Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News Editorials & Other Articles General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search
22 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Lots of Noam Chomsky in the files (Original Post) SamuelTheThird Monday OP
Intellegent people can be gross pigs too JBTaurus83 Monday #1
Misogynistic twat n/t leftstreet Monday #2
He's still alive apparently newdeal2 Monday #3
Not a fan. LeftInTX Yesterday #4
I never cared for his political opinions either fujiyamasan Yesterday #6
When it came to linguistics, he would defend his theories MineralMan 17 hrs ago #21
Post removed Post removed Yesterday #7
About " bad apples"... sheshe2 Yesterday #8
Not that it matters to anyone but me... Cha Yesterday #9
Likely not, but I'm not surprised you don't like him.. Violet_Crumble Yesterday #13
I'd add Necessary Illusions to the Chomsky book list Dave says 19 hrs ago #19
There is something glaringly obvious here leftstreet 17 hrs ago #22
Oswald did it type, too. Kid Berwyn Yesterday #5
So now Chomsky must've been engaged in sexual misconduct and Epstein was blackmailing him? AZJonnie Yesterday #12
I doubt it. He just didn't care that his buddy trafficked young girls. NT Happy Hoosier 20 hrs ago #17
That, and/or he believed his buddy when he told everyone around him he didn't do it, was being framed, etc AZJonnie 17 hrs ago #20
Epstein moved in interesting circles. Kid Berwyn 20 hrs ago #18
Well this is a pretty bad look, on so many levels. Dismaying to say the least (nt) AZJonnie Yesterday #10
If Chomsky is guilty of participating, then he can rot in prison too. flvegan Yesterday #11
Probably past the statute of limitations Polybius Yesterday #15
He was linked a few years ago, and had an angry reply when questioned Polybius Yesterday #14
"Manufacturing Consent" is a disgustingly ironic title. Dave Bowman 20 hrs ago #16

JBTaurus83

(984 posts)
1. Intellegent people can be gross pigs too
Mon Feb 2, 2026, 11:30 PM
Monday

It’s pretty eye opening who all is in there. I’ll be interested to hear what the Clinton’s have to say.

fujiyamasan

(1,424 posts)
6. I never cared for his political opinions either
Tue Feb 3, 2026, 12:27 AM
Yesterday

I’ll admit I’m not familiar with his work on linguistics (which is his actual area of expertise), and I can’t comment on that.

Epstein’s breadth of reach is so depressing. I guess we really do have an elitist ring of pedophiles and pedophile enablers running the world.

MineralMan

(150,804 posts)
21. When it came to linguistics, he would defend his theories
Tue Feb 3, 2026, 12:49 PM
17 hrs ago

vehemently. If you dared to disagree with him, he would say the most dismissive things he could think of. He was always, in his own opinion, correct in everything.

Very rigid.

Response to LeftInTX (Reply #4)

Cha

(317,637 posts)
9. Not that it matters to anyone but me...
Tue Feb 3, 2026, 12:50 AM
Yesterday

I never liked him, either.

I'd see his name here and pass right on by.

Violet_Crumble

(36,382 posts)
13. Likely not, but I'm not surprised you don't like him..
Tue Feb 3, 2026, 03:22 AM
Yesterday

Chomsky is highly intelligent, was a leader in the field of linguistics, and his political writing was left-wing. I never liked him not hated him, but I admire his political writing. Fateful Triangle and Manufacturing Consent are brilliant books, with the latter pretty applicable to the self-censoring of sections of the US media now.

leftstreet

(39,414 posts)
22. There is something glaringly obvious here
Tue Feb 3, 2026, 12:57 PM
17 hrs ago

I don't think Chomsky participated in any creepy Epstein stuff. However the emails reveal an issue that blinded his understanding of class analysis throughout his career.

In his email to Epstein re: the sexual abuse accusations he refers to "the hysteria that has developed about abuse of women."

wtaf

That he could engage in a decades long analysis of power that ignored sex and gender..

Well

Kid Berwyn

(23,574 posts)
5. Oswald did it type, too.
Tue Feb 3, 2026, 12:16 AM
Yesterday

Odd what sexual blackmail does to one’s understanding of the world.

AZJonnie

(3,146 posts)
12. So now Chomsky must've been engaged in sexual misconduct and Epstein was blackmailing him?
Tue Feb 3, 2026, 02:22 AM
Yesterday

I don't find that be the most likely scenario. This is actually part of a longer pattern of his when it comes to prominent Jewish men being accused of sexual misconduct. You can certainly find fault with that tendency (I know I do) but I think it's a stretch to say he's done so because he's also abusing minors himself. Nobody has accused him of that over the years.

Also, it does not make sense for someone being blackmailed for sexual misconduct to write a *private* note to their blackmailer expressing sentiments like this. Their conversations would logically look much different, if they were even speaking at all.

MHO, fwiw.

AZJonnie

(3,146 posts)
20. That, and/or he believed his buddy when he told everyone around him he didn't do it, was being framed, etc
Tue Feb 3, 2026, 12:43 PM
17 hrs ago

I mean, that's kinda the main gist of this message. That's pretty fucking blind, obviously, but given the totality of the picture, it seems like Epstein was a highly adept liar, I'll give him that one thing.

Kid Berwyn

(23,574 posts)
18. Epstein moved in interesting circles.
Tue Feb 3, 2026, 09:50 AM
20 hrs ago

Today CounterPunch publishes a piece on the shocking relationship between the "liberal intellectual" and the sex trafficker.



On the Emails Between Jeffrey Epstein and Noam Chomsky

by Vijay Prishad
CounterPunch, February 3, 2026

Excerpt...

But of course, it was impossible to ignore the emails between my friend and collaborator Noam Chomsky and Epstein. I have read what I can, and I have seen what I need to see. Noam has been a great mentor for me, and we have made two books together (the last one, his final book). Both books were written around the time that he was in correspondence with Epstein. But nothing in our many discussions brought up any of the themes in that correspondence or of the fact that he was meeting Epstein. Noam and I talked about US imperialism and its crimes, and then about Cuba. The only personal other thing we talked about other than these political matters was our love of dogs and the Arabic language.

Since Noam cannot speak or write and explain his relationship with Epstein, the matter is fraught. There is nothing to say on his behalf. When the photos and emails appeared, I was immediately disgusted by Epstein’s paedophilia, and so by Noam’s friendship with him. There is no defence for this, in my view, no context that can explain this outrage.

I asked Jeffery St. Clair, the editor of CounterPunch, what our common friend Alexander Cockburn would have made of these revelations. ‘Alex would have been troubled, I think’, Jeffrey wrote, ‘about Noam having such a close relationship with an ultra-Zionist, and probable Israeli agent…Seriously bad judgment from someone who usually makes such considered and thoroughly reasoned decisions’. Epstein was a man of the Far Right and a Zionist – an accumulator of men of power and influence who want to turn the world into their paradise and our hell. He introduced Noam to Ehud Barak, a man who had faced corruption allegations in the early 2000s and who had committed war crimes during his tenure as Israeli Prime Minister. In 2009, Barak conducted a terrible war against the Palestinians in Gaza, murdering about 1500 Palestinians in cold blood. The United Nations investigation committee, chaired by Richard Goldstone, found in its report that the Israeli government – led by Barak – had committed war crimes. When Barak visited the United Kingdom that year, solicitors took a case to the City of Westminster to ask for a warrant under the 1988 Criminal Justice Act, which provides for universal jurisdiction in war crimes cases. No such warrant materialised. Why would Noam meet a war criminal in 2015, six years after these events? When I asked Noam in 2021, for our first book The Withdrawal, if he would have gone to meet with Henry Kissinger, he laughed and said, no. And yet, he had earlier – unbeknownst to me, met with a war criminal.

Why consort so freely with a person of that disposition? Why provide comfort and advice to a paedophile for his crimes?

Source: https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/02/03/on-the-emails-between-jeffrey-epstein-and-noam-chomsky/



Chomsky and the late Alexander Coburn, the co-founder of CounterPunch, were leftists who wrote in "Rethinking Camelot: JFK, the Vietnam War, and U.S. Political Culture" (1999), that the JFK assassination was the work of a lone gunman. Furthermore, they have amplified the fiction over the decades that there was no difference between JFK and his successors as far as foreign and domestic policy go. Nothing could be further from the truth.

So, who benefits from such a relationship between intellectuals and sex traffickers, besides the liars? Who suffers, besides the missing and sexually exploited children, and the truth?

flvegan

(65,936 posts)
11. If Chomsky is guilty of participating, then he can rot in prison too.
Tue Feb 3, 2026, 02:21 AM
Yesterday

See how simple that is? If there's smoke and then fire, maybe raging fire, and the facts show that he's involved with any of the Epstein crimes, then fuck this guy too.

Polybius

(21,618 posts)
15. Probably past the statute of limitations
Tue Feb 3, 2026, 05:25 AM
Yesterday

The dude is 97, he probably hasn't had sex in 25 years or more.

Latest Discussions»General Discussion»Lots of Noam Chomsky in t...