Posted on 07/18/2005 5:33:24 AM PDT by .cnI redruM
Frustrated by conservative activism on college campuses, the Left has unveiled secret weapons to counter our Ann Coulters and Ben Steins: Ashley Olsen and Oprah Winfrey. Keisha Senter, speakers' bureau coordinator for Campus Progress, introduced the group’s newest stars at its recent and first-ever national student conference.
Campus Progress, a project of billionaire George Soros’s Center for American Progress (CAP), seeks to “empower a new generation of progressive leaders.” Leftist organizers admit to being overwhelmed on the college front by groups such as the Young America’s Foundation, even though colleges and universities have been propagating liberalism for decades.
According to CAP’s campus programs director Ben Hubbard, “A national effort to work with students on the substance, intellectual foundation, and communication of progressive ideas is needed.” With the realization that food-throwing doesn’t win debates, as was demonstrated by certain assailants of Ann Coulter, Pat Buchanan, Bill Kristol, and David Horowitz earlier this academic year, leftists have finally organized a conference to discuss ideas — or so is their spin.
For the past 30 years on college campuses, the Left has been regurgitating concepts that do not work: socialist, pacifist, redistributionist…you get the tired old idea. Instead of injecting some fresh thinking into the young left-activist bloodstream, panelists at Campus Progress’s national student conference rehashed big-government policies, drew ridiculous parallels, and conveyed embarrassing talking points.
Moderator and former Clinton White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers asked a panel to define progressive values. Paul Begala, host of CNN’s Crossfire, told of the value of “progressive patriotism.” He graciously went on to elaborate using an analogy: “Cain said, ‘am I my brother’s keeper?’ ‘You bet your ass,’ God said.” Begala continued by saying that Republicans reject his celestial wisdom and instead come from the mindset: “I’m going to get mine — screw you!” Another panelist, Thomas Frank, the author of What’s the Matter with Kansas?, said progressive values are “freedom plus groceries.” Heather McGhee, economic-policy analyst with Demos — a left-wing public-policy group — said progressives value “shared prosperity.” Students seeking guidance were given socialist solutions, which are no longer charming — not even in Russia.
At universities, conservatives are no stranger to being called "Nazis." Thomas Frank decided to keep that spirit alive. According to him, “They [Republicans] didn’t have any problem with Hitler, other than the fact that they thought he rocked.”
One young progressive asked how to campaign in the suburbs. He was not given an answer, but a specious sound bite. It’s difficult to campaign in those areas, said Ruy Teixeira, author of The Emerging Democratic Majority. “They are not our base — the white married couples who moved away from the cities to get away from minorities and smog.”
David Halperin, senior adviser for Howard Dean’s presidential bid and the conference coordinator, bemoans the millions of dollars having been spent instigating conservative activism on college campuses. He told the Washington Post that “We’ve been on the defensive for 25 years.” Yet he and other liberals routinely miss the fact that groups such as Campus Progress are wholly unnecessary. The counterpart to organizations such as the Young America’s Foundation is the university itself.
Schools habitually offer courses in “ethnic studies,” “queer studies,” “gender studies” and have set up institutions such as multicultural student unions and women’s centers to spread liberalism under the rubric of tolerance and diversity. It’s a canard to say that liberalism is not embedded in the university, as Campus Progress purports. Schools don’t have courses on “Conservatism and American History” and surely would never invite Thomas Sowell or Clarence Thomas to speak at commencement, but have allowed Wesley Clark and Thomas Friedman.
It’s not the lack of resources, but the tactics used and ideas professed that cause student apathy toward progressive activism. The Left’s routine support for divisive concepts such as racial preferences, the banning of ROTC recruiters from campuses, and their widespread commitment to enforcing political correctness will keep them as second-rate activists. Soros’s millions will not help.
Liberals had their chance at this conference to discuss something original. Unfortunately, they took the occasion to cast aspersions on conservatism with empty, dubious, and hateful rhetoric.
They are undefinable. The term is an oxymoron.
I have a daughter who's a rising senior in high school and looking for a good college. Her grades and SAT scores are excellent. She's thinking small but rigorous liberal arts school - possible majors history, biology, or maybe theology (don't know where that fell from!) Could you disclose the name of your alma mater? FReepmail me if you like. Thanks.
The left is actually starting to realize that shrill juvenile chants and sophomoric behavior don't win in the long run. If they actually learn to be civilized, they might find a more receptive broader audience. Let's hope Begala and company fail in their efforts to spread the Democrat talking points on campus.
I think Vetter is right on this, though. The place to start is with removing all aid. He shows that tuition increases FOLLOW aid, and so aid is driving the higher costs. Your $36,000, while at a premium school, would have been perhaps one-third that without aid being available to all.
Campuses need more leaders like Harvard's Larry Summers. He has gone out on a limb challenging various far-left precepts: women in the sciences, black scholarship and Israel divesture. For taking these stands, the faculty voted no confidence. But Summers is still president.
Conservatives need to be encouraged to run for their college's board of trustees. The board doesn't call all the shots, but it can foster leadership that promotes true academic freedom.
The left already holds the media, academia, and most of the cultural institutions in the Western world. They are the establishment. I think many young people are intelligent enough to realise if they become "activists", they're not "fighting against the machine", they're becoming its court jesters.
The Right are the true rebels. To demand independence rather than catering to dependence is the truly revolutionary ideal.
Regards, Ivan
My sister was deeply in debt after dental school. She worked for a public health agency after college. Salary wasn't great, but after 4 years, they had paid back most of her loans. Now she is free of those student loans and on her own.
Your Doctor friend might want to consider programs that pay off student loans, such as going to rural areas or working at a public health agency.
Sorry to be the one to break it to this guy, but there's a lot of minorities, married and otherwise, moving away from the cities to get away from minorities too.
"As for this: “Cain said, ‘am I my brother’s keeper?’ ‘You bet your ass,’ God said.”
What a dope! These goons are waking up now to the "Christian card", but they haven't an idea whatsoever what this means...
The names of these Goebelites of the 'Hate-the-United States' crowd should be identified over and over again. Paint them with the brush that they deserve!
Yes, they should. But are you aware that at many colleges and universities, taping is not allowed in Womens Studies classes? My newspaper got a tape recorder in and printed some of the garbage that goes on, but only at the risk of an undercover student's academic career. No department should be allowed to run its indoctrination sessions classes in secret.
"My son will be a college freshman this fall, majoring in theater. At orientation, the first club he sought out and joined was the Young Republicans."
He may be the first theater major the Young Republicans ever had. Seriously, this is a good change. Wish him luck. My daughter will be a junior communications major at ND, in a few weeks (film and television); very conservative girl.
"Our deans have grown threefold..."Any idea how much bloated payrolls add to a college student's yearly tuition?
I doubt that it would work.
< leftist prof mode>
As you can see from the poverty in goods but wealth in spirit of the Cuban people, the socialist revolution still is going strong. It is only the warlike blockade by the United States that has kept Cuba from becoming the wealthiest nation in the Western Hemisphere. Thus we can say that all problems in Cuba are Bush's Fault®
"Bush's Fault" is a registered trademark of the Democratic National Committee.
< /leftist prof mode>
Where can i find that song?
So say you have, on average, four deans at $80,000, plus five assistants ad $45,000, then you've got half a mill before you even look at benefits (add 30%, so $800,000) or facilities. This is the hard part: they need offices, phones, fax machines, comuters, and so on. Easily the costs of this exceed $300,000 a year. So I'm betting that you are in the neighborhood of $1.5 mil. for just one college's deans. Multiply that by business, engineering, law, and you are looking at an addition to the budget of perhaps $5 million per year. We have 5,0000 or so freshmen every year, so if I"m doing the math right, this is about $1000 per fresh per year?
Now talk about recruitment and student aid: recruitment is top-heavy in travel and staff, so you are easily topping $1,000 per student per year just to convince people to come to your school. Student aid? probably much more, because of all the "paper pushers" who get medical and retirement.
I'd guess that our tuition, which is $20,000, could be slashed easily by 1/3 by reducing deans and eliminating most student aid.
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