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Wednesday, November 9, 2011
News Chomsky speaks out on Occupy movement
Posted By Rhiannon Fionn on Wed, Nov 9, 2011 at 9:02 AM
- Rob Colonna
- At Occupy Boston, a manila folder taped to a tent announces Chomsky's planned speech.
American philosopher and long-time MIT Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy thinks the Occupy movement, if it can hold itself together, may mark a "significant moment" in U.S. history. At least that's what he told Occupy Boston a couple weeks ago.
Here's a snippet from Chomsky's speech, which was published by In These Times magazine:
(This article is adapted from Noam Chomsky’s talk at the Occupy Boston encampment on Dewey Square on Oct. 22. He spoke as part of the Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture Series held by Occupy Boston’s on-site Free University. Zinn was a historian, activist and author of A People’s History of the United States.)Delivering a Howard Zinn lecture is a bittersweet experience for me. I regret that he’s not here to take part in and invigorate a movement that would have been the dream of his life. Indeed, he laid a lot of the groundwork for it.
If the bonds and associations being established in these remarkable events can be sustained through a long, hard period ahead — victories don’t come quickly — the Occupy protests could mark a significant moment in American history.
I’ve never seen anything quite like the Occupy movement in scale and character, here and worldwide. The Occupy outposts are trying to create cooperative communities that just might be the basis for the kinds of lasting organizations necessary to overcome the barriers ahead and the backlash that’s already coming.
That the Occupy movement is unprecedented seems appropriate because this is an unprecedented era, not just at this moment but since the 1970s.
...
That change in the American outlook has evolved since the 1970s. In a reversal, several centuries of industrialization turned to de-industrialization. Of course manufacturing continued, but overseas — very profitable, though harmful to the workforce.The economy shifted to financialization. Financial institutions expanded enormously. A vicious cycle between finance and politics accelerated. Increasingly, wealth concentrated in the financial sector. Politicians, faced with the rising cost of campaigns, were driven ever deeper into the pockets of wealthy backers.
And the politicians rewarded them with policies favorable to Wall Street: deregulation, tax changes, relaxation of rules of corporate governance, which intensified the vicious cycle. Collapse was inevitable. In 2008, the government once again came to the rescue of Wall Street firms presumably too big to fail, with leaders too big to jail.
Read the rest of Chomsky's "Occupy the Future" speech here.
Speaking of Chomsky, ever since I first saw the video below, I can't read anything by Chomsky without Sole's fan-boy song, "I think I'm Noam Chomsky," running through my mind. Enjoy (and listen closely):
By the way, Sole also does, "I think I'm Ben Bernanke," where he plays the head of the U.S. Federal Reserve, smokes money in a bong and sings, "Democracy has failed, let's print some more money."
(Editor's note: Rhiannon Fionn's lead news story in the print edition of Creative Loafing this week details how Occupy Charlotte has managed to hold on for five weeks. Fionn will be on WFAE's "Charlotte Talks" today to discuss the movement.)
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