"After the first International Days of Protest in October, 1965, Senator Mansfield criticized the "sense of utter irresponsibility" shown by the demonstrators. He had nothing to say then, nor has he since, about the "sense of utter irresponsibility" shown by Senator Mansfield and others who stand by quietly and vote appropriations as the cities and villages of North Vietnam are demolished, as millions of refugees in the South are driven from their homes by American bombardment. He has nothing to say about the moral standards or the respect for international law of those who have permitted this tragedy. I speak of Senator Mansfield precisely because he is not a breast-beating superpatriot who wants America to rule the world, but is rather an American intellectual in the best sense, a scholarly and reasonable man -- the kind of man who is the terror of our age. Perhaps this is merely a personal reaction, but when I look at what is happening to our country, what I find most terrifying is not Curtis LeMay, with his cheerful suggestion that we bomb everybody back into the stone age, but rather the calm disquisitions of the political scientists on just how much force will be necessary to achieve our ends, or just what form of government will be acceptable to us in Vietnam. What I find terrifying is the detachment and equanimity with which we view and discuss an unbearable tragedy. We all know that if Russia or China were guilty of what we have done in Vietnam, we would be exploding with moral indignation at these monstrous crimes."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Academics from the United StatesHistorians from the United StatesJews from the United StatesLinguists from the United StatesSocial anarchists
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
"On Resistance", The New York Review of Books, December 7, 1967.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Noam Chomsky
philosopher, linguist, political writer
1928 · United States
US-amerikanischer Sprachwissenschaftler und Autor
467 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Noam Chomsky →
Related Quotes
"In the post-Vietnam War era the need for Communist abuses has been no less pressing than before. More facts have come…"
"Among the many symbols used to frighten and manipulate the populace of the democratic states, few have been more impo…"
"And it’s gone on for the United States. We have measures of it. I’m sure you know that the Rand Corporation about a y…"
"The U.S.'s privatized for-profit health care system had long been an international scandal, with twice the per capita…"
"It is tempting to cast the blame on Trump for the disastrous response to the crisis. But if we hope to avert future c…"
"In the West, I think a large part of what’s happening, a very large part, is the bitter, savage, class war that’s bee…"
"The scale of the plague is surprising, indeed shocking, but not its appearance. Nor the fact that the U.S. has the wo…"
"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all."
"I use Google all the time, I’m happy it’s there. But just as when I read The New York Times or the Washington Post, o…"
"The Native population (in the US) suffered a migrant crisis of an incredible kind ... where the immigrants come in wi…"