Little Signs Everywhere
I normally don't weigh in on this endlessly stultifying topic of academic liberalism, but it's getting a bit more interesting now that professors are being physically threatened. From Marie at The Left Coaster: Brown Shirts in Cyber-Space I find that a poor little Republican girl at Cal State Long Beach is upset because one of her professors is a liberal and it's inappropriate for him to be talking politics in his English class, especially since he doesn't like the president. Oh boohoohoohoohoo!
This story wouldn't even be worth discussing (this snivelling woe-is-me victim whine is like a broken record) except that this quivering little Republican twit put this professor's name on this right wing "complaint" web site and the story was picked up all over the wingnut press. Predictably, the professor started getting death threats.
For a real treat, read the original complaint posted by our future Harpy of America.
I am taking this English composition class to fufill my general education (GE) requirements. On the first night of this class, Sep. 1, 2004, Dr. Snider went over the the class syllabus for the semester. This syllabus includes 5 essays that are to be turned in over the semester. One of these essays is to be written on a film that he will show in class, as he so stated will most likely be Farenheit 9/11. (Because Michael Moore is a genius and his film exposes how our so called "President Bush" is an idiot.) He then proceeded for the next hour and a half of this ENGLISH class to talk strictly about his hate of "president" (he kept doing the quote signs with his fingers) Bush and the Iraqi War. There were no more attempts made my Dr. Snider to talk about the true subject matter of the class, ENGLISH. I have been in this class for almost 2 weeks now and politics seems to be the main issue lectured on, however he makes lame attempts to tie his own liberal propaganda into an english example, (; Newspaper articles, Presidential Speeches, etc. )Furthermore, a second essay that we are to wirte must be written on a book we have read that appears on his "approved reading list". The list of books in his syllabus has a dominant theme: Sexual perversion and anti Bush rhetoric. ( A copy of this list can be found on his website at www.csulb.edu/~csnider) This website which indicated in his syllabus "contains important class material" is a website dedicated primarily to his own gay literature and anti Bush poetry.
[...]
On the first night of this class, a student sitting next to me who had apparently become disgusted by the teachers quote that "Bush is just as evil as Saddam Hussein" raised his hand and asked how Dr. Snider could even make such a comparison. I too spoke out and said that there is no way that you can compare a dictator who gasses thousands of people with our President.
[...]
This other student and I were instantly ridiculed by the rest of the class and told by Dr. Snider that it was all "the fault of the Fox so called "news" media's propaganda and that he would also like to show the class "OutFoxed" and another film on the Lies of Bush and Tony Blair to the world to show us what is really going on.
Time of Posting : Saturday, September 11, 2004.
Oh my, Gawd! It was so, like, totally, unfair! This fag was, like, teaching junk that me and, like, one other guy, like, didn't want to he-ar! Even though I'm, like, in college I shouldn't have to listen to stuff I don't, like, agree with!
Of course that huckster David Horowitz is on the case and published the poor little girl's story (in which she reveals that she believes college English is supposed to be sixth grade remedial grammar class.) Townhall got into the act and lil' Melissa even got a shot on FoxNews.
I wrote my paragraph very tongue in cheek and purposely ridiculed the insufficient evidence that Michael Moore used in his film. However, when I received my paragraph back, I found it marked up in red ink by Dr. Snider with comments like, " You miss the point of the film", or that advisor "was Richard Clark… a terrorist expert!" I was blown away by these comments. I didn’t realize that I was being graded on the way I interpreted the film! From what I understood about our in class paragraphs, Dr. Snider was only supposed to grade grammar, spelling, and mechanics, of which I had no corrected errors. Funny though that I still received the lowest grade in the class on this assignment (after receiving all A’s on past assignments), while papers with numerous spelling errors and mechanical corrections but with an anti-Bush perspective received A’s.
[...]
Dr. Snider has taken it upon himself to give us a moral/ ethical and spiritual lesson before each class begins. I have no problem with morals and spirituality, however the university offers ethics classes; I enrolled and paid for an English class. I do not believe that Dr. Snider is trained to lecture on such topics. Moreover, from what I do know of his ethics and morals, I feel slightly offended that he somehow believes that his morals are superior to mine. (I am unable to draw an ethical comparison between President Bush and Saddam Hussein, as does Dr. Snider, which he so stated on the very first night of class.)
I am disheartened to see a class full of students whom simply do not seem to know any better, being brainwashed by the leftist views of Dr. Snider only weeks before the Presidential elections. I believe that what has gone on in this course is an all too typical example of the blatant abuse of power by university professors nationwide.
It's a good thing that Uncle Davey Horowitz doesn't grade his papers as harshly as Dr. Snider because he might have asked 18 year old Melissa to back up her assertions that Dr. Snider is not trained to lecture on certain topics or that this is an all too typical example of blatant abuse of power by university professors nationwide. But then, he almost certainly "helped" little Melissa write those words didn't he?
Yes, the poor, poor little conservatives on campus, so scorned, so dissed. And all those poor brainwashed classmates who aren't as wise and as knowledgeable as little Melissa. The only thing to be done is kill the professor. Marie's post discusses other similar incidents. Apparently, it's not at all rare for liberal professors to get death threats these days after their names are posted on the internet.
Republicans may have total control of the government, but that isn't good enough. As Lincoln said in the Cooper Union Speech I posted about the other day:
... what will convince them? This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly - done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated - we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Senator Douglas' new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our Free State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us.
They will not be satisfied until we agree with them and prove that we agree with them in thought, word and deed. Clearly, whatever brainwashing has been going on on college campuses these past twenty years or so has not resulted in a loss of political power from the right. But that doesn't matter. Liberalism must be utterly destroyed, its adherants converted and all remnants of its philosophy purged from the discourse.
When, I wonder, will we be willing to admit that this culture war is a war of survival?