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Selfish-gene theory tells us nothing about the value of interacting through language.

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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Iceland is capitalist social democratic, rather like the Nordic countries generally. The capital had a mayor who is an anarchist, but the city has been nothing like that. In fact a few years ago it was super-neoliberal, which led to the crash.
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Women taking care of children . . . it makes sense to pay them for that work . . . they should be paid for it, but that requires tax payments. And the same is true about protection of the environment.
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Okay, NATO expanded to East Berlin and East Germany. Under [Bill] Clinton NATO expanded further, to the former Russian satellites. In 2008 NATO formally made an offer to Ukraine to join NATO. That's unbelievable. I mean, Ukraine is the geopolitical heartland of Russian concern, quite aside from historical connections, population and so on.
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U.S. has no feudal background, so institutions that remained in place in Europe did not remain in place here.
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We're human beings we're not robots. And face-to-face contact is something totally different than typing a text message and then forgetting about it.
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The big change, the really radical change in communication, was in the late 19th century. The shift from sailing ships to telegraph is astronomical. Everything since then has been small increments, including the internet.
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I think the foreign policy is really not Donald Trump administration concern. Like the Syria strike. I mean, it meant almost nothing. They hit an empty air base. Within a day, it was functioning again. Planes were flying off it. It was for a domestic show, you know - show what a tough guy I am I'm not Barack Obama.
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Surely no rational or realistic person will discount the possibility that [during wartime] the United States might suddenly resort to nuclear weapons. Those who retain the instinct for survival, not to speak of minimal concern for their fellow man, will seek ways to act before rather than after the event.
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Bolivia is a striking example. The mostly white, Europeanized elite, which is a minority, happens to be sitting on most of the hydrocarbon reserves. For the first time Bolivia is becoming democratic. So it's therefore bitterly hated by the West, which despises democracy, because it's much too dangerous.
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The Republican establishment, the mainstream corporate financial wealth, is getting to a point where it can't control the base it's mobilized.
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The police can go to downtown Harlem and pick up a kid with a joint in the streets. But they can't go into the elegant apartments and get a stockbroker who's sniffing cocaine.
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I can understand the idea that there is a conspiracy. In fact, in much of the world there is a sense of an ultra-powerful CIA manipulating everything that happens, such as running the Arab Spring, running the Pakistani Taliban, etc. That is just nonsense. They [CIA] created a monster and now they are appalled by it.
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Reagan was extreme. Beginning of his administration, one of the first things was to call in scabs - hadn't been done for a long time, and it's illegal in most countries - in the air controller strike.
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You have to rely on yourself and your associates - gifts don't come from above you're going to win them, or you won't have them.
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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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The 'corporatization of America' during the past century has been an attack on democracy.
Noam Chomsky
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Nobody is going to pour truth into your brain. It's something you have to find out for yourself.
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Capitalism denies the right to live. You have only the right to remain on the labour market.
Noam Chomsky
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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.
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