Noam Chomsky
The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful.Collection: History
The 'peace movement' exists only in the fantasies of the paranoid.Collection: Peace
When General Allenby conquered Jerusalem during World War I, he was hailed in the American press as Richard the Lion-Hearted, who had at last won the Crusades and driven the pagans out of the Holy Land.Collection: War
Before the 1970s, banks were banks. They did what banks were supposed to do in a state capitalist economy: they took unused funds from your bank account, for example, and transferred them to some potentially useful purpose like helping a family buy a home or send a kid to college.Collection: Family
In Latin America, specialists and polling organisations have, for some time, observed that the extension of formal democracy was accompanied by an increasing disillusionment about democracy and a lack of faith in democratic institutions.Collection: Faith
The 'anti-globalisation movement' is the most significant proponent of globalisation - but in the interests of people, not concentrations of state-private power.Collection: Power
The 1950s and 1960s had been a period of enormous growth, the highest in American history, maybe in economic history.Collection: History
In the literal sense, there has been no relevant evolution since the trek from Africa. But there has been substantial progress towards higher standards of rights, justice and freedom - along with all too many illustrations of how remote is the goal of a decent society.Collection: Freedom
In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than just ideals to be valued - they may be essential to survival.Collection: Freedom
The Bible is one of the most genocidal books in history.Collection: History
Resistance is feasible even for those who are not heroes by nature, and it is an obligation, I believe, for those who fear the consequences and detest the reality of the attempt to impose American hegemony.Collection: Fear
The money in politics is a cash cow for the media.Collection: Politics
When I arrived in Laos and found young Americans living there, out of free choice, I was surprised. After only a week, I began to have a sense of the appeal of the country and its people - along with despair about its future.Collection: Future
It is pretty ironic that the so-called 'least advanced' people are the ones taking the lead in trying to protect all of us, while the richest and most powerful among us are the ones who are trying to drive the society to destruction.Collection: Society
Pakistan will never be able to match the Indian militarily, and the effort to do so is taking an immense toll on the society.Collection: Society
Descriptive grammar is an attempt to give an account of what the current system is for either a society or an individual, whatever you happen to be studying.Collection: Society
The very design of neoliberal principles is a direct attack on democracy.Collection: Design
As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss.Collection: Science
Even the most cynical can hardly be surprised by the antics of Nixon and his accomplices as they are gradually revealed. It matters little, at this point, where the exact truth lies in the maze of perjury, evasion, and of contempt for the normal - hardly inspiring - standards of political conduct.Collection: Truth
Reparations - not just aid - should be provided by those responsible for devastating Iraqi civilian society by cruel sanctions and military actions, and - together with other criminal states - for supporting Saddam Hussein through his worst atrocities and beyond. That is the minimum that honesty requires.Collection: Society
The internet could be a very positive step towards education, organisation and participation in a meaningful society.Collection: Society
There's very little dislike of Americans in the world, shown by repeated polls, and the dissatisfaction - that is, the hatred and the anger - they come from acceptance of American values, not a rejection of them, and recognition that they're rejected by the U.S. government and by U.S. elites, which does lead to hatred and anger.Collection: Anger
My family was mostly unemployed working class.Collection: Family
There's a War Crimes Act in the United States passed by a Republican Congress in 1996, which says that grave breaches of the Geneva Convention are subject to the death penalty. And that doesn't mean the soldier that committed them - that means the commanders.Collection: War
In the early 1940s, as a young teenager, I was utterly appalled by the racist and jingoist hysteria of the anti-Japanese propaganda. The Germans were evil, but treated with some respect: They were, after all, blond Aryan types, just like our imaginary self-image. Japanese were mere vermin, to be crushed like ants.Collection: Respect
From the 1970s, there has been a significant change in the U.S. economy, as planners, private and state, shifted it toward financialization and the offshoring of production, driven in part by the declining rate of profit in domestic manufacturing.Collection: Change
If there was an observer on Mars, they would probably be amazed that we have survived this long.Collection: Amazing
Significant anniversaries are solemnly commemorated - Japan's attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, for example.Collection: Anniversary
I stated that Hiroshima and Nagasaki are 'among the most unspeakable crimes in history.' I took no position on just where they stand on the scale of horrors relative to Auschwitz, the bombing of Chungking, Lidice, and so on.Collection: History
The murder of Lumumba, in which the U.S. was involved, in the Congo destroyed Africa's major hope for development. Congo is now total horror story, for years.Collection: Hope
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.Collection: Truth
The whole infrastructure of air travel was, and is, part of government policy. It is not a natural development of a free economic system - at least not in the way that is claimed. The same is true of the roads, of course.Collection: Travel
The public is not to see where power lies, how it shapes policy, and for what ends. Rather, people are to hate and fear one another.Collection: Power
Science, as everyone knows, is responsible, moderate, unsentimental, and otherwise good.Collection: Science
I don't join the New Atheists. So, for example, I wouldn't have the arrogance to lecture some mother who hopes to see her dying child in Heaven - that's none of my business, ultimately. I won't lecture her on the philosophy of science.Collection: Business
There are two problems for our species' survival - nuclear war and environmental catastrophe - and we're hurtling towards them. Knowingly.Collection: War
Death and genitals are things that frighten people, and when people are frightened, they develop means of concealment and aggression. It is common sense.Collection: Death
If you're worried about the deficit, pay attention to the fact that it's almost all attributable to military spending and the totally dysfunctional health program.Collection: Health
A war with Pakistan would be an utter disaster.Collection: War
An individual's refusal to carry out the criminal acts of his government sets the stage, in the most effective way possible, for the attempt to demonstrate the criminal nature of these acts.Collection: Government
International affairs is very much run like the mafia. The godfather does not accept disobedience, even from a small storekeeper who doesn't pay his protection money. You have to have obedience; otherwise, the idea can spread that you don't have to listen to the orders, and it can spread to important places.Collection: Money
If workers are more insecure, that's very 'healthy' for the society, because if workers are insecure, they won't ask for wages, they won't go on strike, they won't call for benefits; they'll serve the masters gladly and passively. And that's optimal for corporations' economic health.Collection: Health
Anarchism means all sort of things to different people, but the traditional anarchists' movements assumed that there'd be a highly organized society, just one organized from below with direct participation and so on.Collection: Society
Social Security is based on a principle. It's based on the principle that you care about other people. You care whether the widow across town, a disabled widow, is going to be able to have food to eat.Collection: Food
In the US, there is basically one party - the business party. It has two factions, called Democrats and Republicans, which are somewhat different but carry out variations on the same policies. By and large, I am opposed to those policies. As is most of the population.Collection: Business
Education must provide the opportunities for self-fulfillment; it can at best provide a rich and challenging environment for the individual to explore, in his own way.Collection: Best
If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.Collection: Politics
Congressional Republicans are dismantling the limited environmental protections initiated by Richard Nixon, who would be something of a dangerous radical in today's political scene.Collection: Environmental
In many respects, the United States is a great country. Freedom of speech is protected more than in any other country. It is also a very free society.Collection: Society
The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people.Collection: Fear