Noam Chomsky is one of those people that some people will defend reflexively without even thinking.

@artemis
Nobody needs more white dude ideas lol.

@lykso @artemis i might cut some lino to make a patch, or maybe a shirt if i can find some decent blank shirts.

@shadowfals
Someone else could do a better job summarizing him, but he's a public "leftist" intellectual. In his heyday he was frequently the only supposed "far left" guy getting high profile interviews & he was kind of supposed to be a one-of-a-kind genius.

Now that we know he was besties with billionaires, it's easy to see why HIS was the "leftist" voice that was given air.

@artemis @quinn

let's look at his record:

> supported the invasion of Vietnam
> signed a letter against BDS alongside J.K. Rowling and Thom Yorke
> pedo shit with Epstein
> hobnobbing with Steve Bannon

i guess those "debates" with Alan Dershowitz were really just for show.

I always end up linking to Firestorm, but I am freaking in love with their curated catalog. I've ordered several books from them just based on description with no prior knowledge, & every single one has been .

A huge number of them are written by people along multiple axes of oppression. Also they throw in goodies sometimes like zines & other additional materials. That's how I found Crimethinc!

https://firestorm.coop/

@firestorm
@CrimethInc

@artemis
I just threw away a bunch of his books.

Maybe he didn't have sex with any underage or trafficked women, I don't know, and can't know.
But I know stink when I smell it, and him corresponding with Epstein after the sentencing just reeks.
Chomsky willingly engaged with and provided support for that guy, and for that, they can both go to hell

@artemis
Nobody's work is "too important"

@artemis Chomsky hasn’t been needed for decades. Chomsky was a convenient bozo detector for anybody in progressive circles ever since Srebrenica.

If you want to have your mind expanded, want to come to new & different ways of organizing the world to end violence & oppression, you should go somewhere other than old white dudes with a vested interest in the existing system.

Honestly, we shouldn't put aside the abusive, predatory people he cozied up to, but aside from that Chomsky invested heavily with Epstein. The world's premiere leftist thinker has enough capital to "invest heavily". Dude ain't who he says he is.

@burnitdown @artemis he was still a member?

@artemis i feel u. exactly what i was just thinking.

@artemis

They will only do so as long as they can get away with it because that means that they can get away with whatever they want to.

When they start losing their position or even their heads, we will see change.

It has always been thus

So yeah, frankly, if you think "we" need Chomsky, then you & I are not part of the same "we".

@artemis @shadowfals Yep. To expand, he was famous for two academic fields: Initially as a linguist, famous for his work on the relationship between syntax and grammar for conveying meaning ("Colorful green ideas sleep furiously" is grammatically correct with no meaning — that's his — as is the claim that "cellar door" is the most beautiful phrase in English). And later for his far-left politics, specifically as a vocal proponent of anarchism and for calling out US imperialism before it was common to hear such things. He famously called out the US government for maintaining the dictatorship in East Timor over the will of its people. Which was my first awareness that the US did such things.

I wasn't a huge fan but I found his work thought-provoking. But I've gotten used to dumping figures if they're outed as abusers. There are so many people I've loved so much more that I've dumped over far less. He had his place in history, and that moment has moved on.

@artemis @BigTittyBimbo he hasn't given up his membership afaik

If you learned something from Chomsky at some point, if he turned you onto a truth you didn't know, that doesn't get erased: YOU learned something.

But look, it was fucking RON PAUL who convinced me widespread abuse by police in this country actually exists, & I ain't looking to Ron Paul to tell me how to think, even if he happened to be the catalyst that helped change my opinion for the better one time.

@artemis @shadowfals Yeah, this is right.

I find I'm often needing to point out that, until the early 2000s, popular discourse in the US was severely constricted and dominated by commercial media, which systematically censored any mention of leftist groups or ideas.

Chomsky was about at the limit of what they'd tolerate, in detailing US atrocities and malign foreign policy, based on public records and mainstream journalistic accounts. Significantly, Chomsky would always deflect any questions about what alternatives he'd support, rarely going further than supporting abstract resistance.

@artemis @firestorm @CrimethInc
i like Firestorm. i've visited and bought books from them.

can't see their posts anymore, though. not sure why, maybe they're auto-deleted or follower-only, maybe i'm blocked

@artemis maybe the left has to come to the realization that you can be politically perfectly right and still personally be an asshole. many such cases.

You don't owe your loyalty to someone just because they happened to be useful in the evolution of your thinking. You can be glad you found something of use & move the fuck on.

As previously stated, plenty of marginalized folks (Black, indigenous, queer, disabled, etc.) have more to offer to you, especially if you bring it all together.

Even there though, don't fucking idolize people. There is no amount of "good" someone can do that should shield them from accountability for their own actions.