Quotes from Noam Chomsky

crime of war" is a criminal activity of which the defeated enemies, but not the victors, are guilty.

Well, we happen to have a huge rabid raccoon running around—it's called corporations. And there is nothing in the society right now that can protect people from that tyranny, except the federal government. Now, it doesn't protect them very well, because mostly it's run by the corporations, but still it does have some limited effect—it can enforce regulatory measures

The alleged complexity, depth, and obscurity of these questions is part of the illusion propagated by the system of ideological control, which aims to make the issues seem remote from the general population and to persuade them of their incapacity to organize their own affairs or to understand the social world in which they live without the tutelage of intermediaries.

One lesson is that to understand what is happening we should attend not only to critical events of the real world, often dismissed from history, but also to what leaders and elite opinion believe, however tinged with fantasy. Another lesson is that alongside the flights of fancy concocted to terrify and mobilize the public (and perhaps believed by some who are trapped in their own rhetoric), there

The enormous public relations industry, from its Origins early in this Century, has been dedicated to the control of the public mind as Business Leaders described the task and they acted on their words, surely one of the central themes of modern history. The fact that the public relations industry has its roots and major centers in the country that is most free is exactly which we should expect, with a proper understanding of Humes Maxim.

all sorts of considerations determine the truth conditions of a statement, and these go well beyond the scope of grammar.

The logic is that of a man falling from a skyscraper who waves to a friend on the fiftieth floor and says it's all fine, just look how many floors I've passed with no problems.

Eighty years ago, Martin Heidegger extolled Nazi Germany as providing the best hope for rescuing the glorious civilization of the Greeks from the barbarians of the East and West. Today, German bankers are crushing Greece under an economic regime designed to maintain their wealth and power.

For example, the difference between Pierre believes he is intelligent and He believes Pierre is intelligent is due to what are called relations of "command": co-reference is impossible if the pronoun is located "higher" in the phrase structure than its nonpronominal antecedent. Now in the second case Pierre is found in a subordinated position, thus "lower" than he, so that they cannot be co-referential in the relevant sense.

Goldman Sachs, uno de los principales arquitectos de la crisis actual, es más rica que nunca. El grupo anunció en voz baja 17.500 millones de dólares en remuneraciones para 2010, y el director general Lloyd Blankfein recibió un bono de 12.600 millones

Spending would then average about $4.5 trillion per year between 2024 and 2050. Total clean energy investment spending for the full twenty-seven-year investment cycle would amount to about $120 trillion.

But the imperial mentality is so deeply embedded in Western culture that this travesty passes without criticism, even notice.

The selection of issues that should rank high on the agenda of concern for human welfare and rights is, naturally, a subjective matter. But there are a few choices that seems unavoidable, because they bear so directly on the prospects for decent survival. Among them are at least these three: nuclear war, environmental disaster, and the fact that the government of the world's leading power is acting in ways that increase the likelihood of these catastrophes.

The Democratic Party and even the Democratic Left are not going to tell people, 'Look, your problem is that, back in the 1970s, we took part in a major process of the financialization of the economy and the hollowing out of the productive system. So your wages and incomes have stagnated for thirty years, while that wealth is produced in a very few pockets. Those are our policies.' They're not going to tell them that. No, there is no real Left now.

An enemy combatant can be anyone that the US chooses to attack, with no credible evidence, as Washington concedes.

tomemos como ejemplo al nuevo director de un subcomité sobre el medio ambiente que explicó que el calentamiento global no puede ser un problema porque Dios le prometió a Noé que no habría otro diluvio.

Take a look at the polls. The public overwhelmingly supports higher taxes on the wealthy, which have declined sharply in this period of stagnation and decline—higher taxes on the wealthy and preserve the limited social benefits.

In the background was the conclusion of Nixon's National Security Council that if the United States could not control Latin America, it could not expect "to achieve a successful order elsewhere in the world.

one is tempted to believe that some people in the White House worship Aztec gods—with the offering of Central American blood.

a system of governance that merely grants the general public the opportunity to ratify decisions taken by the elite groups that dominate the private society and the state, hardly merits the term "democracy.

media are independent and committed to discovering and reporting the truth, and that they do not merely reflect the world as powerful groups wish it to be perceived.

By shredding the remnants of political democracy, these financial institutions lay the basis for carrying the lethal process forward—as long as their victims are willing to suffer in silence.

the ones who are running the world economy have protected themselves very strongly from market discipline. the neo-liberal system is an attack, in my view, both on the market, and on democracy.

NC: You're right, but I think it tells you something very interesting about Western culture. When they went to the concentration camps and were appalled, they did not say, "Let's save the survivors"; they said, "Let someone else pay for saving the survivors." IP: Exactly.