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October 2, 2007 at 06:03:58
Congressman Duncan Hunter's Message to Universities, "Be Patriotic, or Else!" by Frank J. Ranelli Page 1 of 1 page(s) |
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Hunter has torn a page out of Orwell’s, 1984, and Bradbury’s, Fahrenheit 451, and pasted them neatly and expediently together. The Congressman has introduced legislation, H.R. 3675, with the expressed stated purpose to, “prohibit Federal grants to or contracts with Columbia University.” Mr. Hunter believes quite vehemently, by virtue of his pending bill, that by cutting off all federal funding to Columbia University will, “restore patriotism to university campuses.” The motivation behind this brazen act of McCarthyism is self-evident. Congressman Duncan Hunter disagrees with Columbia University’s invitation that allowed the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to speak to its students. The implications behind such an anti-democratic proposed law -- that we should deny disparate views from being heard, by way of banning unfettered access to those a few may disagree with -- are preposterous and lethal to independent thought. Such a bill is also purely antithetical to the very foundations of the free and open society we rightly enjoy.
Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-CA), a textbook authoritarian and uncritical sycophant for the Bush administration, has been consistently aiding rabid Republicans in reaching new party nadirs. Now we can add xenophobic, blind nationalist, and adversary to dissent to his growing and disturbing resume of Orwellian penchants.
Moreover, Hunter’s overt attempt at stemming dissent, using euphemistic vernacular such as “restore patriotism” more than tidily falls under the umbrella of fascist ideologies that aim to suppress academia and critical-thought. Independent judgment, as evident by Mr. Hunter’s proposed edict, is independent of, and irreconcilable with, a person or establishment’s patriotism. Hunter’s delusional and quite obtuse observation is that one’s love of their country must include the love of their government and its current policies.
This is more than repudiation by Congressman Hunter of the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; this is an assault on all dissension by proxy of right-wing, American chauvinism. Hunter’s deceptive and veiled syntax -- which feebly attempts to hide the insidious nature of such a proposal -- fails to prevent the obvious conclusion that this is an effort at unadulterated censorship via threats of cutting off subsidy to schools.
The paranoia in Hunter’s bill is palpable. The Orwellian overtones are conspicuous. There is more than a minor allusion to Bradbury’s book-burning society that believes ignorance and compliance are compulsory to stability. Nuances are to be shunned, vagaries are shirked, and violators of American reverence are to be punished.
Hunter’s perverse veneration -- that by law only people and ideas by which the U.S. government consents is acceptable -- is a twisted, conflated effort of draconian law and totalitarian governing. Using dissembling language that cloaks the true intent, Hunter ineptly tries to define “patriotism” as utter loyalty to a Big Brother government.
Wholly advocating derailment of enlightenment through diverse educational experiences, the Congressman from California, in an act of sad irony, invokes the USA Patriot Act to make his case for denying universities federal funding. Under Section 3(a) of his Restore Patriotism to University Campuses Act, Hunter draws together in a loose, but covert fashion that by allowing Ahmadinejad to speak to college students is, “Permitting State Terrorist Access to Campuses.”
This type of legislative, theatrical dogma plays on the “giving aid and comfort to the enemy” Bush theme. One could logically conclude that Hunter’s next legislative act includes a draft to name all those present during Ahmadinejad’s speech are to be labeled as “enemy combatants.”
This is more than a disingenuous and dangerous attempt to monopolize the truth and to sequester informed debate. Hunter’s unscrupulous act of accusing anyone who does not agree with the Congressman as disloyal is blatant censorship. The bill Hunter is proposing more than smacks of the “Red Scare”, Joe McCarthy era. Instead, Hunter has reawakened McCarthyism and has simply replaced the fear of Communism with Terrorism as the scapegoat enemy of consternation.
In Duncan Hunter’s illusionary view, touchstones of American democracy, such as freedom of speech, the right to assemble, and even liberty itself, must take a back seat to unwavering obedience to the state and marshal in hyper-nationalism. Anyone who dares to fall out of line, ceases to goose-step, or questions Big Brother are undesirable seditious contemptibles, who must suffer the wrath of an autocratic and unforgiving government.
Fortunately, the House referred this loathsome bill to the Committee on Education and Labor, where it will likely die an ignoble death. Mr. Hunter has every right to his opinion, and every American has the right to dissent from that opinion. However, Congressman Hunter, in his single quest for a complacent and Orwellian society, would be wise to ponder the notion that no entity or person has a patent on patriotism.
Correspondent Lindsay D. Riggs contributed to this article.
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| 6 comments |
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nothing new
This continues the Republican attack on free speech and free thought.I remember my brother telling me about a year ago Mrs Cheney was using her influence to get liberal teahers fired at some colleges and just recently the Republcans made sure a liberal didn"t get the head faculty job at san Jose who was starting a law department.Conservative students were taping liberal history teachers at colleges to get them fired.Soon all colleges will goose step in line with the news media to present us with the truth as envisioned by the liars from the Republican party by liberalsrock (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 256 comments [53 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Tuesday, Oct 2, 2007 at 8:35:38 AM  (0+)
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Like many...
I've long been saying that 'those guys went through 1984 with a fine comb over and over again, studying it very carefully...' And it's amazing how many people have little or no idea of the kinds of dangers Orwell was cautioning against when he painted such a bleak portrait of the future. There is such a modern day disdain for education, science, and the factual representations of them both that it comes as little surprise that Hunter has fired a volley at higher education through a convenient backdoor in order to narrow the expression of viewpoints. Apparently the rising costs of education aren't enough to keep many Americans from higher learning. Those who can afford it should only learn what is acceptable revisionist versions of contemporary knowledge. This, of course, plays out well for the Neocons -in that when only the wealthy can afford an education, and that education consists of Rightwing indoctrination, they will be able to perpetuate themselves quite easily in the halls of government. If this type of thing did come to pass, Winston Smith's observation that 'if there is any hope... it lies with the proles' might likewise prove true. by C.Bid (0 articles, 7 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 739 comments [2 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Tuesday, Oct 2, 2007 at 10:30:46 AM (0+)
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Reply: It's a finely devised conspiracy
Keep the unwashed masses devoid of soap, health care and education so the microbes can knock off the weakest among us, leaving the uneducated to be exploited to death for the benefit of the rich and power few. What the conspirators forgot, is that even the masses in merry ol' England and elsewhere eventually rose up and stormed the ramparts of the castle shouting their war cry of we're not going to take it any more. Every "X" number years or so the pendulum swings back the other way, keeping us on a nauseating, never-ending carnival ride of Power Struggle through the ages. In the immortal words of Linda Ellerby...and so it goes. by Sandy Sand (198 articles, 0 quicklinks, 227 diaries, 1548 comments [2 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Wednesday, Oct 3, 2007 at 6:33:18 PM (0+)
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Mr Duncan is not Patriotic
This Congressman apparently does not understand the real meaning of patriotism. True patriotism is protecting the people of America against people like Mr Duncan. A patriot is one who protects the country against those who would warp the country to fit his/her agenda. Typical of those like Bush/Cheney when used to scare others into either agreeing with them or not resisting their misdeeds. I have always looked at anyone who uses the word "patriot" with grave misgivings and deep suspiscion. by Hayesml47 (6 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 540 comments [10 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Tuesday, Oct 2, 2007 at 11:03:17 AM (0+)
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Too few academics . . .
have spoken up on the issues since 9/11. It's therefore relatively easy for the Duncan Hunters, and the Lynne Cheneys, and the David Horowitzes, not to mention the Alan Dershowitzes, etc., etc., to get away with this kind of stuff. I don't want to condemn the entire American academy, as there have been a few brave souls who've been working tirelessly on behalf of academic freedom. But I find it interesting that it was the chancellors of Iranian universities that we heard from in response to Columbia President Bollinger's grandstanding. Hunter is no doubt encouraged by the lack of any similar kind of collective response from America's top academics. And I'm not letting Canadian, or British, or Australian academics off the hook either. Indeed, the whole of the Western academy has been behaving rather flabbily these past seven years. And there is no provoking the shame of academics on this score, either. Last week, when this Hunter issue came up on another website, I made that attempt and was promptly accused of anti-Americanism. I found this quite typical -- i.e., the ploy of changing the subject when someone questions the academy's indifference to issues of vital importance to academic freedom and other issues of principle. Hunter's behaviour is not new -- it's been happening in state legislatures across the country, largely in response Horowitz's manipulation of students and his idiotic claims of some kind of liberal conspiracy on American campuses. What's new here is that it's happining on the national level. Unless academe gets up on its collective hind legs and puts a stop to all this dangerous nonsense, the American academy will go down with the rest of the USS Titanic. by delia (0 articles, 1 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 112 comments) on Tuesday, Oct 2, 2007 at 11:56:50 AM (0+)
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Checkout the National Initiative for Democracy
by Anton Grambihler (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 314 comments [7 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Wednesday, Oct 3, 2007 at 12:17:05 AM (0+)
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