Noam Chomsky

[on Trump] But there are some pretty stable elements of his ideology, if you can even grant him that concept. One of them is: “Climate change is not taking place.” As he puts it: “Forget it.” And that’s almost a death knell for the species – not tomorrow, but the decisions we take now are going to affect things in a couple of decades, and in a couple of generations it could be catastrophic.

Descriptive grammar is an attempt to give an account of what the current system is for either a society or an individual, whatever you happen to be studying.

The congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that the [“The US Donor Relief Act of 2017”] will add $1 trillion to deficits over the next decade. Virtually every economist generally agrees. But not 80 percent of Republican voters…

For many years, I have been writing and speaking about the danger of the rise of an honest and charismatic ideologue in the United States, someone who could exploit the fear and anger that has long been boiling in much of the society, and who could direct it away from the actual agents of malaise to vulnerable targets. That could indeed lead to what sociologist Bertram Gross called ‘friendly fascism’ in a perceptive study 35 years ago..

So the fear of drugs and the fear of crime is very much stimulated by state and business propaganda. The National Justice Commission repeatedly points out that crime in the United States, while sort of high, is not off the spectrum for industrialized societies.

From the point of view of the policy makers, the long-term future of the country doesn’t matter so much. What matters is just those sectors of society that sustain concentrated privilege.

In France, to break the powerful labor movement, the US occupying forces needed strikebreakers and, more generally, goons. They reconstituted the Corsican Mafia for that purpose and, in payment, allowed them to restore the old heroin connection based in Marseilles…

The ferocity of the assault against labor by the U.S. business class is illustrated by Washington’s failure, for 60 years, to ratify the core principle of international labor law, which guarantees freedom of association.

If peace is wanted in the region, the Kurdish people’s right to self-determination must be accepted.- Jeremy Corbyn

International terrorism is throwing down a challenge, and not just to Russia.

In fact, only two groups are allowed to be class-conscious in the United States. One of them is the business community, which is rabidly class-conscious…The other group is the high planning sectors of the government.

Without perestroika, the cold war simply would not have ended. But the world could not continue developing as it had, with the stark menace of nuclear war ever present.

Radicals can be found in any environment.

WE are good, and THEY are evil. That useful principle trumps virtually any argument. Analysis of commentary and much of scholarship reveals that its roots commonly lie in that crucial principle, which is not argued but asserted.

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

Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle.

Well, I’m telling them two things. One is that, look, this is going to be something when the American people realize – once it’s passed – that, A, it does take care of preexisting conditions; B, you’re insurance rates aren’t going to skyrocket; C, the insurance companies aren’t going to be running the show like they were before; D, you’re going to be in a position where you can keep your insurance that you have. That once the American public realizes that, you’re going to get a reward for this. They’re going to be rewarded.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.

If someone was watching this from Mars, they’d collapse in ridicule. The United States is telling Iran to stop its aggressive militarism? I mean we occupy two countries on their border…

We – we need strength, we need energy, we need quickness and we need brain in this country to turn it around.

Discovery is the ability to be puzzled by simple things.