Noam Chomsky

Responsibility I believe accrues through privilege. People like you and me have an unbelievable amount of privilege and therefore we have a huge amount of responsibility. We live in free societies where we are not afraid of the police; we have extraordinary wealth available to us by global standards. If you have those things, then you have the kind of responsibility that a person does not have if he or she is slaving seventy hours a week to put food on the table; a responsibility at the very least to inform yourself about power. Beyond that, it is a question of whether you believe in moral certainties or not.

People tend to rally around power.

Debt is a social and ideological construct, not a simple economic fact.

If you don’t like what someone has to say, argue with them.

…when you look at a television ad, it is not trying to create an informed consumer who’s going to make a rational choice. The purpose is to delude and deceive by imagery — it’s transparent — meaning to ensure that uninformed consumers will make irrational choices.

It’s the first time in American history that a candidate [Sanders] probably could have won, if it hadn’t been for party managers who kept him out, with no funding from the corporate sector, and no funding from the wealthy, and no media support.

If you do politics the right way, I believe, you can actually make people’s lives better. And integrity is the minimum ante to get into the game.

The internet is an élite organization; most of the population of the world has never even made a phone call.

I read in Novaya Gazeta a list of all the properties owned by Roman Abramovich, and it’s incredible. I’m ashamed.

Anyone who doesn’t regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants it restored has no brains.

It is a waste of time and a pointless pursuit to speak truth to Henry Kissinger, or the CEO of General Motors, or others who exercise power in coercive institutions — truths that they already know well enough, for the most part.

Since Jimmy Carter, religious fundamentalists play a major role in elections. He was the first president who made a point of exhibiting himself as a born again Christian. That sparked a little light in the minds of political campaign managers: Pretend to be a religious fanatic and you can pick up a third of the vote right away. Nobody asked whether Lyndon Johnson went to church every day. Bill Clinton is probably about as religious as I am, meaning zero, but his managers made a point of making sure that every Sunday morning he was in the Baptist church singing hymns.

I would bet if you took a poll in the FBI I would win that poll by more than anybody’s won a poll.

You should never be so high and mighty you can’t listen to somebody else and learn something from them. Leadership is as much about using the ear as using the mouth.

To escape the impact of a well-functioning system of propaganda that bars dissent and unwanted fact while fostering lively debate within the permitted bounds is remarkably difficult.

I think I’d be a better president because I was in combat.

Legal aid is fundamentally important in a democratic, civilised society.

I’ve made it clear my views on austerity and I’ve made it very clear my views on the Iraq War. And I promised that I would, and I did, give the apology on the anniversary of Iraq, and I stand by that, because I think it was a catastrophic mistake.

[Marx’s] picture was, as I understand it, that when working people liberate themselves, and can make their own decisions, they will determine what kind of society it will be. He is not going to dictate it to them. I think that’s a pretty wise stand frankly.

No references to the need to fight terror can be an argument for restricting human rights.

Our party has been accused of fooling the public by calling tax increases ‘revenue enhancement’. Not so. No one was fooled.