Noam Chomsky

Nationalism has a way of oppressing others.

The real surprise in the [2016] election was the Sanders campaign, which broke with a long tradition of pretty much bought elections, and was stopped only by machinations of the Obama-Clinton party managers.

The option preferred by the privileged is for the fate of everyone else to be in the hands of insurance company executives whose goal, as Milton Friedman can explain, is to ensure maximum profit and market share: meaning the worst possible health care.

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.

There’s an array of terms of abuse [in the U.S.], like “Marxist,” but it doesn’t matter really, it’s a very free society. So if you’re vilified by some commissars, who cares, you go on-you do your work anyway.

So, sit down strikes in the 1930’s, organization of women’s consciousness-raising groups in the ’60’s and ’70’s, anti-war activism. I mean, all of these things work. They have to be done of course. They don’t happen by themselves.

We share one heart, one home, and one glorious destiny.

It’s Russia some people would like to get rid of. They are still afraid of our nuclear deterrent. We have our own foreign policy whether they like it or not.

The Declaration on Strategic Partnership between India and Russia signed in October 2000 became a truly historic step. The developments in the first decade of the 21 century confirmed that it was a particularly significant and timely step.

You cannot take your freedoms for granted. Just like generations who have come before you, you have to do your part to preserve and protect those freedoms… you need to be preparing yourself to add your voice to our national conversation.

If you claim to have a theory that deduces unexpected consequences from nontrivial principles, let’s see it.

I like beer

I can only go one way. I’ve not got a reverse gear.

Even if we do not always agree on every aspect, nobody should take this as an excuse to declare us as enemies.

Liberty is not merely one particular value…it is the source and condition of most moral values. What a free society offers to the individual is much more than what he would be able to do if only he were free.

When you chop wood, splinters fly

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.

Right before the 2000 [U.S.] elections, about 75 percent regarded it as virtually meaningless, some game involving rich contributors, party managers, and candidates who are trained to project images that conceal issues, but might pick up some votes.

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

I knew that if I went to town on a Saturday, which I did, and there was two fountains, one said “Black” and one said “White.” I didn’t think other than that if you want to stay out of trouble, leave the white one alone. I also noticed that when I went to the restrooms there was one that said “White Men,” “White Ladies” and “Colored.” That’s all I knew. I grew up with it. It wasn’t like somebody just threw me down there and said, “You don’t bother that…” But I was taught that in my early life. My family would always say – because there was people being lynched around me. I haven’t seen people be lynched, but I’ve seen them after they was. And I was told by some of the elders that, you know, “Unless you do certain things this can happen to you or that can happen to you. You don’t bother the white ladies, you don’t do this, you don’t do that,” and I learned that at an early age and to me it was just part of my training. I think this is why black people never did resist for such a long, long time because if there’s any such thing as being brainwashed I was brainwashed, but it didn’t bother me.

You know we’re going to control the insurance companies.