Noam Chomsky

We don’t say that three-year-olds are lying if they say they saw a dragon outside, or an actor in a play. It’s also not clear that it’s tactically useful to tot up the random falsehoods that pepper [Trump’s] tweets and orations.

This Sarah Palin phenomenon is very curious. I think somebody watching us from Mars – they would think the country has gone insane.

I think that the centralisation of access to information through the few major corporations that by now virtually monopolise information transmission, like Facebook, Google, Amazon, is extremely dangerous.

In fact, the belief that neurophysiology is even relevant to the functioning of the mind is just hypothesis. Who knows if we’re looking at the right aspects of the brain at all. Maybe there are other aspects of the brain that nobody has even dreamt of looking at yet. That’s often happened in the history of science. When people say that the mental is the neurophysiological at a higher level, they’re being radically unscientific. We know a lot about the mental from a scientific point of view. We have explanatory theories that account for a lot of things. The belief that neurophysiology is implicated in these things could be true, but we have every little evidence for it. So, it’s just a kind of hope; look around and you see neurons; maybe they’re implicated.

In fact, in my view, if the managers of the propaganda system were more intelligent, they would allow more leeway to real dissidents and critics. Because it still wouldn’t make much of a difference, given the overwhelming weight of propaganda on the other side…

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.

What is going on right now, it is unacceptable, it is wrong. However, it must be admitted that it is the result of inaccurate regulation, that was brought in recently in the sphere of energy, in energy resources.

Don’t just get involved. Fight for your seat at the table. Better yet, fight for a seat at the head of the table.

When Lebanon started its resistance it was a small and divided country.

The commentators of 1963 speak, in discussing Africa, of the Monrovia States, the Brazzaville Group, the Casablanca Powers, of these and many more. Let us put an end to these terms. What we require is a single African organisation through which Africa’s single voice may be heard, within which Africa’s problems may be studied and resolved.

I am a Communist, a convinced Communist! For some that may be a fantasy. But to me it is my main goal.

Nowadays wars are not declared. They simply start.

Quantity has a quality all its own.

The option preferred by the privileged is for the fate of everyone else to be in the hands of insurance company executives whose goal, as Milton Friedman can explain, is to ensure maximum profit and market share: meaning the worst possible health care.

Exaggerating slightly, in totalitarian countries the state decides the official line and everyone must then comply. Democratic societies operate differently. The line is never presented as such, merely implied. This involves brainwashing people who are still at liberty.

I believe that President Trump of the United States does not need any advice because one has to possess certain talent and go through this trial to be elected, even without having the experience of such big administrative work. He has done this.

The fate of the minimum wage illustrates what has been happening. Through the periods of high and egalitarian growth in the ‘50s and ‘60s, the minimum wage-which sets a floor for other wages-tracked productivity. That ended with the onset of neoliberal doctrine. Since then, the minimum wage has stagnated (in real value). Had it continued as before, it would probably be close to $20 per hour. Today, it is considered a political revolution to raise it to $15.

Defending rights against the encroachments of the government saves the common liberties of the country.

The Comrade Wolf knows whom to eat, as the saying goes. It knows whom to eat and is not about to listen to anyone, it seems.

If you do politics the right way, I believe, you can actually make people’s lives better. And integrity is the minimum ante to get into the game.

Like all advanced societies, the U.S. has relied on state intervention in the economy from its origins, though for ideological reasons, the fact is commonly denied.