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December 7, 2001
Alexander
Cockburn
Sharon
or Arafat:
Who's the Terrorist?
December 6, 2001
CounterPunch Wire
Hampshire
College the First
to Condemn the War
Robert
Jensen
University
Teaching After
September 11
Jack McCarthy
Does
Tom Friedman Read
the New York Times?
Sam and
Leila Bahour
The
Psychology of a Suicide Attacker
December 5, 2001
Edward Hammond
The Only
Real Way to
Prevent Biowarfare
Harvey
Wasserman
Atomic
Treason in the House
Carl Estabrook
America's
Israel
Don Williams
Questions
Barbara Walters Didn't Ask George Bush
Cockburn/St. Clair
Liberals
Hail War as
Return of Big Government
Robert
Fisk
The
Last Colonial War?
Bahour/Dahan
It's About
the Occupation
December 4, 2001
Dave Marsh
A
Plea for Byron Parker
Rep. Ron Paul
Keep Your
Eye on the Target
Susan
Herman
Ashcroft
and the Patriot Act
Tariq Ali
The Afghan
King and the Nazis
November 30, 2001
Jordan
Green
Disappeared
in the Southland
Willliam Blum
Rebuilding
Afghanistan?
November 29, 2001
Phillip
Cryan
Defining
Terrorism
Robert Fisk
We Are the
War Criminals Now
November 28, 2001
Tom Turnipseed
A
Continuum of Terror
Patrick Cockburn
Tribal
Council:
Don't Blame It All on Taliban
Robert
Fisk
At
Last, The Truth about the Sabra and Chatila Massacres
Harry Browne
The Bill of
Rights:
They Threw It All Away
Sunil
Sharma
Suffer
Palestine's Children
November 27, 2001
Paul Coggins
Kafka and
the Patriot Act
Tariq
Ali
Tigris
and Euprhates
November 26, 2001
Robert Fisk
Blood and
Tears in Kandahar
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Boeing's
Sweet Deal
CounterPunch Wire
Human
Rights Abuses and
Nuke Waste Shipments
Alexander
Cockburn
Harry
Potter and Terrorism
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
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December
7, 2001
Mrs.
Cheney's Squad of Academic Snitches
Blacklist Me!
By John Troyer
In November, the American Council of Trustees
and Alumni published a report documenting comments made by individuals
on college campuses regarding the events related to Sept. 11
and subsequent military action in Afghanistan. The 30-page report
is subtly entitled, "Defending Civilization: How Our Universities
are Failing America and What Can Be Done About it."
A momentary pause for official ACTA background
information. The ACTA is referred to as "a conservative
nonprofit group devoted to curbing liberal tendencies in academia"
by The New York Times in a Nov. 24, story about the aforementioned
report. I'm not so sure the term "conservative" is
fair to groups such as the Heritage Foundation, The National
Rifle Association or American Enterprise Institute. I actually
prefer the ACTA mission statement: "ACTA is a nonprofit
educational organization committed to academic freedom, excellence
and accountability on college and university campuses. It supports
programs and policies that encourage high academic standards,
strong curricula and the free exchange of ideas."
What is not to love about a mission statement
concluding with a statement supporting the free exchange of ideas?
I love freely exchanging my ideas: in print, on the street, in
a boat, with a goat, even in the classroom, and that is a problem
for the ACTA--a big problem.
The November report focuses on various
unpatriotic comments (I still prefer the term "counter-American")
made by students, faculty and suspicious individuals on college
campuses around the United States. The comments were made in
various locations: teach-ins, student rallies and, most dangerously
of all, college newspapers. Secret message to the underground:
Bolsheviks can still breed in the bathrooms of college newspapers
around America; continue infiltration program codename: Lefty
Lucy.
The ACTA is available for reading (and
downloading) at http://www.goacta.org/Reports/defciv.pdf
free free of charge. Make sure and RIGHT justify the pages; if
the text strays to the LEFT, the kids become confused. I strongly
encourage everyone who reads my column to look over the report.
Please join me in bearing witness to the unique and inspirational
text as it freely exchanges ideas. I am not kidding.
Three parts of the report stand out to
me, although the entire document is a gem:
First, there's the opening quote by Chairwoman
emeritus of the ACTA Lynne Cheney (biographical note: her husband
is busy running the country). According to an assistant in Cheney's
office, Mrs. Cheney has yet to actually read the ACTA report.
Second, there's the following quote from
the report on page four: "Rarely did professors publicly
mention heroism, rarely did they discuss the difference between
good and evil, the nature of Western political order or the virtue
of a free society. Indeed, the message of much of academe was
clear: BLAME AMERICA FIRST." I usually begin blaming American
cowardice during the third step of my argument about the barbarity
of Western civilization as understood through Friedrich Nietzsche's
"On the Genealogy of Morals" every M-W-F with my undergraduate
students. The indoctrination is not quite complete, but I believe
my secret agenda will soon consume their addled brains.
Third, there are the 12 pages of comments
made by people on college campuses, out of context and without
printing the speaker's name. Apparently, printing the speaker's
university affiliation and academic department is just enough
to dance around libel laws in America. Too bad the ACTA is apparently
afraid to follow through in their critique by actually naming
people. I say they should bring the noise and encourage the resumption
of the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings.
For the record, and I really mean it,
I love the report. I want people to read it, and I would encourage
dramatic reenactments of both the unnamed speakers making their
comments and the editors of the ACTA spending hours, hours, smoking
counter-Americans out of their campus cubbyholes by locating
dangerous statements.
The reason I find the report so refreshing
is I finally know other sane people still live in America (I
was becoming concerned). The report is also extremely useful
because now I know where the other sane, critical thinking people
are located across the country. Without even asking for a thank
you, the ACTA has saved me countless hours of reading college
newspapers (a terrifying proposition in itself) and produced
a list I can easily download onto my hard drive.
My only complaint with the ACTA document,
and I really take issue with this oversight, is nothing I have
written for the Daily since Sept. 11 was printed in the report.
Not a word.
None of my counter-American, unpatriotic,
bed-wetting, red-green-yellow, ultra-liberal, lefty-left columns
got mentioned. I know I have said far more inflammatory (and,
I will add, better argued) points than the people in the ACTA
report. But no, neither I, nor any other Daily columnist, made
the ACTA list. I encourage readers to do a key-word search for
"Minnesota" in the report; the whole state got skipped.
Like not receiving an invitation to a
childhood friend's fancy birthday party, some exclusions hurt
more than others. I have spent a great deal of time since November
attempting to ascertain what I did wrong. If the e-mail messages
I receive from my critics are any gauge, I am the most irresponsible,
willy-nilly-nelly lefty, "dangerous" (that word was
really used once to describe my writing in an e-mail) columnist
in America.
In the hopes of rectifying the situation,
I sent an e-mail to the main ACTA headquarters in Washington,
DC explaining the report's oversight in not listing any out of
context, unattributed lines from my previous columns. I also
sent Web links for the columns with the message to guarantee
a thorough background check. Sadly, I have not heard back from
ACTA, and my request to be listed in the report, I fear, has
not been fulfilled.
So dearest readers, I have a modest proposal:
a call to action I think all digesters of my column (lovers and
haters alike) can enjoy. I want everyone who can spare a moment
to send a message to the ACTA at info@goacta.org
requesting I be listed in the report. Really lay the rhetoric
thick: how I am a detriment to the minds of young people everywhere,
a menace, an aberration, a Ph.D. student in cultural studies
and comparative literature. Note to readers: The ACTA strongly
dislikes my academic department.
In fact, for the truly time-strapped,
here is a form letter for copying and/or cutting and pasting
when read on-line:
Dear American Council of Trustees and
Alumni,
John Troyer is a real menace to the free
exchange of ideas at the University of Minnesota campus. His
bi-weekly column propagates lies, unpatriotic behavior and intellectual
mediocrity. In a recent column he went so far as to suggest people
"disobey" authority figures as a new form of leftist
activism. He's a jerk, a complete kneebiter. Do good Americans
everywhere a favor and add him to the "Defending Civilization:
How Our Universities are Failing America and What Can Be Done
About It" report.
God Bless America,
[You Name Here]
My only request is that people send me
a copy of the message so I can document the letters to build
a case for my inclusion in the ACTA report. If my campaign is
successful, I will autograph and distribute copies of the ACTA
report with my unattributed, out of context comments to all letter
senders.
John Troyer
writes a weekly column for the Daily
Minnesotan, the student newspaper at the University of Minnesota.
He can be emailed at: troy0005@tc.umn.edu
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