Thursday afternoon esteemed professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Noam Chomsky traveled to Hartford to deliver a lecture entitled “The Obama Transition: Crises, Challenges, Opportunities.” Over 200 mostly college aged people packed an auditorium on the campus of Trinity College to hear him speak.

Before addressing Obama’s presidency, Professor Chomsky looked back to the past eight years and made made it a point to distinguish between former President George W. Bush’s first and second term. He claimed the second term to be much more moderate, sloughing off more conservative and abrasive elements such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz within the administration in attempt to gain back former allies that had been alienated during the first term.

As for why our current president has appointed so many economic conservatives, Chomsky had this to offer: “His constituency is basically the financial institutions. The financial institutions preferred him to McCain. They are the core funders for both parties, but considerably more to Obama than McCain.”

He added that one of the reasons Obama’s campaign was so successful was while presidential candidates have been marketed like commodities since at least Reagan, the PR campaign for Obama painted him as a tabula rasa and largely ignored discussing Obama’s actual stance on issues. Chomsky dismissed suggestions that Obama was anything other than a centrist Democrat that is largely continuing Bush’s policies albeit slightly modified.

On Obama’s economic policy, Chomsky remarked that the “too big to fail”policy discussed in the Senate as extreme protectionism that “gives US corporations like Citigroup an enormous advantage over others like any other type of protectionism but we don’t allow the third world to do that – they’ve got to privatize so that we can pick up their assets.”

The speech was also critical of President Obama’s foreign policy in regards to Israel. Chomsky rejects the notion that Obama will be a peaceful negotiator between Palestine and Israel and doubts that there is any chance Obama will support a two state solution to the conflict. He was highly critical of the drone attacks on Pakistan that have killed more than 500 people since they began in August 2008, including many civilians. Professor Chomsky also criticized the Obama administration for ignoring military intelligence and claiming that Iran is actively maintaining nuclear weapons programs.

When asked about progressive movements in South America, Chomsky praised Bolivia, which he considers one of the most democratic countries in the world with the poor indigenous population electing President Evo Morales from their own ranks. The election of fully indigenous Morales represents the first time in 500 years the poorest country in the hemisphere has taken its affairs into its own hands without US intervention.

An audience member asked Chomsky about popular rage and the possibility of social movements boiling over and becoming mobilized. He gave an optimistic response.

“Well, that can be mobilized. In fact, it’s already. If you count the number of activists in the country, it’s, I suspect, well beyond the ’60s, except maybe for a very brief moment at the peak of the antiwar movement. That can be a basis for proceeding onward. So that’s a reason for hope.”