Noam Chomsky

There are few genuine conservatives within the U.S. political system, and it is a sign of the intellectual corruption of the age that the honorable term ‘conservatism’ can be appropriated to disguise the advocacy of a powerful, lawless, aggressive and violent state, a welfare state for the rich dedicated to a lunatic form of Keynesian economic intervention that enhances state and private power while mortgaging the country’s future.

It is reasonably clear, both from current actions and the historical record, that substances tend to be criminalized when they are associated with the so-called dangerous classes, that the criminalization of certain substances is a technique of social control.

Poor and suffering people do not have the luxury of indulging in fairy tales. Not uncommonly, their own experience gives them a grasp of realities that are well concealed by the intellectual culture.

Libertarian socialism, furthermore, does not limit its aims to democratic control by producers over production, but seeks to abolish all forms of domination and hierarchy in every aspect of social and personal life, an unending struggle…

The war against working people should be understood to be a real war…. Specifically in the U.S., which happens to have a highly class-conscious business class…. And they have long seen themselves as fighting a bitter class war, except they don’t want anybody else to know about it.

All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.

The business world was pretty upset by the advances in public welfare in the ’60s, in particular by Richard Nixon – it’s not too well understood, but he was the last New Deal president, and they regarded that as class treachery.

While the State exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State.

Revolution can never be forecast; it cannot be foretold; it comes of itself. Revolution is brewing and is bound to flare up.

Congress, the press, and the bureaucracy too often focus on how much money or effort is spent, rather than whether the money or effort actually achieves the announced goal.

The difference between death and taxes is death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.

To the extent that Trump’s programs are coherent, they fall into the same general category of those of Paul Ryan, who has granted us the kindness of spelling them out: increase spending on the military…and cut back taxes, mainly on the rich, with no new revenue sources.

The House Armed Services Committee a couple of years ago described the role of Congress as that of a sometimes querulous but essentially kindly uncle who complains while furiously puffing on his pipe but who finally, as everyone expects, gives in and hands over the allowance.

As soon as one identifies, challenges and overcomes illegitimate power, he or she is an anarchist. Most people are anarchists. What they call themselves doesn’t matter to me.

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…

Popularity may be united with hostility to the rights of the people, and the secret slave of tyranny may be the professed lover of freedom.

The Affordable Care Act isn’t Barack’s legacy, it’s the country’s legacy.

If we do not believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we do not believe in it at all.

Protest actions and propaganda are two slightly different things.

We won the Electoral College by a lot: 306 to 223, I believe. And that was a well-fought — that was a well-fought battle. We did a great job.

[After Communism succeeds] …then, there will come a peace across the earth.