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The fact is that if you have not developed language, you simply don't have access to most of human experience, and if you don't have access to experience, then you're not going to be able to think properly.

Noam Chomsky

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Noam Chomsky
Age: 96
Born: 1928
Born: December 7
Anthropologist
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East Oak Lane
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More quotes by Noam Chomsky

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The British had an even stronger [then America] business interest in Nazi Germany. And Benito Mussolini was greatly admired.
Noam Chomsky
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When people say do you believe in God? what do they mean by it? Do I believe in some spiritual force in the world? In a way, yes. People have thoughts, emotions. If you want to call that a spiritual force, okay. But unless there's some clarification of what we're supposed to believe in or disbelieve in, I can't answer.
Noam Chomsky
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Some kind of settlement in Kashmir is crucial for both countries [Pakistan and India]. It's also tearing India apart with horrible atrocities in the region which is controlled by Indian armed forces.
Noam Chomsky
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Dissidents are not imprisoned as in the domains of the Kremlin, in the old days. They do not have their brains blown out by elite forces armed and trained by the reigning superpower, as happens in Washington's domains - with no particular concern at home - an important fact, one of many that help us learn about ourselves, if we choose.
Noam Chomsky
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In a really business-run society like the United States, the business elites are deeply committed to class struggle and are engaged in it all the time. They're instinctive Marxists.
Noam Chomsky
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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 under our own power.
Noam Chomsky
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Obama's primary constituency was financial institutions. They were the core of the funding for his campaign. They expect to be paid back. And they were. They were paid back by coming out richer and more powerful than they were before the crisis that they created.
Noam Chomsky
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You never really saw the racism in Europe in the past because it was so homogeneous. When everyone is blonde and blue-eyed, you don't see racism. But as soon as there was the beginnings of immigration, it just came out very dramatically.
Noam Chomsky
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The United States is off the international spectrum in religious extremism.
Noam Chomsky
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Pakistan is not a unified country. In large parts of the country, the state is regarded as a Punjabi state, not their (the people's) state.
Noam Chomsky
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The basic principle, rarely violated, is that what conflicts with the requirements of power and privilege does not exist.
Noam Chomsky
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Latin America is all moving to the left, from Venezuela to Argentina with rare exceptions, but there's a good left and a bad left.
Noam Chomsky
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The missile defense component is a minor feature that nobody takes very seriously. Nobody really believes that the US is trying to protect itself from North Korea. That's not serious. But the militarization of space is quite serious.
Noam Chomsky
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The media are a corporate monopoly. They have the same point of view. The two parties are two factions of the business party. Most of the population doesn't even bother voting because it looks meaningless. They're marginalized and properly distracted. At least that's the goal.
Noam Chomsky
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If Palestinian Authority refuse to join the US-run negotiations, their basis for support would collapse. They survive on donations essentially. Israel has made sure that it's not a productive economy.
Noam Chomsky
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... the media serve the interests of state and corporate power, which are closely interlinked, framing their reporting and analysis in a manner supportive of established privilege and limiting debate and discussion accordingly.
Noam Chomsky
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The current period of regression is registering some success in producing people who are subordinated to external power, diverted to such superficial things as fashionable consumption and other pursuits more fitting for the bewildered herd than participation in determining the course of individual and social life.
Noam Chomsky
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It is one thing for the institution to offer space for serious engagement, in thought and action, and to encourage free and independent use of such opportunities it is something else for the university to become engaged as an institution, beyond a fairly narrow range where true consensus exists, and even that raises questions.
Noam Chomsky
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I think this country and the world would be far better off if the US is not an outlaw state.
Noam Chomsky
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The US does not observe the free-trade principles. Those are for the weak. So agribusiness is highly subsidized and pours product into Mexico and drives out Mexican farmers. Maybe they have to go into the cities, and they don't have jobs to support them, so they flee across the border.
Noam Chomsky