AMY GOODMAN: As President Trump prepares to
mark 100 days in office, we spend the hour
with the world-renowned linguist and political
dissident Noam Chomsky.
I spoke to him on Monday night at the First
Parish Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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.
I began by asking Noam Chomsky about his comments
that the Republican Party is the most dangerous
organization in the world.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about this
comment that you made that the Republican
Party, you said, is the most dangerous organization
in world history.
Can you explain?
NOAM CHOMSKY: I also said that it’s an extremely
outrageous statement.
But the question is whether it’s true.
I mean, has there ever been an organization
in human history that is dedicated, with such
commitment, to the destruction of organized
human life on Earth?
Not that I’m aware of.
Is the Republican organization—I hesitate
to call it a party—committed to that?
Overwhelmingly.
There isn’t even any question about it.
Take a look at the last primary campaign—plenty
of publicity, very little comment on the most
significant fact.
Every single candidate either denied that
what is happening is happening—namely, serious
move towards environmental catastrophe—or
there were a couple of moderates, so-called—Jeb
Bush, who said, "Maybe it’s happening.
We really don’t know.
But it doesn’t matter, because fracking
is working fine, so we can get more fossil
fuels."
Then there was the guy who was called the
adult in the room, John Kasich, the one person
who said, "Yes, it’s true.
Global warming’s going on.
But it doesn’t matter."
He’s the governor of Ohio.
"In Ohio, we’re going to go on using coal
for energy, and we’re not going to apologize
for it."
So that’s 100 percent commitment to racing
towards disaster.
Then take a look at what’s happened since.
The—November 8th was the election.
There was, as most of you know, I’m sure,
a very important conference underway in Morocco,
Marrakesh, Morocco.
Almost roughly 200 countries at the United
Nations-sponsored conference, which was—the
goal of which was to put some specific commitments
into the verbal agreements that were reached
at Paris in December 2015, the preceding international
conference on global warming.
The Paris conference did intend to reach a
verifiable treaty, but they couldn’t, because
of the most dangerous organization in human
history.
The Republican Congress would not accept any
commitments, so therefore the world was left
with verbal promises, but no commitments.
Well, last November 8th, they were going to
try to carry that forward.
On November 8th, in fact, there was a report
by the World Meteorological Organization,
a very dire analysis of the state of the environment
and the likely prospects, also pointed out
that we’re coming perilously close to the
tipping point, where—which was the goal
of the—the goal of the Paris negotiations
was to keep things below that—coming very
close to it, and other ominous predictions.
At that point, the conference pretty much
stopped, because the news came in about the
election.
And it turns out that the most powerful country
in human history, the richest, most powerful,
most influential, the leader of the free world,
has just decided not only not to support the
efforts, but actively to undermine them.
So there’s the whole world on one side,
literally, at least trying to do something
or other, not enough maybe, although some
places are going pretty far, like Denmark,
couple of others; and on the other side, in
splendid isolation, is the country led by
the most dangerous organization in human history,
which is saying, "We’re not part of this.
In fact, we’re going to try to undermine
it."
We’re going to maximize the use of fossil
fuels—could carry us past the tipping point.
We’re not going to provide funding for—as
committed in Paris, to developing countries
that are trying to do something about the
climate problems.
We’re going to dismantle regulations that
retard the impact, the devastating impact,
of production of carbon dioxide and, in fact,
other dangerous gases—methane, others.
OK.
So the conference kind of pretty much came
to a halt.
The question—it continued, but the question
was: Can we salvage something from this wreckage?
And pretty amazingly, the countries of the
world were looking for salvation to a different
country: China.
Here we have a world looking for salvation
to China, of all places, when the United States
is the wrecking machine that’s threatening
destruction, in—with all three branches
of government in the hands of the most dangerous
organization in human history.
And I don’t have to go through what’s
happened since, but the—in general, the
Cabinet appointments are designed to—assigned
to people whose commitment and beliefs are
that it’s necessary to destroy everything
in their department that could be of any use
to human beings and wouldn’t just increase
profits and power.
And they’re doing it very systematically,
one after another.
EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, has
been very sharply cut.
Actually, the main department that’s concerned
with environmental issues is the Department
of Energy, which also had very sharp cuts,
particularly in the environment-related programs.
In fact, there’s even a ban on posting and
publishing information and material about
this.
And this is not just at the national level.
The Republican Party, whatever you want to
call it, has been doing this at every level.
So, in North Carolina, a couple of years ago,
where the Legislature, mostly thanks to gerrymandering,
is in the hands of the Republicans, there
was a study.
They called for a study on the effect of sea
level rise—on what sea level rise might
be on the North Carolina coast.
And there was a serious scientific study,
which predicted, in not—I forget how many
years—not a long time, about roughly a meter
rise in sea level, which could be devastating
to eastern North Carolina.
And the Legislature did react, namely, by
passing legislation to ban any actions or
even discussion that might have to do with
climate change.
Actually, the best comment of this—I wish
I could quote it verbatim—was by Stephen
Colbert, who said, "If you have a serious
problem, the way to deal with it is to legislate
that it doesn’t exist.
Problem solved."
AMY GOODMAN: MIT professor Noam Chomsky, author
of the new book, Requiem for the American
Dream.
We’ll be back with Chomsky in a minute to
talk about the threat of nuclear war, North
Korea, Iran and more.
Stay with us.
