Noam Chomsky

The House Armed Services Committee a couple of years ago described the role of Congress as that of a sometimes querulous but essentially kindly uncle who complains while furiously puffing on his pipe but who finally, as everyone expects, gives in and hands over the allowance.

The educational system was a highly predictable victim of the neoliberal reaction, guided by the maxim of ‘private affluence and public squalor’. Funding for public education has sharply declined. Tuition has exploded, leading to a plague of unpayable student debt.

So the growth of corporate propaganda in the United States more or less parallels the growth of democracy, for quite straightforward reasons. It’s not any kind of secret. It is discussed very frankly and openly in business literature and academic social-science journals.

For the Leninist, the masses must be strictly disciplined, while the socialist will struggle to achieve a social order in which discipline “will become superfluous” as the freely associated producers “work for their own accord” (Marx).

Anarchists try to identify power structures. They urge those exercising power to justify themselves. This justification does not succeed most of the time.

Concentration of wealth yields concentration of political power. And concentration of political power gives rise to legislation that increases and accelerates the cycle.

It’s a time for the unconventional. I’m not a traditional thinker. I’m a non-conformist. So [Trump’s victory] relates to the non-conformist part of me.

As a marketing society, the US is to an unusual degree based on propaganda. The public relations industry, which is a huge industry, is a US-invented industry which spends billions of dollars on what they call ‘controlling the public mind’.

From the beginning, we failed to overcome Europe’s division. The Berlin Wall fell, but invisible walls were moved to the East of Europe. This has led to mutual misunderstandings and assignments of guilt. They are the cause of all crises ever since.

Bike is the most democratic transport vehicle. Bike is the most daring, challenging as it gives its owner the tempting feeling of freedom, that is why one can say without any exaggeration, bike is a symbol of freedom.

The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.

When the States already had nuclear weapons, and the Soviet Union was only building them, we got a significant amount of information through Soviet foreign intelligence channels.

You in Lebanon, your power is no match to Israel. Israel, militarily, is more powerful than you and maybe it is more powerful than all the Arab countries, or most of them.

I’ve been in the Labour Party all my life. I am a socialist. I am determined to see a fairer and more equal society.

Under the worst conditions, horrendous conditions, people still, you know, fight for their rights and don’t just succumb.

Sometimes – history needs a push.

So investors don’t go down to the television studio and make sure that the local talk show host or news director is doing what they want. On the other hand, there are other complex mechanisms which make it fairly certain that they will do what the owners and investors want.

We have more people than ever using foodbanks, we have a greater number of people being homeless and many people in housing stress.

Based on our preliminary calculations, we may in the next six years spend 17 trillion roubles (Putin said billion, but meant trillion), but to achieve the goals that we have discussed, we will need an additional 8 trillion roubles. And it is clear where we are going to find them.

Chechnya is part and parcel of the Russian Federation.

I am not one who – who flamboyantly believes in throwing a lot of words around.