Noam Chomsky quotes - page 2

Nothing can justify crimes such as those of September 11, but we can think of the United States as an "innocent victim" only if we adopt the convenient path of ignoring the record of its actions and those of its allies, which are, after all, hardly a secret. (Noam Chomsky)
States are violent institutions. The government of any country, including ours, represents some sort of domestic power structure, and it's usually violent. States are violent to the extent that they're powerful, that's roughly accurate. View quote
Noam Chomsky
Very commonly substances are criminalized because they're associated with what's called the dangerous classes, you know, poor people, or working people.... Actually, the peak of marijuana use was as I said, in the seventies, but that was rich kids, so you don't throw them in jail. And then it got seriously criminalized, you know, you really throw people in jail for it, when it was poor people. View quote
Noam Chomsky
I choose to live in what I think is the greatest country in the world, which is committing horrendous terrorist acts and should stop. View quote
Noam Chomsky
The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate. View quote
Noam Chomsky
The very design of neoliberal principles is a direct attack on democracy. View quote
Noam Chomsky
One might ask why tobacco is legal and marijuana not. A possible answer is suggested by the nature of the crop. Marijuana can be grown almost anywhere, with little difficulty. It might not be easily marketable by major corporations. Tobacco is quite another story. View quote
Noam Chomsky
I was never aware of any other option but to question everything. View quote
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. View quote
Noam Chomsky
China is the center of the Asian energy security grid, which includes the Central Asian states and Russia. India is also hovering around the edge, South Korea is involved, and Iran is an associate member of some kind. If the Middle East oil resources around the Gulf, which are the main ones in the world, if they link up to the Asian grid, the United States is really a second-rate power. A lot is at stake in not withdrawing from Iraq. View quote
Noam Chomsky
I think it only makes sense to seek out and identify structures of authority, hierarchy, and domination in every aspect of life, and to challenge them; unless a justification for them can be given, they are illegitimate, and should be dismantled, to increase the scope of human freedom. (Noam Chomsky)
I think we can be reasonably confident that if the American population had the slightest idea of what is being done in their name, they would be utterly appalled. View quote
Noam Chomsky
The invasion of Iraq was simply a war crime. Straight-out war crime. View quote
Noam Chomsky
Virtually all informed observers agree that a fair and equitable resolution of the plight of the Palestinians would considerably weaken the anger and hatred of Israel and the US in the Arab and Muslim worlds – and far beyond, as international polls reveal. Such an agreement is surely within reach, if the US and Israel depart from their long-standing rejectionism. View quote
Noam Chomsky
Thomas Jefferson, the leading Enlightenment figure in the United States, along with Benjamin Franklin, who took exactly the same view, argued that dependence will lead to "subservience and venality", and will "suffocate[s] the germs of virtue". And remember, by dependence he meant wage labor, which was considered an abomination under classical liberal principles. View quote
Noam Chomsky
The responsibility of the writer as a moral agent is to try to bring the truth about matters of human significance to an audience that can do something about them. View quote
Noam Chomsky
Of course, everybody says they're for peace. Hitler was for peace. Everybody is for peace. The question is: "What kind of peace?" View quote
Noam Chomsky
The people who were honored in the Bible were the false prophets. It was the ones we call the prophets who were jailed and driven into the desert. View quote
Noam Chomsky
Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever. View quote
Noam Chomsky
During the 1960s, large groups of people who are normally passive and apathetic began to try to enter the political arena to press their demands.... The naive might call that democracy, but that's because they don't understand. The sophisticated understand that that's the crisis of democracy. View quote
Noam Chomsky
If the principle is, "Let's not get lethal substances out to the public", the first one you'd go after is tobacco. The next one you'd go after is alcohol. Way down the list you'd get to cocaine, and sort of invisibly low you'd get to marijuana. (Noam Chomsky)
The Bush Administration do have moral values. Their moral values are very explicit: shine the boots of the rich and the powerful, kick everybody else in the face, and let your grandchildren pay for it. That simple principle predicts almost everything that's happening. View quote
Noam Chomsky
We're supposed to worship Adam Smith but you're not supposed to read him. That's too dangerous. He's a dangerous radical. View quote
Noam Chomsky
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. View quote
Noam Chomsky
The uniformity and obedience of the media, which any dictator would admire, [...]. View quote
Noam Chomsky