Noam Chomsky

There are all sorts of filtering devices to get rid of people who are a pain in the neck and think independently. Those of you who have been through college know that the educational system is very highly geared to rewarding conformity and obedience.

Citizenship means every four years you put a mark somewhere and you go home and let other guys run the world. It’s a very destructive ideology.

The international monetary fund recently [2014] did a study in which it concluded that virtually the entire profit of the big banks comes from the government insurance policy.

…if you ask me whether or not I’m an atheist, I wouldn’t even answer. I would first want an explanation of what it is that I’m supposed not to believe in, and I’ve never seen an explanation.

In the US, there is basically one party – the business party. It has two factions, called Democrats and Republicans, which are somewhat different but carry out variations on the same policies. By and large, I am opposed to these policies. As is most of the population.

Much research, including a widely quoted Rand Corporation study of 1994, has shown that prevention and treatment are considerably more cost-effective than the coercive [drug war] measures that receive the bulk of funding. Such nonpunitive measures are also of course far more humane.

The internet provides access to an extraordinary range of information, opinion, and interpretation. But as with any source, it is useful to the extent that it is used with discrimination and insight.

Well, I do think there’s blame — yes, I think there’s blame on both sides. You look at — you look at both sides. I think there’s blame on both sides. And I have no doubt about it, and you don’t have any doubt about it either.

In prison, I fell in love with my country. I had loved her before then, but like most young people, my affection was little more than a simple appreciation for the comforts and privileges most Americans enjoyed and took for granted. It wasn’t until I had lost America for a time that I realized how much I loved her.

A very small proportion of declassified documents have anything to do with security, no matter how broadly you interpret it. They primarily have to do with ensuring that the major enemy, namely, the domestic population, does not find out what power systems are doing.

I am not an admirer or supporter of Putin’s foreign policy, or of Russian or anybody else’s expansion.- Jeremy Corbyn

Major military operations, particularly involving Russian armed forces, have ended. There isn’t even a need for them anymore.

The individualist…recognizes the limitations of the powers of individual reason and consequently advocates freedom.

The price of being close to the President is delivering bad news. You fail him if you don’t tell him the truth. Others won’t do it.

The transfer of power is always a test of the constitutional system, a test of its strength.

Well, I think everybody is frustrated by the finances of the U.N. and the inability to solve problems of war and peace.

Russia is a part of European culture. Therefore, it is with difficulty that I imagine NATO as an enemy.

U.S. society doesn’t want to play the role of international policeman.

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.

Democracy is the wholesome and pure air without which a socialist public organization cannot live a full-blooded life.

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