Optimism over Despair Quotes

“We have two choices. We can be pessimistic, give up, and help ensure that the worst will happen. Or we can be optimistic, grasp the opportunities that surely exist, and maybe help make the world a better place. Not much of a choice.”
― Noam Chomsky, Optimism over Despair: On Capitalism, Empire, and Social Change

“Tenemos dos opciones. Podemos ser pesimistas, abandonar y contribuir a que ocurra lo peor sin vuelta atrás. O ser optimistas, atrapar las oportunidades que sin duda existen y contribuir, tal vez, a que el mundo sea un lugar mejor. No es una elección demasiado difícil.”
― Noam Chomsky, Optimismo contra el desaliento: Sobre el capitalismo, el imperio y el cambio social

“issues and focus on personalities, rhetorical style, body language, and the like. And there are good reasons. Party managers read polls and are well aware that on a host of major issues, both parties are well to the right of the population—not surprisingly; they are, after all, business parties. Polls show that a large majority of voters object, but those are the only choices offered to them in the business-managed electoral system, in which the most heavily funded candidate almost always wins.”
― Noam Chomsky, Optimism over Despair: On Capitalism, Empire, and Social Change

“It is rather striking to observe that the policies that the rich and powerful adopt for themselves are the precise opposite of those they dictate to the weak and poor.”
― Noam Chomsky, Optimism over Despair: On Capitalism, Empire, and Social Change

“The business classes, which largely run the country, are highly class conscious. It is not a distortion to describe them as vulgar Marxists, with values and commitments reversed.”
― Noam Chomsky, Optimism over Despair: On Capitalism, Empire, and Social Change

“That is the central component of the “war on terror.” It was certain to stimulate terror, just as the invasion of Iraq did, and as resort to force does quite generally. Force can succeed. The existence of the United States is one illustration. The Russians in Chechnya is another. But it has to be overwhelming, and there are probably too many tentacles to wipe out the terrorist monster that was largely created by Reagan and his associates, since nurtured by others. ISIS is the latest one, and a far more brutal organization than al-Qaeda. It is also different in the sense that it has territorial claims. It can be wiped out through massive employment of troops on the ground, but that won’t end the emergence of similar-minded organizations. Violence begets violence.”
― Noam Chomsky, Optimism over Despair: On Capitalism, Empire, and Social Change

“The historical roots of these differences between Europe and the United States are familiar. Centuries of conflict imposed a nation-state system in Europe, and the experience of World War II convinced Europeans that they must abandon their traditional sport of slaughtering one another,”
― Noam Chomsky, Optimism over Despair: On Capitalism, Empire, and Social Change

“The main funders—primarily China, Japan, oil producers—might decide to shift their funds elsewhere for higher profits. But there are few signs of such developments, and they are not too likely. The funders have a considerable stake in sustaining the US economy for their own exports. There is no way to make confident predictions, but it seems clear that the entire world is in a tenuous situation, to say the least.”
― Noam Chomsky, Optimism over Despair: On Capitalism, Empire, and Social Change

“The breakdown is not caused by economic laws. They are policies, a kind of class war initiated by the rich and powerful against the working population and the poor.”
― Noam Chomsky, Optimism over Despair: On Capitalism, Empire, and Social Change

“an age of unparalleled economic inequality, growing authoritarianism, and social Darwinism, with a left that has turned its back on the class struggle.”
― Noam Chomsky, Optimism over Despair: On Capitalism, Empire, and Social Change

“No podemos evitar abordar cuestiones complejas y controvertidas —especialmente cuando son significativas desde el punto de vista humano— con un punto de vista definido, con intereses personales, si se quiere, y estos intereses tienen que ser evidentes, de manera que aquellos a los que nos dirigimos puedan entender de dónde venimos en nuestras opciones e interpretaciones de los hechos de la historia.”
― Noam Chomsky, Optimismo contra el desaliento: Sobre el capitalismo, el imperio y el cambio social