This archive report was first published on 25 May 2020.
At 91, renowned scholar and activist Noam Chomsky has spent his life advocating for social justice and criticizing those in power. In a recent interview, he expressed his deep concern about the United States' response to the coronavirus pandemic, calling it 'fatally chaotic.'
Chomsky, a professor at the University of Arizona, has been confined to his home in Tucson with his wife, Valeria, and their pets for two months. Despite the challenges of isolation, he remains vocal about the need for a coordinated plan to combat the pandemic.
'There's no coherent leadership,' Chomsky said. 'It's chaotic. The presidency, the White House, is in the hands of a sociopathic megalomaniac who's interested in nothing but his own power, electoral prospects -- doesn't care what happens to the country, the world.'
Chomsky pointed to the Trump administration's decision to dismantle the pandemic prevention machinery, including defunding the Center for Disease Control and cancelling programs that worked with Chinese scientists to identify potential viruses. He also criticized the lack of a universal healthcare system in the US, which he described as 'the ultimate neoliberal system.'
While Chomsky acknowledged that Europe has its own problems, he noted that at least it has a social democratic structure that provides some support. In contrast, the US is in the 'stranglehold of private control,' he said.
As the pandemic rages on, Chomsky warned that the consequences of inaction will be severe. 'There will be recovery from the pandemic at severe cost,' he said, 'but there isn't going to be any recovery from the melting of the polar ice caps and the rising of sea levels and the other deleterious effects of global warming.'
Chomsky also expressed concerns about the increasing use of technology to track citizens and store DNA to fight the virus. He warned that this could lead to a new era of digital surveillance, threatening individual privacy and freedom.
'If we allow the huge tech companies, the state, to control our life that's what will happen,' Chomsky said. 'They'll turn it into something like China, where you have social credit systems and in some cities you get a certain amount of credits, there's face recognition technology all over the place and everything you do gets monitored.'
Despite the challenges, Chomsky remains hopeful that people can stop the erosion of their rights and freedoms. 'It's not inevitable,' he said. 'Just like global warming, that it's going to happen -- unless people stop it.'
