Noam Chomsky

Do you train for passing tests or do you train for creative inquiry?

The PR industry…have a conception of what a democracy ought to be…the specialized class are trained to do their work for the service of the masters…and the rest of the population ought to be deprived of any form of organization because organization just causes trouble.

As the United States geared up to overthrow the Mossadeq government, his media image deteriorated and he was routinely condemned as a dictator. The Shah, however, was virtually never described in such terms as long as his power held.

It’s very important for institutions of concentrated power to keep people alone and isolated: that way they’re ineffective, they can’t defend themselves against indoctrination, they can’t even figure out what they think.

I am not too happy with terms like ‘the left’, to be honest. And I don’t use it much….if by ‘the left’ you mean people who are committed to peace and justice and freedom and so on, there can’t be elements of the left opposed to workers’ movement, at least under that definition.

Responsibility I believe accrues through privilege. People like you and me have an unbelievable amount of privilege and therefore we have a huge amount of responsibility. We live in free societies where we are not afraid of the police; we have extraordinary wealth available to us by global standards. If you have those things, then you have the kind of responsibility that a person does not have if he or she is slaving seventy hours a week to put food on the table; a responsibility at the very least to inform yourself about power. Beyond that, it is a question of whether you believe in moral certainties or not.

I have a great relationship with Kim Jong Un. He gave us back our hostages. I didn’t pay $1.8 billion. I paid nothing. But it was very smart that he did it.

These are just samples of the real lives of Trump supporters, who are led to believe that Trump will do something to remedy their plight, though the merest look at his fiscal and other proposals demonstrates the opposite — posing a task for activists who hope to fend off the worst and to advance desperately needed changes..

I believe, as Lenin said, that this revolutionary chaos may yet crystallize into new forms of life.

I didn’t come into politics to change the Labour Party. I came into politics to change the country.

There must be, not a balance of power, but a community of power; not organized rivalries, but an organized common peace.

The two main criminals are France and the United States. They owe Haiti enormous reparations because of actions going back hundreds of years. If we could ever get to the stage where somebody could say, ‘We’re sorry we did it,’ that would be nice. But if that just assuages guilt, it’s just another crime. To become minimally civilized, we would have to say, ‘We carried out and benefited from vicious crimes. A large part of the wealth of France comes from the crimes we committed against Haiti, and the United States gained as well. Therefore we are going to pay reparations to the Haitian people.’ Then you will see the beginnings of civilization.

Diplomacy is a particularly unwelcome option, unless it’s pursued under the gun. The US has very little popular support for its goals in the Third World. This isn’t surprising, since it’s trying to impose structures of domination and exploitation.

[on Michelle Obama] She’s fundamentally honest – goes out there, speaks her mind, jokes. She doesn’t parse her words or select them with an antenna for political correctness.

Anarcho-syndicalism is a particular variety of anarchism which was concerned primarily, though not solely, but primarily with control over work, over the work place, over production. It took for granted that working people ought to control their own work, its conditions…

History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.

We desire to give the Soviet people absolute liberty of voting for those they desire to elect, those whom they trust to ensure their interests.

Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.

I myself consider myself the most powerful figure in the world.

There should be no unemployment. There is large percentage of labor now which cannot make a living because wages are not high enough. That is industry’s 2nd job. 1st job is to make good product. 2nd pay a good wage.

As far as oligarchs who acquire sports team abroad, and invest money abroad, I wouldn’t treat this phenomenon as something bad.