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I'm proud to have lived through the last 20-odd years at TomDispatch with Noam Chomsky, now a remarkable 94. In the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks and the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, I stumbled into creating this site and, in October 2003, first posted a piece of his about how the U.S. had for so long terrorized Cuba. It was taken from a book of his that had just been published. By 2007, he was writing directly for TomDispatch on the way the U.S. had brought a campaign of terror to Iran. ("What If Iran Had Invaded Mexico?") In February 2008, for another article of his, "The Most Wanted List," in which he put the very idea of terrorism into perspective, I began my introduction this way: "One of Noam Chomsky's latest books -- a conversation with David Barsamian -- is entitled What We Say Goes. It catches a powerful theme of Chomsky's: that we have long been living on a one-way planet and that the language we regularly wield to describe the realities of our world is tailored to Washington's interests."
And here I am, 15 years later, posting his latest piece for TomDispatch, an interview that -- yes! -- David Barsamian of Alternative Radio has just conducted with him on the true terrors of this planet in 2023, starting (but hardly ending) with climate change. And, by the way, the two of them continue to produce books together, the latest being Notes on Resistance. As far as I'm concerned, he's never been more on target and, believe me, that's truly saying something! So, let me turn you over to Noam and David and a world that's deeply in need of something better. Tom
Savage Capitalism
From Climate Change to Bank Failures to War
By David Barsamian and Noam Chomsky
[The following is excerpted from David Barsamian's recent interview with Noam Chomsky at AlternativeRadio.org.]
David Barsamian: On March 20th, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its latest report. The new IPCC assessment from senior scientists warned that there's little time to lose in tackling the climate crisis. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, "The rate of temperature rise in the last half-century is the highest in 2,000 years. Concentrations of carbon dioxide are at their highest in at least 2 million years. The climate time bomb is ticking." At COP 27 he said, "We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator. It is the defining issue of our age. It is the central challenge of our century." My question to you is: You'd think survival would be a galvanizing issue, but why isn't there a greater sense of urgency in addressing it in a substantial way?
Noam Chomsky: It was a very strong statement by Guterres. I think it could be stronger still. It's not just the defining issue of this century, but of human history. We are now, as he says, at a point where we'll decide whether the human experiment on Earth will continue in any recognizable form. The report was stark and clear. We're reaching a point where irreversible processes will be set into motion. It doesn't mean that everybody's going to die tomorrow, but we'll pass tipping points where nothing more can be done, where it's just decline to disaster.
So yes, it's a question of the survival of any form of organized human society. Already there are many signs of extreme danger and threat, so far almost entirely in countries that have had the smallest role in producing the disaster. It's often said, and correctly, that the rich countries have created the disaster and the poor countries are its victims, but it's actually a little more nuanced than that. It's the rich in the rich countries who have created the disaster and everyone else, including the poor in the rich countries, face the problems.
So, what's happening? Well, take the United States and its two political parties. One party is 100% denialist. Climate change is not happening or, if it's happening, it's none of our business. The Inflation Reduction Act was basically a climate act that Biden managed to get through, though Congress sharply whittled it down. Not a single Republican voted for it. Not one. No Republican will vote for anything that harms the profits of the rich and the corporate sector, which they abjectly serve.
We should remember that this is not built in. Go back to 2008 when Senator John McCain was running for president. He had a small climate program. Not much, but something. Congress, including the Republicans, was considering doing something about what everyone knew was an impending crisis. The Koch Brothers' huge energy conglomerate got wind of it. They had been working for years to ensure that the Republicans would loyally support their campaign to destroy human civilization. Here, there was deviation. They launched an enormous campaign, bribing, intimidating, astroturfing, lobbying to return the Republicans to total denialism, and they succeeded.
Since then, it's the prime denialist party. In the last Republican primary before Trump took over in 2016, all the top Republican figures vying for the presidential nomination, either said that there's no global warming or maybe there is, but it's none of our business. The one small exception, greatly praised by liberal opinion, was John Kasich, the governor of Ohio. And he was actually the worst of all. What he said was: of course, global warming's happening. Of course, humans are contributing to it. But we in Ohio are going to use our coal freely and without apology. He was so greatly honored that he would be invited to speak at the next Democratic convention. Well, that's one of the two political parties. Not a sign of deviation among them from: let's race to destruction in order to ensure that our prime constituency is as rich and powerful as possible.
Now, what about the other party? There was Bernie Sanders's initiative, the Sunrise Movement's activism, and even Joe Biden at first had a moderately decent climate program -- not enough, but a big step forward from anything in the past. It would, however, be cut down, step by step, by 100% Republican opposition, and a couple of right-wing Democrats, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. What finally came out was the Inflation Reduction Act, which could only get through by providing gifts to the energy corporations.
It brings to the fore the ultimate insanity of our institutional structure. If you want to stop destroying the planet and human life on Earth, you have to bribe the rich and powerful, so maybe they'll come along. If we offer them enough candy, maybe they'll stop killing people. That's savage capitalism. If you want to get anything done, you have to bribe those who own the place.
And look what's happening. Oil prices are out of sight and the energy corporations say: Sorry boys, no more sustainable energy. We make more money by destroying you. Even BP, the one company that was beginning to do something, in essence said: No, we make more profit from destroying everything, so we're going to do that.
It became very clear at the Glasgow COP conference. John Kerry, the U.S. climate representative, was euphoric. He basically said we've won. We now have the corporations on our side. How can we lose? Well, there was a small footnote pointed out by political economist Adam Tooze. He agreed that, yes, they'd said that but with two conditions. One, we'll join you as long as it's profitable. Two, there has to be an international guarantee that, if we suffer any loss, the taxpayer covers it. That's what's called free enterprise. With such an institutional structure, it's going to be hard to get out of this.
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