Noam Chomsky Quotes - Page 19

• US government policies are continuing to do exactly the same thing [produce terrorism]. Two days after the Boston marathon bombings, there was a drone strike in Yemen attacking a peaceful village, which killed a target who could very easily have been apprehended. But of course it is just easier to terrorise people.

  Noam Chomsky

  Government, Boston, Two

  Source: www.dawn.com

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• There is a noticeable general difference between the sciences and mathematics on the one hand, and the humanities and social sciences on the other. It's a first approximation, but one that is real. In the former, the factors of integrity tend to dominate more over the factors of ideology. It's not that scientists are more honest people. It's just that nature is a harsh taskmaster. You can lie or distort the story of the French Revolution as long as you like, and nothing will happen. Propose a false theory in chemistry, and it'll be refuted tomorrow.

  Noam Chomsky

  Integrity, Real, Lying

  "Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent". Book by Robert F. Barsky, 1997.

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• Suppose that insect wings developed primarily as thermoregulators and then were used for skimming and finally flying, evolving along the way. What would they be "for"? Or what is the skeleton "for"? For keeping one upright, protecting organs, storing calcium, making blood cells...?

  Noam Chomsky

  Skeletons, Cells, Blood

  Source: libcom.org

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• In Europe there's an dangerous growth of ultra xenophobia which is pretty threatening to any one who remembers the history of Europe... and an attack on the remnants of the welfare state. It's hard to interpret the austerity-in-the-midst-of-recession policy as anything other than attack on the social contract.

  Noam Chomsky

  Xenophobia, Europe, Growth

  "Noam Chomsky on America's Economic Suicide". Interview with Laura Flanders / GRITtv, www.alternet.org. May 4, 2012.

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• Very commonly substances are criminalized because they're associated with what's called the dangerous classes, you know, poor people, or working people.... Actually, the peak of marijuana use was as I said, in the seventies, but that was rich kids, so you don't throw them in jail. And then it got seriously criminalized, you know, you really throw people in jail for it, when it was poor people.

  Noam Chomsky

  Kids, Marijuana, Class

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• I think a decent society should protect rights to private property within limits, but not concentrations of private power that infringe on the freedom and rights of others, including exploitation of labor, and that convert any democratic forms into what have been called sometimes "hierarchical democracies," like ours, in which some have vastly greater influence over public policy than others. Spelling all of this out is a complex matter that raises many issue and problems that are impossible to address here.

  Noam Chomsky

  Thinking, Democracy, Impossible

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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• Boards of directors are allowed to work together, so are banks and investors and corporations in alliances with one another and with powerful states. That’s just fine. It’s just the poor who aren’t supposed to cooperate.

  Noam Chomsky

  Powerful, Working Together, Directors

  Noam Chomsky (2011). “How the World Works”, p.224, Soft Skull Press

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• Since November 8, 2017 the United States is literally alone in the world in first of all refusing to join in efforts to do something about climate change, but even worse, dedicated to making the situation worse. Every part of the world is trying to do something. The United States alone is trying to destroy it, and it's not just Trump, it's the whole Republican Party. You just can't find words for it. And it's not reported. It's not discussed.

  Noam Chomsky

  Party, Effort, Trying

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• Workers and their families may starve to death in the New World Order of economic rationality, but diamond necklaces are cheaper in elegant New York shops, thanks to the miracle of the market.

  Noam Chomsky

  New York, Order, Miracle

  Noam Chomsky (1997). “World Orders, Old and New”, p.128, Pluto Press

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• So, at one extreme you have indigenous, tribal societies trying to stem the race to disaster. At the other extreme, the richest, most powerful societies in world history, like the United States and Canada, are racing full-speed ahead to destroy the environment as quickly as possible.

  Noam Chomsky

  Powerful, Race, Racing

  Noam Chomsky (2016). “Who Rules the World?”, p.119, Metropolitan Books

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• There are very deep and restrictive principles that determine the nature of human language and are rooted in the specific character of the human mind

  Noam Chomsky

  Character, Mind, Principles

  Noam Chomsky (2006). “Language and Mind”, p.90, Cambridge University Press

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• The US is to an unusual extent a business-run society, where short-term concerns of profit and market share displace rational planning.

  Noam Chomsky

  Running, Planning, Unusual

  "Global Warming and the Future of Humanity: An Interview With Noam Chomsky and Graciela Chichilnisky". Interview with C.J. Polychroniou, www.truth-out.org. September 17, 2016.

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• The only way we can put a permanent end to terrorism is to stop participating in it.

  Noam Chomsky

  Way, Terrorism, Ends

  "Chomsky criticizes US violence" by Sarah H. Wright, news.mit.edu. October 24, 2001.

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• There are no conservatives in the United States. The United States does not have a conservative tradition. The people who call themselves conservatives, like the Heritage Foundation or Gingrich, are believers in -- are radical statists. They believe in a powerful state, but a welfare state for the rich.

  Noam Chomsky

  Powerful, Believe, People

  "On US Military Budgets". Interviewed with Ira Shorr, chomsky.info. February 11, 1996.

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• The US cannot be brought to the World Court for major crimes, for example the supreme international crime, invasion, or violation of the UN Charter, or violation of the Genocide Convention, these are things the US is exempt from, because they exempted themselves from being subjected to international treaties in World Court proceedings.

  Noam Chomsky

  Example, World, Invasion

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• A corporation is a state created institution, state supported institution, its concentration of private power, there is no reason why it should have the rights of persons.

  Noam Chomsky

  Rights, Should Have, Corporations

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

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• Democracy, in any rational form, also imposes conditions on majority rule. That's what the Bill of Rights is about, for example.

  Noam Chomsky

  Rights, Majority Rule, Democracy

  Source: thefifthcolumnnews.com

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• If you are giving a graduate course you don't try to impress the students with oratory, you try to challenge them, get them to question you.

  Noam Chomsky

  Giving, Challenges, Trying

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• Don't be obsessed with tactics but with purpose. Tactics have a half life.

  Noam Chomsky

  Purpose, Half, Tactics

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• In ideal form of social control is an atomised collection of individuals focused on their own narrow concern, lacking the kinds of organisations in which they can gain information, develop and articulate their thoughts, and act constructively to achieve common ends.

  Noam Chomsky

  Information, Gains, Common

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• It's designed to carry forward the neoliberal project to maximize profit and domination, and to set the working people in the world in competition with one another so as to lower wages to increase insecurity

  Noam Chomsky

  People, Insecurity, Competition

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• Markets are lethal, if only because of ignoring externalities, the impacts of their transactions on the environment.

  Noam Chomsky

  Impact, Environment, Transactions

  "Noam Chomsky slams Canada's shale gas energy plans" by Martin Lukacs, www.theguardian.com. November 1, 2013.

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• I suspect most likely that more Nazis came to America. I was a student at Harvard during the early 1950s. There was practically no Jewish faculty there.

  Noam Chomsky

  America, Students, Nazi

  Source: thehumanist.com

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• If you're teaching today what you were teaching five years ago, either the field is dead or you are.

  Noam Chomsky

  Teaching, Years, Today

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• Take pandemics. There could easily be a severe pandemic. A lot of that comes from something we don't pay much attention to: Eating meat. The meat production industry, the industrial production of meat, uses an immense amount of antibiotics.We're now running out of antibiotics that deal with the threat of rapidly mutating bacteria. A lot of that just comes from the meat production industry. Well, do we worry about it? Well, we ought to be.

  Noam Chomsky

  Running, Worry, Meat

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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