The world is literally a raving mad mess. Human needs are increasingly not being satisfied for increasing numbers within the global population. Increasingly corrupt nations cannot provide jobs for their populations and cannot escape debt from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. People around the world--and in the United States, many of whom lack true knowledge of the cause of their plight are angry. They subconsciously feel so outraged from the injustice committed against them by global political and economic elites that most people's animosity is in latent form, but could go off given the right combination of events.
Linguist/political analyst Noam Chomsky says that in the United States in particular, he is troubled by the fact that the population is angry but, unlike the years during the Great Depression, when radical left parties such as the Communist Party USA, the Wobblies (International Workers of the World) and other progressive parties formed unemployed councils, the current U.S. population--for the most part, isn't seeking out positive solutions such as organizing for jobs and justice. Rather, they are falling under the influence of right-wing groups who don't believe that any public programs within the domestic society are beneficial to human needs or the political system in general.
"What they're hearing is that every institution is rotten," Chomsky said. "That's what they're hearing from the Tea Party Movement.The government isn't doing anything for us, corporations don't, the parties aren't doing anything for us. Antagonism towards the Republican party is even higher than towards the democrats. Congress should be thrown out and started over again. They have resentment against professions, they don't believe scientists, everything isn't working."
"They're not hearing anything constructive and the trouble is they're not hearing anything constructive from anyone else. The democrats are not telling them, 'look, we understand you're problem and it's because of the financialization of the economy which we supported'--they're not going to tell them that. The Tea Party message against power and institutions, that's about the only message they're hearing," he added.
According to Chomsky, the Tea Party supporters who have fallen victim to housing market crisis induced forclosures, declining services and unemployment caused by globalization have legitimate grievances against the economic system that everyone concerned with the political direction of the nation should take seriously. The real dillemma is that unlike during the depression era of last century, no real radical left-wing social movmement exists to counter the Tea Party and respond to what amounts to "cry's for help" among its supporters within the populace.
"These people shouldn't be ridiculed," Chomsky said. "They should be organized and be the kind of people who in the 1930's reacted in a very constructive way and compelled the government to institute the New Deal measures which were not superb but they did save the country from a very serious crisis. This was a hopeful period. You didn't have this sense of the kind of despair that you see now. The kind of anger. You may have found it somewhere but among the urban working class--a large part of the population, my impression was that there was hopefulness that we can do something," Chomsky said.
"The CIO was organizing there was the labor movement. The labor movement is more than just, let's have jobs. It's an educational process. My unemployed seamstress aunts got a week in the country from the union. Social circles, educational circles, workers education. There was a remarkably high cultural level but also a sense that there's something we can do. It's going to get better. Now there's a sense of real despair and anger and that nothing is going to work and no hope for the future. We just have to get rid of everything but not replace it by anything."
While disagreeing with their sense of hoplessness for the future, Chomsky, a radical activist for social justice and human rights since the 1960's clearly identifies with the sense of injustice that these people feel due to the loss of America's manufacturing base over the last several decades. Manufacturing, it should be noted, is a major stimulator of the economy when it is strong.
"Manufacturing, which is really the core of an economy is just collapsing. I mean manufacturing--unemployment in manufacturing is at depression levels. There isn't much prospect of those jobs coming back. These people see that there is tremendous wealth in the country but very highly concentrated. Inequality in the country has soared maybe to the highest level ever," Chomsky said.
"For about 30 years they have seen their incomes pretty much stagnate--working hours going way up, far behind Europe, above Europe, benefits which were always weak here are declining. They just went through a shattering catastrophe with the housing bubble burst which for many of them was most of their assets and unemployment is way up," he added.
Noam Chomsky on U.S. Rage & Ruin 2/4
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