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Noam Chomsky: What Next? The Elections, the Economy, and the World-World-renowned public intellectual Noam Chomsky discussed the meaning of President-Elect Barack Obamas victory and the possibilities ahead for real democratic changeEXCERPT:(4/4)... right after the election, a front page story, the lead front page story was on how Obama developed this wonderful grassroots army but he doesnt have any debts. Which supposed to be a good thing. So hes free to do what he likes. Because he has no debts, the normal democratic constituency, labor, women, minorities and so on, they didnt bring him into office. So he owes them nothingWhat he had was an army that he organized of people who got out the vote for Obama. For what the press calls, Brand Obama. They essentially agree with the advertisers, its brand Obama. That his army was mobilized to bring him to office. They regard that as a good thing, accepting the Lippman conception of democracy, the ignorant and meddlesome outsiders are supposed to do what theyre told and then go home. Well, what can we anticipate if the popular army, the grassroots army, decides to accept the function of spectators of action rather than participants? Theres two kinds of evidence. Theres rhetoric and theres action. The rhetoric, you know, is very uplifting: change, hope, and so on. Change was kind of reflective any party manager this year who read the polls, including the ones I cited, would instantly conclude that our theme in the election has to be change. Because people hate whats going on for good reasons. So the theme is change.In commercial advertising as everybody knows, everybody who has ever looked at a television program, the advertising is not intended to provide information about the product, all right? I dont have to go on about that. Its obvious. The point of the advertising is to delude people with the imagery and, you know, tales of a football player, sexy actress, who you know, drives to the moon in a car or something like that. But, thats certainly not to inform people. In fact, its to keep people uninformed.The goal of advertising is to create uninformed consumers who will make irrational choices. Those of you who suffered through an economics course know that markets are supposed to be based on informed consumers making rational choices. But industry spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year to undermine markets and to ensure, you know, to get uninformed consumers making irrational choices. And when they turn to selling a candidate they do the same thing. They want uninformed consumers, you know, uninformed voters to make irrational choices based on the success of illusion, slander, and effective body language or whatever else is supposed to be significant. So you undermine democracy pretty much the same way you undermine markets.Well, the first post-election appointment was for Chief of Staff, which is a crucial appointment; determines a large part of the presidents agenda. That was Rahm Emanuel, one of the strongest supporters of the war in Iraq in the House. In fact, he was the only member of the Illinois delegation who voted for Bushs effective declaration of war. And, again, a longtime Washington insider. Also, one of the leading recipients in congress of funding from the financial institutions hedge funds and so on. He himself was an investment banker. Thats his background. So, thats the Chief of Staff.The next group of appointments were the main problem, the primary issue that the governments going to have to face is what to do about the financial crisis. Obamas choices to more or less run this were Robert Rubin and Larry Summers from the Clinton--Secretaries of Treasury under Clinton. They are among the people who are substantially responsible for the crisis. One leading economist, one of the few economists who has been right all along in predicting whats happening, Dean Baker, pointed out that selecting them is like selecting Osama Bin Laden to run the war on terror.Yeah, Ill finish. This saves me the problem of whats coming next, so Ill finish with the elections. Let me make one final comment on this. There was meeting on November 7, I think of a group of couple, of a dozen advisers to deal with the financial crisis. Their careers were, records were reviewed in the business press, and Bloomberg News had an article reviewing their records and concluded that these people, most of these people shouldnt be giving advice about the economy. They should be given subpoenas.Because most of them were involved in one or other form of financial fraud, that includes Rahm Emanuel, for example. What reason is there to think that the people who brought this crisis about are some how going to fix it? Well, thats a good indication of whats likely to come next, at least if we look at actions.

Channel: News & Politics Uploaded: November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am Author: gfde08

Length: 10:18 Rating: 4.6666665 Views: 1205

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