h/t: truthdig
It’s a common trend, we’ve seen it before—someone in America challenges power and the official storyline in a fundamental way, and they become the victims of smear campaigns that call them anti-American. The label many have used to describe everyone from Colin Kaepernick to Donald Trump, just in the past week. But Noam Chomsky believes it’s a low blow.
“You might take a look at that word ‘Americanism,’ it’s an unusual term, it’s the kind of term that you only find in totalitarian societies as far as I know, So like in the Soviet Union and Anti-Sovietism was considered the gravest of all crimes… and the Brazilian generals had some concept like that Anti-Brazilian, but try, say, publishing a book on Anti-Itlaianism and see what happens in the streets of Rome or Milan. People won’t even bother laughing, it’s a ludicrous idea,” Chomsky explained.
“As far as I know, the United States is the only free society that has such a concept,” Chomsky said. “Americanism and anti-Americanism and un-Americanism and so on … these are concepts which go along with harmony and getting rid of those outsiders and all that kind of stuff. Another part is simply to induce hatred and fear among people,” he said.
The US is facing uncertain times. While it remains the only global superpower, it is no longer able to influence events and outcomes to its liking, at least not for the most part. Frustration and worry about the risk of upcoming disasters seem to far outweigh US voters’ hopes for a more rational and just world order. Meanwhile, Noam Chomsky argues, the rise and popularity of Donald Trump is occurring due to the fact that US society is breaking down.
In this exclusive interview with Truthout, Noam Chomsky addresses contemporary developments in both the United States and around the world and challenges prevailing views about class warfare, neoliberalism as the outcome of economic laws, the role of the US as a global power, the status of emerging economies and the power of the Israel Lobby.
CJ Polychroniou: Noam, you have said that the rise of Donald Trump is largely due to the breakdown of American society. What exactly do you mean by this?
Noam Chomsky: The state-corporate programs of the past 35 or so years have had devastating effects on the majority of the population, with stagnation, decline and sharply enhanced inequality being the most direct outcomes. This has created fear and has left people feeling isolated, helpless, victims of powerful forces they can neither understand or influence. The breakdown is not caused by economic laws. They are policies, a kind of class war initiated by the rich and powerful against the working population and the poor. This is what defines the neoliberalism period, not only in the US but in Europe and elsewhere. Trump is appealing to those who sense and experience the breakdown of American society — to deep feelings of anger, fear, frustration, hopelessness, probably among sectors of the population that are seeing an increase in mortality, something unheard of apart from war.
We speak with world-renowned political dissident Noam Chomsky about the Republican party, the rightward shift in U.S. politics and the 2016 election. “If we were honest, we would say something that sounds utterly shocking and no doubt will be taken out of context and lead to hysteria on the part of the usual suspects,” Chomsky says, “but the fact of the matter is that today’s Republican Party qualify as candidates for the most dangerous organization in human history. Literally.”
h/t: truthdig
In this video MIT professor, anarchist, political philosopher and renowned linguist, Noam Chomsky, discusses the impacts of arms and weapons exports into Saudi Arabia and Israel. He also talks about the refugee and Syrian crisis that is engulfing neighbouring states as well as the European continent.
How does the military industrial complex of Germany affect the security of the populations of the countries in the Arab world?
Do military and arms exports promote stability in the region?
What are the roots of the refugee crisis that the European Union as well as neighbouring countries to Syria and Iraq are facing?
All of these questions and more are addressed in this video.
Noam Chomsky, the renowned scholar and MIT professor emeritus, says that the rise of Donald Trump in American politics is, in part, fueled by deeply rooted fear and hopelessness that may be caused by an alarming spike in mortality rates for a generation of poorly educated whites.
“He’s evidently appealing to deep feelings of anger, fear, frustration, hopelessness, probably among sectors like those that are seeing an increase in mortality, something unheard of apart from war and catastrophe,” Chomsky told The Huffington Post in an interview on Thursday.
Always Question Authority 