Noam Chomsky Quotes

Popular movements respond to the ups and downs of the headlines, to some extent

What makes a movement work are thousands of parts that come together and express itself in favor of a given destination or objective. You have to find men and women who are willing to play the role that each of these things demand.

I'm an organizer at heart. Organizers know that giving information, being in front of people, talking to people, to build our movement for the kind of country that we see is the most important thing.

I have a feeling that demonstrations don't accomplish anything. That they become fads. I also feel that demonstrations wouldn't go on unless there is a TV camera. That part of it all is performance for the media. I didn't know whether they are completely honest.

I don't see myself as an activist. I understand that people, with me doing 'Satyameva Jayate,' for example, they will feel that I'm being an activist, but I'm not. Actually, I'm not, because I think an activist, as I see it, as a person who is very, very - takes up one issue and remains with that one issue for his entire life. I'm not doing that.

Civil disobedience's main goal typically is to try to arouse and inspire others to join and do something. Well, sometimes that is a good tactic, sometimes not.

It's very important that people who are feeling the need to do something... get activated.

I think there's a weapon of cynicism to say, 'Protest doesn't work. Organizing doesn't work. Y'all are a bunch of hippies. You know, it doesn't do anything,' because, frankly, it's said out of fear, because it is a potent force for political change.

My presence is to instigate and incite the people for any change they want, and for not having a change that they don't wish to do.

The job of the organizer is to maneuver and bait the establishment so that it will publicly attack him as a 'dangerous enemy.'

Public service and community organizing and movement building is such a part of my DNA that it's really hard to separate it.

In 2013, I helped create a black-centered political will- and movement-building project called #BlackLivesMatter.

I don't even know what a hashtag is. You don't turn a hashtag into a movement - people turn things into a movement.

With any minority group, it takes a strong presence in the public eye to make a change because everything nowadays is social media.

I have my chops in organizing, and I know how to create political space through movement building.

You don't need role models to be part of a social movement as long as you care about the issues.

Til I was about eight or nine, I had no awareness he was anybody special. Since all our friends were in the movement, I thought what Daddy did was natural. Everybody went to jail, right? Then, one day some kids at school called my daddy a jailbird, and it upset me. That was the beginning of my awareness.

Whether you want to do a letter-writing campaign or a march or start a social media hashtag - whatever it is - know that there are people out there that are thinking exactly like you're thinking and are also afraid to take that next and very important step.

Hollywood has a long, storied and often problematic history of political protest movements.

I was working as a volunteer in a village, 25 km. from Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, in 2012 when India Against Corruption movement started. I had realized that change needs to come from top downward, so I decided to join the movement as a volunteer and started policy research for the same.

Yes, the Obama administration has and will continue to use Hollywood and the entertainment industry to push its agenda.

I was waiting for the world to change. I'm no longer waiting; I'm part of that movement. I think our role as performers and entertainers is so much bigger.

With Black Lives Matter, we knew from the very beginning that it wasn't just going to live online. We were like, 'We're creating this thing and then it's also going to live with black folks on the street and protests and organizations.' It was very important for us to use the hashtag as a way to have a larger conversation and as an organizing tool.

I'd rather go after the people who are the guardians or what we're doing - the news people and the politicians and that sort of thing. I always feel like those should be my targets, not really entertainers. That's just my personal opinion.

Especially in the sphere of social activism, I think we tend to unwittingly conceptualize progress or revolution as black and white and having a clear beginning and end.