The intellectual tradition is one of servility to power, and if I didn’t betray it I’d be ashamed of myself.
NOAM CHOMSKYThe United States is unusual among the industrial democracies in the rigidity of the system of ideological control – ‘indoctrination’, we might say – exercised through the mass media.
More Noam Chomsky Quotes
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Changes and progress very rarely are gifts from above. They come out of struggles from below.
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It matters little, at this point, where the exact truth lies in the maze of perjury, evasion, and of contempt for the normal – hardly inspiring – standards of political conduct.
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They come from acceptance of American values, not a rejection of them, and recognition that they’re rejected by the U.S. government and by U.S. elites, which does lead to hatred and anger.
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Governments don’t control people like they used to.
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Concentration of wealth yields concentration of political power. And concentration of political power gives rise to legislation that increases and accelerates the cycle.
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It could be – and it has been argued, in my view rather plausibly, though neuroscientists don’t like it – that neuroscience for the last couple hundred years has been on the wrong track.
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Even in the 1950s, President Eisenhower was concerned about what he called a campaign of hatred of the U.S. in the Arab world, because of the perception on the Arab street that it supported harsh and oppressive regimes to take their oil.
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I would appear on Fox News more easily than I would NPR.
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In America, the professor talks to the mechanic. They are in the same category.
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It’s a trap for the rest of your life because the laws are designed so that you can’t get out of it. If a business, say, gets in too much debt, it can declare bankruptcy, but individuals can almost never be relieved of student debt through bankruptcy.
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The United States is unusual among the industrial democracies in the rigidity of the system of ideological control – ‘indoctrination’, we might say – exercised through the mass media.
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I don’t think that experience is a very useful or convincing attribute for a sensible foreign policy. Henry Kissinger had a lot of experience.
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It followed international law and treaty obligations. It collected evidence, brought the evidence to the highest existing tribunal, the International Court of Justice, and received a verdict – which, of course, the U.S. dismissed with contempt.
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The elections are run by the same industries that sell toothpaste on television.
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If there was an observer on Mars, they would probably be amazed that we have survived this long.
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That’s all accurate and of some importance, but of far more importance is the fact that elections just don’t take place, not in any meaningful sense of the term ‘election.’
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In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than just ideals to be valued – they may be essential to survival.
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The invasion of Iraq, particularly, gave a big shot in the arm to the jihadi extremists.
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If you want to achieve something, you build the basis for it.
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The drones are a terrorist weapon; they not only kill targets but also terrorise other people.
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If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.
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I would feel no hesitation in saying that it is the responsibility of a decent human being to give assistance to a child who is being attacked by a rabid dog.
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On the Internet, you think everything is going to be public.
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The European Central Bank has only the first. It has no commitment to keep employment up.
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The 1950s and 1960s had been a period of enormous growth, the highest in American history, maybe in economic history.
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France had a policy, initiated by General de Gaulle, of trying to turn Europe into what was then called a ‘third force,’ independent of the two superpowers, so Europe should pursue an independent course.
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