Hello, my name is Mike Morris
I'm one of the co-directors at Writing on the Wall an arts organisation  and festival based in Liverpool
I'd like to welcome you all to WOWFest Lockdown - our 20th annual and first-ever online festival. Which runs throughout May
Tomorrow at 3 o'clock
We've got Life of Grime  - a showcase of a work of a new generation of spoken word poets
Rappers and grime artists . At 6 o'clock tomorrow in partnership with La Violette Società:
we present A Barely Believable Bout of Beautiful Avoidance - a night of poetry
storytelling from one of the gems of the liberal arts scene.
Future guests include Nikesh Shukla, Rosie Jones, Stuart Maconie, Sharna Jackson, Phil Scraton
Francesca Martinez, Levi Tafari and to end the festival a
Special call to the arts from the former Labour Party leader
Jeremy Corbyn
All events are free
but donations are welcome and they'll be split between Fans Supporting Food Banks, the South Liverpool Domestic Abuse Services and
Writing on the Wall
Tonight, we have a very special guest who first appeared at WoWFest back in
2003
Noam Chomsky's interests writings
Academic work and activism are wide-ranging
He's written over 100 books, is regarded as the father of modern linguistics
was voted in 2005 as the world's leading public intellectual and in
2011 was the most cited academic in the world
Booker Prize winner and activist Arundhati Roy called him one of the greatest, most radical public thinkers of our time
He was in the news again this week when speaking at a launch of the Progressive International
Which aims to unite
progressive forces around the world
Noam Chomsky said that Donald Trump was culpable in the deaths of Americans due to the coronavirus
With the rise in populist governments and the antics of Donald Trump and as the U.S. Remains the dominant global power
We feel there's no one better place to shed some light on the current situation
If you have any questions, please post them in the comments box and we'll aim to get through as many of them as possible
When we contacted Noam to appear at WoWFest Lockdown
He said that he'd been turning down hundreds of requests for interviews and appearances
but felt that this one was special and
Therefore it is with a great sense of pride
That I welcome Noam Chomsky to WoWFest Lockdown to present 'A Letter from America'
 
 
Do I exist? t I can't  tell
You exist? Hello. Noam
okay, so I'm very
pleased to
More or less be with you. I
Wish it was in person. Of course, that's quite different. But this is the world in which we live
I'd like to
begin by saying a few words about
current crises
if there's time we could move on to broader issues that
are taking shape
will remain
Will have to be dealt with even after we
overcome the current critical
circumstances
Right now, of course
Attention is very naturally focused on the pandemic. It's very serious
costs will be
severe
but there's a
Few things to remember about it. We will recover
a
terrible cost
How serious a cost depends on how governments react
Need not be as serious as it is in
Countries like the yours and mine which are particularly bad
Others much better, but we will recover
Butt we're not going to recover from other things that are happening right now
so as we speak the
Polar ice caps are melting
The melting is accelerating
Nobody's exactly certain how it'll work, but it could be that within decades
Much of the world will simply start becoming uninhabitable
the, one of the latest
scientific studies predicted that
-  this is the first study to
carefully investigate
human
habitation
over the millennia
That's in a pretty narrow band of the world surface where the temperatures are
Relatively moderate - that's changing visibly. In fact, the prediction of this study is that
If we honor our current course in about 50 years
much of the
World, much of the world in which people now live, will become uninhabitable
South Asia, Middle East, large parts of Africa
large sections of China
parts of the United States
and major changes everywhere else - 
 organized human life will
probably collapse or
Turn into some form which we can scarcely imagine
the melting of the ice caps, it carries with it the
threat of a
very significant
rise in
sea level  - We
take a longer view, we're now
approaching the
warming of the global heat of about
125,000 years ago
And we're of course approaching it much more rapidly than at that time
which has consequences that aren't understood. But at that time the
The oceans were about six to nine meters
Higher than they are today
You can't even imagine a world like that
So that's happening while we speak
other things as well. Now the threat of nuclear war is being
escalated
It's very severe
It's getting worse. In the next couple of months may get much worse - if there's time, I could talk about that
So that's in the background. You should not forget it, while we're
focusing on the
pandemic that
Now, quite naturally, occupies attention. So let's take a look at the pandemic
First thing to bear in mind is that
After it is mitigated and declined it will very likely
Recur.A few years down the road, there'll probably be another one. That's the prediction of
Scientists who've
been studying these things for years. It's
Overwhelming consensus on this. So if we want to prevent the next pandemic
we have to start now and
It's known what we should do to start now, if we don't do it, there'll be another one
more severe than this one because the effects will be
Exacerbated by global warming. So how do we figure out what to do?
It's not Quantum physics
We ask how did this one come about?
Obvious question. Well, let's take a look - go back to
2003
when there was another major coronavirus epidemic
SARS epidemic
Coronavirus very similar to this one, but that one, fortunately, was contained, barely
At that point scientists warned right away that other
Likely, coronavirus pandemics are coming
Here's what we have to do to deal with it -
work on
explore the nature of corona viruses
And work on the background for vaccines and treatments and so on; if we do that
we'll be in shape, in shape when the next ... when the next one comes
well, it's not enough to have the knowledge -  somebody has to pick up the ball and run with it
Who could do it?
Well the most obvious
Candidate is the huge pharmaceutical corporations
they've got
profits
overflowing
thanks to
the neoliberal programmes, the
so-called free trade
agreements, which are in fact very remote from free trades
and have highly protectionist
elements designed to provide
essentially monopoly pricing rights to major corporations
Drug corporations and media corporations and others, so the drug companies are given exorbitant patents
Way beyond anything that existed in the past?
If they had existed in earlier years the ...England the United States, other countries would never have developed
but
Now they're there to make sure that the major corporations are
overflowing with profits
So they have plenty of funds
They have laboratories. They have resources. They could have gotten the work right away and
Prevented this pandemic, but there's a barrier
The barrier has a simple name. It's called capitalism
the drug corporations respond to market signals
How can you make profit? Ok, you can't make profit by working on preventing a
catastrophe that'll come down the road in several years and if you have a vaccine
Doesn't amount to much anyway something that people take once, maybe the next year, but you don't make a lot of profit on
What you want to do is other things - drugs that people are constantly using
That rich people use so they can pay for them. That's where profit is. So they're out
Drug companies couldn't do it
Can anybody else pick up the ball?
Well in principle, yes
there's something called government. If you look at the history of development of
vaccines drugs so on
That's... almost all the serious work is done under the public funding in the public sector. I won't go through the details, but
most vaccines
They may be
finally marketed by private corporations, but the basic research is
typically difficult creative work - it's almost always done in government institutions
That then hand it over to private corporations to modify for
marketing and profits
so the government could easily take over. In the United States the National Institute of Health has
very sophisticated labs; there were research laboratories in
universities - the University
where I spent most of my life - MIT
has wonderful
laboratories. The drug companies know it
Take MIT or any other big research institution - take a look at the buildings around it.
The buildings around it are Pfizer
Novartis
Genetic engineering corporations. Why are they there?
Basically to ripoff research that's done under public funding at the research institutions
Like MIT
So the government could easily take over but there's a barrier
In England, it's called Thatcher in the United States, It's called Reagan
It's 40 years of a savage
version of capitalism
Neoliberalism, it's called
magnified in
the UK and the continent by
austerity programs which had no economic basis, but
Were derivatives of the neoliberal savagery. And the this particular
savage form of capitalism has a principle
It was in fact enunciated by
Thatcher and Reagan right at the beginning in Reagan's words
Government is the problem not the solution
Translated into English, that means that
Decisions should be taken out of the hands of government
which has a flaw it's
Partially at least  - under public influence. So we overcome that flaw and transfer
decisions, planning to private
tyrannies
Huge Business Corporations
Tyrannies, basically, which are unaccountable to the public - so we transfer
decisions over to them but that's called... That's the meaning of
Government is the problem not the solution
So government is ruled out
That leaves nobody
So we're left unprepared.
Then comes
the question of how...
individual governments respond. That varies quite a lot
so
Take the United States... they're   the most
important country in the world - by far the most powerful
Europe just follows behind it, whether it likes it or not,
What happened in the United States? Well...
first came the Obama years
Obama made some slight efforts to try to do something. So it was known that there's a
shortage of ventilators -  now it's a severe crisis, but it was
pretty common knowledge in the healthcare circles. So Obama did
Contract with a small company in California that was producing the high-quality, low-cost
ventilators
The company that was bought up by a bigger company
to standard property of
neoliberalism's leading to an
virtual monopolization in sector after sector of the economy
The big fish swallow the small fish. That's the way it works under
Savage capitalism with no antitrust regulations. So this small company was bought up by a bigger...
a bigger company - Covidien - which makes
High-quality ventilators, but very high cost
So the first thing they did of course was put the small company out of business
Now they don't want
competition from low-cost
ventilators - so that one's done. Now, there were a couple of other efforts and for example
The United States at the time - it did have programs ... government programs which were working with Chinese
scientists to try to
determine the nature of
coronaviruses . Most coronaviruses come from bats - a
bat may bite a mammal the mammal gets in touch with
The human then it's transferred and it happens that there's a huge
concentration of bats the deep in caves around the Wuhan, the
region in China
So there are Chinese scientists who were venturing into these caves. It's quite dangerous some have died
collecting coronaviruses
the Wuhan Institute of
Virology is the main center for the virus... for coronavirus research and there were American scientists working with them
Carrying out programs they had collected
thousands of
Coronaviruses to try to determine which ones could be harmful what you could do about them. So what was done with that?
Donald Trump came into office - the program was cancelled
Okay
We don't want to waste money on that ... businesses don't make any money out of that
The Trump administration is.. has one major
constituency
extreme wealth - corporate power
That's its prime
Constituency. For the Republican Party generally, that's true. But with Trump, that's extreme. He does wave some
populist banners and rhetorics, but that's for show
You look at the programs, the legislative programs
it's
Every single one is devoted to that. So he canceled the program ... of working with Chinese scientists
We know - it  means we know less about what's likely to come
Every year that Trump was in office he
defunded the
Center for Disease Control
the main government institution concerned with potential health hazards
so every year cut it back-  no profit for private business.  I mean , it happens to
Benefit the public but who cares about them? They're  of no significance?
The... er... in fact this continues even after the pandemic
right now as you can see
Trump is
clawing around desperately to try to find some scapegoat to cover up the
Serious crimes he's committed against American people
Tens of thousands have died because of the way he's been handling. So you gotta blame somebody
Now the main idea is let's blame China. Okay. So a lot of Yellow Peril hysteria
There is a program that... there was a government program
Continuing to work with the Wuhan Institute. This is after the pandemic broke
Working with them to try to find ways to mitigate it and control it
Trump canceled that because we have to hate China. So therefore American scientists aren't allowed to work with China. Okay
That's
Now, let's see what there were plenty of warnings. In fact, you know, you know in ...last October October
There was a major
Simulation of what would happen if a coronavirus came?
nobody paid attention
Okay, finally comes last December, December 31st
China
informed the World Health Organization that their doctors are finding
pneumonia like symptoms with unknown aetiology
about a week later Chinese scientists had identified the source of the
Epidemic that was then growing
Coronavirus. A couple days later they had sequenced the genome
handed over to the World Health Organization - distributed to the world. By mid-january every
Serious  virologist in the world knew exactly what it was
Then comes the question of how governments react. It varied. In East Asia in
Oceania, Australia,
New Zealand they reacted very quickly
They now pretty much have the virus under control
If you look look the way it was done, it's very interesting
But take South Korea which happened to be hit first by a very serious outbreak of
Covid19 epidemic. They reacted instantly -they didn't have a lockdown
They had massive
Testing and then they carefully traced each individual who had symptoms
checked their contacts
quarantined those who were contacted - the rest of the society continued
They continued to do this. This was assisted by civil society
the unions played a major role in ensuring that it
proceeded properly
NGOs
in South Korea participated and the community organizations formed
To try to make sure that in their own communities the proper procedures were followed
with this vast
civil society participation
And a government that cared about its citizens that was contained in the most dangerous place
Other countries in the region did pretty much the same - Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam
New Zealand's practically eradicated with a lockdown in that case - Australia. Well, what about Europe?
Europe didn't pay much attention to what these Asians are talking about, so Europe dithered
Finally the European countries kind of got their act together
one way or another
UK enough to talk about wasn't very brilliant
United States is at the bottom of the barrel. It has the most extreme business oriented
government that exists and
furthermore I will not mince words ... the White House happens to be in the hands of a
sociopathic
megalomaniac who cares about nothing but himself and
What's of benefit to him -  if people get killed
doesn't matter - this we see every day
So in in the case of the US intelligence
agencies were
banging at the door of the White House all through
January and February
Trying to get somebody to pay attention to the fact that there's a major
epidemic coming
Couldn't break through - that Trump has... is preoccupied with his
TV ratings and the stock market which he believes may help him
Win the election if it's fight well in March the stock market did take a deep full Trump noticed it
finally noticed, you know, something's happening then come a series of
Extremely erratic actions - I won't run through them
But they're basically designed to deflect attention from his criminality
so the latest one a couple of weeks ago is to tell the governors of the states that
We, the federal government, can't help you
We have all the resources that we have the capacity to deal with other countries for needed
Goods, and so on but we can't help you
You have to do it, even though you're... you have balanced budgets
You're not allowed to go in debt, you don't have any resources, but you do... do it
It's a very clever campaign tactic. If things go wrong, and they ... will
Trump can blame the governors - your fault
Particularly democratic state - it's your fault
... if anything happens to work by accident, Trump can make a speech about
Oh, he's the greatest genius who ever
Appeared on earth - take a look at the success and it'll be echoed by the Fox News echo chamber
They'll say yes the greatest
Thinker in world history and so on... and  a lot of the population and almost all the Republicans in the country
That's what they tune to
one day and so there's a
Beyond that what else do you do? If you're trying to find a scapegoat?
China's an easy one the Yellow Peril - easy to arouse people about that for over a century
but
international institutions are
disliked by much of the
More nationalistic
Xenophobic part of the population which happens to be Trump's voting constituency.
So let's blame an international institution the World Health Organization
So let's defund the World Health Organization and move to destroy it
As they've already announced that they want to do
Is there an effect? Yeah, a lot of effect. It's interesting that they're not talking about
So this place called Yemen?
Which is the worst humanitarian?
catastrophe in the world
The United States and Britain have a very large share of the responsibility in that
they've turned the place to... helped  Saudi Arabia turn the place into a
humanitarian catastrophe
but there are
medical services functioning that are
Helping people saving lives - the World Health Organization
So let's pull them out and kill the people of Yemen. It's much worse in Africa. In Africa
There's many diseases; when the corona virus hits hard, as it will that'll just be another one
There are doctors
medical workers, health services in Africa dealing with the
Epidemics - the World Health Organization, so let's force them to pull out and kill unknown numbers of Africans
It's perfectly fine because it might improve my electoral prospects
What we're witnessing is a kind of
sadism
Megolmanic sadism
That is very hard to describe ...
hard to find words for it and
This is a small part of what's happening
Let's go back to the coming
environmental crisis
If you're not living under a rock, you know, it's serious and severe. Now, we don't have much time to deal with it -
Couple of decades maybe-  after that things become irreversible
May be hitting tipping points in the near future where it becomes essentially irreversible
We're toast essentially
Every country in the world is doing something about it
Not enough but something
That includes the United States, which is also doing something about it under Trump.  Namely
dedicating massive efforts to make it worse
Okay, the United States and Brazil
That's the other one are working hard to ensure that we go over the cliff sooner and more
dangerously
The United... the Trump administration is greatly encouraging the use of fossil fuels
opening up new territories for exploration
subsidizing the industries
Removing the
regulatory apparatus that provides some
mitigation for the lethal effects of fossil fuel use
Perfectly conscious of what they're doing - easy to demonstrate that but  it's understandable
But an extreme form of savage capitalism and megalomania
That increases profits for a major part
of trumps
corporate constituency
Okay
It'll destroy
civilization
Coupla generations down the road, but it's not a concern. Okay
nothing, if you want the clear illustration of the thinking if you can call it that that guides the
administration
Take a look at Trump's budget. Every year the president presents to Congress a budget for the coming year -
That's February
So this February - February 10th Trump... sent
Congress his budget - the pandemic is raging but Trump is still saying
Oh, it's just the common cold but health
Specialists at hospitals, every one know it's raging
What's in the budget? Well?
Funding is cut back in some areas  - funding is increased in other areas
Funding is cut back for the Center for Disease Control
Let's cut it back even further than in the past four years
And other health related parts of the government
Funding is increased for subsidies for fossil fuel
Industries - the ones that are laboring to destroy prospects for organized human life
That's in the midst of the pandemic. Okay  tells us about the mentality
I'll just say a last word about
International planning, it doesn't stop, you know continues through the pandemic
Those who run the world
They continued to try to ensure that
The world that emerges from the pandemic will be in their interests
so out of the chaos of the Trump administration
You can discern a geopolitical strategy
It's not deeply hidden
the basic idea is to construct a
reactionary
international
International of the most reactionary harsh states run by the White House
Who were the candidates? Well Bolsonaro's  Brazil is an obvious one
demolishing  what's left of Brazilian democracy?
Racing to destroy the Amazon
The pandemic response
Is captured in a word when Bolsonaro was
informed by
health officers - who he then fired right away -
informed that
His policies of doing nothing are causing enormous damage. Lots of people are dying
His answer was so what?
They're poor people mostly
Dark-skinned, indigenous, black
So; so what?
The rich will make it. So he'll be a member. Well, he moved to the Middle East
a leading member is
el-Sisi's Egypt - as Trump puts it,  his favourite dictator - the worst dictatorship in
Egypt's history. That's there.
The family dictatorships of the Gulf, of course, they joined. Then MBS and Saudi Arabia and the rest
A core element of it is Israel, which is moving very far to the right
it's had kind of tacit connections with the
Oil dictatorships in the past -  they're coming to the surface. So they'll be integrated into it
moving farther east
Modi's India is a perfect candidate. Modi is working hard to dismantle
Indian secular democracy
The instituted ultra right
Hindu nationalist regime, crushing Kashmir
Suppressing the rights of couple hundred million Muslims. He's an obvious candidate - he'll join. Now move to Europe
Orban's  Hungary
turning what's left of Hungarian democracy into a dictatorship. He's a member
in Italy
people like Marius Salvini -
perfect member...
His chief joy and life is helping
Miserable refugees fleeing from Africa make them die in the Mediterranean. So he's a candidate
nearer to home for you people like Nigel Farage
is a fellow who would obviously join but in general make a
reactionary international - the most reactionary forces you can find in the world now there is a counter force a
Couple of days ago, that's my commission a couple of days ago. There was the first
Announcement of a progressive international which is being organized to try to counter these
tendencies. That moves the world in a different direction
It was initiated by Bernie Sanders in the United States
Yanis Varoufakis in Europe has organized the
DM25
movement -  Europe -wide movement, which is seeking to
salvage
what is valuable in the European Union -there are valuable elements and to overcome the
serious deep flaws in... Europe-wide
That the Progressive International is bringing in as much as they can of the global self
leading figures in India and
Africa and Latin America and they're trying to forge - to become a
people's
Organization for the world to try to
Make sure that what emerges from this pandemic will not be what the
Powerful forces are trying to create but will be designed in the interests of people not profit
not private power, not state power, not massive surveillance;  not controlled but rather in the interests of
Populations. Well, this looks like a pretty unequal constant -  contest - at the level of state , certainly,at the level of people
Not so certain.. ah.. people are very different. They want something else
and I think the... what emerges from this pandemic
will
substantially be determined by how these
competing forces which are kind of
Symbolized by these organizations. There's much more how these competing forces
How the conflict between them emerges in very simple terms. It's a kind of class war
Class war goes on all the time
One side is always
Bitterly ... relentlessly fighting the other side sits there passively and watches
We're finished. That's the message that we're facing
Noam,thanks very much that was absolutely fascinating you've covered a huge amount of ground there and
I'm going to kind of pick up on a couple of questions
From people that they've submitted to try and get through quite a few of those if possible
To say to people that our time would run until about half 7:00 and we'll do what we can to
Try and answer all of your questions. One of the first ones that came in, Noam was
and I know you've talked about this in the past and
recently in relation to
how we've been lucky to avoid the dangers of nuclear war and one thing that
You said there which is you know, Trump has to hate somebody and at the moment, it's China
So a question was do you think that Trump will go to war with China?
Either before or after he's re-elected in November - if indeed he is re-elected
Well, there's one prediction that it's possible to make
with
Certainty that it won't be disproven. So I'll make that one. He won't go to war. I
Can't be wrong. I can't be refuted
Because if I'm wrong there won't be anyone around to care. Okay, so I'm sure to be right
That's nuclear war -
a nuclear war between two nuclear powers is essentially terminal
even if only one of them strikes
So say suppose the United States carries out a massive strike against China and China doesn't retaliate
The US is finished
just because of the effects of nuclear winter - now the
effects of a massive nuclear strike essentially destroy everything
Including the ones who carried it out. No, the people are in the business, you know, the
strategic analysts planners they know all this
Then,  doesn't mean they won't do it. You know, that's a separate question
But they understand very well that the the threat is very great to them
We know that they take enormous risks
It's kind of amazing for me and many others who
almost everyone in the arms control community that people aren't
terrified about this
William Perry former Secretary of Defense
a couple of months ago said he's doubly terrified
Terrified by the increasing threat of nuclear war and by the fact that nobody's concerned
you take a look at the
Campaigns in Britain and the United States, political campaigns, in the United States was never mentioned
As far as I know it wasn't in Britain either
It's just not on the agenda.If you look at the... except for people concerned with arms control
Terrified - the threat is rapidly ... the threat is extremely severe - if you look over the record
Seventy-five years. It's kind of a miracle that we escaped
We've come within minutes of nuclear war - often by accident, a failure of computer systems
reckless acts by government
Last-minute intervention by some humans to stop it. If there was time I'd talk about some of the cases which are mind-boggling
It's kind of a miraculous. We've gotten this far
The Trump administration is dedicated to making it much worse
what they're doing is
step-by-step
Dismantling the arms control regime which has
limited the
threat of nuclear war. So last August they
dismantled the
INF treaty
The Reagan Gorbachev treaty, which
Significantly lessened the threat of war in Europe which would immediately explode the global war
Next on the chopping block is the Open Skies treaty
It's an initiative of President Eisenhower
Which has given both sides information about the other, which
Reduces the danger that there might be some, you know
Mistaken first strike because of bad information. So let's get rid of that
The next one - the last one is the New START treaty
Which has sharply cutback
missile ... nuclear weapons in Russia and the United States the two main countries -China's way behind
the
That's coming up from... for renewal early next year
the Russians have been pleading with the United States to
negotiate a renewal
Trump administration is not interested. It's getting to the point where it's probably too late
So that'll..one'll go. That just opens the doors
If you look at the ... military industry
publications they're delighted
Euphoric, they're getting huge government contracts to build weapons that can destroy everything even more
Rapidly, and they understand that a little bit down the road
They get more contracts to try to develop a hopeless means to defend against
The weapons that we're encouraging the Russians and others to produce
That's part of the world in which we live and you can't get people to pay attention
So going back to the immediate question
There are
There's a lot of ... provocative acts going on in the periphery of China. Some are by China
building up the
Islands in the South China Sea to arm them with
Defensive weapons and so on. The United States doesn't want that.
They want control of all the oceans. Notice that this is not happening in the Caribbean
It's not happening off the coast of California
it's happening off the coast of China and that tells you something about who rules the world, but those could
into dangerous
Confrontations, it's not the most dangerous
most dangerous ones probably in the Middle East
when Trump
tore to shreds the
joint agreement with Iran which was working extremely well to contain any
Possible Iranian nuclear programs - the US intelligence confirms, everyone concerned that it was working perfectly
Trump dismantled it. Europe doesn't like it
They hate it
But Europe doesn't take a stand against the United States -  could but it doesn't
It has to observe what the master wants - another part of the world
so Europe
abides by the
US sanctions that they hate them, they ... keep talking about ways around them but never implement them
That could be very dangerous
some like Trump's murder of Soleimani
Second top figure in Iran now. That's as if Iran had
Murdered Mike Pompeo the Secretary of State at an airport in Mexico ... now, we'd have had a nuclear war
But when we do it to them, it's fine. It's the right thing to do because we're the masters of the world
We're The Godfather
everyone else is
Subsidiary, but any of those things could blow up
confrontation Gulf of
Hormuz  could blow up suddenly so that's
extremely dangerous with all kind of
Terrible consequences. There are these dangers all over the world and if we don't do something about them
they're very likely to blow up and
remember a nuclear war - a major nuclear war is terminal.
I should say - I'm talking too long, but one last thing about this to keep in mind
The glaciers are melting all over the world
They're melting in the Himalayas
That's the source of the rivers, the main rivers for India and Pakistan
Not in the great, in the distant future
It will be seriously affecting water supplies in Pakistan and India
Pakistan already has droughts. In India. There are hundreds of millions of people who don't have potable water
But this is going to escalate  - these are two nuclear powers
They're not going to sit by quietly while the water ... while one or the other takes the water by building dams and so on.
Something like that is happening in Africa between Ethiopia and
Egypt, they don't have nuclear weapons, but these things are happening - all
exacerbated by global warming. All of these threats are interrelated
We have to deal with all of them
They can't be allowed to continue or human society is
essentially finished
I've got a question which, erm...
The question is how can we explain to the privileged that a pandemic is not a leveler but instead affects the marginalized
Disproportionately, but I just wanted to add to that that I remember what the the hole in the ozone layer
Opened up probably about 20-25 years ago now because of the CFCs
That we're in a lot of fridges and freezers and stuff like that and the world
Finally moved as one really to ban CFCs and to try and close the ozone layer because it realized it
was an existential threat, you know, but it
Rich or poor you're going to be affected by this and you might think the same
about this pandemic
There's no doubt that the poor as you've explained and, you know,
We're seeing here, a lot of BAME communities
- the most marginalized, are being affected
adversely  by it, but it is something that travels, you know, it doesn't respect boundaries
So the question was, how can we explain
You know
to the privileged that the pandemic is not a leveler but instead affects the marginalised disproportionately -
and I'd kind of add to that -  why is it with something like this that even though it affects the, erm... the marginalized
disproportionately
It inevitably affects all classes
why is it that they're not prepared to move on this and, and maybe to sit back and let the likes of Trump and
Boris Johnson in this country kind of rule the roost at this stage, even though in the long term it could also threaten their interests
Very crucial question, actually, I
Don't want to self advertise, but my latest book is called
internationalism or extinction
And I think that's exactly
What you're raising those are the choices
and in fact, the world is moving towards extinction and
Undermining
Internationalism, it's very striking to watch. I think a lot of it can be traced to the
Extremely harmful effect of the neoliberal programs in the last 40 years
which have had a very harshing impact on
individual societies and global societies
You can talk about England much better than I can but it's a much coarser
Harsher society than it was 50 years ago
There's a reason for that and it's all over the world, so let's take a look at what's happening
You're absolutely right. There has to be an international response to this
What is the Godfather doing in Washington?
Tearing to shreds
Every international institution. Okay. We don't want any of
Pull out of the joint agreement and pull out of the - destroy the World Health Organization and on and on
We're just going to run the world ourselves. We don't need any of your institutions
Okay, there's something called the European Union that has the word Union in it
Has a number of countries
the powerhouse of the European Union is Germany,
the richest country - it kind of delayed in responding to the pandemic but finally acted
got its act in order as
It wasn't super neoliberal like the United States
so it didn't run the hospitals on a strict business mall like the United States where you can't have an extra bed because
It's not profitable
So Germany still had some extra capacity in the health system diagnostic capacity. They used it
They now have quite a low death rate
comparatively, so they're in pretty good shape a
few kilometers
South of Germany. There's another country. It's called Italy
northern Italy
Happened to be a hot spot for a severe pandemic
Do you see German doctors in northern Italy? Is Germany helping northern Italy?
Not as far as I can tell
That's the Union - well fortunately
Italy could turn somewhere else
to the powerhouse across the Atlantic
Cuba. okay, a country that's been crushed by US terror
economic warfare for 60 years -
a poor country sending doctors all over the world - not for the first time. They've been doing it for years. So there's
Cuban doctors helping out in Italy with the support of
China which is providing materials. So there are some examples of internationalism. Where are they?
Not in the rich centers of power
they're
looking - they're not even looking after themselves
as countries they're looking after the rich and powerful among themselves
mostly ok
Somebody else's job to carry out internationalism - we'll let the poor do it - the people in poor communities
Who are forming mutual aid groups to try to overcome the, the threats that the government isn't meeting. That's
happening all over the world
poor countries like one of the worst
Countries dealing with this is Brazil because of this
lunatic Bolsonaro, who's a kind of
clone of Trump, but in poor communities
People are organizing
Community groups to try to do something. Some of it is almost surreal
Also in Brazil now there's a huge
... very poor population in Rio they live in these favelas
They're very poor slums; crammed together, you know, no water
and of course no health - no health support from the
The state or federal government
But a group did move in to try to provide some
Assistance in the favelas - the crime gangs - the crime gangs that have been terrorizing
the poor communities
That are so strong that police are afraid to go - in they moved in
Organizing social services -
That's the kind of world we live in. Okay, do we want to let it persist like this?
And we have the power, we have the choice. We have the opportunities
Within our own country. I don't know the statistics for England but in the United States
over... the deaths,
Overwhelmingly, they're elderly but that's everywhere but aside from the elderly it's a people in nursing homes. It's
People in... it's the poor
black and Hispanic, not only are they the most deaths but they are the ones who are being forced to
work under
harsh conditions
So take the executive order of the government federal government to open the meat packing plants
You know
Absolutely needed for survival. How am I gonna get by without my
sirloin beef but
Who works in that ... the meatpacking plants are horror shows
extremely dangerous
terrible working conditions
people crammed together
mostly black, Hispanic, Porto Rican
So let's force them back to work so they can die - doesn't matter much like Bolsonaro said -
so what there's plenty of them, that we can bring in more. Gets even crazier
Mexico is trying to close the
Maquiladoras, you know the factories up in the northern Mexico, which supply the US market
because of health conditions
bad, you, know again, poor safety conditions and so on they want to close them
The Trump administration is trying to force Mexico to keep them open
'course American car manufacturers need leather seats
We can't stop that. So that's the Mexican workers died. This is much like the
World Health... destroying the World Health Organization because it only saves
hundreds of thousands of Africans
I mean we're living in a world that has turned into
Astonishing savagery. No this didn't happen as you said at the time of the
the ozone layer problem, then there was still a residue of
humanity
the neoliberal
Savage breed had not yet sunk; in it now has. We see it in human relations we
See it International affairs. It's a
Speaking of a virus. It's a kind of a virus. That's
destroying the basis of society and
Consciously. You remember Margaret Thatcher. Ok,- there is no society only
Doesn't exist. There's only
individuals thrown into the marketplace
To survive somehow
Thatcher probably didn't know it but she was paraphrasing Karl Marx
mid 19th century he was
Condemning the autocrat... autocratic governments of Europe
Because they want to turn the population into a a sack of potatoes
Isolated, atomized, disorganized - subject to the will of
concentrated power
That's 'there was no society'. We see the consequences
it's a large part of the basis for the
anger and resentment
A hatred of institutions that's all over the place - a  very fertile territory for demagogues
Who can say yeah, you're right. It's those, it's those guys who were responsible
the immigrants, the Chinese,  the World Health Organization - it's them.
Now that we're seeing a lot of that and a lot of it is the direct result of the neoliberal plague
The forces that created that are working very hard right now. They were relentless
To ensure that what comes out of the pandemic will be a harsher version of that
Very much the same but with harsher controls that more surveillance more control of people
Harsher regulations and so on.
They don't have to win but if there's no counter force, they will
In recent years we've seen an alarming rise in the popularity
of far-right parties and sentimentalities
We've seen opinions being considered just as good or better than facts
I remember I think was Kellyanne Conway who said well I've got
alternative facts
Which was just basied simply
Her opinion. So one question that we've had around that is how do we combat collective ignorance?
This is something that seems to be on the rise here, you know with
Reports in the papers of
Leaflets coming out for ... mass gatherings in parks this weekend, which have been now linked to the far-right again
which will always try and bowl in with their own agenda
But does seem to be
you know, this is kind of
These sentiments rising - is it possible.? How do we...
what role can we playing in combating ... what's been termed in this question as collective ignorance?
We know this and you know it very well from your own experiences
From the first time we met and what preceded
You know, there's a way to do it
organization and if you look through modern history
There's one particular kind of organization which has been in the lead in overcoming ignorance bringing people together
Getting the work for positive ends. It's called unions
Thatcher and Reagan knew it too - their first acts - right away-  was to try to destroy the unions
Thatcher
intelligent woman, she probably understood it, Reagan was just following the script handed to him by his corporate masters
But they, first in England, first, act, let's try to destroy the Union movement
Especially the more militant parts - the United States first act of Reagan
Let's break a strike with scabs
Scabs were illegal all over the world except for South Africa. Reagan opened the door to bring in scabs
To break up a union
Corporations got the idea very quickly  - caterpillar big strikes. They brought in scabs to break it
Clinton came in with a brilliant idea. It's called NAFTA that gives
Businesses the ability to break strikes by putting up a big sign saying:
Transfer operation Mexico, meaning if you go on strike, we're going to move to Mexico
happens to be illegal
But law it doesn't matter when you have a criminal state
They don't enforce it
And in fact a study undertaken under NAFTA rules found that about 50 percent of organized
Activities were broken up this way
illegally, of course
It continues - the union movement is very significantly weakened
One of the latest acts by the most reactionary Supreme Court in living history is to
allow...
What's called the
refusal to... of
It's called...
Forget the exact word, but what it means is that workers can say we'll get union protection
But we won't pay for it. Okay
That allowed under the latest rules
Well, you can imagine what that does to unions and what Trump is trying to do right now
It's extremely interesting
They're working hard to destroy the post office
It's one of the biggest
unionized forces in the country - the post office provides enormous services but to people not to the rich
the rich do other things but for the general population, its
enormously important. And not only does it reach
everybody
But it sets up human context
You get to know the guy who delivers the mail and become friends; you go to the post office -
You meet your friends, you talk to human beings - over much of the country. I've seen that all over - that happens
So it's just the wrong kind of institution
It also is terrible for another reason
It's extremely efficient, and you don't want to get into people's heads the idea
That something can be efficient that's run by the public - by the government. It's a terrible idea
Government is the problem
it's private tyrannies that have to run everything where you have no say at all not a
government that might
Unimaginably be for the people. We don't want anything like that. In fact take a look at South Korea, which I mentioned before
How's the epidemic controlled in one of the worst hotspots?
unions
popular organizations
Community groups. They're the ones that are doing it. That's the way you overcome ignorance and atomization
We've seen it throughout history
All the time - so take the United States. The United States now
It's kind of like the 1920s ; there were, in the nineteen twenties
The - there had been a vibrant militant union movement. It was crushed by state corporate force
Woodrow Wilson
Gave the final blow with his Red Scare - wiped out the unions - so in the nineteen twenties, they were essentially gone -
the Depression hit
Took a while but within about four or five years the labor movement was reconstituting. This is my childhood
I remembered very well my family working-class
the union movement
Began to develop CIO was organized
militant strikes got as far as
sit-down strikes
Which are terrifying to business - a sit-down strike is just one millimeter away from saying
We don't need you
Bosses get lost. We'll run the place ourselves. Which happens to be correct?
But if that idea gets into people's, heads system collapses
So at that point you started getting New Deal measures. There was a sympathetic
administration, you know
immediate if that measure is very important one that kind of
Softened the harsh edges of the Coppola system, gave people plenty of benefits in the neoliberal
Period there's a strong effort to try to dismantle them, but they've still existed
well
That's the answer to the question
it's always going back to the, I mean just my own childhood memories and my
Family were first-generation
Working-clas,s the Union was their life.- It wasn't just a way to
You know, get better wages. It was cultural activities educational
activities
concerts
My aunt's were seamstresses unemployed, but they were in the ...
Garment workers union
They even got a week in the countryside over the summer. It was life. That was the union's
That's why Thatcher's and the Reagan want to destroy them. People shouldn't have a life
They should be subject to private power.
- atomised -  sack of potatoes
that's the right way for people to be  - none of this business of
Cultural activities and so on. In fact, you take a look at the neoliberal gurus
The thinkers behind all this -  Ludwig von Mises Friedrich, Hayek and so on they hated unions
They supported
Vicious dictators because they simply destroyed unions I
Give the background if you like. It's one of the reasons why von Mises praised fascism. He said it destroyed unions
Same with Hayek, same with  all of them.... That's why they love Pinochet's Chile
Destroyed the working class was terrific. So let's go in there and
enjoy it.  This is the heart of
neoliberalism
There's a lot of nice talk about Liberty and all that stuff, but spell it out
Liberty means the liberty of the rich and powerful to crush everyone else
We've seen it. If you can't figure it out from the doctrines. We now have 40 years of experience
See it right in front of your eyes.
Talking about Liberty
one of the things that has come up in America and it's coming up in the UK now is
 
The, the groups and the right-wing group ends
As they would class and libertarians - but that would be completely different from the real understanding of that, I suppose, in many senses,
But is this thing about the lockdown is an attack upon
Personal liberties and therefore their attitude is we should have the right to simply go out
you know to mix to do all - all the things that
We're doing - how do you answer that in relation to this
Discussion around liberties and personal liberties that have been expressed by many of these groups
Well, there are a lot of controls on liberties
You're supposed to stop at a red light when you're driving. That's an infringement on Liberty. Okay, we could say okay, that's
Let's get rid of it. Let's everybody kill each other. Okay be much more free
This kind of Liberty. That's the lockdown - is a way to keep people from killing each other. Okay
Is it worth it - you can debate
You know, you can have a debate about whether that's the best tactic
So for example in a civilized country like South Korea
They didn't have lockdowns because they moved in time
So that to prevent the need for lockdowns in the manner that I described. They didn't have to have a lockdown
New Zealand they did have a lockdown
It worked
Diseases have almost gone
You have to ask then when does the society
... how does it react to the epidemic and when? Countries like Britain and the United States,  just
wasted months
Got way past the point where you could carry out
civilized measures like South Korea, Taiwan, New Zealand others
So the lockdown is almost eccentric if you don't have it, it'll be a huge
I'm just going by the scientific consensus, which I think is plausible. You'll have a huge disaster
So sure. It's a limit on freedom
because of the...
Pick the word...
Failures or criminality whatever you like to say of the government's which has left us with few options - if we want to save people
We're going to have to face the fact that
Freedom has to be cut back just like it's cut back in traffic laws to try to save people
the call about talk about Liberty is as
Makes as much sense as saying  'I don't want to stop at traffic lights
cuts back my freedom'
Yeah, sometimes if you live in an organized society where concern about others is a criterion you
accept
constraints on your personal freedom
Okay. Otherwise, you just say the strongest guy with the most guns wins -
But you want that society, okay
There's a question here, which I think's very interesting
We are talking now online. Whereas back in 2003 we were live
This pandemic has forced everybody indoors and there seems to have been a leap, if you like...
in our use of the technologies even though obviously we're fairly used to them now
And we have these huge
organizations Facebook, Google etc
That we use on a daily basis. Well, there's a very interesting piece by Naomi Klein
around the issue of the tech giants and particularly in New York and Google and
their positioning of themselves to take advantage of the pandemic
I doubt that that's much of a surprise in in many ways, but the question is is should we or how can we
Control or dismantle the power of the non-governmental organizations such as Facebook, Google, Amazon
Etc that are now
they are now absolute giants in terms of the amounts of money that they make and
The control that they appear to to wield. Can we and should we address that?
Sure...
They were theoretically, like - take, say
Any one of them- picture - take your choice; take Apple's the major corporation and the
Biggest corporation in the world. Now, they're very profitable. Why? - They use
virtual slave labor in China
They work through Foxconn
Taiwanese company who organizes it  - a very little of their profit goes to China
More  goes to Foxconn. Most goes to the Apple headquarters in the United States, but they don't have to pay taxes
They have a very simple way out
They set up a room in Ireland
Which is about the size of the room I'm in, I suppose and they say we're an Irish company
So we don't have to... we pay very low taxes. We don't pay taxes to the United States. Is that possible to control?
Well, let's go back before
neoliberalism
Before Reagan it was illegal
You couldn't have tax havens
You couldn't have stock buybacks which are ways to enrich management and enrich shareholders
impose the cost and everyone else. It was all illegal
Treasury Department enforced the laws -  it didn't happen. Okay
Is it utopian to say that we can go back to
capitalism before the days of Thatcher and Reagan?
Well, it doesn't sound like it's pie-in-the-sky
There were antitrust laws that were enforced then
The new principle is no you don't do that let them grow as much as they want -  want that's Liberty
Do you have to have huge corporations like that?
There's another question in the background. Do you have to have corporations at all?
And is there any reason why
private power ...you should have private tyrannies in which people
spend
almost there are whole waking hours
under
totalitarian conditions that go way beyond what any totalitarian state ever thought of
So if you're you have a job say in
a factory
You're getting orders from the totalitarian leader
Saying you're allowed to go to the bathroom for five minutes at 3 p.m
You're allowed to talk to a friend for 30 seconds at
10 a.m
Stalin never dreamed of anything like that
That's called... now... that's most of your work your waking life -
Do we really have to accept that?
You go back to the early Industrial Revolution
Workers bitterly struggled against that.. I mean, the idea that you would be dependent on someone else
Was such an attack on basic human dignity
That the working class just regarded that as slavery
It was called in fact wage slavery, you know, it was common beliefs
That was the slogan of the Republican Party in the mid 19th century
Lincoln's Republican Party
that wage labor is the same as slavery except that it's temporary until you become free or take over  - the slogan of the
Workforce at that time was those who work in the mills should own them
We'll run them ourselves. It's taken a long time to beat this out of people's heads. I don't think it's far below the surface
As I said with sit-down strikes, you're getting pretty close to it
self
worker owned industries which are proliferating
Another way. So there's this big question in the background, but the smaller question is can these
institutions
At least be brought under public control?
Well, they can in lots of ways .... take say
Exorbitant drug prices, which is a real problem. In the United States it's horrible... well, most countries...
It's horrible... erm... there's a  new drug that might offer some help for coronavirus
Remdesivir, owned by the Gilead corporation - they want to charge
Incredible prices which makes it out of reach for anyone
The government put some pressure on them, but there's a law on the books in the United States - a law
Which says the government must act - not may, but must - act to ensure
The drugs are available at reasonable prices if there has been any
public involvement in producing the drug -
every drug
largely based on large-scale government involvement
That means every government since Reagan has been violating the law
Consciously. It's sitting right there. It's not Utopian to say maybe we can have a government that follows the laws. I mean is that
wildly leftist
In fact, it's kind of interesting to look at the way these things are
considered . So take Bernie Sanders in the United States
he's described as way out on the left, you know a
Revolutionary - wants to overthrow the society. But what are his programs ? He has two main programs -
One is universal health care ...
Have you heard of a country that has
Universal health care. I mean, can you think of one that doesn't have it?
Okay, that's so radical, we can't even think about it. His other the proposal is free higher education
Practically every country has that the Germany, Finland, France and Mexico
It's all over the place. In fact, the United States had it back in the 1950s. It was  called the GI Bill
That meant that if you'd been in the army - huge number of people - you not only get free education but subsidized education
Even if he went to a private college
-fee paying -  ...I went to the University of Pennsylvania in 1945. It's a Ivy League college
Fees were a hundred dollars a year
And you could get a scholarship like that. So we had essentially free education - very valuable to the country; very valuable to the people
It was a much poorer  country, then. Is there any economic reason why we can't do it now?
So Sanders's programs basically are saying let's see if we can rise to the level of the rest of the world
that even
on the mainstream
The left of the mainstream, the most left columnists say 'good idea. The country isn't ready for it. It's too revolutionary'
I mean, that's the effect of 40 years of
neoliberal fanaticism
Saying let's just have what's on the book law books? Let's do what
We've had ;which everybody else does, which is easy. Can't...
Can't do that. It's just the country's not ready for it. Can we make the country ready for it? I think so.
I don't follow British politics as closely as I'd like to but my understanding is - correct me if I'm wrong -
that the Corbyn programs won a major victory in
2017 - biggest in Labour's history and that if you look at, that looking at some of the YouGov polls
Seems that the policies are still very popular... a lot
of reasons why it didn't happen, you know better than I -  I don't have to go into them, but that means that
Britain... just the same polls in the United States...
... the population is ready to become a civilized society
But it's going to have to be
organized; active
Unions are a crucial element
other
social
political
organizations are
important- but if civil society is
Reconstructed around the Union base which has always been the source, then I think you can overcome this plague.
I think
there's a number of questions around this and I think
You know, obviously we can talk about the U.S. and the UK and I'm aware that time is creeping upon us
So I'll keep this brief and maybe, you know
If you can answer this one there, please Noam
Someone said another five years of Conservative rule in the UK
This could apply to America in terms of dependent upon the November election or four years
How can we influence
Change quickly to ensure there's something left at the other side of the pandemic? And I think just an addition to that is
We're all locked down even when it eases there's going to be social and physical distancing measures in place
Which, you know, makes it if you like it feels a bit difficult to organize in the traditional way
Somebody said, you know, how can you keep going despite setbacks? So maybe to sum that up: what can people do
You know, that's positive and meaningful
And has a legacy at this stage?
Well, you know organizing isn't the same as when you're talking to somebody face-to-face
obviously
You can do it the way we're doing
That's possible to carry on organizing activities
planning the future
with whatever contacts are available ...some or...
direct people can get into groups where they stand, you know, a couple of metres apart or they can do it
virtually
But it can be done and the forces that are trying to create a harsh
brutal future they are doing it
Right now -  they're not stopping - they go on
Everybody else can do it too and it's very critical. In the United States
There's an election coming up. If Trump wins another four years
We may be finished.
Another four years of destroying the environment,
increasing the threat of nuclear war,
destroying international organizations,
crushing the poor,
Staffing the judiciary ... one of the main
tasks of the Republican administration. This is Mitch McConnell the Senate ...
The Senate Majority Leader's in charge of this ... is trying to pack the entire judiciary top to bottom
with young
ultra-right
Mostly incompetent lawyers who will make sure that whatever the public wants will be blocked
It'll never get through the judiciary
Republicans understand that they're a minority party they have to resort to one or another
tactic to try to steal elections or to make sure that nothing can be implemented if they
Win an election - a lot to say about this
but one of the devices is to
Pack the judiciary so nothing will ever happen, but we're facing a real
really dangerous moments in the United States and
Unfortunately, it's not a - it's not a simple matter, in fact,
to my distress,
parts of the left or helping to elect Trump
Now there's a movement among
Former Sanders supporters saying that both sides are so rotten I'm not gonna vote
Against Trump. I'm not gonna vote for Biden. I'm gonna vote by my conscience
What does that mean? If you understand arithmetic, that means I'm going to give an extra vote to Trump
Take a vote away from the opposition
Puts Trump one higher
We've been through this before in my lifetime many times
1968 in the United States a choice between Humphrey and Nixon
Was a big difference - the difference you could count in several million corpses in Indochina
to take one
a lot of the young people on the Left said I'm not gonna vote for Humphrey. Not for me. He's a corporate Democrat
I can't sully my hands on that so I won't vote
Which means I'll help Nixon win, which means I'll kill a couple million people in Indochina plus a lot of other things
It's happened before
Go back to my child.... my young childhood... I was born in 1928
Germany was a flourishing democracy at the time the Nazis got about 3% of the vote
Totally marginal party. The next election was 1932
they were
Happened to be the largest party, but if the Social Democrats and the Communist Party had gotten together
They would have won the election
We wouldn't have had Hitler
Couldn't do it
Communist Party line handed down by Stalin at the time is - they're all social fascists - can't co-operate with them
Social Democrats weren't that much better. So you break up the labour movement
They undermine the opposition you get Hitler. I mean can't we learn?
If you can't think can you at least learn?
It's very frustrating
This is constantly happening
But it doesn't mean you always ...sometimes it makes perfect sense not to vote ..
They're both so terrible it  doesn't make any difference, but sometimes it does - sometimes
there's a... in this case....here's a colossal difference
Pressure from the left from these activists young groups has moved the official Democratic
Party - the Sanders movement and others had a big impact
Now you take a look at the official program now, it's not my program
It's not your program, but it's far to the left of any democratic program since Franklin Delano Roosevelt
That's public pressure. It's not that they suddenly had a conversion
It's because people are constantly at them -  that can continue
but not if you say I'm gonna go away and sulk
All right, Noam,
I think we've come to the end of our time there. So many questions and
you'd be here all night answering them
I want to say it's been an absolute pleasure. Thanks so much for a thorough and enlightening
talk and for your responses to the questions as well
And obviously thank you a million for agreeing to take part in this lockdown
festival.The feedback that we've had, just in general to the festival but to yourself coming on  has been phenomenal and
you know, people are looking for and enjoying listening to an alternative to the narratives that we tend to hear day in and day out
You've obviously got Fox News. We've got Sky News, but even the
you know, a lot of criticisms of the BBC and others for not really representing an alternative
narrative to what is taking place at the moment and
I feel that your talk has played a key role and I can see from the responses
We're getting already how much people have enjoyed it. So, thank you very, very much for taking part
you are always welcome back at the
Festival and who knows once all the lock downs have eased, we might even get you on a plane over here
But either way, we want to thank you and wish you all the very best
for the future and we always pay attention and will continue to do so
Of the... of your writings and your appearances and your commentary on the current situation. Thanks very much Noam
Okay, I've obviously said thanks to Noam and like to say thanks to you our audience for taking part in this event and for supporing
Writing on the Wall. Thanks to all those who submitted questions
Really sorry
they can't all be answered and the event will be posted on Facebook and YouTube in the coming days and
We at Writing on the Wall are more than happy to be taking part in that discussion and to try and...
with everybody, else find some answers to the questions
that Noam has addressed -  all the ones that he was able to address in the time that he was given
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Special thanks to our sponsors
And our funders the Institute of Creative Enterprise at Edgehill University
Unison Northwest, The School of Writing at Liverpool John Moores University,
Arts Council England,  the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, Granada
Foundation and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. If you'd like to be one of our sponsors our contact details are on the website.
As I said earlier
We have a full program which runs right until the 31st of May and you can see that at WoWFest.uk
Huge. Thanks again for taking part. Please stay safe, but keep connected. Good night
