ABSTRACT
Ever since I first encountered his writing and public speaking in the early 1980s, Noam has been a profound model and inspiration—showing how key facts, cogent analysis, and determined activism need each other. In the process, Noam has exemplified how being in solidarity with movements for social justice must involve being distinctly out of step with powers-that-be in realms of media, government, and academia. Effective activism requires a sense of urgency and a long view, to put out destructive fires and plant seeds for what we might not live to see. Noam has been providing tremendous illumination in that zone. Through it all, he underscores in countless ways that human freedoms are “never a gift from above.” Whether more than 30 years ago, when I was reading books like his Turning the Tide and hearing him on a community radio station—or whether these days I read a transcript of a new interview with Noam online—his clarity has shined intense light on paths ahead.
