Noam Chomsky Quotes About Human Rights

• If we don't believe in free expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.

  Noam Chomsky

  Inspirational, Relationship, Freedom

  Interview with John Pilger on BBC's "The Late Show", November 25, 1992.

• States are not moral agents, people are, and can impose moral standards on powerful institutions.

  Noam Chomsky

  Powerful, Hero, People

  Noam Chomsky (2002). “The Umbrella of U.S. Power: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Contradictions of U.S. Policy”, p.42, Seven Stories Press

• There is no western concern for issues of aggression, atrocities, human rights abuses and so on if there's a profit to be made from them

  Noam Chomsky

  Rights, Issues, Abuse

• Extensive violations of human rights (torture, forced reduction of living standards for much of the population, police-sponsored death squads, destruction of representative institutions or of independent unions, etc.) are directly correlated with US government support. The linkage is not accidental; rather it is systematic. The reason is obvious enough. Client fascism often improves the business climate for American corporations, quite generally the guiding factor in foreign policy.

  Noam Chomsky

  Independent, Violation Of Human Rights, Government

• People have no human rights, only the rights that they can gain on the labour market. Above all, wealth and power have to be protected.

  Noam Chomsky

  Rights, People, Gains

• During the 1990's, Colombia was the leading recipient of US military aid and training in the hemisphere. Approximately half of all US aid in the hemisphere went to Colombia. Colombia was also far and away the leading human rights violator in the hemisphere.

  Noam Chomsky

  Military, Rights, Training

  Source: www.madre.org

• In fact, there is a very close correlation between human rights violations and US aid, particularly in Latin America.

  Noam Chomsky

  Latin, Rights, America

  Source: www.madre.org

• Terror became a big issue when the Reagan Administration came in. They immediately announced [their plans] and kind of disparaged Carter's alleged human rights programs. The main issue is state-directed international terrorism. Right at that time that big industry developed. That's when you start getting the academic departments on terrorism.

  Noam Chomsky

  Issues, Rights, Administration

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

• Moves toward sovereignty in Iraq stimulate pressures first for human rights among the bitterly repressed Shi'ite population but also toward some degree of autonomy. You can imagine a kind of a loose Shi'ite alliance in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, controlling most of the world's oil and independent of the United States. And much worse, although Europe can be intimidated by the United States, China can't. It's one of the reasons, the main reasons, why China is considered a threat. We're back to the Mafia principle.

  Noam Chomsky

  Moving, Independent, Rights

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

• In some ways, [the student anti-sweatshop movement] is like the anti-apartheid movement, except that in this case its striking at the core of the relations of exploitation. Much of this was initiated by Charlie Kernaghan of the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights.

  Noam Chomsky

  Impact, Rights, Sweatshops

• Anyone can be a moral individual, concerned with human rights and problems; but only a college professor, a trained expert, can solve technical problems by 'sophisticated' methods. Ergo, it is only problems of the latter sort that are important or real.

  Noam Chomsky

  Real, College, Rights

  Noam Chomsky (2010). “The Chomsky Reader”, p.70, Pantheon

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