Noam signs on

[C. G. Estabrook]

I rather like Cockburn's take, quoted on this list, on the Lerner
kerfuffle, but in regard to "the right to go around spreading lies,"
Chomsky surely has it right: "... it is elementary that freedom of
expression (including academic freedom) is not to be restricted to views
of which one approves, and that it is precisely in the case of views that
are almost universally despised and condemned that this right must be most
vigorously defended."  --CGE

On Fri, 14 Feb 2003 kjkhoo at softhome.net wrote:


> I read --I think it was -- Hitchens account -- and a fine one it was.  
> And yes, Chomsky was smeared. And no, he won't get smeared for this
> one. Perhaps it's even a good thing for him to have signed this one --
> he might have gotten smeared for not signing. But again, I note that
> quite a few people here don't care much for his work.
> 
> Still, I think he was at least incautious in the Faurisson case. Yes,
> he took it to be an issue of free speech. No, I don't believe someone
> has the right to go around spreading lies. And Faurisson was/is a
> liar, isn't he? Would you or anyone here defend me if I were to insist
> it was free speech for me to go around talking about the Protocols as
> if it were fact?
> 
> And yes, I think it was silly for the coalition to stipulate that
> condition. But I think this petition is also silly, at least
> ill-timed, perhaps worse.
> 
> But I've learned something from it -- about Lerner. From this
> distance, he'd seemed OK.
> 
> kj khoo
>