Noam Chomsky

Reparations – not just aid – should be provided by those responsible for devastating Iraqi civilian society by cruel sanctions and military actions, and – together with other criminal states – for supporting Saddam Hussein through his worst atrocities and beyond. That is the minimum that honesty requires.

You could imagine that a democratic society would have an organization that carries out intelligence gathering functions. But that’s a very minor part of what the CIA does.

It’s very important for institutions of concentrated power to keep people alone and isolated: that way they’re ineffective, they can’t defend themselves against indoctrination, they can’t even figure out what they think.

If we choose, we can live in a world of comforting illusion.

An educational system should cultivate from kindergarten to graduate school, and in the best cases sometimes does, and that leads to people who are, at least by my standards, well educated.?

…there is definitely a sector of the population that considers themselves threatened by big forces, ranging from the Federal Reserve to the Council on Foreign Relations to big government to who knows what and are calling for guns to protect themselves.

Now if you can’t pay back a loan to me, I don’t say that your neighbors have to pay it back. But that’s what the IMF says. The IMF says the people of the country have to pay back the debt which they had nothing to do with, it was usually given to dictators, or rich elites…

The dynamic of revolutionary events is directly determined by swift, intense, and passionate changes in the psychology of classes which have already formed themselves before the revolution.

I think the cost of energy will come down when we make this transition to renewable energy.

Gaiety is the most outstanding feature of the Soviet Union.

Much more likely, I think, is that [Ryan] decided to leave Congress because he had achieved his long-standing goals, particularly with the ‘Donor Relief Act of 2017’ and the deficit cuts that open the way to sharp reduction of entitlements: health, social security, pensions.

The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would … assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.

All of it was invented by people who oppose President Trump to undermine his legitimacy.- Vladimir Putin

The new nationality law declares Israel to be the nation-state of the Jewish people, downgrades the status of Arabic and formally authorizes Jewish-only communities….What is new is primarily the elevation of these racist principles to the Basic Law – constitutional status.

[on Jeremy Cobyn] It is a different type of Labour Party. Can it be taken back? I don’t know

[on the 2016 election] In light of this last election, I’m concerned about us as women and how we think. What is going on in our heads where we let that happen, you know?

Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so.

Much research, including a widely quoted Rand Corporation study of 1994, has shown that prevention and treatment are considerably more cost-effective than the coercive [drug war] measures that receive the bulk of funding. Such nonpunitive measures are also of course far more humane.

An IMF study that investigated the profits of American banks…found that they were almost entirely dependent on implicit public subsidies. There’s a kind of a guarantee – it’s not on paper, but it’s an implicit guarantee – that if they get into trouble they will be bailed out.

Indeed, Russia and the U.S. were allies during the two tragic conflicts of the Second and the First World Wars, which allows us to think there’s something objectively bringing us together in difficult times, and I think – I believe – it has to do with geopolitical interests and also has a moral component.

So the indigenous population of what’s now the United States was ‘exterminated’, to use the word that the founding fathers used. Not totally, but that was what was considered the right thing to do. They replaced them and it became a kind of settler state, not an imperial state.