And that’s what’s important… 
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It’s something he confirmed. It’s not a claim.
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“Mr. Chomsky told the Journal that at the time of his meetings “what was known about Jeffrey Epstein was that he had been convicted of a crime and had served his sentence. According to U.S. laws and norms, that yields a clean slate.””
That’s a bit minimizing the extent of Epstein’s criminal activities on Chomsky’s part.
“ In 2005, the parents of a 14-year-old girl told police in Florida that Epstein had molested their daughter at his Palm Beach home. A police search of the property found photos of girls throughout the house.
The Miami Herald reports that his abuse of underage girls dated back years.
“This was not a ‘he said, she said’ situation,” Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter told the newspaper. “This was 50-something ‘shes’ and one ‘he’ - and the ‘shes’ all basically told the same story.””
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For Noam Chomsky of all people to rely on “U.S. laws and norms” is an incredibly weak defence. He’s almost saying “You bourgeois capitalist imperialists can’t criticise me, by your standards, so shut up.”
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Chomsky’s whole response was weird but the “great artist” line messed me up the most. Don’t get me wrong, Woody Allen has certainly made some great art; one could even argue that his best films are the ones where he’s very clearly grappling with his own perversions, either directly or subtextually.
…but by 2015, not long after Dylan made her allegations public, even someone like Chomsky should be able to understand why he’s a controversial figure who’s notable for reasons beyond his art.
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Chomsky should know that merely serving a sentence doesn’t mean someone automatically has “a clean slate”. Convictions for lesser crimes can be used to justify denying someone a job and in several states even someone who’s completed a sentence still can’t vote without going through additional steps.
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“ The last time Epstein, who is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, faced jail time — the result of a non-prosecution dealexposed by Miami Herald investigative reporter Julie K. Brown last November — he didn’t actually spend much time behind bars. Per Brown’s reporting, Epstein was jailed in a private wing with his own guards, and given permission to leave the prison for 12 hours a day, six days a week to work from his office.”
He got released on parole after a ridiculously short time as well. Though was a registered sex offender he was meeting in relation to his work as a teacher at a university.
When the far right says there’s a group of extremely wealthy pedos organized to sexually exploit youth; they’re not completely wrong. They’re completely wrong about who the perps are, of course.
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Ironically enough, Nim Chimpsky released a full-throated, thoroughly argued, eloquent denouncement of Epstein and everything he stood for.
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So if Epstein hadn’t yet been convicted then it would be OK to associate with him since under U.S. laws and norms all people are innocent until proven guilty, and after Epstein had served his (woefully inadequate) sentence it was OK to associate with him because he had a “clean slate.”
So when exactly is it wrong to associate with a known child sex trafficker?
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Mondays. It’s why Garfield hates them
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Only when they’re on their 12 hour release from prison 6 days a week to work from home.
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“Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to write the future Pulitzer-winning script about a fictionalized version of this supposed dinner party between Epstein, Chomsky, and Allen.”
Aprés Steve Martin, I suggest the title: “Chomsky at the Under Age-il”.
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This, x1000. Chomsky is a guy who makes a living as a professional smart guy. And here he is pleading stupidity. It’s disgusting.
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Especially since the sentence was rather light, given the crime…
I guess he favors American empire when it benefits him…
Isn’t he the definition of the bourgeois, being a college professor at one of the most elite universities in the country? 
Indeed. Just goes to show that being critical of American Empire does not make one immune to stuff like this…
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I guess it depends on what he’s making of himself.
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Even if we ignore all the moral aspects of the whole thing, it’s baffling. It’s not like he hasn’t had plenty of time to come up with a good answer to the question (whether he was involved in something nasty, or is guilty of nothing more than bad choice of company).
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He’s Noam Chomsky… I’m sure he doesn’t feel he has to. He has a group of loyal fanbois who will hang on his every word uncritically, and that kind of thing can make people believe that they have no need to answer to anyone over anything…
There is lots to like about Chomsky’s political work. But that doesn’t mean he’s always right or beyond reproach…
It also strikes me that we seem to have a under examined problem of “rock star” professors not getting the same scrutiny as others in our culture. In addition to Chomsky, people like Zizek are also treated as always “right” rather than as part of a larger discourse being had within and outside of academia. Although there is a growing divide within academia of the elite and the rest of us… but that’s an aspect most people outside of academia rarely see. They generally only see profs when they go to college and then the elite showing up on talk shows and in news interviews to talk about their work. People like Chomsky came up in an era where more people were going to college and there was more state-funded support for the growth of universities - he and others of his era had a plethora of job options and were considered an important part of the social landscape. Now, there are hundreds of applicants for single jobs, with the position often going to those who came out of the most elite schools (who doesn’t want someone with a harvard degree in a position in their local community college!).
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That’s probably the explanation. The best alternate one I can think of is that he’s going senile and actually didn’t realize this would come up inevitably. But your answer is more likely.
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Or maybe there’s just no good answer, and so turning the tables on the inquirer is the best he could come up with.
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He can’t account for why he’d spend time with someone who is a known, convicted child rapist? Really?
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