Noam Chomsky

[HelenaWaiting]

Another Epstein crony makes a grovelling apology, or rather, his wife makes one for him. Am I being too harsh to think that his comment about "the hysteria that has developed about abuse of women" is pretty much unforgivable?

I agree with PPs that probably a lot of the famous people consorting with Epstein were comfortable with the fact that he was abusing teenage girls, and might have been less comfortable if he were abusing teenage boys. Until quite recently, men's attraction to pubescent girls has been considered quite normal and it was the sort of thing that got joked about in sitcoms.

I think this may also have been a factor (among others) in why the Muslim rape gangs were ignored for so long. The additional fact that the girls were working-class and often from care backgrounds probably led a lot of the middle-class social workers and police officers to regard them as unimportant.

Having said all that, you could also ask why the sexual abuse of boys in boarding schools was ignored for so long. It ought to be a huge scandal, yet although it does get coverage from time to time, it ought to be a much bigger one, in my view. The scale of it was enormous.

'Muslim rape gangs'? - we had Catholic rape gangs here, aka the clergy.
Quite a few Anglican ones in the UK too, I believe. And I'm sure men of other religions have their own gangs too.

The group 'child-sexual-abusing-men' is a shining example of inclusivity.

Given the way reporters talk about the girls it is likely that Epstein's mates and acquaintances simply didn't register what was actually going on.

Because violence against women and girls simply does not register with most of them. And if it does, they look at it as transactional "look, they get to go on private jets, etc" as if it is fun

I think she is just plain lying about the $270k. If there were errors why wouldn't they get their usual accountant to sort it out? Or switch accountants if they were the source of the error? It doesn't make any sense.

Excellently put.
There is a Bill Maher quote about Woody Allen which, I believe, is quite pertinent to this discussion. He said:
"Woody Allen, I think, proved that a genius with a hard-on is still just a guy with a hard-on."
Unfortunately fame, intelligence, wealth and talent do not automatically prevent a man from being an abusive, predatory misogynist though, depressingly, it does seem to increase the likelihood that people, who all should know better, will be willing and eager to try and invent excuses for their inexcusable behaviour.
It was not all that long ago that a number of the 'great and good' in Hollywood clubbed together to sign a letter calling on the US government to cease its 'cruel and unjust persecution' of poor old misunderstood convicted child rapist Roman Polanski seemingly on the grounds that he was a great movie director and therefore should not have to follow the same laws as all the other nobodies.
The sympathy expressed for his plight', being forced to live in exile in Switzerland for years rather than, you know, face any form of justice for the horrific crime he had committed was nauseating.

Even if you strip out all of the horrific things Epstein did, I struggle (as a big leftie) to understand why Chomsky, a supposed self identified anarchist, would ever engage in a personal relationship with such a 'powerful' man.
And the excuse of naivity from his wife doesn't cut it.

He's just another male intellectual who's words were cheap. Glad that my hubby threw out all his books a while ago.

Chomsky is a vile man, always has been

Exactly this.

Everyone caught associating with Epstein has presented themselves as a victim, only emphasising further that they don't actually give a shit about the real victims.

There was a Times headline the other day about Bill Gates - 'Why didn't Bill see it?' as if poor cuddly Bill Gates in his nerdy jumper had somehow been duped into associating with Epstein. Well it seems Bill was allegedly too busy enjoying abusing trafficked women to see it.

Yes. I cannot for the life of me imagine 'looking past' something like that. As if it were a minor conviction for shoplifting or something. These people are vile.

Yes, and the reason I didn't mention the Catholic Church child sex abuse scandal is that when it finally broke, it received huge amounts of attention, in Ireland, the UK and the US, and probably elsewhere too. But the Muslim rape gangs were under-reported for a long time.

And is it really correct to say that the Catholic Church had "rape gangs"? Surely it was more a case of individually abusive priests, whose crimes were then covered up by the Church establishment?

It has nothing to do about tone police.

That is the usual attempt to deflect from being offensive as other women have said on other threads.

And in response some have said they wouldn't use it again.

But as you have condemned yourself by acknowledging that being called a part of the female anatomy is the worst thing possible, it speaks volumes about your respect for women.

But if you want to be one of the boys, that's your choice.

Good to know that feminists are getting their ethics from male comedians.

And the fact that women internalise the abuse the men condition them with is nothing to celebrate.

That's why one of the basics of feminism is to get the men out of our heads.

ie try and think how male conditioning makes us think.

I presume the child-abuse gangs in the UK are also made up of individually abusive men, so no more or no less 'rape gangs' than the huge number of Men of God who formed a paedophilic sub-culture, which included the church establishment, the hierarchy, who either condoned their behaviour or were at it themselves.

Groups of abusive men who are Muslim, groups of abusive men who are Catholic priests - I'm not sure I see why one group is a 'rape gang' and the other isn't.

Apart from the obvious one that priests are expected to be holy, and have a higher standard of behaviour than other men.

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Chomsky's wife is 35 years younger than him.

Are you always this jolly?

oh push off
I am a 2nd wave feminist and there is nothing wrong with being a woman.

The C-word is a totally utterly shocking word to use - and i will continue to use it.

Your small minded attempt to insult me by telling me i don't hold women in regard says everything about you.

I’m not sure I understand your argument. The rape gangs are defined as such because the perpetrators were working together. They were organised (the gang part) specifically to target and abuse young girls. Their behaviour was also being enabled by people in authority turning a blind eye (or accepting monetary or sexual bribes).

The child abuse scandals in the church have very few accounts of perpetrators working together. Yes, there’s a similarity in their being enabled by those in authority turning a blind eye, but broadly speaking we are talking about individuals, not organised gangs. Individuals in a trusted position, with spiritual authority, who then abused that trust and that authority.

I suspect the next abuse scandal is going to be centred on the medical profession. Same trusted, authoritative position. Same minimisation of abuse by the authorities.

But church and medicine are not set up to abuse children. They’re simply a position of power which individuals can exploit. Any position of power and authority will attract those not suitable; that’s why safeguarding is so important.

The rape gangs were and are set up specially to abuse kids.

Thats my understanding. I think some of the gangs/groups were involved in other stuff, drugs, violence, etc. But the primary bond was, it seems, the rape and abuse of girls.

Quelle surprise. Men like this like the power imbalance and a youthful girl.

Also since the 90s, I’ve known someone in his field who says he’s not very nice and behaves in a bullying, cliquey way to other academics. Combined with the massive distrust I’ve now developed for lefty progressive figureheads (despite being an old school lefty myself) I’m not surprised by all this, but it’s still sickening how people who are adulated as wonders of lefty virtue turn out to not actually care about actual oppression, exploitation and suffering especially if it’s of women and girls.

also seriously Noam Chomsky was going to be left poverty stricken in his retirement if he didn’t recover 270k? That does not ring true at all.

👏👏👏

Groups of abusive men who are Muslim, groups of abusive men who are Catholic priests - I'm not sure I see why one group is a 'rape gang' and the other isn't.

There was a good deal of co-ordination among men in the former groups. They were geographically near each other for a start, as well as in many cases being members of the same family, so they'd pass girls between them. There were also a number of instances of girls being gang raped.

My understanding is that the Catholic priests operated differently, with many acting alone. But I may be wrong.

Would the thread derailers mind sodding off? This thread is about Noam Chomsky. You want to talk about grooming gangs, create a separate thread.

Hear hear.