dissent – ZERO ANTHROPOLOGY

Why did the Left Fail the Covid Test So Badly?

Note: Contrary to this site’s policy of not republishing work from other sites, which has been in effect for several years, this exception is a must. It is almost impossible for me to find something with which I agree so thoroughly, and what follows is the rarest of exceptions. It consists of exactly what I […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

The Collapse of the Canadian University and the Rise of the Church of Covid

February of 2022 was a particularly dark month, both in Quebec and in Canada generally. In Quebec, we had the expansion of the use of “vaccine passports” to large, well-ventilated box stores; a curfew had been imposed in January (and was lifted after nearly three weeks); the demonization of the so-called “unvaccinated” reached a fever […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

‘Race,’ ‘Diversity,’ and the University

If this was a good time for Canadian academia, you would not be able to tell from the blanket of almost absolute silence that has been pulled over universities. There is no euphoria, no celebratory mood, no applause for the changes that are happening. There is, however, a degree of infighting, mutual suspicion, recrimination, and […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

This Does Not Represent the Views of the University

I know that I am not the first person to ask this, but when did universities start having “views”? When some professors indulge their rights to free speech or put academic freedom into practice, they can sometimes express views that some members of the public find controversial, distasteful, or reprehensible. In such cases, one frequently reads their […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Protest the Repression of Dissent in Bahrain: Free Blogger Ali Abdulemam

Protest the crackdown against dissent in Bahrain, and the imprisonment and torture of human rights defenders and web activists—support the Free Ali Abdulemam campaign: “To say ‘I want complete democracy now’ is not good for anyone. Throwing open the political process too abruptly will only leave Islamists running the show.” – Sheik Mohammed Bin Ateyatalla […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Punishing Publication, Banishing Ideas: YouTube Censors Your World for the CIA

This post, while actually written on 20 April 2011, is backdated to the time that the video in question below was uploaded to YouTube. The video, “Humam al-Balawi: Slayer of CIA Terrorists in Afghanistan,” was an unacceptable challenge to some, starting with the very title. Let’s put this in some perspective first. The video was […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Living in the Wasteland of the Free

By Iris Dement We got preachers dealing in politics and diamond mines And their speech is growing increasingly unkind They say they are Christ’s disciples But they don’t look like Jesus to me And it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free We got politicians running races on corporate cash Now […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

The Making of the Imperial Presidency, the National Security State, and the Transition to Authoritarianism, Part 3

In the Name of Patriotism (Who are the Patriots?) Hon. Ron Paul Texas before the U.S. House of Representatives May 22 , 2007 In this third and possibly final part of this series (see Part 1 and Part 2), I do nothing more than serve as a repeater, amplifier, and highlighter, by presenting the materials […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

The Making of the Imperial Presidency, the National Security State, and the Transition to Authoritarianism, Part 2

“America did not change on September 11. It only became more itself.” — Robert Kagan, neoconservative. In Part 1 of this series we looked at the ways in which the thinking and the tools used in foreign imperial engagements have been imported back into the U.S. itself. In addition we witness the ways in which […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

The Making of the Imperial Presidency, the National Security State, and the Transition to Authoritarianism, Part 1

This series of posts actually began with Preparing for Domestic War in the U.S.?. The focus here is on the ways that the “global war on terror” has been used as a front for a domestic war against democracy and personal liberty in the U.S. itself, with the main tools being legislative changes handing the […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Resistance Blogging

Pax Americana has a seemingly vast number of posts dealing with tactics of nonviolent resistance and noncooperation, of which blogging can be one element. (Boycotting is another element, and this will come up again when I speak of the Pentagon’s Minerva Research Initiative.) Pax Americana’s attempts to reconfigure blogging as an oppositional tool, an outlook […]