Noam Chomsky Quotes - Page 12

• In the early 1940s, as a young teenager, I was utterly appalled by the racist and jingoist hysteria of the anti-Japanese propaganda. The Germans were evil, but treated with some respect: They were, after all, blond Aryan types, just like our imaginary self-image. Japanese were mere vermin, to be crushed like ants.

  Noam Chomsky

  Teenager, Hysteria, Self

  "Noam Chomsky: Truth to power". Interview with David McNeill, chomsky.info. February 22, 2014.

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• Our health care is rationed by wealth.

  Noam Chomsky

  Care, Wealth, Health Care

  Source: theanarchistlibrary.org

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• The point of advertising is to destroy markets.

  Noam Chomsky

  Advertising

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• That's a point that Dan Ellsberg has made for years. He said it's kind of like if you and I go into a grocery store to rob it, and I have a gun. The guy may give you the money in the cash register. I'm using the gun even if I don't shoot. Well that's nuclear weapons - essential to post-war deterrence - they cast a shadow over everything.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Gun, Years

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• Technology provides means for expression and interchange and so on, so yes it should be free and open, but there are a lot of constraints on how its used.

  Noam Chomsky

  Mean, Technology, Expression

  Interview with Jegan Vincent de Paul, chomsky.info. August 15, 2012.

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• Hume's paradox does hold: power is in the hands of the governed. If they refuse to accept it, you're in trouble, no matter how many guns you have.

  Noam Chomsky

  Gun, Hands, Doe

  Source: chomsky.info

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• In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than just ideals to be valued - they may be essential to survival.

  Noam Chomsky

  Freedom, Hero, Democracies Have

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• Compare mathematics and the political sciences - it's quite striking. In mathematics, in physics, people are concerned with what you say, not with your certification. But in order to speak about social reality, you must have the proper credentials, particularly if you depart from the accepted framework of thinking. Generally speaking, it seems fair to say that the richer the intellectual substance of a field, the less there is a concern for credentials, and the greater is the concern for content.

  Noam Chomsky

  Reality, Thinking, Order

  Noam Chomsky, Michel Foucault (2006). “The Chomsky-Foucault Debate: On Human Nature”, The New Press

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• Bear in mind that we [ with Edward Herman] did not devise the terms "manufacture of consent" and "engineering of consent." We borrowed them from leading figures in the media, public relations industry, and academic scholarship.

  Noam Chomsky

  Engineering, Media, Mind

  Source: www.publicanthropology.org

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• There was a really monstrous and almost literal genocide in the Mayan area, specifically under Ríos Montt. By now it has been recognized somewhat by Guatemalan society. In fact, Montt was under trial for some crimes. But the U.S. prohibits people from fleeing here.

  Noam Chomsky

  People, Fleeing, Trials

  Source: thehumanist.com

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• For those of us who got into good colleges or the professions, did we stand up to that high school history teacher who told us some ridiculous lie about American history and say, "That's a ridiculous lie. You're an idiot"? No. We said, "All right, I'll keep quiet, and I'll write it in the exam and I'll think, yes, he's an idiot." And it's easy to say and believe things that improve your self-image and your career and that are in other ways beneficial to yourselves.

  Noam Chomsky

  Teacher, Lying, Believe

  Source: progressive.org

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• As soon as one identifies, challenges and overcomes illegitimate power, he or she is an anarchist. Most people are anarchists. What they call themselves doesn’t matter to me. The world is full of suffering, distress, violence and catastrophes. Students must decide: does something concern you or not? I say: look around, analyze the problems, ask yourself what you can do and set out on the work!

  Noam Chomsky

  People, Challenges, Suffering

  "Students should become anarchists". ZEIT Campus Interview translated by IndyBay, www.indybay.org. June 14, 2011.

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• In the American Jewish community, there is little willingness to face the fact that the Palestinian Arabs have suffered a monstrous historical injustice . . . Until this is recognized, discussion of the Middle East crisis cannot even begin.

  Noam Chomsky

  Community, Historical, Middle East

  Noam Chomsky (2004). “Middle East Illusions: Including Peace in the Middle East? : Reflections on Justice and Nationhood”, p.43, Rowman & Littlefield

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• Even Stalin proclaimed his love for democracy. We do not learn about the nature of systems of power by listening to their rhetoric.

  Noam Chomsky

  Listening, Democracy, His Love

  "Kurds within the Arab spring and the Middle East Crisis". Interview with Haidar Nasih, chomsky.info. December 30, 2012.

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• If something is right (or wrong) for us, it’s right (or wrong) for others. It follows that if it’s wrong for Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, and a long list of others to bomb Washington and New York, then it’s wrong for Rumsfeld to bomb Afghanistan (on much flimsier pretexts), and he should be brought before war crimes trials.

  Noam Chomsky

  New York, War, Long

  "On Terrorism". Interview with John Bolender, chomsky.info. January, 2004.

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• Every predecessor has used mercenaries, often drawn from the country that they're attacking like England ran India with Indian mercenaries. You take them from one place and send them to kill people in the other place. That's the standard way to run imperial wars.

  Noam Chomsky

  Running, Country, War

  25th Anniversary of Coalition for Peace Action in Princeton, New Jersey, www.democracynow.org. November 14, 2004.

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• Whenever there is injustice, oppression, aggression, violence, it's standard for it to be supported by those we now call "intellectuals," but typically not by all; there is typically a fringe of dissidents. With very rare exceptions - in fact, it's hard to think of any - they suffer in one or another way; how depends on the nature of the society.

  Noam Chomsky

  Thinking, Suffering, Way

  Source: chomsky.info

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• Suppose that, say, China established military bases in Colombia to carry out chemical warfare in Kentucky and North Carolina to destroy this lethal crop [tobacco] that is killing huge numbers of Chinese.

  Noam Chomsky

  Military, Kentucky, Numbers

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• To object that the facts about human nature set limits on our ability to change the world and ourselves makes about as much sense as the lament that our lack of wings sets limits on our ability to 'fly' as far as eagles under our own power.

  Noam Chomsky

  Eagles, Wings, World

  Source: libcom.org

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• Now take a look at the way the Drug War is conducted over the past 40 years. It goes back farther, but start from 40 years ago: There's very little spent on prevention and treatment. There's a lot on policing, a ton of stuff on border control and a lot on out-of-country operations. And the effect on the availability of drugs is almost undetectable; drug prices don't change on measures of availability. So there are two possibilities: Either those conducting the Drug War are lunatics, or they have another purpose.

  Noam Chomsky

  Country, War, Past

  "Noam Sayin’?". Interview with T.A. Sedlak, chomsky.info. July 29, 2011.

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• In the mid to late nineteenth century, the gun manufacturers recognized that they had a limited market. Remember that this is a capitalist society, you've got to expand your market. They were selling guns to the military. That's a pretty limited market. What about all the rest of the people? So what started was all kinds of fantastic stories about Wyatt Earp and the gunmen and the Wild West, how exciting it was to have these guys with guns defending themselves against all sorts of things.

  Noam Chomsky

  Military, Gun, People

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• Look at the ozone story. As long as it was the southern hemisphere that was being threatened, there was very little talk about it. When it was discovered in the north, very quickly actions were taken to do something about it. Right now there's discussion of putting serious effort into developing a malaria vaccine, because global warming might extend malaria to the rich countries, so something should be done about it.

  Noam Chomsky

  Country, Taken, Rich Countries

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• The most dramatic case is that of the Central Americans. Why are people fleeing Central America? It's because of the atrocities the U.S. committed there. Take Boston, where there's a fairly large Mayan population. These people are fleeing from the highlands of Guatemala, where there was virtual genocide in the early 1980s backed by Ronald Reagan. The region was devastated, and people are still fleeing to this day, yet they're sent back.

  Noam Chomsky

  Boston, America, People

  Source: thehumanist.com

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• As long as people are marginalized and distracted [they] have no way to organize or articulate their sentiments, or even know that others have these sentiments. People assume that they are the only people with a crazy idea in their heads. They never hear it from anywhere else. Nobody's supposed to think that. ... Since there's no way to get together with other people who share or reinforce that view and help you articulate it, you feel like an oddity, an oddball. So you just stay on the side and you don't pay any attention to what's going on. You look at something else, like the Superbowl.

  Noam Chomsky

  Crazy, Thinking, Oddities

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• Citizenship means every four years you put a mark somewhere and you go home and let other guys run the world. It's a very destructive ideology.

  Noam Chomsky

  Running, Mean, Home

  "Anti-Intellectualism, Terrorism, and Elections in Contemporary Education: a Discussion with Noam Chomsky". Interview with Dan Falcone, www.counterpunch.org. June 3, 2016.

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