Governments are not representative. They have their own power, serving segments of the population that are dominant and rich. -Noam Chomsky Power
If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all. -Noam Chomsky Freedom
If workers are more insecure, that's very 'healthy' for the society, because if workers are insecure, they won't ask for wages, they won't go on strike, they won't call for benefits; they'll serve the masters gladly and passively. And that's optimal for corporations' economic health. -Noam Chomsky Society
The former colonies, in Latin America in particular, have a better chance than ever before to overcome centuries of subjugation, violence and foreign intervention, which they have so far survived as dependencies with islands of luxury in a sea of misery. -Noam Chomsky Chance
You could imagine a language exactly like English except it doesn't have connectives like 'and' that allow you to make longer expressions. An infant learning truncated English would have no idea about this: They would just pick it up as they would standard English. -Noam Chomsky Learning
Debt is a trap, especially student debt, which is enormous, far larger than credit card debt. It's a trap for the rest of your life because the laws are designed so that you can't get out of it. If a business, say, gets in too much debt, it can declare bankruptcy, but individuals can almost never be relieved of student debt through bankruptcy. -Noam Chomsky Business
The Occupy movement did create spontaneously communities that taught people something: you can be in a supportive community of mutual aid and cooperation and develop your own health system and library and have open space for democratic discussion and participation. Communities like that are really important. -Noam Chomsky Health
There's a War Crimes Act in the United States passed by a Republican Congress in 1996, which says that grave breaches of the Geneva Convention are subject to the death penalty. And that doesn't mean the soldier that committed them - that means the commanders. -Noam Chomsky War
In the early 1940s, as a young teenager, I was utterly appalled by the racist and jingoist hysteria of the anti-Japanese propaganda. The Germans were evil, but treated with some respect: They were, after all, blond Aryan types, just like our imaginary self-image. Japanese were mere vermin, to be crushed like ants. -Noam Chomsky Respect
Death and genitals are things that frighten people, and when people are frightened, they develop means of concealment and aggression. It is common sense. -Noam Chomsky Death
If you are giving a graduate course you don't try to impress the students with oratory, you try to challenge them, get them to question you. -Noam Chomsky Teacher
Social Security is based on a principle. It's based on the principle that you care about other people. You care whether the widow across town, a disabled widow, is going to be able to have food to eat. -Noam Chomsky Food
There are two problems for our species' survival - nuclear war and environmental catastrophe - and we're hurtling towards them. Knowingly. -Noam Chomsky Environmental
There's very little dislike of Americans in the world, shown by repeated polls, and the dissatisfaction - that is, the hatred and the anger - they come from acceptance of American values, not a rejection of them, and recognition that they're rejected by the U.S. government and by U.S. elites, which does lead to hatred and anger. -Noam Chomsky Anger
Our only real hope for democracy is that we get the money out of politics entirely and establish a system of publicly funded elections. -Noam Chomsky Hope
For a privileged minority, Western democracy provides the leisure, the facilities, and the training to seek the truth lying hidden behind the veil of distortion and misrepresentation, ideology and class interest, through which the events of current history are presented to us. -Noam Chomsky Truth
One of the best predictors of policy around is Thomas Ferguson's investment theory of politics, as he calls it - very outstanding political economist - which essentially - I mean, to say it in a sentence, he describes elections as occasions in which groups of investors coalesce and invest to control the state. -Noam Chomsky Politics
The Washington leadership has put aside non-proliferation programmes and devoted its energies and resources to driving the country to war by extraordinary deceit, then trying to manage the catastrophe it created in Iraq. -Noam Chomsky Leadership
It is pretty ironic that the so-called 'least advanced' people are the ones taking the lead in trying to protect all of us, while the richest and most powerful among us are the ones who are trying to drive the society to destruction. -Noam Chomsky Society
In many respects, the United States is a great country. Freedom of speech is protected more than in any other country. It is also a very free society. -Noam Chomsky Freedom
There are two problems for our species' survival - nuclear war and environmental catastrophe - and we're hurtling towards them. Knowingly. -Noam Chomsky War
