[Peace-discuss] Talking points

[C. G. Estabrook]

[1] There is no doubt that concentrated private capital closely linked to the 
state has substantial resources, but on the other hand we shouldn’t overlook the 
fact that quite a bit has been achieved through public struggles in the U.S. 
over the years. In many respects this remains an unusually free country. The 
state has limited power to coerce, compared with many other countries, which is 
a very good thing. Many rights have been won, even in the past generation, and 
that provides a legacy from which we can move on. Struggling for freedom and 
justice has never been easy, but it has achieved progress; I don’t think we 
should assume that there are any particular limits.

[2] At the moment we can’t realistically talk about challenging global capital, 
because the movements that might undertake such a task are far too scattered and 
atomized and focused on particular issues. But we can try to confront directly 
what global capital is doing right now and, on the basis of that, move on to 
further achievements. For example, it’s no big secret that in the past thirty 
years there has been enormous concentration of wealth in a very tiny part of the 
population, 1 percent or even one-tenth of 1 percent, and that has conferred 
extraordinary political power on a very tiny minority, primarily those who 
control financial capital, but also more broadly on the executive and managerial 
classes. At the same time, for the majority of the population, incomes have 
pretty much stagnated, working hours have increased, benefits have declined — 
they were never very good — and people are angry, hostile, and very upset. Many 
people distrust institutions, all of them; it’s a volatile period, and it’s a 
period which could move in a very dangerous direction — there are analogues, 
after all — but it could also provide opportunities to educate and organize and 
carry things forward. One may have a long-term goal of confronting global 
capital, but there have to be small steps along the way before you could even 
think of undertaking a challenge of that magnitude in a realistic way.

[3] One failing of the social movements that I’ve noticed over many years is 
that while they are focusing on extremely crucial and important social issues 
like women’s rights, environmental protections, and so on, they have tended to 
ignore or downplay the economic and social crises faced by working people. It’s 
not that they are completely ignored, but they are downplayed. And that has to 
be overcome, and there are ways to do it.

[4] Take Obama’s virtual takeover of the auto industry. There were several 
options at that point. One option, which the Obama administration chose, was to 
restore the old order, assist in the closing of plants, the shifting of 
production abroad and so on, and maybe get a functioning auto industry again. 
Another option would have been to take over those plants — plants that are being 
dismantled — and convert them to things that are very badly needed in the 
country, like high-speed rail — it’s a scandal that the United States doesn’t 
have this kind of infrastructure, which many other countries have developed. In 
fact at the very time that Obama was closing down plants in the Midwest, his 
transportation secretary was in Europe trying to get contracts from Spain for 
high-speed rail construction, which could have been done in those very plants 
that were being dismantled.

[5] My own guess is that efforts that are undertaken at the national level make 
sense if they’re connected to a program of local organizing. I think we’re very 
far from being able to carry out large-scale changes at the national level. You 
could see the limitations of a national campaign in the 2008 election. A 
tremendous amount of energy and excitement was generated, but it was clear from 
the beginning that it was going to head toward severe disillusionment because 
there was nothing real there — it was based on illusion. And when people 
dedicate themselves and work hard to try to bring about something that is 
illusory, there’s going to be a negative effect, which in fact happened, so 
there’s been tremendous disillusionment, apathy, pulling away, and so on. I 
think we should be careful to set realistic goals — they don’t have to succeed, 
but if they fail, the failure itself can be used as a basis to go on, and that’s 
not the case when you get involved in national electoral politics.

[6] It’s not a great secret that the business classes in the United States, 
which are always fighting a bitter class war and are highly class-conscious, 
have been dedicated to destroying unions ever since the 1930s. And they’ve 
succeeded considerably in the private sphere, but not yet as successfully in the 
public sphere, and that’s what’s being targeted now: a major effort, a 
propaganda effort — the media are participating, both parties are involved — to 
try and undermine public unions. And that’s one of the points on this attack on 
public working people, turning them into the criminals that were responsible for 
the fiscal crisis. Not Goldman Sachs, but the teachers and policemen and so on.

[7] The crucial issue there was whether to extend Bush’s tax cuts for the very 
wealthy. The population was strongly opposed to that, maybe two to one, but the 
Democrats and Obama, instead of making use of that fact to try to eliminate that 
huge tax break for the rich, went along with it. At the same time, both parties 
were trying to outdo each other and screaming about the danger of the federal 
deficit, when the fact of the matter is that we ought to be having a deficit in 
a time of recession. It’s an incredible propaganda achievement, for the 
Republicans particularly, to advocate a tax cut for the very wealthy that is 
extremely unpopular and that will of course substantially increase the deficit, 
and at the very same time present themselves as deficit hawks who are trying to 
protect future generations. But that’s only part of it, because at the very same 
time, Obama declared a tax increase for federal workers — it was called a pay 
freeze, but a pay freeze for workers in the public sector is the same as a tax 
increase on those workers. So here, a lot of shouting about how we’re cutting 
taxes and overcoming the deficit, and at the same time we’re raising taxes on 
public-sector workers.

[8] There is a large propaganda campaign to try to undermine the public sector: 
demonizing teachers, police, and firemen with all kinds of fabrications about 
how they are overpaid, when in fact they’re underpaid relative to the skill 
levels in the private sector — denouncing their pensions and so on. These are 
major propaganda efforts, a kind of class war, and that ought to be combated, 
and I think that public opinion can be organized to combat it. Those are very 
concrete things that are happening right now, like the possibility of ending the 
closing down of factories and the mass suffering that it leads to, and turning 
that into something really radical: mainly worker self-managed production for 
human needs.

[9] I don’t know that one should necessarily take a strong stand on whether it 
should be a third party or change the Democratic Party — both are options. After 
all, the New Deal did succeed in changing the Democratic Party through the 
mechanism of popular activism. I’m not coming out in favor of working inside the 
Democratic Party or opposing working inside the Democratic Party, I’m just 
saying I don’t see a point in taking a strong stand on that question. If it can 
be done inside the party, fine; if it can’t be done, do it outside. In fact, 
it’s a little bit like a standard progressive approach to reformist goals — the 
goal is to press institutional structures to their limits. If in fact they can’t 
be pressed any further, and people understand that, then you have the basis for 
going onto something more far-reaching.

[10] The looming global environmental crisis raises questions of species 
survival. It’s very urgent right now ... There has been a major corporate 
propaganda offensive, quite openly announced, to try to convince people that the 
environmental crisis is a liberal hoax. And it’s had some success, according to 
the latest polls. The percentage of Americans who believe in anthropogenic 
global warming, human effects on climate change, is down to about a third. This 
is an extremely dangerous situation: it’s imminent; we have to do something 
about it right now.

[11] There are other issues that deserve our immediate attention. The threat of 
nuclear war is very serious, and in fact is being increased by government 
policy. Right now one of the more interesting revelations from the WikiLeaks 
cables has to do with Pakistan: it’s obvious from the cables that the U.S. 
ambassador is well aware that the actions that the Obama administration is 
taking with regard to Afghanistan and Pakistan are increasing a very serious 
threat to the stability of Pakistan itself, and are raising the possibility, not 
trivial, that the country might fall apart, and that its huge store of nuclear 
weapons might end up in the hands of radical Islamists. I know there’s not a 
high probability, but it’s conceivable, and what we’re doing is accelerating 
that threat. Also, supporting India’s huge nuclear weapons buildup and blocking 
efforts supported by almost the entire world to move toward a nuclear 
weapons-free zone in the extremely volatile Middle East region — those are 
issues of great importance.

[12] We should explain to people that not only is it not in their interest to 
diss other people, but it’s also morally and intellectually wrong. For example, 
one of the greatest dangers is secular religion — state worship. That’s a far 
more destructive factor in world affairs than religious belief, and it’s common 
on the Left. So you take a look at the very people who are passionately 
advocating struggling for atheism and repeating arguments that most of us 
understood when we were teenagers — those very same people are involved in 
highly destructive and murderous state worship, not all of them but some. Does 
that mean we should diss them? No, it means we should try to explain it to them.

[13] Critical analysis of Israeli policies is one of the most popular issues on 
campus now. However, my own view is that the real issue for us is not what 
Israel is doing but what the United States is doing — it’s in our hands to 
determine how this turns out. If the United States continues to lend completely 
uncritical support to the Israeli policies of expanding their control and 
domination, as is in fact happening, that’s what will eventuate. But that can 
change. And it can change by bringing the American population — Jewish and 
non-Jewish — to recognize that these U.S. government policies are unacceptable 
and have to be reversed. If the U.S. were induced or compelled by popular 
opinion to join the world on this issue, and I thoroughly mean that, then there 
could be a short-term resolution — not the end of the story, but at least 
significant improvement — by at least moving to a two-state settlement stage and 
an ongoing longer process. I think that’s quite realistic.

[14] The US population is by no means unified on Israel/Palestine. In fact, the 
majority of the population favors the formation of a Palestinian state, and our 
goal should be to organize the population so that the popular will is expressed 
in state actions. This has happened in the past: it happened on South Africa. I 
mean, the Reagan administration was strongly supporting apartheid, condemning 
the ANC as a major terrorist organization, and within a couple of years it 
shifted. The same thing happened with East Timor — as major atrocities continued 
through 1999, the Clinton administration continued supporting the Indonesian 
atrocities strongly, and then, rather suddenly, under international and domestic 
pressure it shifted position.

[15] By now there is a growing section inside the military and inside 
intelligence that is pulling for an end to U.S. support for Israeli 
intransigence because it’s harming U.S. operations in the field. If that spreads 
to the population, it could lead to a major wave of anti-Semitism. There are 
lots of differences among the cases, but the point is that policies can change, 
and my own sense is that even within the Jewish community, younger Jews are 
drifting away because what Israel is doing is just intolerable to their general 
liberal attitudes; I think we should welcome that move and try to direct it 
toward changing U.S. policy.


[Edited from 
<http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/overcoming-despair-as-the-republicans-take-over-a-conversation-with-noam-chomsky>.]