Freedom of speech just can’t be applied selectively, tho.

I mean, for freedom of speech with respect to the State, yeah I’m with you. But if I remember correctly, Chomsky was arguing against antifascists deplatforming fascists, using freedom of speech to justify that opinion, which I think is a weak argument because the whole point of deplatforming fascists is to allow the maximal subset of people to speak.

One day you restrict someone’s speech, the next day they are in power and restrict yours.

IMO deplatforming oppressive groups should be considered the maximalist position for freedom of speech. Letting them speak is equivalent to letting them win, which results in a net loss of free speech averaged over the whole community (e.g., LGBTQ people feel less likely to speak freely when homophobes are allowed to freely express LGBTQ-phobic views).

Not a defense of Chomsky because fuck him, but he claimed he was an anarcho-syndicalist, i.e. not a tankie. Not everyone who sucks is a tankie.

And it didn’t end in… tragedy? Because the ending of a fart is arguably its most important quality.

Chomsky’s got a lot of explaining to do 😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡

I mean I would argue that caring is more important than ever, and that’s why the care-bear is throwing Molotov’s 🏴🏴🏴

I know Parenti’s not a fan of us anarchists but I’ll take it, I’m so sick of Chomsky 😮‍💨

Even before this Epstein shit, I knew he had severe liberal tendencies (yes even from an anarchist position) and yeah honestly he became a court jester for capitalism, but at least he has some good takes in his past. Like at a bare minimum he had Manufacturing Consent.

Unironically if you have an alternative recommendation for Manufacturing Consent that doesn’t have his prints on it, I’d love to see it because I’m so tired having to cite this fucking clown 😮‍💨

I listened to a lot of Chomskys talks on YouTube, which have always been very critical of capitalism and the elite.

Yeah if Chomsky is to be taken at his word, he was an anarcho-syndicalist. Too bad he betrayed his principles, if he ever really held them in the first place 😮‍💨.

Is the dude just too old to give a shit now?

One of my critiques of Chomsky even before this Epstein shit is that he’s too tolerant of monsters. For example, he defended freedom of speech, which okay cool, but even for fascists. I always chalked it up to the fact that he has been cancelled various times throughout his career for his anti-war stances and probably found the experience unenlightening, and the fact that he’s a bit of a liberal. And honestly, I can agree to disagree with others to some extent about who is worth talking to, especially since some of those people are more likely to listen to Chomsky based on his background and signals of privilege. And personally, I do lie closer to “I’m willing to talk it out” than “We should to beat up people with bad ideas”.

But this…this is beyond reasonable disagreement. Even if he ends up being cleared of Epstein-related crimes (which I gotta be real with you, I fully believe at this point that he knew what was going on), he is clearly in bed with the monsters destroying our world. Steve Bannon is not going to listen to a loony “”“leftist”“” like Chomsky, and Chomsky is not gonna get anything from Bannon that he couldn’t have figured out by watching the news.

Like even if Chomsky didn’t want to tell the guy off, he could have declined the invitation or left the room. And it’s Noam fucking Chomsky. No shot he didn’t know who Bannon was! And it would be an abdication of duty for a so-called leftist so-called academic to not know the names in his field. I.e. even if this was an accident on his part, it should seriously damage his credibility.

All this to say, Chomsky became what he wanted to destroy.

Idolize no one, unless they die a hero.

IMO we can pick and choose parts of a person to admire without idolizing them.

Left: Steve Bannon. Republican strategist, Trump ally, active fascist piece of shit.

Right: Noam Chomsky. Linguist, activist, self-descibed anarchist. If you asked him, he would say he’s one of us. Many of us here probably read Chomsky. Frankly, most people on the left, even non-anarchists, routinely use the logic in Manufacturing Consent to analyze how capitalist media manufactures consent from the working class for their various atrocities.

I’ve had my critiques of Chomsky for a long time, but his apparently deep connections with Epstein (not just this picture) and willingness to talk politely to fascists are absolutely beyond the pale.

I took the photo straight from the pictures released yesterday by the House Oversight Democrats, which itself came from the estate of Jeffrey Epstein.

Was it ever?

See I’m an engineering major but on opposite day, like all the time. I’m unironically like “please I beg you just let me do more integrals, I don’t wanna build the prototype, I just want to do all the math to control it.” So whenever it’s just more integrals I’m like “Finally some fucking good food” 😆

Good news!

10 Dec 2025 #BreakingNews Goli Kouhkan has been saved from execution with the consent of the victim’s family! Announcement by the Qasim Child Foundation Regarding the Process of Collecting Public Donations to Save Goli Kouhkan According to Goli’s lawyer “Goli Kouhkan has been spared from the enforcement of the death sentence after the victim’s family granted their consent and accepted the amount of 8 billion tomans.” According to Ms Qaredaghi, Goli’s lawyer, the victim’s family initially demanded 10 billion tomans in blood money. Following this, two fundraising campaigns were launched inside and outside Iran, and Qasim Child Foundation began the fundraising campaign. Ultimately, 8 billion tomans were raised through public donations and charities inside Iran. Since the victim’s family gave their consent with this amount, there was no need to use the funds collected by the Qasim Child Foundation. Qasim Child Foundation hereby expresses its sincere gratitude and appreciation to everyone who supported and assisted this cause. Individuals who made financial contributions through the Qasim Child Foundation may request a #Refund of their donations by the end of January 2026, by sending their payment receipt and providing their bank account or PayPal details to the Foundation’s email. Please note that after this date, if any balance remains in the account, the funds will be allocated to supporting human rights prisoners. Thank you all 💞 Email: Info@qasimcf.org

I mean I pulled a muscle lying in bed a couple months ago 😭

Hi I’m one of those. Can confirm I’m absolutely dreadful 😆🏴🏴🏴

Is there like some dark implication to this story that I’m missing? Because I really want this to just be a happy story about a cute baby seal showing up in an unexpected place, but I’ve been burned so many times by “cute animal stories” where it’s like “actually this implies that something terrible happened/is going to happen to this animal”.

I already read the article. I basically stand by my comment. Also are you seriously calling me a tankie for pushing back against a piece of obvious sinophobic fearmongering? Because I’m an anarchist, not a tankie 🏴🏴🏴

Damn bro hook me up with your acid supplier, mine is obviously far weaker.

I gotchu covered bro

The only thing in this article that even remotely contradicts my summary is

He said he said (sic lmao) seen “the full spectrum” of approaches – from cyber-attacks to “people who are infiltrated into programmes, get the information and bring it back”.

which yeah, I’m sure a nation-state like China is doing cyber-attacks on our institutions as all the big nation-states do, and no nation-states should be doing that (or just existing at all 🏴🏴🏴), but like…all your scientific artifacts should be available to the public regardless of nationality anyways, i.e. academics have no business keeping secrets. So unless they’re going and making life Hell for researchers, I really don’t give a fuck if China’s national security apparatus is antagonizing USA’s national security apparatus because I see any national security apparatus as enemies of humanity.

Otherwise, the article is just sinophobic fearmongering about Chinese people gaining knowledge at scale.

Banning USian social media services doesn’t stop people from wanting sites like these, nor does it protect you or your community from the impacts that these services have on the rest of the world that will unfortunately affect you.

Like why exactly do people even want to be a part of these panopticons when the negative consequences are so severe? Because I think that people mostly do understand that they are sacrificing their privacy and autonomy to these platforms, but how can we get people to understand the seriousness of these sacrifices?

Not a defense of USian social media websites BTW. I think we should burn these sites to the fucking ground. But while they’re active, I don’t see how banning your community from interacting with and monitoring them is a good idea.

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