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March 3, 2009
Academic Freedom and the New McCarthyism
Some pictures taken on February 25, 2009 at the University Memorial Center.
Bill Ayers, Derrick Jensen, and Ward Churchill will be appearing later this week.
"I did not learn how to be a writer on my own...
I learned from the great writers, philosophers, and scholars. I include Ward Churchill among these.
Reading his works taught me the importance of impeccable scholarship, utter precision in language, and most of all, that courage to write the truth even when those truths make us uncomfortable."
Derrick Jensen is a well-known author, activist, educator, small farmer, philosopher, and environmentalist. His books include A Language Older Than Words, Endgame, and The Culture of Make Believe.
During the McCain/Palin 2008 Presidential campaign, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin asserted that Obama had a relationship with Prof. Bill Ayers, the former Weather Underground figure, which she termed "palling around with terrorists."
Bill Ayers is a professor, author, activist, education reformer, and philanthropist. his most recent book is an autobiographical novel called Fugitive Days.
Two weeks after the terrorist attack, the President of the United States spoke at Michigan State University:
I would like to say something to [those of you] who believe the greatest threat to America comes not from terrorists from within our country or beyond our borders, but from our own government.
I believe you have every right, indeed you have the responsibility, to question our government when you disagree with its policies. And I will do everything in my power to protect your right to do so.
But I also know there have been lawbreakers among those who espouse your philosophy.
. . .
But the Weathermen of the radical left who resorted to violence in the 1960s were wrong. Today, the gang members who use life on the mean streets of America, as terrible as it is, to justify taking the law into their own hands and taking innocent life are wrong. The people who came to the United States to bomb the World Trade Center were wrong.
. . .
How dare you suggest that we in the freest nation on Earth live in tyranny. How dare you call yourselves patriots and heroes.
. . .
[T]here is nothing patriotic about hating your country, or pretending that you can love your country but despise your government.
Posted by Robert Racansky on March 3, 2009 at 7:43 PM
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