His condition would have been rejected, but he could then use that fact to justify his refusal to sign a fraudulentLetter to the editor in response to Bari Weiss’ article “Anti-Semites with PhDs are harder to fight” (Sept 13, 2019), Globe and Mail, Canada. Under cover of calls for tolerance, given credibility by Chomsky’s name, a proportion of those signing actually want to restrict the free speech of one section of the population – the part influenced by Chomsky.They are not against the big cancel culture from which they have benefited for so long. And as Israel’s critics know only too well, advocates for Israel have been at the forefront of the cancel culture – from long before the term was even coined.For decades, pro-Israel activists have sought to silence anyone seen to be seriously critiquing this small, highly militarized state, sponsored by the colonial powers, that was implanted in a region rich with a natural resource, oil, needed to lubricate the global economy, and at a terrible cost to its native, Palestinian population.Nothing should encourage us to believe that zealous defenders of Israel among those signing the letter have now seen the error of their ways. It is for free speech. He doesn’t see that witch-hunt as “cancel culture”, and neither will anyone else with a large platform like his to protect:"Cancel culture" is being used to describe everything from people disapproving of pedophiles to celebrities being criticised on social media.I agree with virtually all of this, but if I were a famous person asked to sign the letter I would have done so. The letter, signed by many leading writers and activists, denounces "a vogue for public shaming". But it is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought. But of late, cancel culture has on occasion become more tangible, as the letter notes, with individuals fired or denied the chance to speak at a public venue or to publish their work.The letter denounces this supposedly new type of “illiberalism”:“We uphold the value of robust and even caustic counter-speech from all quarters. The Jewish student on campus who feels uncomfortable supporting Zionism among others who oppose it is not a victim of antisemitism. From Atwood to Chomsky, Intellectuals Come Out Against Cancel Culture . That attacks on the new “cancel culture” are simply another front – alongside supposed concerns about “fake news” and “Russian trolls” – in the establishment’s efforts to limit speech by the left.This is not to deny that there is fake news on social media or that there are trolls, some of them even Russian.

Video after video shows journalists, clearly identifying themselves as such, being hit and dragged, knocked over and arrested. Rather, it is to point out that our attention is being redirected, and our concerns manipulated by a political agenda.Despite the way it has been presented in the corporate media, fake news on social media has been mostly a problem of the right. It’s certainly not about free speech: After all, an arrested journalist is never referred to as “canceled” nor is a woman who has been frozen out of an industry after complaining about sexual harassment. Sign the darn thing and then you can write the essay you just wrote. Here’s one my followers expressing the point succinctly:“The sentiments in the letter stand or fall on their own merits, not on the characters or histories of some of the signatories, nor their future plans.”The problem, as I’m sure Chomsky would explain in any other context, is that this letter fails not just because of the other people who signed it but Highlighting the small cancel culture, while ignoring the much larger, establishment-backed cancel culture, distorts our understanding of what is at stake and who wields power.Chomsky unwittingly just helped a group of mostly establishment stooges skew our perceptions of free speech problems so that we side with them against ourselves. ... Media caption Watch former US President Obama talk about "woke" culture.