Dandelion Salad

with Noam Chomsky

VOR America on Jan 31, 2014

By Sean Nevins

WASHINGTON (VR)

“Wherever there are structures of domination and control, hierarchy and oppression, they are not self-justifying, [and] should be challenged, and if they can’t demonstrate their legitimacy, overthrown”, said Professor Noam Chomsky in a discussion with Radio VR in Cambridge, MassachusettsRadio VR recently sat down with the renowned political theorist to discuss a number of topics, including global issues facing humanity. In the video above, Professor Chomsky is asked how the human race should approach collective global problems, such as nuclear proliferation, restructuring of the education system, environmental degradation, and the huge gap between rich and poor.

Professor Chomsky’s answer is below:

“I think the basic thrust of anarcho-syndicalism, anarchism generally, applies everywhere. Wherever there are structures of domination and control, hierarchy and oppression, they are not self-justifying, should be challenged, and if they can’t demonstrate their legitimacy, overthrown. I think that applies to every case you’ve mentioned.”

“It [anarcho-syndicalism] is not a formula for how to deal with, let’s say, environmental destruction, but it lies in the background. Each of the cases you’ve mentioned requires its own type of action.”

“With regard to nuclear proliferation actually we have an answer, the problem is to implement it. The Non-Proliferation Treaty [NPT] that obligates the nuclear powers to carry out good faith measures to eliminate nuclear weapons. That is actually a legal obligation as was determined by the International Court of Justice back in the mid-90s and it also requires other countries not to develop nuclear weapons. There are, at the moment, several that have outside the NPT — Israel, India, Pakistan, and now North Korea — but there are ways to overcome this.”

“For example, in the case of the Middle East, one way, serious way, to approach it would be to try to establish a nuclear weapon free zone in the Middle East. It’s been formally accepted by the West but only formally. Just last December, there was to be a conference in Helsinki to move forward on this proposal. Israel announced it wouldn’t attend. Iran announced that they would attend with no preconditions and a couple of days later president Obama cancelled the conference. So it didn’t take place. There is pressure to renew it from the European Union, from Russia and mainly the Arab states but unless the United States is willing to significantly participate it’s not going to go anywhere. But there are mechanisms, we can think of ways of overcoming this problem.”

“When you turn to environmental degradation it is a little bit different. It is a horrible problem, we are moving towards a precipice which is of extreme danger, racing towards it and the longer we wait to eliminate reliance on fossil fuels, the worse it’s going to be. But it is not so clear how to do that. It is different from the nuclear threat which in fact at least in principal we know how to get rid of.”