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Noam Chomsky's wife responds to Epstein controversy

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Re: Noam Chomsky's wife responds to Epstein controversy

#81

Post by u1hcw9nx »

47282847 wrote: post #51
u1hcw9nx wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has been intellectually dishonest in his political writings for a long time.

How so?

He has double standards and cherry-picks for everything. He selects sources, dishonestly. Quotes people out of context, makes wrong moral equivalences.

Any tyrant or autocrat who opposes America is somehow not that bad. For example: The Cambodian Genocide by Khmer Rouge in 1970s were exaggerated by "Western propaganda", The Srebrenica Massacre, some killings but not genocide.

Russia. He argues that the U.S. "provoked" Russia by expanding NATO eastward. Russian attack against Ukraine was American fault. In his logic superpower like Russia should having a "neutral" buffer zone is a legitimate security concern. Smaller European countries can't have their own sovereignty. They must be either US puppets or part of reasonable Russian sphere of influence. At the time he is against US sphere of influence in the South America.

You must also have noticed that he never engages his critics honestly. He just dismisses them as "elite propaganda".

Re: Noam Chomsky's wife responds to Epstein controversy

#83

Post by u1hcw9nx »

tgv wrote: post #60
jcranmer wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chomsky is very well known for the fact that his anti-US imperialism stance is strong enough that he becomes a standard bearer for any malodorous regime the US is against, starting from his denial of the Cambodian genocide and attempted habilitation of the Pol Pot regime through to, most recently, his denial of any Russian atrocities in Bucha, Ukraine (his last major public commentary before his stroke). It is entire…

I always got the feeling Chomsky went for "the big picture" so to speak, and ignored the details. At least, that would be consistent between his political and his linguistic work. In the latter, he built systems that were simply too complex to be representative of the human mind. I can imagine that he saw himself as a kind of continuation of Marx and Hegel, where the system matters, and human life is just a detail.

You must also have noticed that he never engages his critics honestly. He just dismisses them as "elite propaganda".

There has been never part of interesting intellectual debate between him and anyone who has different opinion. He writes to his followers.

Re: Noam Chomsky's wife responds to Epstein controversy

#84

Post by tzs »

What many people overlook is that, in Marvel terms, Epstein was not the kind of villain that Magneto or the Red Skull or Thanos are/were.

Epstein was the kind of villain that Wilson Fisk or Norman Osborn or Alexander Pierce are/were.

The former don't make any attempt to hide their evil.

The latter go to great effort to have public personas that do good.

Wilson Fisk for example was known to the public and most authorities as a philanthropic New York City businessman known for his major donations that the city and its institutions. Behind the scenes he was know as the Kingpin of Crime running a large organized crime, human trafficking, drug, and assassination operation. But only a few heroes (Daredevil and Spider-Man) and some officials knew or suspected.

To succeed in the latter kind of villainy it is essential that you cultivate relationships with a lot of respectable people who you make sure do not get involved in the evil side so you can keep the public persona's reputation clean.

Re: Noam Chomsky's wife responds to Epstein controversy

#85

Post by basedrum »

foldr wrote: post #76
basedrum wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because you can't find it doesn't mean it didn't happen. Also just because you give it hard to imagine, does not mean that it didn't happen, or that people with better imaginations as you could accomplish that.

I was a generative linguist in my previous career and no linguist that I know has ever heard of this Chomsky challenge thing. It’s hard to prove that something doesn’t exist, but I’m fairly sure it doesn’t.

He could have created this, and then Epstein decided not to launch it? It can exist without you and others knowing about it.

Re: Noam Chomsky's wife responds to Epstein controversy

#86

Post by foldr »

basedrum wrote: post #85
foldr wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a generative linguist in my previous career and no linguist that I know has ever heard of this Chomsky challenge thing. It’s hard to prove that something doesn’t exist, but I’m fairly sure it doesn’t.

He could have created this, and then Epstein decided not to launch it? It can exist without you and others knowing about it.

It's conceivable, but I doubt it, for the reasons I mentioned. If Chomsky created this thing then presumably his wife can dig out some kind of record of it (as she apparently handled the communication with Epstein's office). So far we haven't seen it.

Re: Noam Chomsky's wife responds to Epstein controversy

#87

Post by foldr »

api wrote: post #39

One of the crazy things about these files is: it’s clear that the root motivation for a huge number of these guys is just to get with very young girls (and sometimes boys). Nothing sophisticated. Nothing inspired. Just what the most atavistic parts of the brain stem want. They were billionaires and high ranking academics and politicians. They could have done so many things but that’s where a huge portion of their ene…

Reminds me of the possibly-apocryphal-but-not-entirely-off-the-money story about Bertrand Russell’s response to an American questioner who asked him why he had given up philosophy: "because I discovered that I preferred fucking".

Re: Noam Chomsky's wife responds to Epstein controversy

#88

Post by i-blis »

randycupertino wrote: post #30
KingOfCoders wrote: post #16

[flagged]

I watched some of the videos and you could see DNA paternity tests sitting around on the tables in front of the dancing girls his Manhattan townhouse ( example- 24 seconds in - https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01648... ) . Interestingly if you change the last couple of digits in the video links to just any random number combo it unlocks a ton more (many awful, disgusting) videos. Changing the fi…

I was already horrified by what I heard in the Netflix documentary (some five years back, I guess). One frightening aspect was that some victims, despite having terribly suffered themselves, introduced him 10, 20 of their friends and acquaintances. One young lady among the victims even confessed with deep remorse to have sent, among others, her own under-aged sister.

Re: Noam Chomsky's wife responds to Epstein controversy

#89

Post by alecco »

Oh, f** off.

> The philosopher and the sex trafficker were in contact long after Epstein was convicted of soliciting prostitution from a minor, documents reveal

> The letter recounted how Epstein had arranged for Chomsky – a political activist, too – to meet with someone he had “studied carefully and written about”: the former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/22/noam-chomsky...

> There additionally was an exchange in which Chomsky wrote to Steve Bannon, the rightwing chief White House strategist during Donald Trump’s first presidency, requesting an introductory meeting. “Lots to talk about,” Chomsky wrote, adding that he had been provided Bannon’s contact information by Epstein, a former friend of Trump.

> Undated photo of Jeffrey Epstein, right, speaking to academic and linguist Noam Chomsky. [in Epsteins private jet!]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/03/epstein-file...

> A photograph of Steve Bannon and Noam Chomsky released from Epstein files. [Having a laugh!]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/feb/03/jeffre...

I used to idolize Chomsky when I was young. People went to war for much less.

Re: Noam Chomsky's wife responds to Epstein controversy

#90

Post by mopsi »

47282847 wrote: post #51
u1hcw9nx wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has been intellectually dishonest in his political writings for a long time.

How so?

  Noam Chomsky, the man who has spent years analyzing propaganda, is himself a propagandist. Whatever one thinks of Chomsky in general, whatever one thinks of his theories of media manipulation and the mechanisms of state power, Chomsky's work with regard to Cambodia has been marred by omissions, dubious statistics, and, in some cases, outright misrepresentations. On top of this, Chomsky continues to deny that he was wrong about Cambodia. He responds to criticisms by misrepresenting his own positions, misrepresenting his critics' positions, and describing his detractors as morally lower than "neo-Nazis and neo-Stalinists."
From the intro of a lengthy examination of Chomsky on Cambodia: https://www.mekong.net/cambodia/chomsky.htm
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