After COP30, Indigenous Narratives Are More Important Than Ever

By Nick Engelfried

December 23, 2025

Source: Waging Non-violence

Image by If Not Us Then Who?

As last month’s COP30 climate negotiations unfolded in Belém, Brazil, activists converged on the city to advocate for keeping fossil fuels in the ground and protecting carbon-rich ecosystems. At the center of large public demonstrations in Belém were an unprecedented number of people from Indigenous, Afro-descendant and other communities with deep ties to traditional lands.

COP30 stood out from other recent U.N. climate summits, partly because of the key role Indigenous representatives played. It also featured large protests after three successive years of the annual COP summits being held in countries whose governments are friendly to fossil fuels and hostile to dissent. 

“For the first time since 2021, we saw major climate protests inside and outside COP,” said Yurshell Rodríguez, who attended as a member of the Indigenous and community-led group If Not Us Then Who? “Indigenous delegates were there not just to participate, but to lead.”

In all, more than 900 representatives of Indigenous nations and Indigenous-led groups attended COP30 as registered participants, while thousands more advocated outside the negotiations. At least 385 distinct Indigenous nations were represented, including over 300 from Brazil alone.

Under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil has projected the image of a country eager to lead on climate and sympathetic to demands from its Indigenous population. Brazil’s Minister for Indigenous Peoples, Sônia Guajajara, played a key part in COP30. Partly as a result, activists had high hopes that the summit might lead to breakthroughs for global recognition of Indigenous land rights.

Not all these hopes were realized. However, events at COP30 showed that the role of Indigenous peoples as defenders of Earth’s climate is gaining widespread recognition, despite the slow rate of progress toward returning lands to Indigenous control.  

“Social movements are connecting dots the official COP negotiations avoid,” Rodríguez said. “Our message is clear: You want climate solutions? You need us.”

Centering Indigenous voices 

Rodríguez’s path to attending COP30 began when she was growing up in Colombia. Home to around 10 percent of Earth’s biodiversity and the third largest expanse of Amazon rainforest, Colombia is also at the center of centuries-old struggles against colonization. Rodríguez, who belongs to Colombia’s Afro-Indigenous Raizal ethnic group, grew concerned at an early age about how extractive industries endanger both communities and Earth’s climate. 

In 2018, Rodríguez was one of 25 young plaintiffs in a groundbreaking lawsuit that led Colombia’s highest court to rule that the government must do more to curb deforestation. Over the next few years, she attended COP climate summits in Madrid, Glasgow and Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt. She also became a trainer for If Not Us Then Who?, which seeks to elevate Indigenous voices in conversations about climate change.

“Sometimes protecting nature looks like resistance,” Rodríguez said. “It looks like communities confronting governments that want to exploit their land and forests.”

Rodríguez’s work brought her to the attention of Health In Harmony, an international non-governmental organization that supports community-focused efforts to protect rainforests in tropical countries. The organization was looking for ways to communicate the importance of this work while uplifting communities with ties to land.

“We realized community stories needed to be at the front of the climate narrative, because climate science just goes right over many people’s heads and governments are failing to make good on their commitments,” said Ashley Emerson, who oversees Health In Harmony’s international programs. 

Rodríguez got involved in Health In Harmony’s Community Thriving Narratives project, which sought to put technology and storytelling tools directly in the hands of communities in Panama. With support from the FSC Indigenous Foundation and Ulu Films, Rodríguez led multiple three-day trainings in Panama’s Darién province. Over 40 people attended, practicing skills like video and audio recording, smartphone filming and using editing software.

Central to this project was the idea that Indigenous peoples and other marginalized groups should have “narrative sovereignty,” telling their own stories without having to go through intermediaries. 

“Having an Indigenous person who’s experienced similar struggles lead the training is important,” Rodríguez said. “Being an Afro-Indigenous woman myself means I can help people feel safer, respected and seen.”

The original plan for the project in Darién Province was to document traditional practices like face painting, language preservation and water management. But then things took an unexpected turn.

In March, Panama’s government passed the controversial Law 462, which changes the country’s Social Security Fund, opening the door to privatization and putting thousands of pensions at risk. This directly affected communities with whom Rodríguez was working.

“At that point, they decided to document this current reality,” Rodríguez said.

That pivot toward focusing on an ongoing policy crisis reflects an important truth: Solutions to climate change involve not just regulating emissions, but protecting the well-being of communities whose roots to a place make them the best defenders of ecosystems.

Resisting threats 

“Sometimes protecting the forest means resisting the systems that are harming it,” Rodríguez said. This can entail fighting back against policies like Panama’s Law 462. 

In the spring, people in Darién Province and throughout Panama mobilized to protest the new law with marches, a teachers’ strike and nonviolent road blockades. National Police responded by firing pellets and tear gas at protesters and imprisoning community leaders. While Law 462 remains in place, community leaders remain determined to push for its repeal.

Rodríguez worked with Darién residents to make short films documenting the violence and other challenges they face. The videos are available on YouTube, and their creators hope disseminating them on social media will help draw worldwide attention to the struggles in Darién Province. 

International organizations like Health In Harmony have also mobilized to support Panamanian activists. 

“We used our platforms to raise funds for areas that face food shortages from disruptions caused by the police violence,” Emerson said.

Indigenous leaders’ calls for climate justice at COP30 were similarly entwined with concerns about threats to their communities, both from resource extraction and violence against those who speak out. According to advocacy group Global Witness, 146 land defenders around the world were killed or disappeared last year alone. 

During one COP30 protest, members of Brazil’s Indigenous Munduruku Nation blockaded the main entrance to the part of the conference where official negotiations took place, to peacefully protest extractive activities on Munduruku lands. Despite such actions, COP30 concluded with no roadmap to phase out fossil fuel use or deforestation — but outside the main negotiations, countries announced some significant new programs. These include an international fund launched by Brazil to help developing countries protect tropical forests, which aims to raise $25 billion.

Fifteen governments also announced an Intergovernmental Land Tenure Commitment, part of a global effort to recognize and protect 160 million hectares of Indigenous and community-held lands by 2030. Questions remain about how national governments will make good on this promise. However, if they follow through, COP30 could represent a turning point toward greater recognition of Indigenous land rights.

Land defenders are prepared to hold governments accountable, in part by elevating the voices of those who stand up to extractive industries.

“We are working to build and strengthen a continental network of Indigenous and Afro-descendant storytellers,” said Rodríguez. 

As part of this effort, Health In Harmony and If Not Us Then Who? are looking to spread the Community Thriving Narratives model beyond Panama. Brazil, whose vibrant Indigenous and land-based movements helped set the tone at COP30, is one likely area for expansion.

“Our long-term vision is simple,” Rodríguez said. “Restore narrative sovereignty, amplify frontline voices, and shift global climate conversations toward justice and self-determination.”Email

Nick Engelfried

Nick Engelfried is an environmental writer, educator, and activist living in the Pacific Northwest. He is the author of "Movement Makers: How Young Activists Upended the Politics of Climate Change."

Portugal’s General Strike

By Irina Castro, Catarina Príncipe 

December 23, 2025

Source: Jacobin

Image by JetPereira/Wikimediacommons, licensed via CC BY 0.0

December 11 saw a massive general strike in Portugal. This was not just a workplace dispute but a political strike, directed against the government’s planned labor reform.

Trade unions widely see this as a devaluation of labor and a profound attack on labor rights — in short, a class offensive. The massive participation in the strike shows that workers felt this way too.

Austerity Years

The bill, often referred to as the labor reform package, was proposed by the current right-wing government, which unites the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the CDS–People’s Party (CDS-PP). It introduces over one hundred regressive amendments to labor law, clearly aimed at shifting the balance of power in favor of employers.

These measures were neither presented nor debated during this spring’s general electoral campaign. They represent a deliberate rollback of labor rights, reviving and deepening the offensive launched during the Portuguese sovereign debt crisis (2010–14), also overseen by a PSD-CDS government.

Since 2010, there have been frequent revisions to the labor law. Indeed, we can divide the last decade and a half into two major periods. First were the austerity years, with cuts in public spending, tax hikes, and the privatization of strategic sectors. This moment also included the memorandum of understanding with the troika, made up of the European Central Bank, the European Commission, and the International Monetary Fund. All this contributed to the consolidation of a neoliberal economic and labor regime. Then came the post-troika period, initially characterized by Socialist-led governments with left-wing support, in the so-called “contraption” (geringonça) arrangement. It sought to restore wages and pensions cut during austerity and to address labor precarity.

During the austerity phase, labor legislation worsened significantly. Measures incorporated into the labor law sought to reduce labor costs, particularly by making it easier to dismiss workers and also cheaper, through changing the system of compensation for contract terminations. At the same time, efforts were made to weaken collective bargaining by facilitating the expiration of agreements and to make working time more flexible through changes to overtime and holidays.

Yet this austerity era did not last unchanged. Rather, for almost a decade, with a government initially supported by a left-wing parliamentary majority (2015–2022) and later by the Socialist Party alone (2022–24), the austerity-era labor law was partially revised, particularly in areas such as wages, parental rights, and social protection. These revisions were, however, restrained, partly restoring some of the rights removed during the 2010–15 period but without structurally changing the architecture of the austerity-era neoliberal labor reform. During the pandemic, legislative changes focused primarily on regulating remote work and strengthening rights related to combining work and family life. These measures formed part of the initial steps of the so-called Decent Work Agenda, promoted during the Socialist Party’s majority government, which also sought to combat bogus self-employment and to advance the regulation of work on digital platforms.

Renewed Offensive

However, in March 2024, the PSD-CDS duo returned to government following the general election. This coalition then launched an attack aimed at resuming the austerity-era offensive while also seeking to reverse some of the gains achieved in the meantime. In the current labor reform package, solutions previously challenged and blocked by social and trade union mobilization, notably during the general strikes of 2010, 2011, and 2013, have reappeared. These include the expansion of discretionary forms of dismissal, the reduction of requirements for material justification, and the weakening of guarantees associated with collective bargaining, trade union rights, and the right to strike. In short, while the troika’s intervention focused primarily on the material cost of dismissals — changes that were largely never reversed — the current proposals seek to alter the basic architecture of employment protection guarantees to benefit employers.

While the Troika’s measures weakened collective bargaining by making it easier for agreements to expire, the current proposal erodes union rights further. Moreover, the proposal to broaden unions’ minimum service obligations during strikes is a direct attack on workers’ most powerful instrument of struggle. By extending these obligations from established essential services (schools, hospitals, transport) to additional sectors (schools and nurseries, care homes and social-care institutions, food-supply services, and private security) the labor reform package effectively hollows out the right to strike. It reduces it to a formal right without material force.

The troika established a so-called cheap flexibility framework, which the current proposal takes further. It also extends the duration of fixed-term and open-ended contracts with uncertain conditions and multiplies “atypical” forms of employment (such as intermittent and temporary work), making it increasingly difficult to secure a stable employment relationship. These measures seek to ensure a more efficient management of labor from the employer’s perspective and to use the lack of permanent status to discipline workers.

The main novelty in comparison with the troika period lies in the attack on the limited reforms implemented between 2015 and 2024, particularly with regard to digital platform work. The government proposal is likely to affect a much larger number of platform workers by making it more difficult for them to be recognized as employees. Rather than strengthening the presumption that this is indeed an employment relationship, it raises the threshold for such recognition. This would allow many couriers, drivers, and other gig-economy workers to continue to be classified as self-employed.

There is, however, a significant difference between the two moments. The reform imposed by the troika took place in a context of acute economic crisis, associated with the European sovereign debt crisis. The current reform is presented at a time when the Portuguese economy shows signs of growth, stability, and improvement per several macroeconomic indicators. This raises the question: what justifies such a deep attack on labor rights in this context? Beyond the ideological orientation of the current government, which has consistently advocated a shift in the balance of power from labor toward capital, it is also necessary to consider the framework associated with the European postpandemic recovery plan, NextGenerationEU. Such spending is largely implemented through the Recovery and Resilience Facility, which finances EU member states following the approval of their respective recovery and resilience plans. Access to these funds is subject to conditionalities, including structural reforms aimed at so-called economic modernization, the promotion of competitiveness, the green transition, and digitalization.

With the current labor reform package, the logic of state modernization, based on the digitalization of economic activity, underpins a significant part of the proposed measures. These are based on the idea that digitalization constitutes a new economic model, the emergence of a new labor market characterized by new productive processes, new forms of business organization, and new products and services. It is assumed that the current labor law is not friendly to these transformations, thereby justifying its rewriting in a manner more favorable to business interests.

General Strike

The December 11 general strike was the first in twelve years. Since 1974, Portugal has experienced eleven such actions (including the current one). The 2025 strike is one of only three that were jointly called by the two main interunion confederations: the General Confederations of the Portuguese Unions (CGTP), traditionally linked to the Communist Party, and the General Union of Workers (UGT), historically linked to the Socialist Party.

In the past, Portugal has seen very high levels of disruption during general strikes, with widespread work stoppages and a significant paralysis of economic and social activity. Although union membership has followed a long-term downward trend since the mid-1970s, particularly in the private sector, the capacity of general strikes to mobilize workers has not been fundamentally compromised.

According to publicly available data, Portugal’s active workforce is estimated at between 5.3 and 5.4 million people. Moreover, although the majority of workers are formally employed within the regulated labor market, a share of economic activity remains informal, particularly in sectors such as hospitality and construction, where casual and undeclared work is more prevalent in contrast to formal employment. According to trade unions, the December 11 general strike mobilized around three million workers, in a country of under eleven million people. It is not, however, possible to precisely determine the relative weight of public and private sector involvement. Still, an analysis of daily union reports points to strong participation in the private sector, including the closures of supermarkets, shops, industrial units, and other workplaces. According to both the CGTP and the UGT, this was one of the largest strikes in Portugal’s recent history. Union data indicate participation rates of around 90 percent in many hospitals, while in urban and interregional transport the impact was particularly strong, with the Lisbon Metro completely shut down.

In the private sector, participation was more uneven but still significant, especially among unionized workers and those covered by collective agreements. Lower levels of participation were particularly evident in highly precarious sectors and in subcontracting chains. In banking and insurance, according to the UGT, participation was substantial, as it was in energy, waste, and water services, which operated exclusively under minimum service regimes. The sectors with the lowest participation rates were cleaning, private security, hospitality and food services, and outsourced services, where fear of retaliation remains widespread.

In the public sector, the strike was more visible and more uniform. Unions estimate participation at around 60 percent overall, with particularly strong involvement among administrative and operational staff. In education, nonteaching staff joined the strike in large numbers, shuttering many public schools. In several regions, unions estimate participation of between 70 and 100 percent.

The government and employer organizations offered a totally different picture, claiming that participation ranged between 0 and 10 percent of the workforce. In its first statements, the government based its claims on data indicating that the number of ATM transactions had fallen by only 7 percent. These allegations were also supported by the Portuguese Business Confederation (CIP), which supports the planned reform. It used various strategies to counteract and play down the strike, including illegal practices like subcontracting to temp agencies for the strike day. One illustrative example was multinational fashion firm Zara. Some 87 percent of workers at its store in Rossio joined the general strike. After its workers’ union publicly denounced the company’s attempt to replace workers on strike, Zara was forced to dismiss the subcontracted workers used to substitute the strikers.

The Struggle Ahead

The strike’s success is both surprising and hopeful. Given the political context in Portugal (with the Right and far right representing more than two-thirds of MPs) and difficulties for left-wing parties, the fact that trade unions were able to organize a strike with such massive participation opens a path for new struggles and gives the Left some strategic perspective for the moments ahead.

The last general strike organized by both union confederations, in 2013, had also been backed by a social movement organized around growing precarity. Lacking an organizational structure, it sought ways to organize outside of the trade unions. From this position of weakness, the decision was made to organize away from the point of production in a cross-sector alliance of precarious workers. The 2013 general strike happened amid powerful mobilizations, from the anti-precarity movement to the fight against austerity and the troika. Yet this movement has vanished over the last decade.

The economic specialization of the Portuguese economy in tourism and services has added to workers’ precarity. Portugal is today one of the OECD countries with the most precarious labor relations. This affects the capacity for struggle and union organization, as without collective agreements, workers are more vulnerable in the workplace and in their capacity to unionize.

Still, the success of the general strike tells us that labor issues remain central — and that they can mobilize a large share of Portuguese workers. In response, even André Ventura, leader of the far-right Chega, had to change his party’s position on the labor reform package. Having previously promised to back the bill, Chega now denounces the government’s line in a clear effort to retain popularity among workers.

The fact that even unions that have lost members could organize such a large strike in such a difficult political context speaks not only to the government’s brutal attack on labor rights but also to the issues that still inspire many workers. If we are to rebuild a strong political left in Portugal, labor and strengthening the unions will be key.Email

Irina Castro

Irina Castro holds a PhD in governance, knowledge, and innovation from the University of Coimbra. She is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Social Studies and works as a scientific officer.

Chomsky Reassessed?

By Michael Albert

December 23, 2025

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.

Image by Vitor Pamplona/Wikimediacommons, licensed via CC BY 2.0

One of the late acts of Noam Chomsky’s incredible life was to become one of thirty initial co-signers of a document titled “Twenty Theses for Liberation.” Noam didn’t agree with every word, nor did any of its co-signers, not even those who contributed, as Noam did, to its actual words. All the co-signers including Noam did agree, however, on the aim. Propel an on-going conversation to continually update broadly shared vision and strategy. Work to unify a growing left. Win a new world. 

That document, (still available at 4liberation.org) accrued three hundred signers, including ten organizations: Diem25, Academy of Democratic Modernity, Meta Center for Post Capitalist Civilization, Cooperation Jackson, Collaboration for Change, Srsly Wrong, Organizaciija Z’s Participatorno Druzbo, Real Utopia, Demokraisk Omstållning, and ZNetwork. The document highlights gender, race, class, authority, ecology, and internationalism. It does not elevate any one above the rest. It urges mutual aid, collective support, listening, empathy, patient collective self-correction, and outreach. So did Noam lie when he signed it?

As I signed it, I wondered, what if everyone who has learned from Noam and who has appreciated his efforts over the decades decided to give the Twenty Theses a close read? What if lots, and then lots more, decided to sign it and to bring it to still greater attention? Perhaps that could help put movements on a path to change Noam’s epitaph, which he not long ago said he would like to be “He Tried,” to instead be “He Helped.” And to change all of ours as well, when our time comes, to “We Helped” by way of going from 300 signers to 3,000 and then to tens and hundreds of thousands and more, all committed to developing and enacting shared vision and strategy. All working to unite diverse movements to undertake intersecting mutually supportive campaigns. All seeking to win a new world that each helps all to win. Did Noam lie when he signed that? And in his lifetime of literally countless words and deeds, did he lie tens of thousands of times?

I also thought to myself back when Noam signed on, perhaps such actions could give meaning to the famous advisory from Mother Jones, “don’t mourn, organize.” Can we celebrate Chomsky’s life, celebrate all our lives, but also and more importantly apply and expand his and our wisdom? Can we enlarge upon his and our commitment in the days, weeks, months, and years to come? If we don’t take that particular document’s implicit path, I am confident that Noam would suggest that we should take some other shared path to reach the same revolutionary end, to reach a truly new world. 

But now, some people—I know not how many, I know not who—are, I have been told, taking a different path, at least regarding Noam. They say that Noam isn’t worth our attention, much less our praise and emulation. Noam, they say, is just another elite male misogynist perpetrator of the system that he only pretended to hate. Is such a conclusion warranted? Or is there something about so easily concluding that that is itself disturbing?

Am I exaggerating? I am no social media maven, quite the opposite, but I don’t think I am exaggerating. People have expressed horror. Anger. Disgust. How could he? Why did he? And have concluded I feel so deceived. So sullied. I have no further respect or time for him. Everything short of incinerating books. And so on.

I think that if Noam could—supposing that he would reply at all—he would say if that’s your conclusion about me, so be it, but please don’t let it deter you from traveling a good and needed activist organizing path. Pushed, I think he might add, I hope your new opinion won’t lead you to dismiss things I have written that might prove helpful to you in your journey. 

I think if Noam could communicate—which he cannot and has been unable to do since he suffered a devastating stroke in June 2023—he would say something like that, and he would then add that we should get on with fighting reaction and seeking another world. And while I would understand and even appreciate if he was able to and did express something like that, I would have to disagree with his choice just a bit.

Of course Trump, Clinton, and many others named in the various Epstein documents are horribly compromised criminal fellow travelers, though of course they would be criminal even if they were not so named, and indeed even if they had managed to avoid Epstein entirely, or even if they had ridiculed and dismissed Epstein. Epstein was a sex trafficker, a woman defiler, and a rapist thug. He was like Trump in his misogyny in addition to being a billionaire or a near billionaire exploiter, also like Trump. Was Clinton another of the same ilk? Albeit less rich? I don’t know, but I suppose it could be the case given what we do know. Victims of vile misogyny on Epstein’s scale, or really on any scale at all, deserve respect and aid. Perpetrators of vile misogyny deserve abhorrence. More to the point, however, the institutions that produce, sustain, and indeed reward vile misogyny deserve replacement. 

And then there is Noam Chomsky. How do we decide about him? Surely it would be better had he never met Epstein. But he did. So what does he deserve? To be reviled and canceled? Maybe you have experienced Noam. Or before casting judgment, maybe you have investigated to discover what you weren’t earlier even yet alive to experience. In either case, you would see a life that spanned almost a century. During that life, on one side, let’s call it side one, you would see social contributions which exceed those of almost anyone else you can think of. You would see, that is, massive attention to addressing injustice to the point of occupying so much of his time that there was barely any left for anything else. On the other side, call it side two, what do we actually have to weigh against all that? A couple of pictures and some letters. One can, I am aware, if one wants to, extrapolate with no real reason or evidence from the pictures and the letters to a hypothesis that Chomsky condoned or at least didn’t give a damn about Epstein’s vile crimes, or about Bannon’s for that matter. And if you then somehow concluded that your hypothesis was the truth, I suppose you might write as some people have written about him. And, indeed, mainstream media are certainly trying to fuel just that outcome, albeit more delicately. It is in their interest. He has been their enemy. And he can’t fight back. I understand their inclination.

But so too, I am told, are some people who liked and learned from and even hugely admired Noam Chomsky now dismissing him. Perhaps some of them feel secure in concluding thusly because they know that many men, and indeed even many men who don’t and who would never engage in Epstein-like behavior, nonetheless do feel that for someone else to engage in such vile behavior toward women doesn’t matter much. If that is true for many men, and it is, why not for Noam, a sincere critic may think? But certainly that conclusion does not hold for all men. For example, not for you, dear reader. So, why would some progressives, some leftists, and even some who have been greatly influenced by or were even openly indebted to Noam up to moments ago, now come to such a disparaging conclusion about him? Why would they become outraged at him and more.

I wonder, with side one of the scale easily accessible, easily available, how does anyone see remotely enough “evidence” on side two to come to such a conclusion? Posts about this are remarkably redundant. There is so little bad we can say about Noam, even twisting and misstating from decades and decades of his dissident actions, from hundreds of his speeches and interviews, from thousands of his articles, and from a dozen of his books. We find barely anything to rail at much less to impute personal failings from, so to pile on, of course one has to repeat. He supported the butcher Pol Pot. He supported the hateful holocaust denier Faurisson. And now he supported the child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. But there is a problem with the repetitions. Each of those claims is seriously false. I admit, one can cherry pick some comments, or perhaps even some actions, not to mention some pictures, and spin them so they appear consistent with the above claims. Social media nurtures and excels at doing that. 

Okay, you may say, maybe he still is who I earlier thought he was, but not if there is no other explanation for why he would go on a jet with Epstein, or would stand seemingly laughing next to Bannon. Guilty until proven innocent! What’s left without another explanation? A critic announces it is that Noam liked these barbarians. Or even, he was fascism’s fellow traveler. 

Well, I actually know Noam quite well, and have done so for over a half century. And yes, I can think of other explanations than that he is just another male of the worst sort. A male who abetted, ignored, or even was unmoved by the plight of women at the hands of these types of maniacs, indeed, at the hands of far less maniacal folks, all within the rubric and tentacles of a patriarchal institutions and culture that exists, still, all around everyone. Guilty until proven innocent.

So, here is another explanation. Noam routinely related to all sorts of stuff and people that most of us would never go near. If you asked him directly or in a letter, even seriously tone deaf or antagonistic or hostile questions, you got a serious, careful, civil answer often running to a few pages. He wrote dozens and then more dozens of such letters. Each week. You may have gotten one. And then after replies, he would answer again. Not exactly elitist. 

But, more, Noam would burrow into piles and piles of reportage of violent and disgusting evil to the point that I used to wonder how he could immerse so far in it, over and over, and not be undone by the proximity. How could he not become immobilized, cynical, despondent? The disgusting gore and inhumanity and immorality he would research and dissect was enormous. To do so was not fun. It was not fulfilling. It did not expand his horizons. So why persist? Noam’s answer: If we are to counter the lies and violence and especially if we are to do better such reporting is needed. The task needs doing and it turns out that I am able to do it. So I do.

Sounds impressive. Perhaps even exemplary. But you may still wonder, why would Noam actually want to talk to Bannon, for example, if in his proximity? Or to Epstein? Explanation one: he admired Bannon and Epstein and wanted to aid them or he even just enjoyed being around such people. Explanation two: He was curious and given the chance he wanted to learn things useful to his work of dismantling lies and violence. When face-to-face, even with the Devil, Noam would be civil. It was his way. So I admit that I find it hard to fathom why explanation one beats out explanation two, given the existence of Noam’s history. I get why mainstream media would joyously rush toward the disparaging explanation, though remarkably they are lagging well behind some leftists. But I don’t get why anyone who wants to win a new world and who knows anything of Noam would rush there as well. Is this just the left’s self defeating circular firing squad dynamic at work? Is it cancel culture on steroids? You did or said different than what I think I would have done or said. You are therefore guilty. To contest the claim. To offer contrary information? Also guilty.

If someone interviews a thug on a podcast, interviews even a well dressed affable Devil such as Henry Kissinger or Bill Clinton, should we deduce that the interviewer supports the thug despite that he has always demonstrably done the opposite? Should we jump to the disparaging conclusion, even if we don’t know anything about the interviewer much less if we know the interviewer has given his all to fighting all kinds of injustice and immorality? In the later case, shouldn’t we not feel even a nudge toward thinking the interviewer supports the thug? And what about people who we think, for whatever reason, may be perpetrators? Aren’t they innocent until proven guilty? Or are they guilty by definition? 

I apologize for this, but it brings us to what I think may actually deserve some discussion, unlike what is, I have been told, actually being discussed. On the one hand, the crimes of Epstein and his actual cohorts in decrepit behavior, like Trump, and also the actual abettors of it—for example, JP Morgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, Bank of America, Mellon, and Barclays that kept supporting Epstein to benefit from his actions even after knowing details of those actions—all deserve critical attention. The well being and desires of their victims deserve supportive attention. But I wonder, what about the speed and sometimes the outraged indignant passion with which a subset of folks have rushed to judgement about Noam? Or about anyone else, for that matter? Doesn’t that deserve some careful and introspective attention? 

Do you remember all the noise around the country that was directed at Noam (and at others too), when he said he would hold his nose and vote for the lesser evil, Clinton, against Trump if Massachusetts was a swing state? Suddenly people whose views on the U.S. political system owed greatly, and in some cases even immeasurably to him, decided that he was now a sell-out liberal and perhaps he even was that all along. The idea there might be good reason for his approach other than a fabricated reason that they could disparage, was for a time unthinkable. He disagreed with us. He must have sold out. It is a familiar approach.

So about all this, and about so much more involving interpersonal and inter-group judgements that we all know of—for me, at least, a question arises. Why do some of us so often quickly assume the worst interpretation of others based on meager information and even against massive evidence that supports the opposite interpretation? And why do we then decide that our quick rush to assume the worst unearthed truth with a capital T? And why do we next act as though anyone who thinks otherwise must be some kind of idiot or traitor? No evidence is needed. No logical reason is necessary. Reasoned discussion even becomes forbidden.

The upshot is that when people ask me what’s with Noam? How could he pal around with Epstein and Bannon? Why isn’t he saying anything to explain his choices? How could he fool us for so long? I have been disinclined to grace the questions with a response since to do so might be taken to mean that to ask the questions, much less to rush to judgement about the situation, is wise, radical, and warranted. 

But now, some of what I take to be relevant answers. Noam has always hated injustice, hypocrisy, and lying. But he hasn’t very often drifted into hating the perpetrators. Just the system. There were, however, some exceptions. And in every case, his personal hostility would go toward so called “intellectuals,” academics, and elites. He raged at the “cultured” elites. They aroused his hate. Ironic, isn’t it? Seventy years of that and suddenly people claim he is palling around with them.

Knowing him before, during, and after each claimed horrible deviation, I am confident that Noam’s hate for sexism, misogyny, racism, exploitation and fascism didn’t lose even a tiny fraction of its passion and clarity due to his “time spent with” Epstein and/or Bannon. Just like his understanding of the American political system didn’t somehow disappear when he said we should vote for the lessor evil in swing states. And just like his compassion for victims of Pol Pot didn’t decline when he considered the western manipulative hypocritical take on Cambodia’s history. And just like his compassion for victims of Nazism didn’t diminish when he defended Faurisson’s free speech. And of course Chomsky isn’t saying anything now, because he can’t. And as to fooling us, what can I say? He never fooled me. I don’t know about you. He never believed in fooling anyone about anything. Anyone and especially intellectuals and elites trying to fool people with arcane terminology or fancy posturing, and even with blatant lies was another thing Noam hated. More, he absolutely hated and avoided like the plague, perhaps at times even a bit too much, using his high place in people’s estimates, and his considerable clout and platform to benefit himself, or even to benefit friends and others. He shunned employing anything other than facts and reasoning, certainly never reputation or position. He was severely self conscious about abusing his stature. He was even severely careful giving advice, lest anyone accept it uncritically. Finally, Noam did what most others in universities feared to do, over and over. And yes, when he was older and “established,” you might quite reasonably point out that his national and international stature made being fired or jailed unlikely. But when he was younger, during the Vietnam war, he expected to be jailed for a long time, and he prepared his family for what he thought was coming. But he didn’t temper his voice an iota. 

That is the Noam I know, so when I hear about some people’s current concerns. When I see some of the aggressive disparaging content. I am sad at the confused feelings of betrayal and violation they convey, at the self and socially destructive cancelling they seem to propose, at the personal reflexiveness of it all, and thus at the losses for those who proclaim the dismissive conclusions or who uncritically take them as gospel—and I feel the approach engendering all that ought to be addressed. When I am then told that I should not say a word about it because if I do I will be savaged, perhaps even shunned as an apologist for misogyny, perhaps even by some friends, I wonder—would that really happen? Isn’t that kind of behavior a possibility we should not succumb to? Isn’t it an approach we ought to challenge?

I haven’t had many live “heroes.” But when I was a kid, Willie Mays, the Say Hey Kid, was one. Later Muhammad Ali was another. Something about them, beyond their skill, though I was certainly awed by that, hooked me. Would I look upon them with some bias? I knew I shouldn’t, but I probably did. But of course our heroes are not Gods. Of course they can be wrong and can even do wrong. 

Later, I admit Noam too became a “hero” to me. We’re not supposed to have any, yet I have had some. But Noam was not at a distance. He was a hero as a friend, as a partner in various pursuits, and as a long time mentor. And Noam was a hero to me not for his undeniably incredible mind, though I was certainly awed by that. Rather it was for his integrity, his honesty, his choices. His persistence. And I had another live “hero” too. Bob Dylan. There was the magic and meaning of his words and voice, how they moved and influenced me. From a distance, how they awed me. But it wasn’t just his words. It was also his militant pursuit of his own way even at high personal cost. Even when his way sometimes diverged from ways I appreciated. I don’t know, but I don’t think Willie Mays ever got dismissed. Ali certainly did. Politics. So did Dylan. Politics. And of course, Noam too. Politics. Does politics have a special proclivity for causing such dismissive dynamics? Perhaps that is worth thinking about.

Of course, I take for granted that none of my heroes were or are saints. How can anyone be a saint, living in the world we all inhabit? But one of them did answer his critics. 

The song Positively Fourth Street refers to Greenwich Village, where Folk lovers decided that they no longer loved Bob Dylan when he went electric. Loved him one day. Hated him the next. They called him a traitor. They felt abandoned. S old out. Jilted. Thus the passion. They called him Judas. Sound familiar? 

I will pull just a little from Dylan’s sonic reply. I highly recommend listening to the whole thing. The music and voice fit and amplify the words. So Dylan replied to his detractors…with this last verse…

I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes

And just for that one moment I could be you

Yes, I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes

You’d know what a drag it is to see you

Noam would never say such a thing. Would he think it? I don’t know. Would he be justified to think it? You decide.Email

Michael Albert

Michael Albert`s radicalization occurred during the 1960s. His political involvements, starting then and continuing to the present, have ranged from local, regional, and national organizing projects and campaigns to co-founding South End Press, Z Magazine, the Z Media Institute, and ZNet, and to working on all these projects, writing for various publications and publishers, giving public talks, etc. His personal interests, outside the political realm, focus on general science reading (with an emphasis on physics, math, and matters of evolution and cognitive science), computers, mystery and thriller/adventure novels, sea kayaking, and the more sedentary but no less challenging game of GO. Albert is the author of 21 books which include: No Bosses: A New Economy for a Better World; Fanfare for the Future; Remembering Tomorrow; Realizing Hope; and Parecon: Life After Capitalism. Michael is currently host of the podcast Revolution Z and is a Friend of ZNetwork.