• REVIEW: Chomsky, A Livable Future Is Possible

    A livable future is possible if we unite against climate change and the nuclear threat before the world self-immolates, Noam Chomsky** asserts. That's the stark either-or underlying many of the interviews in this newly published volume (Haymarket Books, 2024), conducted by C. J. Polychroniou of Truthout.org. This is the fourth volume comprising such interviews of this world's greatest living public intellectual and most cited living scholar. Some of the interviews in this volume include the economist and environmental expert Robert Pollin. Most were previously published by Truthout.

    The interviews encompass the years 2022 and 2023, in reverse order, encompassing global crises such asclimate change, the consequences of the ongoing war in Ukraine, and the rising nuclear risk, while exploring at the same time neo-fascism here and abroad and the harm already done by global warming and Biden's foreign policy, arming Ukraine and Israel with dangerous weaponry.

    "Optimism over despair" has always been one of Noam Chomsky's mottos, and thus he contends that humanity can avert a climate catastrophe and a nuclear holocaust, the two looming existential threats to the continued existence of the world we have created and are now destroying-- the two most important issues in world history." 

    The destructiveness of climate change is our "exuberant race to destruction "Marx's exuberant script of capitalism gone berserk." 

    How can we possibly make a difference at this point? "The distribution of power can be changed by an aroused public with its own very different priorities. The current masters can be controlled on a path toward elimination of their illegitimate authority. The rules of the game can be changed, in the short term modified sufficiently to enable humankind to adopt the means that have been spelled out in detail to step back from the abyss-- The alternatives are too grim to contemplate."

    However, this optimism, such as it is, which appears more than once among the interviews, seems quixotic given Chomsky's judgment that "[W]e may be on the verge of the dawn of an anti-Enlightenment era, with capitalism and irrationality having gone berserk."

    Before descending into world affairs, the interviews' chief focus, we must all want to know this most-quoted public intellectual's take on the future of AI. In a word, he says that "the genie is out of the bottle." In other words, AI has been shown already to surpass human performance-- to take one example, in a game of chess. In fact, "there is no Great Chain of Being with humans at the top." For years, calculators have far exceeded our relevant capabilities. Even desert ants "far exceed human navigational capacities," as do sea turtles and birds, who can migrate thousands of miles from a given point and then return to the exact place. Some aboriginal tribes among the Polynesians use wind, currents, and stars to navigate--techniques still beyond others' understanding. These skills are also topics of research. 

    Language acquisition and thought among humans, though, are unique among species. Production of language "involve[es] properties that remain as mysterious to us today as when they were regarded with awe and amazement by Galileo and his contemporaries at the dawn of modern science-- we still for the most part lack understanding of [t]he internal processes that are the core objects into the nature of language, its acquisition, and use." Obstructing research are "corporate campaigns to encourage disdain for science-- first of all those whose products are murderous-- and profitable to them [--among them many neo-fascists]. Right now such processes are leading to destruction of human life worldwide."

    As to human capabilities, which Chomsky distinguishes from human performance, AI engineering projects in the future will "match and even surpass human capacity to act and [perform], as have automatic calculators and insects with microscopic brains." In that AI lacks a moral faculty, "AI engineering can pose severe threats." Malicious actors "can probably find ways to avoid safeguards." We must work to find safeguards and exercise vigilance.

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    The other interviews detail our descent into other forms of berserk depravity: Neo-fascist trends in US modeled on Orban's actions in Hungary (more on this below); the Ukraine war draining resources that must be channeled into combatting climate change. The goal of the US is to weaken Russia into complete compliance with its goals, "down to the last Ukrainian "and to a degree considerably harsher than the treatment of Germany at Versailles a century ago," though Chomsky predicts descent into the next level of Russian offense if this happens, a further step toward midnight on the Doomsday Clock. 

    A consistent theme among the interviews is US imperialism: "Why is the US so uniquely bad? It hasn't always been so." We have 800 military bases worldwide, "which, along with their very prominent role in 'defense' (aka imperial domination), enable hundreds of 'low-profile proxy wars' in Africa, the greater Middle East, and Asia." One justification for Russia's invasion of Ukraine was violation of a promise made to Gorbachev when the USSR collapsed, to deter the threatening expansion of NATO beyond the nations that already comprised it. US flouting of international law is condoned, in favor of what Chomsky calls the "the rules-based international order [controlling] the effective political sovereignty of other countries, a belief in imperial benevolence and the economics of comparative advantage." Since policy planners and media commentators cannot bring themselves to say "empire," the "rules-based international order" serves as [a] euphemism which, according to Clinton Fernandes, "involves control of the effective political sovereignty of other countries, a belief in imperial benevolence and the economics of comparative advantage." This rules-based order in many ways flouts the "UN-based international order...The United Kingdom, a lieutenant with nuclear weapons and far-flung territories, supports the United States. So do subimperial powers like Australia and Israel." Moreover, the US also flouts Article VI of the Constitution, which requires compliance with all treaties made; and "If, unimaginably, the question of observing the Constitution ever reached the Supreme Court, it would be dismissed as a 'political question.'"

    China is a growing threat to US hegemony, which is forcing an alliance with Russia:"That the US can split US-induced Russian and Chinese cooperation is a fantasy. Russia has scientific brilliance, abundant energy, rich rare minerals and metals, while global warming will increase the agricultural potential of Siberia. China has the capital, the markets, and the manpower to contribute to what becomes a natural partnership across Eurasia." China's Belt and Road initiative is a huge threat to the US and has so far successfully barred Europe from "perhaps the most ambitious economic and geopolitical project in world history," which runs right through Russia and "is already linking China with Europe by rail and sea. . . .now extending to Africa and even Latin America."

    When the Ukraine war ends, Europe will seriously reconsider "the benefits of propping up Washington's desperate bid to maintain its global hegemony." Another huge threat to US hegemony is the integrated production system in Europe, based in Germany, which extends from the Netherlands to Russia's former Warsaw Pact countries. "[It] has become the most successful economic system in the world. It relies heavily on the huge export market and investment opportunities in China, and on Russia's rich natural resources, even including metals needed for transition to renewable energy."

    Few are the places on Earth that the interviews at least don't touch upon: Turkey, India, and Pakistan (the latter two in possession of nuclear armaments), Kashmir, the harsh sanctions on Iran that aggravate suffering and abuse of innocent people; Latin America, Rwanda, the Arctic Circle, become contentious due to its yielding much-desired resources as a result of thawing caused by climate change. The global south bears minimal responsibility for the climate change and yet is suffering from its deleteriousness and "is mostly standing aloof, not joining in sanctions against Russia or breaking commercial and other relations." 

    Led by the US, NATO is reaching out to several Indo-Pacific island nations off the coast of China, including Australia, New Zealand, S. Korea, and Japan-- having invited them to attend a NATO summit. The US-run Quad (US-Japan-Australia-India) is intended to play a principal role in the encirclement of China, but "one effect might be to increase the incentive for China to attack Taiwan in order to break out of the encirclement and have open access to the oceans." India, for one, is a reluctant partner [in the Quad], unwilling to fully adopt the auxiliary role. Unlike the other members of the Quadit joins the rest of the global south in refusing to become involved in what they call the "US-Russia proxy war" in Ukraine. India cannot afford to alienate the US, a natural ally within the emerging GOP-centered alliance of reactionary states, including Hungary along with Israel and its Abraham Accord partners. That's aside from the brutal repression of Kashmir, "reportedly the most militarized territory in the world and the scene of harsh repression." This occupation further qualifies India for association with the Abraham Accords, which includes "the other two cases of criminal annexation and occupation, Israel and Morocco."

    On the rise of neo-fascism in the world, there is a "radical increase in inequality in much of the world as a consequence of the neoliberal policies emanating from the US and UK and spreading beyond in various ways." A Rand Corporation study estimated almost $50 trillion in wealth taken from workers and the middle class-- the lower 90 percent of income-- and transferred to the top 1 percent during the neoliberal years. Things had gone well during "the postwar boom, [when] we actually had decreasing inequality and very limited income going to the top income brackets. For the whole period from the 1940s to the end of the 1970s, the top 1 percent of earners received 9-10 percent of total income, no more. But in the short period since 1980, their share, that is the share of the top 1 percent, has gone up to 25 percent, while the bottom 80 percent have made virtually no gains."

    Public education is also under sharp attack-- an educated public is primary defense against class war. The neoliberals want the population to be passive and obedient and atomized, as well as resentful, a perfect target for demagogues. As for the underclasses themselves, next to no prioritization is attached to the nuclear threat: In France, the Yellow Vest slogan was "You privileged people are worried about the end of the world, we're worried about the end of the month": "When people are concerned about how to survive in their precarious lives, there's not much use telling them that scientists, whom they distrust anyway, are predicting dire consequences down the road." 

    That has many consequences: "[I]nequality is a prime factor in the breakdown of social order. Latin America suffered two lost decades under destructive structural adjustment policies. In Yugoslavia and Rwanda such policies in the eighties sharply exacerbated social tensions, contributing to the horrors that followed." It's sometimes argued that the neoliberal policies were a grand success, pointing to the fastest reduction in global poverty in history-- which fails to add that these remarkable achievements were in China and other countries that firmly rejected the prescribed neoliberal principles. Furthermore, it wasn't the "Washington consensus" that induced US investors to relocate production to countries with much cheaper labor and limited labor rights or environmental constraints, "thereby deindustrializing America with well-known consequences for working people. Reagan and Thatcher attacked unions, leading to attacks on labor, often illegal." 

    The worst crime since World War II was the long US war against Indochina. No country could even contemplate condemning the US or even discussing the issue. The offending country would be "dismantled" by the US. "The West righteously condemns Putin's annexations and calls for punishment of this reincarnation of Hitler, but scarcely dares to utter a chirp of protest when the US authorizes Israel's illegal annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights and Greater Jerusalem, and Morocco's illegal annexation of Western Sahara."

    Continuing on the Mideast: "[T]he region continues to be the global center for heating the world to the brink of survivability and soon beyond. And while Israel and Lebanon may soon be sinking into the sea, they are squabbling about which will have the honor of virtually destroying both of them by producing the fossil fuels at their maritime borders, acts of lunacy duplicated around the world."

    On Iran: The US government has warned for a long time that Iranian nuclear programs are one of the gravest threats to world peace. Israeli has asserted time and again that it will not tolerate this danger. "The US and Israel have acted violently to overcome this grave threat: cyberwar and sabotage (which the Pentagon regards as aggression that merits violence in self-defense), numerous assassinations of Iranian scientists, constant threats of use of force ('all options are open') in violation of international law (and if anyone were to care, the US Constitution)."

    On Israel: A NWFZ (nuclear weapons-free zone) in the Middle East would be the solution BUT the US will not allow the enormous Israeli nuclear arsenal, the only one in the region, to be subject to international inspection. In fact, the US won't even officially recognize that Israel's possession of nukes. "The reason, presumably, is that to do so would invoke US law, which, arguably, would render the massive US aid flow to Israel illegal." 

    Chomsky refers to the Palestinians, among other peoples as "unpeople": "Israel has annexed their land, along with that of Sahrawis and Druze, in violation of the unanimous orders of the Security Council, now endorsed by the US." Moreover: "It's an open question how much domestic capital Biden will win with his expected professions of eternal love for Israel. That stance has become less popular among his liberal base than it used to be as Israel's criminal behavior becomes harder to gloss over. All-out support for Israel has shifted to Evangelicals and the right, sectors of which believe Biden is not the elected president and a substantial contingent of which believes Biden and other top Democrats are grooming children for sexual abuse. But there will still probably be some domestic gains. And it will show the hawkish elements that run foreign policy that he's committed to containment of Iran by an Israel-Saudi alliance, to borrow prevailing doctrine."

    In June of 2022 at the G20 conference, many nations followed the example of the West in treating the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov "like a skunk at the tropical resort party." But others welcomed him, including the Indonesian hosts and China, India, Brazil, Turkey, Argentina, and others-- "[t]hat raises once again the question of just who is being isolated in the new world order that is taking shape."

    To repeat: "Optimism over despair" has always been one of Noam Chomsky's mottos, and thus he contends that humanity can avert a climate catastrophe and a nuclear holocaust, "the two looming existential threats to the continued existence of the world we have created and are now destroying-- the two most important issues in world history." 

    The world order as it stands is in grim condition, moving daily toward more and more neo-fascism. A new world order is in progress, Chomsky tells us-- the indirect illusion is to one of the mottos on the back of the US dollar bill, novus ordo seclorum (a new order of the ages [is born])--ironically, which originally dates back to a line from the Roman poet Virgil's indirect allusion to Octavian, soon to become Caesar Augustus, emperor over a Roman empire, which the poet anticipates in another context as "imperium sine fine," "an empire without boundaries." 

    We can maintain what must be the senex [old] ordo, only with prompt action against climate change and the specter of nuclear annihilation. Can this "old order" otherwise improve, once nukes and climate change are off the table? Ask Chomsky. He's pretty critical. But rest assured, he'd once again attempt optimism, if possible (see below).

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    **Chomsky suffered a massive stroke in June 2023 (even though a few interviews are dated later than that). I was unable to find information about his current condition. The stroke paralyzed his right side and damaged his ability to speak. The Rozenberg Quarterly reported: "In June 2024 I was listening to Noam Chomsky (recorded) trying to make sense with extremely good poise to a Times journalist to think outside western propaganda bubble." (Click Here) He is completely alert, following events in Gaza, and raises his left arm in anger when the subject is raised. 

    When in the US last year medical authorities told him and his Brazilian wife Valeria that there was nothing more they could do for him, she moved them to Brazil where he made rapid progress. Among the interviews, Chomsky praises Lula da Silva and laments that, at that time Lula was surrounded with adversaries in the other government branches. [There was a recent (2024) coup d'etat attempt by Bolsonaro there.] Lula did come to visit Chomsky last year and told him that "You are one of the most influential people in my life."