Noam Chomsky

"If you go to one demonstration and then go home, that's something, but the people in power can live with that. What they can't live with is sustained pressure that keeps building, organisations that keep doing things, people that keep learning lessons from the last time and doing it better the next time." Noam Chomsky

"The United States happens to be the only state in the world that has been condemned by the World Court for international terrorism." Noam Chomsky

"There's a good reason why nobody studies history, it just teaches you too much." Noam Chomsky

"A basic principle of modern state capitalism is that costs and risks are socialized to the extent possible, while profit is privatized." Noam Chomsky

"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

"By curious accident of history and geography, the world's major energy resources are located pretty much in Shiite regions. They're a minority in the Middle East, but they happen to be where the oil is, right around the northern part of the Gulf." Noam Chomsky

"The internet could be a very positive step towards education, organisation and participation in a meaningful society." Noam Chomsky

"Withdrawal of American troops must be a unilateral act, as the invasion of Vietnam by the American government was a unilateral act in the first place." Noam Chomsky

"The crimes against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and elsewhere, particularly Lebanon, are so shocking that the only emotionally valid reaction is rage and a call for extreme actions. But that does not help the victims. And, in fact, it's likely to harm them." Noam Chomsky

"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

"The 'anti-globalisation movement' is the most significant proponent of globalisation - but in the interests of people, not concentrations of state-private power." Noam Chomsky

"In 1979, Iranians carried out an illegitimate act: They overthrew a tyrant that the United States had imposed and supported, and moved on an independent path, not following U.S. orders." Noam Chomsky

"Two days after the Boston marathon bombings, there was a drone strike in Yemen attacking a peaceful village, which killed a target who could very easily have been apprehended. But, of course, it is just easier to terrorise people. The drones are a terrorist weapon; they not only kill targets but also terrorise other people." Noam Chomsky

"China is a great manufacturing center, but it's actually mostly an assembly plant. So it assembles parts and components, high technology that comes from the surrounding industrial - more advanced industrial centers - Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, the United States, Europe - and it basically assembles them." Noam Chomsky