Noam Chomsky Palestine Quotes

That's the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody's going to be against, and everybody's going to be for. Nobody knows what it means, because it doesn't mean anything. ~ Noam Chomsky

Where are the drug cartels getting their weapons? They are being provided by the United States. Cut off that flow of arms. ~ Noam Chomsky

Some of the big philosophical problems have been solved by science, at least to a 1st approximation. Examples: the problems of matter, and mind. Only philosophical reactionaries, like Noam Chomsky, claim that they are and will remain mysteries. ~ Mario Bunge

Under capitalism, we can't have democracy by definition. Capitalism is a system in which the central institutions of society are in principle under autocratic control. ~ Noam Chomsky

Congress right now is dismantling legislation instituted by Richard Nixon - really the last liberal president of the U.S., literally, and that shows you what's been going on. They're dismantling the limited measures of the Nixon administration to try to do something about what is a growing, emerging catastrophe. And this is connected with a huge propaganda system, proudly and openly declared by the business world, to try to convince people that climate change is just a liberal hoax. "Why pay attention to these scientists?" And we're really regressing back to the medieval period. It's not a joke. ~ Noam Chomsky

I haven't read Horowitz. I didn't used to read him when he was a Stalinist, and I don't read him today. ~ Noam Chomsky

In Bangladesh alone, tens of millions are expected to have to flee from low-lying plains in coming years because of sea level rise and more severe weather, creating a migrant crisis that will make today's pale in significance. With considerable justice, Bangladesh's leading climate scientist says that "These migrants should have the right to move to the countries from which all these greenhouse gases are coming. Millions should be able to go to the United States." And to the other rich countries that have grown wealthy while bringing about a new geological era, the Anthropocene, marked by radical human transformation of the environment. ~ Chomsky Noam

What's the point of being better than someone else? ~ Noam Chomsky

Meteorologists are pretty faces reading scripts telling you whether it's going to rain tomorrow. ~ Noam Chomsky

The 14th Amendment was recognized right away to be problematic. The concept of person was both too narrow and too broad, and the courts went to work to overcome both of those flaws. ~ Noam Chomsky

The truth is, I have absolutely no professional credentials - literally, which is why I'm teaching at MIT. ~ Noam Chomsky

Trickle-down economics So long as power remains privately concentrated, everybody, everybody, has to be committed to one overriding goal, and that's to make sure that the rich folk are happy - because, unless they are, nobody else is going to get anything. So, if you're a homeless person sleeping in the streets of Manhattan, let's say, your first concern must be that the guys in the mansions are happy - because, if they're happy, then they'll invest, and the economy will work, and things will function, and then maybe something will trickle down to you somewhere along the line. But if they're not happy, everything's going to grind to a halt, and you're not even going to get anything trickling down. ~ Noam Chomsky

One of the truths about the world is that there are two superpowers, one a huge power which happens to have its boot on your neck; another, a smaller power which happens to have its boot on other people's necks. I think that anyone in the Third World would be making a grave error if they succumbed to illusions about these matters ~ Noam Chomsky

WikiLeaks is a service to the population. Assange should get an award for - presidential medal of honor. ~ Noam Chomsky

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. ~ Noam Chomsky

Nobody is going to pour truth into your brain. It's something you have to find out for yourself. ~ Noam Chomsky

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

About half the population thinks that every person in Congress, including their own representative, should be thrown out. That's the center not holding. ~ Noam Chomsky

If you care about other people, that's now a very dangerous idea. If you care about other people, you might try to organize to undermine power and authority. That's not going to happen if you care only about yourself. Maybe you can become rich, but you don't care whether other people's kids can go to school, or can afford food to eat, or things like that. In the United States, that's called "libertarian" for some wild reason. I mean, it's actually highly authoritarian, but that doctrine is extremely important for power systems as a way of atomizing and undermining the public. ~ Noam Chomsky

The social system is taking on a form in which finding out what you want to do is less and less of an option because your life is too structured, organised, controlled and disciplined. ~ Noam Chomsky

Syntax is the study of the principles and processes by which sentences are constructed in particular languages. Syntactic investigation of a given language has as its goal the construction of a grammar that can be viewed as a device of some sort for producing the sentences of the language under analysis. ~ Noam Chomsky

All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume. ~ Noam Chomsky

It hardly takes more than a day in Gaza to begin to appreciate what it must be like to try to survive in the world's largest open-air prison. ~ Noam Chomsky

So I think it's completely realistic and rational to work within structures to which you are opposed, because by doing so you can help to move to a situation where then you can challenge those structures. ~ Noam Chomsky

Some may remember, if you have good memories, that there used to be a concept in Anglo-American law called a presumption of innocence, innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Now that's so deep in history that there's no point even bringing it up, but it did once exist. ~ Noam Chomsky

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. ~ Noam Chomsky

State propaganda, when supported by the educated classes and when no deviation is permitted from it, can have a big effect. It was a lesson learned by Hitler and many others, and it has been pursued to this day. ~ Noam Chomsky

The debt is being cynically exploited by the far right, with collusion of the Democrat establishment, to undermine what remains of social programs, public education, unions, and, in general, remaining barriers to corporate tyranny. ~ Noam Chomsky

It's only terrorism if they do it to us. When we do much worse to them, it's not terrorism. ~ Noam Chomsky

When Reagan left office, he was the most unpopular living president, apart from Nixon, even below Carter. If you look at his years in office, he was not particularly popular. He was more or less average. He severely harmed the American economy. ~ Noam Chomsky

Anarchism, in my view, is an expression of the idea that the burden of proof is always on those who argue that authority and domination are necessary. They have to demonstrate, with powerful argument, that that conclusion is correct. If they cannot, then the institutions they defend should be considered illegitimate. How one should react to illegitimate authority depends on circumstances and conditions: there are no formulas. ~ Noam Chomsky

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. ~ Noam Chomsky

Non-violent resistance activities cannot succeed against an enemy that is able freely to use violence. That's pretty obvious. You can't have non-violent resistance against the Nazis in a concentration camp, to take an extreme case ... ~ Noam Chomsky

For 500 years, since European explorers came, Latin American countries had been separated from one another. They had very limited relations. Integration is a prerequisite for independence. ~ Noam Chomsky

In Plato's Republic, Socrates expresses great fear about democracy because it is, in his mind, synonymous with freedom. The result is tyranny. But modern times have brought us a different understanding of democracy as an ideal. It is how to give the appearance of democracy yet deny it in practice, ensuring that democracy in its false form gives consent by the people to a small group, the oligarchs. This is accomplished through a combination of the people's silence and a rigged system that changes a working democracy of public participation and deliberation to a charade. ~ Noam Chomsky

When leaders carry out policies for decades that have no consequences for the stated goal and are very costly, you have to ask whether they are telling you the truth or whether the policies are for a different goal, because they are not reducing drug use. ~ Noam Chomsky

Anarchists try to identify power structures. They urge those exercising power to justify themselves. This justification does not succeed most of the time. ~ Noam Chomsky