Noam Chomsky

The New York Times, reported in 2009, that the Obama administration had made a secret deal with the pharmaceutical industry in which it promised not to allow the government to use its purchasing power to negotiate drug prices, as is done in every other country…

Since Jimmy Carter, religious fundamentalists play a major role in elections. He was the first president who made a point of exhibiting himself as a born again Christian. That sparked a little light in the minds of political campaign managers: Pretend to be a religious fanatic and you can pick up a third of the vote right away. Nobody asked whether Lyndon Johnson went to church every day. Bill Clinton is probably about as religious as I am, meaning zero, but his managers made a point of making sure that every Sunday morning he was in the Baptist church singing hymns.

The rest of the world may associate May 1 with the struggle of American workers for basic rights…The U.S. calendar has a Labor Day, in September, celebrating the return to work after a vacation that is far briefer than in other industrial countries.

In fact, Nazi war criminals who were charged were able to escape prosecution when they could show that the Americans and the British did the same thing they did.

I would question the use of something as simplistic as IQ to come to any conclusions regarding human affairs.

In some intellectual circles, it is considered naive or foolish to be guided by moral principles. About this form of idiocy, I will have nothing to say.

My wife is Mexican and my constituency is very, very multicultural.

[Governments are] …without exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society.

While Trump’s antics occupy the attention of the media, his associates in Congress have been working intensively to advance the interests of their actual constituency-extreme wealth and corporate power-while dismantling what is of value to the general population andfuture generations.

This notion of being “anti-American” is quite an interesting one-it’s actually a totalitarian notion-it isn’t used in free societies…as far as I know, we are the only democratic society where the concept isn’t just ridiculed.

Nations do not think, they only feel. They get their feelings at second hand through their temperaments, not their brains. A nation can be brought – by force of circumstances, not argument – to reconcile itself to any kind of government or religion that can be devised; in time it will fit itself to the required conditions; later it will prefer them and will fiercely fight for them.

I love to go to Washington, if only to be nearer my money.

A very, in a sense, terrifying aspect of our society, and other societies, is the equanimity and the detachment with which sane, reasonable, sensible people can observe [war]. I think that’s more terrifying than the occasional Hitler or LeMay or other that crops up. These people would not be able to operate were it not for this apathy and equanimity…and therefore I think that it’s, in some sense, the sane and reasonable and tolerant people who share a very serious burden of guilt that they very easily throw on the shoulders of others who seem more extreme and violent.

When I’ve talked about the idea of being President, I’m not saying I have any political views, I don’t have views on politics, I just have a view on humanity. On people. On the truth.

Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization.

Russia does not want confrontation of any kind. And we will not take part in any kind of ‘holy alliance.’

The only reason I don’t use the word class is that the terminology of political discourse is so debased it’s hard to find any words at all. That’s part of the point — to make it impossible to talk.

I hate diversity workshops. Real change comes from having enough comfort to be really honest and say something very uncomfortable.

Quite apart from the superpower confrontation, the US was committed to restoring the traditional conservative order. To achieve this aim, it was necessary to destroy the anti-fascist resistance, often in favor of Nazi and fascist collaborators, to weaken…popular organizations.

The unjustified swelling of the budgetary deficit and the accumulation of public debts are just as destructive as adventurous stock-jobbing.

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.