Noam Chomsky

…the media serve the interests of state and corporate power, which are closely interlinked, framing their reporting and analysis in a manner supportive of established privilege and limiting debate and discussion accordingly.

Already under Obama, the nuclear modernization programs had reached the level where they were posing a literal first-strike threat to Russia. Trump is escalating it, even more modernization of extremely dangerous forces, also significantly lowering the threshold for nuclear war.

If there was an observer on Mars, they would probably be amazed that we have survived this long.

Like, say I can choose to buy a Toyota or a Chevrolet, but I can’t choose in a market system to get a subway system, that is a collective action. Market systems don’t allow that. So it has an enormous distorting effect on the choices that are available.

So the idea that Europe should exploit Africa for Europe’s reconstruction passed without comment. This is just deeply imbedded in the consciousness of what’s sometimes called white supremacy which is an extraordinary doctrine.

It’s the first time in American history that a candidate [Sanders] probably could have won, if it hadn’t been for party managers who kept him out, with no funding from the corporate sector, and no funding from the wealthy, and no media support.

Education is a system of imposed ignorance.

Lincoln said you cannot be President without spending some item on your knees. I have repeated that and a bunch of Atheists got all over me. Wait a minute. Does that mean that you cannot be President if you are an Atheist? I say yea that does mean that.

Political activities in Russia should be as transparent as possible. Financing political activities from abroad is something the state should keep an eye on.

My wife is Mexican and my constituency is very, very multicultural.

If you assume that there is no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, that there are opportunities to change things, then there is a possibility that you can contribute to making a better world.

I believe Mrs. Thatcher’s emphasis on enterprise was right.

No one can match America. We have big hearts-and the courage to do what’s right. But we’re not the world’s policemen. And if we have to take on that role, we need to send a clear message that protection comes at a price. If other countries benefit from our armed forces protecting them, those countries should cover the costs. Period.

We don’t say that three-year-olds are lying if they say they saw a dragon outside, or an actor in a play. It’s also not clear that it’s tactically useful to tot up the random falsehoods that pepper [Trump’s] tweets and orations.

All attempts to appease the Nazis between 1934 and 1939 through various agreements and pacts were morally unacceptable and politically senseless, harmful and dangerous.

What I won’t do is take in two hundred thousand Syrians who could be ISIS… I have been watching this migration. And I see the people. I mean, they’re men. They’re mostly men, and they’re strong men. These are physically young, strong men. They look like prime-time soldiers. Now it’s probably not true, but where are the women?… So, you ask two things. Number one, why aren’t they fighting for their country? And number two, I don’t want these people coming over here.

My guess is that you would find that the intellectual elite is the most heavily indoctrinated sector [of society], for good reasons. It’s their role as a secular priesthood to really believe the nonsense that they put forth. Other people can repeat it, but it’s not that crucial that they really believe it. But for the intellectual elite themselves, it’s crucial that they believe it because, after all, they are the guardians of the faith. Except for a very rare person who’s an outright liar, it’s hard to be a convincing exponent of the faith unless you’ve internalized it and come to believe it.

No one should be held back from realising their potential by fears that they will not be able to afford to go to university or that they will graduate with unmanageable levels of debt.

[Overseas] we build a school, we build a road, they blow up the school, we build another school, we build another road, they blow them up, we build again. In the meantime we can’t get a f**king school in Brooklyn.

The Best Way to teach your kids about taxes is by eating 30% of their ice cream!

Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization.