Noam Chomsky – 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

Brexitannia: The Faces and Voices of Brexit

First shown at London’s East End Festival in June of 2017, Brexitannia was the very first documentary about Brexit. It is a striking and deeply pensive film, in contrast with the Brexit movie reviewed in the previous article. Brexitannia (2017) is a superb documentary that is remarkable for its sensitivity, balance, and the ability to […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

America: Imagine an America without Her

What might world history have looked like if there had never been a United States, or if it ceased to exist before the 20th-century? Is “America” an “exceptional” nation, an “idea” even, that stands as a beacon of hope to the rest of the world? Is “America” largely innocent of the crimes of genocide, slavery, […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Syria: The New Terra Nullius

SYRIA, seat of an Islamic Caliphate. Syria, site of the Middle East’s newest liberal democracy. Syria, socialist paradise. Syria, a corrupt and murderous dictatorship that practices genocide. Syria, a failed state. Syria a state that is too strong. Syria, soon to be partitioned into ethnic enclaves. Syria, a pawn of Iran. Syria, a tool of […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Beloved Discordia

Discordia Ben Addelman, Samir Mallal, 2004, 68 min 40 s On September 9, 2002, a scheduled appearance by former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sparked heated debate at Montreal’s Concordia University. By the end of the day, the “Concordia riot” has made international news, from CNN to Al-Jazeera. This film documents the fallout from that […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Noam Chomsky: Dialogue on the Responsibility to Protect

UN Address: Dialogue on the Responsibility to Protect By Noam Chomsky ZNet un.org/ga/president/63/interactive/protect/noam.pdf August 8, 2009 [Address to the United Nations General Assembly Thematic Dialogue on the Responsibility to Protect, the United Nations, New York, 23 July 2009] The discussions about Responsibility to Protect (R2P), or its cousin “humanitarian intervention,” are regularly disturbed by the […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

When it comes to Israel, there can be no academic freedom or dissent? The case of William I. Robinson and UC-Santa Barbara

Another allegation of “anti-Semitism”? Another tale of a “racist” professor? Another professor who “violates students’ rights”? Another university administration “investigates” a professor? One would have thought that, in a post-Churchill context, university administrations would have been more circumspect, less willing to rush in and stifle free speech, as if only certain opinions were authorized and […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Chomsky v. Dershowitz, 2005: On Israel and Palestine

On 29 November 2005, at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, MIT linguist Noam Chomsky debated Israel/Palestine with Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz. The complete video collection of this debate can be found on 1D4TW along with a transcript. The same videos can be found also in Open Anthropology TV, under “lectures.” Continuing on the […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Robert Fisk at Concordia: “Obama, Us, and the Middle East Wars”

Earlier tonight (Thursday, 19 Feb. 2009) I attended a special engagement with British journalist, Robert Fisk, who writes for The Independent, followed by his talk to an auditorium packed to the maximum, with 678 people attending at Concordia University‘s Sir George Williams campus. The special engagement was hosted by Concordia’s student newspaper, The Link in […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Beyond Molehills, the High Ground: Dershowitz, Finkelstein, Plagiarism, and Academic Freedom (1.7)

At Home in a Dysfunctional Family It was like listening to a family argument, my family, the style of argumentation, the hot flashes of temper, the rhetorical devices, the particular turns of phrase, even right down to the sounds of the voices themselves, that had my ears glued to the speakers for an hour last […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Campus Gaza: Academic Boycotts and Complicit Silence

In a previous post, “Accepting the Might to Exist: Some Israeli Lessons for Anthropology,” a close Trinidadian friend and non-academic collaborator, Guanaguanare, wrote what I thought was an especially penetrating comment on complicit silence from those one might look to for some guidance in understanding issues of conflict, human rights, on the human condition itself, […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Globalization, Democracy, and Canada versus the People of Haiti

In Canada, with its imperial adventure in Afghanistan, its aid workers who speak in suspiciously counterinsurgent terms of “restoring peace and stability” and achieving “progress,” and its continuing belligerence toward First Nations communities protesting for the right to live without uranium poisoning, it should not be surprising to see how much of the mass media […]