Three quarters of the American population literally believe in religious miracles. The numbers who believe in the devil, in resurrection, in God doing this and that - it's astonishing. These numbers aren't duplicated anywhere else in the industrial world. You'd have to maybe go to mosques in Iran or do a poll among old ladies in Sicily to get numbers like this. Yet this is the American population.
Noam ChomskyIn general, I think, U.S. policies remain constant, going back to the Second World War. But the capacity to implement them is declining.
Noam ChomskyUnited States has comparative advantage in military force. It tends to react to anything at first with military force, that's what it's good at. And I think they overdid it. There was more military force than was necessary.
Noam ChomskyIn the 1960s, various parts of the population became energized and began to enter the public arena to call for the rights of women, students, young people, old people, farmers and workers. What are called "special interests" - meaning the whole population - they began to press to enter the public arena. And they said that puts too much pressure on the state and therefore we have to have more moderation in democracy and they should go back and be quiet and obedient.
Noam ChomskyIraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush's compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic.
Noam ChomskyThe beam in our own eye is harder to detect, although - or more accurately because - to detect it, and remove it, is vastly more important on elementary moral grounds, and commonly more important in terms of direct human consequences as well. Intellectuals have historically played a critical function in performing these tasks, and [Ivan] Illich is right to observe that claims to scientific expertise and special knowledge are often used as a device.
Noam Chomsky