Thanls for posting this up, with an e-mail address included. Just sent the following e-mail to the Professor in charge of this program:
Dear Dr. Barlow,
I have just read on the Internet your letter to Charles Hall of the University of Toledo.
Some comments are in order. I am a veteran of more than a few "teach-ins" going back to the Vietnam War. By an large, they tend to be self-indulgent propaganda for an anti-government viewpoint, usually (but not always) unjustified on the facts.
I am assuming, based on such events elsewhere in the country, that your teach=in has the themes that "the US brought this on itself by its policies," and "the sensibilities of Islamic believers should not be harmed by such tactics as bombing on Ramadan." Both point are, of course, historical nonsense.
The first argument could have been made about the attack on Pearl Harbor, caused by American opposition to Japanese hemogeny on the Pacific Rim. The latter argument is destroyed by the fact that Arab and Islamic countries launched the 1967 Yom Kippur War during Ramadan that year, (In the East it is even called "The Ramadan War.")
Those who disagree, especially on the facts, with the pioused pronouncement of tenured professors who ignore history, will, I trust, be unwelcome at your teach-in.
If I am wrong about your politics, I am sure you will correct me. But if I am right, it is you and your colleagues, not Mr. Hall, who demean your institution by talking of history with a base of gross ignorance in that area.
Do not classify my letter as "hate speech," for I do not hate you and your kind. I pity you, for abandoning the discipline of factual academic inquiry. And I pity your students, who come to college seeking education in both facts and the methods of inquiry, but apparently receive propaganda instead, which is neither.
My comments have nothing to do with your gender. My late son's name was also Jamie, so I only assume that you are more likely to be female than male. But that is not relevant to my comments.
As a former Professor myself, who never sought and never would have accepted tenure, I condemn those who accept tenure as an excuse to cease both inquiry and learning.
Your teach-in would be far more valuable if it contained opposing viewpoints. But it won't, will it? That would undercut the whole point, wouldn't it?
You ought to be ashamed of yourself as a Professor. But you're not, are you? >p>Very Truly Yours,
John Armor, Esq.
(Congressman Billybob on the Net)