I am thinking of actual cases of adolescents, lets say, who think they have five hundred friends, because there are five hundred people on their Facebook account. But these are the kind of friends whose relation to you is that if you say 'I bought a sandwich'; they say 'did it taste good?' You know, that's a kind of interaction, but very different to having a real friend, somebody who you can actually talk to.
Noam ChomskyEveryone engaged in research must have had the experience of working with feverish and prolonged intensity to write a paper which no one else will read or to solve a problem which no one else thinks important and which will bring no conceivable reward - which may only confirm a general opinion that the researcher is wasting his time on irrelevancies.
Noam ChomskyLike most terms of political discourse, socialism has more or less, lost its meaning. Socialism used to mean something. If you go back far enough it meant basically control of production by producers, elimination of wage labor, democratization of all spheres of life; production, commerce, education, media, workers control of factories, community control of communities, and so on. That was socialism once. But it hasn't meant that for a hundred years. Socialism meant something different.
Noam ChomskyI don't think that any deal was needed: Iran was not a threat. Even if Iran were a threat, there was a very easy way to handle it - by establishing a Middle East Nuclear Weapons Free Zone, which is something that nearly everyone in the world wants.
Noam ChomskyThe escalation to attack undefended civilian targets is just a classic illustration of terrorism.
Noam ChomskyYou don't have any other society where the educated classes are so effectively indoctrinated and controlled by a subtle propaganda system - a private system including media, intellectual opinion forming magazines and the participation of the most highly educated sections of the population. Such people ought to be referred to as "Commissars - for that is what their essential function is - to set up and maintain a system of doctrines and beliefs which will undermine independent thought and prevent a proper understanding and analysis of national and global institutions, issues, and policies".
Noam Chomsky