Noam Chomsky Quotes - Page 10

• There has to be spiritual transformation among the masses, who have to be willing to recognize that their oppression is not a law of nature. That's what Latin American bishops were doing when they formed base communities. They were trying to get peasants to recognize that you can take your fate into your own hands. That's what the civil-rights movement did here. That's what the women's movement did.

  Noam Chomsky

  Spiritual, Latin, Fate

  Source: www.commonwealmagazine.org

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• Legalizing marijuana would make a lot of sense, I don't think there's a single case of marijuana overdose on record and tens of millions of users. It's much less dangerous than alcohol, for example.

  Noam Chomsky

  Marijuana, Thinking, Alcohol

  "Noam Chomsky: Drug Cartels and the Growing Border War". Interview with Luis Fernando Cárdenas, chomsky.info. August 15, 2011.

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• I mean, what's the elections? You know, two guys, same background, wealth, political influence, went to the same elite university, joined the same secret society where you're trained to be a ruler - they both can run because they're financed by the same corporate institutions.

  Noam Chomsky

  Running, Mean, Two

  "Final Edition". Book by Wallace Shawn, 2011.

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• When geologists announced the beginning of a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, humans destroying the environment, one of the main things they pointed to is the use of plastics in the earth. We don't think about it, but it has a tremendous effect. But these are things you don't see right in front of your eyes. You need to think about them a little, to see what the consequences are. It's easy to put them aside, and the media don't talk about them.

  Noam Chomsky

  Eye, Thinking, Media

  Source: www.salon.com

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• The people I find most impressive are generally unknown at the time of their actions and forgotten in history.

  Noam Chomsky

  People, Action, Forgotten

  Source: www.publicanthropology.org

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• Expressing criticism of society is not being a grouch.

  Noam Chomsky

  Criticism, Grouches

  "Ezra Levant Interviewed Noam Chomsky and They Disagreed On Pretty Much Everything" by Chris Bilton |, www.vice.com. March 10 2015.

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• The worst drug of all by far is tobacco; the death toll from tobacco is just overwhelming.

  Noam Chomsky

  Drug, Tolls, Worst

  "Noam Chomsky: Drug Cartels and the Growing Border War". Interview with Luis Fernando Cárdenas, chomsky.info. August 15, 2011.

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• The corporations plainly want academic scholarship to create a web of mystification that will avoid any public awareness of the way in which power actually functions in the society, and the faculty has caught the message and they do it magnificently.

  Noam Chomsky

  Power, Society, Want

  Noam Chomsky (2004). “Language and Politics”, p.136, AK Press

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• In the humanities and social sciences, and in fields like journalism and economics and so on, people have to be trained to be managers, and controllers, and to accept things, and not to question too much.

  Noam Chomsky

  People, Humanity, Too Much

  "Understanding Power". Book by Noam Chomsky, 2002.

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• It's necessary to address the concerns and beliefs of those who are taken in by the fraud, or who don't recognize the nature and significance of the issues for other reasons. If by philosophy we mean reasoned and thoughtful analysis, then it can address the moment, though not by confronting the "alternative facts" but by analyzing and clarifying what is at stake, whatever the issue is. Beyond that, what is needed is action: urgent and dedicated, in the many ways that are open to us.

  Noam Chomsky

  Philosophy, Taken, Mean

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

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• In Egypt the neoliberal programs have meant statistical growth, like right before the Arab Spring, Egypt was a kind of poster child for the World Bank and the IMF [International Monetary Fund:] the marvelous economic management and great reform. The only problem was for most of the population it was a kind of like a blow in the solar plexus: wages going down, benefits being eliminated, subsidized food gone and meanwhile, high concentration of wealth and a huge amount of corruption.

  Noam Chomsky

  Children, Spring, Blow

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

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• Since Jimmy Carter, religious fundamentalists play a major role in elections. He was the first president who made a point of exhibiting himself as a born again Christian. That sparked a little light in the minds of political campaign managers: Pretend to be a religious fanatic and you can pick up a third of the vote right away. Nobody asked whether Lyndon Johnson went to church every day. Bill Clinton is probably about as religious as I am, meaning zero, but his managers made a point of making sure that every Sunday morning he was in the Baptist church singing hymns.

  Noam Chomsky

  Christian, Religious, Atheist

  "The United States Has Essentially a One-Party System". Interview with Gabor Steingart, www.spiegel.de. October 10, 2008.

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• The idea that you have to drop any thing that you might be interested in doing because you have to pass that test tomorrow and it's something that you're not interested in, that's just the opposite of education. It's also harming teaching, because the teachers are evaluated by the results of the test.

  Noam Chomsky

  Teacher, Teaching, Ideas

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• Our ignorance can be divided into problems and mysteries. When we face a problem, we may not know its solution, but we have insight, increasing knowledge, and an inkling of what we are looking for. When we face a mystery, however, we can only stare in wonder and bewilderment, not knowing what an explanation would even look like.

  Noam Chomsky

  Ignorance, Knowing, Looks

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• Bear in mind that we [ with Edward Herman] did not devise the terms "manufacture of consent" and "engineering of consent." We borrowed them from leading figures in the media, public relations industry, and academic scholarship.

  Noam Chomsky

  Engineering, Media, Mind

  Source: www.publicanthropology.org

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• Technology provides means for expression and interchange and so on, so yes it should be free and open, but there are a lot of constraints on how its used.

  Noam Chomsky

  Mean, Technology, Expression

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

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• There was a free election in Palestine, but it came out the wrong way. So instantly, the United States and Israel with Europe tagging along, moved to punish the Palestinian people, and punish them harshly, because they voted the wrong way in a free election. That's accepted here in the West as perfectly normal. That illustrates the deep hatred and contempt for democracy among western elites, so deep-seated they can't even perceive it when it's in front of their eyes. You punish people severely if they vote the wrong way in a free election.

  Noam Chomsky

  Eye, Israel, Europe

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• The intellectual tradition is one of servility to power, and if I didn't betray it I'd be ashamed of myself.

  Noam Chomsky

  Responsibility, Intelligent, Power

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

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• There is a phrase in trade theory; it's called "kicking away the ladder." First you violate the rules - the market rules - and then by the time you succeed in developing, you kick away the ladders so others can't do it too, and you preach about "free trade."

  Noam Chomsky

  Kicking, Phrases, Ladders

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• In the early 1940s, as a young teenager, I was utterly appalled by the racist and jingoist hysteria of the anti-Japanese propaganda. The Germans were evil, but treated with some respect: They were, after all, blond Aryan types, just like our imaginary self-image. Japanese were mere vermin, to be crushed like ants.

  Noam Chomsky

  Teenager, Hysteria, Self

  "Noam Chomsky: Truth to power". Interview with David McNeill, chomsky.info. February 22, 2014.

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• As soon as one identifies, challenges and overcomes illegitimate power, he or she is an anarchist. Most people are anarchists. What they call themselves doesn’t matter to me. The world is full of suffering, distress, violence and catastrophes. Students must decide: does something concern you or not? I say: look around, analyze the problems, ask yourself what you can do and set out on the work!

  Noam Chomsky

  People, Challenges, Suffering

  "Students should become anarchists". ZEIT Campus Interview translated by IndyBay, www.indybay.org. June 14, 2011.

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• Donald Trump and Sean Spicer do one thing after another to keep the media attention focused on them. And it works. These legislative achievements are being made which are chipping away at anything the government has that's of any use to anybody. Paul Ryan, I think, is the most dangerous guy in the government. He knows what he's doing. And it's very systematic. I presume he's behind the cabinet appointments, but it's pretty amazing that every single cabinet appointment is somebody devoted to destroying that part of government.

  Noam Chomsky

  Thinking, Achievement, Guy

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• My feeling is that a human being or any complex organism has a system of cognitive structures that develop much in the way the physical organs of the body develop. That is, in their fundamental character they are innate; their basic form is determined by the genetic structure of the organism. Of course, they grow under particular environmental conditions, assuming a specific form that admits of some variation. Much of what is distinctive among human beings is a specific manner in which a variety of shared cognitive structures develop.

  Noam Chomsky

  Character, Feelings, Environmental

  Source: chomsky.info

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• In a capitalist system, there's a principle that if you invest, especially in a long-term risky investment, if something comes out of it, you're supposed to get the profit. It doesn't happen in our system. The taxpayer paid for it and gets nothing - assumes all of the risk, gets zero. The money goes into the pockets of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, who are ripping off decades of work in the public sector.

  Noam Chomsky

  Jobs, Zero, Long

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• Latin America was the most obedient follower of the neoliberal regime that was instituted by the United States, its allies and the international financial institutions. They followed it most rigorously. Almost everyone who's followed those rules, including the Western countries, have suffered. And in Latin America they suffered severely.

  Noam Chomsky

  Country, Latin, America

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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