Noam Chomsky

Exaggerating slightly, in totalitarian countries the state decides the official line and everyone must then comply. Democratic societies operate differently. The line is never presented as such, merely implied. This involves brainwashing people who are still at liberty.

Science is a bit like the joke about the drunk who is looking under a lamppost for a key that he has lost on the other side of the street, because that’s where the light is. It has no other choice.

French intellectual life has, in my opinion, been turned into something cheap and meretricious by the ‘star’ system. It is like Hollywood. Thus we go from one absurdity to another – Stalinism, existentialism. Lacan, Derrida – some of them obscene ( Stalinism), some simply infantile and ridiculous ( Lacan, Derrida). What is striking, however, is the pomposity and self-importance, at each stage.

Debate cannot be stilled, and indeed, in a properly functioning system of propaganda, it should not be, because it has a system-reinforcing character if constrained within proper bounds. What is essential is to set the bounds firmly.

[Republicans] have turned to mobilizing sectors of the population that have always been there, but not as an organized coalitional political force: evangelicals, nativists, racists and the victims of the forms of globalization…Every candidate that has emerged from the base — such as [Michele] Bachmann, [Herman] Cain or [Rick] Santorum — has been so extreme that the Republican establishment had to use its ample resources to beat them down. The difference in 2016 is that the establishment failed, much to its chagrin, as we have seen..

[Marx’s] picture was, as I understand it, that when working people liberate themselves, and can make their own decisions, they will determine what kind of society it will be. He is not going to dictate it to them. I think that’s a pretty wise stand frankly.

A reporter’s ability to keep the bond of confidentiality often enables him to learn the hidden or secret aspects of government.

I wouldn’t have the Presidency or any political office-don’t want anything to do with it nor have politics have anything to do with me.

If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged.

Labour has the responsibility to give a lead where the government will not. We need to bring people together, hold the government to account, oppose austerity and set out a path to exit that will protect jobs and incomes.

Why, Sir, most schemes of political improvement are very laughable things.

I would rather take a political risk in pursuit of peace than to risk peace in pursuit of politics.

The media may feel obligated to carry extremely dubious stories and mute criticism in order not to offend their sources and disturb a close relationship. It is very difficult to call authorities on whom one depends for daily news liars, even if they tell whoppers.

The Comrade Wolf knows whom to eat, as the saying goes. It knows whom to eat and is not about to listen to anyone, it seems.

Well take, say a corporate executive By law, a corporate executive must work to increase the profitability of the corporation. Disregarding the effects that it has on others. That’s actually a legal principle and that’s psychopathic.

When the interests of the privileged and powerful are the guiding commitment of both political factions, people who do not share these interests tend to stay home.

Those who fight corruption should be clean themselves.

Ultimately it’s a question of whether democracy is going to be allowed to exist, and to what extent. And it’s entirely natural that the business world, along with the state, which they largely dominate, would want to limit democracy. It threatens them.

There must be, not a balance of power, but a community of power; not organized rivalries, but an organized common peace.

If inflation continues to soar, you’re going to have to work like a dog just to live like one.

Indeed, Russia and the U.S. were allies during the two tragic conflicts of the Second and the First World Wars, which allows us to think there’s something objectively bringing us together in difficult times, and I think – I believe – it has to do with geopolitical interests and also has a moral component.