this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2026
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Considering all the recent attention surrounding Noam Chomsky and his connections to Jeffery Epstein, I thought I might ask this question.

I personally think Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media is a good book and makes a lot of good points regarding the bourgeois media which few other left-wing authors have made, at least not in such a concise and easily-explained way. When I shared this book with new leftists, they seem to appreciate and comprehend its contents rather quickly. The only part which I found myself majorly disagreeing with was the conclusion in which Chomsky suggests that "American democracy" is "under threat," as opposed to being non-existent in the first place.

With that being said, I consider Chomsky's work to be a pearl in an ocean of bad takes. I think that Chomsky, particularly recently, is an anti-communist propagandist and apologist for the bourgeois system, basically a left-liberal.

Is my take incorrect?

Edit: I failed to mention how this book was co-authored by someone else who is not on the Epstein files. Thank you to all those who mentioned that.

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[โ€“] SootySootySoot@hexbear.net 10 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

The quality, correctness, or authorship of the work aside. Bad people can say correct things, even the shittest person in all the world could write a book that was good and correct.

This isn't even about art-from-artist, it's not about entertainment, this is just about realising what's an accurate depiction of the world and what isn't. And conversely, writing the most enlightening book ever doesn't absolve the author of their sins.

If we discovered tomorrow that Marx murdered children on the weekends, it wouldn't make Communism any less totally rad of an idea.

[โ€“] Le_Wokisme@hexbear.net 3 points 14 hours ago

we post Mearsheimer a lot for somebody who has awful takes on everything but pre-invasion Ukraine