[cheers and applause] [speaking spanish] [cheers and applause] >> i'm david, and welcome to one of the most anticipated events of this or any other year. noam chomsky. [cheers and applause] and backstage i was joking with noam, i held up this flyer it said, "sold out," which will be, uh-uh think ammunition for his enemies -- ammunition, i think, for his enemies. noam chomsky has never sold out. [applause] in pursuit of cultural freedom series which organized this event, thanks also tolannon for digitizing our noam chomsky audio archive which now numbers close to 250 recordings. you can go to alternativeradio.org. thanks lannon. [applause] i started alternative radio because of noam chomsky. i wrote him a letter he wrote back. we started corresponding. then after a while i suggested we do an interview. he said yes, of course. that was 31 years ago. it's an honor for me to introduce no, ma'am chomsky, but how to -- noam chomsky but how to introduce who, as they say, needs no introduction? well, do something different, i thought, like tell a story. there's a partial from the sufi tradition called the elephant in the dark. sufiism is the esoteric inner dimension of islam. some have told this story, and i've added a bit to it. it's called the elephant in the dark. some men and women perhaps, who have never seen an elephant are blind folded and are asked to touch different parts of the elephant and identify what they are touching. so one touches an ear and says, it's a fan. another touches the tail and says confidently, it's got to be a rope. another touches the tusk and says well for sure it's a spear. another a regular says with great confidence oh it's a pillar. and on and on and on. and they start bickering among themselves, each adamantly insisting that he was right. their voices were getting louder and louder, and then along comes a sage who tells them, guys chill out. [laughter] this is not in contemporary -- i could hardly imagine in the 13th century, the sage would say, guys, chill out. [laughter] kind of modernized it a little bit. let me remove your blindfolds. see? it's an elephant. and they were all flabbergasted. for many of us all over the world, noam chomsky is that sage is sufi guide. the sufi guide. never showboating or grandstanding, but simply laying out what he sees backed up with a torrent of facts and documentation. he doesn't tell you what to do but like the sufis, he teaches by example. the next step is up to you. you have to figure out your path of societal involvement and action. for decades he's been illuminating the dark crevasses of the a rapacious economic system and an imperialist foreign policy and always in a calm, soft voice. and listen for the irony. by any measure, he'd led a -- he's led a most extraordinary life. he's a pioneer in the feel of lipping wissics. to -- linguist ticks. to call his writings prolific is a huge understatement. if records are kept for such categories as giving lectures and interviews writing books and articles, chomsky would be world champion. at 86 he's still a rebel without a pause. and as they say in yiddish, a mensch. [laughter] and, yes, here comes that four-letter word. children, cover your ears: love. he is deeply loved by many. i've seen it on the faces of people, and it's no wonder. because he's been there for so many from east timor to nicaragua, from palestine to colombia. and this evening he's here for us. brothers and sisters please welcome noam chomsky. [cheers and applause] [cheers and applause] >> it's now 70 years since the end of the most horrific war in history. it ended with the use of an ultimate weapon which can bring human history to an end a day which i happen to remember very well. we've been living under that shadow ever since. twenty years later two of the leading figures of the 20th century intellectual life, bertrand russell and albert einstein issued a an appeal to the people of the world calling on them to face a choice that is stark, dreadful and inescapable. shall we put an end to the human race or shall mankind renounce war? they recognized, of course that war can very quickly turn into terminal nuke lahr war -- nuclear war. in 1947 the bulletin of atomic scientists established its famous doomsday clock, setting it seven minutes to midnight. midnight is the end. last january it was advanced to three minutes before midnight. that's a threat level that had not been reached for 30 years at a grim moment to which i'll return. the accompanying explanation invoked the two major threats to human survival; nuclear weapons and unchecked climate change. the call condemned world leaders who are endangering every person on earth by failing to perform their most important duty insuring and preserving the health and vitality of human civilization. the russell/einstein appeal differs from the current declaration in two crucial respects. one is that it did not include threat of environmental catastrophe which 50 years ago was not sufficiently understood. and secondly, it directly addresses the people of the world, not the political leadership. that difference is of some significance. there's substantial evidence that on climate change nuclear weapons planning, international policies generally the population seems much more concerned than the political leadership who do not regard their most important duty to be insuring and preserving the health and vitality of human civilization as ample evidence reveals. it's hardly a secret that even in the most free and democratic societies governments respond only in limited ways to popular will. for the united states, it's well established in academic scholarship that that a considerable majority of the population at the lower end of income wealth scale are effectively disend franchised. their views -- disenfranchised. their views are simply ignored by policymakers. influence increases slowly as one moves up the scale, and at the very top -- which means a fraction of 1% -- policy is pretty much determined. that being the case the attitudes at the top of the ladder are of very great significance. these are revealed dramatically in a poll of ceos that was released last january at the davos conference in switzerland, the conference of masters of the universe as the business press describes them by rather ominous coincidence, this was just at the moment when the doomsday clock was advanced to three minutes to midnight. [laughter] the poll revealed that climate change did not merit inclusion among the top 19 risks that concern ceos. worse still, at the top of their ranking of perceived risks was regulation. [laughter] that is the prime method for addressing environmental catastrophe. their overriding concern was with growth prospects for their companies. that's not surprising. whatever their individual beliefs in their institutional role, the ceos are constrained to adopt policies that are designed to oppose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity in the words of doomsday clock declaration m and given their enormous role in determining state policy it's less surprising that policy lags behind public opinion on the concerns that move the clock so close to midnight. the effects are before our eyes every day, so take last sunday's "wall street journal." typical example. there's a week in review section. it features an article entitled "fossil fuels will save the world, really." [laughter] the lead story in the news section is headlined, "u.s. producers ready new oil wave." the article glories in the thought of what they call an ocean of oil from u.s. shale as american energy companies are poised to unleash a further flood, and while they lead us exuberantly to the precipice. scientists are well aware that most of the oil must be left in the ground if there's to be some hope for a decent life more -- for our grandchildren, but who cares as long as there are spectacular profits for tomorrow? is on international affairs as well a popular opinion diverges significantly from that of the decision making classes. among many other examples, a considerable majority in the united states have held that the united nations not the u.s. should take the lead in international crises. such views are so remote from elite opinion that they're barely even articulated publicly. a good part of the reason is the nature of elite opinion. and as often is the case it's the critical end of the spectrum that's the most inform ty. so -- informative. so here's an example from a featured article by the former director of the carnegie endowment for international peace. current issue of the new york review of books, the leading intellectual journal rather left-liberal in orientation. here's what she writes. american contributions to international security, global economic growth, freedom and human well being have been so self-evidently unique and have been so clearly directed to others' benefit that americans have long believed that the u.s. amounts to a different kind of country where others push their national interests, the tries to advance universal principles. [laughter] well comment should be superfluous. [laughter] but what's important is that this is what many in so-called enlightened circles actually believe. it's quite an astonishing fact in a prix society where information -- in a free society where information is readily available and the impact on policy is not obscured. nuclear weapons policy reveals very dramatically how governments -- and also the concentrated, domestic concentrations of power that largely dominate governments -- regard the principle the health and vitality of human civilization. when we inquire, we discover that regrettably governments have consistently not even considered security of their own populations as a particularly high priority. rather enlightening to review the record. i'll be in with some high points or maybe low points. there was, however a potential threat. icbms with nuclear warheads. there's a standard scholarly review of nuclear policies. george bundy, he was a national security adviser for presidents kennedy and johnson, he had access to the highest level documents. he quoting him now, he says the timely development of ballistic missiles during the eisenhower administration is one of best achievements of those eight years. yet it is well to begin with a recognition that both the united states and the soviet union might be in much less nuclear danger today if these missiles had never been developed. in short, there was apparently no thought of trying to prevent the sole serious net to the united states -- threat to the united states, the threat of utter destruction. rather the institutional imperatives of state power prevailed. much as in the case of the ceos for whom the fate of the species is of such little concern that it does not even enter into the ranking of risks. further more, these shocking facts seem to arouse little interest or comment. in fact, i've never seen a reference to them. there might have been opportunities. one suggested indication is a proposal by stalin in 1952 offering to allow germany to be unified with free elections on condition that it not join a hostile military alliance which was hardly an extreme condition in the light of the history of the preceding half century. stalin's proposal was taken seriously by the respected political commentator james warburg with. but apart from him,-ignore -- it was ignored or ridiculed. actually, recent scholarship has just begun to take a different view. the bitterly anti-communist soviet scholar from harvard takes the is status of stalin's proposal to be an unresolved mystery. washington, he said, wasted little effort in flatly rejecting moscow's initiative on grounds that were embarrassingly unconvincing leaving open the basic question was stalin genuinely ready to sacrifice the newly-created german democratic republic, east germany, on the altar of real democracy with consequences for world peace and for american security? that could have been enormous. melvin leffler one of the most respected cold war scholars, recently published a review of research and released soviet archives. he observes that many scholars were surprised to discover -- quoting him mow -- that the sinister brutal head of the secret police proposed that the kremlin offer the west a deal on the unification and neutralization of germany, agreeing to sacrifice the easts german communist regime to reduce east/west tensions and improve internal political and economic conditions in russia, opportunities that were squandered in favor of securing german participation in nato. it's actually a shocking decision that is being relived right now. under the circumstances of the early 50s, it's not impossible that agreements might have been reached that would have protected the security of the u.s. population from the gravest threat on the horizon. but the option apparently was not even considered, and possible opportunities were dismissed with ridicule, another indication of how slight a role authentic security plays in state policy. and to heighten the extraordinary significance of this failure, it was just at that time that the doomsday clock was moved to two minutes to midnight, the closest it has ever been. now, these events from the early days of the cold war have considerable resonance right now right at the borders of russia and ukraine, a very serious crisis that traces right back to end of the cold war. a crucial issue at that time around 1990, had to do with fate of nato. now that the alleged threat of russian invasion had disappeared. one might have believed that nato would have dissolved. quite the contrary. it expanded radically. mikhail gorbachev agreed to allow a unified germany to join nato, rather significant concession, but there was a quid pro quo. namely, that nato would not expand one inch to the east. that was the phrase that was used in high-level internal discussions referring to east germany. nato at once expanded to east germany. gorbachev, naturally are, objected. but he was informed by washington that these were only verbal commitments and nothing in writing. the kind of unspoken implication is that be you're naive -- if you're naive enough to accept a verbal gentleman's agreement with the united states it's your problem. [laughter] clinton came along and expanded nato to the borders of russia, and as another leading international relations scholar recently pointed out in the major establishment journal foreign affairs he pointed out that the indications that ukraine might be assimilated into the western system, possibly even into nato, could not fail to be threatening to any russian leader. we need only imagine how the united states would have reacted at the height of soviet power if the warsaw pact had taken over most of this hemisphere and now mexico were paragraphing to join the russian-run military alliance. last december the western-backed ukrainian parliament voted 303-8 to rescind the policy of nonalignment that had been adapted -- adopted by the ousted president, and they committed ukraine in their words to deepen cooperation with nato in order to achievement and the criteria -- to achieve the criteria required for membership in this organization. the growing crisis concerning ukraine is no slight threat, and it is an avoidable one by diplomatic steps to guarantee ukrainian neutrality, steps which regrettably are not being taken. well returning to the 1950s other developments reveal the low priority assigned to authentic security. when nikita khrushchev took over after stalin's death, he recognized that russia could not compete militarily with the united states and that if russia hoped to escape its economic backwardness and the devastating effect of the war, the arms race would have to be reversed. accordingly, he he proposed sharp mutual reductions in offensive weapons. the incoming kennedy administration considered his offer and rejected it, instead turning to rapid military expansion. the policies are summarized be by distinguished international relations scholar the late kenneth waltz, who pointed out the kennedy administration undertook large strategic and conventional peacetime military buildup the world has yet seen, even as khrushchev was trying at once to carry through a major reduction in conventional forces and to follow a strategy of minimum detenderness. -- deterrence. and we did so even though the balance of strategic weapons greatly favored the united states. well once again the decision, the u.s. decision severely harmed national security while enhancing state power. how severely it harmed national security was revealed in 1962 when khrushchev sent missiles to cuba. partial hi, that was a foolhardy -- partially, that was a foolhardy attempt to right the balance, partially the because of the very clear threat of u.s. invasion in the course of a major terrorist campaign that kennedy was waging against cuba. kind of erased from our history, but very much alive in real history. [laughter] khrushchev's effort to set off what arthur schlesinger called the most dangerous moment in history. what happened then merits clear careful consideration. no time to go through the details, but it's worth remembering that at the peak moment of crisis -- october 26th and 27th of 1962 -- kennedy received a letter from khrushchev offering to end the crisis peacefully by simultaneous public withdrawal of cuban -- of russian missiles from cuba and u.s. missiles from turkey. these were jupiter missiles liquid propelled meaning slow to set in motion which means that they were first strike weapons, not intended for a deterrent. they were also obsolete weapons. the u.s. had already issued an offer -- had already issued an order to withdraw them because they were being replaced by even more lethal weapons, invulnerable to lair race submarines. so that was kennedy's choice, shall we publicly withdraw first strike missiles from turkey on the border of russia, which are being replaced by even more lethal missiles, or shall we refuse? he refused. his own estimate, subjective estimate of nuclear war at the time was between a third and a half. that's in my view, one of the most appalling decisions in history, and even more appalling is that kennedy is praised for his cool courage in handling the crisis. .. henry kissinger secretly informed israel they could ignore it. hence the need for a nuclear alert to frighten the russiansway. fortunately they were frightened away. security of the population was a matter of little concern as usual. ten years after that, the reagan administration launched operations to probe russian defenses. that meant simulating air and naval attacks against russia. these actions were undertaken at a very ten moment. right at that time per-ing ii missiles were been installed in western europe. a five to ten-minute flight time to rescue and also reagan announced his so-called star wars program, which is presented here as if it were defensive. but every strategic analyst on all sides understands that missile defense is a first-strike weapon. if missile testifies ever worked it could not stop a first strike but might stop a retaliatory strike, which means it's a first-strike weapon and that was being installed at the time all of this very seriously caused great alarm in russia especially with the simulated attacks. that led to a major war scare in 1983. that was the last time the doomsday clock reached three minutes before midnight, 1984. newly released russian archives reveal that the danger was even more severe than historians had previously assumed. there's a recent comprehensive u.s. intelligence study which runs through the evidence now available, and concludes in its words, the war scare was for real and they conclude that u.s. intelligence upestimated russian concerns and understatemented the threat of a russian preventive nuclear strike, which would have been the end. recently we have learn that it was even more dangerous than that. in the midst of these world threatening developments russian's early warning systems detected an incoming missile strike from the united states sending the highest level alert. the officer on duty the russian officer on duty petrov decided it was false alarm, and he did not transmilt the warnings. in violating protocol. that was the difference between survival and extermination. russian air defense systems are much less sophisticated than those of the united states. they pretty much rely on radar which means line of sight detext of -- detection of incoming missiles. so the russian systems are on much more tense alert. great danger to us, of course well, 20 years before that, back in the cuban missile crisis, a russian submarine commander blocked the launching of nuclear-tipped torpedoes which could have set off nuclear wars. the two other commanders had authority the launch when the three submarines were under attack by u.s. destroyers during the missile crisis. the agreement of all three was required. the commander refused to agree. yet another sign of how thin is the thread we grasp for survival. there are chilling estimates about failures of u.s. systems which are surely far more reliable than the russian ones. there's a recent review in the bulletin of atomic scientists and years of data of u.s. accidental reports of soviet military launches but the automated systems abettorred by human intervention. hundreds of these. these are right no those years of the greatest dangers, 1979 to 1983. the author of the review concludes that nuclear war is the black swan we can never see, except in that brief moment when it's killing us. we delay eliminating the risk at our own peril. now is the time to address the threat because now we are still alive. the former commander of stratcom reviewed his long years as a strategic weapons planner and he wrote he had been among the most avid of these keepers of the faith in nuclear weapons but now it is his burden to declare with all of the conviction i can muster that in my judgment, they served us extremely ill and he outlines the ropes like -- the reasons, like the one i mentioned and then raises a haunting question. by what authority do succeeding generations of leaders in the nuclear weapons states usurp the power to dictate the odds of continued life on our planet. most urgently why does such breathtaking audacity persist at a moment when we should stand trembling in the face of our folly and united in our commitment to abolish its most deadly manifestations. general butler went on to conclude that we have so far survived the neck clear -- nuclear age by some combination of skill, luck and divine intervention and i suspect the latter in greatest proportion. looking over the record, one can understand his judgment. plainly, these are not risks that would be accepted by any sane decisionmaker. they are being accepted by decisionmakers who are perfectly sane just as the devastating risks of environmental catastrophe are being faced with eyes open and ignored by the masters of the universe. all of them are trapped by an institutional logic that is deeply pathological and that must be cured and quickly, if we are not to put an end to the human race in einstein's words. thanks. [applause] [applause] >> you again? >> these lights are super bright. well what's it like being a sage? >> pardon? >> waste it light become a s -- sufi sage. >> what? >> a sufi sage. i promised i would do something in introducing him. you ended that very cheerful talk -- [laughter] -- did i miss something? all are trapped by an institutional logic that this pathology cal and must be cured quickly if we are not to put an to end the human race. how do we go about being that? >> it's easy. it's all in our hands. in the case of nuclear weapons, actually the answer is known. there are ways to end the threat of nuclear weapons. furthermore, as many of you know, it's an obligation of the nuclear weapons states to carry out good-faith measures -- efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons totally. that's article 6 of the nonproliferation treaty of 1970. that's furthermore a legal obligation as the international court of justice ruled. some years later in 1996. and those efforts could be carried out. and unfortunately we're going in the opposite direction. so, president obama has recently announced that trillion dollar program to modernize and upgrade our nuclear weapons capacity air attack capacity other powers are acting more or less similarly. there are policies being conducted right now -- i mentioned ukraine but it's not the only one -- that are bringing the global situation to the point where it might lead to a perhaps accidental, perhaps intended nuclear strike. incidentally, it's been known for many years, decades, that if a power launches a nuclear strike first strike, it will be destroyed by the effects of the nuclear explosions. so there's no escape. any nuclear war that -- between any powers with any capacity will lead to virtual extermination. we know how to end it. but the steps that are being conducted are in the opposite direction. and there have been some potential unfortunately aborted, efforts to implement steps that would reduce the danger. one major threat right now has to do with iran. in the united states it's commonly claimed by high officials commentators ands that iran is the greatest threat to world peace. kind of interesting to compare this with global opinion there are polls of global opinion taken by u.s. polling agencies gallup poll, the most recent bat year ago, that did ask people around the world which country is the greatest threat to world peace. the united states won by a huge margin that nobody else was even close. the second one pakistan which was probably inflate bid the indian vote. but that's -- [laughter] -- but fortunately americans are spared knowledge of these facts. the press refuse to report them. but they're facts nevertheless. anyway, here it's iran that is the greatest threat to world peace. interesting questions that one can ask about just what the threat is, but let's say there's a threat whatever it may be. is there a way to end it? yes, there are ways to end it. i don't know if you want me to go into it. >> kind of stick to the five-minute rule. tell them what that is about. >> there have been potential steps which have been blocked by the united states. that's unfortunate. in the case of nuclear weapons we know how to end the problem. it's feasible. it's a matter of implementing policies that are understood, and they could be carried out if there were sufficient popular pressure to compel them to be carried out. the populations of the world care about survival. their leaders typically don't. they care about power. and we can influence those decisions, particularly in countries like this more free and open societies. with regard to environmental catastrophe, it's not so obvious there's a solution. there are measures that can be undertaken to mitigate the threats, and maybe to overcome them. that's an open question. but again, policies going in the opposite direction. what i quoted from "the wall street journal" is unfortunately pretty typical. read it in the business pages of the press across the spend truck. "new york times," "financial times," euphoria how to the united states can become the saudi arabia of the 21st 21st century achieve energy independence, flood the world with oil, all great and wonderful. the price of oil is going down, which is great. means good for american consumes who can drive more and all of these marvelous things are simply very straightforwardly driving us towards a precipice which will fall over which will be extremely harmful, maybe devastating, for generations, not very far away. generation of our grandchildren. much worse of course, for the poorer countries but also here. >> well, senator cotton of arkansas is one of the men intellectual giants in that esteemed legislative body. initially announced we do have a great deal to fear from iran because they control tehran. >> i know. should add, if you read the "washington post" this morning you'll discover that senator cotton who has a real pedigree even graduated from harvard, is positioning himself to be the future foreign policy specialist of the republican party, taking the man tell of mccain -- mantle of mccain and graham. he has other interesting warnings. when he was running for senate in arkansas, he warned the citizens of arkansas that the mexican drug cartels are linked to isis, and joint together they are working to send terrorists across the border into the united states where they can kill citizens of arkansas. and of course all of this is the fault of president obama with leaveing a porous border and so on. >> host: it's that true we should mo that clock to two minutes to midnight. benjamin netanyahu won his fourth term. electronic cofounder says netanyahu is good for the palestine yarns. why? because he is very clear. nobody palestinian state no compromise. another correspondent sees only cosmetic differences between the two major israeli parties. she says that the now moribund two-state solution is actually a ten-state solution. a bunch of -- inside the west bank. what's your view on what happened in israel? >> guest: well what happened is that -- one question is how much difference there is between the parties. they're all pretty much on the right. there was very minor sort of peace party, got four seats. barely made it past admissions. there is the arab party, the third largeest but is excluded from coalition on racist grounds. no coalition will accept the arab party as an important constituents. but there are some differences. one difference is if you read netanyahu's appeal to the elector electorate, which cared him to victory after tepid polling results, was a combination of outright racism and extreme fear mongering, so you have probably read in the papers, he warned the electorate that arabs, arab citizens of israel are being driven to the polls by leftists with support from foreign governments, all in an effort to undermine his policy of defending israel from terrorists, so on and so forth. and that combination of fear-monger and racism does work. it worked in israel. we're not unfamiliar with it here. and it's a very dangerous sign about the nature of israeli society. we have just been drifting very far to the right, and this is a major nuclear weapon state. it's a violent state that is carried out lots of aggression. it's a direct violation of international law and the occupied territories. that's accepted essentially by the entire world with the exception of israel and the united states. and it can be an extremely ding -- it is already a very dangerous state, can be much more so. as to the amir haas concludes i think they're slightly -- i don't think they're analyzing the situation quite accurately. it's widely argued, not just by them across the board -- by israeli analysts, palestinians others, that there are two options. either two-state settlement in accord with the overwhelming international consensus which includes essentially everyone outside the united states and israel that's one possibility. and the other possibility is supposed to be what's called a one-state solution. israel takes over the whole of former palestine, jordan to the sea, and then they'll be what in israel is called a demographic problem. too many arabs in a jewish state. pretty soon in fact may be a majority. from the palestinians who -- and palestinian supporters, like the one you mentioned, who regard this positively say well then it will be possible to carry out antiapartheid struggle,sive rights struggle, to call for the rights of palestinians within this one state. the problem with that analysis is these are not the two options. the two options are quite different. one option -- the second option one state is not an option. there is no possibility, reasonable possibility, that israel will take over the whole territory and face this demographic problem they don't want. the second option, alternative two states is something quite different. it's what is exactly happening before our eyes. there are policies being implemented daily right before our eyes. we can see them. we can see where they're directed. they've been in motion for almost half a century. and their purpose is clear. what they're doing -- the policies -- first of all, israel is taking over has taken over what it calls jerusalem. that's an area about five times the size of historic jerusalem. that includes substantial areas of the west bank many former arab villages. supposed to be an internationalized territory. israel has taken it over and all the parties, except for the very far out ones are saying yes this is an indivisible permanent capitol of israel. that's one thing. then if you look at the development programs which i pretty systemic, very obvious, the one of them is developing a corridor extending east of jerusalem, to include a large town which was built mostly during the clinton years. its purpose is to subdivide the west bank, to verity partition it. the borders reach virtually to jerico, which will be left in palestinian hands at the border. so a corridor extending to the east bisecting the west bank. if you look at the map there are other corridors to the north including other new israeli towns. in the break up the region. israel is committed to breaking up -- agency up to the annexation wall considered legal but the u.s. continues to support the policies. that's a large part of the arab land that excludes the palestinians from their farms or orchards and so on. furthermore, israel is systemically take over the jordan valley. that is roughly a third of the west bank. much of it's airable land. palestinians are being steadily expelled by one or another pretext. sometimes simply thrown out. jewish establishments are being established and wells sunk and so on. the traditional method for 100 years now of ultimately incorporating some region inside israel. you look at that pattern and you can see what's happening. the israel is tearing out a perfectly reasoned intelligent program, intended to integrate into israel everything that might be of any value in the west bank but to exclude the palestinian population. the areas that israel is taking over don't have many palestinians and those who are there have been largely expelled. that will leave the palestinian population in some kind of limbo. not within israel, no demographic problem. no one state. palestinians lose everything. that is the live alternative. there is no serious alternative that anyone has made any meaningful case for to think there could be one state. unfortunately this is the assumption made across the board, but if you think it through, you can see it's extremely unlikely. the likely alternative to a two-state settlement is what i just described. the policies now being implemented. what is to stop them? one thing. it's in the hands of the united states. as long as -- the united states officially objects to these policies, so the official u.s. policy says it's unhelpful to peace, but the u.s. continues to support them. it's providing the military, economic diplomatic, support for them even the ideological support for them, by the way the issues are framed in the united states, which is quite different from the rest of the world. as long as the united states continues to support the policies, there's no reason to expect israel to withdraw from them whether it's netanyahu or herzog or anyone else. there are some differences in the policies, the racist and extremely alarmist rhetoric of netanyahu's, not shared by others. so there's some differences, but haas is correct in saying they're not fundamental differences. >> host: in new mexico, under u.s. law, native american and spanish land grant heirs have lost common lands and are seeking water rights have been separated from the land for commercial use. what hope for the future do you see for traditional peoples continuing to defend the right of the commons and the shared use of natural resources rather than exploitation for profit? >> guest: well, again same story. it's up to you. these are decisions that the american population can make, in the case of the united states. of course, as we all know, this has been going on for 500 years. 400 years. ever since the first english settlers came. there's been a steady attack on the indian nations driving them out of their lands, exterminating them, expelling them, sending them to reservations. it's been -- that's american history. there are two fundamental, profound crimes in american history. the one is expulsion or extermination of the indigenous population. the ice, of course slavery, with its impact still remaining. the united states is what is called a colony society. that's an unusual form of imperialism. it's the form of imperialism in which the imperial power originally england, settles the country that is being taken over drives out or exterminates the population. that is extreme form of imperialism. it's true of the -- what's called the anglo sphere, the countries that extended out of england, through the united states, ready, australia, new zealand, almost. they didn't quite exterminate the indigenous population. that's an unusual form of imperialism. for the indigenous people very dangerous one. and, yes they're fighting back and they need support. however, there's another point that ought to be made about preservation of the commons. that is back to climate change. the commons are the environment in which we live. if the commons are privatized if they're handed over to exxonmobil and chevron and so on, we're dead. for the reasons that i've just mentioned. we're pretty obvious. if the commons are preserved for the common good, we have a possibility of surviving. if you look around the world, almost everywhere it's the indigenous populations which are in the lead in trying to protect the commons from destruction. the industrial capitalist powers primarily, china others. so in canada it's the first nations. in australia, it's the an aboriginal people. in india it's the tribal people. all around the world countries that have substantial indigenous majorities, pop layings have taken -- populations, have taken steps towards trying to preserve the commons bolivia, for example, actually has rights of nature written into its constitution. ecuador made an interesting effort to keep some of its oil in the ground where it ought to be. if the rich countries, the european countries would pay ecuador a fraction of the profit that it would have received from marketing the fossil fueling the rich countries refused. so now they're doing it also destroying valuable forests. it's a pretty striking fact which ought to really shame us that it's the indigenous peoples who have been driven to the margins or survival, who are in the lead in trying to protect us from the folly that we are now carrying out which is very likely to destroy the possibilities of decent survival. that's the most crucial aspect of protecting the commons. >> host: the day after the big climate march in new york in september, the very next day the rockefeller brothers fund disinvested from fossil fuels. you can't miss the significance of that, given john d. rockefeller's background. is this the start of a major movement in terms of divestment from fossil fuel corporations? i was in portland, oregon recently, and an activist told me this is one of he hottest issues on campuses from stanford to harvard. >> guest: m.i.t., my own campus. a hot issue on campuses, and yes, it's important. it's in a way symbolic, but significant. these are some of the steps that can be made to impede the race to the precipice. how important it is, well like everything else, depends on people like you. will you do something about it? >> host: i want to talk to you about two ships, one fictional and one real. the pea -- the ship in moby dick and the titanic. edward on this stage talked about the the maniccal urge of ahab to destroy moby rick no matter what and could take the crew down with him. it was of no concern to him. what do you think about that metaphor that mob by dick is nature and ahab isen out -- is an out of control capitalism and when it comes to the tee titanic, the reforms offered up by the centers of power are merely cosmetic, they're moving deck chairs on the titanic, recycle your cardboard, drive a prius and things like that. sorry to prius drivers. [laughter] >> guest: well, like any kind of models and metaphors, there's some point that some gifts -- the the -- you might say hitler was an ahab, especially toward the end of the war. he was dedicated to continuing the war even if germany was totally destroyed, and it was the fall of the germ -- fault of the german if they didn't citied in winning the war. that's ahab-like in a way. but in our case it's somewhat different. it really is institutional logic. it's not a matter of individuals. those ceos who voted in the poll if you ask them personally, maybe they contribute to the sierra club and maybe they're in favor of divestment. could be. but in their institutional role as managers of major corporations they have a duty and in fact a requirement even a legal requirement to maximize profit on market share, and to ignore what economists call externalities, the impact of the transaction on others. that doesn't enter into market calculations. well, in this case, the externality happens to be in the survival of the grandchildren. but they cannot in their institutional role attend to that problem because their task is to maximize profit and market share. there's some range of choices of course and there's some variation among corporations as to how they operate. but this overwhelming institutional property happens to be lethal in its nature. it cannot continue if we are going to survive. in the case of state power, it's not dissimilar. quite typically states governments, regard their own populations as a major enemy. the snowden revelations, for example, reveal the extent to which the u.s. government regards the u.s. population as an enemy, which has to be monitored and controlled. the pretext of defending terrorism is very weak. as you may recall, when the snowden revelations came out at first it was claimed by the government that over 50 terrorist acts had been prevented by the nsa surveillance. under inquiry they reduced it to maybe a dozen or so. under further inquiry it was finally reduced to one. one case. someone had sent $8,500 to somalia. that was the net yield of this massive program, which is a program aimed at the population. to ensure their control and obedience. that's very typical of governments, and understandable. the leadership is committed to power. to state power. if you think through the record 0 of nuclear policy, if you look in detail it's much worse -- i sampled it -- the record is an astonishing record of disregard for the safety welfare of the population, and steps in order to enhance state power. that's the way powerful institutions function. and these things have to be -- to overcome institutional pathologies is a lot harder than overcoming an individual pathology. in the case of ahab, you can throw him into the ocean or institutionalize him but in the indication of institutional pathology, it's far more serious. as for rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic it's not a bad image but there are some steps being taken that are not insignificant. the development of solar energy for example, is proceeding. there are major efforts to try to block it but it's proceeding. unfortunately, this is not the center of where it's proceeding. the major production of solar panels is in china and this means sophisticated ones, they're at the cutting edge of advanced technology in solar panel production. but some steps are being taken. there are some environmental rules, but by and large the primary thrust of the policy is in the wrong direction. >> host: years ago the philosopher john dewey says politics is the shadow cast on society by big business pow would you evaluate that shadow today in light of citizens united and mccutcheon versus fec and other supreme court rulings? >> host: well, dewey's comment was accurate. it extends way back. back in the 1950s, some will remember there was a quip i think may have been from c. wright mils which said the united states is a one-party state. the business party, which has two factions democrats and republicans. and that was -- [applause] -- at that time was pretty accurate at the time but it's less accurate today. the united states is still a one-party state, the business party, but there's only one faction. the republican party has pretty much departed from being a functioning parliamentary organization. that's not just my judgment. the very highly respected conservative political analysts, norman anstein of the american enterprise institute right-wing think tank pointed out recently accurately, the republican party has become what he called a radical insurgency. no longer committed to parliamentary participation. there's a lot of truth to that. we've seen it pretty dramatically in the last couple of years. we're seeing it right now. just take a look at the -- today's newspaper, the description of the house budget basically the ryan budget. what is the ryan budget do and all kind of sleight of hand, which economists are just mocking about balancing the budget. but what it actually does is undermine medicare by moving to privatize it, which means it's the one part of the healthcare system that more or less works because it's not privatized. it's inefficiencies and costs are due to the fact that it has to work through the highly inefficient bureaucracyized system in the united states so moving to privatize medicare is saying let's undermine the one system that more or less works, cutting back medicaid under the guise of federalism repealing the affordable care act, which sends not a wonderful legislation but nevertheless an improvement, which will send tens of millions of people into the uninsured lists cutting back food stamps and so on. and enriching the wealthy. that's the one policy of the republican radical insurgency. do anything you can to enrich the wealthy and powerful and attack the general population. well you can't win votes that way. so what has happened is over the last years, the republican party managers have mobilized sectors of the population which have always been around but have never been mobilized into a significant political force one part is christian evangelicals. major component of part of the base of the republican party today. you see it in the iowa primaries coming up. but quite generally. another is nativists, people who are afraid that they are taking our country away from us which has a basis in fact. the white population is -- will become a minority pretty soon and for extreme ultra nationalists-nativists, this is a crime that can't be tolerated. people who are sectors of the population who are so frightened that they have to carry guns into starbucks because who knows who will come after them. in fact there's legislation in nevada right now being debated to allow guns to be brought into daycare centers. maybe some of these three-year-olds were trained by isis. who knows. but these are not small parts of the pop late. it's a very strange country in many ways. that's a large part of the population. people can be mobilized on those issues and not notice that the policies their leaders are pursuing are attacking them and supporting the super and if the corporations. [applause] that's one of the former two factions. what is the other faction? it's not democrats. it's what used to be called moderate republicans. if you take a look at the democratic party programs there are few exceptions like bernie sanders and others, but if you take the core of the democratic party, democratic leadership council and so on, these are the policies that used to be called moderate republican. in fact somebody like richard nixon would be at the left of american politics today. eisenhower would be off the spectrum. eisenhower went so far as to say that nobody even sane could think of dismantling new deal programs namely the ones being dismantled right now. the current republican programs are efforts to dismantle programs that were initiated under nixon. the drift of the right during this whole neoliberal period, roughly since reagan, is pretty extreme. see it pretty strikingly in the public attitudes towards the health programs. the u.s. health system is an international scandal. it has about twice the per capita costs of comparable countries, and relatively poor outcomes. furthermore the u.s. government spends about as much per capita as comparable countries, but that's a small part of the health costs because it all has to work through the privatized health system, which is inefficient, bureaucracyized and in the hands of tons of bookkeeping, administration so on, so forth and in the hands of institutions which have no interest in health. an insurance company is not dedicated to health. it's dedicated to making money. so not surprisingly they do things to try to make money. well if you look back at the -- there's an extensive polling record of public attitudes on health care and for lock periods since the second world war there have been long periods of time where significant majorities -- -- a large part of the population has been in favor of national health care. they go back to the late 1980s, a majority of the population thought there ought to be a constitutional guarantee for health care, national health care, and in fact i think it was 40% of the population thought it already was in the constitution. that's the late '80s. take a look today. when obama presented his affordable care affordable health care program, you recall at the beginning part of the program was public option allowing people to make the choice of something like medicare national health care. at the time almost two-thirds of the population was in favor of that. but it was dropped without discussion. that never entered the discussion. the united states has a very unusual, maybe unique law which bars the government from negotiating drug prices. you can negotiate other things but not drug prices. so, of course drug prices are way out of sight. much higher than in comparable countries. the population is overwhelmingly opposed to there. there haven't been many polls but the only ones i've seen show over 80% opposition there was never any attempt to deal with this. the power of the pharmaceutical corporations is so enormous there wasn't even an effort to try to introduce it into the so-called obamacare. if you look at the attitudes towards the so-called obamacare they've been pretty negative. most of the population has been opposed. even though for years, the population has been strongly in favor of national health care, and this, of course isn't national health care. some of that opposition is because it didn't go far enough. we don't know how much because the questions weren't asked in the polls. a lot of it is the kind of thing you see reflected in this famous town hall comment where somebody got up and said, keep your hands off my medicare. that kind of thing. people don't understand what the government is doing and what the private corporations are doing, and the effect is a significant change in expressed attitudes towards the policies. that's a remarkable triumph of propaganda if you think about it. especially considering how vital health care is to everyone's life. >> host: well, those numbers have been at zero for quite some time and there's a light up there that says exit but i'm going to take a moderator's privilege here and just good on for a minute or two more, if i may. [applause] >> oo that's okay with you. on this long journey you have been on, did you ever national the size of crowds you would draw or having your books on display at airports? >> guest: well actually started giving public talks on these issues much too late in the early 1960s. early days of the vietnam war i started giving talks about the vietnam war, and as you know, it was talks to somebody's living room or a church with three or four people or something like that. and there was never -- none of us who were involved ever had a -- could have guessed at the time that a couple years later it would be major antiwar movement. but there was. and the same has happened on other issues. with all of the negative things that have happened over the past years, this neoliberal reaction, since program marrily the reagan years, there's been plenty of progress. audiences are very different than they were in the past. concerns are different. lots of issues that were fighting issues back in the '60s you could barely discuss them, are now accepted and taken for granted. women's rights, gay rights there was no concern for environmental issues in the '60s. now there's substantial concern. over the years, there have been periods of extensive popular activism to try to terminate the nuclear weapons lunacy. the general atmosphere of the public has changed a lot. and audiences kind of reflect that. well, all of this is positive. there's basically two trajectories. there's one trajectory which i have just been describing, which is constructive positive offers hope. there's another trajectory which i talked about which is going in the opposite direction, and then the question is which one will prevail? that again, as i've said several times, as you all know without my saying it that's in your hands. >> host: you were just in argentina and met with some activists from the movement in spain. what were your in the last 10 or 15 years they've pulled out of this for the first time. it's major change in world affairs. south america used to be regarded here as called our backyard. they did whatever we told them. we don't pay any attention to them. now south america is out of control. you take a look at the conferences, the united states is isolated. in fact the primary reason why obama made some steps towards normalizing relations with cuba is that the u.s. was utterly isolated on that issue, and the whole hemisphere. they were trying to get some kind of arrangements before the summit of americas which is coming up soon. didn't quite make it. but that's to the goal. this is a huge change and that's why the conference was in south america but there were partition pants from -- participants from greece. europe has been subjected to a program of -- kind of a savage economic program, which is seriously undermined european democracy, it's been devastating for the weaker, the peripheral countries. it's beginning to dismantle europes major post second world war achievement, the social democratic welfare state programs and that's the purpose of the policy. it's economically destructive. these are the policies austerity under recession even the international monetary fund says there's crazy from an economic point of view. but they make some sense from the point of view of class war. they're enriching the big banks dismantling social programs and so on. well, there's a reaction. the reaction was, first in greece, which has suffered most and the german banks, which are basically response for these crises are reacting in an absolutely savage way to try to prevent greece from taking steps that might extricate itself from the disaster imposed. greece's calling for restructuring of its debt delaying debt payments. this is particularly ironic because germany, in 1953 was permit bid the european countries to cancel its major debts. that's the basis for german recovery. that's why it's the dynamic center of europe. secondly germany practically destroyed greece during the second world war. well put all this together greece is now asking for a limited element of what germany was granted in 1953. and the german -- the powers of germany, the bun desbank, are fratly refusing in a very savage way. they may get away with it in greece because greece is weak. spain is a harder nut to crack. that's a bigger country and more powerful economy and in spain in last couple of years, two or three years, a new political party developed, which by now is running first in the polls and it us also a policy -- a party dedicated in a pretty pragmatic sensible way to reversing the austerity programs sustaining rebuilding the economy, the so-called welfare state programs, and moving the country towards constructive development. in spain as well, the criminals the ones who caused the crisis, were the banks. the spanish banks and the german banks. but they want the population to pay. notice that none of them believe in capitalism. in capitalist society if i lend money to you and i know you and it's a risky loan and i therefore get a lot of interest and make a lot of money another of it. if at a certain point you can't pay, it's my problem in a capitalist society, but not in a society in which we live. the problem is your problem and your neighbor's problem. your neighbors didn't take the debt but they got a pay for it. that's the way our system works, radically anticapitalist. makes sense on class warfare grounds but no resemblance to markets or capitalism and that is what has been going on but there's struggle against them, and it's worth keeping an eye on. they have sensible program. s. might win the next election coming up soon. it's not going to be easy for the bureaucrats and the german banks, northern banks to crush a spanish initiative. >> host: one last question. you grew up in the '30s at a time when solidarity meant something. there was mutual support, an active labor movement. what is it going to take in 2015 to rekindle that spirit of solidarity? >> guest: well, remember what happened in the '30s. the labor movement was in fact in the for 2014. they were organizing sit-down strikes and so on. they that ha sympathetic administration so the roosevelt administration was willing to accommodate to some extent the pressures developing mook -- among the public spearheading it which led to the new deal legislation which were beneficial to the population and the economy. let's go back to the 1920s. the labor movement had been destroyed. there was nothing left, practically nothing left of it. at one of the leading labor historians david montgomery died recently, has a book -- >> host: fall of the house -- >> guest: fall of the house of labor. about the 1920s. there had been a lively vibrant, active pretty radical american labor movement, but it had been crushed by brutal attack. this is very much a business-run society. and the business classes are highly class-conscious, constantly fighting a class war, have state power supporting them, and they were able to crush and destroy at the labor movement. but it revived. and it can revive again. and other popular movements can as well too. there's a basis for it. [applause] the basis for it is the quite positive changes that have taken place since the 1960s. in many ways it's a much more civilized society than it was at that time. and many issues. and i think that is a basis for recreating the kind of solidarity, mutual aid working together dedication, commitment, that is very necessary today. we can't overlook the fact that we're at a moment of human history which is entirely unique for the first time in human history we're at a position where the decisions that we will make will determine whether the species survives. ... [cheers and applause]>> booktv is on twitter. follow us to get publishing news scheduling updates, author

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