Posted on 09/27/2002 8:43:42 PM PDT by Dan from Michigan
Furor erupts over Web site monitoring of Middle Eastern scholars
By RON TODT
The Associated Press
9/27/02 10:22 PM
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A pro-Israel organization has set up a Web site to monitor professors and universities for pro-Arab, anti-Israel bias -- a move some academics are decrying as campus McCarthyism and attempted intimidation.
The Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum said it organized the Campus Watch site to counter pervasive bias in universities' Middle Eastern studies.
The site names schools and specific professors. Forum director Daniel Pipes said the think tank hopes eventually to monitor 250 North American academic institutions.
"Our goal is to monitor, critique and improve Middle East studies," Pipes said. "We're not at universities because our views are not welcome. We're trying to create an alternative voice within the field."
Scholars whose articles are compiled into dossiers on the Web site include Hamid Dabashi and Joseph Massad of Columbia, John Esposito of Georgetown, Juan Cole of the University of Michigan and Snehal Shingavi of University of California at Berkeley. Dossiers are also listed on those institutions as well as a dozen others, including Stanford, Northeastern, the University of Chicago and the University of North Carolina.
Opponents immediately called the effort "McCarthy-like" and an attempt to stifle opposition to U.S. policy in the Middle East. Professors listed on the site said they were bombarded with e-mail over the weekend.
In a show of support for those named on the site, about 100 other academics have asked to be added to the list.
Judith Butler, a gender theorist at Berkeley, wrote that she would like to be included in the list of U.S. academics "who oppose the Israeli occupation and its brutality, actively support Palestinian rights of self-determination" and support an informed view of Islam.
The Campus Watch site accuses American Middle Eastern scholars of generally being biased against the United States and being apologists for unfriendly regimes.
University of Chicago historian Rashid Khalidi, who is quoted on the Web site as sympathizing with the Palestinian cause, called the site "slimy" and intended to chill opposition.
"What they're trying to do is exclude from public debate opinions that go against the neo-conservative consensus that dominates discussion of policy on Iraq or policy on the Israeli conflict by smearing us and calling us aliens," he said.
Pipes said he will not remove a "Keep Us Informed" page on the site that opponents say is an attempt to get students to turn in their professors. He said it gives students a place to complain about mistreatment.
"What you have in university is exclusion of alternate points of view," Pipes said. "You've got to subscribe to the party line and then you can make your career; if you don't, you're out."
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On the Net:
http://www.campus-watch.org
I was a school kid during the Watergate scandal--but I remember our Social Studies teacher going over the unfolding events with our class. She was in clover at the news---grinning and claping her hands together.
There was a really curious kid in our class named Tommy--and he kept asking our teacher why Nixon was such a bad man.
She said: Because Nixon made a whole lot of people feel like they were not really Americans once, just because they thought differently! That's why Tommy!"
And next they will go after the Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Project?
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Too late for my kid, who's firmly on the left, but I hope will one day wake up.
But I'll do the same as you about the money to the school, once I thought it would be nice to make some good-sized donations--not that this particular school needs it in the least, but I have no intention of ever doing so now. And I plan to tell them why too, but not till after my child graduates. (No use screwing that up.)
And Pipes is fantastic, I agree!
It is unfortunate that most parents are blind to the leftist, anti-USA indoctrination that the 60's generation has been foisting on their children through grade school and college. This stealthy approach is a hallmark of Marxism: 'Don't tell them the truth, for they will resist the agenda. Lie to them to get the agenda implemented. It's for their own good.'
The 60s generation has a lot to answer for; it wasn't enought to wreak havoc during those days, now they are working hard in their later years to convert a number of skulls full of mush to their way of thinking.
The implementation of the leftists agenda requires that the existing establishment be torn down. Remember the sixties rant: "Bring it all down, man."
I can only hope most of my child's generation will wake up in due time, but a lot of damage is being done in the meantime.
It is up to those who understand the truth to provide the necessary philosophical counterpoint that was omiitted from the educational curriculum by the leftists. I have read some interesting articles lately, wherein it was reported that the 20-something generation leans conservative in some key areas, even "right-to-life". Not sure how this is happening, but it IS good news.
ATTENTION YOUNG PEOPLE:
When you hear some HWood Clymer bemoaning the "Blacklist," be advised that these Hwood Clymers and Slimers were actually attending cell meetings in their homes and taking orders from Moscow on the content and direction of their productions.
Not much protest about Communist "CENSORSHIP" or Communists liniting artistic freedom in those days!
Hiss served 3 1/2 years for perjury. Several who invoked their fith amendment rights were held "in contempt of Congress" and served up to 1 year in prison.
Having ACP reading material could mean arrest for subversion and plotting to overthrow the goverment.
Being called a Communist would get you deported if you were a foreign citizen.
Yes, there were arrests made and prison time served.
The left media needs to exaggerate the period for the image of "Reds under the bed" right-wingers. Gotta keep the us against them ...
I hate to say it, but I agree with you. I predict within 2 years none of us will be very happy campers, and Hillary will sail right into the presidency. I hope I'm wrong on this.
Mostly yes. But there were also arrests and prison/deportations for "subversive activities" i.e. possession and distribution of communist literature.
The only person sent to prison for being a member of the Comunist party was Junius Scales of North Carolina. Arrested in 1954, after two trials and many appeals he was sentenced to 6 years.
In 1962 President Kennedy commuted his sentence to time served.
The Supreme Court later ruled the law that was used against Scales, "Smith Act", was unconstitutional.
You replied: You are rather angy at the US and i belive it has blinded you.
The above statement isn't logical given what I said. If I am angry it is with government officials who have made extremely bad foreign policy decisions. How that "blinds" me is anyone's guess.
Certain Communist HATE the US and will oppose virtually any action by it
Which is why we have so many US government officials openly embracing communism? If MFN (which George Bush wholeheartedly endorses) is not openly embracing communism, what is?
And has followed with the largest increases in government spending in the world.
Bush pulled the U.S. out of the International (Socialist) Criminal Court, for another.
No he didn't. He merely postponed it and demanded some changes in its charter. He fully supports it otherwise since he is asking it to prosecute Hussein. He will probably use his former demands as a bargaining chip if the UN doesn't cede to his plans for Iraqi invasion.
Bush killed the socialist Kyoto Treaty on Global Warming, on top of that.
According to the constitution, only the Senate has that power.
Bush ended the CCCP-U.S. ABM Treaty (said treaty forbade us from defending ourselves from ICBM nuclear attack).
It was already dead. At any rate, nothing forbids us from defending ourselves. What does this have to do with Bush's lack of communist support?
Bush canceled the Lenin-inspired foreign "family planning" abortion funds.
He needed the money elsewhere.
Bush killed the "progressive" ABA's role in vetting federal judge candidates for Congress.
And? Bush wants his agenda to be upheld. That agenda is in line with the communist manifesto.
Bush canceled Clinton's left-wing/green CO2 regulations for power producers.
In order to help his buds at Enron and other energy companies. Hardly "non-communistic" as it is merely help for political benefactors whether or not it is what some conservatives were hopeful would occur. If his buds in the oil industry would have preferred otherwise, that's what would have occurred. In order to be truly anti-communist he would have demanded that all power over such decisions remain within the industry where they belong. He agrees that the government should control such matters and is asserting that control. That's socialist at the least.
Bush signed an Executive Order commanding Ashcroft and the Department of Justice to enforce the Supreme Court's 1987 Beck decision. The Beck decision ruled that union members could receive that part of their union dues back that was used for political purposes with which they disagreed. Clinton had previously ordered the DOJ to NOT enforce this ruling (and the lapdog media let his defiance of the SCOTUS slide with nary a word of disbelief or protest). This is PRECISELY the sort of anti-Communist behavior that drives the reds in union-management nuts.
In the whole list, this might approach "anti" communism given that it doesn't aid unions. However, the fact that he has in one fell-swoop caused union membership to soar doesn't help your case. Did you REALLY ask what Bush has done that wasn't "communist"?!
I did and you haven't really answered too well.
I'll add the icing on the cake. MFN. Explicit support of a communist nation which treats its people worse than Hussein, whom he's wanting to go to war with. Ooops. Hussein is a "right-winger."
Good grief man, pay attention to what's been going on in your world!
Good grief man, stop kissing Bush's butt long enough to see what he's done to advance socialist/communist agendas.
It's always ad hominem. It may or may not be true but it doesn't prove or disprove your position. That's why it's a logical fallacy. You like ad hominem the most it appears.
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