Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky

Linguist, Philosopher, Activist

Noam Chomsky is a renowned linguist and political activist known for his critiques of media and power structures, particularly through his work 'Manufacturing Consent.'

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Born
December 7, 1928
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1.7K
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Noam Chomsky quotes (page 64 of 84)

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"There's a strong nativist tradition - saying, "we have to protect ourselves" - that comes from the founding of the country. If you read Benjamin Franklin, who was one of the leading figures of the Enlightenment in the United States and the most distinguished representative of the movement here, he actually advised that the newly founded republic should block Germans and Swedes because they were too "swarthy" - dark."

Country Strong Block
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"George Kennan is another extreme case. He was the American consul in Berlin until the war between Germany and the United States broke out in December 1941. And until then he was writing pretty supportive statements back stressing that we shouldn't be so hard on the Nazis if they were doing something we didn't agree with - basically repeating the idea that they were people we could do business with."

War Stress Writing
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"When Nazi emissaries came to the United States, they were welcomed at Harvard."

United States Nazi Harvard
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"The Zionist movement based in Palestine pretty much took over the camps and instituted the policy that every man and woman between the ages of seventeen and thirty-five should be directed to Palestine - not allowed to go to the West."

Men Age West
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"After World War II there were many Jews who remained in refugee camps...President Harry F. Truman called for the Harrison Commission to investigate the situation in the camps and it was a pretty gloomy report. There were very few Jews admitted into the United States."

War President United States
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"There's an interesting book called The Fugu Plan, written by Marvin Tokayer and Mary Swartz, which describes the circumstances when European Jews came to Japan, a semi-feudal society."

Book Japan Interesting
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"It's a lesser-known story, but the Japanese government (after the Russian-Nazi pact, which split Poland) did allow Polish Jews to come to Japan, with the expectation that they would then be sent to the United States. But they weren't accepted, so they stayed in Japan."

Government Japan Expectations
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"When I was growing up in the 1930s and '40s anti-Semitism was rampant. It wasn't like Nazi Germany but it was pretty serious - it was part of life."

Growing Up Germany Serious
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"As a health scientist at Columbia University, Les Roberts, pointed out, sooner or later people are going to be looking at a child in a wheelchair suffering from polio and will say 'the Americans did that to him'. So they continue policies which have similar effects i.e. organising the Taliban. This will come back to them too."

Children People Suffering
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"There was a striking example of this in Pakistan when the US sent in Special Forces, to be honest, to kill Osama Bin Laden. He could easily have been apprehended and caught but their orders were to kill him."

Order Special Example
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"Travel from what is called Pakistan to Afghanistan has been made increasingly difficult and people are often labelled terrorists, even those who might be just visiting families."

People Pakistan Might
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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."

Running Powerful Spring
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"Balochistan, and to some extent Sindh too, has a general feeling that they are not part of the decision-making process in Pakistan and are ruled by a Punjabi dictatorship. There is a lot of exploitation of the rich resources [in Balochistan] which the locals are not gaining from. As long as this goes on, it is going to keep providing grounds for serious uprisings and insurgencies."

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

Historical Done Agents
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"History records endless struggles to enlarge those realms, inspiring ones; it also records painful reversals and setbacks."

Struggle Records Painful
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"I know of people whose actions and words I admire and respect. Some are called "intellectuals," some are not."

People Action Admire
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"To use the terms that are reserved for official enemies, it is the commissars and apparatchiks, not the dissidents, who are respected and privileged within their own societies."

Enemy Use Term
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"I think such an inquiry will reveal a rather different picture: namely, it will reveal a very strong tendency for the intellectuals who are respected and privileged to be those who subordinate themselves to power."

Strong Thinking Different
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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."

Custodians Looks Attractive
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"Intellectuals (in the standard sense of the term, not [ Edward] Said's prescriptive sense) are the people who write history."

Writing People Said
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