Noam Chomsky

It’s only terrorism if they do it to us. When we do much worse to them, it’s not terrorism.

As the United States geared up to overthrow the Mossadeq government, his media image deteriorated and he was routinely condemned as a dictator. The Shah, however, was virtually never described in such terms as long as his power held.

The United States was seriously defeated in Iraq by Iraqi nationalism – mostly by nonviolent resistance. The United States could kill the insurgents, but they couldn’t deal with half a million people demonstrating in the streets.

Controversy may rage as long as it adheres to the presuppositions that define the consensus of elites, and it should furthermore be encouraged within these bounds…while reinforcing the belief that freedom reigns.

The documents of Japanese fascists are just overflowing with loving kindness…when they were carrying out huge massacres in China they were bringing an “earthly paradise” to China and protecting the people from the ‘bandits’ who were trying to undermine it and so on and so forth.

The internet could be a very positive step towards education, organisation and participation in a meaningful society.

In the history of modern socialism this is a phenomenon, that the strife of the various trends within the socialist movement has from national become international.

Poor and suffering people do not have the luxury of indulging in fairy tales. Not uncommonly, their own experience gives them a grasp of realities that are well concealed by the intellectual culture.

As important as it is to change the lightbulbs, it is more important to change the laws.

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

There are all the activist groups on every imaginable topic – solidarity groups, environmental and feminist groups – sectors of these movements do very valuable work.

It is a waste of time and a pointless pursuit to speak truth to Henry Kissinger, or the CEO of General Motors, or others who exercise power in coercive institutions — truths that they already know well enough, for the most part.

Labour Party members must all be free to criticise and oppose injustice and abuse wherever we find it.

In many countries today, moral and ethical norms are being reconsidered; national traditions, differences in nation and culture are being erased.

Imagine a country that flies into space, launches Sputniks, creates such a defense system, and it can’t resolve the problem of women’s pantyhose. There’s no toothpaste, no soap powder, not the basic necessities of life. It was incredible and humiliating to work in such a government.

Legal aid is fundamentally important in a democratic, civilised society.

So the fear of drugs and the fear of crime is very much stimulated by state and business propaganda. The National Justice Commission repeatedly points out that crime in the United States, while sort of high, is not off the spectrum for industrialized societies.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.

But that [‘friendly Fascism’] requires an honest ideologue, a Hitler type, not someone whose only detectable ideology is Me.

[on Donald Trump] seems determined to add to the dangers [in the global situation] by recklessly escalating the confrontation with North Korea, unilaterally launching missile strikes on Syria, opposing President Obama’s nuclear arms deal with Iran and backing a new nuclear arms race.

…social spending may well arouse public interest and participation, thus enhancing the threat of democracy; the public cares about hospitals, roads, neighborhoods, and so on, but has no opinion about the choice of missiles and high-tech fighter planes.