I was going to entirely drop this, but what the hell. America is not AmeriKa because some professors write a letter to the college newspaper referencing the Protocols of the Elder of Zion. How is this different than when Ann Coulter, Henry Kissinger, etc. appear on a college campus? The reason that we are in disagreement is that I don't think you (the generic you) are conceptualizing that Israel is the one topic emotional enough for some that Lefty speakers have to suffer what Conservative speakers put up with on a regular basis. Imagine Charles Murray came to your campus to deliver a speech entitled "Whites Are Smarter Than Blacks." Would you applaud the invitation and politely attend the lecture and listen intently to what he had to say? Would you complain if some professor wrote a letter to the dean complaining that Murrray and his speech were "racist" and not fitting for a college campus? Would you think it unreasonable if he was only permitted to speak if an opposing view were presented?
This is not to say that I applaud Lefties suffering what Conservatives having to suffer. I don't. And I don't expect you to agree that there is conceptual equivalence beween anti-Israel speech and racist speech. But I really believe that you are fooling yourself if you believe that the issue is "free expression" as an abstract value and not whose oxe is getting gored. David Shemano --- Original Message--- To: [email protected] From: Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: 9/14/2007 3:20PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] on Israel lobby in the US and foreign policy >> quoting from the article that Anthony cites: >> >> >On September 7, 2006, four days before Walt's scheduled arrival, >> three tenured full professors—two of them from my own >> department—denounced him in an open letter to the president of the >> university, George M. Dennison. The letter appeared in the student >> newspaper, the Montana Kaimin. Comparing his views to those expressed >> in the notorious anti-Semitic forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of >> Zion, they castigated Walt as the author of an ugly racist diatribe >> and demanded that the university invite Harvard University law >> professor Alan Dershowitz or some comparable defender of Israel to >> offer a rebuttal. Failure to do so would "leave a dark stain on the >> President's Lecture Series and the university itself." >> >> >One of my critics told me before startled witnesses that he would not >> rest until I had been stripped of my position of power, which >> manifestly had corrupted me. Someone as insensitive to Jewish issues >> as I was could no longer be entrusted to coordinate a university >> lecture series. He initiated a campaign to bring about my dismissal. >> >> > As the controversy over Walt's visit heated up in the campus newspaper >> > during the >> next few days...< >> >> the controversy "heated up"? bringing in the Protocols of the Elders >> of Zion is pretty hot. >> >> nuff said. This is the kind of thing I was referring to when I >> referred to a "shit storm." >> >> -- >> Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own >> way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. >> >> >>
