0:00 hi everyone welcome to the jacobin show we are joined today by noam chomsky and
0:05 vijay prashad to talk about their book the withdrawal iraq libya afghanistan and the fragility
0:12 of u.s power thanks so much for joining us thank you
0:17 thanks so i wanted to start by talking through the way you frame um the book and the
0:24 book is based off of a discussion transcripts of a discussion that you both had but you used this metaphor of
0:32 the godfather a mafia boss to discuss u.s military and geopolitical
0:38 power why did you use this framework and what about u.s foreign policy specifically
0:44 are you trying to shine light on with that metaphor i think it's a
The US as the world dominant power
0:49 pretty reasonable first approximation to a
0:55 theory of international relations so take
1:01 the united states since 1945 has
1:06 it basically replaced britain as the world dominant power britain reluctantly
1:14 became what the british foreign office called a junior partner to the united
1:19 states the u.s of course had overwhelming power at the end of the second world war
1:25 nothing remotely like it in history and it was there was intelligent
1:31 planning we have detailed records of it every area of the world was assigned what was
1:39 called its function within the overall system that would be dominated by the united states so for
1:46 example the southeast asia the function was to prove to provide
1:53 raw materials resources to the former colonial powers in europe
1:59 so that they could reconstruct within the u.s dominated framework
2:04 africa was george kennan who was head of the state department planning staff who wrote this
2:12 he said we're not much interested in africa so we can hand it over to europe to
2:18 exploit his word uh to exploit for its reconstruction
2:24 uh and it'll give the europeans a sense that they have something
2:30 gratifying we're taking everything away from them but they'll have africa to exploit
2:35 and so on through the world well there is what the united states calls a
2:41 rules-governed international order the term you hear all the time
2:47 the us does not accept the united nations international order it helped formulate it but
2:54 doesn't accept it it can't because the u.n system rules out u.s foreign policy
3:01 it bans the threat or use of force in international affairs so obviously the
3:06 u.s can't accept that so except the rules-based order where you we set the rules and we are
3:14 effectively the godfather kind of run like the mafia
3:20 if some small store keeper doesn't pay his protection money
3:25 you send in your goons to smash them up even if you don't need the money so if maurice bishop and grenada starts
3:35 15 cooperatives under the carter administration that's a no no
3:41 uh so you have to send 6 000 special force uh
3:46 marines and special forces to overcome the resistance of 40 cuban
3:53 construction workers who already said they're perfectly willing to make an accommodation then we can stand tall and be heroic and
4:01 settle that issue and so it goes one after the other the world runs very much like the mafia
4:08 the godfather is in charge he sets the rules the rules based international
4:15 order and everyone else had better obey or else sometimes there are people who don't
4:20 obey in fact one of the the problem with china right now is that china refuses to obey
4:28 that's a problem europe obeys when the u.s
4:33 imposes sanctions on cuba and iran europe doesn't like it but
4:38 they adhere to it china ignores the godfather and that's intolerable
4:45 that's what's called the china threat in u.s affairs and a good deal i don't want to
4:52 exaggerate not everything works this way but it's a pretty good first approximation
4:58 to the way the world works you know if i could add to that
5:04 there's a contemporary set of examples for that let's take the case of the united states
5:11 and the african continent linda thomas greenfield the u.s
5:17 ambassador to the united nations was in ghana and uganda
5:23 whilst in ghana she made a number of statements uh warning african countries
5:30 55 of them telling them not to trade with russia and china she was quite forthright
5:38 now that's interesting um just before the ambassador went to the african
5:44 continent and just before u.s secretary of state anthony blinken followed her to say much the same thing
5:52 there was a visit to some african countries by russian foreign minister sergey lavrov
5:59 interestingly mr lavrov didn't say to african countries don't trade with the
6:04 united states now you may have all kinds of problems with russia and believe me
6:09 there are lots of problems with russia but on the public record the russians
6:14 weren't going around telling people and the chinese certainly don't do this don't trade with the united states but
6:22 seemingly it's perfectly accurate it's perfectly acceptable to sections of the liberal
6:29 media including liberal media in the united states the new york times washington post and so on
6:36 that high officials of the united states government can go around the african continent and say
6:42 we are telling you what to do that sort of what gnome calls the godfather attitude is treated as perfectly normal
6:50 now interestingly linda thomas greenfield in one of the interviews she
6:55 gave in accra said that u.s foreign policy is in on africa u.s foreign policy in africa is
7:02 an open book that was the phrase she used well let's open the book
7:08 um what open book is she reading if you go back to the 1960s
7:15 there was great anxiety in the u.s ruling class circles
7:20 because the tendency of the freedom movement in the congo was towards the left
7:27 and indeed patrice lumumba wins a fair and square election to head his government
7:33 now why was the united states bothered by an election in the congo which
7:38 elected patrice lumumba so bothered that u.s intelligence worked with belgian
7:44 intelligence and british intelligence not only to overthrow mr lumumba but to
7:50 assassinate him in 1961. what was the problem i'm offering
7:56 the ambassador a book to read she should read a book called white malice recently come out which demonstrates
8:03 using archives in the united states and in the united kingdom that the reason the united states was so
8:10 bothered with lumumba is that there is a uranium mine
8:15 in the congo at shinkol shinkol bay this mine is the
8:21 mine from which the united states sourced uranium for the bombs against hiroshima and
8:27 nagasaki the united states couldn't allow the
8:33 congolese to trade uranium with the soviet union and that's the reason they enter and conduct a well
8:41 undemocratic that's a charitable word to use an undemocratic coup against the people of the congo so it's
8:48 an open book but what book are you reading and that's the reason why the term godfather is so valuable
8:56 because it shows you how normal that behavior is and how much
9:01 nobody blinks an eye when people like very nice people by the way linda thomas greenfield awfully nice
9:08 person when they say things like this it's taken as fact not as ideology and i
9:14 think that's the real concern here yeah it's re really clear throughout the
China threat
9:19 book that the terms are set by the united states the conversation is set by the united
9:27 states and the military and economic interventions serve as internal and external
9:34 discipline so they are externally disciplining anybody who dares you know
9:39 break or deviate from any of the rules set out at any moment and they're internally disciplining you know allies
9:47 in other countries who generally follow along but it's showing constantly the might of the united states and what
9:54 happens if you step a toe out of line um speaking to what you were saying with
10:00 the china threat this has recently been in the news because of nancy pelosi's visit to
10:06 taiwan and i'd like both of you to comment on that but you also talk about in the book um
10:12 about the way that china is trying to create systems that can meet or match or
10:21 um in some way contest u.s power and that's both economic
10:28 with the belt and road initiative you talk about the shanghai cooperation organization
10:34 china has been doing development in africa and from what i've read in the mainstream news
10:39 the line is the chinese don't mind working with corrupt leaders so they're fine to you know build these
10:46 infrastructure projects down there but this seems like it gets to part of the
10:52 core of the idea of the china threat and there has been in the last week or so
10:58 some escalating tensions can you talk about pelosi's visit to taiwan and more
11:04 generally um what is the threat from china is it an alternative
11:10 global banking system like the swift system is it a way of checking u.s sanctions is it
11:17 a way of checking u.s military power can you speak to that well with regard to pelosi
One China policy
11:25 this was a very reckless uh act of
11:32 personal aggrandizement obviously trying to beef up her cv and
11:38 show that she can be as tough as the craziest lunatic male that you can find
11:45 there was no other reason for it for 50 years there's been a basic agreement about taiwan
11:52 it's called the one china policy it's agreed that china's part of
11:57 taiwan's part of china and that china and the united states will stay in
12:04 a state of strategic ambiguity as it's called and they tacitly agree that
12:12 neither of them will do anything to overthrow the status quo by force
12:18 okay that's kept for 50 years of peace few breaks
12:25 very successful policy uh in recent years the united states has
12:30 been increasing provocations which china responds to
12:36 same in this case pelosi's visit was a major provocation
12:42 uh china didn't shoot down our plane as they could have they simply responded
12:48 by a demonstration that china can close off taiwan
12:55 located uh so that it will uh they will strangle it it's just it's
13:01 a trading it's a rock in the ocean lives on trade uh china
13:06 surrounds it with military force it's stuck it'll collapse so china carried
13:13 out military maneuvers showing that they also uh
13:19 uh impose some sanctions on taiwan and also bricks with the united states
13:27 simply to show we're not going to be pushed around the sanctions are
13:33 probably more serious than they look so one of the things that china
13:40 imposed was apparent we don't have all details but it seems that they imposed the ban on export of
13:48 sand to taiwan well that doesn't sound like much until you think for a minute
13:55 sand taiwan's a rock if they want to build something they
14:00 need concrete concrete is based on sand
14:05 so china's saying well you fool around we can undercut your economy
14:12 very easily we don't have to invade that's basically the message
14:18 now we have to recognize that the u.s provocations go way beyond taiwan
14:24 the united states recently has been running a huge naval
14:29 operation multinational naval operation rim pakistan
14:34 with all threatening china in the pacific major
14:40 operations uh the us's established what it calls
14:46 a uh sentinel states to encircle china
14:51 uh hostile states run by the united states
US provocations
14:56 uh when biden provided precision weapons which hadn't been there before to be able to
15:03 target china uh us nuclear submarines have the capacity to destroy china in
15:11 fact the world but they're all surrounding it they there's
15:16 an agreement with australia which one of australia's leading strategic analysts called ben fernandez called the
15:25 sub sub-imperial country which serves u.s power in the as a base
15:31 for u.s power in the region there's a deal to provide uh
15:36 the alka-steel it's called provide australia with nuclear submarines which
15:42 can seriously threaten china and the south china sea claimed to be able to just sink its
15:48 fleet if they want to monitor chinese operations there
15:56 the quad so it's called is south korea and
16:02 japan no australia japan united states and
16:08 india india is a reluctant partner doesn't want to participate in this game
16:14 but the idea is to surround and circle china with hostile powers
16:19 which will prevent it from breaking out doing anything that's constant severe threats
16:26 what's the threat of china uh i think it's what i said before
16:32 they're there actually the most former australian prime minister
16:37 paul keating well-known international statesman had an article in the australian press
16:45 asking what actually is the threat of china what are we worried about he ran
16:50 through the reasons and none of them make any sense i said the real threat of china is china is there
16:58 it's there and it refuses to follow orders here i think we can go back to the
17:04 godfather image take say cuba why why does the united states devote
17:10 such extraordinary efforts to torture and destroy cuba
17:15 i mean there's no precedent for it in in history in fact like right now
17:22 cuba has a huge fire it's getting support from mexico from venezuela
17:28 not the united states you have to strangle and torture the cubans
17:34 well we know the reason i go back to state department records in the
17:39 1960s very explicit the threat of castro
17:44 is his successful defiance of policies going back to the monarch doctrine
17:51 in 1823 which stated the intention of the united
17:57 states to dominate the hemisphere couldn't do it then britain was too
18:03 strong but they understood sooner or later the us would be able to do it
18:08 and in fact in 1898 uh the united states did intervene in cuba
18:16 what's called here the liberation of cuba what in fact was the prevention of
18:21 the liberation of cuba from spain u.s intervened to prevent it turn cuba into the virtual colony as
18:29 soon as cuba broke out of that in 1959 acts began since then they've been carrying out
18:36 successful denying defiance and the godfather doesn't accept that it
18:42 doesn't matter whether there are any resources or not not just
18:47 and i had a comment on what vijay said about the congo my own feeling is even if the congo
18:53 hadn't had uranium they still would have killed the lumber because the congo is the richest most
19:00 powerful part of africa if it succeeds in developing it'll bring
19:05 all africa along with it the u.s not having that so the obama was
19:13 the mumbai was assassinated the belgian got there first but cia had him on their
19:18 hit list then they installed a kleptomaniac murderer who would follow
19:24 u.s orders just make sure that congo doesn't move towards successful defiance or anybody else
19:31 well that's china china is not going to be pushed around they
19:37 have several thousand years of history they went through a century of humiliation
19:44 ended with the maoist revolution they're not going to accept it again
19:49 uh the build and road initiative is a huge initiative of investment and development
19:56 you're quite right they're perfectly willing to work with anyone corrupt non-corrupt just build this system which
20:03 is china based includes most of asia already moving to africa even moving to latin
20:10 america u.s backyard u.s can't stop it moving to the middle east
20:16 even israel so china owns half the haifa port
20:21 well the u.s doesn't like it but doesn't have the ability to stop it the
20:27 united arab emirates is a key to the chinese what's called maritime silk road
20:34 which reaches to the red sea onto the
20:40 way of moving towards europe which will probably want to join this it's much too
20:47 rich in oreo to avoid china's just moving steadily slowly no
20:52 violence investment development the u.s can't do anything about it it's going crazy it's
21:00 part of the reason for the hysteria about china now i mean the hysteria is
21:05 just beyond discussion so it takes something like the united states is collapsing from
21:12 within we all know that the bridges are collapsing the subways
21:17 don't work nothing works the whole system doesn't work so we need spending to rebuild the united states
21:25 well finally congress got together and did agree to a bill for some
21:31 construction of infrastructure not because the united states needs bridges because we have to out-compete
21:39 china it's the china competition bill i mean this is pathological
21:45 you know but it shows what when the godfather is in trouble he goes crazy
Chinas influence
21:54 just to again build a little on what gnome was saying first i just want to say from a personal
22:00 standpoint um you know i i think it's important for
22:05 intellectuals um different kinds of people to interact with each other across all kinds of
22:11 barriers i've been a great proponent of interacting with people that one
22:17 doesn't agree with i think it's a it's a good part of the human experience
22:22 so you know for the past i don't know decade more than the past decade
22:28 i've developed very close relationships with intellectuals in china i've held conversations with them
22:34 you know i've spent time talking to zhang vewe leading intellectual he was the translator of deng xiaoping
22:42 um spent a lot of time talking with somebody i deeply respect wang hui
22:47 teaches at xinhua university and so on these connections by themselves have for
22:54 some people been a red rag to the bull because they claim that any contact with
23:01 china is somehow uh has you you know in fact influenced by china as
23:07 if for instance i don't have my own brain in other words
23:13 it goes back to a debate from an earlier period when
23:19 george w bush borrowing from samuel huntington you know began to use the
23:24 kind of clash of civilizations rhetoric hyped up
23:30 between christianity and islam at the time now we're seeing a kind of clash of
23:35 civilizations rhetoric between the so-called west and
23:40 russia china and so on you know at the time when george bush
23:45 began to talk in this clash of civilizations way leading figures in
23:51 iran sent a letter to the united states government in fact directly to george w
23:56 bush where they said rather than a clash of civilizations
24:02 can't we have a dialogue across civilizations strikes me that um
24:08 many of the western governments led by the united states have lost the appetite
24:13 for both diplomacy and dialogue strikes me that you know the demonization of people
24:21 substitutes for a mature attitude toward them look
24:26 frankly the united states knows that in many areas of economic life
24:32 high-speed rail green technology even now some areas of computerization
24:38 certainly telecommunications chinese firms can produce goods
24:44 as good as the united states you know as efficient as the united states and of course cheaper than u.s firms even when
24:52 u.s firms produce these goods in china so apple phones produced in china
24:58 are much more expensive than huawei phones rather than merely compete commercially
25:05 the united states has decided to utilize its diplomatic military and ideological
25:11 force to intimidate china into stop developing its own technological
25:16 capacity and you know there used to be a familiar word for that which nowadays doesn't get
25:23 used in polite conversation much the word for that was imperialism you
25:28 know you're using extra economic force to gain advantages why can't the united states get its act
25:35 together produce better phones produce better technology at a cheaper price
25:41 produce green technology why can't it just compete with china you know
25:47 in the marketplace well it can't and it knows it can't and therefore it is willing
25:53 to destroy the world in order to maintain its inefficient economic domination of
25:59 the world and i want to underline the use of that word it is willing
26:04 to push its inefficient economic domination of the world rather than
26:11 take some lessons from other people not only the chinese but other people who are producing things perhaps better
26:18 cheaper and differently but you can't again drawing from the
26:24 word gnome uses often you can't get the godfather to learn new tricks
26:29 the godfather's trick is to go to somebody's stable take their favorite horse
26:36 cut off its head and put it in your bed that's what the godfather knows the
26:41 godfather doesn't understand how to convince or how to learn and that i
26:46 think is something young people in the united states it's a lesson to take from
26:51 this is that learn how to do things better learn how to talk to other people
26:57 don't use your muscle to maintain your power because that is bringing the world
27:03 near destruction or well annihilation okay and i'm not a i'm an
27:09 optimistic person but i'm afraid for that i'm afraid this attitude
27:15 is really bringing us to the brink of a war we can't imagine
Nuclear weapons free zones
27:21 yeah what you've said echoes some of the examples in the book of this bizarre
27:26 brinksmanship from the united states where it essentially puts its foot down when other countries and territories
27:33 sign nuclear treaties or offer certain conditions of surrender you talk about this with saddam hussein
27:40 you list the five nuclear weapons free zones and you talk about the united states is complete opposition to this
27:49 do you think there's more going on here than um muscle flexing
27:55 and if so what is it
Middle East nuclear free zone
28:00 well it's not just muscle flexing uh take the most crucial case
28:08 the middle east nuclear free zone it's coming up right now
28:14 uh the as you know of course the united states trump pulled out of the
28:20 united agreement with uh iran on nuclear weapons which was
28:26 working very successfully uh u.s intelligence agrees that iran was
28:32 living up to all the conditions u.s pulled out of europe was strongly opposed but as i
28:40 said they obey they hate the us sanctions
28:46 but they obey them they're not like china now there are negotiations as to whether
28:53 to reconstruct it in the background is something everyone
28:58 knows and no one is allowed to say there's a very simple way to avoid any
29:06 problem real or imagined i think mostly imagined but even if you believe they're
29:12 real it's a very simple way to eliminate any threat of iranian nuclear weapons impose
29:20 a nuclear weapons-free zone in the region with inspections which work we know that
29:26 from the joint agreement why not arab states are strongly in favor of it
29:34 they've been pressing it for 25 years iran is in favor of it the global south
29:42 g77 is about 130 countries strongly in favor of it
29:47 europe's raising no objections so what's the problem us won't allow it why won't the u.s
29:55 allow it well there's a country called israel which has the only which has major
30:02 nuclear weapon system uh happens to be a u.s client the us will
30:08 not permit israeli nuclear weapons to be inspected
30:13 uh in fact the u.s will not does not even officially recognize
30:19 that israel has nuclear weapons claims we don't know which of course is
30:25 nonsense everyone knows and there's a reason for that too uh if the u.s will acknowledge it
30:32 u.s law comes into play and it can well be argued that
30:38 usaid israel is illegal because of its development of nuclear
30:44 weapons outside the international framework neither political party in the united
30:50 states nor the intellectual community wants to open that door so nobody will talk about this
30:56 so therefore we may march into a war in the middle east it's a
31:04 grave threat because we want to ensure that u.s aid israel is not threatened
31:12 you can't talk about this actually if the american population was aware of this i don't think they'd be
31:19 very happy about it so the press is very careful never to discuss it
31:25 the new york times came close a couple months ago and said why don't we move towards a
31:32 persian gulf nuclear weapons-free zone persian gulf
31:39 omitting somebody in fact it added israeli nuclear weapons
31:44 or non-negotiable okay well thank you for the editors for your
31:51 honesty uh now we know what's going on israel's a loyal client state it's a
31:59 base for u.s power in the region has been since 1967
32:05 we're not gonna allow any uh interference with that
32:10 and it's a sensible position on the part of the godfather and it might drive us
32:15 to war in the middle east a major war it's not the only case
32:20 so africa wants to establish a nuclear weapons-free zone
32:27 can't the united states wants a nuclear weapons base in the island of daegu garcia it's just
32:35 part of africa it was a british colony the british the junior partner of the
32:41 united states obliged the godfather by kicking out the population driving
32:48 them out and violating u.n orders and claiming it's part of the british empire
32:54 well that's the role of the junior partner the sub imperialist is clinton
32:59 fernandez fosum so africa can't have a nuclear weapons for his own
33:05 uh pacific same reason u.s insists on having nuclear bases on its specific islands
33:13 this is not just showing your muscle the nuclear bases on the pacific islands
33:18 threaten china okay they're part of the encirclement of china
33:24 saying we're ready to destroy you if you make a move you know all of this is
33:30 logical imperial planning may not like it but it's not irrational
33:38 it's a very rational thoughtful imperial planning can't say that in the united states
33:45 there's a doctrine called american exceptionalism which says everything we do is benign
33:53 full of love of others uh we invade iraq it's because we love them
33:59 so much sometimes we make mistakes anybody can make mistakes but uh we're just
34:07 perfect power it's interesting to look into how this
34:13 works you can talk about it i'll just give you one example there's one of the top maybe
34:20 the founder of modern hard-headed realist international
34:26 relations theory tough-minded no nonsense no sentimentality
34:31 hans morgenthau he a very good scholar serious guy
34:37 he wrote a book called the purpose of america other countries don't have purposes but
34:44 the u.s does the purpose of america is to bring freedom and
34:50 all good things to the world and then he said he's a good instant he's a good scholar
34:56 he went through the record he said it's kind of odd if you look at the u.s record
35:01 it always opposes the u.s purpose he says he says some people
35:08 bring this up and say the purpose isn't real but they're making a mistake
35:14 they're confusing the abuse of history with history
35:19 the abuse of history is what happened history is the way it's reflected in our
35:25 minds so the way it's reflected in our minds is benign intentions gonna right
35:32 so that's history abuse of history is just what we do all the time
35:37 and he says to make this confusion he says it's like the error of
35:42 atheism which denies god's benevolence by talking about bad things that happen
35:50 and we don't want to make the error of atheism so we want our religion of
35:56 worship of the state to be uh untouched that's hard-headed realism
36:04 then you go over to the sentimental guys well all of this fits together
The media
36:10 yeah and and you know you add to this the scandalous treatment of these events or of this
36:18 history by the media um noam already talked about the new york times editorial page and you know
36:25 what norm was talking about was an editorial board statement
36:30 which quite cavalierly talked about this persian gulf nuclear free zone and quite
36:37 you know nimbly said israel is not to be part of this just very casual um
36:45 you know the media well i'm a naive person i've been
36:50 started my career as a journalist i have i love reporting stories i love the
36:56 practice of journalism so i always have this high-minded idea you know that
37:01 journalists must have this well purpose to use the hans morgenthau
37:08 journalists should have this purpose you know we should be out there to tell the story to lift up
37:14 stories from the shadows it's curious that most journalists or at least most
37:21 publications i know when journalists file stories it's not exactly what appears but most publications
37:29 when it comes to writing about those whom the united states picks out
37:34 as adversaries don't treat those adversaries as human and i want to say this in this language
37:42 there's a kind of international division of humanity that gets set up the north
37:47 koreans are simply not human many years ago i remember reading a statement made
37:53 by a western journalist who said you know we have a practice when we report on
37:58 most countries or most events we like to get one or two sources to get confirmation he said with north korea i
38:05 can say anything i can say that you know the the president is dead and in fact repeatedly um these stories appear which
38:13 are not based at all in fact on one defector's claim and so on
38:18 but it's not just a north korea story people laugh you know you mention north korea they start laughing it's not a
38:24 north korea story as we show in the book when it came to iraq repeatedly saddam
38:30 hussein tried to cut a deal with the united states not interested media ignored saddam hussein saddam hussein
38:38 was a monster had to be dispatched no way there could be diplomacy gaddafi
38:43 gaddafi is a monster there's no way that the media would report that the african
38:48 union had opened dialogue that there were people on a plane ready to go and talk to mr gaddafi he was willing to
38:56 dialogue and so on you're not even allowed to imagine that the adversary the iranian the
39:03 chinese the russian you're not allowed to imagine that the venezuelans the cubans the nicaraguans have opinions and
39:11 if their opinions opinions can be debated and dialogued but if you paint them as
39:18 monsters you know merely monsters you know maduro is a monster xi jinping is a monster and so on well
39:26 we know from our childhood story books uh fairy tales that monsters don't have
39:31 opinions you don't negotiate with the monster i worry very much ariella when i
39:37 look at the reporting uh particularly by the press in the united states in the uk
39:44 maybe a little better in on the continent of europe just a little better and i really hesitate by even making
39:51 that that statement when you look at the media this international division of humanity
39:58 is just absolutely normal you know it's perfectly acceptable to pillory uh
40:04 people in iran you know politically or perfectly acceptable to pillory mr putin
40:10 again you might have problems with him mr putin has a lot to answer for it's
40:15 true i'm going back to the chechnya war you know there's a long history lots of problems on the other hand
40:22 mr putin you know won an election now you can say well the election system in in russia is corrupt
40:30 but who's the you that's saying that the senator from texas which has a terribly
40:35 corrupt political system um the you know president of the united states who was elected by an arcane
40:42 slavery era electoral college system i mean okay you have problems with the way
40:48 the election system in russia is set up you have problems with that you set it up
40:53 remember that after the fall of the soviet union u.s advisors went there
40:59 they set up the system they liked the system then because mr yeltsin the first president 1991 to 1999
41:08 was completely subservient to the united states nobody criticized the russian political system then even though
41:15 i believe it's 97 when mr yersen patently stole the election you know
41:20 nobody complained then when mr putin comes to par in 1999 until around 2004
41:27 567 the united states had no problem with him in fact thomas friedman wrote an
41:34 article in the new york times in which he he said we're rooting for putin in
41:39 his spokesy thomas friedman language rooting for putin that was less than a decade ago
41:46 the problem again just to return to our principal theme is if somebody says look i'm not going
41:52 to follow your orders then they go on the other side of the international division of humanity and
41:58 suddenly putin rooting for putin becomes putin the dictator the moment you say i don't agree with
42:05 you you go not to somebody with whom you don't agree because that's acceptable i
42:10 don't agree with somebody but you go to the other side of this membrane called the international
42:16 division of humanity your humanity is denied you you become a monster and then the only
42:22 language that you claim they understand is the language of force and violence
42:27 the way saddam hussein went from being the close ally of the united states
42:32 great friend of donald rumsfeld and so on suddenly crosses the membrane becomes
42:38 this monster previously you paddled around with him in baghdad then he becomes a monster and
42:44 then the only language he is supposed to understand even though he's writing to you and saying let's
42:50 negotiate how can we settle this no you say we don't understand you especially
42:55 your brand of arabic you only speak exo set missiles and so on from that era
43:02 and it's this that seriously is disturbing that the u.s media and large parts of the western media in general
43:10 simply has this attitude that certain people don't need to be taken seriously
43:16 we don't need to report what they're saying not even asking you to agree with them but we're not even going to report
43:22 what they're saying yeah i think there's a thread there where um
American Exceptionalism
43:29 there is this concept of american exceptionalism america as the kind of humanitarian police of the world
43:36 always benevolent always interceding so that american values can take seed in
43:42 other countries and yet it because of that principle and um
43:49 because of the humanitarian divide that you've described vijay we get a constant state of exception
43:57 which is a term that i'm borrowing from giorgio gambin which is that
44:03 because there is a sense that all military intervention by the united
44:08 states for the good of humanity and we define who is human there is no such thing as collateral
44:15 damage there is no cost to civilian casualties there is no long-term
44:22 squalor brutality and division created by these things it can only
44:28 lead to a just outcome and it's been interesting for me because i came of age during the iraq and
44:34 afghanistan wars um which i watched in real time
44:40 turn into these propagandized talking points and it was bizarre it was the first kind
44:46 of moment in my life where i could see this narrative shift where suddenly some
44:51 people were sub-human and i had experienced it you know being black in america in a different way but
44:58 seeing this on this massive scale watching the bombings watching the um
45:04 bombings of iraq and the trial of saddam it was um
45:09 striking and life-changing for me because you saw what happens when an entire nation of people are no longer
45:16 defined as human beings and for me being black in america it's my history
45:23 as well it's why people that i come from were brought here but i wanted to talk
45:28 about grounding this in what's happening in afghanistan and iraq now
45:33 because we have sort of largely started ignoring it
45:40 after the us withdrew from afghanistan there were a series of stories focusing on the humanitarian crises left in the
45:48 wake i did see in pennsylvania a billboard of joe biden with a
45:54 like sort of taliban-esque um outfit on saying thanks joe love the
46:01 taliban i saw it turned into a republican talking point but now it seems largely ignored and the people in
46:08 both countries both iraq and afghanistan are suffering iraq currently is experiencing a heat wave i think with
46:14 temperatures going over 50 degrees celsius there are infrastructure issues which
46:20 are no doubt caused by u.s military action there afghanistan is
46:25 facing a humanitarian crisis the scale of which i find it's hard to even reckon
46:31 with can you talk about what's happening there um and how do we put
46:38 the united states's feet to the fire to talk about accountability in those
46:43 regions well just one background comment
Afghanistan
46:50 on american exceptionalism there's nothing exceptional about it
46:55 our predecessors in imperial domination were exactly the same
47:00 the british were the most angelic country in history while they were destroying in
47:06 the uh carrying out hideous slavery in the caribbean
47:12 one massive crime after another british intellectuals were hailing
47:17 themselves as utterly angelic we're so marvelous nobody even understands us
47:23 french or even worse so this is just imperial behavior
47:29 afghanistan now is the further
47:34 first of all it is a total catastrophe i mean huge numbers if tens of millions
47:39 of people are facing starvation there's food in the market
47:45 they don't they don't have they can't access their bank accounts
47:51 those who have money to buy food well they see their children starving
47:57 the united states holds their money it's in u.s banks won't release it
48:04 won't release it because of claims that u.s citizens they want a
48:10 potential compensation for 9 11 which afghans have nothing to do with is
48:17 this so scandalous i can't even find words to discuss it
48:22 so so it's a hideous situation even releasing
48:28 the funds would come nowhere near solving the problem we spent 20 years destroying the country
48:36 you know it's barely functioning uh i think it's pretty clear what we ought
48:42 to be doing if there was a shred of humanity in policy formation
48:48 well what can we do about it we all know the answer the first thing
48:53 we have to do is we're in people to understand the facts
48:59 of the matter the bare facts of the matter uh then move on to say
49:06 look as people we do have moral instincts maybe states
49:11 don't but people do so let's act on them but let's start
49:17 with the beginning this goes back to something vijay said before about negotiations
49:23 why did we invade afghanistan there was no there's no reason for it no
49:29 justification at all uh the u.s
49:35 fact of the matter is the u.s had no idea who carried out the 9 11 attack even eight months after
49:43 the invasion head of the fbi robert mueller's first press conference
49:49 conceded that we suspect that al qaeda was responsible but we really don't know
49:56 so they invaded with no knowledge of anything uh the
50:01 probably best explanation for the invasion was given by the leading figure
50:07 of the anti-taliban afghan resistance of the hook
50:12 highly regarded afghan leader it was uh had an interview he was asked
50:18 why did the u.s invade he said look the invasion is going to kill lots of afghans it's undermining
50:25 our efforts to overthrow the taliban from within but the u.s doesn't care they want to
50:31 show their muscle and intimidate everyone that's probably correct
50:37 you look at the record it supports it the taliban made many offers
50:42 to release al-qaeda even though the u.s wouldn't provide any evidence about osama bin
50:48 laden didn't have any infant nevertheless worked out various options
50:54 finally they just said look we'll surrender totally you can do what you like
50:59 donald rumsfeld responded we do not negotiate
51:05 he was george bush echoed it no negotiations we're just going to show
51:11 our muscle and intimidate everyone we'll smash up afghanistan because we
51:16 don't know what else to do we've got the force nobody can defend
51:22 ourselves from it so we'll just smash you to a pulp and intimidate
51:27 everyone if they'd wanted to capture al-qaeda bin laden
51:32 they could have done it with a police operation with little afghans probably agreeing
51:38 but uh no so we had to smash up afghanistan and then go on for another 20 years making
51:45 it worse now they're starving to death so we have to withhold their funds
51:52 uh i'd like to see an editorial in the new york times describing this
51:57 it's approximately what it is so first thing is bring it to the public
52:03 to find out what we did we can go back further and there's no time to talk about it but
52:09 it's very interesting to look at the u.s reaction when the russians invaded
52:15 just brief fact of the matter is the un organized diplomatic
52:22 uh effort which was finally successful for the russians to withdraw
52:28 the u.s was trying to block it all the way right to the end the u.s tried to block
52:34 the russian withdrawal which was being worked out diplomatically by the u.n we
52:40 actually have a definitive source on that now a book by
52:45 is in harrison the u.n diplomat involved one of the leading u.s experts on
52:50 afghanistan uh what they conclude is the u.s was fighting russia to the last
52:57 afghan uh does that sound familiar
53:03 it's happening right now in ukraine yes people ought to know about those
53:08 things and then they can have a basis at least for reacting as human beings would not
53:15 slaves of the propaganda system and i think they would i think if you can get people to
53:21 understand what's happening they will respond humanely anyway that's the only hope we have
Military Keynesianism
53:29 i wanted to talk about a term that you guys use in your discussion which is
53:34 military keynesianism and i'd like you to speak about what that is because
53:39 there's this aha moment i think that happens when you're describing this um
53:44 sort of strategy and it's similar to a conversation i had with a friend of mine who's a public school teacher and she
53:51 was talking about how she's scared to teach because of school shootings and the absurd sadistic and
53:59 bizarre republican um
54:04 i guess suggestions that we arm teachers and i think in ohio there was a cap on
54:11 training teachers to use guns so they could get 24 hours of training and
54:16 that's it um but i said well this this it's not hypocritical because
54:22 the republican party may claim to care about children but what they care about the most is dismantling the public
54:27 school system in america and what better way to do that than fill it with guns and keep it violent and terrifying
54:33 and i think when you pull back from hypocrisy
54:38 you find something that makes it cohesive it's like you said earlier gnome it's
54:43 not that these strategies are irrational it's not that they're wasteful even it's
54:49 just that we haven't put our finger on what the overarching goal is
54:54 and i think that your discussion of military keynesianism does this
54:59 we hear over and over that the united states military has a bloated massive budget we have bases all over the world
55:07 you have described efforts to stymy nuclear weapons treaties which seems
55:13 absurd to any person who cares about their lives or the lives of others um this for me felt like a
55:20 overarching way of understanding some of those actions can you talk about that term
Public Education
55:26 well i think there are several factors involved in what you're describing
55:32 one of them is destroying the public education system that's very significant
55:38 mass public education back in the late 19th early 20th century
55:44 was one of the major contributions that the united states made to
55:49 general democracy the united states pioneered mass public education
55:56 made it had plenty of flaws so for example the college system
56:03 mass public education at the college level that was made possible simply by
56:11 genocidal destruction of the indigenous population and stealing their lands
56:16 little footnote in the background for the great state universities but now the
56:22 putting that little footnote aside establishing state universities in a
56:28 kindergarten of educational system was a major contribution to democracy
56:34 it's hated by the business world why it's first of all they don't want
56:42 anything out of their control and then it gives people the wrong ideas it gives them the idea that you can get
56:49 together through the public system and do things that are
56:56 good you don't want people to have that idea the idea that must be in people's heads
57:01 is the only thing that can do anything good is private tyrannies corp that's what a corporation is
57:08 private tyranny controlled from above unaccountable to the population
57:14 that's called libertarian in the united states interesting term but we have to have
57:20 the country run by unaccountable private tyrannies okay so the idea that the
57:27 public can do anything decent is very dangerous so let's kill public education
57:33 kill the post office and kill public transportation [Music]
57:39 there's a way of doing this a standard way what you do is first defund them
57:45 defund them so they don't work then people get upset they'll agree to
57:50 have something else to win margaret thatcher wanted to destroy the
57:55 british railway system defunded start getting accidents trains don't run on
58:01 time say let's do something else sell it to somebody who can make profit
58:06 from it then it'll be worse okay that happens over and over
58:11 so for the last 40 years last 40 years have been an interesting period
58:17 it's called the neoliberal period and neoliberalism has all kind of fancy
58:24 words like with the market brain and so on it's nonsense neoliberalism is bitter brutal class war
58:33 conscious class war to destroy the general population place them under
58:40 the control of private power if you use the market
58:45 no market doesn't matter any technical work one of aspects of this is destroy public
58:52 education so it's been defunded from the lowest level to the top you can
58:58 read an article today about how at the college level uh
59:04 academics and scientists are just pulling out they're refusing to take the jobs
59:09 because they're not worth it they can make more in private industry they're subject to
59:15 tons of bureaucracy they don't get pensions why bother well that's part of the system
59:21 why should there be any public system that people benefit from
59:26 it's kind of the same as defunding the post office why should there be an effective system
59:32 that works very well for everyone and is under public control so
59:38 getting rid of education is part of that the
59:43 the business of arming teachers is i mean you may have seen a
59:48 a joke somewhere about a teacher being prepared to teach kindergarten
59:54 by having a training and how to shoot a gun a that kind of stuff
1:00:00 yeah let's let's make them hostile places you ask ted cruz what should be done
1:00:05 about schools more barricades uh more guns uh police at the door
1:00:13 wonderful environment for kindergarten students but let's let's have it then we'll
1:00:19 control them so as far as military keynesianism are concerned
1:00:24 you have to look at that quite carefully everyone has heard of eisenhower's
1:00:31 speech military industrial conflicts industrial is not a small part of it
1:00:38 in the 1950s and the 1960s the united states had something we're
1:00:44 supposed to oppose it's called industrial policy state industrial policy to develop the
1:00:52 economy that's we're supposed to condemn that when china does it
1:00:57 that's why we have what we were now using computers uh
1:01:03 internet and satellites and almost all of it came out of the state system through the pentagon
1:01:10 pentagon is the way you can get money out of congress without them making a fuss about it
1:01:17 and so you want to build an internet let's call it the
1:01:23 defense of something or you want to build the interstate highway system
1:01:29 back in the 50s let's call it the defense highway system then congress will pay for it a large
1:01:36 part of the modern economy high-tech economy comes from a large-scale state intervention
1:01:44 through the research universities government laboratories and so on that goes up to
1:01:50 the prison i mean take the mederna vaccine comes mostly from research in the public
1:01:57 system hand it over to private corporations so you get a couple billionaires out of it
1:02:03 that's the way the system does so when we talk about military keynesianism
1:02:08 we should recognize that this is part of the way in which the corporate system
1:02:14 uses the state for their own benefit sometimes producing things which are
1:02:20 useful sometimes not that's irrelevant they're mainly for profit so the whole military keynesian thing is
1:02:28 complex story you know just to come into that complex story a little bit
1:02:34 um one of the historical and theoretical features of capitalism
1:02:40 is that the system is very rarely in equilibrium you know there are
1:02:47 periods of great growth and then there are periods of great collapse you know people later try to justify
1:02:54 this analyzing the historical data and saying there are business cycles you know as if to say it's a normal thing
1:03:01 that there's a collapse well when you look at a business cycle a collapse can mean the deterioration of
1:03:07 livelihood for very large numbers of people so one shouldn't be cavalier about that
1:03:12 what is generally called keynesianism is the belief that in the time of the
1:03:17 business cycle downward movement you know from the trough the the peak downward
1:03:24 um governments can enter because private capital what gnome called the
1:03:30 private tyranny is unable to actually invest at a time of downward uh you know
1:03:37 when the economy is going downhill they don't want to invest then because they are also feeling insecure they
1:03:42 generally keep their money outside or they invest in things that are secure
1:03:48 at the time people like keynes not only keynes but people like keynes um others
1:03:53 as well argued that governments need to intervene and invest in a counter
1:04:00 cyclical fashion that is to say invest against the cycle so when the
1:04:06 economy is going downhill governments can come in and they can put money into
1:04:12 infrastructure spending that for instance is exactly what the new deal was the new deal the spending on bridges
1:04:19 and so on in the united states was a form of counter cyclical spending
1:04:25 in fact paul sweezey and others you know very good technical economists actually
1:04:31 looked at a long period of data in the united states
1:04:36 and they suggested that most counter cyclical spending in the u.s
1:04:42 was not on the social side of the budget in other words it was not on
1:04:48 expenditure for public education you know improving you know roofs in schools and
1:04:55 raising fear the pensions of the teachers and so on it wasn't to build bridges it wasn't to build public rail
1:05:02 it wasn't to build public goods actually is what sweezie and others found um
1:05:08 because the building of public goods is a key part of government spending what
1:05:13 they found was that the bulk of counter-cyclical spending was actually in the military side
1:05:20 now by 2022 you don't actually need to do a major study longitudinal study of
1:05:26 u.s government spending we know that an enormous obscene part of the u.s
1:05:32 budget goes towards the military we say 700 billion but it's actually closer to
1:05:37 a trillion dollars because you have to add in the parts of the u.s budget that
1:05:43 goes to the department of energy which manages the maintenance of nuclear
1:05:48 weapons and so on it's closer to a trillion dollars if you add in the cia budget which we don't know the national
1:05:55 security agency budget which we don't know and so on so this counter cyclical spending
1:06:03 done on the military side is generally known as military keynesianism
1:06:09 now why no has answered the question but i want to just emphasize it why has the united
1:06:15 states set apart from say sweden and i'm not a big champion of the swedish system but
1:06:22 you can actually compare the two in sweden there's a lot of counter cyclical spending but it happens on the social
1:06:29 side of the of the ledger why in the united states does it happen on the military side
1:06:35 it's a good question to actually ask mainstream political scientists it's a good question to ask politicians and so
1:06:43 on the one answer that should be on the table and actually there's enough
1:06:49 evidence published evidence from high officials of the united states government to um validate this answer
1:06:57 one answer is that when you build the public good sector the social wages
1:07:04 you know you improve public schools you create public transportation you build a public health system you build universal
1:07:12 universally free higher education you built crashes for young children you
1:07:18 know prior preschools and so on all of this in the public domain if you do all that you give people a
1:07:25 taste of socialism you give people a real taste of socialism because also
1:07:32 people who are elites are sending their children to school or using the same hospitals as working people so now
1:07:40 you don't want to see these facilities deteriorate you see if the elite
1:07:46 abdicates from public goods if the elite sends their children to private school to use private hospital use private
1:07:53 transportation then the elite is not going to care if public goods are in really bad shape
1:07:59 so when everybody is put in the same boat you start getting a taste of
1:08:04 socialism it looks like from whatever scattered statements exist in the public domain it
1:08:11 looks like in the united states there was almost a decision particularly after
1:08:16 the new deal to no longer do massive public spending
1:08:22 on the social side as part of the counter cyclical the normal counter
1:08:27 cyclical policy instead the us government actually balances economic turbulence
1:08:35 by spending on the military and that's why i believe that u.s military spending is actually
1:08:41 quite rational if you accept the premises of the u.s
1:08:46 ruling elite who don't want to create use this massive social wealth to create
1:08:52 a public good in fact in the united states you could stop you could cut your military budget by half and you would
1:09:00 still have a larger military than anybody around the planet then you can put some of that social
1:09:07 wealth towards bringing down your debt towards creating social goods that
1:09:13 improve the lives of people who live inside the united states but no that's out of the question and again not to
1:09:20 belabor this again this is a decision of the godfather who you're going to question you can't ask
1:09:27 them to change their mind they've got a settled opinion there's no space
1:09:33 either of course no space with the republican party but where's the space with the democratic party to have this
1:09:40 conversation just and that what vijay just described was in fact
1:09:46 discussed quite publicly and openly in the business press in the late 1940s
1:09:54 if you read business week other journals they understood that
1:10:00 we're going to have to have some kind of counter cyclic spending and they concluded that it could be
1:10:07 social spending could be military spending they'd both work but the social spending has a downside
1:10:15 and it's pretty much what vijay just described they didn't use the word socialism they
1:10:21 said democracy i said public spending people care about
1:10:27 if you're going to build a mass transportation system people have opinions should be here not
1:10:33 there if you say i'm building jet planes nobody has an opinion of course the
1:10:40 military experts do it so we want to do the kind of spending in which the public
1:10:46 is out of it the public doesn't participate they just listen
1:10:51 that in fact is liberal democratic theory public are spectators they don't
1:10:57 participate so you don't want to have the kinds of policies in which people
1:11:02 will automatically participate become active politically become agents
1:11:08 want to determine what's done and so on that's completely wrong people are supposed to be in the
1:11:14 workplace following orders i push a button every once in a while it's called an election
1:11:21 but nothing else so therefore the military they said is a much better option
1:11:28 now military remember it doesn't just mean military it's not just lockheed
1:11:34 it's also general motors general electric in fact a large part of the industrial system is
1:11:40 involved in military production so there's profit across the board
1:11:45 and nobody's asking about it because it's all for defense against some horrible monster who's about to destroy
1:11:52 us and so this has to go side by side with concocting
1:11:58 enormous monsters so ready to destroy us tomorrow but
1:12:04 it does fit together as a reasonable ruling class strategy
1:12:10 so the last chapter of the book is about u.s fragility or the fragility of u.s power
1:12:18 what is causing u.s power to decline what is causing it
1:12:24 its fragility and do you see the godfather figure losing some of its might
1:12:30 well my own feeling is the fragility is mostly from within
1:12:36 we've constructed a dysfunctional society it's tearing itself to shreds
1:12:45 no country is capitalist a capitalist society would destroy itself in five
1:12:50 minutes so all the economies around the world are one or another variety of state
1:12:56 capitalists the last 40 years we have been under a form of state
1:13:03 capitalism which is unusually savage and rapacious
1:13:08 state power is used for the benefit of the super rich and the corporate sector
1:13:15 reagan took off with reagan clinton continued it went wild with trump but it's
1:13:22 it's been essentially biportism and it's had effects it's been very effective class war
1:13:30 to give one measure rand corporation did a study last year
1:13:36 i'm sure you've seen it of the transfer of wealth from the general population to the top
1:13:42 one percent their estimate is about 50 trillion dollars in the last 40 years
1:13:49 it's very effective highway robbery and it's also been accompanied by
1:13:54 deterioration of the social order things like schools infrastructure
1:14:01 post office whatever you turn to let's just destroy everything for the
1:14:06 benefit of the super rich and the corporations now there's plenty of state intervention involved this is
1:14:13 not markets the world trade organization for example
1:14:19 clinton era it's called free trade agreements highly protectionist
1:14:26 massive protection for major corporations uh what are called intellectual property
1:14:32 rights which never existed in the past massive patent protection so that drug
1:14:38 companies can charge you ten times as much as is needed for a drug
1:14:45 and then the pressure of the wealthy on congress keeps it from being changed we're seeing that right in front of our
1:14:51 eyes right now so it's a very effective form of control of the state
1:14:58 to intervene massively for the benefit of the rich the ultra-rich corporate sector everyone
1:15:06 else suffers public society collapses i think that's a large part of the
1:15:12 fragility of the country it's a way of destroying a country so the rich can
1:15:19 survive when we talk about the american economy declining that's highly misleading
1:15:27 the u.s corporation if you look at gdp national accounts
1:15:33 gdp for the country yes it's declining there's one very good political
1:15:39 economist ken sean stars who's done something else
1:15:45 he studied the amount of global wealth owned by u.s based multinationals
1:15:52 it's spectacular it's probably about half of global wealth
1:15:58 so you know apple doesn't make computers that compete with
1:16:05 huawei but they're still the trillion dollar corporation they're making plenty of money
1:16:11 they've worked on a program of globalization which destroys the american working class it
1:16:19 stuffs their pockets with huge profits okay so is that
1:16:25 i mean from one point of view it's an american decline but it depends what you call america
1:16:31 if by america you keep the corp mean the corporate sector the guys who run the place it's not declining it's doing
1:16:39 it's doing very well for itself well it's smashing everyone else in the face that's what's called class war
1:16:47 yeah i mean there's a good reason why the word is fragility and not decline there are some sectors
1:16:54 uh because power is not just one you know along one vector power comes in
1:16:59 different ways military power there's no decline the united states has
1:17:04 the ability to smash any country now people mistake the fact that the u.s had to withdraw
1:17:10 from iraq and afghanistan and couldn't perhaps attain its stated war aims as a sign of
1:17:18 military weakness no it's a sign of political weakness but they have enormous military power
1:17:24 the capacity to blow anybody up i mean they've been killing abu musam al-zarqawi the leader of al-qaeda every
1:17:31 few years it's incredible i mean they have such great drone strike capacity that after
1:17:37 having killed him they go and strike him in heaven or hell or wherever he is you know they recently killed him again
1:17:43 so um they have incredible military power the economic power is intact i
1:17:49 mean it's it's it's fragile but it still exists and their power over economic
1:17:55 institutions is there the fact that the us can continue to sanction venezuela
1:18:01 and and cuba in the as noam said at the beginning the midst of this fire in matanzas um the criminal blockade of
1:18:09 cuba is maintained because of power over economic institutions such as international monetary fund the swift
1:18:16 system and so on but there's a fragility you know the way
1:18:21 in recent year in the recent year the way in which the mexican president andres manuel lopez obrador has been
1:18:28 talking to the united states is a sign of increasing confidence in a country
1:18:33 like mexico the fact that in in colombia all countries never had a
1:18:39 left government government since 1810 that gustavo petro can come to power and
1:18:45 give you know dear old ted cruz nightmare after nightmare
1:18:50 ted cruz is petrified by what's happening in south america as he should be
1:18:56 but you see this new confidence we're seeing the indian government saying look we can't
1:19:03 agree with you on ukraine or we're seeing the majority of african states saying look we can't agree with you on
1:19:09 ukraine all of this suggests that u.s power is not exactly what it was there is a kind
1:19:16 of fragility that's the reason why blinken is on this africa tour you know
1:19:21 trying to strong-arm people to come on side as it were people are refusing you know they
1:19:26 just don't want to well that's why fragility is important i just think that there's too much
1:19:33 conversation about the decline of the us or the maintenance of u.s power it's a
1:19:38 it's too much uh people speak with too much certainty okay and i believe that
1:19:43 we are in slightly unchartered territory now we're in an era not of certainty but
1:19:49 of contradictions and i think when you're in an era of contradictions it really behooves us to
1:19:56 look carefully at different empirical moments rather than to have like you
1:20:01 know the cookie cutter attitude towards world affairs i've got to look at this
1:20:06 place and that place and try to understand you know what is this the kind of space for maneuver uh andres
1:20:14 manuel lopez obrador has created space for maneuver so he can say i'm not coming to the summit of the americas you
1:20:21 know he's not a far left radical you know he's a mexican nationalist yes left of
1:20:27 center and so on so i feel like in this era of contradictions one has to
1:20:33 understand the united states quite precisely um and that's the reason why
1:20:39 i believe when nancy pelosi's plane flew into taipei that's the reason why i feel
1:20:45 and it's not just that the chinese are reticent to act because as noam said the day after she left they locked down
1:20:52 taiwan the reason the chinese didn't act they could easily have put up two jet planes
1:20:59 and dogged her flight as it entered taiwanese airspace or they could have
1:21:04 done even something more dramatic something like the cuban missile crisis you know uh
1:21:10 placed a number you know five planes flying over taipei airport very scary stuff they didn't do that and i think
1:21:17 they have a pretty accurate read that the united states is fragile but it's not in deep decline
1:21:24 we've got to understand things precisely in order to be able to act you know not
1:21:31 you you can understand things more precisely than you act but you got to have as near precision
1:21:37 and i think the term fragile is far more accurate than the word decline
1:21:45 i'm gonna have to leave you i have another interview coming up
1:21:52 you're booked back to back let me just say one last thing before we close up if i may um okay
1:22:00 noam chomsky is an incredible guy and i want people to read this book because i asked noam a question
1:22:06 about how he keeps going you know despite the attacks and so on forget the rest of the book just get the book to
1:22:13 read that answer because it's hilarious it's very good
1:22:19 something about stubbornness
1:22:29 when the journals lie about you the fame you that shows you must be doing something
1:22:35 right so keep at it yeah i guess you're not a thorn in anyone's side if you're not irritating
1:22:41 them okay great to be with you yeah thank you
1:22:47 so much noam chomsky and thank you vijay prashad it was wonderful talking to you both
1:22:54 if you liked this video from the jacobin show please hit like and subscribe and share with your friends thanks
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