The Chomsky–Epstein Scandal: What Was He Thinking? Owen Jones

 Click on Owen Jones 'What the hell was Noam Chomsky thinking? The world's most influential Left-Wing public intellectual. Had a massive impact on me as a teenager, and I'm sure many of you as well. You know, he was someone who fearlessly exposed the horrors of American Imperialism for decades. But Chomsky's been implicated in the hideous scandal involving the late paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. He struck up a friendship with him after Epstein had already been in prison for soliciting sex with a minor. He repeatedly spent time with him, including at Epstein's townhouse, his apartment, his ranch. Chomsky spent time with Steve Bannon, the far-right former chief strategist uh to Donald Trump, thanks to Epstein. There's a picture of them, you know, kind of being all jovial together. When Epstein came under scrutiny for allegations of sex trafficking in 2019, he asked Chomsky for advice on how to respond. 

And Chomsky said the following. 

'I've watched the horrible way you are being treated in the press and public. It's painful to say, but I think the best way to proceed is to ignore it. What the vultures dearly want is a public response, which then provides a public opening for an onslaught of venomous attacks, many from just publicity seekers or cranks of all sorts. That's particularly true now with the hysteria that has developed about abusive women, which has reached the point that even questioning a charge is a crime worse than murder.' 

I mean, just disgusting to be honest and unforgivable. I mean, even if you, you know, those comments are outrageous. even if you just taken out the contextof the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. I'm shocked and appalled personally to witness someone who was a hero to my younger self um and someone a hero to those who believe in justice and a better world implicated in this outrageous scandal. But it is important not to shy away from difficult topics. I want to understand what the hell happened here. So I talked to the anthropologist Chris Knight who has written about Chomsky for many decades including the book Decoding Chomsky to try and work out how this could possibly have happened. Now Chris, you've been researching Nam Chomsky for decades. You've you've written a book on it. You've written lots of including recent work for example um on the revelations to do with the late pedophile Jeffrey v. Now, many of us were absolutely shocked and appalled,baffled, if I'm honest. Found the whole thing completely and utterly surreal. Peter Mandlesson and Jeffrey Epstein,an imagine that. Prince Andrew, a Jeffrey Epstein, can imagine that. 'Noam Chomsky. It just seemed like a kind of writer's room on a TV show had just taken a bizarre turn and randomly inserted a completely, you know, out there character who had nothing to do with that world in our heads into the whole scenario. It just it was just so shocking because I think people often associate…..,'