Aos 93, Noam Chomsky é o intelectual de esquerda mais importante vivo. Aos 32 anos, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez é uma das nossas autoridades eleitas de esquerda mais importantes. Os dois falaram recentemente sobre nossas perspectivas de conquistar um mundo melhor.
Uma entrevista com
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez e Noam Chomsky
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Noam Chomsky and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez met for the first time on The Laura Flanders Show. |
Tradução / Estamos em um momento da história americana em que todos os tipos de suposições arraigadas sobre mercados e governos, e até mesmo nossa relação uns com os outros e com a natureza, parecem estar afrouxando seu controle. Os fabricantes de consentimento não parecem mais ter tanto controle sobre o que as pessoas comuns fazem.
Para discutir nosso novo ambiente, a escritora e apresentadora de esquerda Laura Flanders conversou no início deste ano com o professor emérito do MIT, autor e intelectual público Noam Chomsky e a representante Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez do 14º distrito congressional de Nova York. O que se segue é uma transcrição da conversa, editada para maior extensão e clareza. Uma parte da discussão está disponível no canal do The Laura Flanders Show no YouTube. Você pode se inscrever no programa aqui.
Laura Flanders
Eu acredito que esta é a primeira vez que vocês realmente se encontram. Há algo que vocês gostariam de dizer um ao outro?
NC
Tenho admirado muito o que você tem feito, AOC, e acompanho isso de perto. Portanto, é um verdadeiro prazer estar com você.
AOC
Da mesma forma, é uma honra e um momento culminante poder se envolver com o único professor Chomsky.
LF
Noam, você e eu conversamos intermitentemente por cerca de trinta anos. Naquela época, sempre houve, como você disse, uma longa lista de pensamentos impensáveis na América. No entanto, li recentemente em nosso jornal oficial, o New York Times , que os trabalhadores têm poder real, mas a economia pode precisar de algum tipo de planejamento – e que, possivelmente, deixar tantas coisas para os mercados não é a melhor ideia , principalmente quando se trata de meio ambiente e saúde.
Algo está mudando? E quando você pensa nos “impensáveis”, o que mudou e o que não mudou, em sua opinião?
Noam Chomsky
Devemos, em primeiro lugar, reconhecer que vivemos cerca de quarenta e cinco anos de um sistema político socioeconômico específico, o neoliberalismo.
Algumas pessoas pensam que “neoliberalismo” significa uma sociedade completamente mercantilizada. Mas isso nunca foi realmente o caso.
O que realmente tivemos por quarenta e cinco anos é o que tantos economistas chamam de “economia de resgate”. Temos as consequências óbvias, crise financeira após crise financeira. E toda vez que acontece, há um resgate financiado pelo contribuinte.
O acordo TARP [Programa de Alívio de Ativos Problemáticos] sob George W. Bush, por exemplo, tinha dois elementos. Uma era resgatar os perpetradores da crise – as pessoas que concediam empréstimos predatórios. E a outra era dar apoio às vítimas da crise – pessoas que perderam suas casas, perderam seus empregos.
Você pode adivinhar qual dos dois foi realmente implementado.
Laura Flanders
Mas Noam, anos atrás, você não conseguia nem dizer a palavra “neoliberalismo”, muito menos “socialismo”. Não falamos de sistemas em relação à nossa economia. Hoje estamos.
NC
Também fizemos sessenta, setenta anos atrás. Dwight D. Eisenhower, que não era conhecido como um liberal inflamado, disse que quem não aceita as políticas do New Deal, quem não acredita que os trabalhadores têm o direito de se organizar livremente sem repressão, não pertence à nossa política sistema. Isso foi na década de 1950. Mudou um pouco com Jimmy Carter, depois rompeu com Ronald Reagan e Margaret Thatcher.
Desde então, vivemos no tipo de sistema que você descreveu, uma guerra de classes unilateral: mercados para os pobres, proteção para os ricos.
LF
Eu quero falar com você sobre isso, AOC. Eu o entrevistei antes, quando você estava concorrendo a um cargo público, para um programa sobre jovens na política. Lembro-me com pesar que até eu, um otimista convicto, terminei aquela entrevista dizendo: “Mas se você não ganhar desta vez, vai concorrer de novo?” Achei provável que você não fosse vitorioso contra o poderoso Joe Crowley naquela primeira vez, mas você foi, e não está sozinho. Uma barragem quebrou, você acha?
AOC
Eu acho que há um freio, na política eleitoral, mas também na organização para além do nosso sistema eleitoral, como o que estamos vendo com as greves, em uma escala que realmente não se via há muitos anos. É um pouco como uma situação do tipo imperador-sem-roupa para nosso sistema político e nosso sistema capitalista. As pessoas estão começando a perceber que podemos nomear esses sistemas e descrevê-los, que essa água em que as pessoas estão nadando na verdade tem um nome e que existem maneiras alternativas de fazer as coisas.
Depois que eu ganhei, houve uma grande tentativa orquestrada pela mídia de marginalizar minha vitória como um acaso. O senhor então governador de Nova York, Andrew Cuomo, disse, em poucos dias, que se tratava de um acidente completo. Todos os principais funcionários eleitos e membros do Partido Democrata tentaram rejeitar o que aconteceu.
As pessoas estão começando a perceber que essa água em que as pessoas estão nadando na verdade tem um nome e que existem maneiras alternativas de fazer as coisas.
E o fato é que isso não o impediu. Haveria um caso para isso se a minha vitória fosse a única que ocorreu. Mas simplesmente não era o caso. Tivemos a eleição de outras pessoas também nomeando sistemas e conversando sobre o que antes era, extraordinariamente, um tabu político – a eleição de indivíduos como Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley. Então, novamente o próximo ciclo com Cori Bush, Jamaal Bowman e Mondaire Jones. Realmente parece que há uma rachadura. Estamos começando a ver isso com as pessoas reconhecendo o verdadeiro poder em técnicas como a suspensão do trabalho ou o fechamento de ruas durante os levantes raciais do ano passado.
LF
Noam, o que você acha? Quando a deputada foi eleita, você a chamou de “espetacular” e “significativa”.
NC
Muito. É um sinal de que a guerra de classes unilateral dos últimos quarenta anos está se tornando bilateral. A população está realmente começando a participar, em vez de apenas aceitar os golpes de martelo.
Vale lembrar que Reagan e Thatcher entenderam que, quando você vai lançar um grande ataque contra os trabalhadores que são minorias e outras pessoas, deve eliminar suas defesas. Isso foi feito de várias maneiras. Os primeiros movimentos de Reagan e Thatcher foram atacar severamente o movimento trabalhista por meios ilegais e abrir a porta para o setor corporativo fazer o mesmo. Isso está eliminando a principal maneira pela qual as pessoas podem se defender. Os trabalhistas sempre estiveram na linha de frente da defesa da população contra o ataque.
Membros do United Auto Workers Local 450 em greve na John Deere Des Moines Works, em Ankeny, Iowa, em 20 de outubro de 2021. (Departamento de Agricultura dos EUA / Flickr)
Agora estamos tendo uma grande onda de greves , na qual os trabalhadores estão simplesmente dizendo: “Não vamos voltar aos empregos podres e opressores, às circunstâncias precárias e podres, sem assistência médica. . . ” Eles simplesmente não vão aceitar isso. Esse é um fator importante na economia agora.
LF
Estamos vendo isso no setor de saúde. Congressista, o que você está vendo nessa frente?
AOC
Quando falamos sobre sistemas que estão sendo nomeados, não se trata apenas de críticas abertas ao capitalismo, mas também de críticas abertas à supremacia branca – não apenas como clubes sociais racistas de pessoas vestindo capuzes, mas na verdade como um sistema que interagiu com o desenvolvimento de os Estados Unidos. Muitas dessas forças de trabalho essenciais são dominadas por mulheres e mulheres negras, sejam trabalhadoras de fast food, enfermeiras, creches e profissionais de ensino. Eu diria que o que essa classe capitalista chama de escassez de trabalho é na verdade uma escassez de trabalho digna, concentrada esmagadoramente pela classe trabalhadora, uma classe trabalhadora multirracial, mas também em profissões que são dominadas por mulheres e mulheres de cor.
LF
Noam, quando comecei a falar com você no início dos anos 90, houve uma reação miserável e amarga, mesmo na esquerda, contra o que foi considerado uma política de identidade irritante. O que ouço agora em cada esquina é que as pessoas estão entendendo, como a deputada acabou de dizer: a menos que abordemos a supremacia masculina branca, não vamos conseguir as mudanças de que precisamos. Você concorda que foi uma mudança nessa frente?
NC
Devemos reconhecer que a supremacia masculina branca é uma corrente profunda na história americana. Não vai embora imediatamente. Mas houve amassados, significativos. Então, por exemplo, mesmo no mainstream, quando o New York Times publicou o Projeto 1619, isso não poderia ter acontecido alguns anos antes. E é por causa das mudanças na consciência e percepção geral. Claro, houve uma reação imediata, e você deve esperar isso – a supremacia masculina branca é uma parte profunda da história e da cultura americana. Portanto, extirpá-lo não será fácil.
LF
Ambos estão muito focados na luta pela sobrevivência da raça humana no planeta. AOC, sua primeira legislação foi a resolução do New Deal Verde. Já estamos alguns anos nessa década. Noam, seu último livro se chama The Precipice . Ainda estamos em um ponto em que podemos evitar cair daquele precipício? É tarde demais?
Está chegando perto. Devo dizer que a resolução recentemente reintroduzida pela deputada AOC é absolutamente essencial para a sobrevivência. Na verdade, gostaria de saber quais são as suas perspectivas de avançarmos com isso. Ou algo como essa resolução será implementado ou estamos condenados. É simples assim.
O deputado Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez fala sobre o Novo Acordo Verde com o senador Ed Markey em fevereiro de 2019. (Wikimedia Commons)
Ainda temos tempo, mas não muito. Quanto mais demoramos, mais difícil fica . Se tivéssemos começado a dar os passos necessários há dez anos, seria muito mais fácil. Se não fôssemos o único país a recusar o Protocolo de Kyoto no início dos anos 90, seria muito mais fácil. Quanto mais esperamos, mais difícil fica.
LF
AOC, quais são as chances de conseguirmos mudanças reais? Eu quero dizer “em nossa vida”, mas na verdade precisamos muito, muito antes disso.
AOC
O que é incrivelmente encorajador é a adoção em massa desse projeto. Assim que foi divulgado e submetido à Câmara dos Deputados e disponibilizado ao público, começamos a ver movimentos nos Estados Unidos – que não eram cobertos pela mídia – em municípios e estados de todo o país que passaram a adotar essas metas em níveis municipais: a cidade de Los Angeles, foi apresentada pelo Austin City Council, o estado do Maine, na cidade de Nova York. E eles começaram a adotar metas mais agressivas então, e não estavam esperando por uma ação federal sobre a legislação.
Mas não podemos subestimar o que estamos enfrentando. Grande parte do Congresso é capturado por muito dinheiro, dinheiro escuro, Wall Street e interesses especiais. Mas é muito importante reconhecer que nossos sistemas e nossas vias de ação não se limitam apenas à ação eleitoral. Quando nos envolvemos o máximo que podemos com os limites do eleitoralismo, também reengajamos nossas capacidades fora do nosso sistema eleitoral, seja retendo mão de obra ou outros tipos de ações populares, porque também há um ponto de ação coletiva que se torna muito difícil para o governante classe a ignorar, porque então começa a ameaçar sua legitimidade.
LF
Noam, de onde vem essa mudança radical, dada a captura que a deputada descreveu?
NC
Vem de onde sempre veio – da população – das vítimas, a parte da guerra de classes que foi paralisada. É muito interessante o que está acontecendo.
Considere o senador da Virgínia Ocidental Joe Manchin, o principal destinatário de financiamento para combustíveis fósseis, que está no caminho para avançar na mudança climática e muitas outras coisas. Sua posição é basicamente a da ExxonMobil. Suas palavras: sem eliminação, apenas inovação. Isso é chamado de greenwashing: continue despejando combustíveis fósseis na atmosfera e espero que talvez algum dia, alguém descubra uma maneira de se livrar de alguns dos venenos.
Noam Chomsky falando na Universidade de Toronto em 2011. (Andrew Rusk / Wikimedia Commons)
Bem, dê uma olhada no povo da Virgínia Ocidental. A United Mine Workers concordou recentemente com um programa de transição, que afastaria os mineiros de carvão da Virgínia Ocidental das atividades destrutivas [da mineração de carvão] e em direção à energia renovável, melhores empregos e melhores comunidades. Muitos deles estão se movendo nessa direção. Isso não é uma grande surpresa.
LF
AOC, esse deve ser um daqueles momentos em que é difícil ser ativista e também estar no governo. Deve ser difícil não ter seus cabelos em chamas no Congresso. Mas no Congresso, você precisa fazer as coisas para permanecer eleito e ser reeleito, e as mudanças das quais estamos falando demoram muito.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Há uma contradição extraordinária na vida cotidiana de uma pessoa que entende esses sistemas. Mesmo com desprezo pela maneira como muitos desses sistemas funcionam, você tem que operar dentro deles. Uma das coisas que são intrinsecamente contraditórias é que tanto de nosso ativismo envolve não uma rejeição dos sistemas eleitorais, mas uma exigência de que os sistemas eleitorais por si só sejam insuficientes, que haja uma exigência de organização e mobilização que vai além das eleições e além de apenas nosso sistema eleitoral sistemas.
A política eleitoral é parte dessa mobilização maior. Não é a soma disso. Como autoridade eleita, entendo que muito do que acontece no Congresso é resultado de uma enorme mobilização de pressão antes mesmo que a legislação chegue ao plenário da Câmara. E, de fato, as decisões sobre o que vai para o plenário da Câmara são fruto de mobilizações externas. É uma mobilização de capital ou uma mobilização de pessoas.
You recently described literally being in tears during one vote in which you voted “present” on a bill that was going to support more weapons to Israel. Can you talk about that moment?
AOC
My job is to be held accountable and responsible by the communities that I represent. It’s very difficult to discuss publicly the human toll and the human cost of being in such a position. And, you know — especially, I think, in digital spaces and mass media spaces — the reduction of people to their jobs or to their positions is quite normal. But the threats to our lives are very, very real. And in the sequence of that week, at the beginning, Democratic Party leadership attempted to slip in an additional $12 billion for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system in routine legislation — a continuing resolution — whose intent is to continue funding our current operations the way that they have been funded as we negotiate the budget. They attempted to slip additional funding into a continuing resolution. So I worked along with several others to strip that funding at the beginning of the week.
We then saw this very militant media mobilization that, in my view, started to extend far beyond the normal anti-Palestinian mass media rhetoric into rhetoric that was direct[ly] threat[ening] the lives of members of Congress. In fact, even Haaretz, a supposedly “progressive-leaning” newspaper, ran an extraordinarily racist depiction of me and other members holding Hamas rockets and aiming fire at Jerusalem.
I can disclose this now, but I couldn’t then: I was assigned and was riding around in a twenty-thousand-pound armored vehicle because there was an extremely serious credible threat that had been intercepted.
Take all of that and combine it with the fact that, after we had successfully removed that funding, Democratic leadership decided they were going to force a singular vote on this one funding piece, the same week that we were voting on the National Defense Authorization Act. They decided to roll out a narrative that was incredibly misleading, that this was the funding for the Iron Dome — which was a lie. This was supplemental to the full funding that Congress had already authorized.
That created an extraordinary amount of panic among our Jewish community that has been experiencing extremely targeted antisemitic attacks, along with our Muslim brothers and sisters in the community.
They had scheduled to vote that morning, and the vote was set to be called within an hour. I worked very hard to not just vote my conscience but to organize our community in support of those votes. This was an instance where our community, as well as I, were caught on our back foot. The calls that we received to our office were overwhelmingly, I believe, reactive to this misleading narrative. And we did not receive mobilization in our office in the way that we should have for the community to understand.
I’ve beaten myself up a great deal over it, but I also think that in the larger scheme of things, this was a battle in a larger context, in a larger struggle for the dignity and human rights of Palestinians and all people.
My job is to be held accountable and responsible by the communities that I represent. It’s very difficult to discuss publicly the human toll and the human cost of being in such a position. And, you know — especially, I think, in digital spaces and mass media spaces — the reduction of people to their jobs or to their positions is quite normal. But the threats to our lives are very, very real. And in the sequence of that week, at the beginning, Democratic Party leadership attempted to slip in an additional $12 billion for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system in routine legislation — a continuing resolution — whose intent is to continue funding our current operations the way that they have been funded as we negotiate the budget. They attempted to slip additional funding into a continuing resolution. So I worked along with several others to strip that funding at the beginning of the week.
We then saw this very militant media mobilization that, in my view, started to extend far beyond the normal anti-Palestinian mass media rhetoric into rhetoric that was direct[ly] threat[ening] the lives of members of Congress. In fact, even Haaretz, a supposedly “progressive-leaning” newspaper, ran an extraordinarily racist depiction of me and other members holding Hamas rockets and aiming fire at Jerusalem.
I can disclose this now, but I couldn’t then: I was assigned and was riding around in a twenty-thousand-pound armored vehicle because there was an extremely serious credible threat that had been intercepted.
Take all of that and combine it with the fact that, after we had successfully removed that funding, Democratic leadership decided they were going to force a singular vote on this one funding piece, the same week that we were voting on the National Defense Authorization Act. They decided to roll out a narrative that was incredibly misleading, that this was the funding for the Iron Dome — which was a lie. This was supplemental to the full funding that Congress had already authorized.
That created an extraordinary amount of panic among our Jewish community that has been experiencing extremely targeted antisemitic attacks, along with our Muslim brothers and sisters in the community.
They had scheduled to vote that morning, and the vote was set to be called within an hour. I worked very hard to not just vote my conscience but to organize our community in support of those votes. This was an instance where our community, as well as I, were caught on our back foot. The calls that we received to our office were overwhelmingly, I believe, reactive to this misleading narrative. And we did not receive mobilization in our office in the way that we should have for the community to understand.
I’ve beaten myself up a great deal over it, but I also think that in the larger scheme of things, this was a battle in a larger context, in a larger struggle for the dignity and human rights of Palestinians and all people.
LF
Noam, your thoughts?
Noam, your thoughts?
NC
What AOC has brought up, both in this comment and the preceding one, is the interaction between mobilization and political action in Congress. As she pointed out, the main part of politics is activism and mobilization. That was a very interesting phenomenon concerning mobilization on this funding. The funding was for replenishment of the Iron Dome, and there were very eloquent statements from people in Congress [asking], how we can take away defense from people who are under attack? Notice what’s happening. Did anybody get up and say, how about some defense for the people who are being attacked? The people who are being attacked are people in a prison, an open-air prison, in Gaza — two million people, a million children, under vicious attack, constant attack. This particular case was just an escalation of the attack that goes on every day with US weapons, tech weapons.
They’re to the point where they literally don’t have water to drink. Children in Gaza are dying because they can’t drink water. Sewage systems are destroyed. The power system was destroyed — constant attacks, blockade, can’t move. How about some defense for that?
What AOC has brought up, both in this comment and the preceding one, is the interaction between mobilization and political action in Congress. As she pointed out, the main part of politics is activism and mobilization. That was a very interesting phenomenon concerning mobilization on this funding. The funding was for replenishment of the Iron Dome, and there were very eloquent statements from people in Congress [asking], how we can take away defense from people who are under attack? Notice what’s happening. Did anybody get up and say, how about some defense for the people who are being attacked? The people who are being attacked are people in a prison, an open-air prison, in Gaza — two million people, a million children, under vicious attack, constant attack. This particular case was just an escalation of the attack that goes on every day with US weapons, tech weapons.
They’re to the point where they literally don’t have water to drink. Children in Gaza are dying because they can’t drink water. Sewage systems are destroyed. The power system was destroyed — constant attacks, blockade, can’t move. How about some defense for that?
LF
I don’t want to focus solely on you as individuals, but the other thing that I heard in the congresswoman’s account was about the level of vitriol, to the point of feeling one’s life is under attack. You, Noam, are a great example of surviving decades of attacks. Can you talk about that?
I don’t want to focus solely on you as individuals, but the other thing that I heard in the congresswoman’s account was about the level of vitriol, to the point of feeling one’s life is under attack. You, Noam, are a great example of surviving decades of attacks. Can you talk about that?
NC
I could give you a long story about having to have police protection, even at my own campus, but that’s not important. There’s great passion about defending the perpetrators from retaliation but not a word about defending the victims from massive attack. That’s very much like the system of markets that we were talking about before: you defend markets for the poor, not for the rich. The rich have to be protected from the ravages of markets.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at a protest at Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s office in November 2018. (Sunrise Movement / Twitter)
Going back to the most important point: the interaction between mobilization and political action in Congress. As AOC pointed out, the main part of politics is activism and mobilization. What happens in Congress is an ill reflection, but it is a reflection. The Sunrise Movement is at the forefront of activism on climate. They got to the point of civil disobedience, occupying congressional offices, occupying Nancy Pelosi’s office, demanding change, or they’d just be thrown out by the Capitol police. They weren’t this time, because one person from Congress came and joined them — AOC came to join them. That’s what led to Joe Biden’s climate program. It’s not great, but it’s better than anything before. That’s an illustration of the point. AOC was making popular activism, interacting with supportive people in Congress. This is an old lesson we should learn.
I could give you a long story about having to have police protection, even at my own campus, but that’s not important. There’s great passion about defending the perpetrators from retaliation but not a word about defending the victims from massive attack. That’s very much like the system of markets that we were talking about before: you defend markets for the poor, not for the rich. The rich have to be protected from the ravages of markets.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at a protest at Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s office in November 2018. (Sunrise Movement / Twitter)Going back to the most important point: the interaction between mobilization and political action in Congress. As AOC pointed out, the main part of politics is activism and mobilization. What happens in Congress is an ill reflection, but it is a reflection. The Sunrise Movement is at the forefront of activism on climate. They got to the point of civil disobedience, occupying congressional offices, occupying Nancy Pelosi’s office, demanding change, or they’d just be thrown out by the Capitol police. They weren’t this time, because one person from Congress came and joined them — AOC came to join them. That’s what led to Joe Biden’s climate program. It’s not great, but it’s better than anything before. That’s an illustration of the point. AOC was making popular activism, interacting with supportive people in Congress. This is an old lesson we should learn.
LF
AOC, you did that action that Noam just described in the first moments after your election victory. You’ve sometimes said that part of your job is to retain that sense of outsiderism and freshness in Washington. How would you say you’re doing on that front? And what is your vision of the progressive agenda on the domestic side as well as the foreign policy side? What are your biggest priorities?
AOC, you did that action that Noam just described in the first moments after your election victory. You’ve sometimes said that part of your job is to retain that sense of outsiderism and freshness in Washington. How would you say you’re doing on that front? And what is your vision of the progressive agenda on the domestic side as well as the foreign policy side? What are your biggest priorities?
AOC
One of the things that we’ve been figuring out how to navigate is, how do you go from pushing an opposition party under a neofascist administration to essentially acting as the minority party within a governing party? How do you manage the tensions within activism, and how do you expand the power and the potential of mobilization under those two different kinds of regimes?
One of the things that we’ve been successful at was this most recent showdown in Congress around the reconciliation and infrastructure fight, because, historically, the Progressive Caucus in Congress has been basically toothless. It has essentially been more of a social club than a political caucus that can exert real power. Because of that dynamic, this neoliberal and conservative corporate wing of the party has dictated the Democratic Party’s agenda, essentially without any sort of internal resistance for a very long period of time, save for a handful of people that didn’t quite have the numbers.
But what we experienced was a real transformative event in the history of the Progressive Caucus within Congress, where, for the first two years that I was in office, it was essentially me and three other women. Maybe we could get five others and have . . . ten people in the last Congress to be able to break with the party. In this most recent fight, the Progressive Caucus, which is ninety-five members out of the 218 needed to pass any legislation, was galvanized. They were willing to withhold their votes in order to ensure that the package with the greatest number of benefits for most people — from labor, health care, childcare, and educational protections to climate — was prioritized.
I think that came as a shock to the party. It came as a shock to mass media. They didn’t know how to cover it. Many of them continue to try to adopt this tired narrative that a handful of progressives are troublemakers in the party. But the fact is, it’s the very pro-corporate wing — a handful of people — that is pursuing a path of obstruction. And they’re tying themselves into knots to not say that.
I think that it is a precipitating event. We are going to see if the Progressive Caucus takes this exercise of discovered power for working people and applies it in its strategy moving forward.
It is so important that we tell working-class people, “You have more power than you think you do. Your essential labor withheld has more of an impact than you think.” And I think sometimes even members of Congress take their own power for granted, because so much of what happens feels like it’s at the whims of these larger social forces of capital, of Wall Street, of the party’s leadership. Rank-and-file members of the Democratic Party sometimes forget their own power. And they have discovered it in a way that I don’t think many have felt before.
LF
We’ve often heard the phrase “Another world is possible.” We try on this program to actually name the moments in which that other world seems to us to be not just possible but palpable. Somebody you met, something you did, something you witnessed or were involved in, something gave you that feeling that these huge changes that we’re talking about can happen — are happening, perhaps. Noam, what leads you to think we can get there?
We’ve often heard the phrase “Another world is possible.” We try on this program to actually name the moments in which that other world seems to us to be not just possible but palpable. Somebody you met, something you did, something you witnessed or were involved in, something gave you that feeling that these huge changes that we’re talking about can happen — are happening, perhaps. Noam, what leads you to think we can get there?
NC
It started in the 1930s. I’m old enough to remember it. My family was first-generation immigrants, working-class, mostly unemployed, but very hopeful. It was not so much like now in absolute terms — much worse than now — but in psychological terms far different. There was a sense that we’re working together. We can get out of rotten conditions, but we’re together. We have the ability. We have labor action, political organizations, we have our groups, associations working together with a somewhat sympathetic administration. We can get together and fight our way out of this. And they were right.
Take this example: around 1960, a couple of black kids sat at a lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, at a segregated lunch counter. Of course, they were immediately arrested and thrown out. That could have been the end. Except the next day, a couple more came back. Pretty soon, you had people coming from the North to join them. Pretty soon, you had Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee workers driving freedom buses through the South, trying to encourage a black farmer to take his life in his hands and go to register to vote. Soon, you had a huge movement.
Always, it’s the people who make things happen. We should really honor the countless unknown people; they’re the ones who are inspiring. They’re the ones that we should honor and respect.
AOC
It is a transformation of our understanding of how history happens, how change happens — as [being made by] a number of notable individuals, negotiating on behalf of everybody else, to the more accurate depiction of history, which is about mass mobilization. That’s often erased and underdiscussed, precisely because of how powerful and effective it is.
Arundhati Roy wrote that another world is not only possible, it is already here. Finding the pockets where this world is alive is what gives me hope. The Bronx has one of the highest per capita rates of worker cooperatives in the world. That is a new economy in our borough of millions of people.
Whether it’s that, whether it is discussions around mass incarceration, abolitionists — not just asking what it means to dismantle a jail but what it means to reorganize the society so that we do not have people engaged in antisocial behavior on such a scale that we have today, or that we don’t have antisocial systems. These are not just theoretical conversations that people are having; there are communities that are actively experimenting and developing solutions. Also in the Bronx, we have anti-violence intervention programs, where we’ve taken people who were once incarcerated, and they are paid to mentor young people who are at risk of committing a crime that will put them in our system to be incarcerated for life. And we have reduced recurrence of violence by more than 50 percent. It’s more effective than any police intervention that we know of.
What I work on is not “How do we find solutions” but “How do we scale the solutions that we’ve already developed to transform our society?” And that is work that breaks our cycles of cynicism.
Cynicism is a far greater enemy to the Left than many others because it is the tool that is given to us to hurt ourselves. Hope creates action, and action creates hope. And that’s how we scale forward.
It started in the 1930s. I’m old enough to remember it. My family was first-generation immigrants, working-class, mostly unemployed, but very hopeful. It was not so much like now in absolute terms — much worse than now — but in psychological terms far different. There was a sense that we’re working together. We can get out of rotten conditions, but we’re together. We have the ability. We have labor action, political organizations, we have our groups, associations working together with a somewhat sympathetic administration. We can get together and fight our way out of this. And they were right.
Take this example: around 1960, a couple of black kids sat at a lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, at a segregated lunch counter. Of course, they were immediately arrested and thrown out. That could have been the end. Except the next day, a couple more came back. Pretty soon, you had people coming from the North to join them. Pretty soon, you had Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee workers driving freedom buses through the South, trying to encourage a black farmer to take his life in his hands and go to register to vote. Soon, you had a huge movement.
Always, it’s the people who make things happen. We should really honor the countless unknown people; they’re the ones who are inspiring. They’re the ones that we should honor and respect.
AOC
It is a transformation of our understanding of how history happens, how change happens — as [being made by] a number of notable individuals, negotiating on behalf of everybody else, to the more accurate depiction of history, which is about mass mobilization. That’s often erased and underdiscussed, precisely because of how powerful and effective it is.
Arundhati Roy wrote that another world is not only possible, it is already here. Finding the pockets where this world is alive is what gives me hope. The Bronx has one of the highest per capita rates of worker cooperatives in the world. That is a new economy in our borough of millions of people.
Whether it’s that, whether it is discussions around mass incarceration, abolitionists — not just asking what it means to dismantle a jail but what it means to reorganize the society so that we do not have people engaged in antisocial behavior on such a scale that we have today, or that we don’t have antisocial systems. These are not just theoretical conversations that people are having; there are communities that are actively experimenting and developing solutions. Also in the Bronx, we have anti-violence intervention programs, where we’ve taken people who were once incarcerated, and they are paid to mentor young people who are at risk of committing a crime that will put them in our system to be incarcerated for life. And we have reduced recurrence of violence by more than 50 percent. It’s more effective than any police intervention that we know of.
What I work on is not “How do we find solutions” but “How do we scale the solutions that we’ve already developed to transform our society?” And that is work that breaks our cycles of cynicism.
Cynicism is a far greater enemy to the Left than many others because it is the tool that is given to us to hurt ourselves. Hope creates action, and action creates hope. And that’s how we scale forward.
Sobre a entrevistadora
Laura Flanders is the host of The Laura Flanders Show and the author of several books.
Sobre os entrevistados
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the representative for New York's 14th congressional district.
Noam Chomsky is professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Haymarket Books recently released twelve of his classic books in new editions.
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