Part 1: Noam Chomsky on Climate Change, Nukes, Syria, WikiLeaks & More

democracynow.org - In this Democracy Now! special, we spend the hour with the world-renowned linguist and political dissident Noam Chomsky. In a public conversation we had in April, we talked about climate change, nuclear weapons, North Korea, Iran, the war in Syria and the Trump administration’s threat to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and his new book, "Requiem for the American Dream: The 10 Principles of Concentration of Wealth & Power."
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[@cristinesaunders2428]

Such a scholar...so brilliant! Thank you for your wisdom Noam Chomsky! Love You!

[@Anonymous-yw1cv]

What a pontificating pretentious piece of shit! 😃

[@themilitantvegan2515]

Why every video with Noam volume nearly zero??? Always

[@davidaaa6427]

Elderly man.

[@jamesthomas3687]

Skeeter Lima that's not true at all. His reach is huge across KZbin.

[@popeyedoyle6360]

@@davidaaa6427 couldn't his nigerian helpers put the mic closer?

[@Orph3us33]

I've been waiting to hear Chomsky's opinion on the current Economic climate. His perspective is always insightful.

[@pthomasgarcia]

By Republicanism Chomsky means capitalism.

[@pthomasgarcia]

Dexter Morgan Not only are you assumptive, but pedantic. Is the Republican Party without an ideology? Of course not. Captial R Republicanism in context speaks to that and is different from republicanism the same as Democrat is from democrat. The Republican Party and Democratic Party are the parties of capitalism. Again, all this is reducible to my original comment.

[@tinfoilhatter]

when everyone knows the democrats are every bit as bad,if not worse than the republicans! OH! some people just can't *handle* that truth!

[@mahlina1220]

Lame comeback.

[@pthomasgarcia]

tinfoilhatter The entire point of my comment is that the sell-out and sell-off of the people and planet ISN'T partisan or American for that matter. The organization in theory and practice is capitalism or neoliberalism, financialization, globalization, imperialism etc. However you wish to term it, the existential threat is more systemic than one particular party.

[@FernandoGonzalez-ij8xe]

No he actually describes republicanism as radical statism/state-capitalism clearly very frequently!

[@markvattes7152]

I like Noam Chomsky, and I always appreciate his commentary. Having said that, my consistent reaction to him is that his "world view" is more of a statement about human nature than statism or imperialism. He strikes me as a fatalist, and, primarily, a "reporter" (again, congruent with both his world view, and his assessment of human nature), rather than a scholar or analyst. Unless pressed, which is seldom, he doesn't seem to advance any solutions or, even, any hope. Again, though, I appreciate his commentary.

[@tomasc7621]

_'He proposes anarchism, which is a well worked out solution.'_ He may propose it but he sure doesn't live it. MIT is a taxpayer funded institution. I don't blame him. Were it not for MIT, Noam would likely be living on the streets of Boston, no? Cheers:)

[@tomasc7621]

_'if you think working at mit makes him not an anarchist, then you do not understand anarchism'_ Crow, would you please enlighten me in regards to anarchism as you understand it? I would appreciate it. cheerio:)

[@tomasc7621]

_|Crow the Timekeeper|_ Is Noam a part of the hierarchy at MIT? Does he vote? Does he pay his taxes? Does he have a pension fund? Does he have an IRA/401(k)? Does he obey?

[@tomasc7621]

My point was that Noam is not an anarchist. He is a statist. Nothing wrong with that. Most folks choose to go along to get along, no?

[@tomasc7621]

Crow the TimeKeeper I suggest you examine the history of Noam's life long employer. While you are at it, look into one of MIT's massive money makers, known as the Lincoln Laboratory. www.ll.mit.edu/about/about.html cheers!

[@mhikl4484]

20 minutes is not an. hour. How do we get the hour?

Noam Chomsky muy bueno!!!

[@yarazooom]

for some reason, N. Chomsky interviews are always hard to hear. he is a soft talker...why dont you turn up his mike?

[@aboot2754]

There is only so much you can turn up a mic. Maybe they need to start bringing more powerful microphones to his interviews and speeches.

[@joshuanegrete3633]

terrible that even in the highest volume in a quiet room I can still barely hear him sometimes lol

[@tinfoilhatter]

there's no doomsday clock! but we surely don't have forever,that much is true!

[@arad4912]

To hell with this evil world. The sooner the better.

[@alisonmason7990]

Call me naive but wouldn’t it be possible to stop America in its tracks by the world governments refusing to participate in USA’s war calls and withdrawing all support for NATO. It’s what all people desire - an end to war mongering, an end to the ever increasing military hoarding and it’s phenomenal cost which is at the expense of any effort towards world peace, and care of this planets environment.

[@tinfoilhatter]

there oughta be a law against bombing dams,hospitals,civilians and infrastructure! oh,wait, we tried that,and international law is optional at best!

[@barbiewert7182]

God control the earth not man

[@svale1610]

Organized crime works the same way as Reps org. and others.

[@lorenzoblum868]

Reps dems whatever. Organised crime because CIA and numerous others....

[@linktojinx]

I wouldn't really call him a dissident these days. He seems to have forgotten the very tenants he based his old arguments on.

[@nexstepper588]

We are being dragged down the dark road of perdition by a parade of intelligent fools.

[@JollyJoel]

Since when did Trump decide to go after Julian Assange? I close my eyes to blink and there's always something new...

[@urbancarpet]

You mean by calling him and his acts 'heroic'....? Sounds more like he's endorsing him.

[@JollyJoel]

I think you need to watch 0:18 and listen again or for the first time... Sounds more like you're just asking where I heard that so I can tell you without you asking like some dog begging but whatever.

[@urbancarpet]

My dyslexia wins again...thanks

[@MCFRUGT]

One very disturbing and repeating things I've noticed when Chomsky speaks to an american audience, is how often people laugh at disturbing facts about their own country. Better laugh it off instead of doing something about it I guess...

[@aboot2754]

I am super attracted to Amy Goodman in the most respectful way possible. Peak quality journalist

[@tomasc7621]

Noam, what are your thoughts on WTC7 and Larry SilverStein? _Pull It Baby_

[@winstonsmith-ministryoftru1609]

Would love to watch this video but I just can't listen to the f****ing audio!!!

[@JeanineH]

Funny, just started reading an old one of his books: on power and ideology...

[@owlnationlegal4228]

I will address "deteriorating" trends much as I did last night with a hardened, seasoned old military vet who doesn't believe any "B.S." about anything, especially near term extinction, unless they can survey a battlefield or landscape and poke, prod, stick, cut the pig and see it bleed, hear it squeel, and know for certain its a pig. I used the domino parable, as one falls, others follow, and described about 12 dominos all in a fragile state, while they suggested - not me - Trump could be the 13th domino and start a nuclear war over N. Korea. I'll just stick with what IS reality instead of such speculation; 1. Anyone who denies global temps are skyrocketing, or at least marching upwards need only examine thinning ice sheets soon to disappear, Greenland melting 150-600 times faster, depending on which science team/report you reference, and in antarctica, huge ice shelfs like the Larson iceshelf now going away. We could skip the NOAA, NASA, Univ. of Alaska, Univ. of Ottawa, Norwegian and Russian reports and go straight to the Inuit, who know it like you might know Kansas. Its a catastrophic change. This domino alone is the game changer that triggers multiple tipping points and reflects Michael Mann's Hockey Stick graph, which my other posts describe as simply a quadratic equation - a model - describing what IS TODAY (a point) and what is coming based on trend lines reflecting thinning ice, warmer air and ocean temps, snowfall in the arctic/antarctic and other events we know about today...not 10-200 years in thr future. 2. We knew what a warmer arctic might do; and feared a large methane release, now happening where kn size craters are blowing and spewing CH4, and areas are fizzing like gingerale. Thst means the gas that IS (not MAYBE) 160 times worse than CO2 is now spewing into the atmosphere and over 7000 methane pockets have been found in Siberia. Ouch. Add Canada, Alaska, Norway and it gets ugly fast. Good news; methane breaks down faster than CO2 and if this factor was isolated and temps weren't already rising, maybe it'd be no big deal. No such luck. 3. We already know what a blue arctic vs ice cover will do, is doing and air temps of 65 degrees in fkn winter means we're screwed. Deny that all you want; its catastrophic. Basically, urban centers are heat engines, the arctic and oceans are heat sinks just like aluminum on a CPU and if you remove those the CPU temp goes high almost instantly. With the loss of arctic ice Greenland is now taking the heat as never before; like a 10 amp fuse in a 200 amp wire and we know how that works. So, just these factors, before discussing drought, grain yields, ocean acidification should be enough to get folks, govts, oil companies to say "Hey; lets change course and roll out renewables quickly, sequester urban heat with co-gen systems, suck CO2 and CH4 from the atmosphere, repair forests, jungles, habitats, fisheries with whatever we can do. Again, no such luck and at this point we're 10 years late and $500 trillion short. 4. Now we turn to effects in regions we rely on. Lets move all our grain production to the Sahara and see if we can feed 7-8 billion people; grain yields are fallkng, beef prices rising sharply, produce going through the roof and that trend will also accelerate. Dominos 1 thru 3 are having an effect. 5. Lets see how Trump's effect of sending millions into the street combines with higher food prices...its not just the U.S. Russia lost a huge wheat harvest and droughts/famines around the world are expanding at an accelerating pace. Go ahead and see what happens when 350m Americans can't afford to eat. Kaboom; the protests quickly get ugly and infrastructure always takes a hit making a dire situation worse. 6. Then the other effects of rising temps, forest/jungle fires, dustbowls, record tornados, hurricanes; kiss the eastern seaboard goodbye. Look what Ottawa/Montreal just endured, or what Ft. McMurray, the Amazon, Calif. forests; the list is growing rapidly and the strain on communities, natl. budgets is enormous. Germany, India, Peru, Oz, S. Africa; its hard to find a nation not eating a catastrophe. 7. If this wasn't enough to trim 7billion lets cut off their oxygen. 70-8O% of that comes from plankton struggling with temps and cabonic acid. If the ocean goes anoxic, which it is doing now...not in 10-200 years we are likely to see increasing plumes of hydrogen sulfide; more toxic than cyanide. L.A. is toast even before oceans rise. 8. Fisheries are dwindling, grains dwindling, reservoirs, aquifers; the endless list of all the factors that support 7b people are going away. Its a lot easier to kill 7b than make 7b; though surely more fun to make babies, but viewed as an organism that needs food, water, ag, reasonable temps, we're screwed. The question of exactly WHEN we endure a mass die off is NOT a sure thing, but a decade is optimistic, given the accelerating pace and multiple factors converging to take us down, with little or no hope of any global body coordinating any effective response, which would cost hundreds of trillions and rely on technology we haven't even invented short of "a nuclear winter" or pixie dust to block the sun. If we did that, how would crops fare? 12. Skip a domino/factor or two and ask yourself if the 1200 nuclear reactors and 400 spent fuel facilities would be safer or experience more frequent failures if utilities, governments, communities experienced even a minor collapse; say 7b to 5b, with 2b dead in a year. I worked in the nuclear sector; they fail every week and those folks commonly say "Whew, we avoided that nightmare." It is the single worst technology on earth today and if it didn't exist a few million people might survive the meltdown of civjlization and loss of the industrial society we enjoy today. Again, no such luck, and when 1600 facilities begin burning and spewing radioactive gas the air on earth will get ugly fast. This is a huge pillar in Guy's collapse/extinction math and he's spot on. Its already happening and we can't even keep these facilities from destroying huge regions today when civilization is still sort of firing on all cylinders. So...will all life be extinct in under a decade? I doubt it will take that long; die offs are notoriously fast and this one has already begun. Will any breeding humans survive? Um...doubtful. Diffusion of toxic gas and dead oceans is already happening. Once contaminated with fairly high levels of radioactive waste, along with loss of ozone, its near impossible to assume any higher life forms will survive. Will technology save the day? We can't even get the greatest high tech nation on earth to rapidly switch to solar/wind. let alone ramp up desal or sequester heat; as George Carlin said, "We can't even take care of ourselves and we're gonna SAVE A PLANET?!" HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA YEAH ... RIGHT.

[@davidbrasher3595]

Global warming could destroy civilization and drop the human population to less than a million worldwide, but humans are incredibly adaptable. Small bands of people would still find ways to live all around the world, even if it was at a stone age or bronze age technological level.

[@tomasc7621]

_'Anyone who denies global temps are skyrocketing, or at least marching upwards need only examine thinning ice sheets '_ OwlNationLegal | When was the last time you observed thinning ice sheets? Are you able to define 'skyrocketing'? When was the last ice age? Has the Earth emerged from the last ice age? Does the Sun contribute to warming? Is immortality possible? cheerio:)

[@yurrr-pooka]

Chomsky: OG

[@michaelfsmith3208]

like him...but he says the same damn thing....every damn time

[@CarlyonProduction]

I know. He's an idiot for repeating the climate change stuff all the time. It's all we ever hear about in the media. And it's just lame to talk about the biggest problems facing us. I tend to prefer the old 'fingers in the ears' trick.