Noam Chomsky Quotes - Page 24

• I would feel no hesitation in saying that it is the responsibility of a decent human being to give assistance to a child who is being attacked by a rabid dog, but I would not intend this to imply that in all imaginable circumstances one must, necessarily, act in accordance with this general responsibility.

  Noam Chomsky

  Dog, Children, Responsibility

  "The Responsibility of Intellectuals" by Noam Chomsky, www.nybooks.com. April 20, 1967.

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• We're looking at the dawn of a new arms race. For example, Germany technically opposes the US space militarization program, but is bound to get involved. Otherwise it will be left behind in the development of advanced technology. Germany understands that very well. The US understands it too, and they fully expect that Germany and other countries that they want on board will go along with the program.

  Noam Chomsky

  Country, Technology, Space

  Source: www.madre.org

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• International relations bears more than a slight resemblance to the mafia.

  Noam Chomsky

  Mafia, Bears, Relation

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• The whole infrastructure of air travel was, and is, part of government policy. It is not a natural development of a free economic system - at least not in the way that is claimed. The same is true of the roads, of course.

  Noam Chomsky

  Government, Air, Development

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• The Bush Administration do have moral values. Their moral values are very explicit: shine the boots of the rich and the powerful, kick everybody else in the face, and let your grandchildren pay for it. That simple principle predicts almost everything that's happening.

  Noam Chomsky

  Powerful, Simple, Grandchildren

  Interview by Steve Scher on KUOW-FM 94.9, 2004.

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• In many respects, the United States is the freest country in the world. I don't just mean in terms of limits on state coercion, though that's true too, but also in terms of individual relations. The United States comes closer to classlessness in terms of interpersonal relations than virtually any society.

  Noam Chomsky

  Country, Mean, United States

  Noam Chomsky, Carlos Peregrín Otero (2003). “Chomsky on Democracy and Education”, p.399, Psychology Press

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• Democracy is always harmful to elite interests. Almost by definition.

  Noam Chomsky

  Democracy, Definitions, Interest

  "The Secret of Noam: A Chomsky Interview". Interview with Jeff Jetton, brightestyoungthings.com. March 9, 2011.

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• I think that what's actually happening is the collapse of the Center - the centrist semi-coalitions, mildly social-democrat, mildly conservative, that have been running the countries for years. They are severely declining. You can see it in voting; you can see it also in popular attitudes: contempt for what are called "the élites," the experts, the people in charge.

  Noam Chomsky

  Running, Country, Attitude

  Source: www.brooklynrail.org

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• The answer to subversion of democracy is more democracy, more freedom, more justice.

  Noam Chomsky

  Justice, Democracy, Answers

  Source: www.publicanthropology.org

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• Take the US. Women were not even able to vote until 90 ago, at about the same time they gained the right in Afghanistan. Rights of former slaves were very limited until the 1960s, and in some ways still are. In these and other domains there has been progress in democracy, though still seriously flawed. In other dimensions - the control of concentrated wealth over the political process, for example, things have gotten much worse in recent years. And there is much more, in both directions.

  Noam Chomsky

  Rights, Years, Political

  Source: chomsky.info

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• Popular support for alternative energy has been very high for years. But it harms corporate profits.

  Noam Chomsky

  Years, Support, Energy

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• There's an interesting book by the former Brazilian ambassador Celso Amorim. In 2010, he initiated an effort along with Turkey to settle the whole Iran issue. Nobody outside of the United States takes it to be much of an issue. They made a deal with Iran for Iran to essentially give away its low enriched uranium to Turkey for storage, and in return, the Western powers. It was immediately scratched by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. And the main reason was they didn't want anybody else to be involved in it. We were supposed to run things, but we didn't say that.

  Noam Chomsky

  Running, Book, Giving

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• If you assume there is no hope, you guarantee there will be no hope.

  Noam Chomsky

  Hope, Guarantees, Assuming

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• There was a time traditionally - say, GM in the 1950s - it was trying to develop a consumer base that would be loyal and lasting and they were thinking in terms of an institution that would remain and grow and thrive in the society. By now, a lot of the investment firms - bankers, hedge funds - are perfectly happy to destroy what they're in and come out with huge, tremendous benefits. That's a new stage of capitalism.

  Noam Chomsky

  Thinking, Trying, Bankers

  "Chomsky: "The Business Elites... Are Instinctive Marxists"". Interview with Keane Bhatt, truth-out.org. November 19, 2010.

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• Policies are designed to undermine working class organization and the reason is not only the unions fight for workers' rights, but they also have a democratizing effect. These are institutions in which people without power can get together, support one another, learn about the world, try out their ideas, initiate programs, and that is dangerous. That's like a referendum in Greece. It is dangerous to allow that.

  Noam Chomsky

  Fighting, Class, Organization

  Source: pennpoliticalreview.org

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• Isaiah Berlin described the intellectuals of [Mikhail] Bakunin's "Red bureaucracy" as a "secular priesthood.

  Noam Chomsky

  Berlin, Red, Priesthood

  Source: www.publicanthropology.org

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• I mean, the liberal democrats aren't going to tell the average American, "Yeah, you're being shafted because of the policies that we've established over the years that we're maintaining now." That's not going to be an answer. And they're not getting answers from the left.

  Noam Chomsky

  Mean, Average, Years

  Source: www.iww.org

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• In fact, various lawyers' groups - to some extent in the U.S. but mostly in England and Canada and elsewhere - are bringing demands for a war crimes trial for the crime of aggression. However, though the invasion of Iraq was plainly an act of aggression, it doesn't break any records.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Iraq, Invasion

  Source: progressive.org

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• Our concern is to help people counter the efforts of those who seek to "regiment the public mind every bit as much as an army regiments the bodies of its soldiers," so that the self-designated "responsible men" will be able to run the affairs of the world untroubled by the "bewildered herd" - the general public - who are to be marginalized and dispersed, directed to personal concerns, in a well-regulated "democracy."

  Noam Chomsky

  Running, Army, Men

  Source: www.publicanthropology.org

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• The Sanders campaign, however, broke dramatically with over a century of U.S. political history. Extensive political science research, notably the work of Thomas Ferguson, has shown convincingly that elections are pretty much bought. For example, campaign spending alone is a remarkably good predictor of electoral success, and support of corporate power and private wealth is a virtual prerequisite even for participation in the political arena.

  Noam Chomsky

  Support, Political, Election

  "Noam Chomsky: On Trump and the State of the Union". Interview with George Yancy, www.nytimes.com. July 5, 2017.

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• U.S. international and security policy . . . has as its primary goal the preservation of what we might call "the Fifth Freedom," understood crudely but with a fair degree of accuracy as the freedom to rob, to exploit and to dominate, to undertake any course of action to ensure that existing privilege is protected and advanced.

  Noam Chomsky

  Goal, Degrees, Might

  Noam Chomsky (1988). “The Culture of Terrorism”, p.1, Pluto Press

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• The United States invaded Iraq to gain control of one of the major sources of the world's energy.

  Noam Chomsky

  Iraq, World, Gains

  "On the Election". "Real Time" with Bill Maher, chomsky.info. November 10, 2004.

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• There's one white powder which is by far the most lethal known, it's called sugar. . . . The Caribbean back in the 18th century was a soft drug producer: sugar, rum, tobacco, chocolate. And in order to do it, they had to enslave Africans.

  Noam Chomsky

  Order, White, Chocolate

  Noam Chomsky's Talk at the University of Houston in Houston, Texas, October 18, 2002.

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• Civil disobedience's main goal typically is to try to arouse and inspire others to join and do something. Well, sometimes that is a good tactic, sometimes not.

  Noam Chomsky

  Goal, Inspire, Trying

  "Chomsky On The Prospect of Kurdish Independence". Interview with Namo Abdulla, chomsky.info. February 15, 2011.

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• One of the real problems of society is that its far too atomized, what sociologists call secondary associations.

  Noam Chomsky

  Real, Association, Problem

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

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