyard

00:44:43.160 --> 00:44:45.930
of the King Juan Carlos I Center
at New York University.

00:44:45.930 --> 00:44:47.600
I asked him about WikiLeaks.

00:44:48.320 --> 00:44:50.150
NOAM CHOMSKY: I don’t see
anything that’s come out on

00:44:50.150 --> 00:44:52.820
WikiLeaks that was
a legitimate secret.

00:44:53.490 --> 00:44:56.270
I mean, WikiLeaks is a service
to the population.

00:44:57.410 --> 00:45:01.040
Assange should get an award
for—presidential medal of honor.

00:45:01.610 --> 00:45:03.140
He’s—the whole

00:45:03.140 --> 00:45:07.050
WikiLeaks operation
has helped inform people

00:45:07.050 --> 00:45:09.100
about what their elected
representatives are doing.

00:45:10.630 --> 00:45:13.730
That should be
a wonderful thing to do,

00:45:13.730 --> 00:45:15.500
like—and it’s interesting.

00:45:15.500 --> 00:45:17.480
Nothing really
sensational has come out,

00:45:17.480 --> 00:45:20.160
but it is interesting
to know, for example,

00:45:20.160 --> 00:45:22.510
that when the Obama
administration

00:45:25.160 --> 00:45:28.040
effectively supported
the military coup in Honduras

00:45:28.620 --> 00:45:31.850
that kicked out
the democratic government

00:45:31.850 --> 00:45:36.070
and put in a—what amounts
to a military-backed government,

00:45:36.070 --> 00:45:37.630
that they knew exactly
what they were doing,

00:45:38.440 --> 00:45:41.900
because the embassy
in—we learn from WikiLeaks

00:45:41.900 --> 00:45:45.750
that the embassy in Honduras

00:45:45.750 --> 00:45:49.030
had presented
a detailed analysis

00:45:49.030 --> 00:45:51.290
right at the beginning
of the coup

00:45:51.290 --> 00:45:53.280
that expelled
the president and said,

00:45:53.280 --> 00:45:55.300
"Yeah, this is unconstitutional,
it’s illegal,"

00:45:55.300 --> 00:45:56.520
you know, and so on.

00:45:56.520 --> 00:45:58.490
So, yes, they knew exactly
what they were doing

00:45:58.490 --> 00:46:00.460
when Obama and Clinton
were saying,

00:46:00.460 --> 00:46:01.730
"Well, you know,
it’s not that bad.

00:46:02.660 --> 00:46:05.020
Everything is
going fine," and so on.

00:46:05.020 --> 00:46:08.490
Or, for example,
when Anne Patterson,

00:46:08.490 --> 00:46:12.030
the ambassador to Pakistan—this

00:46:12.030 --> 00:46:15.070
is some of the most
interesting revelations.

00:46:16.420 --> 00:46:20.670
She supports U.S.
policy in AfPak,

00:46:20.670 --> 00:46:22.430
Afghanistan and Pakistan,

00:46:22.430 --> 00:46:25.390
but she did warn
that U.S. policies of,

00:46:26.440 --> 00:46:28.040
you know, assassinations,

00:46:31.150 --> 00:46:32.820
pressures on Pakistan,

00:46:32.820 --> 00:46:35.000
and so on, carry a real danger.

00:46:35.950 --> 00:46:39.020
They carry the danger
of radicalizing

00:46:39.670 --> 00:46:41.440
Pakistan

00:46:41.440 --> 00:46:45.070
and—where opposition
to these policies is enormous,

00:46:45.730 --> 00:46:47.740
and maybe creating
even a situation

00:46:47.740 --> 00:46:50.000
where its nuclear facilities

00:46:50.000 --> 00:46:53.590
would be accessible
to jihadi elements.

00:46:53.590 --> 00:46:55.600
So it’s creating
terrific danger.

00:46:55.600 --> 00:46:59.140
In fact, Pakistan is way
more dangerous to U.S. security

00:46:59.140 --> 00:47:00.900
than Afghanistan,
which is nothing.

00:47:01.520 --> 00:47:02.440
Well, it’s good to know

00:47:02.440 --> 00:47:04.730
that they were getting
that information.

00:47:04.730 --> 00:47:06.820
They were getting that
information from analysts,

00:47:07.510 --> 00:47:10.050
you know, people who write
about it and know about it,

00:47:10.050 --> 00:47:11.150
but the fact that
they were getting it

00:47:11.150 --> 00:47:12.940
from the embassy
is significant,

00:47:12.940 --> 00:47:15.290
when you think about how
these policies were escalated.

00:47:16.050 --> 00:47:17.800
And, in fact,
it’s quite striking

00:47:17.800 --> 00:47:20.740
that the policies
are undertaken in ways

00:47:20.740 --> 00:47:22.860
which almost—it’s almost

00:47:22.860 --> 00:47:25.260
as if they’re consciously
trying to increase the threat.

00:47:26.250 --> 00:47:30.310
So, take, say, the assassination
of Osama bin Laden.

00:47:30.310 --> 00:47:33.570
I mean, I’m a small
minority of people

00:47:33.570 --> 00:47:35.290
who think that was a crime.

00:47:35.290 --> 00:47:37.940
I don’t think you should have a
right to invade another country,

00:47:39.880 --> 00:47:43.000
apprehend a suspect—remember,
he’s a suspect,

00:47:43.520 --> 00:47:45.910
even if you think
he’s guilty—apprehend him,

00:47:45.910 --> 00:47:47.590
after he’s apprehended
and defenseless,

00:47:47.590 --> 00:47:51.070
assassinate him and
throw his body into the ocean.

00:47:51.720 --> 00:47:54.520
Yeah, civilized countries
don’t do that sort of thing.

00:47:57.340 --> 00:47:59.930
But—and notice that it was
undertaken at great risk.

00:48:00.640 --> 00:48:04.390
The Navy SEALs were under orders
to fight their way out,

00:48:04.390 --> 00:48:06.340
if there was a problem.

00:48:06.340 --> 00:48:08.240
If they had had to
fight their way out,

00:48:08.240 --> 00:48:11.620
they would have gotten air cover
and probably intervention.

00:48:11.620 --> 00:48:13.120
We could have been
at war with Pakistan.

00:48:13.970 --> 00:48:15.760
Pakistan has
a professional army.

00:48:15.760 --> 00:48:18.810
They’re dedicated to protecting
the sovereignty

00:48:18.810 --> 00:48:20.980
of the state,
very dedicated to it,

00:48:20.980 --> 00:48:23.170
and they wouldn’t
take this lightly.

00:48:24.040 --> 00:48:26.850
A war with Pakistan
would be an utter disaster.

00:48:26.850 --> 00:48:28.980
It’s one of the huge
nuclear facilities,

00:48:29.920 --> 00:48:32.700
laced with radical
Islamic elements.

00:48:32.700 --> 00:48:34.550
They’re not a big part
of the population,

00:48:34.550 --> 00:48:37.000
but they’re all over.

00:48:37.000 --> 00:48:38.290
But they did it anyway.

00:48:38.290 --> 00:48:41.530
Then, right after it,
when Pakistan was,

00:48:41.530 --> 00:48:43.180
you know, totally outraged,

00:48:43.180 --> 00:48:45.920
we carried out more
drone attacks in Pakistan,

00:48:45.920 --> 00:48:51.030
almost—you know,
it’s kind of astonishing

00:48:51.030 --> 00:48:52.570
when you look at the planning,

00:48:52.570 --> 00:48:54.140
quite apart from
the criminality.

00:48:55.280 --> 00:48:57.010
AMY GOODMAN: What do you
think of the U.S.

00:48:57.010 --> 00:48:58.630
increased reliance—President

00:48:58.630 --> 00:49:00.980
Obama increasingly using drones

00:49:00.980 --> 00:49:04.000
to attack people
in Pakistan, in Afghanistan,

00:49:04.000 --> 00:49:05.550
Yemen, Somalia, and beyond?

00:49:06.360 --> 00:49:10.070
NOAM CHOMSKY: Good comment about
that made by Yochi Dreazen.

00:49:10.070 --> 00:49:11.880
He’s the military
correspondent—was

00:49:11.880 --> 00:49:14.080
the military correspondent
for the Wall Street Journal,

00:49:14.080 --> 00:49:17.490
is now for some other outfit,
a military analyst.

00:49:17.990 --> 00:49:19.490
He pointed out accurately—this

00:49:19.490 --> 00:49:21.140
after the killing
of Osama bin Laden,

00:49:21.140 --> 00:49:22.510
which he approved of,

00:49:22.510 --> 00:49:25.100
but he said that there’s
an interesting difference

00:49:25.100 --> 00:49:26.850
between Bush and Obama.

00:49:27.670 --> 00:49:31.780
I mean, I’m now paraphrasing
in my own terms, not his terms,

00:49:31.780 --> 00:49:33.180
so the way I would
have said it is:

00:49:33.910 --> 00:49:36.460
Bush—if Bush,
the Bush administration,

00:49:36.460 --> 00:49:39.780
didn’t like somebody,
they’d kidnap them

00:49:39.780 --> 00:49:41.340
and send them
to torture chambers;

00:49:41.920 --> 00:49:43.620
if the Obama
administration decides

00:49:43.620 --> 00:49:46.700
they don’t like somebody,
they murder them,

00:49:47.600 --> 00:49:49.990
so you don’t have to have
torture chambers all over.

00:49:50.860 --> 00:49:52.670
Actually, that tells us
something else.

00:49:53.270 --> 00:49:58.470
Just take a look at the first
Guantánamo detainee

00:49:59.540 --> 00:50:01.340
to go to trial under Obama.

00:50:02.580 --> 00:50:05.120
Trial means military
commission, whatever that is.

00:50:06.090 --> 00:50:07.870
The first one was
a very interesting case

00:50:08.500 --> 00:50:10.260
and tells us a lot.

00:50:10.260 --> 00:50:12.160
The first one was Omar Khadr.

00:50:13.040 --> 00:50:14.810
And what was his crime?

00:50:14.810 --> 00:50:17.390
His crime was that
when he was 15 years old,

00:50:18.070 --> 00:50:20.590
he tried to defend his village
against an attack

00:50:20.590 --> 00:50:22.380
by U.S. forces
in Afghanistan.

00:50:23.200 --> 00:50:25.380
So that’s the crime,
therefore he’s a terrorist.

00:50:25.900 --> 00:50:28.750
So he was sent to Bagram,
then to Guantánamo,

00:50:28.750 --> 00:50:31.340
eight years in these
torture chambers.

00:50:31.340 --> 00:50:33.300
And then he came up
for trial under Obama.

00:50:33.880 --> 00:50:35.880
And he was given a choice:

00:50:36.510 --> 00:50:38.450
you can plead not guilty

00:50:38.450 --> 00:50:40.650
and stay in Guantánamo
for the rest of your life,

00:50:41.250 --> 00:50:43.780
or you can plead guilty
and get another eight years.

00:50:44.960 --> 00:50:47.430
So his lawyers advised
him to plead guilty.

00:50:48.220 --> 00:50:53.590
Well, that’s justice under our
constitutional law president,

00:50:53.590 --> 00:50:56.550
for a 15-year-old kid
defending his village

00:50:56.550 --> 00:50:58.420
against an attacking army.

00:50:58.980 --> 00:51:01.580
And there was nothing
said—the worst part is,

00:51:01.580 --> 00:51:04.120
there’s nothing said about it.

00:51:04.120 --> 00:51:06.050
Actually, the same is true
of the Awlaki killing,

00:51:07.550 --> 00:51:12.330
you know, this
American cleric in Yemen

00:51:12.330 --> 00:51:14.900
who was killed by drones.
He was killed.

00:51:14.900 --> 00:51:17.230
The guy next to him was killed.

00:51:17.230 --> 00:51:18.740
Shortly after,
his son was killed.

00:51:19.340 --> 00:51:21.030
Now, there was a little talk
about the fact

00:51:21.030 --> 00:51:22.220
that he was an American citizen:

00:51:22.220 --> 00:51:24.070
you shouldn’t just murder
American citizens.

00:51:24.840 --> 00:51:26.750
But, you know, the New York
Times headline,

00:51:26.750 --> 00:51:28.130
for example, when he was killed,

00:51:28.130 --> 00:51:29.590
said something like

00:51:30.330 --> 00:51:34.500
"West celebrates death
of radical cleric."

00:51:34.500 --> 00:51:36.590
First of all, it wasn’t death,
it was murder.

00:51:38.000 --> 00:51:41.260
And the West celebrates
the murder of a suspect.

00:51:42.480 --> 00:51:43.840
He’s a suspect, after all.

00:51:43.840 --> 00:51:47.040
There was something done
almost 800 years ago

00:51:47.040 --> 00:51:48.670
called the Magna Carta,

00:51:48.670 --> 00:51:51.450
which is the foundation
of Anglo-American law,

00:51:52.230 --> 00:51:55.680
that says that no one
shall be subjected

00:51:55.680 --> 00:51:57.840
to a violation of rights

00:51:57.840 --> 00:52:01.710
without due process of law
and a fair and speedy trial.

00:52:02.240 --> 00:52:04.280
It doesn’t say, if you think
somebody’s a suspect,

00:52:04.280 --> 00:52:05.710
you should kill them.

00:52:05.710 --> 00:52:07.910
AMY GOODMAN: Do you think
the media has improved at all,

00:52:07.910 --> 00:52:10.550
as you assess it over
these decades, right now?

00:52:10.550 --> 00:52:12.840
NOAM CHOMSKY: I think
it’s better than it was.

00:52:14.160 --> 00:52:16.260
I’m not a great fan
of the media,

00:52:16.260 --> 00:52:18.320
but I think,
if you compare them to, say,

00:52:18.320 --> 00:52:21.600
the '50s and the ’60s,
it's considerably improved.

00:52:21.600 --> 00:52:23.200
AMY GOODMAN: Because there’s
competition and because

00:52:23.200 --> 00:52:24.930
people have access
to other information,

00:52:24.930 --> 00:52:27.120
it puts pressure on
the establishment media?

00:52:27.120 --> 00:52:28.100
NOAM CHOMSKY: I don’t think so.

00:52:28.100 --> 00:52:30.590
In fact, it’s more monopolized
than it was then.

00:52:30.590 --> 00:52:31.790
I think it’s because
the country has changed.

00:52:32.920 --> 00:52:35.820
It’s a much more civilized
country than it was, I mean,

00:52:35.820 --> 00:52:38.880
if you think back what things
were like in the '60s.

00:52:38.880 --> 00:52:41.770
And first of all, you know,
you have to—take,

00:52:41.770 --> 00:52:43.620
say, women's rights.

00:52:43.620 --> 00:52:45.960
I mean, throughout
American history,

00:52:45.960 --> 00:52:47.320
up 'til quite recently,

00:52:47.910 --> 00:52:49.940
under law, women
were basically property.

00:52:50.760 --> 00:52:53.890
They were the property of their
fathers and their husbands.

00:52:54.460 --> 00:52:56.800
I mean, in the early
years of the country,

00:52:57.780 --> 00:52:59.480
the argument against
women voting

00:52:59.480 --> 00:53:01.280
was that it wouldn't be fair,

00:53:01.280 --> 00:53:03.530
because then the husband
would get two votes,

00:53:03.530 --> 00:53:05.960
since obviously the wife has
to do what she’s told, you know.

00:53:06.590 --> 00:53:09.960
And, in fact, until the 1970s,

00:53:10.570 --> 00:53:14.260
women didn’t have a guaranteed
right to serve on juries,

00:53:14.260 --> 00:53:16.370
because they were
considered—you know,

00:53:16.370 --> 00:53:18.230
couldn’t do that kind of thing.

00:53:18.230 --> 00:53:21.090
If you go back to the
universities in the early ’60s,

00:53:21.090 --> 00:53:22.670
my university,

00:53:22.670 --> 00:53:27.320
it was, you know, obedient,
deferential white males.

00:53:28.930 --> 00:53:30.950
All of that has changed.

00:53:30.950 --> 00:53:32.960
It’s changed
in many other respects.

00:53:32.960 --> 00:53:35.300
You mentioned gay rights.

00:53:35.300 --> 00:53:37.330
I mean, that would have
been—you know,

00:53:37.330 --> 00:53:40.590
you couldn’t even utter
the words not many years ago.

00:53:41.110 --> 00:53:42.610
And there are laws
against sodomy,

00:53:43.290 --> 00:53:44.740
up until recently, maybe still.

00:53:46.260 --> 00:53:47.800
And it’s the same in England.

00:53:47.800 --> 00:53:49.660
There was just
a dramatic case there.

00:53:49.660 --> 00:53:51.030
I don’t know if you’ve
been following it.

00:53:51.030 --> 00:53:54.720
But one of
the great mathematicians

00:53:54.720 --> 00:53:56.070
of the 20th century,

00:53:56.070 --> 00:54:00.380
Alan Turing, who was also
a British war hero—he’s

00:54:00.380 --> 00:54:04.270
the one who pretty much
decrypted the German codes

00:54:04.930 --> 00:54:07.990
and saved Britain
from attack—well,

00:54:07.990 --> 00:54:09.230
he was a homosexual.

00:54:09.810 --> 00:54:13.110
In the early 1950s—that’s
against British law.

00:54:13.650 --> 00:54:16.910
Early 1950s,
he was subjected to treatment

00:54:16.910 --> 00:54:18.420
to cure him of this disease.

00:54:19.400 --> 00:54:22.800
The treatment was so grotesque,
he finally committed suicide.

00:54:23.500 --> 00:54:27.160
Well, that’s, you know,
a long time ago, that’s 1954.

00:54:27.660 --> 00:54:30.380
Now, Prime Minister Cameron
was just asked

00:54:30.380 --> 00:54:34.680
whether time has come
to issue a belated pardon.

00:54:34.680 --> 00:54:37.720
It’s the hundredth
anniversary of his birth.

00:54:37.720 --> 00:54:40.480
And he said, "No,
he violated British law.

00:54:40.480 --> 00:54:42.090
No pardon for that."

00:54:42.090 --> 00:54:47.090
So, OK, we killed—basically
killed this war hero

00:54:47.090 --> 00:54:49.660
and great mathematician because
he was violating British law.

00:54:50.200 --> 00:54:53.300
Well, you know,
that’s—that’s changed a lot,

00:54:53.300 --> 00:54:55.490
maybe not in Cameron’s office,

00:54:55.490 --> 00:54:58.050
but—and it’s changed
in many ways.

00:54:58.050 --> 00:55:00.180
And that’s affected the media,
because, you know,

00:55:00.180 --> 00:55:01.890
the people working there,

00:55:01.890 --> 00:55:04.760
who—a lot of women,
went through these experiences.

00:55:05.360 --> 00:55:07.150
AMY GOODMAN: Noam Chomsky,
what gives you hope?

00:55:08.680 --> 00:55:11.280
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, lots
of—right here, for example.

00:55:11.280 --> 00:55:12.970
Take the Occupy movement.

00:55:12.970 --> 00:55:15.620
That’s very striking
and dramatic.

00:55:15.620 --> 00:55:17.650
Or take where we are today.

00:55:18.420 --> 00:55:20.250
We’re in a meeting of NACLA,

00:55:21.170 --> 00:55:23.410
North American Congress
on Latin America.

00:55:24.440 --> 00:55:26.740
What’s happened in Latin America
in the last 10 years

00:55:26.740 --> 00:55:28.860
is just spectacular.

00:55:29.760 --> 00:55:32.460
I mean, in the last 10 years,

00:55:32.460 --> 00:55:35.190
for the first time
in—since the Spanish

00:55:35.190 --> 00:55:36.690
and Portuguese conquerors—that’s

00:55:37.740 --> 00:55:42.470
half a millennium—Latin
America has freed itself,

00:55:43.500 --> 00:55:47.350
substantially freed itself from
Western domination and control,

00:55:48.210 --> 00:55:49.450
meaning mainly U.S.

00:55:49.450 --> 00:55:52.680
In fact, there was a just
very dramatic example of it

00:55:52.680 --> 00:55:54.390
just a couple of weeks ago

00:55:54.390 --> 00:55:57.350
at the Cartagena
hemispheric conference,

00:55:57.870 --> 00:56:00.060
which is very important.
It was kind of suppressed here.

00:56:00.060 --> 00:56:02.250
There was some
Secret Service scandal,

00:56:02.760 --> 00:56:04.130
but there were really
interesting things

00:56:04.130 --> 00:56:05.100
that happened.

00:56:05.100 --> 00:56:06.700
This is
a hemispheric conference.

00:56:07.380 --> 00:56:10.940
There were two major issues.
There was no declaration,

00:56:10.940 --> 00:56:12.760
because you couldn’t
get agreement.

00:56:12.760 --> 00:56:15.100
The two issues
were Cuba and drugs.

00:56:16.130 --> 00:56:19.520
The whole hemisphere
wants Cuba to be admitted

00:56:19.520 --> 00:56:23.070
to the hemispheric—to
the summit.

00:56:23.610 --> 00:56:25.990
The U.S. refused—U.S.
and Canada refused.

00:56:26.510 --> 00:56:28.630
On drugs, practically
the whole hemisphere

00:56:28.630 --> 00:56:31.210
is pressing
for decriminalization,

00:56:31.210 --> 00:56:35.440
because they’re suffering
the brunt of the—you know,

00:56:35.440 --> 00:56:37.720
they are the ones who get hit
in the solar plexus.

00:56:38.490 --> 00:56:43.150
The demand for drugs is here.
The supply of arms is here.

00:56:43.150 --> 00:56:44.900
And they suffer from it.

00:56:44.900 --> 00:56:47.740
So they want to move
towards decriminalization.

00:56:47.740 --> 00:56:49.630
U.S. and Canada refused.

00:56:49.630 --> 00:56:52.080
U.S. and Canada are isolated
in the hemisphere.

00:56:52.750 --> 00:56:55.310
And in fact, there’s
a new organization,

00:56:55.310 --> 00:56:58.190
just formed about
a year ago, CELAC,

00:56:58.190 --> 00:57:02.160
which formally excludes
the U.S. and Canada,

00:57:02.160 --> 00:57:03.680
includes everyone else.

00:57:03.680 --> 00:57:06.570
It’s quite possible that that
may replace the Organization

00:57:06.570 --> 00:57:08.890
of American States,
which is U.S.-run.

00:57:09.720 --> 00:57:11.930
One sign of it is the U.S.
has been essentially

00:57:11.930 --> 00:57:14.740
kicked out of its military
bases in South America.

00:57:15.320 --> 00:57:16.600
They’re also moving towards

00:57:17.480 --> 00:57:19.530
dealing with some of
their internal problems,

00:57:19.530 --> 00:57:21.910
which are severe.

00:57:21.910 --> 00:57:23.550
And the other thing
that’s exciting there

00:57:23.550 --> 00:57:25.210
is the role
of popular movements.

00:57:25.780 --> 00:57:28.900
I mean, there are mass popular
movements of indigenous people,

00:57:29.810 --> 00:57:32.510
working people, others who
have just been—you know,

00:57:32.510 --> 00:57:34.080
who have been
extremely successful

00:57:34.080 --> 00:57:36.730
in substantially
changing policy.

00:57:36.730 --> 00:57:38.430
That’s of historic significance.

00:57:39.330 --> 00:57:41.580
AMY GOODMAN: So, the Occupy
movement gives you hope.

00:57:41.580 --> 00:57:43.530
Latin America gives you hope.

00:57:43.530 --> 00:57:44.990
NOAM CHOMSKY: Arab Spring.
I mean, there are a lot

00:57:44.990 --> 00:57:46.390
of interesting things
happening in the world.

00:57:47.100 --> 00:57:50.140
But I think consciousness
is changing on a lot of things.

00:57:50.720 --> 00:57:54.660
I mentioned the attitudes
of kids 18 to 24,

00:57:54.660 --> 00:57:55.790
which is pretty bad,

00:57:55.790 --> 00:57:58.010
but I think
that can be changed, too.

00:58:00.080 --> 00:58:04.030
AMY GOODMAN: MIT Professor Noam
Chomsky, world-renowned scholar,

00:58:04.030 --> 00:58:05.550
dissident and linguist.

00:58:05.550 --> 00:58:07.480
He has taught more
than half a century

00:58:07.480 --> 00:58:09.480
at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology,

00:58:09.480 --> 00:58:12.400
where he’s Institute Professor
and professor of linguistics.

00:58:12.930 --> 00:58:14.740
I interviewed him last week
here in New York

00:58:14.740 --> 00:58:17.480
at the 45th anniversary
celebration of NACLA,

00:58:17.480 --> 00:58:19.630
the North American Congress
on Latin America,

00:58:19.630 --> 00:58:21.360
where he was being honored.

00:58:21.360 --> 00:58:23.880
Noam Chomsky is the author
of over a hundred books,

00:58:23.880 --> 00:58:25.320
most recently, Occupy.