Noam Chomsky

As the Cold War came to a definitive end, the Bush Administration created a Center for Defense Trade to stimulate arms sales while proposing government guarantees of up to $1 billion in loans for purchase of US arms.

One should seek out an audience that matters — and furthermore (another important qualification), it should not be seen as an audience, but as a community of common concern in which one hopes to participate constructively. We should not be speaking to, but with.

Naturally, any conqueror is going to play one group against another. For example, I think about 90% of the forces that the British used to control India were Indians.

If you claim to have a theory that deduces unexpected consequences from nontrivial principles, let’s see it.

The Institute of Defense Analysis…has been working on crowd control, which means control of blacks, students, peace demonstrators. And the technology for doing this is extremely efficacious and will only improve. So that’s one reason for nonviolence.

The description of what the Europeans did is just monstrous. The British and Dutch merchants — actually merchant warriors — moved into Asia and broke into trading areas that had been functioning for long, long periods, with pretty well-established rules.

Nations do not think, they only feel. They get their feelings at second hand through their temperaments, not their brains. A nation can be brought – by force of circumstances, not argument – to reconcile itself to any kind of government or religion that can be devised; in time it will fit itself to the required conditions; later it will prefer them and will fiercely fight for them.

More time and at least a degree of reasonableness in the treatment of the Labour Party. Because the message that we’re putting out on austerity hasn’t fundamentally changed. There’s been an enormous barrier in getting it across, but now I think a lot of people understand what we’re saying and why we’re saying it.

I welcome David Cameron’s work. This idea, or programme, that he describes as a Big Society, as I understand it, means that the gaps between different groups of people should be bridged. I think this is a very democratic idea, and I support that.

A certain inequality in regard to property still exists in a socialist society. But in a socialist society there is no unemployment, no exploitation, no oppression of nationalities.

The nation will find it very hard to look up to the leaders who are keeping their ears to the ground.

We shouldn’t be looking for heroes, we should be looking for good ideas.

Touring a segregated America – forever being stopped and harassed by white cops hurt you most ‘cos you don’t realise the damage. You hold it in. You feel empty, like someone reached in and pulled out your guts. You feel hurt and dirty, less than a person.

There is talk … of our constructing Dnieprostroy through our own means. The means needed are great, several hundred millions. Let us not get into the position of the peasant who, after accumulating a nest-egg, instead of repairing his plough and renewing his equipment, buys a gramophone and goes bankrupt.

If the Democrats could get their act together, overcoming the schism between the donor-oriented New Democrat Party management and the increasingly activist and social democratic base, they would have a decent chance to take over Congress.

Thousands of years ago, civilizations flourished in Africa which suffer not at all by comparison with those of other continents. In those centuries, Africans were politically free and economically independent. Their social patterns were their own and their cultures truly indigenous.

You can’t make decisions based on fear and the possibility of what might happen.

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

The North has been held back by out of touch Westminster politicians. Let’s hand power to northern communities to manage their transport systems.

Export in technical equipment is growing, which shows that some structural changes are going on in the economy. Export of agricultural produce, at 20 billion last year, was higher than defense exports, which were at 15 billion.

Between major countries, there certainly always are some common ground and points of tension.