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Famous Noam Chomsky Quotes

“Il continuo bombardamento di materiale selezionato ad hoc, praticamente privo di voci critiche o di passaggi analitici, instilla solidamente nei lettori i presupposti che ne stanno alla base, allineando la percezione del pubblico alla giusta dottrina più efficacemente di quanto potrebbe fare un ministero della Verità. Nel frattempo i media possono sostenere che stanno solo facendo il loro mestiere onestamente: il che è vero, anche se non proprio nel senso che intendono loro.”

DemocracySocietyMediaFree Speech
Book:Dis-educazione
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“Oggi come ieri, non c’è motivo di pensare che siamo governati da leggi misteriose e sconosciute, anziché da semplici decisioni prese all’interno di istituzioni che sono soggette alla volontà umana, istituzioni umane, che devono dimostrare la propria legittimità e se non superano l’esame possono essere sostituite da altre più libere e più giuste, com’è accaduto spesso in passato.”

PoliticsFreedomDemocracySociety
Book:Dis-educazione
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“Se sei il portavoce intellettuale del sistema dottrinale, puoi facilmente rigettare i fatti storici scomodi semplicemente etichettandoli come “bugie”, nella certezza che il sistema dottrinale non solo ti proteggerà, ma ti ricompenserà.[...]Se stai seguendo la linea del partito non devi documentare niente; puoi dire tutto quel che ti pare... È uno dei privilegi cui hai diritto in cambio dell’obbedienza. Se invece sei critico nei confronti dell’opinione generalmente accettata, devi documentare ogni frase.”

DemocracySocietyMediaFree Speech
Book:Dis-educazione
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“James Madison framed the constitutional order so that power would be in the hands of the Senate, which represents “the wealth of the nation,” the “more capable sett of men,” who have respect for property owners and their rights and understand the need for government “to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority”—though it was not long before he came to deplore “the daring depravity of the times,” as the “stockjobbers will become the pretorian band of the government—at once its tools and its tyrant; bribed by its largesses, and overawing it by clamors and combinations” (1792).”

HistoryDemocracyCapitalismCorruptionOppressionInequalityAmerican HistoryAmerican PoliticsRich PeopleJames Madison
Book:Hopes and Prospects
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“A more general conclusion is that markets may more or less work for a while, but unless sharply constrained they almost necessarily lead to disaster. And constraints are unlikely when major media are often adjuncts of business, the government is largely in its pocket, and the general public is marginalized in one way or another, and susceptible to manipulation.”

HistoryDemocracyCapitalismInequalityAmerican HistoryAmerican PoliticsMass MediaFree Market Ideology
Book:Hopes and Prospects
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“The best guide I know of is political economist Thomas Ferguson’s “investment theory of politics,” mentioned above, the thesis that to a good first approximation, we can understand elections to be occasions in which groups of investors coalesce to control the state, a very good predictor of policy over a long period, as he shows. For 2008, we would therefore anticipate that the interests of the financial industries, the major funders (who preferred Obama to McCain), would be “most peculiarly attended to” by government policy, in accord with Adam Smith’s maxim. And so we find.”

DemocracyEconomicsObamaAdam SmithDemocratic ElectionsPredatory CapitalismThomas Ferguson
Book:Hopes and Prospects
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“Reigning doctrines are often called a "double standard".The term is misleading.It is more accurate to describe them as a single standard,clear and unmistakable,the standard that Adam Smith called the "vile maxim of the masters of mankind: ...All for ourselves,and nothing for other people." Much has changed since his day,but the vile maxim flourishes.”

PhilosophyGovernmentDemocracyIntellectualGovernment Abuse
Book:Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy
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“Fabrication of necessary illusions for social management is as old as history. But in the democratic system, the necessary illusions cannot be imposed by force. Rather they must be instilled in the public mind by more subtle means. A totalitarian state can be satisfied with lesser degrees of allegiance to required truths. It is sufficient that people obey. What they think is a secondary concern. But in a democratic political order, there's always the danger that an independent thought might be translated into political action. So it is important to eliminate the threat at its root.”

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Author:Noam Chomsky
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“Representative democracy, as in, say, the United States or Great Britain, would be criticized by an anarchist of this school on two grounds. First of all because there is a monopoly of power centralized in the State, and secondly and critically—because representative democracy is limited to the political sphere and in no serious way encroaches on the economic sphere. Anarchists of this tradition have always held that democratic control of one's productive life is at the core of any serious human liberation, or, for that matter, of any significant democratic practice. That is, as long as individuals are compelled to rent themselves on the market to those who are willing to hire them, as long as their role in production is simply that of ancillary tools, then there are striking elements of coercion and oppression that make talk of democracy very limited, if even meaningful.”

DemocracyLibertarianLibertarianismAnarchismRepresentative Democracy
Book:Chomsky On Anarchism
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“Pick the topic you like: the Middle East, international terrorism, Central America, whatever it is - the picture of the world that's presented to the public has only the remotest relation to reality. The truth of the matter is buried under edifice after edifice of lies upon lies. It's all been a marvelous success from the point of view in deterring the threat of democracy, achieved under conditions of freedom, which is extremely interesting. It's not like a totalitarian state, where it's done by force. These achievements are under conditions of freedom.”

WorldMatterStatesDoneRealityAmericaLyingForceInterestingViewsDemocracyMiddleConditionsAchievementPicksRelationThreatInternationalTerrorismPoint Of ViewEastBuriedMiddle EastMarvelousTopicsEdificeCentral AmericaTotalitarian StateInternational Terrorism
Book:Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda
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“For a privileged minority, Western democracy provides the leisure, the facilities, and the training to seek the truth lying hidden behind the veil of distortion and misrepresentation, ideology and class interest, through which the events of current history are presented to us.”

LyingInterestBehindsClassDemocracyEventsTrainingWesternCurrentsIdeologyMinoritiesLeisurePrivilegedVeilsFacilityDistortionMisrepresentation
Book:American Power and the New Mandarins
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“To pay attention to the actual core of the movement - that would be pretty hard. Can you concentrate for example on either the policy issues or the creation of functioning democratic communities of mutual support and say, well, that's what's lacking in our country that's why we don't have a functioning democracy - a community of real participation. That's really important. And that always gets smashed.”

WellsImportantRealCountryHardWould BeCommunityPayAttentionSupportDemocracyIssuesPolicyExampleMovementCreationDemocraticCoreOur CountryPay AttentionMutualLackingParticipationMutual Support
Author:Noam Chomsky
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“Stock ownership in the US is very highly concentrated. [Shareholder actions are] something, but it's like the old Communist Party in the USSR, it would be nice to see more protest inside the Communist Party but it's not democracy. It's not going to happen. [Shareholder actions] are a good step, but they're mostly symbolic.”

HappensWould BeActionPartyStepsDemocracyNiceProtestCommunistOwnershipBeing NiceSymbolicShareholdersCommunist PartyUssr
Author:Noam Chomsky
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“Say the Pentagon Papers, - that material went much deeper. It went into internal government planning back for twenty - five years. Those are things that the public should have known about. In a democracy they should have known what leaders thinking and planning about major enterprises like the Vietnam war. It was kept secret from them.”

ThinkingShouldYearsWarGovernmentSecretKnownLeaderDemocracyFiveMaterialsPaperMajorsShould HaveTwentiesDeeperPlanningFive YearsEnterpriseInternalsVietnamPapersVietnam WarTwenty FivePentagonKept SecretsShould Have Known
Author:Noam Chomsky
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“[James] Madison pointed out in the discussion of the constitutional debates - the constitutional convention - that democracy would be a danger. He used England of course as the model and said suppose that in England everyone had the free right to vote; the poor, the propertyless - who are the great majority - would use their voting power to take away the rights of property owners to carry out what we would call land reform.”

SaidUseWould BeUsedCoursesPoorDemocracyRightsLandDangerModelsVoteEnglandMajorityPropertyDebateReformDiscussionVotingOwnersConventionsRight To VoteMadisonConstitutional Convention
Author:Noam Chomsky
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“The Bolshevik revolution was a counter-revolution. Its first moves were to destroy and eliminate every socialist tendency that had developed in the pre-revolutionary period. Their goal was as they said; it wasn't a big secret. They regarded the Soviet Union as sort a backwater. They were orthodox Marxists, expecting a revolution in Germany. They moved toward what they themselves called "state capitalism," then they moved on to Stalinism. They called it democracy and called it socialism. The one claim was as ludicrous as the other.”

FirstsSaidStatesBigsMovingGoalSecretDemocracyRevolutionPeriodsCapitalismClaimsMovedUnionsSocialismTendenciesRevolutionaryGermanyOrthodoxSovietExpectingSocialistThey SaidSoviet UnionMarxistMoved OnStalinismBolsheviks
Author:Noam Chomsky
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“If you look at the Associated Press wires, there's a constant flow of information coming in. At that time I happened to have direct access to AP wires. The day the marines landed in Haiti and restored [ Jan Bètran] Aristide there was a lot of excitement about the dedication to democracy and so on. But the day before the marines landed, when every journalist was looking at Haiti because it was assumed that something big was happening, the AP wires reported that then [Bill] Clinton administration had authorized Texaco to ship oil illegally to the military junta.”

IfsLooksBigsDemocracyHappenedMilitaryInformationHappeningsFlowDirectBillsPressesConstantClintonOilAccessShipsAdministrationJournalistExcitementDedicationMarineWireHaiti
Author:Noam Chomsky
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“Our concern is to help people counter the efforts of those who seek to "regiment the public mind every bit as much as an army regiments the bodies of its soldiers," so that the self-designated "responsible men" will be able to run the affairs of the world untroubled by the "bewildered herd" - the general public - who are to be marginalized and dispersed, directed to personal concerns, in a well-regulated "democracy."”

PeopleMenWorldMindWellsSelfHelpingBodyRunningAbleBitsEffortDemocracyConcernArmyResponsibleAffairSoldierHerdsBewilderedMarginalizedGeneral Public
Author:Noam Chomsky
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“The Second World War ended with a radicalization of the population in the United States and everywhere else, and called for all kinds of things like popular takeovers, government intervention, and worker takeovers of factories. Business propagated a tremendous propaganda offensive. The scale surprised me when I read the scholarship - it's enormous, and it's been very effective. There were two major targets: one is unions, the other is democracy.”

WorldKindTwoWarStatesGovernmentUnitedUnited StatesDemocracyMajorsUnionsWorkersPopulationScalesEnormousAll KindsPropagandaWar Of The WorldsTargetFactoriesOffensiveInterventionScholarshipSecond World WarTakeoversGovernment Intervention
Author:Noam Chomsky
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