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Noam Chomsky advised Jeffrey Epstein how to dodge the pedo accusations (lemmy.ml)
submitted 6 hours ago by geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml to c/progressivepolitics@lemmy.world
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[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 9 points 2 hours ago

This was from another article about it:

About a year later, Chomsky reached out to Bannon and expressed his and Valeria’s disappointment for “having missed you the other night”.

“Jeffrey … gave me your address,” Chomsky wrote. “Hope that we can arrange something else before too long. Lots to talk about.”

Bannon had been out of Trump’s first administration for about a year at that point. “Agree. Would love to connect,” he wrote back, before saying his brother lived in Tucson, Arizona, where Chomsky had started working as a university professor.

Maybe he’s just a horrible person?

[–] ultranaut@lemmy.world 27 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

That Hiltzik guy in the email is conveniently now the "crisis manager" for the ex-Microsoft executive who was exposed in the Epstein files for using Epstein to extract a $14 million dollar golden parachute out of Microsoft when he got fired for Windows 8 sucking. It's incredible how interconnected the Epstein class is, it's a small world for them.

[–] paraphrand@lemmy.world 3 points 3 hours ago

Holy shit, that’s wild.

[–] unknownuserunknownlocation@kbin.earth 10 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

Honestly, this raises so many questions and just downright confuses me.

  • Noam Chomsky is a critic of modern capitalism, and just generally on the left. Why in the hell would be want to spend time with Epstein?

  • He seems to believe in Epstein's innocence, even though he had long before been proven guilty. Chomsky is, as far as I can tell, quite the intellectual - did he not know, and if, how could he not know?

  • It legitimately sounds like Chomsky is speaking from the experience of being falsely accused. I mean, he has been arrested a couple of times for his activism, but that's a completely different story than being accused of raping someone or similar. Maybe his experience being on Reagan's list, but still, that would seem like something different to me. Maybe I'm off.

  • Assuming there's nothing more sinister going on with Chomsky (and I really don't know what to think there), what does that tell us about the world and the people around Epstein? I find it odd to have some of the greatest minds with a positive influence but also some of the most disgusting people in the same circle.

[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Tbh, I had been more and more annoyed and frustrated and alarmed with Chomsky over the years as I’ve paid more attention to him and his stance on modern issues. He was hailed as some sort of modern oracle for so long, and I feel like he just doesn’t really deserve nearly that much respect anymore. I don’t know if it’s senility or a boomer-ification of his thought processes or what, but I have vastly less respect for him than I once did. And learning of his defense of Epstein kind of nuked any remaining respect I had.

[–] tempest@lemmy.ca 0 points 58 minutes ago (1 children)

I'm already pretty agist but the man is nearly 100 years old and if I'm honest the number of 75 plus year olds I have met who are still as sharp as they were is less than 50 percent for sure.

When people are like " I can't believe such and such would say or do this" and they are old I just assume senility.

[–] chaogomu@lemmy.world 2 points 29 minutes ago

Well, he wrote in defense of the Kamer Rouge in the 70s and 80s.

All because Pol Pot claimed to be communist.

The man lived in luxury while starving, and murdering, his people.

Which is how every single dictator pretending to be communist has acted since Lenin betrayed the revolution and appointed himself king while killing the actual communists of Russia.

But the point here is that Chompsky has always fallen for this line of bullshit.

If someone feeds him a story and claims that the CIA or some capitalist corporations did it, then Chompsky will buy it. If someone claims to be "of the people" he'll buy that too.

[–] AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 11 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

Epstein apparently fancied himself an intellectual and cultivated contacts in the sciences for their own sake—he was also a major donor to the Santa Fe Institute and seems to have made a favorable impression there.

I think we underestimate the ability of predators like Epstein to appear as something other than they are when it suits them.

[–] tempest@lemmy.ca 3 points 56 minutes ago

I mean it isn't even that.

People are not one dimensional.

You can definitely have a trafficking ring and also be other things at the same time.

[–] crusa187@lemmy.ml 6 points 3 hours ago

Epstein’s rizz must have been off the scale. The way this reads, Chomsky didn’t know about the Trump-Epstein child rape blackmail operation and just genuinely thought of Epstein as a trusted friend unfairly targeted by MeToo. Damn.

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 8 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

Is there any chance he didn’t know?

I mean - that reads like he feels bad Jeffy’s going through this as if - as if he doesn’t know. Is that even possible?

[–] PumpkinSkink@lemmy.world 9 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Epstein was first convicted for sexual abuse of children in 2008 (11 years prior to this exchange). I, personally, will not extent the benefit of the doubt to Chomsky, (especially considering the age of his wife), but if you did, it would seem, to me at least, that you would have to conclude either that he was a phenomenally bad judge of character, and naive to a childlike degree; or so enamored with the level of access to people like the former prime minister of Israel which Epstein had that he was willing to not think about it too hard.

Parenti's books were always better anyway...

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago

Yeah, it’s just kind of baffling and none of it good. I think the latter might be the conclusion I’m landing on.

[–] AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 12 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

Chomsky’s Wikipedia article has a section on his friendship with Epstein. It mentions Chomsky wanting to take his wife to visit Epstein in the Caribbean, which seems an unlikely thing to do if he believed the allegations. But it also sounds like he was was way too dismissive of sexual misconduct allegations in general.

[–] Zaktor@sopuli.xyz 2 points 39 minutes ago

Musk wanted to bring his wife to the pedo island and when Epstein warned him she might not like the "ratio" he said she wouldn't mind. Spouses of famous and powerful men may either be so beholden or devoted to them they will excuse their actions, or they might also be just as bad. Epstein's girlfriend was his primary co-conspirator.

I don't know that Chomsky is bad, he could just be a clueless professor, but inviting his wife along isn't an indicator that he didn't know what the island experience was.

[–] itsaphoque@moist.catsweat.com 0 points 5 hours ago

I will be so happy to read his obituary.