Noam Chomsky

The whole educational and professional training system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out people who are too independent, and who think for themselves, and who don’t know how to be submissive, and so on – because they’re dysfunctional to the institutions.

The Drug War is an effort to stimulate fear of dangerous people from who we have to protect ourselves. It is also, a direct form of control of what are called “dangerous classes,” those superfluous people who don’t really have a function contributing to profit-making and wealth.

Big institutions, like Goldman Sachs really don’t have to worry much about systemic risk because we don’t have a market system. So therefore they can run cap in hand to the nanny state and say ‘bail me out’ and that’s what happens.

In a situation of occupation or domination, the occupier…has to justify what it’s doing. There is only one way to do it — become a racist. You have to blame the victim. Once you become a raving racist in self-defense, you’ve lost your capacity to understand what’s happening.

Anyone can be a moral individual, concerned with human rights and problems; but only a college professor, a trained expert, can solve technical problems by ‘sophisticated’ methods. Ergo, it is only problems of the latter sort that are important or real.

So the idea that Europe should exploit Africa for Europe’s reconstruction passed without comment. This is just deeply imbedded in the consciousness of what’s sometimes called white supremacy which is an extraordinary doctrine.

You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.

The universities…are not independent institutions. There may be independent people scattered around in them but that is true of the media as well. And it’s generally true of corporations. It’s true of Fascist states, for that matter. But the institution itself is parasitic.

With regards to the infrastructure, these 11 stadiums. Of course, we spent a lot of money on this and it is imperative that all of this infrastructure, I completely agree, it must work and above all work toward the development of sport on a large scale.

The masses go into a revolution not with a prepared plan of social reconstruction, but with a sharp feeling that they cannot endure the old regime. Only the guiding layers of a class have a political program, and even this still requires the test of events and the approval of the masses.

Concentration of wealth yields concentration of political power. And concentration of political power gives rise to legislation that increases and accelerates the cycle.

Democracy don’t rule the world, you better get that in your head; this world is ruled by violence, but I guess that’s better left unsaid.

Pick the topic you like: the Middle East, international terrorism, Central America, whatever it is, the picture of the world that’s presented to the public has only the remotest relation to reality. The truth of the matter is buried under edifice after edifice of lies upon lies. It’s all been a marvelous success from the point of view in deterring the threat of democracy, achieved under conditions of freedom, which is extremely interesting. It’s not like a totalitarian state, where it’s done by force. These achievements are under conditions of freedom.

I can’t tell you if the use of force in Iraq today will last five days, five weeks or five months, but it won’t last any longer than that.

Fleas can be taught nearly anything that a Congressman can.

I stand for anti-bigotry, anti-Semitism, and anti-racism.

Saudi Arabia itself has one of the most grotesque human rights records in the world. The ISIS beheadings, which shock everyone-I think Saudi Arabia is the only country where you have regular beheadings. That’s the least of it.

From the beginning, we failed to overcome Europe’s division. The Berlin Wall fell, but invisible walls were moved to the East of Europe. This has led to mutual misunderstandings and assignments of guilt. They are the cause of all crises ever since.

You can do a lot more with weapons and politeness than just politeness.

Be precise. A lack of precision is dangerous when the margin of error is small.

While Trump’s antics occupy the attention of the media, his associates in Congress have been working intensively to advance the interests of their actual constituency-extreme wealth and corporate power-while dismantling what is of value to the general population andfuture generations.