Or as young Alvy Singer would say of his father's loutish friend, "What an a**hole." Still, Chomsky goes further, seemingly shaking his head, muttering, "If we leave our fate to sociopathic buffoons, we're finished." And scratching his head, when he thinks about it: "It makes you wonder if this species is even viable."
Chomsky proffers the scary news that the Doomsday Clock scientists have set up to tell us how near we are to nuclear annihilation has changed its timespan. He says,
Ever since Trump was elected, the minute hand has been moving closer and closer to midnight. Last year, it was two minutes to midnight. This year, the analysts dispensed with minutes and moved to seconds. It is now 100 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been.[Italics added.] This is because of three things, according to the scientists: the threat of nuclear war, the threat of global warming, and the deterioration of democracy, which, at first, doesn't seem to quite belong with the others.
Hurry up and die, old man, you shouldn't have to face what you've warned us so often about all these years.
And as a parting blow, Chomsky makes note of a scene he claims to have seen at a Mickey D's joint (or at least it's logically implied). He says,
...we should bear in mind that prior to the pandemic there already existed forms of social isolation that are very damaging. Go into any McDonald's and take a look at a bunch of teenagers sitting around the table having hamburgers--what you'll see is two conversations going on. One is a normally quite shallow discussion among the group and the other is the one that each of them is having on their cellphone, with some remote individual.
Ouch! Don't get me started on Zoom conversations, Noam.
In "Corona-Neo-Fascism: A Deadly Combination," Horzat talks shop with Ece Temelkuran, author of the gloomy-sounding How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship. Horvat asks her to explain the gist of the book. Temelkuran suggest that it's not just one or two nations falling into fascism we need to worry about:
What strikes me is that the present pandemic is asking of us exactlythe same things that fascism would: isolation, restrictions, atomization, and social distancing. The virus creates an environment that is perfect for the flourishing of right-wing populism, authoritarian regimes, and fascism in general.
America is heading that way. On the other hand, Ece thinks that "Turkey has a chance after Covid-19." That's saying something.
In "Reflecting on Our Post-Virus World," musician Brian Eno has a chat with Greek politician Yanis Varoufakis. The latter opines on who seems to be the most effective, at the moment, in gathering forces for the coming change. Duane Clarridges seem to be out and about telling people to do things, and when challenged to explain why, receive back: "security reasons" and that's it. Varoufakis thinks that the Right's winning:
The fascists are surpassing us in doing solidarity work on the ground, giving workers what is, in my view, a false sense of importance on the basis of hating others, of demonizing the foreigner, the Black, the Jew, the Palestinian,the other.
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