Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomskyis an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, logician, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes described as "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy, and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He has spent more than half a century at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he is Institute Professor Emeritus, and is the author of over 100 books on topics such as linguistics, war, politics, and...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTeacher
Date of Birth7 December 1928
CityPhiladelphia, PA
CountryUnited States of America
In 1963, the U.N. Security Council declared a voluntary arms embargo on South Africa. That was extended to a mandatory embargo in 1977. And that was followed by economic sanctions and other measures - sometimes officials, countries, cities, towns - some organized by popular movements.
In much of the world, there is a sense of an ultra-powerful CIA manipulating everything that happens, such as running the Arab Spring, running the Pakistani Taliban, etc. That is just nonsense.
In Kosovo, the U.S. has chosen a course of action that escalates atrocities and violence. It is also a course of action that strikes a blow against the regime of international order, but which offers the weak at least some protection from predatory states.
In Latin America, specialists and polling organisations have, for some time, observed that the extension of formal democracy was accompanied by an increasing disillusionment about democracy and a lack of faith in democratic institutions.
I have never really thought that the Left was much in 'array' as far as political purposes were concerned.
In 1993, Israel and North Korea were moving towards an agreement in which North Korea would stop sending any missiles or military technology to the Middle East and Israel would recognize that country. President Clinton intervened and blocked it.
I once did a three-hour interview with Radio Oxford only to be told the microphone hadn't picked me up.
After the ignominious collapse of the Copenhagen global climate change summit in 2009, Bolivia organised a People's Summit with 35,000 participants from 140 countries - not just representatives of governments, but also civil society and activists.
Social Security is based on a principle. It's based on the principle that you care about other people. You care whether the widow across town, a disabled widow, is going to be able to have food to eat.
The Internet has compromised the quality of debate.
If you get to a point where the existing institutions will not bend to the popular will, you have to eliminate the institutions.
If you do a Google search, you will probably read a lot of stuff about how I am someone who wants to kill all the Jews and hates the United States.
If you destroyed half the pharmaceutical production in the United States, we'd think it's a pretty serious problem. In fact, we'd probably go to war.
If you look back at the history of the twentieth century, Germany alone had practically destroyed Russia several times.