Words matter. These are the best Noam Chomsky Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
It was during the Reagan years that defiance of international law and the U.N. Charter became entirely open.
The level of destruction and terror and violence carried out by the powerful states far exceeds anything that can imaginably can be done by groups that are called terrorists and subnational groups.
In 1962, war was avoided by Khrushchev’s willingness to accept Kennedy’s hegemonic demands.
Meteorologists are pretty faces reading scripts telling you whether it’s going to rain tomorrow.
When I look at public opinion, I’m not far out of the mainstream. I’m in it, in many respects. In some respects, public opinion goes beyond anything I’ve ever said.
Unlike Europe, China can’t be intimidated. Europe backs down if the United States looks at it the wrong way. But China, they’ve been there for 3,000 years and are paying no attention to the barbarians and don’t see any need to.
I personally never expected anything of Obama, and wrote about it before the 2008 primaries. I thought it was smoke and mirrors.
There is no body of theory or significant body of relevant information, beyond the comprehension of the layman, which makes policy immune from criticism.
All through Latin America, there’s sharp condemnation of the criminal atrocities of Sept. 11. But it’s qualified by the observation that although these are horrible atrocities, they are not unfamiliar.
The invasion of Iraq, particularly, gave a big shot in the arm to the jihadi extremists.
You go back to the 17th century, the commercial and industrial centers of the world were China and India.
As a research tool, the internet is invaluable.
It makes sense for Japan to pursue a more independent role in the world, following Latin America and others in freeing itself from U.S. domination.
A large majority of Americans believe that the U.N., not the U.S., should take the lead in working with Iraqis to transfer authentic sovereignty as well as in economic reconstruction and maintaining civic order.
Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.
When a politician uses the word ‘folks,’ we should brace ourselves for the deceit, or worse, that is coming.
No matter what engineering field you’re in, you learn the same basic science and mathematics. And then maybe you learn a little bit about how to apply it.
One of the best predictors of policy around is Thomas Ferguson’s investment theory of politics, as he calls it – very outstanding political economist – which essentially – I mean, to say it in a sentence, he describes elections as occasions in which groups of investors coalesce and invest to control the state.
States are not moral agents, people are, and can impose moral standards on powerful institutions.
If you look back at the history of the twentieth century, Germany alone had practically destroyed Russia several times.
Egypt is the second-largest recipient over a long period of U.S. military and economic aid. Israel is first.
If you destroyed half the pharmaceutical production in the United States, we’d think it’s a pretty serious problem. In fact, we’d probably go to war.
The neo-cons constitute a radical reactionary fringe of the planning spectrum, but the spectrum is narrow.
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.
NATO was constructed on the – with the reason, whether one believes it or not, that it was going to defend Western Europe from Russian assault. Once the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union was beginning to collapse, that reason was gone. So, first question: why does NATO exist?
The former colonies, in Latin America in particular, have a better chance than ever before to overcome centuries of subjugation, violence and foreign intervention, which they have so far survived as dependencies with islands of luxury in a sea of misery.
When George W. Bush came into office, North Korea had maybe one nuclear weapon and verifiably wasn’t producing any more.
People who criticize power in the Jewish community are regarded the way Ahab treated Elijah: You’re a traitor.
I haven’t read Horowitz. I didn’t used to read him when he was a Stalinist, and I don’t read him today.
Chinese military spending is carefully monitored by the United States.
Turkey must find its place if, of course, it can heal its internal sores, and none is more malignant than the perennial Kurdish issue.
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.
The effort to try to present the Social Security program as if it’s a major problem, that’s just a hidden way of trying to undermine and destroy it.
If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.
The target of preventive war must have several characteristics. It must be virtually defenceless; it must be important enough to be worth the trouble; it must be possible to portray it as the ultimate evil and an imminent threat to our survival.
U.S. analysts estimate that Russian military expenditures have tripled during the Bush-Putin years, in large measure a predicted reaction to the Bush administration’s militancy and aggressiveness.
It cannot be too often stressed that Israel had no credible pretext for its 2008-9 attack on Gaza, with full U.S. support and illegally using U.S. weapons.
Science, as everyone knows, is responsible, moderate, unsentimental, and otherwise good.
I don’t join the New Atheists. So, for example, I wouldn’t have the arrogance to lecture some mother who hopes to see her dying child in Heaven – that’s none of my business, ultimately. I won’t lecture her on the philosophy of science.
My speculation is that the U.S. does not want to establish the principle that it has to defer to some higher authority before carrying out the use of violence.
On the Internet, you think everything is going to be public.
How people themselves perceive what they are doing is not a question that interests me.
If we choose, we can live in a world of comforting illusion.
The U.S. is off the spectrum in religious commitment.
The call for debt cancellation is welcome, but debt does not just go away.
Dr. Karel Culik is an outstanding applied mathematician, a specialist in algebra, logic, computer sciences and mathematical linguistics. In 1965, he visited the linguistics research program at MIT, and we have worked together on several projects since.
Under the worst conditions, horrendous conditions, people still, you know, fight for their rights and don’t just succumb.
Presented with the claims of nineteenth-century racist anthropology, a rational person will ask two sorts of questions: ‘What is the scientific status of the claims?’ ‘What social or ideological needs do they serve?’
In the literal sense, there has been no relevant evolution since the trek from Africa. But there has been substantial progress towards higher standards of rights, justice and freedom – along with all too many illustrations of how remote is the goal of a decent society.
Immediately after 11 September, the U.S. closed down the Somali charitable network Al-Barakaat on grounds that it was financing terror. This achievement was hailed one of the great successes of the ‘war on terror.’ In contrast, Washington’s withdrawal of its charges as without merit a year later aroused little notice.
Responsibility, I believe, accrues through privilege.
Clinton himself acted in ways which increased the threat of terror.
The major advances in speed of communication and ability to interact took place more than a century ago. The shift from sailing ships to telegraph was far more radical than that from telephone to email!
The murder of Lumumba, in which the U.S. was involved, in the Congo destroyed Africa’s major hope for development. Congo is now total horror story, for years.
The public is strongly in favor of the Kyoto Protocols, so strongly in favor that a majority of Bush voters thought that he was in favor of it. They are simply unaware.
Anywhere in Latin America there is a potential threat of the pathology of caudillismo and it has to be guarded against.
The effort to try to present the Social Security program as if it’s a major problem, that’s just a hidden way of trying to undermine and destroy it.
The former colonies, in Latin America in particular, have a better chance than ever before to overcome centuries of subjugation, violence and foreign intervention, which they have so far survived as dependencies with islands of luxury in a sea of misery.
Washington still refuses to provide evidence to support the claims in 1990 that a huge Iraqi military build-up on the Saudi border justified war.
The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor led to many very good things. If you follow the trail, it led to kicking Europeans out of Asia – that saved tens of millions of lives in India alone.
If there was an observer on Mars, they would probably be amazed that we have survived this long.
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.
