Lost Liberty returns reluctantly if at all.
America’s determined regression against the common good
Excerpt, minor edit by Carolyn Bennett
David Hoffman ends his “Lies live forever” today at Pravda Ru
“Throughout its history, the United States has progressed
and prospered thanks to the Constitution’s encouragement of a ‘marketplace of
ideas.’
“More often than not, this marketplace has been replete with
the studies, hypotheses, theories, opinions and polemics of academics.”
However, today, “thanks to the University of Colorado’s firing
of Professor Ward Churchill, every tenured professor in America ─ and
especially those labeled or considered to be ‘liberal’ or ‘leftist’ ─ will be
hesitant to express anything that could remotely be construed as ‘controversial.’
And the chances that non-tenured
professors will fill this void have been significantly reduced by academia's
increasing reliance on poorly paid adjunct (part-time) instructors.
 |
| Professor Ward Churchill |
…Since many of these adjuncts hope
to eventually obtain full-time positions, there is an even greater reluctance
for them to say or do anything that would impede their opportunity for
advancement.
“Perhaps the greatest hypocrisy in the Churchill case is ─
to express their alleged ‘outrage’ over Churchill’s ‘Eichmann’ analogy ─ his
opponents demonstrated little compunction about employing Nazi style tactics
themselves:
Generating hysteria that favored
emotion over reason;
Scapegoating Churchill to
intimidate all academics labeled or considered to be ‘liberal’ or ‘leftist’;
and
Disseminating ‘great lies’ to
promote political agendas
“It should come as no surprise that the people who present
the greatest obstacle to the success of these tactics are the intellectuals and
thus there is the greatest incentive for a corrupt power structure to silence
them.
“A
|
s the diversity of hypotheses, theories, opinions, and
polemics that once provoked intellectual thought and discussion vanish from
America’s marketplace of ideas, all that will remain are the regurgitation(s) of
whatever propaganda powerful corporations, university officials, and
self-serving right-wing media choose to feed the masses.
“And America will be weaker because of it.”
Lost Liberty returns reluctantly if at all
Perhaps one day, “as has often happened in the past, the
remedial eyes of history will comprehend the extent of tyranny and injustice the
University of Colorado and America’s legal system have unleashed upon the land;
and then denounce those responsible as the mendacious and myopic reprobates
that they are.
“However, by then, the damage done to the people and the
nation might never be undone. This is the worst tyranny and injustice of all.”
Sources and notes
Hoffman began his article “Lies live forever”
“There’s been a horrific death in America ─ an assassination
actually. But don’t count on the assassins ever being punished, not in this
world at least. Instead they are undoubtedly gloating, ‘high-fiving’ each other
and laughing about the magnitude of their crime.
“These criminals include mendacious officials from the
University of Colorado (UC), judges that occupy or have occupied seats in the
State of Colorado’s corrupt legal system and the so-called ‘justices’ on the
equally corrupt United States Supreme Court. Together they have murdered one of
the most precious commodities America once had to offer ─ academic freedom.
“The U.S. Supreme Court joined this corrupt cabal when it
recently denied certiorari (cert.) by refusing to hear Ward Churchill’s appeal
challenging his unjust firing from UC. Although I have written extensively
about Churchill’s case in several other Pravda.Ru articles (“A Tale of Two
Academics, Parts I and II,” June 17 and 18, 2009; “Boycott CU, TT and UCB”, October
27, 2009; and “Ward Churchill: The Lie Lives On,” November 29, 2010, to name a
few) ─ for those who may have missed them, I will repeat the fundamental facts.
“Churchill was a tenured professor of ethnic studies at UC.
Academic tenure is (or more accurately ‘was’) designed to protect professors
from economic retaliation for engaging in controversial studies, or expressing
controversial hypotheses, theories, opinions, and/or polemics.
“In 2001, Churchill wrote a controversial essay that
essentially blamed America’s foreign policy and the exploitative nature of
global capitalism for provoking the September 11, 2001 attacks on the Pentagon
and World Trade Center. In doing so, he referred to some of the 9/11 victims as
‘little Eichmanns,’ a reference to the infamous Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann.
“The essay remained largely unnoticed until 2005 when
Churchill was scheduled to speak at a college in upstate New York.
“It was then that the self-serving right-wing media ─ who
have no compunction about using the United States Constitution’s protections of
‘freedom of speech’ and ‘press’ to promote their own agendas ─ demanded
Churchill’s firing.
“Soon opportunistic and demagogic politicians such as
Colorado’s then-governor Bill Owens joined the chorus with some Colorado
lawmakers ─ even threatening to withhold funding from UC…”
Professor Churchill was fired. He sued and appealed but the
actions of power were stayed. Hoffman writes:
At first glance it seems strange
that America’s legal system, which was supposedly created to protect the rights
and freedoms enshrined in the Constitution, would be one of the primary
instigators of their destruction.
Read the full article: “Lies live forever,” David R. Hoffman,
Legal Editor of Pravda.Ru, April 15, 2013, http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/feedback/15-04-2013/124276-lies-0/
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