Noam Chomsky Quotes - Page 44

• Take Germany and Japan, both defeated in the Second World War. Germany has acknowledged its monstrous crimes to a certain extent, has paid reparations and so on. Japan, in contrast, apologizes for nothing and has paid no reparations, with one exception: It pays reparations to the United States, but not to Asia.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Japan, Asia

  Source: www.madre.org

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• The development of space technology, including space warfare today, is similar in its technological-industrial significance to the development of navies a hundred years ago.

  Noam Chomsky

  Technology, Space, Years

  Source: www.madre.org

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• If you look at say, England and Germany a century ago, which had the most advanced navies then, they were dealing with extremely tricky technological problems. Putting a huge gun on a moving platform and ensuring that it could hit another moving target was one of the hardest technical problems of the early twentieth century.

  Noam Chomsky

  Moving, Gun, Navy

  Source: www.madre.org

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• In fact, the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 bans militarization. Potential adversaries of the US, and even its allies, are so far behind that these countries are very interested in maintaining the treaty. Europe and the rest of the world want a strong reaffirmation of the Treaty and the US is unilaterally trying to derail it. Termination of the treaty would mean that the US could develop satellite weapons, put offensive weapons in space. It would probably mean using nuclear power in space. All of this leads to some very dangerous scenarios, including destruction of the species.

  Noam Chomsky

  Country, Strong, Mean

  Source: www.madre.org

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• The reaction we should be having to [rich liberals] is not ridicule, but rather self-criticism. Why aren't we organizing them? I mean, we are the ones that ought to be organizing them, not Rush Limbaugh. There are historical analogs, which are not exact, of course, but are close enough to be worrisome. This is a whiff of early Nazi Germany.

  Noam Chomsky

  Mean, Self, Historical

  Source: www.iww.org

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• There are historical analogs, which are not exact, of course, but are close enough to be worrisome. This is a whiff of early Nazi Germany. [Adolf] Hitler was appealing to groups with similar grievances, and giving them crazy answers, but at least they were answers; these groups weren't getting them anywhere else. It was the Jews and the Bolsheviks [that were the problem].

  Noam Chomsky

  Crazy, Giving, Historical

  Source: www.iww.org

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• I don't even know if I ever knew - some sweatshop in Baltimore. I knew with my other relatives - some of the women were in the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and men were shop boys and things like that. I happened to be in Philadelphia, but the family was in New York. I could see what the union was doing for them.It really saved their lives.

  Noam Chomsky

  New York, Boys, Men

  Source: www.iww.org

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• I had two spinster aunts who were seamstresses, and of course unemployed in the 1930s, but the union gave them a life. They had a couple of weeks in the country for a union installation and they had educational programs and all sorts of things. There was a life, you know, a real community.

  Noam Chomsky

  Country, Couple, Real

  Source: www.iww.org

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• They [the union] were members of the Communist Party - they didn't care one way or another about Russia, they just cared about the United States.

  Noam Chomsky

  Party, Russia, United States

  Source: www.iww.org

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• You've just got to get people organized and tell them the truth. There aren't any magic tricks to it. You know, sometimes it's pretty amazing. Actually, I mentioned a pretty striking case of this in "Crisis and Hope," which was the Caterpillar case in the early 1990s.

  Noam Chomsky

  People, Magic, Sometimes

  Source: www.iww.org

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• The community itself didn't support the union. Now that's kind of interesting about [Barack] Obama, because Obama was supposedly a community organizer in Chicago at that time. Now I'm sure he read the Chicago Tribune, so he knew about it, but when he went to show his solidarity with the workforce, the first place he went was Caterpillar. I don't think he's forgotten, and the labor movement didn't react. Even radical labor historians didn't remember. It was only 15 years ago, after all, but that's a real triumph of propaganda in many ways.

  Noam Chomsky

  Real, Thinking, Years

  Source: www.iww.org

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• The [Ronald] Reagan administration told the business world that they were not going to enforce the labor laws.

  Noam Chomsky

  Law, World, Administration

  Source: www.iww.org

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• The number of illegal firings tripled during the [Ronald] Reagan years. It was at that time that you started getting these companies that specialized in how to destroy unions.

  Noam Chomsky

  Years, Numbers, Unions

  Source: www.iww.org

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• When [Bill] Clinton came along, it sort of moderated a little bit, but Clinton had a different device for breaking unions called NAFTA [North America Free Trade Agreement]. Because the government was entirely lawless, employers could exploit NAFTA to threaten union organizers with transfer. It's illegal, but when you've got a lawless government, it doesn't matter if it's illegal. I think the number of union drives blocked increased by about 50 percent.

  Noam Chomsky

  Thinking, Government, Agreement

  Source: www.iww.org

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• Part of the NAFTA legislation required studies of labor practices, and there was quite a good study that came out by a labor historian on the use of NAFTA to undermine and destroy unions.

  Noam Chomsky

  Practice, Use, Unions

  Source: www.iww.org

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• Starting with [Ronald] Regan it became quite open, the attack on unions. It wasn't the Pinkertons anymore, but it was just not applying the laws.

  Noam Chomsky

  Law, Unions, Starting

  Source: www.iww.org

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• All you have to do is read the business literature. In the 1930s they were very frightened and they were concerned about how the rising power of the masses was hazardous to industrialists.

  Noam Chomsky

  Rising, Literature, Frightened

  Source: www.iww.org

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• They [unions] used straight Marxist rhetoric [in 1930s] - just the values were changed.

  Noam Chomsky

  Unions, Used, Marxist

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• The literature is like that - they [unions] are constantly talking about the masses, the danger they pose, and how to control them. They understand what they're doing, and they're very class conscious. They press policies which work for their interests.

  Noam Chomsky

  Talking, Class, Literature

  Source: www.iww.org

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• For example, the insurance industries and the big banks are absolutely euphoric now - on the business pages they don't even conceal it - because they've succeeded in coming out of the crisis even stronger than they were before, and in a better position to lay the basis for the next crisis. But they don't care, because they'll get bailed out again. That's class consciousness with a vengeance.

  Noam Chomsky

  Class, Stronger, Example

  Source: www.iww.org

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• The Second World War ended with a radicalization of the population in the United States and everywhere else, and called for all kinds of things like popular takeovers, government intervention, and worker takeovers of factories. Business propagated a tremendous propaganda offensive. The scale surprised me when I read the scholarship - it's enormous, and it's been very effective. There were two major targets: one is unions, the other is democracy.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Two, Government Intervention

  Source: www.iww.org

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• In the United States, the day when you pay your taxes is a day of mourning because this alien force - the government - is coming to rob you of your hard-earned money. That's the general attitude, and it's a tremendous victory for the opponents of democracy, and, of course, any privileged sector is going to hate democracy. You can see it in the healthcare debate.

  Noam Chomsky

  Attitude, Hate, Government

  Source: www.iww.org

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• The majority of the population thinks that if the government runs healthcare, they're going to take away your freedom. At the same time, the public favors a national healthcare program.

  Noam Chomsky

  Running, Thinking, Government

  Source: www.iww.org

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• You have to love that government, but hate the government that might work in your interest and that you could control. That's an interesting propaganda task, but it's been carried out very well.

  Noam Chomsky

  Hate, Government, Interesting

  Source: www.iww.org

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• You can see it in the worship of [Ronald] Reagan, which portrays him as somebody who saved us from government. Actually he was an apostle of big government.

  Noam Chomsky

  Government, Worship, Bigs

  Source: www.iww.org

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