Noam Chomsky

The prevailing pattern is one of indignant outrage over enemy crimes with much self-congratulatory appeal to high principle, combined with a remarkable ability “not to see” in the case of crimes for which we bear responsibility.

Usually, by and large, the U.S. foreign policy, like other major states, is driven by the dominant domestic forces. That’s kind of natural. And the dominant domestic forces are, of course, the corporate sector. That’s not in question.

Peace is preferable to war. But it’s not an absolute value, and so we always ask, ‘What kind of peace?’

Libertarian socialism is properly to be regarded as the inheritor of the liberal ideals of the enlightenment.

Edward Bernays’ next famous achievement was Guatemala. He took over, at the request of the United Fruit Company, public relations activities to try to lay the basis for the U.S.-backed invasion, which destroyed an experiment in Guatemalan democracy…

There are all the activist groups on every imaginable topic – solidarity groups, environmental and feminist groups – sectors of these movements do very valuable work.

Recently one of Germany’s famous and popular publications wrote that President Trump is pushing Europe toward Putin. If we take this together with an earlier joke, that Russia influenced elections in the United States, then this all taken together starts sounding pretty funny. We apparently influenced the election of the U.S. President, and then he gifted us Europe. Total nonsense. There’s no way to describe this other than as a joke.

We are of course a nation of differences. Those differences don’t make us weak. They’re the source of our strength.

For 18 years I have resisted talking about current events. I am not going to start now.

It’s a very good question, very direct, and I’m not going to answer it.

Marxism is not only the theory of socialism, it is an integral world outlook, a philosophical system, from which Marx’s proletarian socialism logically follows. This philosophical system is called dialectical materialism.

Both prisons and inner-city schools target a kind of superfluous population that there’s no point educating because there’s nothing for them to do. Because we’re a civilized people, we put them in prison, rather than sending death squads out to murder them.

The New York Times, reported in 2009, that the Obama administration had made a secret deal with the pharmaceutical industry in which it promised not to allow the government to use its purchasing power to negotiate drug prices, as is done in every other country…

The Affordable Care Act isn’t Barack’s legacy, it’s the country’s legacy.

I discovered, for the first time but not the last, that politicians don’t care too much what things cost. It’s not their money.

Debate cannot be stilled, and indeed, in a properly functioning system of propaganda, it should not be, because it has a system-reinforcing character if constrained within proper bounds. What is essential is to set the bounds firmly.

The internet could be a very positive step towards education, organisation and participation in a meaningful society.

Russia is a part of European culture. Therefore, it is with difficulty that I imagine NATO as an enemy.

Under Obama, the [Democratic] party was reduced to shambles at the local and state level, a particularly serious matter because the 2020 elections will determine redistricting, offering opportunities for gerrymandering even beyond today’s scandalous situation.

A considerable share of the world’s population still cannot afford comfortable housing, education and quality health care.

We explain when someone is cruel or acts like a bully, you do not stoop to their level. Our motto is when they go low, you go high.