CES Department,Kelvin Monroe, a CES instructor, responded as follows:
I would like to cordially invite you and your students to an eye-opening guest speaker, Dinesh D'Souza. A former Reagan Policy Analyst, now one of America's best selling authors, Dinesh D'Souza is coming to Pullman to discuss the state of American race politics and other issues surrounding the modern era. This eye-opening speaker will be hosted on Tuesday, March 25, at 7:30pm in CUE 203. This is going to be a great learning opportunity for all of those in attendance. It may be conducive to offer extra-credit to your students to entice them away from their busy schedules to experience this prominent speaker. I hope to see you there!
Featured sponsors: The Foley Institute, Young America's Foundation, ASWSU, RHA and the WSU College Republicans
This is great learning opportunity indeed for our students to witness neo-conservative race politics (masquerading as Liberal universalism) in our modern era. D'Souza and his contemporaries--W. J. Wilson, F. Fukuyama, S. P. Huntington--are a great example--and indeed a good learning moment--of a revitalized enlightenment project (liberal at its absolutely best) in the Amerikkka. Lack of response to Katrina is only one many great examples of this country's Race politics. Reagan, I think of de-industrialization, New jack drug policies, trickle down economics, the list goes on....Another CES instructor, Sarah Hengtes, forwarded the CRs e-mail and Monroe's response to her students with this note:
I would suggest that the college republicans go learn some history. We got it over here in CES...
Our students should be more concern with the persistence of a War fought on ghostly premises. Do the research. Stop watching Fox, drink water and not Kool-aid.
Take care and see you there.
Peace
K.J.M.
Dear Class,I don't know what's worse. Monroe's use of "Amerikka" or Hengtes' apparent acceptance of the term.
Sometimes students take this class and want to hear "the other side." While this class presents a variety of opinions as well as "the other side" to much of what we learn in elementary and high school, there is also another "side" that we don't spend time on in class. This other side is the Neo-Conservative view of race and racism. While we don't discuss these views much, we have been discussing some of the effects of such views in class. (For instance, what happened in Tulia or Jena.)
This being said, there is a unique opportunity for you all to hear this "other side" and to get some extra credit in the process. In fact, you all have been invited by the College Republicans to attend a talk by Dinesh D'Souza entitled, "Racism is Not the Problem." March 25, CUE 203 7:30 pm. I highly reccommend this event and I would like to hear your thouhts about, and critical analysis of, D'Souza's talk.
Below is the e-mail invite from the president of the College Republicans as well as a response from a CES faculty member. I hope you will attend, ask questions, and formulate your own ideas.
Sarah
Your higher-education tax dollars at work....
13 comments:
Do these "highly college educated" professors even know what some of the words mean that they use....for example neo-conservative? I wish I would have had a tape recorder the other week when my political science professor went off on how Reagan and Bush are neo-conservatives, man that amused me.
I bet our friends at FOX News would like to hear about this...
How many black eyes does WSU need to receive in order to get the point?
You guys should have the FOX News producers phone number still. Give 'em a ring.
Yes, I still have his number (both of them actually, lol). I also have his personal email.
I am going to get together with Mr. VIce President Alex Williams to discuss our course of action; this is going to be an executive decision. Meeting aside, I am going to suggest we bring the rain.
Battle formations.
Greetings Gentlemen, I do come in peace--seeing as how you have already taken this to a public forum (not informing Sarah nor I of your decision).
First off, Neo-conservative (the concept) hit the scene in the late 60s. Please correct me if you find evidence that suggests otherwise.
It emerged sort of as a counterculture to the "left," and out of response to "social liberalism" and the leftist culture that gained some notoriety because of the social upheaval that occurred across the globe.
Mr. Alex Williams, I hope that you were laughing because it occurred to you, that your Poli-Sci Prof. was accurate. Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush gave "neo-conservativism" the attention that it has received recently due to the process that involves "liberals" crossing over into the "conservative" faction of the gov't. I'm sure you people on here are familiar with Irving Kristol's 1979 article in the _National Review_.
People, I must add that it is detrimental that you understand that my applied understanding of Amerikkka as a "liberal democratic state," is informed in part by Nazi compromiser Carl Schmidt and also Woodrow Wilson's administration. Schmidt, also added that a "liberal democratic state" usually resembles approaches nothing less than a "fascist state." Wilson was able to meld racism and liberalism into one solidified democratic ideology that serve the interests of those in power at the time. He also ran the bill through congress that aided heavily the establishing of the Federal Reserve Bank.
So given my understanding of liberalism, we (in CES) do not endorse "liberalism." I like to think of liberalism as a sort of marriage b/n equality and exclusion.
While I do not speak for CES, I would like to think that we endorse truth telling and the learning of a complete, non-revisionist, all-inclusive history to understand the problems we face, that also demand our immediate attention and action.
D'Souza is a neo-conservative precisely because his ideas, in all of his books, have been conservative and they work to reify an ultra-conservative agenda--that is couched in (you guessed it!) "liberal universalism." In His latest book, D'Souza blames the cultural and academic leftist for 9/11. Laughable! D'Souza's _The End of Racism_ (which waxes off of Fukuyama's _The End of History_) approaches all kinds of racist discourses that nonetheless mobilize antiquated (yet persistent) ideas that extend, in their absolutely best day, from the Enlightenment project. And I thought you cats would like to know that D'Souza founded a conservative student newspaper at Dartmouth, where, in one issue of the newspaper, he interviews a Ku Klux Klan member. The Klan is regarded by even the most conservative of conservatives as the "invisible empire." I got that definition from a conservative. It is also no secret that the United States' entire economy, approaching the Civil War and immediately afterwards--especially in the last two decades of the 19th century, relied entirely on the labor of slaves, some immigrants (white), and even freed blacks and Natives. The Chinese immigrants (even in the wake of the Chinese Exclusion Act) were forced to build the railways that connected the growing U.S. with that undiscovered land we now call the "West." This Nation's foundation is 'gangsterism' and ultimately racist. That does not make people bad. It means that we have to really deal with this history: I think the West Germans(following WWII and the Holocaust) called this process of coming to terms: "Vergangenheistbewaltigung."
It was within my first amendment rights to say what I wanted regarding Amerikkka--but given the Patriot Act(s) I, II & III, and my spelling of Amerikkka, I will assume that my sentiments, regarding this "nation with potential," are evident.
Gentlemen, you can call whomever you feel you need to call, but do not get yourselves embarrassed by attempting to debate issues you are clearly inexperienced in discussing at lenght and/or to some depth.
I end with words from Albert Camus: "[i]n more ingenious times, when the tyrant razed cities for his own greater glory, when the slave chained to the conqueror's chariot was dragged through the rejoicing streets, when enemies were thrown to the wild beasts in front of the assembled people, the mind did not reel before such unabashed crimes, and judgment remained unclouded. But slave camps under the flag of freedom, massacres justified by philanthropy or by the taste for the superhuman, in one sense cripple judgment. On a day when crime dons the apparel of innocence--through a curious transposition peculiar to our times--it is innocence that will called upon to justify itself."
Best,
KJM
Mr. Monroe, I would support your right to free speech to the death.
However, as a Washington resident who helps pay your salary, I would take great exception if students were exposed to your "Amerikka" viewpoint without alternative beliefs being presented in a legitimate fashion. I suspect from your faculty web page and Ms. Hentges' e-mail that this is not the case.
This is not education. It's indoctrination. It cheapens and delegitimizes your profession and fails to prepare students for the marketplace of ideas outside the ivy-covered walls.
Correct Kelvin, neoconservatism was termed in the 60s and involves those who were on the left and defected to the right because they were not happy with what the liberals were doing. You liberals have tried to change the term, and your definition has greatly been rejected by everyone except the far, far left who refer to Bush and Reagan as neoconservatives. The term is overused and frequently taken out of context so it has no real meaning.
It sure doesn't seem to me like Bush and Reagan were on the left and defected to the right, correct me if I am wrong there. The only way you could even correlate Reagan or others to neoconservatism would be to say they benefited by liberals defecting to the right. Unless of course you use your definition is anyone who is trying to spread and support conservatism is a neoconservative, I guess that would make probably around 50% of America neo-cons then.
I'm glad you support history, but as a student it's easy for me to see that your far left students do not know the roots of such terms they throw around so lightly.
P.S. Your Amerikka statement sounds a little more like your friend Rev. Wright, but of course he's not a racist because according to the CES department Dinesh D'Souza is the only minority who is a racist.
Oh My! Never in my 60 or so years have I read such a garbled piece of nonsense as Mr. Monroe's post.
I'm relieved my college days are long past. If exposed to this kind of drivel in a university setting I could not contain my laughter.
Gentlemen,
First off, I don't make a salary for anyone on this list to pay. I am a temporary instructor (finishing up my phd this semester)--I make less than a Graduate TA. I will be joining you fellas, in paying back just a few student loans.
Now I am attempting to engage in conversation. Thus far, I can identify remarks coming from others, that verge on insults. But i can overlook them, because we on the far far left, are already viewed as belligerent.
For the second time, I and we are not liberals. Please, no one in Wilson, in that dept, will claim being a liberal. Please just listen. I will not address that again. I really don't like liberals that much, probably much much more than you all dislike them. So i guess a republican and a non-republican can have something in common. To be sure, Dr. M. L. King said in his letter from the Birmingham Jail, that the well meaning white moderate is the biggest obstacle (even bigger than a conservative) to any progress that could be foreseen in our struggle. I am from the south, i much prefer the tone on this blog, you all are out and not closet with your views and i can appreciate that. Much power to you.
Now, to some other stuff....
First we never declare to prepare students for a "marketplace" of ideas. That is your first mistake right there. We prepare students to think for themselves. To learn history and form their own truths. Now, can somebody please help me understand how teaching a people some things that were previously not taught them, indoctrination?
My (our) students come to class with alternative viewpoints already. Your call for "alternative" viewpoints seem redundant. Next....we are not trying to change anyone minds. Are we exposing them to covered-up, mysteriously looked over knowledge/histories/epistemologies, yes we do that. And besides, what is the problem, you come to college to learn how to think, not regurgitate, refer back back to John Dewey and Horace Mann--they were white men (not liberals) that were very much conservatives, and they too share, even hold, the views, i just rendered you gentlemen, on high school and college level education. This is beginning to seem infantile at this point. But I will continue to participate on this blog because I don't pre-judge people. I get to know people first, then I move to try to establish an understanding of them. Race never influences that initial interaction. Such is the way that I approached this blog.
Now if you have qualms with my sentiments being conveyed 'thru' my spelling of Amerikkka, then as I have said bring hard cold history to the table and let's talk about it. I don't debate. I converse.
For starters, Mr. Williams, I don't need (nor did I sanction) your approval. I know I am right. As Tom Forbes pointed out, possibly, it could've have been your tax dollars they have taught me how to research very, very well, I might say. Your tax dollars provides me access to the excellent resources on campus to research very very well. Thank you and others for paying me to-- utilize a library that is hella resourceful, so that I can--bring correct and accurate information to your peers, in our WSU classrooms.
Now to the issue at hand, when i wrote last night--
"Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush gave 'neo-conservativism' the attention that it has received recently due to the process that involves 'liberals' crossing over into the 'conservative' faction of the gov't."
--where did I say that "Bush and Reagan were on the left and defected to the right" as you said this morning? I never for minute thought that Bush and Reagan were left and defected right. I said precisely what I previously said.
To assume that my (our) students are far left is kinda harsh, don't you think? I think it is safe to say that most of the students feel the way (the sentiment) you all are seemingly expressing on this blog. They too think that we are trying to indoctrinate them. But see, here's the thing: when our students begin to uncover for themselves they real truths that were left out of their history classes, even most World Civ Courses, they start wondering why is it that we are not told these things as well, during twelve yeas of schooling? See when we enter school, we are taught to ask who, what, when, where, how, & why...as we progress thru school, we are encourage to ask less questions, and accept things as being just how they are. Not acceptable to. We are inquisitive beings. What is the problem with having/asking questions? Why is it that we are not told that the Bear Stearns incident, a couple of weekends ago, actually happened in 1904, 1921, 1929--very similar scenarios, different banks of course, but J. P. Morgan was there on two of those three earlier years mentioned, and just a couple of weekends ago J. P. Morgan-Chase are there again? Is that such a wrong thing to ask? I Mean, shit!!! people are not stupid.
I mean, how many of you have heard of the North American Union, signed in October, 2005? And CNN's Lou Dobbs was the only journalist (not a liberal media outlet) who covered it? Even interviewed a senator (or congresswoman) from Ohio.
Gents, I gotta go...it's been cool.
Oh, Racism...to be racist I am pretty sure that you have to be in a position whereby your social location exists because of the historical fluidities between your group's historical, economic, and political social locations and the concomitant reification of that group's social location--whether by discursive (being legalized or sanctioned through economic institutions) and/or formations through public policy, movements, or educational regimes, whether populist or otherwise, that served to establish that group's views, standards, policies, beliefs, principles, mores, sensibilities, ultimately, subordinating the other groups respective aforementioned areas. However, I don't really do racism, it makes things to personal, and allowing for personal anecdotes to mask real root of the functionary: racism. I prefer talking about white supremacy--which gets at structures and institutions (out of which a racist discourse functions) that are seemingly operating without group-influenced-agency. For example, after WWII when all the soldier's returned (white and of color--the U.S. Military needed everybody's help in that messy War thanx to Hitler) they all had the expectations/hopes of being able to start new lives in FDR's New Deal sanctioned tract housing sub-divisions that had began to erect along the north-eastern Atlantic seaboard. Well, what the soldiers of color did not know and were not told, was that banks had adopted a method of zoning that we can call red-lining. Recently, we refer to these "redlines" in the international arena as "global red and green zones." So this housing institution systematically prevented people, who happen to be of color, the right to own homes. More, they were veterans as well. That is an example of this system set up (functionally) to benefit one group and not others.
gotta go....D'Souza is not a racist, he is not (regardless of however much he might think he is) white either. And you all really want to tell him that, but you love what he is about. He buttresses what you believe in a way that is supposedly foreign to a foreigner as D'Souza, who is so classically and colonially a foreigner. So you adore him, then idea of him, a man of color, yearning--almost with ideologically-mucked-sexual like appetite--to be white. I have nothing against white people. I am talking about Dinesh D'Souza. He wants to be an immigrant, from a colony; who comes to America and becomes a model minority, to an elite, petty bourgeoisie subaltern. Talk about a post-colonial crisis: my heart goes out to him.
Then, his English is so well. YOU like it because his English is that proper, erudite English, but it is proper because he sounds eruditely "English" speaking that almost perfect erudite English. You bask in the psychic-feel-so-good aura that he wants to be you. However, you pity him, because his brown skin will somehow always manage to prevent you from seeing him as equal--with that same exactness that you use to determine the amount of change you are owed. That is why you love D'Souza. D'Souza will never be privileged enough, wealthy enough, supreme enough, to be racist. He will never be human enough because of British imperialism, because in New York City after 9/11, he too was probably mistaken for a "terrorist." He will remain a threat, always on the verge of... the verge of being... the verge of acting like...
That Categorical imperative (racism) will never get to don D'Souza simply because he exists in that liminal chronotope called your mind. His embodied subjectivity is your disembodied objectivity. His metaphysical stasis is your "privileged stasis," offset by the very hinge that could very well bring you (us) together--humanity; you own it, he desires it. Your humaness is an adorning supplement he brings you: he offers it; historically, others were taken.
Take care and Best wishes...
KJM
I have personally taken a class from Kelvin Monroe and it was one of the best classes I ever took. I used to have conservative views but after taking his class he taught us a different way to think opening our eyes to the truths of this world. He at no point forced us to take in his beliefs. He taught us how to think and no form of indoctrination took place. I find it funny that some undergraduate students think they know better then KJM or Hentges. The more you learn, the more you know just how dumb you are. Obviously, this isnt the case for college republicans. I think you guys need to take in Monroes advice and stop sipping the kook-aid fellas
peace and spread the love
BM
It never ceases to amaze me how much the CES department folks operate in a racist mindset in the hopes of pinning that on the rest of us. Isn't it funny that to attack Dinesh and us at the same time, KJM here has to reduce the humanity of Dinesh rhetorically in the way he accuses us of doing so conceptually, when in fact it is only him doing both?
Your sentiments are not shared on this side of the aisle, KJM. See, we know Dinesh is human. Period. You have to keep coming up with some other approach to the matter since apparently you find that he has the wrong color skin for the ideas he holds and defends. The problem with racism is apparently all yours - your own. I don't think anyone expects any different from the Cognitive Enslavement Studies department however, so fear not, you're not disappointing.
You know, when you detach yourself from it all up there on campus and look in from the outside, it occurs to you how pitiful these folks truly are.
Mr. Zimmerman,
You have only done what the rest have done. Push ill-informed opinions. Please, I am waiting for someone to engage the content.
The thing is this, you cats continue to call us "cognitive enslavement" this and that, even when another white male (who was conservative) has chimed in and vouched for the fact that we do not insist on anything but "think for yourself-ism." We provide people with history and tell them to come to their own conclusions. We don't grade ideologically. What is the real problem with CES? Is it that we don't drink what people in power are serving up? Because we make our drinks, and then drink our own drinks?
It is clear that you don't know what racism is.
You don't understand racism, I doubt that you would listen to someone who actually experiences it, not to mention studies it in a broad historical, theoretical, and philosophical context.
Further, I am not on this blog looking for your support, sentiments, or approval; more, that you assume such auspices, only speaks louder to the deep psychic musings that I got at in my second post. Not to mention that you had to say it, verbalize it, articulate it--"See, we know Dinesh is human." My point was precisely that.
I engaged D'Souza because in all of his works to date, he constantly mobilizes racist rhetoric and scant arguments, that negates any kind of "historical materialism"--that is a Marxist concept btw.
To revisit Mr. Zimmerman's attempt to critique me: first of all, given your Lockean way of thinking, detaching, dualities, split dialectics, and metaphysical static--you sound like a young cousin of John Locke. Wasn't Locke Heavily influenced by this British cat named Lord Berkeley--"to be is to be perceived?" This is to critique your postmodern gesture as you imply that to "detach from the campus" is even possible. Maybe not being on campus everyday... Even Locke understood things spatially, which was in a ideological fashion as well. Don't you know what we do here affects someone somewhere else in the world. Not to be pluralistic, nor vulgarly structuralist. Didn't Adam Smith, in his strangely Marxist familiarities, tell you that this whole things is connected? Perhaps through sophisticated economic systems...?
I am sure that you probably think that K. Marx is liberal too, huh, even though Marxian dialectics are only slightly revised Hegelian dialectics. Only Republicans think
that conservative and liberal are two different things, while they themselves operate simultaneously and concomitantly out of both...keep on keepin' on fellas....
I have been trying to keep up with all these labels on here too....I only say that I am far left, just to locate myself in this thing resembling conversation on this blog. I am for all-inclusiveness. That is it. Period.
It has been fun people, much respect to each and every one of you, only because I choose to respect you cats--I have no beef with any of you at all. Just trying to converse around some content and ideas, not entertain ill informed opinions.
One more note on conservativism, since no one engaged my use of Carl Schimdt, a Nazi compromiser, I will throw out another hardline conservative, an ex-British parliament member named Tony Ben: he said that "if you keep the masses uneducated, unhealthy, and fearful, they are easy to govern...but if the masses are educated, healthy and confident, they are harder to govern." Now with no socialized health-care, the perpetual terror alerts, and the U.S.'s declining educational standards--since education was subsidized--where do you think this country is located in Tony Ben's paradigm? See this shit ain't rocket science. I am lead to believe that most of you might choose to remain in denial. Others just don't know. What is the real reason "paloustics" fear or discourage any critiques of Amerikkka? To be critical is to be loving you know--just ask "mamma?" My moms disciplined me because she loved me--wanted me to do better than I had previously been doing. But still, to be critical somehow equals "unpatriotic," while being naive, ignorant and passively accepting equals patriotic. This is really sad. Ask questions people, it is your God-given (not State sanctioned) right.
Be Eazy and Take care.
KJM
KJM,
Actually, if you're going to toe the line that we're all just pushing "ill informed opinons," you might want to take another look at your own tired, rambling musings - you seem to think you know the content of our minds. That is the height of ill informed opinion.
No surprise here either, as online Kreskins abound.
Now this part gave me a good laugh:
KJM: "What is the real problem with CES? Is it that we don't drink what people in power are serving up? Because we make our drinks, and then drink our own drinks?"
Yep, exactly. Add in any ingredients you pick and choose, stir (spin) it any way you want, then gulp it down and tell yourselves that it tastes great. What a brilliant, "free thinking" atmosphere this must create.
KJM: "You don't understand racism..."
No, actually, I do. You don't know me, you don't know where I've been and what I've experienced. And just for a little more fun with this one... what race am I, anyway, Kelvin? You seem to think you know.
KJM: "...I doubt that you would listen to someone who actually experiences it, not to mention studies it in a broad historical, theoretical, and philosophical context."
Again, you're simply wrong. I do, but I've noticed that when I answer back, you and yours tend to either a) go emotional or b) leave responses like this one, "gee, I just don't have time for this anymore, see ya!" There's only one prof in your department I know of who doesn't (or at least didn't) act this way. I was in his class back before your sorry excuse for a department ever existed, back when the curriculum was still known as "CAC."
KJM: "Further, I am not on this blog looking for your support, sentiments, or approval; more, that you assume such auspices, only speaks louder to the deep psychic musings that I got at in my second post."
I kinda figured that you weren't here for approval or support, but gee, isn't this a place where people might... I don't know... DISAGREE with you?
Again, you don't disappoint: others disagree, so they don't see the light/obvious truth/my brilliance, therefore they're stunted, closet nazis, "privileged" etc. Same old CES song and dance.
KJM: "I engaged D'Souza because in all of his works to date, he constantly mobilizes racist rhetoric and scant arguments, that negates any kind of "historical materialism"--that is a Marxist concept btw."
Yeah, like "you can get ahead if you study." WOW! How racist! To claim that the human mind is basically equal across the globe and beneath the various pigmentations.
What Dinesh does is not allow you your excuses. Were people to follow his advice, you would likely also lose a massive portion of your current audience. I understand you want to protect your market share - students in seats means money, and you're going to have to earn with that PhD somehow. But unless you can get a crowd of kids primed with some victim mentality programming, your little academic sphere will implode. Dinesh is a threat to you.
Now, as for Tony Ben's remarks, they're frankly wrong. Uneducated, unhealthy, and fearful individuals lash out. They're not easy to govern. Their educated, healthy, confident opposites always trend toward reason and rational discourse, especially in matters of public affairs and commerce.
So, just for a bit of fun, let's contrast the College Republicans and their public dealings with that of a number of the students of your department. The CR's put on presentations; bring in guest speakers; ask questions of those who oppose them (despite claim to the contrary - you either don't know or are a bad liar); they behave in general in a civil fashion.
The students coming out of your department harass and attempt to intimidate people with dissenting views; they shout down private plays; they try to shout down the displays others put up on the mall; they assault members of groups they don't care for; they get into fights with police officers at bars.
And of course, you all get to claim John "White Shitbag" Streamas and David "SHOW ME YOUR PAPERS!" Leonard.
Frankly, there must not be much education going on in your department, because you and yours seem to turn out quite a few hooligans that resort to force rather than reason.
Finally, I don't know anyone on here who "fears" critiques of America. I do know of quite a few, myself included, who are more than happy to call you the ass that you are however. Being "critical is loving" when you constantly throw around "Amerikkka?" That's not being critical, that's being intentionally inflammatory. But, as I've said before, it really doesn't surprise me, considering where you're operating out of. That's all you people do. That's all you all have.
The really sad part? America will always make room for you, but you just want to piss all over it.
And don't worry, we constantly ask questions, such as questioning you, perhaps? Oh, wait, I guess we're not supposed to do THAT. Shame on us.
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