"Teacher Class on Mideast Stirs Doubt," from the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles:
An upcoming course on the Middle East for public school teachers has gotten the attention of Jewish organizations for its allegedly unfair tilt toward a pro-Palestinian viewpoint.Titled “Teaching About the Middle East,” the professional development course, which earns participants points toward salary increases, will be given Oct. 14, 15 and 17 at the Wilshire District headquarters of United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), the L.A. teachers union.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) will send an observer to monitor the sessions. Spokeswomen for both the ADL and The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles said their organizations are looking into the matter, but withholding judgment.
The heightened scrutiny arises from the complaints of Paul Kujawsky, a teacher at Germain Street Elementary School in Chatsworth and past president of Democrats for Israel. A routine listing of the workshop caught his eye, and on Sept. 1, Kujawsky sent a formal, three-page letter, headed “Propaganda, Not Education” to Superintendent Roy Romer of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and UTLA President A.J. Duffy.
The letter listed two primary observations and allegations:
The course is funded by the Middle East Teacher Resource Project, an arm of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). The Quaker organization has a long, honorable history of pacifism and aiding refugees (including this reporter’s parents), but is considered by many in the Jewish community as leaning consistently toward a pro-Palestinian perspective.
“Overall, the AFSC’s position is that the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict is the result of European imperialism, not Arab or Muslim refusal to admit that the Jews have any historic or legal right to sovereignty,” wrote Kujawsky, who is undeniably and unapologetically pro-Israel....
In the opinion of Kujawsky, “The Quakers’ goal is to end the Israeli occupation, not to end the Arab war against Israel,” he said in an interview.
Shan Cretin, the Friends Committee regional director in Pasadena, objected to attempts to “politicize” either the teachers’ course or the Quakers’ position on the Middle East, which, she said, is to work toward a nonviolent resolution.
“This workshop grows out of our larger concerns for peace in the Middle East,” she said. “In the wake of 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq, we believe that students need to know more about Arab and Muslim culture, history and politics to become informed citizens. This is not a workshop focusing mainly on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
Cretin, who worked with Israelis and Palestinians on health care programs in the mid-90s, acknowledged that “many of our speakers have ties to Arab organizations, but given the topics that are to be the focus of the workshop, this does not seem so surprising.”
The course was deemed appropriate by Ronni Ephraim, LAUSD’s chief instructional officer for elementary schools. She readily provided documents on the course, and explained how it was approved by a three-person committee that included a Jewish member.
The course was proposed and put together by Linda Tubach, an LAUSD staffer in instructional support service who is active in UTLA.
Tubach’s involvement is one concern cited in Kujawsky’s letter. He submitted that Tubach serves on the advisory board of Cafe Intifada, whose Web site states that it raises funds for “cultural programs in Palestine, highlighting the current plight of the Palestinian people.”
Tubach said she was part of the now-inactive advisory board two years ago, when she was involved in a Cafe Intifada pen pal writing project involving American teachers and Palestinian students, but that she no longer had any connections with the organization.
She said that she proposed the course as “a basic survey of Middle Eastern culture, religion and government ... and it is our intention to have dialogues and discussions representing all points of view.”
Nevertheless, she became concerned enough about any real or perceived imbalance to ask Deanna Armbruster, who is leading the session on “The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” to team up with an advocate of the Israeli viewpoint.
Armbruster is the executive director of American Friends of Neve Shalom/Wahab Al-Salam, a community in central Israel, whose 350 Arab and Jewish adults and children live together, study in the same school and share civic responsibilities.
“I’m very passionate about understanding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in terms of human experiences,” said Armbruster, and her book, “Tears in the Holy Land,” is based on this passion.
Armbruster, a volunteer with the Friends Committee’s Middle East Peace Education Program, said that the Quaker organization “strives for a better understanding of both the Palestinian and Israeli viewpoints, but it tends to delve more deeply into Palestinian issues and the problems they face” — especially in light of a widespread presumption that the Israeli side gets more favorable exposure, thanks to strong Jewish advocacy.
For his part, Kujawsky perceives a bias in the affiliation of some of the instructors, some of whom have ties to Palestinian organizations.
Among the workshop’s instructors is attorney Ban al-Wardi, who is president of the Los Angeles-Orange County Chapter of the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee. He will lead the session on “The U.S. and the Middle East: Before and After 9/11.”...
None of the assurances of balance and fairness have satisfied Kujawsky.
“This is not a question of Jew vs. Arab, it’s about truthfulness in teaching,” he said.
Indeed.
This is all very interesting and very important that balance be achieved. I will tell you last week our children who are going to an Antioch, Ca school came home with a colored picture of a Mosque and a chain to celebrate Ramedan. On the back of the Mosque is a poem that mentions God and prayer.
We immediately went to have a conference with the principle who saw no problem with the activity because it didn't name the prophet. But it did name God and was clearly religious. My question to him was - can I expect a nativity scene and a star of david as well? Silence....
Tottally unacceptable coming from a state that is banning the words "Under God" in the pleage of allegiance.
If they want students to learn about Islamic culture, what's wrong with a simple field trip to the city zoo?
Church and State are seperate in America, aren't they? What a joke. I suppose CAIR will be chiming in on this issue eventually.
Check out the following article from the Jerusalem Post:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1129113913322&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
I wonder if it will be part of the course materials.
Below Melanie Phillips's Oct. 12/05 on-line diary entry on the lethal dangers of "educators" and how the Arab/Israeli* conflict is too often being taught.
There was a link in the original to the actual Stanford Review piece criticising tenured Stanford professor Joel Beinin, but unfortunately it doesn't work. Open single quote marks reference the Review.
* an attempt to get away from the misleading "Israel/Palestine" descriptor.
The lethal consequences of the trahison des clercs
One of the factors that has created the current climate of lies about Israel and the Jews is the respect afforded to academics who, despite the fact that they tell blatant lies and thus rewrite history, are regarded as authoritative simply by virtue of the fact that they are university professors. Since the academy is the custodian of knowledge, it is assumed that its representatives are disinterested seekers after truth. Thus what they say mutates into the normative truths of a culture. The problem is that this fundamental premise is no longer true. Great swathes of the academy are no longer disinterested at all. For a variety of separate but sometimes related reasons, including the development of the grievance or victim culture, the rise of interest groups with money to spend promoting that culture, the dependence of academics on such groups for funding and the post-modern deconstruction of the very concept of truth, academia has become a prime site for propaganda. If one reads social science research, for example, one has to pick one’s way through a minefield of error and distortion in piece after piece of special interest pleading masquerading as objective research. Some of this finds its way into government policy – much ‘research’ upon which the British government bases its policy on domestic violence, for example, offers a disgracefully distorted picture based on the vilification of men, startlingly at odds with the overwhelming amount of truly authoritative research which shares responsibility for such violence equally between the sexes.
When it comes to the Middle East, however, this ability to mislead an entire society has literally lethal consequences. Historians who have produced a false or distorted view of its history have been indulged by the academy and taken seriously enough to provide an apparent academic grounding for what is nothing other than propaganda built upon lies. A glaring example of this has occurred at the prestigious Stanford University, as reported in the Stanford Review. Joel Beinin, a tenured history professor at Stanford, has at times accused others of trying to silence him. There is no evidence of this at all. On the contrary, as the Review notes, he has hardly been silent:
'Beinin has taken on, in the last few years, President Lawrence Summers of Harvard, Dr. Daniel Pipes, and Paul Wolfowitz. He has defended Sami Al-Arian, the alleged al Jihad terrorist operating out of the University of South Florida. He has been photographed by the Stanford Daily carrying placards on “Nakba Day” (the “catastrophe”) a day that is known elsewhere as Israel’s Independence Day.'
Of course, he is free to attack or defend whoever he chooses. However, if he is poisoning the well of knowledge by teaching demonstrable lies, that is surely a different matter. Beinin teaches an online course sponsored by Stanford, Oxford and Yale entitled ‘Palestine, Zionism and the Arab-Israeli Conflict.’ But what he teaches is highly questionable, as the Review reveals:
‘In the video narrative by Beinin for the first week, Beinin stated that, following the destruction of the Jewish Second Temple by the Romans in the year 70, C.E., Jews had next come to Palestine in the sixteenth century, at the invitation of the Moslem Turks, “to study religious books and to be buried there.”
'A poster noted that, in fact, the past two millennia in Palestine that Beinin had implied had little Jewish history were actually chock-full of events. These included Jewish revolts, for over five centuries; the writing and the publication of the Jerusalem Talmud and later, the Shulhan Aruch; and the establishment of a synagogue in Jerusalem by Nachmanides after 1270, a city in which Jews have lived since. Only during the First Crusades, when the Jewish community was burned alive, was there a brief period in which Jerusalem did not have a Jewish community.
‘Beinin lectured that the “only” remnant of the Herodian Jewish Temple was the “Wailing” Wall (an archaic term) and that the Haram, or the Moslem holy site, was located above. A post reminded the class that, actually, the whole Western and Southern Walls were remnants of the Herodian temple, and that the area above had been the Jewish Temple seven centuries before Mohammed was born. A link was presented to pictures of excavations with Hebrew inscriptions such as the Trumpeter’s stone covering an area about ten times larger than the one Beinin incorrectly described.
‘In week two, Beinin stated that “Jewish identity before the twentieth century was not rooted in a nation-state,” but did not add that the premodern version of Jewish identity included daily prayers for Jerusalem to be restored-- and had included these prayers for centuries. For example, the prayer after meals, said three times daily, has one paragraph about Jerusalem and another about the land.
‘In week three, Beinin alleged that Jewish and Palestinian nationalism developed at “about the same time.” In fact, Zionism restricted to its most modern form began at least a generation before Palestinian nationalism. Most Arabs regarded Palestine as part of the sanjak of southern Syria at least into the 1920’s, when King Faisal of Syria was deposed, twenty years after the First Zionist Congress of Theodor Herzl. No historical account of Palestinian nationalism predates the Zionist Congresses.
‘The same week, Jewish historical claims were compared to the Palestinians, who, Beinin claimed, might have descended from the Canaanites. In fact, whereas Israel is regarded as the third Jewish commonwealth, there is no basis for ancient claims of a Palestinian state emanating from Canaan. Even the Palestinians who engage in denial of Jewish claims are rarely willing to take that one any distance. Beinin even said “it does not really matter,” who was first.’
Such distortions continue, not surprisingly, into modern history:
‘In the later weeks devoted to the United States and Israel, Beinin erroneously stated that the US had spent a trillion dollars on aid to the Jewish state since 1948. Since the true number was about eighty billion, or eight percent of the amount claimed, I questioned Beinin’s integrity. He had been challenged on this amount previously, on the Internet, highly publicly, in a previous incarnation of the class and yet still had not changed the videotape for subsequent classes. While our class did not get an apology from Beinin, the administrator of the class summarily announced that the wrong tapes had been sent, and mailed the class new videotapes, identical to the old, except with the editing out of the “mistake.”’
Such behaviour surely betrays the ideals and values of a university and should be called to account by that university. Far from silencing him, however, Stanford appears not to have done so. The Review is right to protest at this trahison des clercs. I am forever meeting Arabs and Muslims who are otherwise perfectly fine people but whose view of Israel is founded on precisely such terrible distortions. Through such behaviour and its indulgence, hatred is fuelled and lives are being lost.
Where is the ACLU in all of this?
Here's a thought: the reason our public schools have devolved into hateful Marxist inculcation centers is simple. Teachers are forced by tradition and contract to return to college and get PhDs in order to increase their income.
Given that our universities are self-admitted Marxist inculcation centers, having our teachers repeatedly visit these benighted campuses naturally resulted in similarly benighted public school classrooms.
Allahu out there for me and you!
Take a page out of the atheist playbook....sue. If my child or grandchild is made to give homage to islam, you can expect me to give 'em hell.
Carolyn2:
And try to enlist the local Civil Liberties Union and see whether they are prepared to support the cause or not.
"We immediately went to have a conference with the principal who saw no problem with the activity because it didn't name the prophet. But it did name God and was clearly religious. My question to him was - can I expect a nativity scene and a Star of David as well? Silence...."
-- from the first posting, by Laurel, above
Don't drop it. Will there be a Nativity Scene, and some information about Hanukkah as well, so that all the children, including the Muslim ones, can learn just as much about those other "abrahamic faiths" as is apparently being shoved down the unsuspecting throats of all those non-Muslim children who are subtly being softed up, at a suitably tender age, for a lifetime of Muslim apologetics? Keep after the principal, the teacher, and meet with other parents. Discuss what Islam is all about. Have them visit www.apostatesofislam.org and www.faithfreedom.org, and for the studious, www.dhimmitude.org. And of course this site as well, in lieu of the Los Angeles Times (still not yet having received a new name, but it will),or The Bandar Beacon, or The New Duranty Times.
Where does this end? When does this end? How does this end?
Jesus christ, people. Get a grip on yourselves...jihadi pigf*ckers just shot the hell out of another town in Russia, and we're whining about the ACLU again?
The ACLU will intervene if and when a student in a public school is being FORCED to pray to Allah (or any other fairytale) or FORCED to listen to school-sanctioned prayer to Allah.
A course in the history of the Middle East, even one that sugarcoats the Muslim aggression that has caused all the trouble there, is still not a religious class. It still doesn't force any kid to say the Shehada or whatever. It still doesn't force any kid to convert to Islam. So get over it. When they start quoting the Queer-an over the loudspeaker as morning prayer, THEN call the ACLU... when they start reciting prayers to Allah or Mohamed over the loudspeaker before football games, THEN call the ACLU… when they erect a statue in the courthouse with the commandments from Mohamed, THEN call the ACLU. And you’re damn right; you SHOULD SUE if they try to indoctrinate your kids to join Islam. Demand that they teach the truth about Islam, warts and all; demand that they teach the truth about Israel and the Arab crazies that have been trying to destroy it since 1948.
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Given that our universities are self-admitted Marxist inculcation centers, having our teachers repeatedly visit these benighted campuses naturally resulted in similarly benighted public school classrooms.
Self-admitted? I'd like to see that. Let's see a link to a university website that "admits" that they are a Marxist inculcation center.
I think that you are just talking sh*t like the rest of the "let's blame the teachers, the unions, the intellectuals, the blacks, the liberals, and the sissies" crowd.
Now, let's keep this straight: the link better end with ".edu"... and I don't want to see a link FROM Pepperdine, Southern Methodist, Bob Jones, Liberty, or Heritage university that SAYS another university is an admitted Marxist inculcation center. I want to see the university in question mention it. You said that they are self-admitted Marxist inculcation centers, so there should be an admission somewhere. I say that it's a lie; you can prove that it's the truth by sending the link. BTW you said "universiTIES," not "univeristy"... that's plural. So you should send more than one. Ten would be nice.
Or is this a case of “by self-admitted” I meant that I, myself, admitted that THEY are Marxist inculcation centers”?
*********************************************
I am two classes shy from a degree in Philosophy, and I haven't been required to take a Marxist class.... the general "Social Philosophy" class that covers Marx, Engles, etc. is an elective and NOT required, not even for a philosophy degree. There is also a “Philosophy of Marxism” that is offered, again, as an elective… not as a requirement. Here’s the link for the proof:
http://www.cas.usf.edu/philosophy/index.html
And this is from USF, the employer of Dr. Al-Aryan! You know, supposedly soooo liberal? Headed (at the time) by Betty Castor, who ran for Senate against Mel Martinez?
Click on the link and note that the only two “commie” classes are only shown on a list of five “political philosophy” classes of which only one must be taken to gain a degree in philosophy with honors; and are mentioned as requirements neither in the plain Bachelor’s degree nor the minor.
So please explain yourself. Are you just quoting some right-wing nut and don't realize that you are wrong? Or are you going the "Dr." Laura route by claiming--despite your knowledge to the contrary--that, ahem, "they are giving away college degrees to unwed mothers for 'life experience'" (as she did) or “the universities are self-admitted oink oink moo moo”?
The one class I took that gave any serious consideration to Marx was a freshman “Introduction to Philosophy” class. The teacher was a long-haired Vietnam vet and a liberal librarian to boot... and he hated Marx. Another "philosopher" mentioned in the textbook, Archetypes of Wisdom was the beloved Malcolm Little, a petty thief and drug addict who went to prison and joined a cult that demands that thieves have their hands amputated and that drug users be publicly beheaded... later we has murdered by devotees of a Muslim cult called “Nation of Islam”…you know him as "Malcolm X."
The teacher said (correctly) that Malcolm X espoused violence and he--the teacher--didn’t consider him a philosopher and wasn’t going to talk about X’s “philosophy” at all. He said he didn’t expect us to read that chapter and that we weren’t going to be tested on it.
So sorry that he didn’t fit your stereotype of what a college professor is “supposed to” be, but hey, I’m sure you’ve been wrong before.
The Bandar Beacon, or The New Duranty Times.
Don't worry, Hugh. "The Moonie Times" and FOX News (aka Al-jazeera Pt. Two) will get it right. We can REALLY COUNT on the right-wing media to tell us the truth.
Especially the ones owned by the big Moon Moonie himself (The Washington Times) and the Arab bastard that blamed "American foreign policy" on 9-1 (FOX news.)
Maybe the right-wing dhimmi media outlets will get their own names too...is that possible Hugh? Or is this just political? Please tell me. I suggest "Moonie Times" and "Arab-owned Fox News"... how does that sound?
BTW... this class isn't even for the kids! It's for the teachers! Do we really think that THEY might be tricked into converting to Islam? I somehow doubt it.
AND... I am in complete agreement with you that the teachers need the learn the REAL truth about what happened to the mythical "palestine" and how the nation of Israel came into being. But don't leave it up to the ACLU to do anything about it... being lied to doesn't meant that your civil liberties are being violated.
Here's an idea: there's some republicans in California with considerable pull... why don't we count on THEM to step in and do something?
There's the CaliGOPer darling, Darrell Issa... an ARAB REPUBLICAN THAT RECALLED GRAY DAVIS. There's that McClintock dork, the Cali state Senator or whatever that "almost" ran against the Failed-Actor/Steroid-Juknie. There's the big Gropernator himself...how come these "republican conservatives" don't do anything about this? Could they be enamoured with Saudi Green like a so many East-coast GOPers?
kj,
Some of us are not short of our degrees, but have several. Ordinarily, Marxists don't append "Marxist" to the class title. It's more than a bit ironic you are living proof of Marxist indoctrination while denying it exists, the archtypical Angry Left strawman builder.
Oh, of course, kj, we must all be racists to disagree with the incredible wisdom you've almost acquired at USF. If you were a linguistics graduate student you might have taken a class from my uncle.
Having read Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Gramsci, with Charles Beard for 'balance,' on my way to a history degree, your thrashing about is more than a bit amusing.
I like Beagle's slash
and burn comments
to prune the undergrowth.
Gosh Beagle, your rant is pure hyperbole, and sadly it doesn't address one issue or point that kj made.
You said that on your way to a history degree, that would be LIBERAL arts, apparently, even in todays water down world of edukashun, you never completed the requirements nor obtained the degree.
It is apparent from kj's post, that he is an informed anti Jihadist, even an Islamophobe, and definitely pro Zionist...and with that you argue and quibble and then insult the man (I assume that kj is a he).
Why?
There is a point here, and that is that the anti Jihad ("Islamophobe as the Muslim mafia depicts us) had better make room on the train, for fellow travelers of liberal/left persuasion.
Oh but they have, perusing the articles and posts here, the denizens of the right have taken on board, furriners of liberal left and gay (Pym Fortunyn) and atheist (Warrag, Sina, Fortuyn, Hirsi Ali, Fallaci) persuasion.. but exceptions are made for them.. how strange.
Since liberal/left is equated with Marxist/Commie, ¿explicame como se possible que algo izquierda's son mas amicable que otros?
Do you have room on your train for others, not of your particular persuasion who see the same danger you see, and wish to join in the fight, or do you haughtily and foolishly believe that you can fight this battle on your own, to the point of misrepresenting, miscasting and declaring war against he who would be your ally?
You and your ilk, are your own worst enemies. Declaring a war on two fronts, last time that happened they lost (Germany 1945, and before that Germany 1917).
As regards the ACLU, I have issues with them myself, but give them a break, they have not only defended the leftists, but they have also defended rightests. I would guess that they fear that the state (which at present is putatively right wing) could easily become and has (supposedly) been left wing.. could, would and is motivated to cater to emotions and sentiments and thus enable the powers that be (whom in my own opinion are neither left nor right as we understand those terms), to negate the constitution and the bill of rights. Does it matter if the state is Right Wing Religious Fascist or Left Wing Areligious Fascist?
Is there really any difference, from a civil liberties point of view between fascism and communism? I don't think so.
Meanwhile you would make yourself look intelligent and less of an ignorant and emotional child, by addressing the issues and points that kj has raised, instead of dismissive, insulting hyperbole. That requires a well thought out and point by point discussion, call him where he is wrong and then prove your points as he asked
Yours in the war against Islamofascism.
For Chrisakes, calm yourself down, kj.
I admit that I have made a terrible mistake. The morons who teach at universities in America haven't publicly self-admitted, but they sure do in their private conversations, their books, and by their actions.
Just look what's going on at IU law school for the latest egregious example. Or howabout those Ivy league genius lawyers on the Supreme Court who were so well educated at their respective Ivy-Marxist universities (and Stanford) that they were able to figure out that a private corporate HQ amounts to a "public use." Now *that's* Marxist.
I thank God for the work of David Horowitz to keep tabs on these Marxist geeks.
So, by way of hat-in-hand amendment, let me publically apologize, kj, and then go on to state that these intellectually dishonest and morally bankrupt university Marxists are self-actualized (but not self-admitted).
Marx (who, btw, doctored the economic statistics upon which he based Das Kapital) left behind for us a legacy of central control, destruction of individualism and liberty, olympian elitism, and something-for-nothing economics.
Now if *that* doesn't sound like Sharia, I don't know what does.
It's no wonder that our Marxist universities have embraced Moslems so.
Heck, even Notre Dame, one of the colleges I attended, has set up a Jihadist nest with McDonald's cheeseburger money. Cheer, cheer for old Notre Dame, fight fight fight to put ol' Columbia U. to shame!
Islam is the world's greatest single problem.
Runaway academe, and the befuddled school teachers it disengorges, is one of America's greatest problems.
BTW, kj makes a good point, you guys call the NYT the New Duranty Times, and the Washington Post, the Bandar Beacon, but put on your blinders and cut slack for the Moonie Times and the Saudi Fox production.
FYI, it is my personal opinion that the NYT is not liberal at all, in fact the only truly liberal press are small circulation periodicals like Mother Times and Nation (and I'm starting to have doubts about the Nation, as a shift has been noted).
During the VN war, when I and a handful of students, and an associate professor, fought to a standstill the Marxists on campus, led by a professor, who were posing as "antiwar", and who had an agenda of turning this fine private (Methodist) university into another Kent State, I encountered a handful of clowns which were a fake opposition. In reality a handful of these Marxists who volunteered to carry "Nixon is Right On" signs, I put the NYT in the same category.
IMO, the only media we have in the US that has a voice that reaches out to the public is the media that is owned and controlled by corporations who are the backbone of that which Eisenhower warned us of, the "military industrial" (petroleum chemical) complex.
It's an establishment press and the establishment is the corporations. Reporters might be liberals, but the editors and publishers want to keep their jobs, and they know whose hand holds the pen that writes the pay check.
Shauhn, Beagle et al, you are tilting at windmills, fighting a war that is long over, and which the west has won.. the war against Marx and Marxism.
When that wall came down in 1989, Marxism died.
It is totally discredited, as an idea or ideology, and frankly no one takes it seriously anymore, except those stuck in the past, or the younguns that are today hyperventilated into paroxysmistic fits by demigogues who need a safe demon against which to vent, the better to fill their pews and pockets.
But here is a clue for you. There is a lot more in common between Adam Smith and Karl Marx than you realize, if you had actually read the works and philosphy of Marx.
Karl Marx was a Free trader (google Marx On the Question of Free Trade), he has his own nefarious purposes, so he he said, for being a free trader, but his cohort Frederich Engles most certainly was, Engles owned a textile mill and wrote papers promoting free trade, because the cost of goods (cotton and wool) was determined by it's cost of production, and labor is the only real variable in production that can be manipulated.
Marx actually wrote letters to Southern Papers chastising them for slavery, not because slavery was immoral or wrong, but because it was economically ineffecient. Free the slaves Marx said, and hire them back at market wages, as the supply of labor is self newing and thus limitless, the plantation owners could save money, which they were otherwise spending to house, feed, clothe, entertain, church and provide medical care for slaves.
Marx was also a standard bearer for the gold standard, a 100% Gold standard which the Soviet Union adopted, so was Smith, and Smith also believed in the labor theory of value, in fact the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia said of Adam Smith, that he was the intellectual father of Karl Marx, and that he was.
But you are correct, the real struggle is to defend ourselves from pernicious and insidious Islam, but how we can get around to doing that, when neanderthals keep swinging clubs at swamp gas, and fighting yesterdays wars. Reminds me of the unreconstructed southerners, who are still fighting the American Civil War
Why Marxism isn't dead:
http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Soci/SociSton.htm
http://www.marxist.com/iran-authoritarians-reformers010304.htm
However that is besides the point. The American Communist Lawyers Union will probably end up involved in this at some point.
http://www.etherzone.com/2004/beam091604.shtml
And I for one have no doubt whom they will side with.
Nariz, I find several possible meanings of your handle, none of which fits, unless it is 'between'... between what? Faiths? Philosophies?
I am a public high school teacher in the USA. In this public school system, Islam is taught as a "culture", not as a religion.
Ramadan is taught along with the 5 Pillars and Allah being the God and Mohammed being the last and final Prophet and that the Quran is the final revelation of Allah. To me this sounds like "religion". A spokeswoman (who is also an employee of the school system) from CAIR comes in with brightly colored head scarves for the girls and white caps for the boys to wear plus lots of sweet pastries for them to eat while she discussing Islamic Culture, i.e. Islam is the religion of peace and Mohammed is the example for all mankind to follow. She (also a Palestinian) definately gives the sanitized version of Mohammed's life and virtues, plus emphasizes how free women are in Islam, men being equal to women, etc...
School children do learn about Hannukah and the Menorah, learn the Dreidl song and latkes.
The Menorah and the Cresecent Moon are both allowed to be pictured in school hallways and classrooms as the public school system officials have said that they are "cultural" or "ethnic" symbols and not religious in nature.
The public school system officials have said that a cross, a wreath or a fir tree are symbols of Christianity, thus religious and as such may not be pictured any where in the school.
"Islamic Culture" training is given frequently for all staff members. No other "culture" (i.e. religion) is given such access to the school system staff or student body.
I have suggested that other "cultures" be represented in this "cultural" training, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and even Christianity, etc., but it has always fallen on deaf ears.
My belief is that if one is taught, then all should be. Sorry, not where I am...there is only one "religion/culture" taught, and that is the PC brand of Islam.
Nariz,
You win the pompous ass award. We call them history degrees when the focus is history. But my diploma says Bachelor of Arts, which is about as useful as the term vehicle. My law degree says Juris Doctorate, but only a pompous ass calls it anything but a law degree. My bar card says I'm an "attorney and counselor of law" but most people prefer lawyer.
Fact is, kj's three rants are premised on the singular notion that Marxists in academe label each course with something like "The People's Revolutionary American History 101."
What do you think "social justice" or "peace studies" are all about? ANSWER, The National Lawyers Guild, IAC, and dozens of other organizations, are reconstructed Marxist (being charitable, Stalinist is often more apt) groups who've learned to say "progressive." Wow, what a change.
'and I haven't been required to take a Marxist class'
Slight difference between a marxist 'class,' and a teacher putting his marxist thoughts and beliefs into everything he teaches:
http://www.badsamaritan.com/archives/2002/03/a_subversive_anticapitalist_antifree_enterprise_philosophy.php
http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2005w12/msg00073.htm
Gary, there is no meaning to my handle, but impute one if you must need to. It was a random typing at the keyboard.
BTW, I've seen enough of your posts to figure out that you are still wet behind the ears..
A kid who thinks he knows it all, (Beagle too), don't worry that much I understand, when I was a kid I too thought I had all of the answers.
And Gary please spare me, your self serving links. I do have an education, 18 years in fact. My undergraduate is economics, my graduate is Finance.
You are living the past my young friend.
I'll hand it to you though, kj is an ally, as am I, in the only battle or war worth fighting.. to save the west from Islam, yet you clowns go out of your way to alienate allies and drive them into the enemies camp.
Want to know why Gays are not jumping on the anti Jihad bandwagon? It's because of clowns like you and the righteous and religious right who demonize gays (and feminists and liberals and atheists) you literally drive them into the enemy camp.
It does not good to warn "we aren't as bad as the Muslims, at least we don't stone and behead", because they look outside the windows and the Muslim threat is 8,000 miles away, meanwhile sitting in their own back yard (front yard and side yard as well) are millions of righteous right wingers, whom have (as you have) declared war on half of your fellow citizens.
Keep it up fool, and your kids or grandkids will be bowing to Makka five times a day.
Or do you think you can fight this war all by yourself.
Have any of you "brave souls" actually fought a war, and killed another human being? I have, over a hundred.. in a place far away, in another war that was suppose to be the defining war of good v evil, called Republic of Viet Nam, and then after that quite a few other sh'tholes, some of which didn't even make the news.
Hey Beagle, you bet I'm pompous, I've earned the right to be pompous, better pompous, than childish like you,an epithet which you have also earned.
I don't apologize for my pomposity.. I worked, studied and lived hard to earn it :)
Gary, don't give me crap about Commies and Marxists, I've fought them up front and personal, both in this country and abroad.. and you?... nada, nothing, zilch just the rantings of a child who is gullible and not too perceptive.
Yeah, and I shave my chest with a lawn mower. Go away.
The Academy is teeming with Marxists, as is the Democratic party and the news media. Hillary Clinton is a perfect example. Of course they don't call themselves Comrade Clinton or Comrade Professor and their classes have normal enough titles.
In fact, our colleges and universities are breeding grounds for the nihilism, multiculturalism, political correctness and postmodernism that has all but turned our society into a relativist wasteland. The faculty in all major universities devotes an inordinate amount of time harping on diversity, feminism, minority rights, and tolerance of aberrant behavior, including tribunals for the hurt feelings crowd. White students are forced to undergo sensitivity training as if they have never been exposed to other ethnicities. All of this bullshit is typical memetic conditioning designed to destroy the will to resist any ideological challenge.
Marxism is far from dead, and neither is Stalinism. Some of the die-hard Marxists have switched their alliegance from Communism to Islamofascism since it now poses the biggest threat to the West. But they would support any totalitarian movement aligned against the West and use their positions of influence to assist in the West's destruction.
Says the kid who got kicked off the school bus.
I doubt that you have any hair on your chest to shave, but if you did a person of your limited intellect would probably try it.
Cheers :)
"Slight difference between a marxist 'class,' and a teacher putting his marxist thoughts and beliefs into everything he teaches:Posted by: Gary"
Yes Gary, they do that, and they did that way back when I took a management course. I had to study the Communist Manifesto, and asked the prof what relevance it had to management. (Hint it had none), but there is an old saying, You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. If your mind is so simple that you or anyone else lacks critical reasoning skills, and are that easily brainwashed.. well fill in the blanks.
Edukashun at all levels are nothing more than a process of brainwashing, they don't teach kids how to think anymore, but only what to think, and that is irrespective of subject matter..
You have an ideological bent, and a Manichean mindset, your own particular form of brainwashing (ideology) is therefore good, and the other "side' is bad.
This my team vs your team crap is also Manichean and divisive.
Being required to study the Kommunist Manifesto, did not make me a Kommunist (I was a vehement anti Kommunist for at least a decade previous).
But it did motivate me to study Marx and Mao for myself (so I could better argue against that which I would only bad mouth out of ignorance). Das Kapital is a two volume tome, as boring and tedious as The Wealth of Nations, but it gave me insight and grounds for standing my ground arguing with the Commies. Just like reading the Koran and ahadith (have you read either? I doubt it, seriously) gives you grounds for standing and arguing against Islam.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
Susanp sez:
"The Academy is teeming with Marxists, as is the Democratic party and the news media. Hillary Clinton is a perfect example. Of course they don't call themselves Comrade Clinton or Comrade Professor and their classes have normal enough titles." Nonsense, if that were true I and my fellow classmates would have been brainwashed Marxists, I was taught the Chicago School of Economics, Foundation for Economic Education, Hayek, von Mises and put Milton Friedman on a pedestal (until I discovered, through independent research) that he was not what I thought he was.
Susanp also sez:
"In fact, our colleges and universities are breeding grounds for the nihilism, multiculturalism, political correctness and postmodernism that has all but turned our society into a relativist wasteland. "
Yep, I bet you just had spics, miks, waps, fags, feminists, Assyrian Christians, anyone who isn't a white Anglo Saxon, born again Christian like you.
I could engage a discussion of Nihilism, that would get you and others upset, but will let it go for now.
Political correctness, a two edge sword, perhaps we should go back to the good ole days when instead of calling them African Americans or Blacks we called them niggers, or Irish Americans were called miks, and Jews were called Kikes, but wait political correctness doesn't encapsulate gays and lesbians, I hear from grand kids that the word Fag is the most common word thrown around in the school yard and halls.
Please explain to me WHAT YOU mean or have in mind when you hurl out the term post modernism, in your own words please, no links or cut and paste.
I've been curious about that term, and every person I ask has a different response, if they have one at all, it is just another trendy epithet hurled out these days, another word used without comprehension.
Kind of like liberal and conservative.
Admittedly I'm an old fart and a conservative as far back as I can remember (cut my reading teeth on the Readers Digest back in the 1950's), voted for Goldwater and Nixon (the first time when he ran against Kennedy). But the terms liberal and conservative I'm familiar with, have no relationship to the connotation they've taken on today, other than epithets that are used as substitutes for devil and demon.
As regards Democrats and Republicans.. I vote neither, neither do I vote Green or Reform or LIbertarian.. why's that, because in my 60 some years of experience, there ain't a dimes worth of difference between Humpty and Dumpty.
I call them Demopubs or Republicrats.. and I don't get mired in ideological wars.. there is only one battle in front of us and that is the struggle to save what is left of western SECULAR (emphasis on Secular) culture and civilization.
there is an old saying, You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
Forgive me, but I had to.
http://catmydog.keenspace.com/d/20041016.html
Nariz at October 13, 2005 10:57 PM - nice post.
I was thinking of this `nihilist` thing the other day. There may vbe something there - but you don`t want to upset.
But let`s look at it this way. This site exists cos the people are already upset. There`s no reason why ideas cannot be exchanged. Still it would be nice hear what you have to say - even if it upsets :).
With all your experience there`s much learning.
What happens, if in the course of these dirty islamic courses, the instructor gets the students to repeat the shahada after him. The students would be considered `converted` to islam.
Are there safegusrds against this?
"Are there safeguards against this?"
Well, ask Carolyne2: A cowboy with a revolver.
Loved that.
Hmmm! Nariz has a style very similar to kt, eh? Perhaps a bit more polite. Too bad for you I've got 45 years of experience. I'm just not much for making a proper argument- but the proof is everywhere, once one sorts thru all the lies that the Left floods the net with.
btw, the other translation of nariz is 'nose.' As in, probably, sticking it where not needed.
But I do, now, understand kj's hatred of Horowitz: aspirations to join the elite in academia. Gotta defend your own!
Nariz:
Given your age, perhaps you could also acknowledge the bad point kj makes about the ACLU, or have you forgotten when it went to bat for the American Nazi Party's right to march on Hitler's birthday through the streets of Skokie, Illinois, with its sizable Jewish community when the Nazis were denied a parade permit by the local authorities? Sometimes the ACLU is on the side of the angels, but they take a black-and-white approach to causes they are willing to espouse and don't only defend what is merely "unpopular".
As for kj's bald assertion that teachers are beyond being susceptible to being converted, I don't have data on actual converts among pedagogues, but there sure are a raft of them who have bought heavily into some of the most attrocious propaganda (e.g. Stanford's tenured history professor Joel Beinen who was recently cited by the Stanford Report for his disgracefully untrue teaching on the subject of Israel/Palestine).
Allies are wanted in this battle, but if anyone does the alienating around here, it's kj.
Laurel,
I agree with Hugh wholeheartedly.
Jewish, Christian, Hindu and Buddhist people...time to make some noise people. If one faith, islam, is being taught, why not the above? In the interest of cultural education, of course.
KJ
Calm down.
You sound hysterical.
I picture you sitting their shouting at the screen as you type, such is your venom.
I imagine you have a voice like Mr Garrison from South Park.
Excuse me if I scroll by you in future.
Nariz:
Political Correctness is not a two edged sword - it is the sword that has played its part in destroying the secular Western civilisation & culture you spoke of.
Albion:
kj the philosophy student hysterical? You're talking about someone who talked about "cracking heads" with regard to his "duties" as a Democratic Party polling station scrutineer during the last US presidential elections.
Groan...my degree is bigger and badder than your degree. I'm also smarter than you by default. I got so many degree's I cant find em all. Probably under the pile of beer cans in the corner. I think it was Hamlet who said, " A good education and lots of degree's does not necessarilly guarantee a decent human being."
You dont need any degrees at all to figure out what Islam is all about. You dont need a Doctorate to understand its dangers. And you dont need to be an Islamic scholar to get the drift. Everyone here who realises what a downer Islam is, and why we have jihad, is already an Islamic scholar. Every non believeing infidel here is on equal footing with that. The rest is detail. There is nothing wrong with a good education, there is nothing wrong with a degree in finances or to know every historical event that ever happened. But you dont need these to
understand Islam and shed light on it. So, all this 'I'm smarter and older than you are stuff', is fun, but a waste of space...
"When that wall came down in 1989, Marxism died.... It is totally discredited, as an idea or ideology, and frankly no one takes it seriously anymore, except those stuck in the past..."
-- posted by Nariz
The ideology behind socialism is Marxism, which is based on the principles of central control, destruction of individualism and liberty, olympian elitism, and something-for-nothing economics.
Nariz, I submit to you... Western Europe, including the British Isles.
As to central control, how about that 2-month jail sentence for the Swede who complained "I get so angry when our women are gang raped by immigrants" (i.e., by Moslems).
Marxism is alive and well, from Beijing to Rome to Moscow to Ottawa to Stockholm to Paris, Marxism flourishes.
And it's inherently compatible with the process of Moslem takeover. To wit, there is little serious argument that Western Europe and Scandinavia (less Finland) has made the conscious decision to consign itself to a Sharia future.
That is not insignificant, but it *is* a quintessentially Marxist insanity.
That's it: Marxism aligns so well with Islam because both are forms of collective insanity. What we have here is a syncretic collective insanity that looks to dominate the 21st century.
Beagle barks: Some of us are not short of our degrees, but have several. Ordinarily, Marxists don't append "Marxist" to the class title. It's more than a bit ironic you are living proof of Marxist indoctrination while denying it exists, the archtypical Angry Left strawman builder.
Ooooh! Several degrees? Wow. I picked the two hardest fields I could find: physics and philosophy. I finished the physics degree last year 3.89 gpa. I took a year off and now will finish my philosophy degree. I worke full-time all the way through. I didn’t get one cent of mommy and daddy’s money, and didn’t get one cent from the GI Bill. And you?
Oh, of course, kj, we must all be racists to disagree with the incredible wisdom you've almost acquired at USF.
Ummm... speaking of straw men... did I call anyone a racist? I don't usually throw that term around, because of the old "A racist is a conservative who's winning an arguement with a liberal" whine. (BTW... have you ever noticed that a communist is "A liberal that's winning an argument with a conservative"?) And like I said, I already have a physics degree… I realize that they probably told you in your history class that real wisdom comes from history books (little more than lists of trivial facts) and not from physics books. That’s why physicists like Hubble, Oppenhiemer, Albert Einstein, Neils Bohr, Stephen Hawking, and Richard Feynman are considered to be half-wits when compared to real smart historians like… um… well, there must be some; their names escape me.
If you were a linguistics graduate student you might have taken a class from my uncle.
Who's that, Noam Chomsky? LOL. So you’re uncle is smart. Big deal. Is he an America-hating, atheist, Muslim-coddling commie like the rest of them? Or did he get on at Bob Jones U, where they teach that the earth is only 6000 years old, that the dinosaur bones were put their by Satan to trick liberals, and that every Catholic, Hindu, Buddhist, and Jew goes to hell?
BTW... as a card-carrying liberal, I'd like you to know that I don't put a lot of weight on what Chomsky says. He lies about Israel, but he pretty-much gets other historical data right... he is famous as a historian ("an historian" for you highbrows) though his training was in Linguistics. As a linguist, he is controversial, especially among "us" left-wing enviro-whacko animal lovers, because he said non-human animals CANNOT use language. In a mockery of him, one team that is training chimpanzees to use sign language named their star pupil "Nim Chimsky."
Nim--I mean, "Noam" LOL--is not my messiah, he does not speak for me, just like he doesn't speak for most liberals. Sometimes he's right, sometimes he's wrong... just like David Horowitz, just like Alan Dershowitz, just like Ward Churchill, just like all teachers and all people in general.
Except of course conservatives, who are never, EVER wrong. If you don't believe me, just ask them.
Having read Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Gramsci, with Charles Beard for 'balance,' on my way to a history degree, your thrashing about is more than a bit amusing.
LOL.... a history degree? What a joke. Ha ha.... I thought that you were an academic... get back with me when you take some hard classes.
******************************************
Hooboy... I see a bunch of little GOPers that have been RIPPED A NEW ONE by Nariz... damn, man! Where were you last year around October, when I could have really used the backup? Let's read this little rejoinder again, just for fun:
Gary, don't give me crap about Commies and Marxists, I've fought them up front and personal, both in this country and abroad.. and you?... nada, nothing, zilch just the rantings of a child who is gullible and not too perceptive.
LOL.... LOL....ROFLMAO... Gary, need a hankie?
Yeah Nariz, Gary is just like his beloved Dub, Dick, O'Reilly, Quayle, Kemp, Robertson, Rummy, Limbaugh, Newtie, Hannity, Chambliss, Perle, Wolfowitz, Reagan, etc.: he goes on and on about the need to send our fighting men off to war, and was NEVER able go himself. They have the nerve to criticize war heroes like John Kerry, Bill McBride, Max Cleland etc. Hell, remember what they did to John McCain the 2000 SC primary? Remember, THESE are the guys that invented the “you can’t trust a draftdodger in the Whitehouse” b.s. “Our side” never raised a stink over Reagan’s lack of service (yes, I know he “joined” the Army… then he went straight back to Hollywood to stay. Meanwhile Clark Gable and Henry Fonda joined COMBAT units, and Jimmy Stewart became a fighter pilot. The difference between Kerry and Bush is as stark as the difference between Pat Tillman and Toby Keith: one talked trash, and one took action.
AND! Don’t forget the guy that ran against the slut in Ohio a few month’s back…
Nariz, as you can plainly see the guys that “support the troops” only support us when we fawn over the Dhimmi-in-Chief. This is because their political party has become a personality cult, where the SOLE measure of a person’s worth (be they combat soldier, Gold Star Mother, rock star, actor, educator, or man in the street) is determined by the extent to which they do or do not smack up to Bush.
When he does right, I too support him. I argued DAILY with the liberals, peaceniks, phony hippies, “peace-loving” Muslims, Greens, and other misfits when I was at USF over Bush attacking Afghanistan: it was a noble war, it was justified, and it was necessary; of course he did a pisspoor job as Bin Laden made his escape, and he did it on the cheap… we still only have 15k men on the ground. And Bin Laden plots our demise.
Aside from starting the war in Afghanistan, I can’t think of one, single thing he’s done right. But I only served four years of my life in the Marine Corps; I never “served” in the Texas Air National Guard, so I “don’t have the right” to criticize the Vacation King, and when I do, I’m a communist that hates America, hates God, and hate the military. Oh, and I think Condi is a joke, so I’m also a misogynistic racist.
You know how it is, Nariz… welcome to the JW/DW forum, where no one knows you’re name, and no one’s glad you came.
BTW…for a complete list of con-rep-naz draft dodgers that are really interested in sending other people to die, refer to
http://www.nhgazette.com/cgi-bin/NHGstore.cgi?user_action=list&category=%20NEWS%3B%20Chickenhawks
**********************************************
PS... those of you that think that Marxism is dead have never heard of places like Kerala, Bengal, and Tripura. But I KNOW that you've heard of Vietnam, China, and Cuba.
Based on the little that I have read on the matter it seems to me that according to Dr. Marx, Commuism was destined to fail in Russia, and is destined to fail in Cuba, Vietnam, and China. He said that it would only work if it was VOTED in.
Am I right, Mr. Big-Time History major?
**********************************
Since Nariz has mopped the floor with most of you, I don't think I need to respond further. Nariz killed commies-a-plenty in the 'Nam, and it shows. If only all libs had that kind of fighting spirit.
'Dr. Marx, Commuism was destined to fail in Russia, and is destined to fail in Cuba, Vietnam, and China. He said that it would only work if it was VOTED in. '~ kj
And of course that is why we vote against your gods, kj.
btw, I do believe the aclu will side with islam- if only to back up its support of NAMBLA.
No need to respond, kj. All you will do is LIE further, epecially about people posting here. If you are going after any kind of teaching position with that degree, well, at least we already know what to expect from you. Say hello to Ward Churchill for us.
"They have the nerve to criticize war heroes like John Kerry, Bill McBride, Max Cleland etc."
-- posted by kj
Now wait just a doggoned minute.
I don't know about Bill McBride, but John Kerry's stint in Viet Nam was distinguished by constant whining, incompetence, medal-mongering, forgery, fraud, and cowardice in the face of danger.
Oh, and then he turned on his brothers-in-arms by spreading vicious lies that played into the hands of the Communists. Indeed, although it's too bad he was dishonorably discharged from the Navy for disloyalty, Gigolo John can take solace in the fact that to this day the Communists maintain a shrine honoring his contributions to the cause.
As for Max, he blew off his limbs playing games with a hand grenade during a training exercise.
Waterdragon... it's called "humor." Look into it. Examine the concept. I didn't really go to my polling station and crack any heads. You've brought this up several times now, so give it a rest.
Unless of course, you think that Jesse Helms should have been arrested when he said that if Clinton came to North Carolina, "He'd better have bodyguards"... and when the wife of the governor of Maryland said that "Brittney Spears should be shot" that she should have been arrested.
I'm not going to be anywhere near a computer for a few days, so please... instead of slandering me here where I can't answer you, email me at fanorollins@yahoo.com. By the time I start checking email again, this article will be recycled off the main page, and I won't bother rifling through the archived pages just to redden somemonkeys ass.
thanks for the explanation, kj. Too many of your posts have such an overtone of excess testostorone that the intent to be humourous isn't clear. And given that there actually was some pretty heavy-handed intimidation going on that day, attributed to some Democrats (and no, I'm not a Republican) it wasn't the wisest choice of words.
It's interesting that neither you nor ia786 have the slightest fear of harassment vis a vis your personal e-mail address, unlike KT. (This is not to say that I consider you and ia to be on the same page, only that I don't regard either you or ia as trolls.) As I have no fears of you being the harassing type, I might send you a blog by Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith that a student of philosophy might find interesting. It's not very long, yet it's a pretty good encapsulation of the major theme of his book.
lmao again
kj:
BTW, "reddening monkeysasses" -- nice touch. And you wonder why you're taken for being somewhat testosterone charged. Perhaps your teachers allow you to grade your own performance, but those who would ajudicate themselves make for rather suspect judges.
And note that the teachers in question in this item weren't attending classes about Islam; Laurel introduced this as a concern because it was happening in a school her children were attending.
The classes the teachers were to attend were on Israel/Palestine and you know damned well there's a huge problem with biased professors teaching this subject, as noted in my earliest post referencing Joel Beinin at Stanford.
As also noted by D. Horowitz, on a nearly daily basis.
Well, ask Carolyne2: A cowboy with a revolver.
Loved that.
Posted by: sonofwalker at October 14, 2005 12:17 AM
Here's another one that made me laugh, son
http://catmydog.keenspace.com/d/20050414.html
FrontPageMagazine.com | October 13, 2005
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Mary Jane McManus, wife of former Vietnam POW, Kevin McManus, who is part of a lawsuit against John Kerry for conspiracy and defamation.
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=19792
As a Christian fundamentalist, a Republican, and a political scientist with an earned Ph.D., I'm going to ask others to lay off KJ a little on this one. He's obviously bothered by the jihad, and the Left anti-Semitism that has become so rampant these days.
Yes, Marxism is alive and well and living in the People's Republics of Berkeley and Cambridge. However, I strongly suspect that the Marxist era in American intellectual life may well have peaked. Of course I read Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Gramsci, Habermas, and even Mao Zedong (excuse me, Murmeltier Zedong, since it was fanatical JOOOOOOZ who introduced dogmatism to "humane" Chinese Marxism) and Liu Shaoqi (the last two even in the originals)in the course of my education--and found them pale, foolish, and worthless compared to the Prophets of Israel and the early modern theorists of political compact (others to whom my education exposed me).
Susanp and others have a point that a lot of our educational and cultural plant is dominated by a disgruntled Leftism that hates its own tradition so much that it will get in bed with the jihadis. Yet the academy and media are also showing a plurality of views which are coming out--partly because there has been a modicum of constitutional freedom. If the bad ideas come out, let's refute rather than persecute.
My goodness Nariz, you're as cantankerous as KJ, aren't you? If I didn't know better, I would swear that you are the adorable antagonist Giaour reincarnate. FYI, I'm not a "born-again Christian", and it is presumptuous of you to state as fact something you couldn't possibly know. I detest cultural Marxism, or political correctness, for many reasons. It is hypocritical, dishonest, and it inhibits rational, honest discourse. Of course, that's exactly what it is designed to do and if you believe that raising volatile issues is not worth upsetting the social applecart, then I guess that makes you a champion of "social justice" and me a racist. The reluctance to define and address the insidious nature of Islam because it would "offend" muslims is a good example of the pernicious effects of political correctness, which you seem to think is a merely the use of euphemisms to describe minorities instead of calling them what they are.. We would all be minorities somewhere in the world; minorities in Western societies should not be the focus of all social and political activism, and white Christians are not the bane of humankind.
Postmodernism is primarily a reaction to or more specifically, a rebellion against the established definitions of reality. To succinctly sum it up, it is the apotheosis of relativity. "Truth" is subjective and based upon individual interpretation. Postmodernism rejects abstract principles in favor of concrete experience, which is fallible and relative, and it denies the existence of any ultimate principles that are universally applicable. Objective knowledge is not possible because reality is perceived by each individual in a different way. It is yet another stab in the heart of Western Civilization because it posits that every culture's perception of reality is equally legitimate and valuable, making every culture equivalent to Western culture. It is a nihilistic movement that scorns the "establishment" despite the progress, advancements, and infinite accomplishments made in the Modern era of Western Civilization. Volumes have been written about Postmodernism and my brief synopsis is hardly all- inclusive of its many facets, which include globalism, consumerism, the slow death of nationalism, and many other related issues.
,