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What can realistically be done depends on the historical moment. The same is true with regard to the agents.

Noam Chomsky

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Noam Chomsky
Age: 96
Born: 1928
Born: December 7
Anthropologist
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Human Rights Activist
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East Oak Lane
Philadelphia
Avram Noam Chomsky
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More quotes by Noam Chomsky

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We have to recognize that there is a range of interests, like there isn't a single corporate interest and a single state interest, so there's a range. In addition to that, there is the fact of professional integrity.
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Historically, several policy domains, including that of foreign policy towards the US and India, budget allocations etc, have been controlled by the Pakistani military, and the civil-military divide can be said to be the most fundamental fracture in Pakistan's body politic.
Noam Chomsky
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What is the nature of the genetic endowment? How does acquisition proceed? Etc. Scientists do routinely ask similar questions about the visual system, system of motor organisation, and others - including, in fact, the digestive system.
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Britain kept its position as the dominant world power well into the 20th century despite steady decline. By the end of World War II, dominance had shifted decisively into the hands of the upstart across the sea, the United States, by far the most powerful and wealthy society in world history.
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The Soviet Union was pretty much what Lenin and Trotsky said it was.
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Millions of people are getting the vote, and we have to educate them to keep them from our throats. In other words, we have to train them in obedience and servility, so they're not going to think through the way the world works and come after our throats.
Noam Chomsky
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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.
Noam Chomsky
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Peace is preferable to war. But it’s not an absolute value, and so we always ask, “What kind of peace?
Noam Chomsky
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People have to be atomized and segregated and alone. They're not supposed to organize, because then they might be something beyond spectators of action. They might actually be participants if many people with limited resources could get together to enter the political arena. That's really threatening.
Noam Chomsky
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A consistent anarchist must oppose private ownership of the means of production, and the wage-slavery which is a component of this system, as incompatible with the principle that labor must be freely undertaken and under the control of the producer.
Noam Chomsky
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The US health-care system is a complete scandal. It's got twice the costs of comparable countries and some of the worst outcomes.
Noam Chomsky
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Anti-Americanism is a pure totalitarian concept. The very notion is idiotic.
Noam Chomsky
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One of the most interesting reactions to come out of 1968 was in the first publication of the Trilateral Commission, which believed there was a 'crisis of democracy' from too much participation of the masses.
Noam Chomsky
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You win by struggle, and that requires understanding and serious analysis of the options and the circumstances, and then you can do a lot.
Noam Chomsky
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If you ask the CEO of some major corporation what he does, he will say, in all honesty, that he is slaving 20 hours a day to provide his customers with the best goods or services he can and creating the best possible working conditions for his employees.
Noam Chomsky
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In the major state capitalists economies, Europe and the US, it's low growth and stagnation and a very sharp income differentiation a shift - a striking shift - from production to financialization.
Noam Chomsky
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The idea that you have to drop any thing that you might be interested in doing because you have to pass that test tomorrow and it's something that you're not interested in, that's just the opposite of education. It's also harming teaching, because the teachers are evaluated by the results of the test.
Noam Chomsky
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Advertising is tax deductible, so we all pay for the privilege of being manipulated and controlled.
Noam Chomsky
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There is a considerable polarization taking place here, increasing the gap between rich and poor. It's most dramatic in Third World countries, of course, but in the rich countries it's also very noticeable.
Noam Chomsky
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The general principle is that the victors don't look at themselves or concede anything. The defeated typically have to, except when it's beneficial to the powerful for them not to.
Noam Chomsky