To cite the facts of history is to fall prey to 'moral equivalence,' or 'political correctness,' or 'the error of of atheism,' or one of the other misdeeds concocted to guard against the sins of understanding and insight into the real world.
Noam ChomskyThe UN can go as far as the U.S. will allow, and no further. And it's bound by conditions that the powerful states, which means mostly the U.S., impose.
Noam ChomskyA lot of the people involved in the media are very serious, honest people, and they will tell you, and I think they are right, that they are not being forced to write anything.
Noam ChomskyStephen Colbert's recent comment is apropos: When the Republican legislature of North Carolina responded to a scientific study predicting a threatening rise in sea level by barring state and local agencies from developing regulations or planning documents to address the problem, Colbert responded: "This is a brilliant solution. If your science gives you a result that you don't like, pass a law saying the result is illegal. Problem solved."
Noam ChomskyYou know, people talk about [Richard] Nixon's "madman theory." We don't really know much about that. It was in memoirs, by somebody else.
Noam ChomskyIt's kind of interesting and sick that the intellectual culture called the 1960s, "time of troubles," a dangerous period in which a lot of harm was done to the society. And the reason is because we were civilized and that's dangerous. That increased the commitment to democracy, to rights and so on, and this left people much less obedient.
Noam Chomsky