Happy Birthday Noam from Winnipeg

Submitted by Richard Kidd in Winnipeg, Manitoba,
on 11/29/2008

My first acquaintance with Noam Chomsky came in the early 1980's at the University of Toronto, when I studied his contributions to linguistics as part of my Ph.D. program in second language education. After I had become somewhat familiar with his professional work, I became aware of his writings on political and social affairs. I was dumbfounded then, and remain so today, at how one person could find the time to have his finger in so many pies. Well, to keep this brief, during the space of one year I had the good luck to hear Noam speak three times on the Toronto campus. I read most of his books, and sent him the occasional letter (he always responded!). I don't know what my subsequent intellectual life would have been like without the doors he opened for me. He has truly been a guide like no other. Thanks for everything, Noam.

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As has become tradition here
10/21/2009 — husee

As has become tradition here at Press Action, we celebrate and honor the life of Noam Chomsky instead of Japan’s raid on Pearl Harbor 64 years ago today that catapulted the United States into one of the wickedest periods in human history debit cards.

Happy 77th birthday, Noam! And thanks for all your hard work during the past 40-plus years in deciphering and explaining U.S. government policy health insurance. Here are some nuggets of Chomskyian wisdom: “The core of the anarchist tradition, as I understand it, is that power is always illegitimate, unless it proves itself to be legitimate. So the burden of proof is always on those who claim that some authoritarian hierarchic relation is legitimate mortgage. If they can’t prove it, then it should be dismantled. ... There’s a very heavy burden of proof to be borne by anyone who calls for violence. Maybe it can be sometimes justified. Personally, I’m not a committed pacifist, so I think that, yes, it can sometimes be justified.”

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