The Media are corporations so... It's the concentrations of private power which have an enormous, not total control, but enormous influence over Congress and the White House and that's increasing sharply with sharp concentration of private power and escalating cost of elections and so on.
Noam ChomskyI do not see how we can rationally oppose high speed rail because of the environmental and other costs without considering the social and human consequences of the radical elimination of transportation that this entails.
Noam ChomskyWhat can realistically be done depends on the historical moment. The same is true with regard to the agents.
Noam ChomskyWhen people denounced [former Iranian president Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad for rejecting and criminalizing homosexuality, it should be remembered that was true of the United States until very recently. Women's rights were unheard of. Civil rights proponents were horribly treated, not just in the South. It was awful there, but pretty bad here. Environmental issues did not exist. Opposition to aggression was virtually zero. In fact, so little, that to this day, even scholarship mentions the Vietnam War as beginning in 1965.
Noam ChomskyThere is little doubt that a significant part of any serious solution will require advances of technology, but that can only be part of the solution. Other major changes are necessary.
Noam ChomskyI had relatives in New York City who I stayed with. And in those days, the area from Union Square down Fourth Avenue had small bookstores, many of which were run by Spanish immigrants who'd fled after [Francisco] Franco's victory. I spent time in them, and also in the offices of Freie Arbeiter Stimme (Free Worker's Voice) with anarchists. I picked up a lot of material and talked to people, and it became a major influence.
Noam Chomsky