“Karl Max said: “The task is not just to understand the world but to change it.” A variant to keep in mind is that if you want to change the world you’d better try to understand it. That doesn’t mean listening to a talk or reading a book, though that’s helpful sometimes. You learn from participating. You learn from others. You learn from the people you’re trying to organize. We all have to gain the understanding and the experience to formulate and implement ideas.”
Noam Chomsky
(Source: sundays)
“[In Economics] you learn that markets…are based on informed consumers making rational choices. …Most of you have seen ads. Is an ad trying to create an informed consumer who will make a rational choice? ….If we had a market system …an ad would be a description of the characteristics of the product… that is obviously not what an ad is. It’s trying to delude you into making an irrational choice based on lack of information. In fact, one of the major goals of business is to undermine the market by making uninformed consumers who will make irrational choices.”
Noam Chomsky - Global Hegemony: the Facts, the Images, April 20, 2011
(Source: youtu.be)
“You’re responsible for the predictable consequences of your actions. You’re not responsible for the predictable consequences of somebody else’s actions. The most important thing for me and for you is to think about the consequences of your actions. What can you effect? These are the things to keep in mind. These are not just academic exercises. We’re not analyzing the media on Mars or in the 18th century or something like that. We’re dealing with real human beings who are suffering and dying and being tortured and starving because of policies that we are involved in. We, as citizens of democratic societies, are directly involved in and are responsible for. And what the media are doing is insuring that we do not act on our responsibilities, and that the interests of power are served, not the needs of the suffering people, and not even the needs of American people who would be horrified if they realized the blood that is dripping from their hands because of the way they are allowing themselves to be deluded and manipulated by this system.”
Noam Chomsky - Manufacturing Consent
(Source: flies0fasummer)
“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”
Noam Chomsky
(Source: abculture)
“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.”
Hopes and Prospects - Noam Chomsky
(Source: noam-chomsky)
“Anyone with eyes open knows that the gangsterism of Wall Street — financial institutions generally — has caused severe damage to the people of the United States (and the world). And should also know that it has been doing so increasingly for over 30 years, as their power in the economy has radically increased, and with it their political power. That has set in motion a vicious cycle that has concentrated immense wealth, and with it political power, in a tiny sector of the population, a fraction of 1%, while the rest increasingly become what is sometimes called “a precariat” — seeking to survive in a precarious existence. They also carry out these ugly activities with almost complete impunity — not only too big to fail, but also “too big to jail.”
The courageous and honorable protests underway in Wall Street should serve to bring this calamity to public attention, and to lead to dedicated efforts to overcome it and set the society on a more healthy course.” Noam Chomsky on Occupy Wall Street
The courageous and honorable protests underway in Wall Street should serve to bring this calamity to public attention, and to lead to dedicated efforts to overcome it and set the society on a more healthy course.” Noam Chomsky on Occupy Wall Street
(Source: rethinksocialism)
“Students who acquire large debts putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society. When you trap people in a system of debt they can’t afford the time to think. Tuition fee increases are a “disciplinary technique,” and, by the time students graduate, they are not only loaded with debt, but have also internalized the “disciplinarian culture.” This makes them efficient components of the consumer economy.”
Noam Chomsky (via rhetoricalities)
(Source: quiettemperament)
“In America, we are told we live in a meritocracy and that we measure the merit of work by the amount of income it generates. So real work, is the kind of stuff you do in Wall Street, speculating against currencies to drive down growth rates and wages. That’s real work and you can tell because in the meritocracy you get paid very highly to do so. However raising children, that’s not work at all, you don’t get paid a cent for that.”
Noam Chomsky
(Source: nixonplumbingco)
“They want the people to hate and fear the government, because democratic government has a dangerous flaw — it actually has the slight chance of becoming truly democratic. You see, corporations are perfect — perfect tyrannies.”
Noam Chomsky
(Source: noam-chomsky)
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