Noam Chomsky

When the Greek government suggested asking the people of Greece to express their opinions on their fate, the reaction of European elites was utter horror at the impudence. How can Greeks dare to regard democracy as a value to be respected in the country of its origin?

In many respects, the United States is a great country. Freedom of speech is protected more than in any other country. It is also a very free society. In America, the professor talks to the mechanic. They are in the same category.

At the deepest level, the media contribute to the sense that the government is the enemy, and they suppress the sources of real power in the society, which lie in the totalitarian institutions-the corporations, now international in scale -that control the economy and much of our social life.

The Creel [propaganda] Commission…succeeded, within six months, in turning a pacifist [U.S.] population into a hysterical, war-mongering population which wanted to destroy everything German, tear the Germans limb from limb, go to war and save the world.

An animating vision must rest on some conception of human nature, of what’s good for people, of their needs and rights, of the aspects of their nature that should be nurtured, encouraged and permitted to flourish for their benefit and that of others.

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.

No matter what you do – guns, no guns – it doesn’t matter. You have people that are mentally ill. And they’re gonna come through the cracks. And they’re going to do things that people will not even believe are possible.

The United States is not only the strongest, but also the most terrified country.

You can’t be in politics unless you can walk in a room and know in a minute who’s for you and who’s against you.

We have a tax-raising power in Scotland but not in English regions. I want genuine regional taxation powers [in England].

Discovery is the ability to be puzzled by simple things.

My personal position is that society must keep children safe.

I have a very positive attitude to anyone who is protecting the environment, but it’s inadmissible when people are using it as a means of promoting themselves, using it as a source of self-enrichment. I don’t want to name any specific examples… but often, environmentalism is used to blackmail companies.

We are well aware from which countries and through which countries the terrorists are receiving support. In the immediate future I shall be calling upon the leaders of these states to put a stop to this kind of activity.

Starting reforms in the Soviet Union was only possible from above, only from above. Any attempt to go from below was suppressed, suppressed in a most resolute way.

The political and social history of Western democracies records all sorts of efforts to ensure that the formal mechanisms are little more than wheels spinning idly. The goal is to eliminate public meddling in policy formation.

To those who oppose us, we say, ‘Strike the woman, and you strike the rock.’

We need to be very careful. Democracy is the issue, and democracy ought to be the means by which we decide these issues, rather than secret negotiations resulting in a fait accompli being presented to us.

Export in technical equipment is growing, which shows that some structural changes are going on in the economy. Export of agricultural produce, at 20 billion last year, was higher than defense exports, which were at 15 billion.

The key element of social control is the strategy of distraction that is to divert public attention from important issues and changes decided by political and economic elites, through the technique of flood or flooding continuous distractions and insignificant information.

Russia needs a strong state power and must have it. But I am not calling for totalitarianism.