Noam Chomsky

But that [‘friendly Fascism’] requires an honest ideologue, a Hitler type, not someone whose only detectable ideology is Me.

The rascal multitude are the proper targets of the mass media and a public education system geared to obedience and training in needed skills, including the skill of repeating patriotic slogans on timely occasions.

According to what you’re taught in economics courses, our system is based on free markets with entrepreneurial initiative and rational choices by informed consumers. Well, the reality is radically different.

Amusing and perfectly self-conscious charlatans.

But you really have to think through the talk about nonviolence. Sure, everybody’s in favor of nonviolence rather than violence, but under what conditions and when? Is it an absolute principle?

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

When cutting staff at the Pentagon, don’t eliminate the thin layer that assures civilian control.

If inflation continues to soar, you’re going to have to work like a dog just to live like one.

No matter how you cut it, this real debate on personal accounts is about the legitimacy of Social Security; it’s not about the solvency of Social Security.

I hate diversity workshops. Real change comes from having enough comfort to be really honest and say something very uncomfortable.

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.

Distress is so severe that among white middle-aged Americans, mortality is actually increasing, something unheard of in functioning societies apart from war or pestilence. There are similar phenomena in Europe under the ‘business first’ (‘neoliberal’/’austerity’) assault.

I may find Saddam Hussein’s regime abhorrent – any normal person would – but the survival of it is in his hands.

The general threat has always been independence. The US and its allies have regularly supported radical Islamists, sometimes to prevent the threat of secular nationalism.

The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems.

If we speak calmly, in a businesslike fashion, let me draw your attention to the fact that Russia supplies arms to the legitimate government of Syria in full compliance with the norms of international law. We are not breaching any rules and norms.

We won the Electoral College by a lot: 306 to 223, I believe. And that was a well-fought — that was a well-fought battle. We did a great job.

Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war.

Since a politician never believes what he says, he is quite surprised to be taken at his word.

Americans have a severe disease – worse than AIDS. It’s called the winner’s complex.

The revolution does not need historians.