Noam Chomsky

In Nixon’s administration, you get the consumer safety legislation (CPSC), safety and health regulations in the workplace (OSHA) and the EPA – the Environmental Protection Agency. Business didn’t like it, of course – they didn’t like the higher taxes, didn’t like the regulation.

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

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

The official mission of NATO was changed to become to be-to control and safeguard the global energy system, sea lanes, pipelines and so on. And, of course, on the side, it’s acting as an intervention force for the United States.

I was never aware of any other option but to question everything.

The ‘corporatization of America’ during the past century [has been] an attack on democracy.

You can find things in the traditional religions which are very benign and decent and wonderful and so on, but I mean, the Bible is probably the most genocidal book in the literary canon. The God of the Bible – not only did He order His chosen people to carry out literal genocide – I mean, wipe out every Amalekite to the last man, woman, child, and, you know, donkey and so on, because hundreds of years ago they got in your way when you were trying to cross the desert – not only did He do things like that, but, after all, the God of the Bible was ready to destroy every living creature on earth because some humans irritated Him. That’s the story of Noah. I mean, that’s beyond genocide – you don’t know how to describe this creature. Somebody offended Him, and He was going to destroy every living being on earth? And then He was talked into allowing two of each species to stay alive – that’s supposed to be gentle and wonderful.

You cannot reform your society or institution without opening your mind.

The ‘corporatization of America’ during the past century [has been] an attack on democracy.

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.

Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born.

Protest actions and propaganda are two slightly different things.

Oh my goodness gracious, what you can buy off the Internet in terms of overhead photography. A trained ape can know an awful lot of what is going on in this world, just by punching on his mouse, for a relatively modest cost.

The soviet people want full-blooded and unconditional democracy.

First rule of politics: you can’t win unless you’re on the ballot. Second rule: If you run, you may lose. And, if you tie, you do not win.

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.

In sum, neoliberalism is the immediate and foremost enemy of genuine participatory democracy, not just in the United States but across the planet, and will be for the foreseeable future.

Trump himself seems to be having the time of his life. He’s constantly in the limelight, his loyal base worships his every move, he’s free to defy convention, to insult anyone he chooses, to disrupt the international economic and political order at will…

How does it become a man to behave towards the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.

The international monetary fund recently [2014] did a study in which it concluded that virtually the entire profit of the big banks comes from the government insurance policy.

Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.