Noam Chomsky

By now, about seventy percent of the population is literally disenfranchised. They’re the lower seventy percent on the income/wealth scale. Their political representatives simply pay no attention to them, so it doesn’t matter what they think.

Of course there are differences, but they are not fundamental. Nobody should have any illusions. The United States has essentially a one-party system and the ruling party is the business party.

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…

But you really have to think through the talk about nonviolence. Sure, everybody’s in favor of nonviolence rather than violence, but under what conditions and when? Is it an absolute principle?

…I try to keep in mind the principle that one should not try to persuade; rather, to lay out the territory as best one can so that others can use their own intellectual powers to determine for themselves what they think is taking place and what is right or wrong.

…most of the world’s fossil-fuel reserves must remain in the ground if an environmental disaster for humankind is to be averted, but under the logic of state-supported capitalist institutions, the private owners of those reserves are racing to exploit them to the fullest.

The agents of [government] regard the wealth of their master as inexhaustible; are careless at what price they buy … at what price they sell.

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.

Latin America has, to a significant extent, liberated itself from foreign-meaning mostly U.S.-domination in the past 10 or 15 years. That’s a dramatic development in world affairs. It’s the first time in 500 years. It’s a big change.

In any country there must be people who have to die. They are the Sacrifices any nation has to make to achieve law and order.

The United States should get rid of its militias.

The word terrorism has a meaning, it is defined in the US and international law and so on. But that’s not the definition we are allowed to use. We use the word terrorism in a way which means there’s terrorism against us but not our terrorism against them. That’s not terrorism. So for example, if we use the word “terrorism” in its litteral meaning, the most extreme terrorist operation in the world today would be Obama’s global assassination campaign, the drone campaign

The art of government is the organization of idolatry. The bureaucracy consists of functionaries; the aristocracy, of idols; the democracy, of idolaters. The populace cannot understand the bureaucracy: it can only worship the national idols.

Much more likely, I think, is that [Ryan] decided to leave Congress because he had achieved his long-standing goals, particularly with the ‘Donor Relief Act of 2017’ and the deficit cuts that open the way to sharp reduction of entitlements: health, social security, pensions.

This transformation of competition into monopoly is one of the most important-if not the most important-phenomena of modern capitalist economy.

To be blunt, people would vote for me. They just would. Why? Maybe because I’m so good looking.

[no the rich] quite happy to pay more tax to fund better public services or to pay down our debt.

I would like to draw your attention to the fact that in Russia, unlike in one third of the world’s countries, being gay is not a crime.

If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband what makes her think she can satisfy America?

You can’t be in politics unless you can walk in a room and know in a minute who’s for you and who’s against you.

There was also an operation involving the Vatican, the US State Department and British intelligence, which took some of the worst Nazi criminals and used them, at first in Europe. For example, Klaus Barbie, the butcher of Lyon, was taken over by US intelligence and put back to work.