Noam Chomsky

April Thesis, S and R the most radical things Lenin ever wrote, almost anarchist. My view is that it was basically opportunism. I don’t think he believes a word of it. It seems to me that he was trying to associate himself, become the leader of the revolutionary popular forces.

If you go back far enough, [socialism] meant basically control of production by producers, elimination of wage labor, democratization of all spheres of life; production, commerce, education, media, workers’ control in factories, community control of communities, and so on.

If you look at history, even recent history, you see that there is indeed progress. . . . Over time, the cycle is clearly, generally upwards. And it doesn’t happen by laws of nature. And it doesn’t happen by social laws. . . . It happens as a result of hard work by dedicated people who are willing to look at problems honestly, to look at them without illusions, and to go to work chipping away at them, with no guarantee of success – in fact, with a need for a rather high tolerance for failure along the way, and plenty of disappointments.

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum – even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.

We need not stride resolutely towards catastrophe, merely because those are the marching orders.

Changes and progress very rarely are gifts from above. They come out of struggles from below.

I found this national debt, doubled, wrapped in a big bow waiting for me as I stepped into the Oval Office.

Sometimes it’s important to watch what the president does rather than what he says.

And then, Sir, there is this consideration, that if the abuse be enormous, nature will rise up, and claiming her original rights, overturn a corrupt political system.

One fundamental goal of any well-crafted indoctrination program is to direct attention elsewhere, away from effective power, its roots, and the disguises it assumes.

Undoubtedly, our path is not of the easiest; but, just as undoubtedly, we are not to be frightened by difficulties. Paraphrasing from the well-known words of Luther, Russia might say: ‘Here I stand on the frontier between the old, capitalist world and the new, socialist world. Here on this frontier I unite the efforts of the proletarians of the West and of the peasantry of the East in order to shatter the old world. May the god of history be my aid!

You could make a strong argument that all US military aid to Israel is in violation of US law. Take a look at the Leahy Amendment, which is US law. It says you can’t give any military aid to military units or organizations that are involved in systematic human rights’ abuses…

Our aims are absolutely clear: They are a high living standard in the country and a secure, free and comfortable life.

I support immediate financial assistance to the newly elected Palestinian president. Now, I don’t know what those numbers will be, and I don’t know how it’s going to be framed.

The Recovery Act is working, but it’s going to continue to work. It’s not over. A lot’s going to happen this summer. And even after the summer, there’s more to come with the act.

An educational system should cultivate from kindergarten to graduate school, and in the best cases sometimes does, and that leads to people who are, at least by my standards, well educated.?

It is beyond imagining in responsible circles that we might have some culpability for mass slaughter and destruction, or owe some debt to the millions of maimed and orphaned, or to the peasants who still die from exploding ordnance left from the U.S. assault…

The fightback now of our party gathers speed and gathers pace.

The common good is the aspiration of all of us.

Without perestroika, the cold war simply would not have ended. But the world could not continue developing as it had, with the stark menace of nuclear war ever present.

Protest actions and propaganda are two slightly different things.