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.

Since Jimmy Carter, religious fundamentalists play a major role in elections. He was the first president who made a point of exhibiting himself as a born again Christian. That sparked a little light in the minds of political campaign managers: Pretend to be a religious fanatic and you can pick up a third of the vote right away. Nobody asked whether Lyndon Johnson went to church every day. Bill Clinton is probably about as religious as I am, meaning zero, but his managers made a point of making sure that every Sunday morning he was in the Baptist church singing hymns.

In the US, first of all, the electoral system has been almost totally shredded. For a long time it’s been pretty much run by private concentrated spending but now it’s over the top. Elections increasingly over the years have been [public relations] extravaganzas.

I did used to have nightmares about the idea that when I die, there is a spark of consciousness which basically creates the world. ‘Is the world going to disappear if this spark of consciousness disappears? And how do I know it won’t? How do I know there’s anything there except what I’m conscious of?

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.

The PR industry…have a conception of what a democracy ought to be…the specialized class are trained to do their work for the service of the masters…and the rest of the population ought to be deprived of any form of organization because organization just causes trouble.

Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don’t let our people have guns. Why should we let them have ideas?

I know words. I have the best words.

And is it not sects, bodies of definite, uncompromising principles, that lead us into revolutions?

Like most technology, the internet has mixed effects. It’s a neutral instrument.

The U.S. cannot allow EBOLA-infected people back. People that go to far away places to help out are great – but must suffer the consequences!

That just fires up his worshipful base, providing more evidence that the hated liberal elites are trying to destroy the one guy in the political arena who is dedicated to defending the common folk – who he is shafting, with delight, at every opportunity.

There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy.

I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women, and heterosexual men and women marrying another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties. And quite frankly, I don’t see much of a distinction beyond that.

Although some people felt Adolf Hitler was bad, he was a great man and a real conqueror whose name would never be forgotten.

The dynamic of revolutionary events is directly determined by swift, intense, and passionate changes in the psychology of classes which have already formed themselves before the revolution.

Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything.

According to what you’re taught in economics courses, our system is based on free markets with entrepreneurial initiative and rational choices by informed consumers. Well, the reality is radically different.

The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people.

Peace is preferable to war. But it’s not an absolute value, and so we always ask, ‘What kind of peace?’

Public servants are paid to serve the American people. Do it well.