Noam Chomsky

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..

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.

You don’t get to be a respected intellectual by uttering truisms in monosyllables.

When I read Paris Post-Modernist talk…what I see is intellectuals interacting with one another in ways which are incomprehensible to the public and, to be frank, incomprehensible to me.

I can remember from childhood, that there were neighborhoods where if you went, you’d be beaten up. You weren’t supposed to be there. The people who were doing it — kids — felt justified and righteous about it. They were defending their turf. What else do they have to defend?

Now there were restrictions in the laws on campaign funding, but they’ve been slowly eroded. Citizens United pretty much dispensed with them. There’s still some limitations but not much.

The problem with the West is that they start with political reform going towards democracy. If you want to go towards democracy, the first thing is to involve the people in decision making, not to make it.

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 extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as [inherently] exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.

Iraq’s search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power.

Labour is the party of law and order in Britain today. Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.

Have you read the things that were published in Moskovskiye Novosti and Ogonyok in those days? For instance, General Kalugin’s exposures? Kalugin is a traitor. I saw Kalugin during my time in Leningrad when he was deputy head of the Directorate. He was an absolute loafer. A loafer, perhaps, but he remembers you. He doesn’t remember anything. He does remember, and he says that from the point of view of the intelligence service, you worked in a province and had nothing to show for your performance. Oh, he doesn’t remember a thing. He couldn’t remember me. I had no contact with him, nor did I meet him. It is I who remembers him, because he was a big boss and everybody knew him. As to whether he knew me, there were hundreds of us.

The system of private property is the most important guarantee of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not.

To confront power is costly and difficult; high standards of evidence and argument are imposed, and critical analysis is naturally not welcomed by those who are in a position to react vigorously and to determine the array of rewards and punishments.

I’m eternally grateful to fate and the citizens of Russia that they’ve trusted me to be the head of the Russian government.

Many people would like to see Nigel Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job!

World dictatorship can be established only when the victory of socialism has been achieved in certain countries or groups of countries … [and] when these federation of republics have finally grown into a world union of Soviet Socialist Republics uniting the whole of mankind under the hegemony of the international proletariat organized as a state.

The Russian parliament has condemned the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

There can be no bosses in our country except the people. The job of the government is to serve, not to dominate.

The Obama policies [2016] are to try to pressure Mexico to keep Central American immigrants from coming anywhere near us. Who are the Central American immigrants? These are people fleeing from the wreckage left by US government policies.

Within the reigning social order, the general public must remain an object of manipulation, not a participant in thought, debate, and decision.