"Pakistan is not a unified country. In large parts of the country, the state is regarded as a Punjabi state, not their (the people's) state."
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Quote collection
Noam Chomsky quotes (page 78 of 84)
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"All you have to do is read the business literature. In the 1930s they were very frightened and they were concerned about how the rising power of the masses was hazardous to industrialists."
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"The attack on unions has been far more extreme here [in U.S], and it has been much more successful."
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"The fact of the matter is that the U.S. is run by an unusually class-conscious, dedicated business class that has a very violent labor history, much worse than in Europe."
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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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"The U.S. is, to a very unusual extent, a business-run society."
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"The U.S. is different from Europe and other industrial countries."
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"I mean the reason the sit-down strikes struck such fear in the hearts of management was that they knew that a sit-down strike was just one step short of taking over the factory."
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"Because the 1979 strike against U.S. Steel in Youngstown, Ohio was an occupation - and actually, that's a model that really should be pursued now.They went on from striking to trying to have the workforce and the communities take over the abandoned factories that U.S. Steel was dismantling."
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"Radical activists can't ignore the fact that we live in this world, like it or not, and have to make difficult decisions about which paths are the best - or sometimes, the least harmful. There are no abstract formulas. Have to think through each case on its own."
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"We should certainly not be perpetuating further harm to others or to the environment. Suppose that workers at ExxonMobil are trying to unionize. We have two choices: to help them improve their lives, or to keep away so that their lives will be worse. Neither choice has any effect on use of fossil fuels. So radical organizers can both help them unionize and improve their lives, and convince them to find a different way to survive and work for ending the use of fossil fuels."
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"I've been interested in the reports on Rojava. It seems clear that there are positive developments."
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"The reason I am a political radical is that I work on syntax. If I worked on semantics (which in fact I do), I'd be a good Thatcherite."
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"When [ Paul Johnson] got to me he was in trouble, because I'm an old-fashioned conservative: married when I was 21, stayed married, 3 kids, live in the suburbs, no scandals, so nothing to write about. So what he did is concoct one of the nuttiest claims I've ever seen."
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"Another recollection is that [ Paul Johnson] mostly kept away from ideas and dedicated activism, and concentrated on sex lives and other gossip."
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"My memory - faded, as I say - is that Paul Johnson was trying to vilify all intellectuals who were at all critical of the states he worships, and of power generally (except, of course, the power of enemies, which we must denounce, imitating the commissars who are his models, though he doesn't understand it)."
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"Fed and electoral college could use some tinkering, but they are not the source of the problems."
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"No use in waiting, we can all work hard to bring about changes."
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"Personally, I am uneasy about the notion of "a politically engaged university," for reasons I wrote about over 30 years ago, at the height of protest and resistance (reprinted in For Reasons of State)."
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"The focus on creativity and independence exists in pockets of resistance in the educational system, which, to thrive, should be integrated with the needs and concerns of the great majority of the population. One finds them everywhere."
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