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NEWS OF CHOMSKY’S ILL HEALTH PROMPTS OUTPOURING OF GRATITUDE FOR
‘LION OF THE LEFT’  
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Brett Wilkins
June 12, 2024
Common Dreams
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_ "So many thousands of people have stories about how he has changed
their lives," said one admirer. "He certainly changed mine." _

In this Oct. 20, 2012 photo Noam Chomsky stands during a press
conference to support the Gaza-bound flotilla in the port of Gaza
City. , (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)

 

News that renowned American linguist, dissident, and author Noam
Chomsky [[link removed]] is
hospitalized in Brazil following a massive stroke he suffered last
year was met with an avalanche of accolades and well wishes from
members of the international left on Wednesday.

Valeria Chomsky told
[[link removed]]_The
Associated Press_ that her 95-year-old husband—a laureate professor
at the University of Arizona and professor emeritus at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT)—is currently in a São Paulo hospital.
She took him there on an ambulance jet with two nurses after he was
able to travel from the United States following his June 2023 stroke.

Chomsky told
[[link removed]]_Folha
de São Paulo_ that although her husband has difficulty speaking and
the right side of his body is numb from the stroke, he follows the
news and "when he sees images of the war in Gaza
[[link removed]], he raises his left arm in a
gesture of lament and anger." She said his condition has improved
significantly, and he is seeing a neurologist, speech therapist, and
pulmonologist daily.

However, people close to Chomsky say he is unlikely to return to
public life.

"Noam is the most influential U.S. intellectual ever. Period," Rutgers
School of Communications Professor Andrew Kennis—whose
book _Digital Age Resistance_ contains a foreword co-authored by
Chomsky—told _Common Dreams_.

"He has been the largest influence on my life in any way, personal or
professional" Kennis added. "As for movements, no other thinker helped
positively shape and mold anti-imperialsm analysis and criticism of
the U.S. bullying the world on behalf of Wall Street and Silicon
Valley better and more effectively than him."

U.S. journalist and political analyst Anand Giridharadas hailed
[[link removed]] Chomsky—whom
he interviewed in 2020—as a "lion of the left."

"It would be difficult to overestimate the impact Chomsky's work has
had," Giridharadas wrote
[[link removed]] for _The.Ink_ Wednsday.
"Beyond the total transformation of his academic field (he's widely
acknowledged as the father of modern linguistics and the main force
behind the cognitive turn in the sciences), his political impact has
been immeasurable."

"As a writer, activist, analyst, and critic of power, and likely the
most visible left public intellectual of the late 20th and early 21st
centuries, his work has defined the terms of countless debates and
he's been a tireless advocate for—and guide on the path to—a
better future," he added.

Of the more than 100 books published by Chomsky—who was once voted
[[link removed]] the
world's top public intellectual in an international poll—four are
specifically about Israel
[[link removed]] and Palestine
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conspicuously absent from the debate over Israel's current assault on
Gaza, which is the subject of an International Court of
Justice genocide case
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_Current Affairs_ founder and editor Nathan Robinson—who is the
co-author of Chomsky's forthcoming book, _The Myth of American
Idealism: How U.S. Foreign Policy Endangers the World_—said earlier
this week on social media that "Chomsky has been unbelievably kind
over the years I've known him."

"He treats everyone as an equal. Doesn't care who you are," he
continued. "He would give as much of his time to a high school student
as some celebrity or _New York Times_ reporter. And devoted himself
to attacking cruelty and injustice."

"When I started a tiny lefty magazine with only a few subscribers, he
bought a subscription, blurbed us, and would email if his copy didn't
show up," Robinson recalled. "He provided countless generous blurbs to
authors publishing with tiny presses, giving them a boost that could
really help them."

"So many thousands of people have stories about how he has changed
their lives," he added. "He certainly changed mine."

_Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams._

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