Noam Chomsky

Read, say, George Washington, a leading figure in the settler-colonial society we live in. His view was – his words – was that we have to ‘extirpate’ the Iroquois; they’re in our way. They were an advanced civilization.

I did used to have nightmares about the idea that when I die, there is a spark of consciousness which basically creates the world. ‘Is the world going to disappear if this spark of consciousness disappears? And how do I know it won’t? How do I know there’s anything there except what I’m conscious of?

When people grow more alienated and isolated, they begin to develop highly irrational and very self-destructive attitudes. They want something in their lives…[t]hey don’t want to be just glued to the TV set. If most of the constructive ways are cut off, they turn to other ways.

A basic principle of modern state capitalism is that costs and risks are socialized to the extent possible, while profit is privatized.

China and North Korea have already proposed that North Korea freeze its nuclear and missile programs. The proposal, though, was rejected at once by Washington…because…[the proposal] calls on the U.S. to halt its threatening military exercises on North Korea’s borders…

It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and expose lies.

More time and at least a degree of reasonableness in the treatment of the Labour Party. Because the message that we’re putting out on austerity hasn’t fundamentally changed. There’s been an enormous barrier in getting it across, but now I think a lot of people understand what we’re saying and why we’re saying it.

Nations do not think, they only feel. They get their feelings at second hand through their temperaments, not their brains. A nation can be brought – by force of circumstances, not argument – to reconcile itself to any kind of government or religion that can be devised; in time it will fit itself to the required conditions; later it will prefer them and will fiercely fight for them.

The nations of Africa, as is true of every continent of the world, from time to time dispute among themselves. These quarrels must be confined to this continent and quarantined from the contamination of non-African interference.

But we’re at a place in our political history when passing legislation through the House with bipartisan support is considered by some folks a greater evil than the problem it’s intended to solve.

Growing up in the place I did I never was aware of any other option but to question everything.

We need to use the United Nations Security Council and believe that preserving law and order in today’s complex and turbulent world is one of the few ways to keep international relations from sliding into chaos. The law is still the law, and we must follow it whether we like it or not.

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

According to polls released by the Brookings Institution in August [2011], some Arabs agree with Washington and western commentators that Iran is a threat: 10%. In contrast, they regard the US and Israel as the major threats (77%; 88%).

But even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked.

There were no strategic mistakes that could affect Russia’s history and it further development. No, there were no such mistakes. Tactical errors were made in some less significant options, problems and so on. But, on the whole, Russia embarked on a correct path and it changed.

You could imagine that a democratic society would have an organization that carries out intelligence gathering functions. But that’s a very minor part of what the CIA does.

No matter how you cut it, this real debate on personal accounts is about the legitimacy of Social Security; it’s not about the solvency of Social Security.

China’s refusal to accept opium from Britain’s Indian colony was denounced by John Quincy Adams as a violation of the Christian principle of ‘love thy neighbor’ and ‘an enormous outrage upon the rights of human nature, and upon the first principles of the rights of nations’.

If you do what you believe in, you’re strong. It’s when you don’t do what you believe in that you’re weak. And we are strong.

I’m using the term “First Spouse” instead of First Lady because I believe we will have a woman president.