Noam Chomsky Quotes - Page 4

• Unfortunately, you can’t vote the rascals out, because you never voted them in, in the first place

  Noam Chomsky

  Firsts, Vote, Rascals

  Noam Chomsky, Carlos Peregrín Otero (2003). “Chomsky on Democracy & Education”, p.140, Psychology Press

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• Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Stopping, Way

  "Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in Our Times". Documentary, www.imdb.com. 2002.

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• It’s pretty ironic that the so-called ‘least advanced’ people are the ones taking the lead in trying to protect all of us, while the richest and most powerful among us are the ones who are trying to drive the society to destruction.

  Noam Chomsky

  Powerful, People, Ironic

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• Moral cowardice and intellectual corruption are the natural concomitants of unchallenged privilege.

  Noam Chomsky

  Intellectual, Privilege, Moral

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• For the powerful, crimes are those that others commit.

  Noam Chomsky

  Powerful, Political, Crime

  Noam Chomsky, David Barsamian (2010). “Imperial Ambitions: Conversations on the Post-9/11 World”, p.73, Macmillan

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• One of the greatest dangers is secular religion - state worship.

  Noam Chomsky

  Worship, Danger, States

  "Overcoming Despair as the Republicans Take Over: A Conversation with Noam Chomsky". Interview with Michael Lerner, www.tikkun.org. March 1, 2011.

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• The most effective way to restrict democracy is to transfer decision-making from the public arena to unaccountable institutions: kings and princes, priestly castes, military juntas, party dictatorships, or modern corporations.

  Noam Chomsky

  Kings, Military, Party

  Noam Chomsky (2011). “Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order”, p.125, Seven Stories Press

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• Globalization is the result of powerful governments, especially that of the United States, pushing trade deals and other accords down the throats of the world’s people to make it easier for corporations and the wealthy to dominate the economies of nations around the world without having obligations to the peoples of those nations.

  Noam Chomsky

  Powerful, Government, People

  Noam Chomsky (2011). “Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order”, p.10, Seven Stories Press

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• You don't have any other society where the educated classes are so effectively indoctrinated and controlled by a subtle propaganda system - a private system including media, intellectual opinion forming magazines and the participation of the most highly educated sections of the population. Such people ought to be referred to as "Commissars - for that is what their essential function is - to set up and maintain a system of doctrines and beliefs which will undermine independent thought and prevent a proper understanding and analysis of national and global institutions, issues, and policies".

  Noam Chomsky

  Truth, Independent, Issues

  "Language and Politics". Book by Noam Chomsky, 1988.

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• If we choose, we can live in a world of comforting illusion.

  Noam Chomsky

  Hero, Comforting, Anarchy

  Noam Chomsky (2001). “9-11 [neuf-onze]”, p.68, Seven Stories Press

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• To live a life of honesty and integrity is a responsibility of every decent person.

  Noam Chomsky

  Honesty, Integrity, Responsibility

  Source: www.publicanthropology.org

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• If you want to make changes in the world, you're going to have to be there day after day doing the boring, straightforward work of getting a couple of people interested and building a slightly bigger organization and carrying out the next move and suffering frustration and finally getting somewhere. That's how the world changes.

  Noam Chomsky

  Couple, Moving, Frustration

  Source: progressive.org

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• Control of thought is more important for governments that are free and popular than for despotic and military states. The logic is straightforward: a despotic state can control its domestic enemies by force, but as the state loses this weapon, other devices are required to prevent the ignorant masses from interfering with public affairs, which are none of their business… the public are to be observers, not participants, consumers of ideology as well as products.

  Noam Chomsky

  Military, Government, Ignorant Masses

  "Force and Opinion". Article by Noam Chomsky, chomsky.info. July, 1991.

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• The country was founded on the principle that primary role of government is to protect property from the majority, and so it remains.

  Noam Chomsky

  Country, Government, Majority

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• The ideal is to create a completely fragmented atomized society where everybody is totally alone, doing nothing but trying to pursue created wants, and the wants are created.

  Noam Chomsky

  Trying, Doing Nothing, Want

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• Karl Marx said, “The task is not just to understand the world but to change it.” A variant to keep in mind is that if you want to change the world you’d better try to understand it. That doesn’t mean listening to a talk or reading a book, though that’s helpful sometimes. You learn from participating. You learn from others. You learn from the people you’re trying to organize. We all have to gain the understanding and the experience to formulate and implement ideas.

  Noam Chomsky

  Book, Reading, Mean

  "Occupy". Book by Noam Chomsky, 2012.

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• Students who acquire large debts putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society. When you trap people in a system of debt, they can't afford the time to think. Tuition fee increases are a disciplinary technique, and by the time students graduate, they are not only loaded with debt, but have also internalized the disciplinarian culture. This makes them efficient components of the consumer economy.

  Noam Chomsky

  School, Thinking, People

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• You keep plugging away--that's the way social change takes place. That's the way every social change in history has taken place: by a lot of people, who nobody ever heard of, doing work.

  Noam Chomsky

  Taken, People, Way

  Noam Chomsky (2013). “Understanding Power: The Indispensible Chomsky”, p.139, The New Press

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• The truth of the matter is that about 99 percent of teaching is making the students feel interestedin the material. Then the other 1 percent has to do with your methods. And that's not just true of languages. It's true of every subject.

  Noam Chomsky

  Education, Teaching, Reading

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• See, people with power understand exactly one thing: violence.

  Noam Chomsky

  People, Violence, One Thing

  Noam Chomsky (2013). “Understanding Power: The Indispensible Chomsky”, p.124, The New Press

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• There are very few people who are going to look into the mirror and say, 'That person I see is a savage monster;' instead, they make up some construction that justifies what they do.

  Noam Chomsky

  Mirrors, People, Monsters

  "Question time" by Tim Adams, www.theguardian.com. November 30, 2003.

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• The United States happens to be the only state in the world that has been condemned by the World Court for international terrorism.

  Noam Chomsky

  United States, World, Terrorism

  Noam Chomsky, John Junkerman, Takei Masakazu (2015). “Power and Terror: Conflict, Hegemony, and the Rule of Force”, p.29, Routledge

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• Because they don't teach the truth about the world, schools have to rely on beating students over the head with propaganda about democracy. If schools were, in reality, democratic, there would be no need to bombard students with platitudes about democracy. They would simply act and behave democratically, and we know this does not happen. The more there is a need to talk about the ideals of democracy, the less democratic the system usually is.

  Noam Chomsky

  School, Reality, Democracy

  Noam Chomsky (2004). “Chomsky on Mis-Education”, p.16, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

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• The process of shaping opinion, attitudes, and perceptions was termed the 'engineering of consent' by one of the founders of the modern public relations industry, Edward Bernays.

  Noam Chomsky

  Attitude, Engineering, Perception

  Noam Chomsky (2016). “Who Rules the World?”, p.83, Metropolitan Books

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• It is important to bear in mind that political campaigns are designed by the same people who sell toothpaste and cars.

  Noam Chomsky

  People, Car, Political

  111,

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