Noam Chomsky

It’s ridiculous to talk about freedom in a society dominated by huge corporations. What kind of freedom is there inside a corporation? They’re totalitarian institutions – you take orders from above and maybe give them to people below you. There’s about as much freedom as under Stalinism.

There’s plenty to criticize about the mass media, but they are the source of regular information about a wide range of topics. You can’t duplicate that on blogs.

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.

George Orwell wrote that nationalists, who are practically the whole intellectual class of a country, not only do not disapprove of the crimes of their own state, but have the remarkable capacity not even to see them.

Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the [U.S.] media.

Thomas Jefferson, another great figure, he said, well, we have no choice but to exterminate the indigenous population, the Native Americans; the reason is they’re attacking us. Why are they attacking us? Because we’re taking everything away from them.

Do you remember the tsar? Well, I‘m like a tsar.

I am concerned for the security of our great Nation; not so much because of any treat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within.

I have a great relationship with Kim Jong Un. He gave us back our hostages. I didn’t pay $1.8 billion. I paid nothing. But it was very smart that he did it.

The growing economic potential of India and Russia is mutually complementary in many respects.

Let’s not talk about Communism. Communism was just an idea, just pie in the sky.

Protest actions and propaganda are two slightly different things.

Anarchism calls for an elimination to tyranny, all kinds of tyranny. Including the kind of tyranny that’s internal to private power concentrations. So why should we prefer it? Well I think because freedom is better than subordination. It’s better to be free than to be a slave.

In essence, they are sawing the branch on which they are sitting. This is counterproductive and damaging for those involved and for the global economy.

Divide the world into regional groups as a transitional stage to world government. Populations will more readily abandon their national loyalty to a vague regional loyalty than they will for a world authority. Later the regions can be brought together all the way into a single world dictatorship.

I think when you see an aircraft fire, these angry, black puffs of smoke, knowing that one of them could kill you that you – you – you understand the seriousness of the mission. And you understand your own mortality.

What we call intellectuals, they didn’t used to call them that, it’s a modern term. Historically, what you find is overwhelmingly this group is supportive of power. There’s usually a fringe of dissidents who are treated pretty badly.

There are growing domestic social and economic problems, in fact, maybe catastrophes. Nobody in power has any intention of doing anything about them. If you look at the domestic programs of the administrations of the past ten years-I include here the Democratic opposition-there’s really no serious proposal about what to do about the severe problems of health, education, homelessness, joblessness, crime, soaring criminal populations, jails, deterioration in the inner cities – the whole raft of problems… In such circumstances you’ve got to divert the bewildered herd, because if they start noticing this they may not like it, since they’re the ones suffering from it. Just having them watch the Superbowl and the sitcoms may not be enough. You have to whip them up into fear of enemies. In the 1930s Hitler whipped them into fear of the Jews and gypsies. You had to crush them to defend yourselves. We have our ways, too. Over the last ten years, every year ot two, some major monster is constructed that we have to defend ourselves against.,

Capitalists can buy themselves out of any crisis, so long as they make the workers pay

Most politicians would have gone to a meeting like the one Don jr attended in order to get info on an opponent. That’s politics!

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