Noam Chomsky

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.

It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and expose lies.

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.

Grotesque as the Soviet empire was, its very existence offered a certain space for non-alignment, and for perfectly cynical reasons, it sometimes provided assistance to victims of Western attack. Those options are gone, and the South is suffering the consequences.

I would question the use of something as simplistic as IQ to come to any conclusions regarding human affairs.

Europe has not been a heterogenous society to anything like the extent that the United States has. Nor has it been as mobile a society as the United States. These matters have been a bit under the cover, but they’re harder to keep under the cover.

Our country is in serious trouble. We don’t have victories any more. We used to have victories but [now] we don’t have them. When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let’s say, China, in a trade deal? They kill us. I beat China all the time. All the time.

It is only when all black groups, join hands and speak with one voice that we shall be a bargaining force which will decide its own destiny.

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.

The CIA is mainly a branch of the executive to carry out secret and usually illegal activities that the executive branch wants. It wants them to be kept secret because it knows that the public won’t accept them. So it’s highly undemocratic even domestically.

In fact, Nazi war criminals who were charged were able to escape prosecution when they could show that the Americans and the British did the same thing they did.

At the time of the First World War there was a fringe of dissidents, Bertrand Russell for example, who were in jail; Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknicht, in jail; Eugene Debs, in jail. That’s the standard picture throughout history. We find it right now.

One of your tasks is to separate the “personal” from the “substantive.” The two can become confused, especially if someone rubs the President wrong.

Protest actions and propaganda are two slightly different things.

With regard to freedom of speech there are basically two positions: you defend it vigorously for views you hate, or you reject it and prefer Stalinist/fascist standards. It is unfortunate that it remains necessary to stress these simple truths.

With regards to big business, I spoke about this a few years ago at one of the public meetings with our business leaders. I warned them that this situation, which we see today, could develop. I warned them about this and recommended at the time that our business keeps its capital in Russia.

Look, freedom is an overwhelming American notion. The idea that we want to see the world, the peoples of the world free is something that all of us subscribe to.

Nobody and nothing will stop Russia on the road to strengthening democracy and ensuring human rights and freedoms.

Our only real hope for democracy is that we get the money out of politics entirely and establish a system of publicly funded elections.

The most effective way to restrict democracy is to transfer decision-making from the public arena to unaccountable institutions: kings and princes, priestly castes, military juntas, party dictatorships, or modern corporations.

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!