Noam Chomsky

Naturally, any conqueror is going to play one group against another. For example, I think about 90% of the forces that the British used to control India were Indians.

Many countries are so weak that they can’t really solve their internal problems in the face of US power; they can’t even control their own wealthy. Their rich have virtually no social obligations-they don’t pay taxes and don’t keep their money in the country.

[Republicans] have turned to mobilizing sectors of the population that have always been there, but not as an organized coalitional political force: evangelicals, nativists, racists and the victims of the forms of globalization…Every candidate that has emerged from the base — such as [Michele] Bachmann, [Herman] Cain or [Rick] Santorum — has been so extreme that the Republican establishment had to use its ample resources to beat them down. The difference in 2016 is that the establishment failed, much to its chagrin, as we have seen..

Usually, by and large, the U.S. foreign policy, like other major states, is driven by the dominant domestic forces. That’s kind of natural. And the dominant domestic forces are, of course, the corporate sector. That’s not in question.

If by ‘intellectual’ you mean people who are a special class who are in the business of imposing thoughts and forming ideas for people in power, and telling people what they should believe…they’re really more a kind of secular priesthood, whose task it is to uphold the doctrinal truths of the society. And the population SHOULD be anti-intellectual in that repect.

The ability to ignore unwanted facts is one of the prerogatives of unchallenged power. Closely related is the right to radically revise history.

Too bad the only people who know how to run the country are busy driving cabs and cutting hair.

I think I’d be a better president because I was in combat.

In war you can be killed only once. In politics, many times.

But do the governors themselves need that? Are they ready to line up under the vertikal? They are. After all, the governors are part of the country, and they also suffer from management weaknesses. Not everyone is going to like everything. You can’t please everybody, but you can find some common approaches. I was also interested in learning more about the country. I had only ever worked in St. Petersburg, apart from the time I spent abroad. . . . Of course, my seven years of experience in Peter was good experience, both administrative and managerial. But Peter isn’t the whole country. I wanted to travel and see things. So, why did you drop that interesting job and go to work as director of the FSB? Do you have some affinity for the agencies? No. I wasn’t asked whether or not I wanted to go, and they had given me no inkling that I was even being considered for such an appointment. The president simply signed a decree. . . .

I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this-who will count the votes, and how.

The art of government is the organisation of idolatry.

Any woman who voted against Hillary Clinton, voted against their own voice.

I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government other than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.

Just take a look at the Nazi conquest of nice, civilized Western Europe….Who was rounding up the Jews? Local people, often. In France they were rounding them up faster than the Nazis could handle them. The Nazis also used Jews to control Jews.

The United States and Russian security services regularly exchange information.

In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.

We, therefore, here in Britain stand shoulder to shoulder with our American friends in this hour of tragedy, and we, like them, will not rest until this evil is driven from our world.

The Ethiopian government’s use of the railway from Djibouti to Addis Ababa was, in practice, a hazardous regards transport of arms intended for the Ethiopian forces.

One of the good things about the way the Gulf War ended in 1991 is, you’d see the Vietnam veterans marching with the Gulf War veterans.

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