[starts at 1:14:22]
NC: There's plenty of dissent and opposition and concern. Plenty of grounds for optimism for people who are trying to organize and work. It's certainly far easier now than 40 years ago when Kennedy was launched his attack on South Vietnam. Then you couldn't do a thing. In the 1980s, the situation was better; you could organize for the wars against Nicaragua, the wars against El Salvador and Guatemala. But it wasn't that easy. Now there's considerably more opportunity, though the war drums are beating and people are scared.
DH: You've said the country is more civilized than it was 40 years ago. What do you mean by that?
NC: Incomparably more civilized. Things we take for granted now didn't exist 40 years ago. So for example, take say aggression. When Kennedy announced publicly that the U.S. was bombing South Vietnam in 1962, began using chemical weapons to destroy food crops, began programs to drive millions people into what were essentially concentration camps, there was no protest. We didn't talk about it. In the 1960s, there was barely a feminist movement. No environmental movement. In the 1960s, there wasn't yet, after hundreds of years, even the beginning of recognition of the original sin, what happened to the millions of people used to live here. That's all changed. It changed not so much in the 60s, but in the 70s, 80s, and since. That's when the major popular movements developed. They haven't carried out institutional change, but they've changed the culture and the moral level of the society very significantly. Those are real achievements. They make things very different than they were in the past. Among the intellectuals, I don't think anything's changed, but it rarely does. But among the general population, it's correct to say that the level of civilization is much higher things that would have seemed perfectly appropriate then are outlandish now.
DH: That's a good note to end on. Thank you, Noam Chomsky.
---
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