Noam Chomsky Quotes - Page 56

• We recriminalized black life. Incarceration rates since the 1908s have gone through the roof, overwhelmingly black males, women and Hispanics to some extent. Essentially re-doing what happened under Reconstruction. That's the history of African Americans - so how can any one say there's no problem. Sure, racism is serious, but it's worse than that.

  Noam Chomsky

  Racism, African American, Black

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

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• [James] Madison pointed out in the discussion of the constitutional debates - the constitutional convention - that democracy would be a danger. He used England of course as the model and said suppose that in England everyone had the free right to vote; the poor, the propertyless - who are the great majority - would use their voting power to take away the rights of property owners to carry out what we would call land reform.

  Noam Chomsky

  Rights, Land, Voting

  Source: chomsky.info

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• There have been repeated cases when nuclear war came ominously close, often a result of malfunctioning of early-warning systems and other accidents, sometimes [as a result of] highly adventurist acts of political leaders.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Leader, Political

  "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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• What is important to us is to reverse the shameful course being pursued by America. It won't be easy, but it must and can be done.

  Noam Chomsky

  America, Important, Done

  Source: www.brooklynrail.org

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• There are real possibilities of reaching many of the Trump voters: many of them in fact voted for Obama, believing his rhetoric about "change," and upon realizing that they were deluded, have turned to Trump. And will find that they are again deluded. That's an opportunity that can be grasped, by organizing, education, activism right now.

  Noam Chomsky

  Real, Believe, Opportunity

  Source: www.brooklynrail.org

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• The labor movement can be rebuilt, as has happened before after sharp declines.

  Noam Chomsky

  Movement, Decline, Labor

  Source: www.brooklynrail.org

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• Major efforts have to be undertaken to bring the general public to understand the real reasons for their plight, and the possibilities for radical social and political change to construct meaningful popular control of all institutions - in communities, in the workplace, in the larger society, and on to the international order.

  Noam Chomsky

  Meaningful, Real, Order

  Source: www.brooklynrail.org

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• I don't entirely agree with the slogan "speaking truth to power."

  Noam Chomsky

  Agree, Slogans

  Source: www.publicanthropology.org

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• In my experience at least, the large public universities do not fall behind in fostering creativity and independence; often the contrary.

  Noam Chomsky

  Fall, Creativity, Independence

  Source: www.publicanthropology.org

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• The focus on creativity and independence exists in pockets of resistance in the educational system, which, to thrive, should be integrated with the needs and concerns of the great majority of the population. One finds them everywhere.

  Noam Chomsky

  Educational, Creativity, Focus

  Source: www.publicanthropology.org

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• Intellectuals of the categories happen to enjoy unusual privilege, unique in history, I suppose. It's easy enough to find ugly illustrations of repression, malice, dishonesty, marginalization and exclusion in the academic world.

  Noam Chomsky

  Unique, Illustration, World

  Source: www.publicanthropology.org

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• Dissidents are not imprisoned as in the domains of the Kremlin, in the old days. They do not have their brains blown out by elite forces armed and trained by the reigning superpower, as happens in Washington's domains - with no particular concern at home - an important fact, one of many that help us learn about ourselves, if we choose.

  Noam Chomsky

  Home, Brain, Important

  Source: www.publicanthropology.org

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• How many educated Americans can even remember the names of the assassinated Jesuit intellectuals of El Salvador, or would know where to find a word they wrote? The answers are revealing, particularly when we draw the striking - and historically typical - contrast to the attitudes towards their counterparts in enemy domains.

  Noam Chomsky

  Attitude, Names, Enemy

  Source: www.publicanthropology.org

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• Given their unusual privilege, Western intellectuals can realistically accomplish a great deal. The limits are imposed by will more than objective circumstances. And about human will predictions are without value.

  Noam Chomsky

  Limits, Privilege, Unusual

  Source: www.publicanthropology.org

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• Personally, I am uneasy about the notion of "a politically engaged university," for reasons I wrote about over 30 years ago, at the height of protest and resistance (reprinted in For Reasons of State).

  Noam Chomsky

  Years, Height, Resistance

  Source: www.publicanthropology.org

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• I felt that we could hardly improve on the conception of the university expressed by one of the founders of the modern system, Wilhelm von Humboldt, also one of the founders of classical liberalism. That seems to me true today as well, though ideals of course have to be adapted to changing circumstances.

  Noam Chomsky

  Today, Modern, Circumstances

  Source: www.publicanthropology.org

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• Individuals in a university - students, faculty, staff - can choose to become politically engaged, and a free university should foster a climate in which those are natural choices.

  Noam Chomsky

  University Students, Choices, Climate

  Source: www.publicanthropology.org

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• Insofar as the universities are free and independent, they will also be "subversive," in the sense that dominant structures of power and their ideological support will be subjected to challenge and critique, a counterpart to attitudes that are fostered in the hard sciences wherever they are taken seriously.

  Noam Chomsky

  Attitude, Taken, Independent

  Source: www.publicanthropology.org

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• It is one thing for the institution to offer space for serious engagement, in thought and action, and to encourage free and independent use of such opportunities; it is something else for the university to become engaged as an institution, beyond a fairly narrow range where true consensus exists, and even that raises questions.

  Noam Chomsky

  Independent, Opportunity, Raises Questions

  Source: www.publicanthropology.org

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• The two tendencies are antithetical in significant respects. These are distinctions that should be kept in mind, however one feels that the problems and dilemmas that constantly arise should be resolved.

  Noam Chomsky

  Two, Mind, Problem

  Source: www.publicanthropology.org

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• It's true that many say that [they] object to the idea of "human nature," but it's not clear what that is supposed to mean. Are we different from ants?

  Noam Chomsky

  Mean, Ideas, Different

  Source: thefifthcolumnnews.com

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• Iceland is capitalist social democratic, rather like the Nordic countries generally. The capital had a mayor who is an anarchist, but the city has been nothing like that. In fact a few years ago it was super-neoliberal, which led to the crash.

  Noam Chomsky

  Country, Years, Iceland

  Source: thefifthcolumnnews.com

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• No use in waiting, we can all work hard to bring about changes.

  Noam Chomsky

  Hard Work, Waiting, Use

  Source: thefifthcolumnnews.com

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• Fed and electoral college could use some tinkering, but they are not the source of the problems.

  Noam Chomsky

  College, Tinkering, Use

  Source: thefifthcolumnnews.com

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• My memory - faded, as I say - is that Paul Johnson was trying to vilify all intellectuals who were at all critical of the states he worships, and of power generally (except, of course, the power of enemies, which we must denounce, imitating the commissars who are his models, though he doesn't understand it).

  Noam Chomsky

  Memories, Enemy, Trying

  Source: thefifthcolumnnews.com

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