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Western intellectuals, and also Third World intellectuals, were attracted to the Bolshevik counter-revolution because Leninism is, after all, a doctrine which says that the radical intelligentsia have a right to take state power and to run their countries by force, and that is an idea which is rather appealing to intellectuals.

Noam Chomsky

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Noam Chomsky
Age: 95
Born: 1928
Born: December 7
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More quotes by Noam Chomsky

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I have not suggested that the emergence of language is instantaneous. Rather, that the rewiring of the brain enabling an infinite array of structured expressions was in effect instantaneous. I have never heard of an alternative to this suggestion.
Noam Chomsky
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Power is concentrated. The general policy is exactly the way that Adam Smith described it: it's designed for the benefit of its principal architects, the powerful. It serves the vile maxim of the masters: all for ourselves and nothing for anyone else. Those are the basic rules of the world.
Noam Chomsky
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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.
Noam Chomsky
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Barron and Paul...rely on 'specialists' at the State and Defense Departments...Elsewhere in the media, similiar figures are bandied about, with equal credibility.
Noam Chomsky
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Why should workers agree to be slaves in a basically authoritarian structure? They should have control over it themselves. Why shouldn't communities have a dominant voice in running the institutions that affect their lives?
Noam Chomsky
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The United States is unique among the rich countries, developed countries, in not having some kind of a national health-care system.
Noam Chomsky
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What's called Obamacare is an effort to mildly change this [health-care system], not change it as far as it should go or as much as the population wants it to go, but to make it a little better and a little more affordable.
Noam Chomsky
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I mean you look back at American history and American culture, it's pretty striking. I mean this has been the safest country in the world forever, and the most frightened country in the world.
Noam Chomsky
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It also seems beyond controversy that moral responsibilities are greater to the extent that people have the resources, the training, the facilities and opportunities to speak and act effectively.
Noam Chomsky
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A dramatic, evocative, thoughtful and very accessible account of one of the most important stories of the century - and one of the most ominous, unless citizens are aroused to action to rein in abusive state power.
Noam Chomsky
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But on the contrary Wikileaks is under heavy attack by the government and corporations are participating in that by closing down their websites.
Noam Chomsky
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...dissent, protest, presures of a wide variety that escape elite control can modify the calculus of costs of planners, and offer a slight hope that Washington can be compelled to permit at least some steps towards justice, freedom and democracy within its domains.
Noam Chomsky
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No one is concerned with Central America anymore. If a million people are facing starvation in northern Nicaragua and Honduras, it's none of our business. Few people even recognize that this situation is in part an outgrowth of US policies going back to the 1980's. Nobody is concerned because Nicaragua is technically stable.
Noam Chomsky
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The UN to some extent diffuses U.S. power. Therefore it's less direct an agency of the United States than the U.S. Army is. But still, it can't escape the distribution of power in the world.
Noam Chomsky
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There is a big difference between tweeting to your friend about something that is happening and having a real personal relationship with people.
Noam Chomsky
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Legalizing marijuana would make a lot of sense, I don't think there's a single case of marijuana overdose on record and tens of millions of users. It's much less dangerous than alcohol, for example.
Noam Chomsky
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Israel has a couple of hundred nuclear weapons and also chemical and biological weapons. This stockpile is not only a threat in itself but encourages others to proliferate in reaction and in self-defense. Is anybody saying anything about this?
Noam Chomsky
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If the authors and custodians of history turn out to have an attractive image, it is only reasonable to look beyond and ask whether the image they construct is accurate.
Noam Chomsky
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The Republican Primaries were quite interesting. The establishment had its candidate, [Mitt] Romney, a kind of a Wall Street lawyer and investor, and they wanted him in. But the base didn't want him.
Noam Chomsky
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The process of shaping opinion, attitudes, and perceptions was termed the 'engineering of consent' by one of the founders of the modern public relations industry, Edward Bernays.
Noam Chomsky