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Should a community... be free to enact legislation to say they don't want blacks? Now that's illegal. Fifty years ago it was legal. Is that progress or is that regress?

Noam Chomsky

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Noam Chomsky
Age: 95
Born: 1928
Born: December 7
Anthropologist
Computer Scientist
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Human Rights Activist
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Media Critic
Opinion Journalist
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East Oak Lane
Philadelphia
Avram Noam Chomsky
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There are very few people who are going to look into the mirror and say, 'That person I see is a savage monster' instead, they make up some construction that justifies what they do.
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Of course all such conclusions about appropriate actions against the rich and powerful are based on a fundamental flaw: This is us, and that is them. This crucial principle, deeply embedded in Western culture, suffices to undermine even the most precise analogy and the most impeccable reasoning.
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In a moment of crisis, of which there are all too many, Russian military planners may conclude that lacking a deterrent, the only hope of survival is a first strike - which means the end for all of us.
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I just don't care about popular culture. It looks to me pointless and superficial. If I had free time I'd rather read a 19th century novel.
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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.
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Students who acquire large debts putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society. When you trap people in a system of debt, they can't afford the time to think.
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As the capacity to coerce declines, it is natural to turn to control of opinion as the basis for authority and domination - a fundamental principle of government already emphasized by David Hume.
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Where are the drug cartels getting their weapons? They are being provided by the United States. Cut off that flow of arms.
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No honest journalist should be willing to describe himself or herseif as 'embedded.' To say, 'I'm an embedded journalist' is to say, 'I'm a government Propagandist.
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Washington basically works for the corporate sector and Silicon Valley, technically at least, is suppose to sponsor initiative in creativity, whether it does or not is another question.
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Regulate the banks, get money out of elections raise the minimum wage, environmental issues. They're all very important and the Occupy movement made a difference. It shifted not only the discourse but to some extent, action on these issues.
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Cuba forces in Angola gave a real shot in the arm to the liberation movements, and it also was a lesson to the white South Africans that the end is coming. They can't just hope to subdue the continent on racist grounds.
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Somehow the fact of enormous privilege and freedom carries with it a sense of impotence, which is a strange, but striking, phenomenon. The fact is, we can do just about anything. There is no difficulty, wherever you are, in finding groups that are working hard on things that concern you.
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I try to encourage people to think for themselves, to question standard assumptions... Don't take assumptions for granted. Begin by taking a skeptical attitude toward anything that is conventional wisdom. Make it justify itself. It usually can't. Be willing to ask questions about what is taken for granted. Try to think things through for yourself.
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The number of illegal firings tripled during the [Ronald] Reagan years. It was at that time that you started getting these companies that specialized in how to destroy unions.
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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.
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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.
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The very design of neoliberal principles is a direct attack on democracy.
Noam Chomsky
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Personally, I am uneasy about the notion of a politically engaged university, for reasons I wrote about over 30 years ago, at the height of protest and resistance (reprinted in For Reasons of State).
Noam Chomsky
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Anti-union propaganda has been considerably more successful here [ in the U.S.] than in Europe, even among working people who would benefit [from] unions.
Noam Chomsky