I have read a couple of articles about Churchill, one about Hamilton
cancelling.
The point he initially wanted to make is a point worth making, but the
incredibly stupid way he made it was equivalent to shooting himself in
the mouth, never mind his foot
and the blood gets spattered far and wide. It fuels the fire of
zealots trying to kill free speech in this country.
my 2 cents
mike
On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 09:23:26 -0700, Lara Beaty <lbeaty@gc.cuny.edu> wrote:
> Further evidence of the political effort: There's an article just been
> posted on Indymedia ( www.indymedia.org/en/index.shtml ) about Ward
> Churchill, a professor at University of Colorado who is under attack.
>
> Lara Beaty
>
> On Tuesday, February 1, 2005, at 07:49 AM, Tony Whitson wrote:
>
> > This is by no means just a cultural legacy. There is a concerted
> > political effort underway, as celebrated in this January 14 opinion
> > piece in the
> > Wall Street Journal:
> > http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110006149
> >
> > On Tue, 1 Feb 2005, David Daniel Preiss Contreras wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> For what is worth, and making clear that I am a relative outsider in
> >> the academic community of the USA, studying there my experience was
> >> that speaking aloud about so-called political issues was judged
> >> inadequate for some student colleagues around, who did not want to
> >> bring this issues to their jobs or to their email inboxes. The
> >> problem is, of course, that some of those so-called political issues
> >> are ethical issues. Torture is wrong. Preventive wars are wrong.
> >> Killing tens of civilians is wrong. Hiding the American casualties
> >> from the public view is wrong. Making death and genocide relative is
> >> wrong. And it is totally right to say that they are wrong. What is
> >> wrong is to keep silence.
> >>
> >> I remember being bitten for raising the issue of Abu Graib when
> >> sending a link to the torture pics by a student who thought I was
> >> taking an inadequate stand. What was my right to judge these
> >> soldiers, this guy implied. I assume he was mad at the fact that I
> >> was not American as well and was judging American actions. I did not
> >> want to enter into a discussion about how commonly the USA judge the
> >> practices of others and how I had a right to openly criticize
> >> torture and how relevant it was to do that in an academic context. I
> >> just asserted my right to criticize torture everywhere it happens.
> >> Unfortunately, during all my years at the USA, I never heard any
> >> graduate student talking aloud against the Iraqi war or against the
> >> militrary practices of the government but in some local issues that
> >> are politically correct. I heard them too much talking about their
> >> academic work as if that work happened in a miracolous vacuum. If the
> >> students don't speak out, who does? I remember that during those days
> >> an email written by Zimbardo talking about students' apathy
> >> circulated. I wonder how students apathy has been build and fostered
> >> by the academic community. Do students feel afraid that they might
> >> not get a job if they come out and talk? Or they do not feel an
> >> ethical concern about what is going on? I assume that some people
> >> don;t speak out by academic politeness. But, when does academic
> >> politenness turn out to be ethically dangerous? David D. Preiss
> >> home page: http://pantheon.yale.edu/~ddp6/
> >
> > Tony Whitson
> > UD School of Education
> > NEWARK DE 19716
> >
> > twhitson@udel.edu
> > _______________________________
> >
> > "those who fail to reread
> > are obliged to read the same story everywhere"
> > -- Roland Barthes, S/Z (1970)
> >
>
>
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