Noam Chomsky

Amusing and perfectly self-conscious charlatans.

This notion of being “anti-American” is quite an interesting one-it’s actually a totalitarian notion-it isn’t used in free societies…as far as I know, we are the only democratic society where the concept isn’t just ridiculed.

When [Lenin] became the leader, he didn’t waste much time, and Trotsky helped him, in instituting a pretty repressive regime with the basic elements of Stalinism. They moved pretty quickly to dismantle most of the organs of popular power.

Powerful states have quite typically considered themselves to be exceptionally magnificent and the United States is no exception to that. The basis for it is not very substantial, to put it politely.

The fate of the minimum wage illustrates what has been happening. Through the periods of high and egalitarian growth in the ‘50s and ‘60s, the minimum wage-which sets a floor for other wages-tracked productivity. That ended with the onset of neoliberal doctrine. Since then, the minimum wage has stagnated (in real value). Had it continued as before, it would probably be close to $20 per hour. Today, it is considered a political revolution to raise it to $15.

I am not too happy with terms like ‘the left’, to be honest. And I don’t use it much….if by ‘the left’ you mean people who are committed to peace and justice and freedom and so on, there can’t be elements of the left opposed to workers’ movement, at least under that definition.

I believe, as Lenin said, that this revolutionary chaos may yet crystallize into new forms of life.

I have always reacted negatively to those who with their snotty noses and erotic fantasies prowl into others’ lives.

We need to remake the Democratic party. We need to remake America.

Nothing will bring American sympathy along with us so much as American blood shed in the field.

We’re rounding ’em up in a very humane way, in a very nice way. And they’re going to be happy because they want to be legalized. And, by the way, I know it doesn’t sound nice. But not everything is nice.

In war I would deal with the Devil and his grandmother

I’m not a politician.

As state capitalism developed into the modern era, economic, political and ideological systems have increasingly been taken over by vast institutions of private tyranny that are about as close to the totalitarian ideal as any that humans have so far constructed.

Take a look at Marx’s work. Very deep, analytic critique of a variety of capitalism, capitalist markets, properties, imperialism and so on, but about the future society a couple of scattered sentences, and I think, my guess is for good reasons.

In my personal opinion, Russia is no less democratic than it used to be. It is a democratic country. It is democratic enough.

If every human rights atrocity is described as a Holocaust,[Adolf] Hitler’s attempted obliteration of the Jewish people is diminished or de-recognised in our history.

Why can’t we use nuclear weapons?

A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.

My life’s work has been accomplished. I did all that I could.

The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more.