Noam Chomsky

"Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation." Noam Chomsky

"The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful." Noam Chomsky

"Iran has little capacity to deploy force. Its strategic doctrines are defensive, designed to deter invasion long enough for diplomacy to set it." Noam Chomsky

"There are major efforts being made to dismantle Social Security, the public schools, the post office - anything that benefits the population has to be dismantled. Efforts against the U.S. Postal Service are particularly surreal." Noam Chomsky

"Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it's from Neptune." Noam Chomsky

"In general, I think, U.S. policies remain constant, going back to the Second World War. But the capacity to implement them is declining." Noam Chomsky

"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

"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

"You cannot control your own population by force, but it can be distracted by consumption." Noam Chomsky

"Neoliberal democracy. Instead of citizens, it produces consumers. Instead of communities, it produces shopping malls. The net result is an atomized society of disengaged individuals who feel demoralized and socially powerless. In sum, neoliberalism is the immediate and foremost enemy of genuine participatory democracy, not just in the United States but across the planet, and will be for the foreseeable future." Noam Chomsky

"State formation has been a brutal project, with many hideous consequences. But the results exist, and their pernicious aspects should be overcome." Noam Chomsky

"In the 1930s, unemployed working people could anticipate that their jobs would come back." Noam Chomsky

"A consistent anarchist must oppose private ownership of the means of production, and the wage-slavery which is a component of this system, as incompatible with the principle that labor must be freely undertaken and under the control of the producer." Noam Chomsky

"From the U.S. point of view, negotiations are, in effect, a way for Israel to continue its policies of systematically taking over whatever it wants in the West Bank, maintaining the brutal siege on Gaza, separating Gaza from the West Bank and, of course, occupying the Syrian Golan heights, all with full U.S. support." Noam Chomsky