About the Book :
The world’s leading intellectual offers a probing examination of the waning American Century, the nature of U.S. policies post-9/11, and the perils of valuing power above democracy and human rights.
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Who Rules the World? Quotes
“Historical amnesia is a dangerous phenomenon not only because it undermines moral and intellectual integrity but also because it lays the groundwork for crimes that still lie ahead.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“As long as the general population is passive, apathetic, and diverted to consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable, then the powerful can do as they please, and those who survive will be left to contemplate the outcome.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“And the spectators must not be allowed to see too much. President Obama has set new standards in safeguarding this principle. He has, in fact, punished more whistle-blowers than all previous presidents combined, a real achievement for an administration that came to office promising transparency.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“Public opinion is dismissed. That fact, once again, sends a strong message to Americans. It is their task to cure the dysfunctional political system, in which popular opinion is a marginal factor. The disparity between public opinion and policy, in this case, has significant implications for the fate of the world.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“We should not forget Adam Smith’s perspicuous observation that the “masters of mankind”—in his day, the merchants and manufacturers of England—never cease to pursue their “vile maxim”: “All for ourselves, and nothing for other people.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“Obama’s global drone assassination campaign, a remarkable innovation in global terrorism, exhibits the same patterns. By most accounts, it is generating terrorists more rapidly than it is murdering those suspected of someday intending to harm us—an impressive contribution by a constitutional lawyer on the eight hundredth anniversary of Magna Carta, which established the basis for the principle of presumption of innocence that is the foundation of civilized law.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“In the 1950s, President Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles explained quite clearly the dilemma that the United States faced. They complained that the Communists had an unfair advantage: they were able to "appeal directly to the masses" and "get control of mass movements, something we have no capacity to duplicate. The poor people are the ones they appeal to and they have always wanted to plunder the rich."
That causes problems. The United States somehow finds it difficult to appeal to the poor with its doctrine that the rich should plunder the poor.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“The pattern of praise and punishment is a familiar one throughout history: those who line up in the service of the state are typically praised by the general intellectual community, and those who refuse to line up in service of the state are punished.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“The Clinton doctrine was encapsulated in the slogan “multilateral when we can, unilateral when we must.” In congressional testimony, the phrase “when we must” was explained more fully: the United States is entitled to resort to the “unilateral use of military power” to ensure “uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“intellectuals are typically privileged; privilege yields opportunity, and opportunity confers responsibilities. An individual then has choices.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“When the NSA’s surveillance program was exposed by Edward Snowden’s revelations, high officials claimed that it had prevented fifty-four terrorist acts. On inquiry, that was whittled down to a dozen. A high-level government panel then discovered that there was actually only one case: someone had sent $8,500 to Somalia. That was the total yield of the huge assault on the Constitution and, of course, on others throughout the world.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“Amnesty International, which was opening its yearlong campaign to protect human rights defenders in Colombia in response to the country’s horrifying record of attacks against human rights and labor activists and mostly the usual victims of state terror: the poor and defenseless.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“counterinsurgency”—a standard term for terrorism that we direct.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“The more vulgar apologists for U.S. and Israeli crimes solemnly explain that, while Arabs purposely kill civilians, the U.S. and Israel, being democratic societies, do not intend to do so. Their”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“In this case, National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger’s orders were being carried out—“anything that flies on anything that moves,” an open call for genocide that is rare in the historical record.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“There are those who are trying hard to do something about these threats, and others who are acting to escalate them. If you, this future historian or extraterrestrial observer, looked at who is in each group, you would see something strange indeed: those trying to mitigate or overcome these threats are the least developed societies—the indigenous populations, or the remnants of them; tribal societies; and first nations in Canada. They’re not talking about nuclear war but environmental disaster, and they’re really trying to do something about it.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“it is more gratifying to bask in praise for courageously protesting the abuses of official enemies: a fine activity, but not the priority of a value-oriented intellectual who takes the responsibilities of that stance seriously.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“Small wonder that President Obama advises us to look forward, not backward—a convenient doctrine for those who hold the clubs. Those who are beaten by them tend to see the world differently, much to our annoyance.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“States of course have complex internal structures, and the choices and decisions of the political leadership are heavily influenced by internal concentrations of power, while the general population is often marginalized. That is true even for the more democratic societies, and obviously for others.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World? Reframings
“Contrary to the eloquent pronouncements, it is not the case that “terrorism is terrorism. There’s no two ways about it.” There definitely are two ways about it: theirs versus ours. And not just when it comes to terrorism.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World? Reframings
“One lesson is that to understand what is happening we should attend not only to critical events of the real world, often dismissed from history, but also to what leaders and elite opinion believe, however tinged with fantasy. Another lesson is that alongside the flights of fancy concocted to terrify and mobilize the public (and perhaps believed by some who are trapped in their own rhetoric), there”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“In the background was the conclusion of Nixon’s National Security Council that if the United States could not control Latin America, it could not expect “to achieve a successful order elsewhere in the world.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“Suppose that the perpetrators of the crime planned to, and did, impose a military dictatorship that killed thousands and tortured tens of thousands. Suppose the new dictatorship established, with the support of the criminals, an international terror center that helped install similar torture-and-terror states elsewhere, and, as the icing on the cake, brought in a team of economists—call them “the Kandahar Boys”—who quickly drove the economy into one of the worst depressions in its history. That, plainly, would have been a lot worse than 9/11. As we all should know, this is not a thought experiment. It happened. I am, of course, referring to what in Latin America is often called “the first 9/11”: September 11, 1973,”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“By shredding the remnants of political democracy, these financial institutions lay the basis for carrying the lethal process forward—as long as their victims are willing to suffer in silence.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“Keith Bolender, Voices From the Other Side: An Oral History of Terrorism Against Cuba (London: Pluto Press, 2010).”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“There is, in fact, a strong case to be made that a prime concern of government is the security of state power from the population. As”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“* In 2012 fatah and Hamas forged unity agreement and accepted all of the demands of the quartet. Obama administration also approved this agreement threatened the long-term goal of dividing Gaza from the West Bank. Something had to be done, three Israeli boys were murdered in the West Bank the Netanyahu government had strong evidence that once they were dead but use the opportunity to launch a rampage in the West Bank. During the 18 day rampage Israeli soldiers arrested 419 Palestinians and killed six, Hamas finally reacted with its first rocket strikes in 19 months. This provided the pretext for operation protective edge on July 8 by the end of July 15 hundred Palestinians had been killed 70% of them were civilians including hundreds of women and children. Three civilians in Israel were killed. Large areas of Gaza were turned into rubble. Gauzes main power plant was attacked, which is a war crime rescue teams and ambulances were repeatedly attacked for hospitals were attacked another war crime. Are you in school was attacked harbouring 3300 refugees who had fled the ruins of their neighbourhoods on the orders of the Israeli army”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“(It took Dewey only a few years to shift from responsible intellectual of World War I to “anarchist of the lecture-platform,” denouncing the “un-free press” and questioning “how far genuine intellectual freedom and social responsibility are possible on any large scale under the existing economic regime.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“Hamas leaders have made it repeatedly clear that they would accept a two state settlement in accord with the international consensus that has been blocked by United States and Israel for 40 years.
Ceasefires have been regularly observed by Hamas until Israel violate them with violence”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“* Dov Weisglass said the Gazans would remain on a diet but not to make them die of hunger. Israeli experts determined precisely how many calories a day Garzans needed for bare survival while also depriving them of medicines and other means of a decent life.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“the masters represent “the national interest,” like those who applauded themselves for leading the country to war “after the utmost deliberation by the more thoughtful members of the community” had reached its “moral verdict.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“Over 90% of the water in Gaza has been deemed unfit for human consumption this was made worse when Israel attacked water sewage systems.
A Large population of Palestinian children are affected by the man-made man nourishment regime caused by that is really imposed a blockage. Prevalence of anaemia in children under two years in Gaza is 72.8%”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“For the past 14 years more than 2 Palestinian children have been killed every day by Israeli Forces”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“Both parties have moved to the right during the neoliberal period of the past generation. Mainstream Democrats are now pretty much what used to be called “moderate Republicans.” Meanwhile, the Republican Party has largely drifted off the spectrum, becoming what respected conservative political analyst Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein call a “radical insurgency” that has virtually abandoned normal parliamentary politics. With”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“Median real income is below its level of twenty-five years ago. For males, median real income is below what it was in 1968.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“the U.S. public should not learn that “state policies are overwhelmingly regressive, thus reinforcing and expanding social inequality,” though designed in ways that lead “people to think that the government helps only the undeserving poor, allowing politicians to mobilize and exploit anti-government rhetoric and values even as they continue to funnel support to their better-off constituents”—I’m quoting here from the main establishment journal, Foreign Affairs, not from some radical rag.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“deficit reduction is the demand of the financial institutions and the superrich, and in a rapidly declining democracy, that’s what counts.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“Not even mentioned is the possibility, discussed by economist Dean Baker, that the deficit might be eliminated if the dysfunctional privatized health care system were replaced by one similar to those in other industrial societies, which have half the per capita costs and at least comparable health outcomes.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“It is important to bear in mind that the Republicans long ago abandoned the pretense of functioning as a normal parliamentary party. They have, as respected conservative political commentator Norman Ornstein of the right-wing American Enterprise Institute observed, become a “radical insurgency” that scarcely seeks to participate in normal congressional politics.6 Since the days of President Ronald Reagan, the party leadership has plunged so far into the pockets of the very rich and the corporate sector that they can attract votes only by mobilizing parts of the population that have not previously been an organized political force. Among them are extremist evangelical Christians, now probably a majority of Republican voters; remnants of the former slaveholding states; nativists who are terrified that “they” are taking our white, Christian, Anglo-Saxon country away from us; and others who turn the Republican primaries into spectacles remote from the mainstream of modern society—though not from the mainstream of the most powerful country in world history.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“The hideous revelations elicited a different reaction from the Most Moral President in the World, the usual one: great sympathy for Israelis, bitter condemnation of Hamas, and calls for moderation on both sides. In his August press conference, President Obama did express concern for Palestinians “caught in the crossfire” (where?) while again vigorously supporting the right of Israel to defend itself, like everyone. Not quite everyone—not, of course, Palestinians. They have no right to defend themselves, surely not when Israel is on good behavior, keeping to the norm of quiet for quiet: stealing their land, driving them out of their homes, subjecting them to a savage siege, and regularly attacking them with weapons provided by their protector.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“conformist intellectuals, the ones who support official aims and ignore or rationalize official crimes, are honored and privileged in their own societies, while the value-oriented are punished in one way or another. The”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“Presumption of innocence has also been given a new and useful interpretation. As the New York Times later reported, “Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“If the traditional victims see matters somewhat differently, that merely reveals their moral and intellectual backwardness. And”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“What the Obama [ban on torture] ostensibly knocks off is that small percentage of torture now done by Americans while retaining the overwhelming bulk of the system’s torture, which is done by foreigners under US patronage. Obama could stop backing foreign forces that torture, but he has chosen not to do so.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“Of course, it was the United States and Israel that had rejected diplomacy and the PLO that had been offering compromise for years, but Lewis’s reversal of the facts was quite normal and unchallenged in the mainstream.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
“driving the parties into the pockets of concentrated capital, increasingly financial: the Republicans reflexively, the Democrats—by now what used to be moderate Republicans—not far behind.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?
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