[QUOTE=MaxTheVool]
Yes, although I’ve lost track of what that has to do with anything. When Cindy Sheehan was just a grieving mother who wanted to put a visible public face on families who had lost loved ones, and get a straight answer from Bush as to why we were there, I respected that. When she then started going a bit kooky, did that mean that putting a visible public face on families who had lost loved ones was suddenly, retroactively, a dumb thing for her to have done?
“Cindy Sheehan did X” is not a coherent or meaningful argument in favor of Bush and/or the war.
[/QUOTE]
Since I thought she looked like a drugged out ex-hippie who was in deep depression over the loss of her son; I figured her crazy from the start. What was the final straw for you?
[QUOTE=Frank]
Whoosh, dude, whoosh. I’m sure elucidator is awaiting with breath as bated as mine the GD thread entitled, “Will winning the Presidency backfire on the Democrats?”
[/QUOTE]
Dude, that is some serious funny there. It’s all about the backlash, man.
Funny thing is, winning the presidency usually does backfire on the party. Happened to Clinton. Happened to Bush. We seem to always want what we don’t currently have.
[QUOTE=Spit]
Since I thought she looked like a drugged out ex-hippie who was in deep depression over the loss of her son; I figured her crazy from the start. What was the final straw for you?
[/QUOTE]
Honestly, I haven’t paid close enough attention to have a good answer to this question. There was something she was quoted as supporting a while ago that just seemed ridiculous and irrelevant…
[QUOTE=MaxTheVool]
Honestly, I haven’t paid close enough attention to have a good answer to this question. There was something she was quoted as supporting a while ago that just seemed ridiculous and irrelevant…
[/QUOTE]
I was just curious. I noticed even the media has stopped talking about her or giving her time.
AFAIAC, Ward Churchill is an example, not of how moronic the left is, but of how moronic the right is. They, not us lefties, are the ones who make sure his ridiculous ideas get widely disseminated. He doesn’t owe his fame to his (nearly nonexistent) popularity among liberals - he owes it to the wingnuts.
[QUOTE=RTFirefly]
AFAIAC, Ward Churchill is an example, not of how moronic the left is, but of how moronic the right is. They, not us lefties, are the ones who make sure his ridiculous ideas get widely disseminated. He doesn’t owe his fame to his (nearly nonexistent) popularity among liberals - he owes it to the wingnuts.
[/QUOTE]
The good thing is that the wingnuts eat their own. The kind of people they attract tend to viciously attack each other (often accusing people of being CIA plants or similar) over relatively slight doctrinal differences (Did any planes crash on 9/11 or was it all done with missiles? Was the Pentagon wired to explode? Did all of the WTC buildings have explosives or only the biggest two? Were the people responsible false flag operatives or foreign dupes?) and, of course, there are the extra-curricular insanities to deal with (antisemitism is popular in the 9/11 Wingnut crowd, for example, which tends to offend people who might otherwise fall for it, and the patriot posse wants nothing to do with the red diaper brigade).
The best thing to do is give them discussion fora so they can realize how crazy everyone around them is and the rest of the world can ignore them.
[QUOTE=RTFirefly]
AFAIAC, Ward Churchill is an example, not of how moronic the left is, but of how moronic the right is. They, not us lefties, are the ones who make sure his ridiculous ideas get widely disseminated. He doesn’t owe his fame to his (nearly nonexistent) popularity among liberals - he owes it to the wingnuts.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Spit]
That is a bit of a stretch their hoss.
Nice try though.
[/QUOTE]
Does he really have any supporters? I don’t spend a lot of time trolling the lunatic fringe of the left wing, so the only time I ever hear about him is when someone on the right trots him out as a tu quoque for Ann Coulter. I’ve never personally met a liberal who agrees with or supports him, but I don’t exactly poll my friends and family on the subject.
For me, the distinction is that he was on payroll in a government-funded institution and is now getting paid to lecture in others. As far as I care, he can say whatever he wants as long as it’s not tax-subsidized.
[QUOTE=Paladud]
For me, the distinction is that he was on payroll in a government-funded institution and is now getting paid to lecture in others. As far as I care, he can say whatever he wants as long as it’s not tax-subsidized.
[/QUOTE]
That’s a stupid distinction to make in this case.
If someone is intellectually and academically dishonest, then he or she shouldn’t hold a college position, period. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a public or a private institution. Academia is (or should be) about more than just where the funds come from; there are standards that should be upheld in all schools. If an academically dishonest person is fired from the University of Colorado, or any other public school, it should be for reasons directly tied to academic ethics and/or job performance, not to some political calculation of who should pay the salary. And that person should not then be hired by Harvard or Stanford just because they are private schools.
By the same token, if the person in question holds politically unpopular views, but has NOT violated any of his or her ethical responsibilities as a professor, then they should keep their job whether the college is private or public.
Academic ethics, and academic freedom, should transcend mere issues of funding.
[QUOTE=mhendo]
That’s a stupid distinction to make in this case.
If someone is intellectually and academically dishonest, then he or she shouldn’t hold a college position, period. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a public or a private institution. Academia is (or should be) about more than just where the funds come from; there are standards that should be upheld in all schools. If an academically dishonest person is fired from the University of Colorado, or any other public school, it should be for reasons directly tied to academic ethics and/or job performance, not to some political calculation of who should pay the salary. And that person should not then be hired by Harvard or Stanford just because they are private schools.
By the same token, if the person in question holds politically unpopular views, but has NOT violated any of his or her ethical responsibilities as a professor, then they should keep their job whether the college is private or public.
Academic ethics, and academic freedom, should transcend mere issues of funding.
[/QUOTE]
The first ethical responsibility of a professor is to do his or her job competently. By my book, indoctrination does not qualify as competent teaching.
Yes, a university discredits itself by association with such an individual. Lecturers at Bob Jones University probably propagate views that I would consider worse than what Churchill was spouting - and I’ve no obligation to have anything to do with them. Not so for a state school.
[QUOTE=Miller]
Does he really have any supporters?
[/QUOTE]
Enough to get speaking engagements. There’s usually some kind of audience for an anti-American, anti-Israel rant from the fringes of the left.
Probably why the “Students for Peace & Justice, Students for Justice in Palestine, the Muslim Student Association and Movimiento Estudiantil Chicana/o de Aztlan” brought him in.
All members of the vast, right-wing conspiracy, hey, RT?
[QUOTE=hawksgirl]
Sometimes I really have to wonder what possesses them to bring some people to this campus. This is the one “non-mainstream” speaker that my self-proclaimed commie prof didn’t try to force us to listen to. Then again, he’s Jewish, so that might explain it.
[/QUOTE]
The they who brought the loon to campus are student groups, not the administration.
[QUOTE=Shodan]
All members of the vast, right-wing conspiracy, hey, RT?
[/QUOTE]
I don’t see where you’ve contradicted a thing I’ve said. Care to try again?
[QUOTE=Paladud]
The first ethical responsibility of a professor is to do his or her job competently. By my book, indoctrination does not qualify as competent teaching.
[/quote]
The problem is that some people—usually people who don’t actually know anything about teaching or academia—assume that just because a professor has a clear and explicit political position, he or she must also be “indoctrinating” the students. This is problematic on a number of levels.
First of all, it seems to be assumed by many people that only those of the political fringe (left or right) indulge in indoctrination. But the fact is that pushing a particular agenda is just as likely to come from a so-called centrist or moderate. Just because the view they’re pushing happens to be somewhere around the middle doesn’t mean that it isn’t indoctrination.
Second, plenty of people also fail (often intentionally, i think) to distinguish between having a political position, on the one hand, and forcing that position on your students, on the other. They hold out some mythical ideal of a professor, in which perfect neutrality is posited as the desirable benchmark, failing to understand that such neutrality is virtually impossible. So, for these people, any professor who expresses a political viewpoint in class is suddenly deemed to be “indoctrinating” the students.
Thirdly, and perhaps most ridiculously, the term “indoctrination” is often used in such a way as to imply that it constitutes some sort of brainwashing, and that students are just blank slates who will uncritically absorb whatever political position their professors tell them they should have. While i appreciate that college students are young enough to still be impressionable, especially when the teacher is a figure of intellectual and academic authority, i think they should also be given credit for having the ability to think for themselves.
Most of the time that a professor is accused of “indoctrination,” what this actually means is that the professor is simply offering a political position that the critic happens to disagree with. So conservatives accuse liberals and leftists of indoctrination, and liberals and leftists accuse conservatives of indoctrination, with many of the critics having no real investment in true principles of academic freedom and academic ethics. It becomes little more than a political pissing contest. Your post strikes me as just another example.
Ward Churchill deserved to be fired. He didn’t deserve to be fired for his political opinions. He didn’t deserve to be fired for his comments about 9/11. He deserved to be fired because of his intellectual dishonesty and breaches of academic ethics.
[QUOTE=RTFirefly]
AFAIAC, Ward Churchill is an example, not of how moronic the left is, but of how moronic the right is. They, not us lefties, are the ones who make sure his ridiculous ideas get widely disseminated. He doesn’t owe his fame to his (nearly nonexistent) popularity among liberals - he owes it to the wingnuts.
[/QUOTE]
And here we have yet another example of how moronic the left is - actually thinking this will convince anyone. Go back to the study group and ask for a narrative that’s actually plausible.
Churchill is despicable. [url=]However:
Honestly, you just can’t entirely hate the guy who comes up with comedy gold like that!
