Issues that Obama and Romney Avoid

By Noam Chomsky

In these Times
October 5, 2012 
http://www.inthesetimes.org/article/13954/issues_that_obama_and_romney_avoid/

In a rare instance of bipartisanship, both parties
demand that we make the problem of global warming
worse.

With the quadrennial presidential election extravaganza
reaching its peak, it's useful to ask how the political
campaigns are dealing with the most crucial issues we
face. The simple answer is: badly, or not at all.

There are two issues of overwhelming significance,
because the fate of the species is at stake:
environmental disaster and nuclear war.

The former is regularly on the front pages. On
September 19, for example, Justin Gillis reported in
The New York Times that the melting of Arctic sea ice
had ended for the year, "but not before demolishing the
previous record - and setting off new warnings about
the rapid pace of change in the region."

The melting is much faster than predicted by
sophisticated computer models and the most recent U.N.
report on global warming. New data indicate that summer
ice might be gone by 2020, with severe consequences.
Previous estimates had summer ice disappearing by 2050.

"But governments have not responded to the change with
any greater urgency about limiting greenhouse
emissions," Gillis writes. "To the contrary, their main
response has been to plan for exploitation of newly
accessible minerals in the Arctic, including drilling
for more oil" -that is, to accelerate the catastrophe.

This reaction demonstrates an extraordinary willingness
to sacrifice the lives of our children and
grandchildren for short-term gain. Or, perhaps, an
equally remarkable willingness to shut our eyes so as
not to see the impending peril.

That's hardly all. A new study from the Climate
Vulnerability Monitor has found that "climate change
caused by global warming is slowing down world economic
output by 1.6 percent a year and will lead to a
doubling of costs in the next two decades." The study
was widely reported elsewhere but Americans have been
spared the disturbing news.

The official Democratic and Republican platforms on
climate matters are reviewed in Science magazine's
September 14 issue. In a rare instance of
bipartisanship, both parties demand that we make the
problem worse.

In 2008, both party platforms had devoted some
attention to how the government should address climate
change. Today, the issue has almost disappeared from
the Republican platform-which does, however, demand
that Congress "take quick action" to prevent the
Environmental Protection Agency, established by former
Republican President Richard Nixon in saner days, from
regulating greenhouse gases. And we must open Alaska's
Arctic refuge to drilling to take "advantage of all our
American God-given resources." We cannot disobey the
Lord, after all.

The platform also states that "We must restore
scientific integrity to our public research
institutions and remove political incentives from
publicly funded research" -code words for climate
science.

The Republican candidate Mitt Romney, seeking to escape
from the stigma of what he understood a few years ago
about climate change, has declared that there is no
scientific consensus, so we should support more debate
and investigation-but not action, except to make the
problems more serious.

The Democrats mention in their platform that there is a
problem, and recommend that we should work "toward an
agreement to set emissions limits in unison with other
emerging powers." But that's about it.

President Barack Obama has emphasized that we must gain
100 years of energy independence by exploiting fracking
and other new technologies-without asking what the
world would look like after a century of such
practices.

So there are differences between the parties: about how
enthusiastically the lemmings should march toward the
cliff.

The second major issue, nuclear war, is also on the
front pages every day, but in a way that would astound
a Martian observing the strange doings on Earth.

The current threat is again in the Middle East,
specifically Iran-at least according to the West, that
is. In the Middle East, the U.S. and Israel are
considered much greater threats.

Unlike Iran, Israel refuses to allow inspections or to
sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear
Weapons (NPT). It has hundreds of nuclear weapons and
advanced delivery systems, and a long record of
violence, aggression and lawlessness, thanks to
unremitting American support. Whether Iran is seeking
to develop nuclear weapons, U.S. intelligence doesn't
know.

In its latest report [PDF], the International Atomic
Energy Agency says that it cannot demonstrate "the
absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities
in Iran" -a roundabout way of condemning Iran, as the
U.S. demands, while conceding that the agency can add
nothing to the conclusions of U.S. intelligence.

Therefore Iran must be denied the right to enrich
uranium that is guaranteed by the NPT, and endorsed by
most of the world, including the nonaligned countries
that have just met in Tehran.

The possibility that Iran might develop nuclear weapons
arises in the electoral campaign. (The fact that Israel
already has them does not.) Two positions are
counterposed: Should the U.S. declare that it will
attack if Iran reaches the capability to develop
nuclear weapons, which dozens of countries enjoy? Or
should Washington keep the "red line" more indefinite?

The latter position is that of the White House; the
former is demanded by Israeli hawks-and accepted by the
U.S. Congress. The Senate just voted 90-1 to support
the Israeli position.

Missing from the debate is the obvious way to mitigate
or end whatever threat Iran might be believed to pose:
Establish a nuclear weapons-free zone in the region.
The opportunity is readily available: An international
conference is to convene in a few months to pursue this
objective, supported by almost the entire world,
including a majority of Israelis.

The government of Israel, however, has announced that
it will not participate until there is a general peace
agreement in the region, which is unattainable as long
as Israel persists in its illegal activities in the
occupied Palestinian territories. Washington keeps to
the same position, and insists that Israel must be
excluded from any such regional agreement.

We could be moving toward a devastating war, possibly
even nuclear. Straightforward ways exist to overcome
this threat, but they will not be taken unless there is
large-scale public activism demanding that the
opportunity be pursued. This in turn is highly unlikely
as long as these matters remain off the agenda, not
just in the electoral circus, but in the media and
larger national debate.

Elections are run by the public relations industry. Its
primary task is commercial advertising, which is
designed to undermine markets by creating uninformed
consumers who will make irrational choices - the exact
opposite of how markets are supposed to work, but
certainly familiar to anyone who has watched
television.

It's only natural that when enlisted to run elections,
the industry would adopt the same procedures in the
interests of the paymasters, who certainly don't want
to see informed citizens making rational choices.

The victims, however, do not have to obey, in either
case. Passivity may be the easy course, but it is
hardly the honorable one. 

ABOUT THIS AUTHOR

Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor & Professor of
Linguistics (Emeritus) at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, and the author of dozens of books on
U.S. foreign policy. He writes a monthly column for The
New York Times News Service/Syndicate.

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