Noam Chomsky on America's Economic Suicide
http://www.alternet.org/economy/155281/noam_chomsky_on_america%27s_economic_suicide/_640x481_310x220
Noam Chomsky has not just been watching the Occupy movement. A veteran of the civil rights, anti-war, and anti-intervention movements of the 1960s through the 1980s, hes given lectures at Occupy Boston and talked with occupiers across the US. His new book, Occupy, published in the Occupied Media Pamphlet Series by Zuccotti Park Press brings together several of those lectures, a speech on occupying foreign policy and a brief tribute to his friend and co-agitator Howard Zinn.
From his speeches, and in this conversation, its clear that the emeritus MIT professor and author is as impressed by the spontaneous, cooperative communities some Occupy encampments created, as he is by the movements political impact.
Were a nation whose leaders are pursuing policies that amount to economic suicide Chomsky says. But there are glimmers of possibility in worker co-operatives, and other spaces where people get a taste of a different way of living.
***snip
LF: Lets start with the big picture. How do you describe the situation were in, historically?
NC: There is either a crisis or a return to the norm of stagnation. One view is the norm is stagnation and occasionally you get out of it. The other is that the norm is growth and occasionally you can get into stagnation. You can debate that but its a period of close to global stagnation. In the major state capitalists economies, Europe and the US, its low growth and stagnation and a very sharp income differentiation a shift a striking shift from production to financialization.
sad sally
(2,627 posts)NC: Well, not just the media but pretty much true of academic world, the picture is we the leading democracy in the world, the beacon of freedom and rights and democracy. The fact that democratic participation here is extremely marginal, doesnt enter [the media story.] The media will condemn the elections in Iran, rightly, because the candidates have to be vetted by the clerics. But they wont point out that in the United States [candidates] have to be vetted by high concentrations of private capital. You cant run in an election unless you can collect millions of dollars.
One interesting case is right now. This happens to be the 50thanniversary of the US invasion of South Vietnam the worst atrocity in the post war period. Killed millions of people, destroyed four countries, total horror story. Not a word. It didnt happen because we did it. So it didnt happen.
Take 9-11. That means something in the United States. The world changed after 9-11. Well, do a slight thought experiment. Suppose that on 9-11 the planes had bombed the White House
suppose theyd killed the president , established a military dictatorship, quickly killed thousands, tortured tens of thousands more, set up a major international terror center that was carrying out assassinations , overthrowing governments all over the place, installing other dictatorships, and drove the country into one of the worst depressions in its history and had to call on the state to bail them out Suppose that had happened? It did happen. On the first 9-11 in 1973. Except we were responsible for it, so it didnt happen. Thats Allendes Chile. You cant imagine the media talking about this.
eridani
(51,907 posts)raccoon
(31,091 posts)"In the last thirty years there have been very substantial legal changes to corporate governance so by now CEOs pretty much pick the boards that give them salaries and bonuses. Thats one of the reasons why the CEO-to-payment [ratio] has so sharply escalated in this country in contrast to Europe Theres no particular reason for it.