Posted on 07/07/2004 10:29:15 AM PDT by SwinneySwitch
ping
"Liberal academics, because of their grounding in the dialectics of the Cold War..."
They are Vietnam war protest reenactors.
When it comes to politics, I wouldn't really put Harvard in the category of "intellectual".
The talking point from the rats the last couple of days has been that Liberal is a worn-out over-used term and that painting F'n Kerry and the Breck Girl as liberals (Steve Doocy referred to the "Breck Girl" this morning) is not going to work to defeat them this fall. I would reply, if I could, by asking if they would like to be called what they really are? Which is Socialists.
Methinks the author is a bit naive. Most of the schools in the athletic conference known as the Ivy League are in the crapper these days.
The intellectual community: folks who couldn't make it the real world.
If President Bush were as Hitlerian a character as these "intellectuals" imagine, they'd have been shipped off to the camps three years ago!
I believe McCarthy was right. There is a Communist conspiracy to destroy the USA.
All liberals should be required to wear headphones plugged directly into the reverberations of history.
This is of course wrong; the correct reason is that the Earth's axis is tilted, making northern hemisphere days shorter in the winter and longer in the summer; the difference in heat input as a result explains why winter is colder. (Also, the Earth's orbit is actually close to perfectly circular, and the seasons are reversed in the southern hemisphere.)
So it doesn't surprise me that a Harvard professor could be this wrong and be this arrogant about it.
Liberals never let the truth stand in their way! Why acknowledge the reality of the situation when you can spin it to suit your twisted purpose?
"Liberal academics, because of their grounding in the dialectics of the Cold War are not yet capable of viewing the power of terrorist organizations in the 21st century to threaten democracy because there is no precedent for either its success in toppling elected governments or of achieving significant military objectives."
It has to do with the Cold War, but differently. As advocates of communism or fellow travelers many embraced a "dialectic" if you may that America was not only the force against Soviet victory, but a harmful project in itself. The "lefty", as part of his ideology, even identity, cannot imagine an explanation of the world where what is bad is not caused by America or merely responsive to an American evil.
They cannot understand that Saudi, France, Iran, whomever act in their own interests and what these countires may criticize in America is self-serving and untrue because the lefty mind is hardwired to privilege anti-Americanism and ignore any other fact.
In this regard 9/11 was a whack in the head for them. It didn't fit into the Marxist-guided anti-american historical narratives they were weaving in place of "history". Their worldview shattered, they first tried to explain it in the "root cause" discourse - meaning confirmation of what they obseesed about - "imperialism" and Israel. Osama's speeches about global caliphates and such threw them for a loop and they self-censored themselves in fear of ridicule.
The way to counter them, even educate the ones who want their bonds broken, is to ask them if they read Osama's own speeches. I've seen this - it stuns them.
But they're gaining, in a way, at an agitprop level. If Michael Moore can say with a stratight face that the Iraq war was supported by Saudi Arabia, and the chattering classes viewing the movie don't laugh out loud in response, this shows how ill-informed the lefty sheeple have kept themselves in happy ignorance.
In short, the author of this piece failed when he himself could not respond "But Osama, etc. said..." Nothing like words from the horse's mouth to embarass the ignorant.
Ronald Reagan said something like "Liberals are very knowledgeable. Its just that what they know just ain't so."
(Lack of) Education Ping!
Quite.
Regards, Ivan
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, Rom 1:22
It's been too long since I left SEC Enforcement. I used to know some guys who offered me money for introductions to potential marks.
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