Quotes by Social Critics - Page 14

Actually, Bush, technically speaking, is not really President-because he refused to take the Oath of Office. I don’t know how many of you noticed this, but the wording of the Oath of Office is written in the Constitution, so you can’t fool around with it-and Bush refused to read it. The Oath of Of­fice says something about, ”I promise to do this, that, and the other thing,” and Bush added the words, ”so help me God.” Well, that’s illegal: he’s not President, if anybody cares.
Noam Chomsky
I wonder how many such men in America would know that Communism, the New Deal, Fascism, Nazism, are merely so-many trade-names for collectivist Statism, like the trade-names for tooth-pastes which are all exactly alike except for the flavouring.
Albert Jay Nock
A murderer is a killer without a uniform.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
School forces unique individuals to think, act, and, look alike.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
My own concern is primarily the terror and violence carried out by my own state, for two reasons. For one thing, because it happens to be the larger component of international violence. But also for a much more important reason than that; namely, I can do something about it. So even if the U.S. was responsible for 2 percent of the violence in the world instead of the majority of it, it would be that 2 percent I would be primarily responsible for. And that is a simple ethical judgment. That is, the ethical value of one's actions depends on their anticipated and predictable consequences. It is very easy to denounce the atrocities of someone else. That has about as much ethical value as denouncing atrocities that took place in the 18th century.
Noam Chomsky
I ascribe to Mark Twain's theory that the last person who should be President is the one who wants it the most. The one who should be picked is the one who should be dragged kicking and screaming into the White House.
Bill Hicks
If being seen as worthy of employing is the best that school does for the schooled, then school is overrated.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Some kid asked what a dilemma is. And I replied: When a starving man has to choose between a plate of food, and, a roll of toilet paper.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Patriotism is the narcissism of countries.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Not everybody that says that you suck is a hater. There are people who suck.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
It is important to bear in mind that political campaigns are designed by the same people who sell toothpaste and cars.
Noam Chomsky
To increase the chances of a writer trying to kill themselves, cut off their hands.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The employed are punished by having to do what they do not love. The self-employed are punished by the opposite.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
To be enslaved then, you needed to be ignorant. To be enslaved today, you need to be knowledgeable.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Life among clones would not be worth living, and a sane person will only rejoice that others have abilities that they do not share. That should be elementary.
Noam Chomsky
Science gave us forensics. Law gave us crime.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Nothing humbles a beautiful woman better than not being wanted by a man whose girlfriend or wife is ugly (or not as beautiful as she is).
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
We all pay for life with death, so everything in between should be free.
Bill Hicks
Grandchildren are their grandparents' toys.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
An employee is sheep. His employer is the shepherd. His salary is grass.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
A ‘normal person’ is what is left after society has squeezed out all unconventional opinions and aspirations out of a human being.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The media made the masses to find not-so-skinny women appear not-so-beautiful … in the eyes of the remote holder.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
We are sometimes hurt mostly or only not by what happened or is happening to us but by being felt sorry for.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
If history really forever repeats itself: then, it has always been then.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The average adult hates being treated like a child, unless it suits them.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Courtship is an activity whereby one losses oneself … whilst trying to win someone’s love.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Another problem with the official definitions of terror is that it follows from them that the US is a leading terrorist state.
Noam Chomsky
The rich are poor without the poor's acknowledgment of money.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The United States is extremely lucky that no honest, charismatic figure has arisen. Every charismatic figure is such an obvious crook that he destroys himself, like McCarthy or Nixon or the evangelist preachers. If somebody comes along who is charismatic and honest this country is in real trouble because of the frustration, disillusionment, the justified anger and the absence of any coherent response. [Chomsky in an interview with Chris Hedges in 2010]
Chomsky Noam
The religious worry about life after death at the expense of life before death.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
To lose weight, spend time at the gym. To appear like you’ve lost weight, spend time with people who are bigger than you.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
We would not be ashamed of doing some of the things we do in private, if the number of sane human beings who do them in public were large enough.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Technically, all tattoos are temporary, even permanent ones.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Here is my final point. About drugs, about alcohol, about pornography and smoking and everything else. What business is it of yours what I do, read, buy, see, say, think, who I fuck, what I take into my body - as long as I do not harm another human being on this planet?
Bill Hicks
The European reaction to Obama is a European delusion.
Noam Chomsky
A model is an actor without a voice.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
When reading a book, you are sold what some writer thought. When reading a newspaper, you are sold what someone did, and, what some advertiser made.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Technically, you cannot really own a book you bought; you can only own the sheets of paper your copy is printed on; unless, of course, you are the book’s publisher.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The social system is taking on a form in which finding out what you want to do is less and less of an option because your life is too structured, organised, controlled and disciplined.
Noam Chomsky
The answer to the question ‘How many children do you have?’ and the one to the question ‘How many children are you raising?’ are not identical in all cases: some men are not taking care of their own children, some are knowingly or unknowingly raising other men’s children, and some do not even know that they each have a child, another child, or other children.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Literacy makes man a victim of advertising. Education makes him a victim of employment.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Corporations barely pay taxes. The corporate tax rate is already very low, but corporations have worked out an array of complicated techniques so they often don't have to pay taxes at all... The scale of sheer robbery by corporate power is enormous.
Noam Chomsky
The fact that you have just buried your parent or parents and/or sibling or siblings does not make you less likely to die today.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Most people believe most of the things they believe only because they believe that most people believe them.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
People who complain about something that they cannot do anything about are as irritating as those who complain about something that they can do something about.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
12% of dreams create jobs. 88% of jobs destroy dreams.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
I was never aware of any other option but to question everything.
Noam Chomsky
Some people are so sexually unattractive that the thought of masturbating turns them off.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Some people love but will never marry each other. Some are married to but have never loved and will never love each other.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Most people can’t stand spending a few minutes by themself. Yet they expect others to spend an hour, a day, or, even a lifetime, with them.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
If you live in New York, even if you're Catholic, you're Jewish
Lenny Bruce
Some women’s greatest achievement is sleeping with a man who is rich, famous, and/or wanted by many women, whereas some women’s greatest achievement is refusing to sleep with such a man.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Chances are that whatever that you are worried about—be it a person or a thing—isn’t worried about you.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
They Want You To Be A Docile Apathetic Consumer
Bill Hicks
In the Bible, a woman was made from a man. In real life, a man is made from a woman.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
To most Americans, a dog is a potential mate. To some Chinese, a dog is potential meat.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Without doing one cannot fail. But one cannot succeed either.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Every artist takes their final work to the grave.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Many marriages would have been laid to rest a long time ago, if they were not on a life-support machine called other people’s opinions and/or expectations.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Without the presence of black people in America, European-Americans would not be "white"-- they would be Irish, Italians, Poles, Welsh, and other engaged in class, ethnic, and gender struggles over resources and identity. (p. 107-108)
Cornel West