Academic 'Bill of Rights' or Government Censorship? - Page 2 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

smooth · 02-15-2005, 07:18 PM

lol, ok, dawsig, your comments are so wildly out of sync with 'facts' that I wonder what kind of law you practice...hopefully, for your clients' sakes, not the kind that requires logical deduction.

1) how is your description of "soft" science any different than the trajectory of "hard" science?

Do you dispute that even theories in physics, electronics, biology, medicine, among others, have shifted over the course of the past two hundred years?

2) What kind of research did you conduct to determine that "all" white, male students who took your old professor's course never earned anything higher than a 'B'?

How did you ascertain that she is upset at your current achievements?

3) How have the Russians turned their backs on "marxism" and, where exactly, has the world even come close to a marxist reality?

If people derive some semblence of their perspective from historical materialism, or higher socialism, does that brand them a "marxist" in your eyes? Or does everything that ever was uttered from Karl illegitimate to your standpoint?

4) Now what WMD's are you speaking about? That was a bizarre statement from you that prompted me to pose these questions. Before, I was just ignoring your statements as fact, that seemed to be based on ignorance and conjecture.

5) What do you mean (and I wonder if you just echoed lebell) by the fact that Ward Churchill is espousing ideas on the taxpayers "dime"?

Do you mean the book he wrote and published that he is getting a shitstorm for?
Is that the piece that takes a critical look at WTC technicians ensuring the global capitalist economy runs smoothly and compares them to German technocrats whose actions ensured the Nazi machine ran smoothly through their lack of opposition to it?

I wonder how you ascertain whether that piece of work, and subsequent articles were composed during his government paid time. Or why that would be relevant. Should he only be allowed non-critical thought while on the job, and must only dream about personal things at night?

Do you subject that to yourself? Or are you stealing from your employer when you day dream? Or if your job entails composing briefs, when do you know you've strayed into stealing from someone?

Fourtyrulz · 02-15-2005, 07:32 PM

Quote:

Nope. I put it down to their lack of basic intellegence and inability to function in the "real world" driving them to become academics. "Social science" is "soft science". It's like the law. It's not rational, it just is the way it is, and thinking frequently changes. For example, when I was in undergrad in the 1980's, things which were considered gospel then are now considered to be quite suspect. Reality hasn't changed, what's changed is the perceptions of the faculty.

Being a student of the social sciences, your ignorance on the subject is simply amazing to me; which also makes it very difficult to understand your point of view, let alone your justifications.

Your opinion of "political indoctrination" is just that. Professors teaching kids the bare facts that happen to collide with their parent-taught conservative point of view is not indoctrination. It all comes down to what (I think) roachboy said about the basic difference in political ideology: conservatives enjoy the status-quo and liberals constantly seek to disrupt it. Why else would we be debating legislation silencing controversial speech in classrooms? If a teacher blatantly docks grades due to a students political views then that teacher should be held responsible and face the consequences, simple as that. But what we don't need is a law forbidding political and religious discussion in classrooms. How would we even monitor and enforce laws like this anyway?

Edit: smooth pretty much covered everything while I was typing this. Damn slow fingers.

daswig · 02-15-2005, 07:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by smooth

1) how is your description of "soft" science any different than the trajectory of "hard" science?

Do you dispute that even theories in physics, electronics, biology, medicine, among others, have shifted over the course of the past two hundred years?

Hard science is differentiated from soft science in that hard science can be demonstrated in a laboratory. If somebody comes out and offers a theory in a hard science, and another party demonstrates that the theory is wrong, that's the end of the theory in hard science. That's not true with soft sciences. For example: If guy A says "put X and Y together and reaction Z will occur", and somebody puts X and Y together and gets Q, that's all she wrote.

Quote:

2) What kind of research did you conduct to determine that "all" white, male students who took your old professor's course never earned anything higher than a 'B'?

How did you ascertain that she is upset at your current achievements?

I polled three years worth of her students within the department for a paper I wrote for another class. It worked out to a sample size of around 600 people total of both genders and all races. After I submitted the paper to her colleague, I gave her a copy and asked her if she had any comment, and she explained her policy to me. WRT her being upset, we met when she came to me in an official capacity trying to place interns.

Quote:

3) How have the Russians turned their backs on "marxism" and, where exactly, has the world even come close to a marxist reality?

I rest my case.

Quote:

4) Now what WMD's are you speaking about? That was a bizarre statement from you that prompted me to pose these questions. Before, I was just ignoring your statements as fact, that seemed to be based on ignorance and conjecture.

Did you read the entire CIA report that came out shortly before the election? It referenced a storage bunker of WMDs that remains under UN seal and that hasn't been dealt with because they don't know how to do it safely.

Quote:

5) What do you mean (and I wonder if you just echoed lebell) by the fact that Ward Churchill is espousing ideas on the taxpayers "dime"?

Actually, I'm referring to things like the America-bashing speech he gave on campus that was broadcast on C-span last week. It was put on using University facilities, with campus police providing security, et cetera.

Fourtyrulz · 02-15-2005, 08:24 PM

Quote:

Hard science is differentiated from soft science in that hard science can be demonstrated in a laboratory.

Environmental biology, astronomy, metaphysics, geology, archaeology, psychophysics, sociology, and acoustic physics aren't science because they don't take place in a laboratory? Please...just because you don't wear a sterile lab coat and mix potions all day doesn't make you any less of a scientist.

Edit: Again smooth's eloquence and comprehensiveness completely annihilate my meager post.

smooth · 02-15-2005, 08:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by daswig

Hard science is differentiated from soft science in that hard science can be demonstrated in a laboratory. If somebody comes out and offers a theory in a hard science, and another party demonstrates that the theory is wrong, that's the end of the theory in hard science. That's not true with soft sciences. For example: If guy A says "put X and Y together and reaction Z will occur", and somebody puts X and Y together and gets Q, that's all she wrote.

I polled three years worth of her students within the department for a paper I wrote for another class. It worked out to a sample size of around 600 people total of both genders and all races. After I submitted the paper to her colleague, I gave her a copy and asked her if she had any comment, and she explained her policy to me. WRT her being upset, we met when she came to me in an official capacity trying to place interns.

I rest my case.

Did you read the entire CIA report that came out shortly before the election? It referenced a storage bunker of WMDs that remains under UN seal and that hasn't been dealt with because they don't know how to do it safely.

Actually, I'm referring to things like the America-bashing speech he gave on campus that was broadcast on C-span last week. It was put on using University facilities, with campus police providing security, et cetera.

You seem to hold a very truncated view of "hard" sciences. First of all, the first tenet of science, hard or soft, would be to create taxonomies. To categorize them and render them into some sort of interpretive schema. As research progresses, the classic taxonomies have become increasingly problematized and a plethora of research now questions the arbitrary nature of classification in various disciplines.

In the case of physics or chemistry, there is no such thing as direct observation of something like a quark or electron. You need to update your model. Scientists are not standing around mixing two different colors in test tubes to prove or, more accurately, disprove anything. And why would you think that a contrived laboratory environment even approximates objective reality?

I'd like to read your methodology section, your paper sounds very interesting.

I don't know what you are resting your case on in regards to the marxist statements you made. My questions demonstrate your point to your understanding of marxist perspective? Perhaps your perspective is off.

I didn't read any CIA report. I just took what the president and his staff said at face value: that they hadn't found any WMD's.

Now you've got me curious how much tax payers' dollars went into the function you were referencing. Since my understanding is that even 'public' schools derive large portions of their budgets from private sources, I'm curious what information you used to make your fact claim. Or was that mere speculation that the function was funded by public money?

I've seen you attribute very mundane questions about this government and nation's actions to "America-bashing" so I don't even know which of the content you objected to and I'll have to reserve comment on that portion until you explain yourself with something of substance rather than insinuation.

host · 02-16-2005, 12:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by daswig

Given the fact that they did indeed FIND WMDs, that makes him or her factually wrong. People have a free speech right to say what they want. They do NOT have a free speech right to say what they want on the Government's dime. I have no problem with Churchill saying whatever he goddamned well pleases. But he can do it on a soapbox on a streetcorner, NOT using governmental assets.

As for my job, well, I'd rather not say, since I don't want people going and screaming to my "bosses" or the Governor. Sufficed to say, however, I don't serve coffee at Starbucks.

daswig: when you or any other TFP member posts what I am
quoting from you, posted by you on this thread, I am going
to post these three things to refute what you are posting.
I plan to number each instance, consecutively. I'll stop when
you or other members stop, or if Duelfer or his succesor and
the POTUS, and the nytimes.com, all agree that the determination on whether WMDs were found, changes signifigantly. If more than the following documentation is
required by a signifigant majority of readers and posters on
the TFP political thread to "state the facts" surroundingt a contentious issue, then delusion will stifle more reasoned
points of view, in every instance.

Quote:

(Posted for the first time by host on a TFP thread)
<a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/01/20050112-7.html#1">http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/01/20050112-7.html#1</a>

Excerpt from Scott McClellan Press Briefing, Jan. 12, 2005

Q The President accepts that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, he said back in October that the comprehensive report by Charles Duelfer concluded what his predecessor had said, as well, that the weapons that we all believed were there, based on the intelligence, were not there. And now what is important is that we need to go back and look at what was wrong with much of the intelligence that we accumulated over a 12-year period and that our allies had accumulated over that same period of time, and correct any flaws.

Q I just want to make sure, though, because you said something about following up on additional reports and learning more about the regime. You are not trying to hold out to the American people the possibility that there might still be weapons somewhere there, are you?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I just said that if there are -- if there are any other reports, obviously, of weapons of mass destruction, then people will follow up on those reports. I'm just stating a fact.

Quote:

<a http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/12/in...12cnd-wmd.html
(copy and paste above link in google search box, you made need to register at nytimes site to view article)
Search for Illicit Weapons in Iraq Ends

By BRIAN KNOWLTON,
International Herald Tribune

Published: January 12, 2005

ASHINGTON, Jan. 12 - The White House confirmed today that the search in Iraq for the banned weapons it had cited as justifying the war that ousted Saddam Hussein has been quietly ended after nearly two years, with no evidence of their existence.

That means that the conclusions of an interim report last fall by the leader of the weapons hunt, Charles A. Duelfer, will stand. That report undercut prewar administration contentions that Iraq possessed biological and chemical weapons, was building a nuclear capability and might share weapons with Al Qaeda. A White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, insisted today that the war was justified. He rejected the suggestion that the administration's credibility had been gravely wounded in ways that could weaken its future response to perceived threats.

The administration appeared to be dropping today even the suggestion that banned weapons might be deeply buried or well hidden in Iraq. Mr. McClellan said that President Bush had already concluded, after the October release of an interim report from Mr. Duelfer, "that the weapons that we all believed were there, based on the intelligence, were not there."

Some administration officials have suggested that some arms might have been moved out of Iraq, perhaps to Syria. But Mr. McClellan appeared to rule that out.

Quote:

<a href="http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/Pres_Election_04/Press10_21_04.pdf">http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/Pres_Election_04/Press10_21_04.pdf</a>
THE PIPA/KNOWLEDGE NETWORKS POLL.
THE AMERICAN PUBLIC ON INTERNATIONAL ISSUES
--Media Release--
Bush Supporters Still Believe Iraq Had WMD or Major Program,
Supported al Qaeda
Agree with Kerry Supporters Bush Administration Still Saying This is the Case
Agree US Should Not Have Gone to War if No WMD or Support for al Qaeda
Bush Supporters Misperceive World Public as Not Opposed to Iraq War,
Favoring Bush Reelection
For Release: Thursday October 21, 2004, 9 am Contact: Steven Kull (202) 232-7500
College Park, MD: Even after the final report of Charles Duelfer to Congress saying that Iraq did not
have a significant WMD program, 72% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq had actual
WMD (47%) or a major program for developing them (25%). Fifty-six percent assume that most
experts believe Iraq had actual WMD and 57% also assume, incorrectly, that Duelfer concluded Iraq had
at least a major WMD program. Kerry supporters hold opposite beliefs on all these points.
Similarly, 75% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq was providing substantial support to al
Qaeda, and 63% believe that clear evidence of this support has been found. Sixty percent of Bush
supporters assume that this is also the conclusion of most experts, and 55% assume, incorrectly, that this
was the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission. Here again, large majorities of Kerry supporters have
exactly opposite perceptions.
These are some of the findings of a new study of the differing perceptions of Bush and Kerry supporters,
conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes and Knowledge Networks, based on polls
conducted in September and October.
Steven Kull, director of PIPA, comments, “One of the reasons that Bush supporters have these beliefs is
that they perceive the Bush administration confirming them. Interestingly, this is one point on which
Bush and Kerry supporters agree.” Eighty-two percent of Bush supporters perceive the Bush
administration as saying that Iraq had WMD (63%) or that Iraq had a major WMD program (19%).
Likewise, 75% say that the Bush administration is saying Iraq was providing substantial support to al
Qaeda. Equally large majorities of Kerry supporters hear the Bush administration expressing these
views—73% say the Bush administration is saying Iraq had WMD (11% a major program) and 74% that
Iraq was substantially supporting al Qaeda.
Steven Kull adds, “Another reason that Bush supporters may hold to these beliefs is that they have not
accepted the idea that it does not matter whether Iraq had WMD or supported al Qaeda. Here too they
are in agreement with Kerry supporters.” Asked whether the US should have gone to war with Iraq if
-over-
US intelligence had concluded that Iraq was not making WMD or providing support to al Qaeda, 58% of
Bush supporters said the US should not have, and 61% assume that in this case the President would not
have. Kull continues, “To support the president and to accept that he took the US to war based on
mistaken assumptions likely creates substantial cognitive dissonance, and leads Bush supporters to
suppress awareness of unsettling information about prewar Iraq.”
This tendency of Bush supporters to ignore dissonant information extends to other realms as well.
Despite an abundance of evidence—including polls conducted by Gallup International in 38 countries,
and more recently by a consortium of leading newspapers in 10 major countries--only 31% of Bush
supporters recognize that the majority of people in the world oppose the US having gone to war with
Iraq. Forty-two percent assume that views are evenly divided, and 26% assume that the majority
approves. Among Kerry supporters, 74% assume that the majority of the world is opposed.
Similarly, 57% of Bush supporters assume that the majority of people in the world would favor Bush’s
reelection; 33% assumed that views are evenly divided and only 9% assumed that Kerry would be
preferred. A recent poll by GlobeScan and PIPA of 35 of the major countries around the world found
that in 30, a majority or plurality favored Kerry, while in just 3 Bush was favored. On average, Kerry
was preferred more than two to one.
Bush supporters also have numerous misperceptions about Bush’s international policy positions.
Majorities incorrectly assume that Bush supports multilateral approaches to various international
issues—the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (69%), the treaty banning land mines (72%)—and for
addressing the problem of global warming: 51% incorrectly assume he favors US participation in the
Kyoto treaty. After he denounced the International Criminal Court in the debates, the perception that he
favored it dropped from 66%, but still 53% continue to believe that he favors it. An overwhelming 74%
incorrectly assumes that he favors including labor and environmental standards in trade agreements. In
all these cases, majorities of Bush supporters favor the positions they impute to Bush. Kerry supporters
are much more accurate in their perceptions of his positions on these issues.
“The roots of the Bush supporters’ resistance to information,” according to Steven Kull, “very likely lie
in the traumatic experience of 9/11 and equally in the near pitch-perfect leadership that President Bush
showed in its immediate wake. This appears to have created a powerful bond between Bush and his
supporters--and an idealized image of the President that makes it difficult for his supporters to imagine
that he could have made incorrect judgments before the war, that world public opinion could be critical
of his policies or that the President could hold foreign policy positions that are at odds with his
supporters.”
The polls were conducted October 12-18 and September 3-7 and 8-12 with samples of 968, 798 and 959
respondents, respectively. Margins of error were 3.2 to 4% in the first and third surveys and 3.5% on
September 3-7. The poll was fielded by Knowledge Networks using its nationwide panel, which is
randomly selected from the entire adult population and subsequently provided internet access. For more
information about this methodology, go to www.knowledgenetworks.com/ganp.

daswig · 02-16-2005, 03:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

daswig: when you or any other TFP member posts what I am
quoting from you, posted by you on this thread, I am going
to post these three things to refute what you are posting.
I plan to number each instance, consecutively. I'll stop when
you or other members stop, or if Duelfer or his succesor and
the POTUS, and the nytimes.com, all agree that the determination on whether WMDs were found, changes signifigantly. If more than the following documentation is
required by a signifigant majority of readers and posters on
the TFP political thread to "state the facts" surroundingt a contentious issue, then delusion will stifle more reasoned
points of view, in every instance.

this is the full text of page 78 of Section 3 of the Duelfer Report, available at
http://www.foia.cia.gov/duelfer/Iraqs_WMD_Vol3.pdf

Pay special attention to the bold, italicized part that's separated.

Quote:

Exploitations of Al Muthanna
ISG conducted multiple exploitations of the
Al Muthanna site to determine whether old chemical
weapons, equipment, or toxic chemicals had been
looted or tampered with since the last UN visit to
the site. ISG is unable to unambiguously determine
the complete fate of old munitions, materials, and
chemicals produced and stored there. The matter is
further complicated by the looting and razing done
by the Iraqis.
An exploitation of the facility reconfirmed previous
imagery analysis that the site remained inoperable
from bombings and UNSCOM compliance, including
destruction of equipment and resources, and no
signifi cant production capabilities existed. Facilities
and bunkers revealed no evidence of production
since UNSCOM departed.
• The teams found no new structures or any construction
activities except for those declared by Iraq to
UNSCOM. The facilities appeared to be abandoned
prior to OIF.
• Several pieces of equipment that were once used
for CW production were found bearing no UN
tags, and the ISG was unable to assess whether the
equipment had been reused since 1994 or intended
for a future production processes and abandoned.
• The tag system used by the UN was known to not
be robust, and given the absence of inspectors
between 1998 and 2002, Iraq would have had little
incentive to maintain the tags in good condition.
• The extent of the looting and unaccounted for excavations
of bombed facilities makes it impossible
to determine what, if any, equipment was removed
after 1994, either for legitimate industrial use or a
renovated CW production process.
• ISG exploitations indicate that the storage area still
remains a threat despite testing. Chemical storage
containers fi lled with unknown hazardous chemicals
are showing signs of rusting-through and leaking.
• Key bunkers and facilities are currently scheduled
to be sealed or resealed.

Stockpiles of chemical munitions are still stored
there. The most dangerous ones have been declared
to the UN and are sealed in bunkers. Although
declared, the bunkers contents have yet to be con-
firmed. These areas of the compound pose a hazard
to civilians and potential blackmarketers.

• Numerous bunkers, including eleven cruciform
shaped bunkers were exploited. Some of the bunkers
were empty. Some of the bunkers contained
large quantities of unfi lled chemical munitions,
conventional munitions, one-ton shipping containers,
old disabled production equipment (presumed
disabled under UNSCOM supervision), and other
hazardous industrial chemicals. The bunkers were
dual-use in storing both conventional and chemical
munitions. Figure 12 is a typical side-view of a
cruciform shaped bunker.
• The contents of two of the cruciform bunkers
bombed during Desert Storm showed severe
damage. Due to the hazards associated with this
location, the UN decided to seal the bunkers.
• UNSCOM viewed the contents of the two bunkers;
however an accurate inventory was not possible due
to the hazards associated with that environment.
• UNSCOM relied upon Iraqi accountability of the
bunkers’ contents and assessed the amount of munitions
declared to be realistic.
• Military fi eld testing equipment showed positive
for possible CW agent in the cruciform bunkers
that contained munitions and a storage bunker that
contained bulk chemical storage containers. Note:
this is not unusual given the munitions once stored
there and the conditions in which they were stored
post 1994.
An exploitation team observed the old UNSCOM
CW destruction area that contained large (some
in excess of 75 meter) sloping trenches once used
in the CW destruction process. Damaged chemical
storage drums were visible at the bottom of some of
the trenches.

Do you have ANYTHING to refute this?

daswig · 02-16-2005, 03:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fourtyrulz

Environmental biology, astronomy, metaphysics, geology, archaeology, psychophysics, sociology, and acoustic physics aren't science because they don't take place in a laboratory? Please...just because you don't wear a sterile lab coat and mix potions all day doesn't make you any less of a scientist.

Do you really think of sociology as a "hard science"?

host · 02-16-2005, 05:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by daswig

this is the full text of page 78 of Section 3 of the Duelfer Report, available at
http://www.foia.cia.gov/duelfer/Iraqs_WMD_Vol3.pdf

Pay special attention to the bold, italicized part that's separated.

Do you have ANYTHING to refute this?

daswig, either you are disingenuous or you have not considered that if there
was anything in your example that would vindicate Bush & Co, they would
not leave it for you to offer here. It would have been cited before Scott McClellan's Jan. 12, 2005 admission..................

First, I'll re-quote your evidence:

Quote:

Exploitations of Al Muthanna
ISG conducted multiple exploitations of the
Al Muthanna site to determine whether old chemical
weapons, equipment, or toxic chemicals had been
looted or tampered with since the last UN visit to
the site. ISG is unable to unambiguously determine
the complete fate of old munitions, materials, and
chemicals produced and stored there. The matter is
further complicated by the looting and razing done
by the Iraqis.
An exploitation of the facility reconfirmed previous
imagery analysis that the site remained inoperable
from bombings and UNSCOM compliance, including
destruction of equipment and resources, and no
signifi cant production capabilities existed. Facilities
and bunkers revealed no evidence of production
since UNSCOM departed.
• The teams found no new structures or any construction
activities except for those declared by Iraq to
UNSCOM. The facilities appeared to be abandoned
prior to OIF.
• Several pieces of equipment that were once used
for CW production were found bearing no UN
tags, and the ISG was unable to assess whether the
equipment had been reused since 1994 or intended
for a future production processes and abandoned.
• The tag system used by the UN was known to not
be robust, and given the absence of inspectors
between 1998 and 2002, Iraq would have had little
incentive to maintain the tags in good condition.
• The extent of the looting and unaccounted for excavations
of bombed facilities makes it impossible
to determine what, if any, equipment was removed
after 1994, either for legitimate industrial use or a
renovated CW production process.
• ISG exploitations indicate that the storage area still
remains a threat despite testing. Chemical storage
containers fi lled with unknown hazardous chemicals
are showing signs of rusting-through and leaking.
• Key bunkers and facilities are currently scheduled
to be sealed or resealed.

Stockpiles of chemical munitions are still stored
there. The most dangerous ones have been declared
to the UN and are sealed in bunkers. Although
declared, the bunkers contents have yet to be con-
firmed. These areas of the compound pose a hazard
to civilians and potential blackmarketers.

The reason that Bush & Co didn't cite your example is because Perle and
the pre-invasion Bush talking points, spin machine, tried to make Blix and
the UN inspectors look ridiculous, as Oliver North spun it......Keystone Kops,
because Blix's inspectors revisited previously sites, such as the one you
now cite, "Al Muthanna" instead of looking for new ones. You can't have it
both ways.....Bush mouthpieces like Perle and North announcing that
Al Muthanna was of no interest, and you now bringing it up as your sole
example of a possible, unexplored "smoking gun" !

Quote:

<a href="http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:XMjylSiw80wJ:www.iht.com/articles/92883.html+perle+blix+iht+interview+new+sites&hl=en&lr=lang_en">www.iht.com/articles/92883.html+perle+blix+iht+interview+new+sites&hl=en&lr=lang_en</a>There is no doubt that if some of the organizations that are determined to destroy this country could lay their hands on a nuclear weapon they would detonate it, and they would detonate in the most densely populated cities in this country with a view to killing as many Americans as possible. What would be the U.S. response if it found Syria was concealing weapons of mass destruction on behalf of Iraq? If we were to learn, for example, that Syria, had taken possession of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, I’m quite sure that we would have to respond to that. It would be an act of such foolishness on Syria's part that it would raise the question of whether Syria could be reasoned with. But I suppose our first approach would be to demand that the Syrians terminate that threat by turning over anything they have come to possess. And failing that, I don’t think anyone would rule out the use of any of our full range of capabilities. Should UN weapons inspectors go back to Iraq?
.
I certainly don’t think so. The UN inspectors failed and failed catastrophically not because they didn't find things but because they weren’t honest about their capacity to find things. What Hans Blix should have done when the Iraqi declaration came in on December 7 was announce that there was no reason for the inspectors to return to Iraq because Saddam had not provided the information it was the role of the inspectors to verify.
.
It was never the role of the inspectors to scour the country looking for hidden weapons. They had no capacity to do that. They were a hundred in a country the size of France and Portugal put together and Hans Blix understood that perfectly well. What Saddam was supposed to haveWhat Saddam was supposed to have delivered on December 7 was a balance sheet and the inspectors were auditors, and when there was no balance sheet they should have said they had nothing to audit. Great confusion was caused by inspectors returning to sites which we knew had been sanitized

Quote:

<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/12/05/wirq05.xml">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/12/05/wirq05.xml</a>

UN team finds only ruins at nerve gas site
By David Blair at the al-Muthanna plant
(Filed: 05/12/2002)
............Ten inspectors paid a snap visit to the al-Muthanna chemical plant, 45 miles north west of Baghdad. This vast complex, covering about 10 square miles, operated under the front name of the State Establishment for Pesticide Production when it was making at least 4,000 tons of nerve gas agents every year.

Allied air raids damaged al-Muthanna in 1991 and UN experts destroyed it in 1994. When the five vehicles from Unmovic, the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, reached al-Muthanna at 10am the inspectors were seeking to ensure that it had not been reopened.

Gaping holes had been torn in the perimeter fence, indicating the site had fallen into disuse. Only four bewildered soldiers, who admitted the UN team, stood guard...........

....Large warehouses had been sealed with heavy cargo crates placed against their entrances. In one corner lay nine artillery shells, perhaps designed for chemical warheads, defused, rusting and harmless. Critics of the inspections say Saddam will have ensured that nothing suspicious takes place in well-known installations such as al-Muthanna.

The American administration wants Unmovic to stop revisiting sites that were singled out in the 1990s and search new locations.

But Hans Blix, Unmovic's head, has chosen to begin his work by ensuring that Iraq has not reopened crucial facilities dealt with by earlier inspectors.

Once this has been established and the number of UN arms experts in Iraq has grown above the present 17 he will start on new sites.

Quote:

<a href="http://www.military.com/NewContent/0,13190,FreedomAlliance_120502,00.html">http://www.military.com/NewContent/0,13190,FreedomAlliance_120502,00.html</a>

Oliver North: Who ARE These People & What Are They Doing?

December 5, 2002

...............While the so-called inspectors and S&M aficionados wearing UNMOVIC ID badges bumble about the Iraqi countryside like the Keystone Kops, President Bush is talking tough. “The inspectors are not in Iraq to play hide-and-seek with Mr. Saddam Hussein,” he declared last week. But that’s not the point. There is considerable question as to whether this gang that couldn’t shoot straight would even know what they were seeing if Saddam left it all on display...................

Then, daswig, you can click on this google search link and see the list
of sites where the faithful, took Oliver North's "Keystone Kops" talking point,
and ran with it.......<a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=inspectors+keystone+kops&btnG=Search">http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=inspectors+keystone+kops&btnG=Search</a>

You're obviously intelligent, and you exhibit a lot of pride in your professional
abilities, education, etc. What motivates you to be more "Bush", than Bush
and his war criminal regime? You should be able to see right through their
bullshit.....everyday that passes, their crap continues to be refuted.

I'll leave you with Ollie North's "Chalabi and his freedom fighters" pump
ending:

Quote:

Ahmad Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National Congress, is using this report to stimulate unity among other opposition leaders in the region. Scores of defectors from Saddam’s military arrive daily in camps along Iraq’s borders, professing a willingness to fight for liberty in their homeland. Contractors have been seen at the abandoned Iraqi embassy in Washington, preparing it for “new management.” And the American and British military build up in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean grows by the day. When the Iraqi opposition takes up arms against Saddam Hussein and calls for our help – as surely they will – are we going to sit idly by and wait for a pronouncement from Hans Blix? Let us hope not.

Only the closeminded can be more wrong than these assholes are, daswig...

Lebell · 02-16-2005, 10:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

lebel: geez. and here i thought it was fairly straightforward.

live and learn.

but tell me if your "accountability" argument concerning ward churchill does not reduce to an opposition to tenure. which would be a priori necessary for the kind of "monitoring" you seem to support for professors who teach at public universities--and therefore on the sacrosanct "taxpayers dime"

To this specific question (and this one only), I don't deny it in the least.

To me the whole idea of "tenure" goes against accountability.

In no other business or industry do I know of the idea that you are entitled to your job just because you've been there x number of years.

roachboy · 02-16-2005, 10:31 AM

i figured as much--the rest of the post was a series of arguments against this position. to start with, you wrongly assume that a university at the teaching level is like any other corporate gig. and i do not think you have thought out what the implications of abolishing tenure would be--the logic seems to start and stop with the above.

i am myself not tenured, by the way. but i have a fair understanding of what functions it does (and does not) serve from the inside.

for example, what makes you think that "the taxpayer" is in a position to hold academics to account for what amounts usually to highly specialized work in fields they know nothing about? would this not simply but people without the time or interest to track a field or series of fields in a position of making what amounts to arbitrary judgements about the content of this (for the most part) specialized production? and when would this "accountability" become operational? when something published offends the sensibilities of conservatives? if the latter, it is censorship, pure and simple--if the former, it is incoherent as an idea. not to mention as a policy.

Lebell · 02-16-2005, 10:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

i figured as much--the rest of the post was a series of arguments against this position. to start with, you wrongly assume that a university at the teaching level is like any other corporate gig. and i do not think you have thought out what the implications of abolishing tenure would be--the logic seems to start and stop with the above.

I am genuinely interested in hearing why it is not like "any other corporate gig" as well as what you percieve the implications to be.

Quote:

for example, what makes you think that "the taxpayer" is in a position to hold academics to account for what amounts usually to highly specialized work in fields they know nothing about? would this not simply but people without the time or interest to track a field or series of fields in a position of making what amounts to arbitrary judgements about the content of this (for the most part) specialized production? and when would this "accountability" become operational? when something published offends the sensibilities of conservatives? if the latter, it is censorship, pure and simple--if the former, it is incoherent as an idea. not to mention as a policy.

I think the taxpayer should be in this position the same way the taxpayer should always be in position to have some say where his/her money is being spent.

I usually try to refrain from bringing in other issues, but here the comparison seems apropos: How is this any different from you wanting to have a say in how the military might this country is exercised? Could I not as easily say that since you know nothing about the inner workings of diplomacy, the military and what is going on behind the scenes in the middle east that you shouldn't have any say in what happens there?

Fortunately, the reality is that you don't have to "know" everything to have a say. You have a political voice you use to elect representatives that argue on your behalf. So to finish the analogy, I don't feel that I need to know every detail of sociology, psychology, etc. to have say over what is taught or who teaches at my state universities so long as there is some system (what kind, I am not proposing here) in place where I can have some say.

As in the political arena, this won't guarantee I get my way (any more than you have gotten your way with recent elections), but I believe it is the right way if you truly support the voice of the people in governing themselves.

roachboy · 02-16-2005, 11:52 AM

on the question of who owns taxpayer money: i dont know if you ever read thoreau's "on civil dosobedience" or not--but one of the arguments run out there--which still holds--is that no single person or abstract double of a person can know where exactly their particular monies go once they are paid into the tax system--so ownership arguments, like thoreau's anti-war arguments, that rely on such claims as their point of departure are moot.

public universities have boards of trustees who already operate in your representative function--the extent to which they are informed about what goes on within the normal processes of production that comprise what the university actually does is more often than not laughable--unless it happens that a particular trustee has a particular interest in a given field, in which case the situation becomes variable. but in the main, it would seem to me that creating another layer of mechanisms for "accountability" is redundant.

since tenure decisions have to pass through a whole series of administrative hoops to be finalized, up to the provost, who operates as a kind of intermediary between the university as administrative entity and a fiscal entity (and so is accountable to and interacts with the financial oversight of the university, which includes the trustees) they are already subject to the kind of review you call for.

why is it necessarily a problem if an academic makes statements that provoke or offend anyway? if there are not problems with the sources material, and no problems with the logic according to which they are assembled, then where would the problem lay? and if there is one, again, how does your "accountability" argument not amount to a rationalization for censorship? again, there are already numerous professional organizations that do (in principle at least) monitoring operations, that outline and enforce academic (NOT political) standards...how would what you are talking about not be redundant again at this level?

and who would mointor the monitors? how would you assure, for example, that a conservative ideologue (to keep with this--it could come from elsewhere just as easily--but the argument is itself a conservative bugbear, so) does not make statements that try to impugn the academic rigor of a given piece because he or she does not like its conclusions?

as for the question of why an academic gig is not like a corporate one: you can figure this out.l start with the lack of profit. move from there. this is not rocket science. the inverse--the attempt to crunch these types of work into each other, seems either uninformed or disengenuous to me (here i refer to the argument--which you did not invent, lebell--rather than to you personally)...

if somehow this question remains a mystery, i would be happy to write more about it once i have a bit more time to devote to the matter. (there are other issues you raise in your post as well that i glossed over for the same lack of time reasons)

martinguerre · 02-16-2005, 11:54 AM

lebell...how would you protect profs with unpopular views from being fired simply for their views?

I don't see consistancy in what you're arguing. Government interferance is necessary to produce academic freedom for students, but professors are best selected by laissez faire economics and serve at the whim of their popularity?

I don't understand.

roachboy · 02-16-2005, 12:41 PM

and if this kind of thing is an indication of the outcomes desired by the right--through the illusory "accountability" argument, then i see nothing to recommend it.

Quote:

Historians in cahoots

Tristram Hunt
Wednesday February 16, 2005
The Guardian

In his messianic inauguration address, President Bush spoke of America's global duty being defined by "the history we have seen together". Inevitably, this was a reference to the events of 9/11. But given how much a sense of US revolutionary heritage is now informing current policy, the broader history that Americans are experiencing together should be an equal cause for concern.
The latter half of the 20th century saw US scholars lead the way in popular social history. The world of the workplace, family life, native America and civil rights was chronicled with verve and style. The delicate oral histories of social chronicler Studs Terkel opened up the local and working-class past to mass audiences. He showed how the second world war was as much the people's as the statesmen's war. On National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service, history was dissected professionally and polemically.

Today, you would be hard-pressed to find such broad-ranging investigations of the American past. Instead, the bookshelves of Borders and Barnes & Noble are dominated by a very specific reading of the 18th century. This does not, in God-fearing America, represent a new found interest in the secular ideals of enlightenment and reason. Rather, an obsessive telling and retelling of that great struggle for liberty: the American Revolution.

Heroic biography has become the bestselling history brand of Bush's America. Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Abraham Lincoln are all speaking from the grave with new-found loquaciousness. Barely a week passes without another definitive life of a Founding Father, Brother or Sister, each one more adulatory than the last.

Not least the vice-president's wife, Dr Lynne Cheney, whose recent contribution, When Washington Crossed the Delaware: A Wintertime Story for Young Patriots, is the kind of "history" that any ministry of information would have been proud of. Museums and TV schedulers have not been slow to catch the mood. The New York Historical Society currently hosts a vast exhibition celebrating the life of Alexander Hamilton ("The Man who Made Modern America"); the History Channel has even cut into its second world war telethon to offer a series of bio-pics of great American revolutionaries.

Sadly, none of this has resulted in any substantive reinterpretation of the revolution or its principal actors. As Simon Schama rightly puts it, this is history as inspiration, not instruction. Instead of critical analysis, the public is being fed self-serving affirmation: war-time schlock designed to underpin the unique calling, manifest destiny and selfless heroism of the US nation and, above all, its superhuman presidents.

Needless to say, this goes down very well at the White House. We are told that the president's current reading matter includes biographies of Washington as well as Alexander Hamilton. For the biographical emphasis on the Great Man who has the character and vision to transcend as well as define his times fits well with a presidency that values personal instinct and prayer above reason and empiricism.

In fact, the historical community seems to be providing the ideal conditions for the Nietzschean approach of the Bush administration. As one senior presidential adviser scarily informed journalist Ron Suskind: "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality ... we'll act again, creating other new realities ... We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

Rather than tempering such terrifying ambition, US scholars are happy to play up to it. Historian Eliot Cohen penned an administration-friendly account of how former US presidents have instinctively been right in matters military, compared with their hapless, diffident generals, while prolific biographer Joseph Ellis has sought to offer posthumous suggestions from George Washington to George W.

At a time when the US imperium is rampaging across the globe, you might have thought there would be a historical concern to enlighten the domestic citizenry about foreign cultures and peoples. Instead, public scholars are feeding the nation's increasingly insulated mentality with a retreat into the cosy fables of their forebears. Amid the biography and hagiography, stories of Islamic civilisation or Middle East nation-building are among the many histories the American people are not seeing.

· Tristram Hunt is the author of Building Jerusalem: the Rise and Fall of the Victorian City

tristramhunt@btopenworld.com

source:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/...415508,00.html

flstf · 02-16-2005, 12:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by martinguerre

lebell...how would you protect profs with unpopular views from being fired simply for their views?

I guess the same way we protect the jobs of engineers, newspaper columnists, and fork lift operators from being fired for their views. Hopefully we would be tolerant of those with opinions different than us but I see no reason why they should get more protection than the folks whose taxes help pay their salaries.

I'm not necessarily for the "Academic Bill of Rights", just mostly against tenure.

daswig · 02-16-2005, 06:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

The reason that Bush & Co didn't cite your example is because Perle and
the pre-invasion Bush talking points, spin machine, tried to make Blix and
the UN inspectors look ridiculous, as Oliver North spun it......Keystone Kops,
because Blix's inspectors revisited previously sites, such as the one you
now cite, "Al Muthanna" instead of looking for new ones.
ending:

Only the closeminded can be more wrong than these assholes are, daswig...

And here I thought it was because they were simply illiterate....

The supposedly DEFINITIVE report says that they found stockpiles of chemical weapons. They weren't new production, which is what Bush gave as the reason for going into Iraq, but they were still dangerous chemical weapons. Then there was the case of the binary SARIN shell that was turned into an IED that "fizzled".

No matter how you slice it, they DID find prohibited chemical weapons in Iraq, and the fact that Bush isn't smart enough to point this out doesn't alter the fact.

KMA-628 · 02-16-2005, 07:34 PM

I think the "Academic Bill of Rights" is a waste of time. While I agree with many of the points of the supporters, I think we already have too many laws and adding another one that is near-impossible to enforce is a waste of time.

I think there is another way to handle this problem.

And, it works beautifully, in my opinion.

Give your money to a different school, one that is more akin to your beliefs, if there is such a one.

I heard this on local talk radio (I am in Denver) this afternoon, so I have no source for it, I am just passing on what I heard.

I believe the radio show hosts were interviewing the dean, or the head of the regents or whatever, but he said that they (CU) have already lost 1000 students (current and prosepective) over this Churchill flap.

1000 times whatever money these kids were gonna spend at the school equals a lot of cash and also equals a point well made. They expect that CU will continue to lose students and money from alumni, so I think the school is going to really feel the pain over this.

That is how I like to see things like this handled. Money gets the message across a lot faster than walking around with some clever sign. Banter about this all you want, use big words, elevate this discussion to super high levels of thought, whatever.....it won't have anywhere near the effect of that tiny sound made by little dollar signs leaving CU and going to somewhere else.

In my opinion, that is what the uppity-ups are paying attention to in the CU situation, they are paying attention to the dollar signs.

Also...

For the record, if you didn't know already, I am Conservative and I don't give two shits about tenure--it doesn't play into my thinking at all.

and, lastly....a prediction regarding Churchill: He will be fired and it won't be from this 9/11 article, essay, whatever. He has made himself a target (don't kid yourselves, he is loving the attention) and even the left-leaning papers here in town are digging shit up on him. He will either go down for plagiarism or for making up facts to support his claims (i.e. Native Americans).

C4 Diesel · 02-16-2005, 08:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by martinguerre

lebell...how would you protect profs with unpopular views from being fired simply for their views?

I don't see consistancy in what you're arguing. Government interferance is necessary to produce academic freedom for students, but professors are best selected by laissez faire economics and serve at the whim of their popularity?

Along similar lines, passing such an academic bill of rights is, in effect, allowing the voting public to determine what should be taught (and in effect defining what "truth" is) in any given area of public interest. Alhough some professors may misuse their academic authority, they still, as a whole, are much more knowledgable about their respective subjects than the general public, and therefore should not be told what or how to teach by said public. Professors should be responsible for maintaining academic integrity on their part, and it is because of this that I also oppose tenure.

Oh, and just since this some people are getting off topic, I will institute the forum command:
[/end WMD threadjack]
...I kindly request that you start another thread if you would like to discuss this further, as it has nothing else to do with the issue at hand.

host · 02-16-2005, 09:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by daswig

And here I thought it was because they were simply illiterate....

The supposedly DEFINITIVE report says that they found stockpiles of chemical weapons. They weren't new production, which is what Bush gave as the reason for going into Iraq, but they were still dangerous chemical weapons. Then there was the case of the binary SARIN shell that was turned into an IED that "fizzled".

No matter how you slice it, they DID find prohibited chemical weapons in Iraq, and the fact that Bush isn't smart enough to point this out doesn't alter the fact.

(ooops.....on edit, I just read your post, C4 Diesel. I apologize for the
thread hijacking. I am disappointed, though, that no one has posted any
comments in response to the info I posted here on David Horowitz, the man
who organized and promoted this academic accountability movement.)

daswig, you ever read or hear something while you are drinking a liquid, that
you react to by laughing spontaneously, and that causes your nose to fill
up with your beverage and it blows out your nose ? I wasn't drinking anything
when I read your latest reply, but my reaction was the same as if I was.

I couldn't understand the guys who voted for Bush because they considered
him to be someone that they thought they would enjoy having a beer with.

Now, after reading your post, I feel a perverse desire to sit down with you
and a couple of beers, and shoot the shit with you until the product of your twisted mind has me snorting beer out my nostrils........

FoolThemAll · 02-16-2005, 09:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

daswig, you ever read or hear something while you are drinking a liquid, that
you react to by laughing spontaneously, and that causes your nose to fill
up with your beverage and it blows out your nose ? I wasn't drinking anything
when I read your latest reply, but my reaction was the same as if I was.

I couldn't understand the guys who voted for Bush because they considered
him to be someone that they thought they would enjoy having a beer with.

Now, after reading your post, I feel a perverse desire to sit down with you
and a couple of beers, and shoot the shit with you until the product of your twisted mind has me snorting beer out my nostrils........

Good post, very informative.

daswig · 02-17-2005, 01:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

Now, after reading your post, I feel a perverse desire to sit down with you
and a couple of beers, and shoot the shit with you until the product of your twisted mind has me snorting beer out my nostrils........

And here I haven't even gone into my "drinking theory" that milk is actually a vegetable, and that some ice cream does indeed have bones or cartelage when first grown.

(FYI: a "drinking theory" is one which can be rational and plausible when all parties are properly and sufficiently intoxicated. They can be handy for inducing separation of young women from their panties.)

02-15-2005, 07:18 PM	#41 (permalink)
smooth Junkie Location: Right here	lol, ok, dawsig, your comments are so wildly out of sync with 'facts' that I wonder what kind of law you practice...hopefully, for your clients' sakes, not the kind that requires logical deduction. 1) how is your description of "soft" science any different than the trajectory of "hard" science? Do you dispute that even theories in physics, electronics, biology, medicine, among others, have shifted over the course of the past two hundred years? 2) What kind of research did you conduct to determine that "all" white, male students who took your old professor's course never earned anything higher than a 'B'? How did you ascertain that she is upset at your current achievements? 3) How have the Russians turned their backs on "marxism" and, where exactly, has the world even come close to a marxist reality? If people derive some semblence of their perspective from historical materialism, or higher socialism, does that brand them a "marxist" in your eyes? Or does everything that ever was uttered from Karl illegitimate to your standpoint? 4) Now what WMD's are you speaking about? That was a bizarre statement from you that prompted me to pose these questions. Before, I was just ignoring your statements as fact, that seemed to be based on ignorance and conjecture. 5) What do you mean (and I wonder if you just echoed lebell) by the fact that Ward Churchill is espousing ideas on the taxpayers "dime"? Do you mean the book he wrote and published that he is getting a shitstorm for? Is that the piece that takes a critical look at WTC technicians ensuring the global capitalist economy runs smoothly and compares them to German technocrats whose actions ensured the Nazi machine ran smoothly through their lack of opposition to it? I wonder how you ascertain whether that piece of work, and subsequent articles were composed during his government paid time. Or why that would be relevant. Should he only be allowed non-critical thought while on the job, and must only dream about personal things at night? Do you subject that to yourself? Or are you stealing from your employer when you day dream? Or if your job entails composing briefs, when do you know you've strayed into stealing from someone? __________________ "The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann "You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

02-16-2005, 10:31 AM	#51 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	i figured as much--the rest of the post was a series of arguments against this position. to start with, you wrongly assume that a university at the teaching level is like any other corporate gig. and i do not think you have thought out what the implications of abolishing tenure would be--the logic seems to start and stop with the above. i am myself not tenured, by the way. but i have a fair understanding of what functions it does (and does not) serve from the inside. for example, what makes you think that "the taxpayer" is in a position to hold academics to account for what amounts usually to highly specialized work in fields they know nothing about? would this not simply but people without the time or interest to track a field or series of fields in a position of making what amounts to arbitrary judgements about the content of this (for the most part) specialized production? and when would this "accountability" become operational? when something published offends the sensibilities of conservatives? if the latter, it is censorship, pure and simple--if the former, it is incoherent as an idea. not to mention as a policy. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

02-16-2005, 11:52 AM	#53 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	on the question of who owns taxpayer money: i dont know if you ever read thoreau's "on civil dosobedience" or not--but one of the arguments run out there--which still holds--is that no single person or abstract double of a person can know where exactly their particular monies go once they are paid into the tax system--so ownership arguments, like thoreau's anti-war arguments, that rely on such claims as their point of departure are moot. public universities have boards of trustees who already operate in your representative function--the extent to which they are informed about what goes on within the normal processes of production that comprise what the university actually does is more often than not laughable--unless it happens that a particular trustee has a particular interest in a given field, in which case the situation becomes variable. but in the main, it would seem to me that creating another layer of mechanisms for "accountability" is redundant. since tenure decisions have to pass through a whole series of administrative hoops to be finalized, up to the provost, who operates as a kind of intermediary between the university as administrative entity and a fiscal entity (and so is accountable to and interacts with the financial oversight of the university, which includes the trustees) they are already subject to the kind of review you call for. why is it necessarily a problem if an academic makes statements that provoke or offend anyway? if there are not problems with the sources material, and no problems with the logic according to which they are assembled, then where would the problem lay? and if there is one, again, how does your "accountability" argument not amount to a rationalization for censorship? again, there are already numerous professional organizations that do (in principle at least) monitoring operations, that outline and enforce academic (NOT political) standards...how would what you are talking about not be redundant again at this level? and who would mointor the monitors? how would you assure, for example, that a conservative ideologue (to keep with this--it could come from elsewhere just as easily--but the argument is itself a conservative bugbear, so) does not make statements that try to impugn the academic rigor of a given piece because he or she does not like its conclusions? as for the question of why an academic gig is not like a corporate one: you can figure this out.l start with the lack of profit. move from there. this is not rocket science. the inverse--the attempt to crunch these types of work into each other, seems either uninformed or disengenuous to me (here i refer to the argument--which you did not invent, lebell--rather than to you personally)... if somehow this question remains a mystery, i would be happy to write more about it once i have a bit more time to devote to the matter. (there are other issues you raise in your post as well that i glossed over for the same lack of time reasons) __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

02-16-2005, 11:54 AM	#54 (permalink)
martinguerre whosoever Location: New England	lebell...how would you protect profs with unpopular views from being fired simply for their views? I don't see consistancy in what you're arguing. Government interferance is necessary to produce academic freedom for students, but professors are best selected by laissez faire economics and serve at the whim of their popularity? I don't understand. __________________ For God so loved creation, that God sent God's only Son that whosoever believed should not perish, but have everlasting life. -John 3:16

02-16-2005, 07:34 PM	#58 (permalink)
KMA-628 ....is off his meds...you were warned. Location: The Wild Wild West	I think the "Academic Bill of Rights" is a waste of time. While I agree with many of the points of the supporters, I think we already have too many laws and adding another one that is near-impossible to enforce is a waste of time. I think there is another way to handle this problem. And, it works beautifully, in my opinion. Give your money to a different school, one that is more akin to your beliefs, if there is such a one. I heard this on local talk radio (I am in Denver) this afternoon, so I have no source for it, I am just passing on what I heard. I believe the radio show hosts were interviewing the dean, or the head of the regents or whatever, but he said that they (CU) have already lost 1000 students (current and prosepective) over this Churchill flap. 1000 times whatever money these kids were gonna spend at the school equals a lot of cash and also equals a point well made. They expect that CU will continue to lose students and money from alumni, so I think the school is going to really feel the pain over this. That is how I like to see things like this handled. Money gets the message across a lot faster than walking around with some clever sign. Banter about this all you want, use big words, elevate this discussion to super high levels of thought, whatever.....it won't have anywhere near the effect of that tiny sound made by little dollar signs leaving CU and going to somewhere else. In my opinion, that is what the uppity-ups are paying attention to in the CU situation, they are paying attention to the dollar signs. Also... For the record, if you didn't know already, I am Conservative and I don't give two shits about tenure--it doesn't play into my thinking at all. and, lastly....a prediction regarding Churchill: He will be fired and it won't be from this 9/11 article, essay, whatever. He has made himself a target (don't kid yourselves, he is loving the attention) and even the left-leaning papers here in town are digging shit up on him. He will either go down for plagiarism or for making up facts to support his claims (i.e. Native Americans).