Famed author, linguist and MIT Professor Noam Chomsky and labor activist Bill Fletcher Jr. criticized American foreign policy in a presentation in Pearson Hall on Friday evening, kicking off the three-day New Strategies for the Obama Era Conference.
Chomsky and Fletcher's keynote lecture examining the Obama administration, entitled "Challenges Before Us," began the conference on U.S. foreign policy, the economic crisis and energy and the environment. Both speakers criticized President Barack Obama's administration's policies, finding fault with U.S. relations in the Middle East and Europe and with the administration's approach to the economy.
Peace and Justice Studies and the American Friends Service Committee, a national Quaker organization, sponsored the grassroots organizing-focused conference. Of the 250 audience members on Friday, only a few were college aged; most were middle-aged or older.
Chomsky accused the administration of treating intelligence assessments in a political manner, saying that the administration's claim that Iran had a nuclear weapons program contradicted the United States' National Intelligence Estimate released in November 2007.
"We don't have any new evidence; we don't like it -- so reject it," Chomsky said, characterizing the administration's actions toward the 2007 estimate.
Chomsky also accused Israel of, since the 1960s, pursuing an expansionist foreign policy, which he claimed the United States has supported.
He furthered his argument by saying Israel's policies concerning Israeli settlements in Gaza violated the Geneva Conventions and that the call by Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) to freeze the growth of settlements endorsed illegal activity on the part of Israel.
"When Kerry says, 'Freeze the settlements,' he means continue the criminal activity," Chomsky said.
Chomsky also criticized U.S. plans to install a missile defense system in Eastern Europe and opposed the existence of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), saying it was a tool for America and Europe to control world energy supplies.
Like Chomsky, Fletcher opposed Obama's foreign policy, calling the president's "policies toward Palestine ... horrible and inexcusable." His main arguments, though, focused more on political strategy and domestic policy than did Chomsky's.
Fletcher expressed his hope that Americans would not hold Obama to great expectations. "There are no miracles," he said. "Change comes only so long as there are social movements."
He opposed the appointments of Lawrence Summers and Rahm Emmanuel as Obama's top economic adviser and the White House chief of staff, respectively, saying that they were too moderate.
Fletcher also dismissed the accusation that Obama is a socialist. A self-declared socialist himself, Fletcher criticized capitalism as inherently crash-prone and trade agreements as damaging to the citizens of member countries.
"Economic theorists try to make you think that economic crises are unusual," he said. "They are all treated as if they are the responsibility of a few greedy people or [as if] something broke down, and it'll never happen again."
"The normality is crisis," Fletcher said. "Often what happens is the crises get displaced ... As the United States expands, the crises get pushed out to the rest of the world."
Fletcher said that economic globalization has prompted the formation of "neoliberal, authoritarian states" that limit political freedom and place limits on political discourse with the purpose of "curtailing resistance to globalization."
He wants to "deconstruct" the North American Free Trade Agreement because of what he called "the destruction wrought on Canada and Mexico," he said, a statement which received much applause from the audience.
Fletcher also said leftists should push for nationalization on the part of the U.S. government.
"Why isn't the U.S. government buying up these factories to produce what Americans need to use?" he said, referring to closing automotive plants in the United States. "The economic crisis and environmental crisis make the times we live in very exceptional."
Fletcher said that the future of the United States holds fundamental changes in store. "Things are going to change dramatically," he said. "The question is how and how we respond to prevent a dystopia and instead have a utopia."
Fletcher anticipated the possibility of a bleak future, comparing it to a science fiction-like scenario where people live in "metal cages" underground because the planet's surface has become too polluted. He anticipated the rise of a "more barbaric form of capitalism."
"Capitalism is very resilient, and that is something people on the left have underappreciated," he said.
Fletcher said the greatest threat today comes from right-wing populism, which he said has mastered talking to working-class people. "It's amazing that the right wing felt much more comfortable about talking to the working class, using our terms," he said, referring to Gov. Sarah Palin's (R-Alaska) rhetoric employed in last year's presidential election.
