(en) US, Buffalo Class Action*: Direct Action, Occupy and the Power of Social Movements: An Interview With Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky discussing the crisis formed from unregulated capitalism, and how to create 
social movements that have the power to fight it. ---- As a commentator, educator, public 
intellectual, and one of the best known anarchist voices in the U.S., Noam Chomsky has 
become a defining perspective as social movements develop. His analysis of the shift in 
global capitalism, and our own role in its flux, has seen a recharge of importance as we 
entered the ?new normal? of the post-2008 economy. Like was done with workplace struggles 
at the birth of the union movement, we are attempting to locate housing struggles out of 
the abstract legislative sphere and back into the neighborhoods. With the foreclosure 
crisis and the Occupy Movement that followed, a housing movement that saw occupation and 
defense as central began to be birthed against all conventional wisdom.

I sat down with Noam Chomsky to discuss the growing Take Back the Land and housing justice 
movements, the nature of the foreclosure crisis, the Occupy Movement, and what radical 
politics will look like in this new period of social movements.

SB:

I am working both with both Take Back the Land and local housing non-profits to create a 
big housing focused movement. The two primary things that we do in Take Back the Land are 
foreclosure resistance, setting up blockades, working with families, trying to get 
neighborhood solidarity. And also finding empty bank-owned homes and moving homeless 
families into them. So one of the things is that it is a very direct thing, it uses 
direct action. What is direct action, and why does it end up being so important as a 
kernel for movements like this?

Noam Chomsky:

Direct action carries the message forward in a very dramatic fashion. For one thing it 
can help people. So resisting foreclosure sometimes does help people get into their 
homes, but it also dramatizes the issue in a way in which words don?t. Direct action 
means putting yourself on the line. That?s true of civil disobedience and many other 
types of action, which indicate a depth of commitment and clarification of the issues, 
which sometimes does stir other people to do something. That?s what resistance and civil 
disobedience were always about. In fact, direct action has often been the preliminary to 
really major changes. Revolutionary changes, in fact. In the United States the sit-down 
strikes of the 1930s were a major impetus for passing significant New Deal legislation. 
The reason is that manufacturers could perceive that a sit-down strike was just one step 
before taking over the enterprise, kicking out the owners and managers, and saying ?we?ll 
run it ourselves.? Which can be done, and it?s the real revolutionary change. Changes 
the structure of hierarchy, domination, ownership, and so on. And direct actions of the 
sit-down strikes were dramatic indication of that.

The same was true of, say, the civil rights movements. Things that had been going on 
forever, hundreds of years, but what sparked it were a couple incidents of direct action. 
Rosa Parks insisting on sitting in a bus. Greensboro, North Carolina a couple years 
later. Black students sitting at a lunch counter, and these things then took off and 
became major movements with a lot of consequences. Without the direct action that 
probably wouldn?t have happened. You could do as many speeches as you like and it 
wouldn?t have had the effect of those actions.

SB

One thing we have also been talking about is that this is built out of necessity. People 
need a place a to live. Do you think that this kind of necessity helps with the idea of 
direct action, making it more fundamental?

NC

It should, if done properly, bring home to people that human rights are being taken away 
by a social and economic system that has no real legitimacy. I mean take foreclosure, 
take a look at the legislative history. As you know, when the bank bailout was legislated 
by congress, the TARP bailout, it actually had two components. One was to bailout the 
bank, essentially the people who created the crisis. The other half was to do something 
to help their victims. Of those two components only one was implemented, the first one. 
And people ought to know that. It?s the second one that counts. Yes the perpetrators 
were bailed out, how about their victims? They?re left hanging out to dry. And I think 
almost anybody can see the extreme injustice of this, in fact criminality if not 
illegality of it.

SB

In the language, when we are discussing the issue, we draw on the idea of housing as a 
human right. It?s the slogan we use. We call on the U.N. Convention on Human 
Rights(Universal Declaration of Human Rights). Why do you think this ?human rights 
framework? is important for talking about housing?

NC

Well there is a kind of a gold standard on human rights. It?s the Universal Declaration 
in 1948. Its important for American?s to understand the status of that declaration. It 
was not a Western imposition. It was arrived at by consensus over a very broad range, 
including input from elsewhere. In fact, much of the initiative came from elsewhere. Some 
from here, Eleanor Roosevelt in particular. But it was agreed upon and affirmed by 
congress. It has the highest legal status you can say. It?s got three parts, all of 
equal status. The first part is political and civil rights, so the right to vote and so 
on. The second part is social and economic rights, and that includes the right to 
housing, the right to healthcare, the right to education. All fundamental rights, and by 
world standards are easily as significant as voting rights. Maybe more so. The third 
section is cultural rights. The right to preserve your culture, to protect it and so on. 
Well the U.S. attitude from the beginning has been to dismiss the third component, not 
even talk about it. It?s never discussed. And to reject the second component. So U.S. 
officials have disparaged and dismissed the social and economic provisions. That?s true 
especially under the Reagan and Bush One administrations. Jeane Kirkpatrick, the U.N. 
Ambassador under Reagan(1), just dismissed the socio-economic provisions with ridicule. 
It?s a letter from Santa Clause. That?s exactly the same as throwing out the civil and 
political rights and saying their nothing, just a lot of words. Paula Dobriansky(2) in 
the first Bush administration, she described social and economic rights as ?a myth.? That 
there are no such rights. The only rights are civil and political rights, and it?s just a 
myth to think that these are rights. Morris Abram, who was the delegate to the 
international U.N. human rights group(3), they were debating something called the ?right 
to development,? which basically paraphrased the Universal Declaration. He voted against 
it; I think the U.S. was the only country to vote against it, with, again, very 
disparaging remarks. Saying it?s preposterous. Incitement. You can?t talk about social 
and economic rights. They don?t exist.

So the U.S. has been one of the strongest opponents of social and economic rights, which 
is a core part, one-third, of the Universal Declaration. Actually the U.S. is opposed to 
two-thirds since it doesn?t discuss the cultural rights. We should know that our country 
is in the lead in undermining human rights. That?s important, especially given the 
standard rhetoric from political leaders, intellectuals, media, and so on about how we 
defend human rights all over the world. We don?t defend them at all in principle. We 
defend them against enemies. So we are all in favor of human rights in Easter Europe or 
Iran, and say that?s fine. But not in our domain. Not here.

Foreclosure is one case in point. The right to housing is a core part of the Universal 
Declaration. Its particularly obscene her, for the reasons I?ve mentioned, because in the 
foreclosure case these people were cheated. They were cheated by the big banks, who 
created the crisis on the verge of criminality, some of them actually criminal. They 
created the crisis; induced people to undertake obligations they couldn?t possibly 
fulfill, and are now throwing them out in the streets, even though congress legislated 
there should be assistance to the victims.

SB

One thing I think is interesting is the housing movement starts to take shape, likely 
because of the 2010 crisis, but the character of it takes shape along with the Occupy 
Movement. They are both about taking over spaces. Either trying to reuse space, or take 
it back from another entity. Do you think there is actually something significant about 
this idea of actually occupying a space?

NC

They both have that theme, but as you say it?s a different type of occupation. In the 
Occupy Movement, it was to take a public space to use it for developing structures of 
solidarity. Mutual aid, debate, discussion, organization, a place to reach out into the 
community to bring about badly needed changes. In the case of the housing movement, its 
much more concrete. It?s a matter of giving people a roof over their heads.

There are straightforward ways to deal with the foreclosure. First, a number of people 
could be granted the right to rent their old houses and pay rents that are not that high 
until they reconstruct their finances and are able buy them back. That could be done. 
There are other simple means that could be applied. So I think for the anti-foreclosure 
movement should have a very strong appeal to the general public if the issues are 
formulated clearly and properly.

And there?s just the straight human side. Why should people be thrown out of their houses 
because the banks are crooks? Then they get bailed out, of course.

SB

Do you think communities of color have been especially affected?

NC

Sure. Victimization increases with poverty, it increases with race. We can?t overlook 
the fact that despite some progress, racial oppression is still a major feature of 
American society. It hasn?t gone away. Just take a look at the distribution of people in 
prison.

SB

There is kind of a sweep effect that ends up happening, where one house becomes empty, two 
become empty, it becomes six?

NC

It begins to destroy the neighborhood, so everybody has a stake in it. It?s a real reason 
for everyone to cooperate to prevent it from happening. It?s wholly indecent as far as 
the original family is concerned. It is also unnecessary because there are clear ways of 
dealing with it, and then there is kind of a domino effect. It destroys the neighborhood.

SB

As we are starting to see the, I guess I shouldn?t say the ?end? of the Occupy Movement, 
but we are walking away from that kind of rhetoric and the occupations, what do you think 
effect do you think it has had on movement building? On the way that we discuss the issues.

NC

Well, the Occupy Movement was very brief. It started a year ago(4), lasted for a couple 
months. It had a brilliant tactic. It was very effective. It had an enormous impact. 
Far more than I would have guessed, I must say I was surprised. It spread all over the 
country to hundreds of cities. All over the world. I gave talks in Sydney, Australia to 
the Occupy Movement. It just galvanized a lot of energy, activity, and so on.

But it was based on a tactic, and tactics don?t make movements.

Tactics, for one thing, they kind of a half -life. They have diminishing returns. You 
can?t apply them forever. The same is true of the most famous of the Occupy Movements, in 
Tahrir Square in Egypt. I was just there the day before yesterday. People are still 
there. Tahrir Square is still a symbol of ongoing struggle, but you can?t keep occupying 
Tahrir Square. For one, people in the neighborhood just get angered and irritated by it 
because its disturbing their lives. The effectiveness of the tactic begins to diminish, 
so you have to turn the tactic into a set of principles, which you then pursue with 
different tactics. And I think that?s the stage in which the Occupy Movement is today. As 
it is in the case of Egypt, where they?re debating, discussing, asking how to go on under 
the new circumstances. Not necessarily rejecting re-occupying of Tahrir Square, but 
moving in another direction. Occupy needs to do the same thing.

The Occupy Movement is far more diffuse and diverse. It doesn?t have the central 
character that, to some extent, the Egyptian Movement had, or the Tunisian Movement. Its 
got similar problems all over the world. Spain, Greece, Portugal, England. In some 
places its had real successes. Take Quebec. In Quebec the Student Movement, which is not 
part of the Occupy Movement but I think was stimulated by it just as Zuchotti Park was 
stimulated by Tahrir Square. The Quebec Student Movement had remarkable success. It 
should be better known. Initially it was a protest against a sharp rise in tuitions. It 
expanded, and gained enormous that could have led to overthrown the government and a 
significant change in a whole range of policies. That?s an enormous achievement. That 
should be better known, and it can stimulate other things.

SB

What is interesting about them is that they turned an idea of an occupation into a 
permanent, long-standing social movement that was going to be there after this took place. 
It was going to continue to maintain that student power, not let it dissipate after a 
large victory, but maintain that presence.

NC

It was a popular movement. Students have often been kind of a stimulus and a source for 
broader activism, but it can?t succeed until it goes well beyond the students. That was 
the case, for example, for the civil rights movement. Greensboro, North Carolina was 
students. SNCC spearheaded the civil rights movement with students. The Freedom Riders, 
not all, but the majority were young people and students. Over time it grew and became a 
mass popular movement, and had major achievements. Like all movements, it was limited and 
never achieved its real goals. They were aborted. In fact, right when the civil rights 
movement and Martin Luther King turned to class issues they were crushed. There are 
lessons there. And everyone knows Martin Luther King?s ?I Have a Dream? speech in 1963, 
but not many people know what, in many ways, was a more important ?I Have a Dream? speech 
of his in 1968. The evening that he was assassinated. That evening he spoke to a large 
crowd. He was in Memphis, Tennessee to support a public workers strike. A sanitation 
workers strike. He was moving towards establishing a Poor People?s Movement. Not black, 
Poor People?s Movement, which would address the fundamental issues of housing, that was a 
crucial part of it, poverty, malnutrition, and so on. Actually, one of steps was an early 
housing movement in Chicago. Urban Chicago. He used his usual biblical style rhetoric. 
He described himself to the crowd as like Moses, standing on a mountain. He could see the 
Promised Land. The land of freedom and justice, and overcoming poverty and oppression. 
He could see it, he was not going to get there, but you?ll get there. He spoke to the 
audience, then he was assassinated right there.

Poor People?s Campaign

There was supposed to be a march on Washington, a ?poor people?s march,? which he was to 
lead. His widow, Coretta King, led the march, and, from Memphis, it went through the 
places in the South where the major struggles had been. Birmingham, Selma, and so on. 
Ended up in Washington, and set up a tent city(5). An Occupy Movement. They set up a 
tent city in Washington. They were going to appeal to congress to legislate bills that 
would deal with the fundamental class issues, like poverty and housing and so on. They 
were allowed to stay there for a while and then congress sent in the security forces. They 
smashed up the tent city in the middle of the night and drove them out of Washington. 
That?s a part of the civil rights movement that you don?t hear about on Martin Luther King 
Day, but it?s important. It won major victories, but it couldn?t break through Northern 
racism and insistence on class privilege.

And we are right there now. Occupy is a sort of a Poor People?s Movement. Of course, 
there too the tent cities were broken up. People were driven out, but you have to go on.

SB

If you look back, this is not the first time that people have done things like eviction 
resistance or occupying houses. Can you talk a little bit about where in the past this 
has happened, and maybe internationally?

NC

In the 1930s it happened all the time, and in large parts of Europe left groups, often 
anarchist groups, have taken over buildings. Reconstructed them so that homeless people 
could live there. These movements have never reached a point of take off where it becomes 
a general thing to do, but they?ve been effective in many places in limited ways. You 
never know when it?s going to take off. You couldn?t have predicted that in Greensboro, 
North Carolina. You couldn?t have predicted it with Rosa Parks. You couldn?t have 
predicted it with Zuccotti Park.

SB

Do you think that now there?s an open discourse about radical politics that anarchism has 
a voice in the discussion?

NC

It certainly opened the doors, but whether it has a voice in the discussion depends on how 
people walk through those doors and develop the opportunities and possibilities that are 
available. So, yeah, there?s openings. And people have also sensed in their own 
existence the possibilities of mutual aid, solidarity. One of the most important things 
about the Occupy Movement, I think, was just to create the kinds of bonds and associations 
that will be necessary for a more just and decent society. People just helping each 
other, instead of ?I just want to enrich myself add to my number of commodities.? I?m 
going to join in a soup kitchen or a library or a public discussion, and we?ll all do it 
together. We can win together. That?s critical.

A young Chomsky, just starting a life of activism when organizing against the Vietnam War.

Notes:

Jean Kirkpatrick was nominated by Reagan as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Paula Dobriansky has worked as a foreign policy expert in the administrations of five 
presidents in total, with her position ranging. Her statements were made when acting as 
Secretary of State for Human Rights and Human Affairs, which she did for both Ronald 
Reagan and George H. W. Bush.
The official title for Morris Abram that is being referenced is Representative of the 
United States to the European Office of the United Nations, which he was appointed to be 
George H. W. Bush. He served from 1989-1993.
The date of this interview was 10/26/12.
Called Resurrection City

This interview was a part of the larger documentary Expect Resistance, which chronicles 
the Take Back the Land and Occupy movements in the context of Rochester, NY.
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* Buffalo Class Action is a revolutionary organization of anarchist communists in Buffalo, 
NY. We strive to further our ideas of social revolution while participating in the day to 
day struggles of the working class.