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Noam Chomsky Quotes - Page 11

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To object that the facts about human nature set limits on our ability to change the world and ourselves makes about as much sense as the lament that our lack of wings sets limits on our ability to 'fly' as far as eagles

To object that the facts about human nature set limits on our ability to change the world and ourselves makes about as much sense as the lament that our lack of wings sets limits on our ability to 'fly' as far as eagles under our own power.

Noam Chomsky
Eagles, Wings, World
Source: libcom.org

Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state...

Noam Chomsky
Media, Political, Democracy
"On Propaganda". WBAI Interview, chomsky.info. January 1992.

There was a really monstrous and almost literal genocide in the Mayan area, specifically under Ríos Montt. By now it has been recognized somewhat by Guatemalan society. In fact, Montt was under trial for some crimes. But the U.S. prohibits people from fleeing here.

Noam Chomsky
People, Fleeing, Trials
Source: thehumanist.com

In the moral calculus of currently prevailing state capitalism, profits and bonuses in the next quarter greatly outweigh concern for the welfare of one’s grandchildren, and since these are institutional maladies, they will not be easy to overcome. While much remains uncertain, we can assure ourselves, with fair confidence, that future generations will not forgive us our silence and apathy.

Noam Chomsky
Grandchildren, Silence, Forgiving

In a democracy the day when you pay your taxes, April 15, would be a day of celebration, because you're getting together to provide resources for the programs you decided on.

Noam Chomsky
Democracy, Together, Would Be
Source: www.iww.org

Our health care is rationed by wealth.

Noam Chomsky
Care, Wealth, Health Care
Source: theanarchistlibrary.org

In the mid to late nineteenth century, the gun manufacturers recognized that they had a limited market. Remember that this is a capitalist society, you've got to expand your market. They were selling guns to the military. That's a pretty limited market. What about all the rest of the people? So what started was all kinds of fantastic stories about Wyatt Earp and the gunmen and the Wild West, how exciting it was to have these guys with guns defending themselves against all sorts of things.

Noam Chomsky
Military, Gun, People
Source: www.counterpunch.org

To speak truth to power is not a particularly honorable vocation. One should seek out an audience that matters - and furthermore (another important qualification), it should not be seen as an audience, but as a community of common concern in which one hopes to participate constructively.

Noam Chomsky
Community, Important, Matter
Source: www.publicanthropology.org

Every predecessor has used mercenaries, often drawn from the country that they're attacking like England ran India with Indian mercenaries. You take them from one place and send them to kill people in the other place. That's the standard way to run imperial wars.

Noam Chomsky
Running, Country, War
25th Anniversary of Coalition for Peace Action in Princeton, New Jersey, www.democracynow.org. November 14, 2004.

Now take a look at the way the Drug War is conducted over the past 40 years. It goes back farther, but start from 40 years ago: There's very little spent on prevention and treatment. There's a lot on policing, a ton of stuff on border control and a lot on out-of-country operations. And the effect on the availability of drugs is almost undetectable; drug prices don't change on measures of availability. So there are two possibilities: Either those conducting the Drug War are lunatics, or they have another purpose.

Noam Chomsky
Country, War, Past
"Noam Sayin’?". Interview with T.A. Sedlak, chomsky.info. July 29, 2011.

How do I define God? I don't.... People who find such conceptions important for themselves have every right to frame them as they like. Personally, I don't.

Noam Chomsky
Spiritual, Atheist, Science

The most extreme types, like Murray Rothbard, are at least honest. They'd like to eliminate highway taxes because they force you to pay for a road you may never drive on. As an alternative, they suggest that if you and I want to get somewhere, we should build a road there and charge people tolls on it. Just try generalizing that. Such a society couldn't survive, and even if it could, it would be so full of terror and hate that any human being would prefer to live in hell.

Noam Chomsky
Hate, People, Trying
Noam Chomsky (2011). “How the World Works”, p.217, Soft Skull Press

There is kind of a fundamental conformity, which is a virtual requirement to enter into the media.

Noam Chomsky
Media, Fundamentals, Requirements
Source: theanarchistlibrary.org

Those who wish to change the world should have the best possible understanding of the world, including what is revealed by the sciences, some of which they might be able to use for their purposes. That's why workers education, including science and mathematics, has commonly been a concern of left intellectuals.

Noam Chomsky
Should Have, Understanding, Wish
Source: libcom.org

I don't see how one can "believe in organized religion." What does it mean to believe in an organization? One can join it, support it, oppose it, accept its doctrines or reject them. There are many kinds of organized religion. People associate themselves with some of them, or not, for all sorts of reasons, maybe belief in some of their doctrines.

Noam Chomsky
Believe, Mean, Organization
Source: chomsky.info

The main purpose of advertising is to undermine markets. If you go to graduate school and you take a course in economics, you learn that markets are systems in which informed consumers make rational choices. That's what's so wonderful about it. But that's the last thing that the state corporate system wants. It is spending huge sums to prevent that.

Noam Chomsky
School, Choices, Purpose
Speech at 25th anniversary of the International Relations Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, January 26, 2005.

Policy is largely set by economic elites and organized groups representing business interests with little concern for public attitudes or public safety, as long as the public remains passive and obedient.

Noam Chomsky
Attitude, Long, Safety

The Bible is one of the most genocidal books in history.

Noam Chomsky
Bible, Atheist, Book

There is massive propaganda for everyone to consume. Consumption is good for profits and consumption is good for the political establishment.

Noam Chomsky
Political, Propaganda, Profit
"'The United States Has Essentially a One-Party System'". Interview with Gabor Steingart, www.spiegel.de. October 10, 2008.

The internet is something created largely by public funding.

Noam Chomsky
Internet, Funding
Interview with Jegan Vincent de Paul, chomsky.info. August 15, 2012.

As long as people are marginalized and distracted [they] have no way to organize or articulate their sentiments, or even know that others have these sentiments. People assume that they are the only people with a crazy idea in their heads. They never hear it from anywhere else. Nobody's supposed to think that. ... Since there's no way to get together with other people who share or reinforce that view and help you articulate it, you feel like an oddity, an oddball. So you just stay on the side and you don't pay any attention to what's going on. You look at something else, like the Superbowl.

Noam Chomsky
Crazy, Thinking, Oddities

As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss.

Noam Chomsky
Loss, Choices, Decision
Television interview, 30 Mar. 1978, in Listener 6 Apr. 1978

We can try to gain some of the sensibility of some of the indigenous populations of the world or our predecessors 800 years ago. We can laugh at them as being naive and unsophisticated, but unless we can gain that sensibility that there has to be rights of nature as Bolivians and others put it, then we're going to be destroyed.

Noam Chomsky
Rights, Years, Laughing
Source: www.truth-out.org

People are dangerous. If they're able to involve themselves in issues that matter, they may change the distribution of power, to the detriment of those who are rich and privileged.

Noam Chomsky
Power, Issues, People
David Barsamian, Noam Chomsky (2001). “Propaganda and the Public Mind: Conversations with Noam Chomsky”, p.30, Pluto Press

There's an internal coherence and logic to what they get from [Rush] Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and the rest of these guys. And they sound very convincing, they're very self-confident, and they have an answer to everything - a crazy answer, but it's an answer. And it's our fault if that goes on. So one thing to be done is don't ridicule these people, join them, and talk about their real grievances and give them a sensible answer, like, "Take over your factories."

Noam Chomsky
Crazy, Real, Self
Source: www.iww.org

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