Who Owns the World? Noam Chomsky on Why Democrats and Republicans Refuse to Discuss Key Global Issues

On the week when President Obama and Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney debated issues of foreign policy and the economy, Democracy Now! airs a recent speech by world-renowned political dissident, linguist, author and MIT Professor, Noam Chomsky. Chomsky examined topics largely ignored or glossed over during the campaign -- from China to the Arab Spring, to global warming. He notes that the rest of the world sees Israel as the Middle East's most dangerous nuclear threat, not Iran. Watch the speech below:

In the opening of his address, Chomsky explains: "I had two topics in mind, couldn't decide between them... One topic is, what are the most important issues that we face? The second topic is, what issues are not being treated seriously or at all in the quadrennial frenzy now underway, called an election. But I realized there's no problem, it's not a hard choice: They're the same topic. And there are reasons for it that are very significant in themselves."

While discussing the current state of American politics, specifically the "lunacy" of the Republican primaries, he said:

"People in the rest of the world are looking at this and can't believe what is happening to the country. Well, what is happening is quite understandable when one of the two political parities abandons any pretense of being the parliamentary party, just serves the super rich, lock step uniformity. There is no other way for them to survive. They've got to mobilize these sectors to get votes. That's what's happening."

Chomsky gave this speech last month at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, at an event sponsored by the Center for Popular Economics. His talk was entitled, "Who Owns the World?"

Visit democracynow.org to read the complete transcript of the speech.

You can find Democracy Now!'s past coverage of, and interviews with, Noam Chomsky, right here.

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