Speaker 1: In the latest chapter of the Nome Chomsky story, the
Speaker 1: man long cast as the conscience of the American left
Speaker 1: is this week being publicly reappraised as much for his
Speaker 1: private associations as for his public ideas. Wbur in Boston
Speaker 1: reports that newly released emails from the US House Oversight
Speaker 1: Committee show Chomsky maintained a close years long relationship with
Speaker 1: convicted sexer finger Jeffrey Epstein, including warm exchanges about vacations,
Speaker 1: use of Epstein's New York compartment, and what appears to
Speaker 1: be a letter praising Epstein's talents written after Chumsky took
Speaker 1: his Arizona post in twenty seventeen. Wbur notes that Chomsky's
Speaker 1: wife and spokesperson, Valeria, also corresponded cordially with Epstein and
Speaker 1: did not respond to their request for comment. These documents,
Speaker 1: years after Epstein's death, are now being mined as biographical
Speaker 1: evidence suggesting a serious blind spot in Chomsky's judgment about
Speaker 1: power and money in his personal life. In sharp contrast
Speaker 1: to his lifelong public critique of both, Indian outlet scrawldot
Speaker 1: In has seized on the same trove to ask what
Speaker 1: Chomsky's Epstein friendship reveals about progressive politics, more broadly, arguing
Speaker 1: that his willingness to treat Epstein as a normal elite
Speaker 1: contact complicates the moral clarity with which his admirers have
Speaker 1: long framed his career. On YouTube, a lengthy new video
Speaker 1: essay titled Requiem for Chomsky by the channel bad Impanada
Speaker 1: attempts an end run around both hagiography and cancelation, revisiting
Speaker 1: his record on Cambodia, Bosnia, and Rwanda and contending that
Speaker 1: accusations of genocide denial misrepresent his position, even as the
Speaker 1: Epstein revelations cast a dark of shadow over his legacy. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: a very different kind of summing up the peers. In CounterPunch,
Speaker 1: where Michael K. Smith's piece Shame was the spur, the
Speaker 1: public Life of Nom Chomsky sketches his trajectory from Mit
Speaker 1: Linguistic's prodigy to Vietnam War resister willing to risk prison,
Speaker 1: to the aging critic who, after a massive stroke in
Speaker 1: June twenty twenty three, is reportedly partially paralyzed and largely
Speaker 1: unable to speak, yet still reacts with visible anguish to
Speaker 1: images from Palestine. According to his wife, that essay carries
Speaker 1: an unmistakable tone of finality, treating Chomsky's final public years
Speaker 1: as effectively over and framing his remaining time as a
Speaker 1: kind of silent witness to the crises he spent decades
Speaker 1: warning about. In the media world, his intellectual shadow remains long.
Speaker 1: The Nation recently ran an assessment of the worlds of
Speaker 1: nom Champs to portraying him as the pre eminent critic
Speaker 1: of us US Empire, while questioning whether his famous propaganda
Speaker 1: model fully fits taste fragmented social media landscape. Vegout magazine,
Speaker 1: of all places, has used his ideas on manufactured consent
Speaker 1: to explain my boomer parents still trust establishment news, and
Speaker 1: in academia, institutions like the College de France and Imperial
Speaker 1: College are organizing events that explicitly position contemporary debates on democracy, rationality,
Speaker 1: and the humanities as rejoinders to or extensions of Chomsky's work,
Speaker 1: underscoring that his thought is now a canonical reference point
Speaker 1: to argue with as much as to honor. There are
Speaker 1: at this moment no credible reports of new public appearances, interviews,
Speaker 1: or direct statements from Chomsky himself. Given his documented health condition,
Speaker 1: it is widely assumed he is retired from active public life,
Speaker 1: but that remains inference rather than confirmed medical detail. What
Speaker 1: is firmly established is that the battle over his legacy
Speaker 1: has entered a new phase, with journalists, scholars, and online
Speaker 1: commentators all racing to define how future biographies will balance
Speaker 1: the towering critic of power with the frail, silent man
Speaker 1: whose private email trail leads straight into the home of
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein. You have been listening to Nom Chomsky Audio Biography.
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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. This has been a quiet please production