President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 – while at the same time escalating the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Some days after his Nobel Prize speech in Stockholm he went to Copenhagen and had nothing to offer to the climate talks as a reduction of four per cent of greenhouse gas emissions until 2020 – while scientists say 40 percent are needed. Many analysts say that this was the collapse of the climate talks. There were many hopes before Obama was elected, when he was elected. Hopes for change. Where is this „change“ that was promised. And why is he falling short of the expectations?
Noam Chomsky, Professor of Linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge/USA, and political activist
David Goessmann: Welcome to “Kontext”
Fabian Scheidler: Today we are broadcasting from the University of Mainz (Germany) and are very pleased to welcome Noam Chomsky as our guest.
David Goessmann: Noam Chomsky has been awarded the Erich-Fromm-Prize for his political engagement in Stuttgart (Germany). Chomsky is one of the most prestigious linguists and political authors worldwide and has written more than a hundred books in which he first and foremost criticizes U.S foreign policy.
Fabian Scheidler: Mr. Chomsky, we welcome you to Kontext-TV. It's great to have you with us.
Noam Chomsky: Thank you.
Fabian Scheidler: President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 – while at the same time escalating the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Some days after his Nobel Prize speech in Stockholm he went to Copenhagen and had nothing to offer to the climate talks as a reduction of four per cent of greenhouse gas emissions until 2020 – while scientists say 40 percent are needed. Many analysts say that this was the collapse of the climate talks. There were many hopes before Obama was elected, when he was elected. Hopes for change. Where is this „change“ that was promised. And why is he falling short of the expectations?
Noam Chomsky: It's not a comment about him. It's a comment about the expectations. The expectations were based on nothing. I'm one of the few people who isn't disillusioned because I had no expectations. I wrote about his record and prospects before the campaign, just looking at his website. And it was pretty clear that he's going to be a normal centrist Democrat roughly Clinton-style. He never pretended to be anything else. I mean there was rhetoric about hope and change. But it was like a blank slate. You can write on it whatever you wanted. And he is kind of personable. People were desperate for some hope so they grabbed onto it. But there was no basis for any expectations. I mean as you may know he won an award, the award from the advertising industry for the best marketing campaign of 2008. He beat out Apple Computer. And they knew what they were doing. It was a very successful marketing campaign. But like most marketing campaigns you don't take it seriously. If you look at the actual substance there was never any reason for expectations. And what's happened is I think pretty much in line with what could have been anticipated both in domestic and international affairs.