Posted on 09/23/2001 9:06:08 AM PDT by buckbonzi
America’s Enemies Rally at UNC-Chapel Hill
By Michelle Oswell and Michael Burdei
FrontPageMagazine.com | September 21, 2001
A CONGREGATION of faithful left-wing fundamentalists descended en masse at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Monday night, to practice one of their most sacred rituals: spewing hatred for America.
"If I were the President…I would first apologize to all the widows and orphans, the tortured and the impoverished, and all the millions of other victims of American imperialism. Then . . . I would announce that America's global interventions had come to an end," preached William Blum, author of Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower.
"I would then reduce the military budget by at least 90 percent and I would use the savings to pay the reparations to our victims and to increase social services. . ."
Nod, nod, nod – clap, clap, clap responded the 700 faculty, students and community members in attendance.
"If one [of the perpetrators] is Osama bin Laden, send the international police for him and pick up Henry Kissinger and Augusto Pinochet on the way home," declared Catherine Lutz, professor of Anthropology.
This recipe for national suicide received boisterous applause from the crowd, who continued to nod, smile, cough, clap... everything but actually think. But none of that mattered at the moment. The crowd obviously liked what they heard.
The UNC Progressive Faculty Network sponsored this "teach-in" on September 17, titled "Understanding the Attack on America: an Alternative View." It provided neither an understanding of the attack nor any surprising sentiments from the left: just the same, tired rhetoric that Campus Leftists have been spouting for years.
The panelists stepped forward with one Anti-American libel after another, almost as if there were a competition among them to see who could hate our country the most. One crowd-pleaser was William Blum’s jab at Cuban immigrants and America’s relations with them.
"There are few if any nations in the world that have harbored more terrorists than the United States. And one example, the anti-Castro Cubans in Miami, have [performed] hundreds if not thousands of terrorist attacks in the U.S. and Cuba and elsewhere. All kinds of murders and bombings for decades, and they have been harbored here in safety for those decades."
UNC Sociology professor Charlie Kurzman blamed recent events on a Military Industrial Complex.
"We're…playing into the hands of our own militarists, whose interests always lie, I believe, in the exaggeration of threats, armed responses, and so on. In fact, I would argue that there is tacit collusion among the militarists of all sides."
Also drawing applause was a diatribe against the perennial scapegoat, the white male of European descent by self-proclaimed Arab-American activist and "person of color," Rania Masri.
"So it seems that simply looking Middle Eastern has become a crime. And this has further fueled the xenophobic sentiment that is taking hold of this country. And I say xenophobic because it’s not simply Arab-Americans, Muslim-Americans, and Indian-Americans that are being attacked, but also Asian-Americans, Korean-Americans, Chinese-Americans. Anyone who looks different than your typical white man."
The forum hit a new low, however, when panelist Stan Goff equated the terrorist attacks with the German Nazis’ torching of the Reichstag in 1933.
"The de facto executive branch and the compliant press are putting the historical spotlight right now on December 7, 1941, and Pearl Harbor," said Goff, a disgruntled former U.S. Army Ranger. "I think we need to aim that spotlight at February 27 in 1933 and the Reichstag fire."
The mere fact that the audience clapped and... yes, nodded their heads vigorously in agreement, made it all the more nauseating.
Afterwards a long-haired twenty-something peddled 50-cent copies of the Socialist Worker; and a local left-wing bookshop sold copies of panelists’ books.
All in all, it was a shameful example of how state-funded universities are responding to the deadliest terror attacks in our nation’s history.
To paraphrase the great American poet Ezra Pound, "Utopian blindness carried beyond a certain point becomes a public menace, and there is no cure for a sucker." Those 700 people who shook their heads up and down for three hours like baby rattles could do themselves and society an enormous favor: take a break.
Michelle Oswell is a Ph.D. student in Renaissance musicology at UNC and a politically active conservative. She can be reached at moswell@bellsouth.net.
Michael Burdei is a Junior Political Science major and staff writer for Carolina Review. He can be reached at burdei@email.unc.edu.
Tell the good folks at UNC-Chapel Hill what you think of their decision to allow Anti-American rallies on their state-supported campus. Chancellor James Moeser can be reached at 919-962-1365, or by e-mail at jmoeser@email.unc.edu.
Baa
BTTT
A couple of Arab Americans have been murdered since the 11th. Many more "brown" people have been harassed for the evil done by a bunch of killers who happened to be Arabs. Unless I'm mistaken, an equivalent of this was not witnessed when Timothy McVeigh was found. Go figure.
[As you might know, there is a fine line between speaking your mind and being completely inappropriate. Each of us must occasionally straddle this fence, and one thing that separates the two is the concept of timing.
Thomas Sowell wrote this weekend, "What a shame our schools and colleges neglect history, which could save us from continuing to repeat the idiocies of the past, which are even more dangerous now in a nuclear age."
I believe that America has inattentive universities which encourage the false delusions of pacifism. Protesting an unjust war is a far cry from announcing to the world that you're not willing to stand up and fight an enemy who has sworn to see you dead, and who has already murdered more than 5,000 of your people. This may come as a great surprise to you and the students at UNC, but criticizing the grief-stricken who are struggling to make plans and find justice is considered by some to be unspeakably anti-American.
As Michelle Malkin eloquently puts it, these people are "hating America while greedily feasting off the fruits of freedom so lovingly tended by their fellow countrymen."
A great many teenagers and young adults today do not understand either their rights or their responsibilities as Americans. I see your university as doing nothing to change this in any positive, meaningful way. I think you should be ashamed. Their parents have obviously done a poor job, but that is certainly no excuse for your administration's inaction.
When you are face-to-face with an enemy intent on murder, his fanatical reasoning is of no value in the battle. Your ideological response, in turn, means nothing to him. In fact, your emotional response both pleases him and weakens you. Any valid self-defense course teaches these concepts. You will either stand there and die at his hand, become a slave, including living in a police state, (having abdicated your personal right and responsibility of self-defense to others means you wish them to both make and enforce all life's rules) or fight for yourself. Only one of those options has the possibility of ending with your complete freedom: including your freedom to say how much you hate war.
My family is in North Carolina. In my father's childhood, it was a place that was proud of its American traditions. Growing up, I wanted to attend UNC and be a "Tar Heel" myself. I had no idea how far it had fallen. Evidently, it has continued falling since then. What a shame my daughters will never know the North Carolina which has vanished.
So go ahead and encourage your students to "express themselves" and their so-called alternative viewpoints. When they finish growing up they will look back on these days with shame and regret; whether we have restored our country to a prosperous free American union or it's been transformed into... something else.
May God bless you all.]
Sorry it's so long. I'm just learning how to FReep. Thank you for the post.
Neither too long, and you learn fast! Screen name could be a bit more uplifting, but I think I know what you intended.
They can spew their traitorous speech to the homeless down on main but WE don't have to pay for it on a public university campus. Go to the legislatures EN MASSE and demand cessation of funding if these leftist universities are going to give aid and comfort to our enemies who are working overtime to see us all dead.
Universities don't really allow free speech anymore anyway unless it's anti-American, pro-communist propaganda!
DON'T PUT UP WITH TRAITORS IN PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS IN A TIME OF WAR WHEN PATRIOTS ARE DYING!!!!!!
I guess I felt America was lost in the rubble or something.
But don't worry, I signed my real name to the letter. I look at FR as being similar to the TRT (Tyranny Response Team) concept. Tell us where to go. I've got two very little kids, and live in the middle of nowhere. It's hard to physically be at every counter-rally or meeting, but the least I can do is 'get writin'! Thank you for your response.
Macalester.
(I was shocked to see a lady from Minnesota talking about buying/displaying "Old Glory" for the first time after Terrorist Tuesday...I know that must be a big step for some Minnesotans...brother got his M.S. from U. Minn on the St. Paul campus.
Most of us are not that liberal (Gore won by just 2% here). Flags everywhere where I'm from, put up right after the towers were hit.
However, with the large amount of international and out of state students at Mac, 98% of people on campus are anti-war.
AMEN. This University needs some public exposure. One Florida Librarian was soundly rebuked for a simple (boneheaded) PC, safe from lawsuits request for a student to remove a sticker. FoxNews was instrumental in spreading the news, and website address.
E-mail FoxNews
E-mail O'Reilly
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