Chomsky: America hates its poor
Sunday, Dec 1, 2013 06:00 AM CST
Chomsky: America hates its poor
Linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky on our country's brutal class warfare -- and why it's ultimately so one-sided
Chris Steele, Zuccotti Park Press
This is an excerpt from the just released second edition of Noam Chomskys Occupy: Class War, Rebellion and Solidarity, edited by Greg Ruggiero and published by Zuccotti Park Press.
An article that recently came out in Rolling Stone, titled Gangster Bankers: Too Big to Jail, by Matt Taibbi, asserts that the government is afraid to prosecute powerful bankers, such as those running HSBC. Taibbi says that theres an arrestable class and an unarrestable class. What is your view on the current state of class war in the U.S.?
Well, theres always a class war going on. The United States, to an unusual extent, is a business-run society, more so than others. The business classes are very class-conscioustheyre constantly fighting a bitter class war to improve their power and diminish opposition. Occasionally this is recognized.
We dont use the term working class here because its a taboo term. Youre supposed to say middle class, because it helps diminish the understanding that theres a class war going on.
Its true that there was a one-sided class war, and thats because the other side hadnt chosen to participate, so the union leadership had for years pursued a policy of making a compact with the corporations, in which their workers, say the autoworkerswould get certain benefits like fairly decent wages, health benefits and so on. But it wouldnt engage the general class structure. In fact, thats one of the reasons why Canada has a national health program and the United States doesnt. The same unions on the other side of the border were calling for health care for everybody. Here they were calling for health care for themselves and they got it. Of course, its a compact with corporations that the corporations can break anytime they want, and by the 1970s they were planning to break it and weve seen what has happened since.
More:
http://www.salon.com/2013/12/01/noam_chomsky_america_hates_its_poor_partner/
BlueinOhio
(238 posts)I don't know what the answer is but they will not arrest themselves. There is corruption from the top down. Now we are going to have private prisons. And this country has molly coddled fascists and NAZIs they would be for this anything for corporations. In a news article I read corporations are now trying to make it illegal to post anything against them and they get a settlement. There are no consumer protections or worker rights. More people are being shoved into poverty and the Church's here are for it. They just say it is God's will and say poor people should not be helped. The new Pope is something. I hope he can cause a new way of thinking and get things started in the right direction.