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What happened in the missile crisis in October 1962 has been prettified to make it look as if acts of courage and thoughtfulness abounded. The truth is that the whole episode was almost insane.

Noam Chomsky

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Noam Chomsky
Age: 96
Born: 1928
Born: December 7
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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.
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If you accept the institutional lunacy, then the policies are rational.
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The reaction we should be having to [rich liberals] is not ridicule, but rather self-criticism. Why aren't we organizing them? I mean, we are the ones that ought to be organizing them, not Rush Limbaugh. There are historical analogs, which are not exact, of course, but are close enough to be worrisome. This is a whiff of early Nazi Germany.
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Nothing is more inspiring to see how poor and suffering people, living under conditions incomparably worse than we endure, continue quietly and unpretentiously with courageous and committed struggle for justice and dignity.
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In fact, when drugs are legalized, use sometimes goes down, it's been claimed. Part of the reason is that teenage kids use illicit drugs because they are illicit. They are thumbing their noses at society. If they were legal, they might not.
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Nicaragua dealt with the problem of terrorism in exactly the right way. It followed international law and treaty obligations. It collected evidence, brought the evidence to the highest existing tribunal, the International Court of Justice, and received a verdict - which, of course, the U.S. dismissed with contempt.
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What can realistically be done depends on the historical moment. The same is true with regard to the agents.
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The U.S. has the most dysfunctional healthcare system in the industrial world, has about twice the per capita costs, and some of the worst outcomes. It's also the only privatized system.
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In the American Jewish community, there is little willingness to face the fact that the Palestinian Arabs have suffered a monstrous historical injustice . . . Until this is recognized, discussion of the Middle East crisis cannot even begin.
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In 1962, war was avoided by Khrushchev's willingness to accept Kennedy's hegemonic demands.
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The dynamics of the Taliban now appear to be very different and complex, in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, as they attack governments and mainstream parties.
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If we move toward the weaponisation of space, we can bid farewell to the planet. The chances of survival are very slight.
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One of the real problems of society is that its far too atomized, what sociologists call secondary associations.
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We had one or another form of state capitalism during an extremely brief period of human history, which tells us essentially nothing about human nature. If you look at human societies and human interactions, you can find anything. You find selfishness, you find altruism, you find sympathy.
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Haitian rice farmers are quite efficient, but they can't compete with U.S. agribusiness that relies on a huge government subsidy, thanks to Ronald Reagan's free market enthusiasms.
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Ronald Reagan in the US was not a particularly popular president, but after his death sectors of wealth and power created a huge propaganda campaign that converted this disgraceful figure into a semi-divinity.
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Free speech has been used by the Supreme Court to give immense power to the wealthiest members of our society.
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In the West, you don't get in any trouble if you tell the truth, but you still can't do it. Not only can't you tell the truth, you can't think the truth. It's just so deeply embedded, deeply instilled, that without any meaningful coercion it comes out the same way it does in a totalitarian state.
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You have to love that government, but hate the government that might work in your interest and that you could control. That's an interesting propaganda task, but it's been carried out very well.
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It is only natural to expect that guilds will tend to protect their turf and to resist challenge.
Noam Chomsky