Dems' disdain for the 'common man' shows
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Columns

Ed Lasky argues that the Dems have a clear disdain for working people, which shows in the way they describe Republican leaders' earlier careers. This, he says, is fed by the disproportionate number of self-starters in the GOP and inheritors and windfall recipients in the Democratic Party. An interesting read, whatever your viewpoint.

The rise of the disdainful Democrats

Senator Robert Byrd's previous occupation as a butcher never seems to come up when the press describes his history. It seems that mundane occupational histories of politicians matter only when they are Republicans. This is a method employed by the liberal media to demean Republicans, implicitly characterizing them as being made of "lesser stuff" and to disparage their intellectual abilities.

For example, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert's career as a wrestling coach is routinely brought up, since jocks are probably a lesser caste in the Washington D.C. pecking order. That his well-honed talent for inspiring his troops and creating a sense of teamwork are skills undoubtedly enhanced by his teaching history matters not at all. The media similarly depicts Majority Leader Tom DeLay as a former exterminator. His nickname, the Hammer, subtly implies a view of him as a destroyer, and this merits frequent mention.

In ways both subtle and overt, the Democrats and their press allies hold up as objects of derision those Republicans who have actually worked with their hands, or even those who plied their skills in professions which do not require a graduate degree. The American dream of self-starters rising to prominence is part of the legendary appeal of America. But the media refuse to celebrate these stories as worthy of emulation when they are accomplished by Republicans.

The most offensive aspect of the Democratic disdain for the common man is exemplified by their abhorrence of soldiers. While these men and women defend our shores and protect us from terrorism, they are routinely slandered by Democratic politicians eager to use the wayward actions of a few to indict all soldiers. The New York Times, the house organ of the Democratic Party, has always portrayed volunteers going into the military as dead-enders-people who have no hope of getting into or finishing college and are unemployables who have no way to earn a living other than joining our military. The condescension is overwhelming.

Howard Dean’s recent condemnation of Republicans as people who "have never made an honest living in their lives" simply is out of touch with reality. Au contraire, Monsieur Dean, for your characterization seems to apply far more readily to Democratic leaders than to Republicans.

Teddy Kennedy is a proto-typical trust fund baby: a man who would not be a senator, or a leader of any sort, but for his father's ill-gotten gains and any sheen that rubbed off him as the brother of two slain American legends. After all, Kennedy cheated on Harvard exams and has had a less than stellar history when it comes to his romantic life and driving skills, and much-rumored problems involving his sobriety.

Nancy Pelosi and Senator Feinstein have family wealth derived from husbands who engage in the very behavior often condemned by liberals: venture capital and LBO financing. Tom Harkin lied about his Vietnam war experience. Joe Biden cheated in school and plagiarized in order to draft his speeches. John Edwards used junk science to accumulate a fortune. Star Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton was a long-time board member of Wal Mart-the bete noir of liberals. Howard Dean is the Park Avenue triplex-raised, private-school-educated beneficiary of the Dean Witter fortune. John Kerry is a serial gold-digger who has an obsession with marrying wealthy women.

There are a number of Democrats who have earned fortunes on the basis of their own efforts. John Corzine, formerly of Goldman Sachs, used his immense Wall Street fortune to finance his Senate seat election campaign, and now plans to use even more of his millions, by the score, to win his state’s governorship. Frank Lautenberg, the other New Jersey Senator, is also loaded. He was the founder of ADP, which - gasp! – has been outsourcing data processing jobs from corporations for decades now. And don't forget Herb Kohl from Wisconsin, with a retailing fortune of his own, building up family-owned grocery stores, and starting Kohl’s Department Stores, only to sell it in 1979, and seeing it become a major retailing success story. A wealthy investor since then, he owns the Milwaukee Bucs basketball team. Like President Bush, Senator Kohl sports a Harvard Business School MBA. If he attended his graduation exercises in Harvard Yard, he would have been hissed by the diploma-winners from the other Harvard faculties, as is traditional in Cambridge. All of these Democrats used hard work and business skill to build legitimate fortunes.

Other Democrats, however, came by their fortunes with less work.

Hillary and Bill Clinton have each made a windfall in the low 8 figures from their books, and the ex-president has doubled his lucre with public speaking fees. The ultimate trust fund baby in the Senate, Jay Rockefeller, sports the name most identified around the world with robber baron predatory capitalism. He is a plutocrat elected from West Virginia. Why isn’t Thomas Frank asking, “What’s wrong with West Virginia?” instead of picking on Kansas? Another trust fund plutocrat is Senator Mark Dayton of Minnesota, whose grandfather built a department store fortune which has morphed into today’s Target Corporation, purveyor of discount urban chic to the masses. Senator Dayton, who is in his late 50s, has a resume unblemished by a private sector job in his entire career.

To be sure, there are a few wealthy Republican office-holders, beginning with President Bush. Perhaps the richest among them is Senator Frist. He inherited his Hospital Corporation of America fortune, but despite his family wealth, which he could have indulged in (as Jay Rockefeller, Teddy Kennedy and Mark Dayton did) as a way to avoid dirty work, he used his time to get his hands dirty in the noblest of professions, enduring years of arduous medical school and becoming a heart surgeon. With no publicity whatsoever, he has for many years traveled at his own expense to Africa to perform heart surgery on patients unable to pay.

One of the founding principles of America is that a man or woman ought to be able rise from humble origins to the pinnacle of power. Look at Harry Truman, for instance: a failed haberdasher who rose to become President. There are any number of other leaders in our history of not just humble origins, but also who experienced repeated failures before their eventual success. These people should become role models to be emulated, not dismissed with condescension and snobbery, as seems to be the current inclination of the Democrats’ leader. This potential of America to be a place to fulfill one's dreams has been a magnet for 300 years of immigrants. It is part of our national character.

A political class drawn from the ranks of those who have ascended on the basis of their own work and talents is far preferable to selecting from those whose background is shuffling papers or cashing checks from a trust fund. Democrats have adopted a Chirac-like attitude towards the common working men and women: shocked that they don't vote the way their social betters direct them. As in the old joke goes, "If I want your opinion, I will give it to you."

It may be a bit of a stretch, but the Democratic Party leadership looks more like the House of Lords and the Republican Party looks more like the House of Commons. Judging by its leadership, one of our political parties can legitimately claim the be the party of the common man and woman. And it isn't the Democrats.

American Thinker ~ Ed Lasky ** The rise of the disdainful Democrats

Marxist / Queer Orthodoxy at the University of Colorado
Mood:  spacey
Topic: Columns

Queer Orthodoxy at the University of Colorado

By Jon Sanders

Academic Marxism shows up clothed in the attire of many scholarly courses of study. In its most recent incarnation, academic Marxism makes an entrance as the sexy bedfellow of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

There, in diligent pursuit of scholarly material, co-director of LGBT studies and English professor Mark Winokur, explored the Internet. But such a research tool as the computer is not without its ethical problems for Professor Winokur. With the peculiarly tortured conscience of a Marxist, Winokur worries about the political acts involved in using a computer to surf the 'Net–of using such a tool for the ends of the revolution. In other words, does the revolutionary end justify the phallic means? Winokur wonders: "Can the Internet be presumed to be phallic in this fashion: simultaneously powerful and nonexistent? ... I think that the answer depends on how one views the apparatus that connects one to the Internet: the monitor." The monitor, according to Winokur, has "coercive qualities" and "is that part of the larger Internet apparatus that most immediately reminds one of now more traditional visual entertainment/information media. Governmental and corporate surveillance aside, I wonder whether, like other media, the monitor through which we view the world is always monitoring us."

After several paragraphs wrangling with these and other concerns, Winokur finds reason for optimism in a quotation from Walter Benjamin, with which he closes his essay: "Only when in technology body and image so interpenetrate that all revolutionary tension becomes bodily collective innervation, and all the bodily innervations of the collective become revolutionary discharge, has reality transcended itself to the extent demanded by the Communist Manifesto." Goodness knows how many teenagers are in front of their monitors committing revolutionary acts of tension discharge right now.

Indeed, students signing up for classes in LGBT, which advertises itself as "an interdisciplinary program encompassing more than 20 courses in a dozen departments [and] involv[ing] the academic investigation of sexuality in established fields such as literature, history, theatre, law, medicine, economics, sociology, anthropology and political science," will find themselves engaging in a complete indoctrination in Marxism as they prepare themselves for the intellectual challenges of ENGL 4038: Queer Modernism and ETHN 3010: Queer Ethnic Studies.

But before undertaking such heady scholarly study, they will first need to take several required classes. One is "Introduction to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies" (LGBT 2000), where students will find themselves "Investigat[ing] the social and historical meanings of racial, gender, and sexual identities and their relationship to contemporary lesbian, bisexual, gay, and transgender communities." That description is boilerplate academic Marxism, useful for all kinds of identity-politics programs (q.v., "Investigates the social and historical meanings of racial, gender, and sexual identities and their relationship to contemporary [insert group identity here] communities"). Students can expect to be introduced to the Marxist assumption of social construction of identity, as evident with the phrase "social and historical meanings of racial, gender, and sexual identities." This assumption also appears to be active in the description for the program's other required class, "Introduction to Lesbian, Bisexual, and Gay Literature" (ENGL 2707), which introduces students "to some of the forms, concerns, and genres of contemporary lesbian, bisexual, and gay writing in English."

This same deterministic notion?which has animated academic Marxists since, well, Marx and Engels?can be found throughout the electives, too. Colorado's LGBT Studies course descriptions frequently promise to "interrogate," "examine," "analyze, question, and explode," etc., the current array of cultural, political, and other social elements responsible for constructing students' social beings, because, of course, those things must all change.

The student up to the challenges of interrogation and examination has a shopper's list of courses and of descriptions of the credentials of the faculty members who teach them. For example, he or she will learn that Professor Winokur's academic interests range from popular culture and film to race and ethnicity. Currently, he is working on articles titled "The Racial Fetish in American Horror," "Barbara Hammer and the Politics of Lesbian Cinema," and "Film Relics: Some Analogies Between the Classical Hollywood Style and Medieval Worship of Saints," and a book, Technologies of Race: Makeup, Special Effects and Ethnic Groups in American Film (book). He is also co-author with Bruce Holsinger of The Complete Idiot?s Guide to Movies, Flicks, and Film.

For the LGBT Studies program, Winokur teaches "ENGL 3856: Queer Film," which "examine[s] approximately thirteen primary texts [movies] that reflect the various ideologies, politics, and aesthetics of 'alternative sexualities' in the history of filmic representation" and "discuss[es] secondary readings that include theory, history, and criticism of both film studies and gay and lesbian studies."

The other co-director of LGBT Studies, Jane Garrity, has interests ranging from 20th-century British literature to feminist and lesbian theory. Garrity is currently working on articles titled "'Queens Survive: Mary Butts, Homophile" and "Queer Modernism." She has contributed articles to Straight With a Twist: Queer Theory and the Subject of Heterosexuality, edited by Calvin Thomas, and Lesbian Erotics, edited by Karla Jay. She wrote Step-Daughters of England: British Women Modernists and the National Imaginary, a book that reads British woman modernists? "literary texts through the lens of material culture" and "demonstrates the intersections among nationalism, imperialism, gender and sexuality in the construction of English national culture." Her book Sapphic Modernities: Sexuality, Women, and Modern English Culture, co-edited with Laura Doan, is forthcoming. The book description on Amazon.com states, "This exciting collection?s aim is to show how the sapphic [i.e., lesbian] figure, in her multiple and contradictory guises, refigures the relation between public and private space, interrogates the category of Englishness, and redefines what it means to be a modern citizen in the early decades of the twentieth century."

Garrity?s contribution to the LBGT Studies program is "ENGL 4038: Queer Modernism," which "look[s] closely at the relation between each author?s textual innovations and his/her representation of sexual difference, asking the crucial question: is sexuality conceived as something that is natural, or is it understood to be a cultural construct?" and also "examine[s] the various ways that the meaning of the body and desire shift and change in modernist texts, paying close attention to how these representations intersect with the categories of gender, race, class and national identity." She also teaches "ENGL 4287 (1): Twentieth-century Anglo-American Lesbian Literature and Theory," which "tracks the lesbian in British and American literature" and "begin[s] by interrogating the category of 'the lesbian text,'" then "examine[s], among other things, the relationship between historical context and representational possibilities, the constraining or enabling impact of 'community,' the class and racial inflections of 'lesbian' identity, and also the benefits and dangers?for a marginalized group?of being put into and reclaiming representational space."

The program?s course listing also offers "ENGL 3217-1: Film/Theory/Gender" taught by Prof. Ann M. Kibbey, whose professional interests are "Gender studies; feminist theory; film studies." Kibbey is the author of Theory of the Image: Capitalism, Contemporary Film, and Women, in which she "contends that the image itself is an ideological construct," "argues that capitalism enforces social identity and fetishism through religious iconoclastic beliefs about the commodity as image," "creates a new feminist approach to women in film" and "challenges conservative and racist agendas informing the assumption that a photograph records an image."

Kibbey is also the founding editor of the journal Genders, which contains such articles as "Utopia and Castration: How to Read the History of Homosexuality," "Rhetoric on the Medical Management of Intersexed Children: New Insights into 'Disease', 'Curing', 'Illness', and 'Healing,'" "Flesh in the Word: Billy Budd, Sailor, Compulsory Homosociality, and the Uses of Queer Desire," and "How My Dick Spent Its Summer Vacation: Labor, Leisure, And Masculinity On The Web."

Her course "Film/Theory/Gender" "is about modern leftist films," "analyz[es] the construction of genders as socialized roles, as reactionary and coercive methods of social organization" with the "primary interest" being "the deployment of gender in relation to political and economic concepts." This entails "analyzing the film image as an ideological construct" and "critiqu[ing] the concept of gender-as-explanation through readings in leftist theory by Eisenstein, Bourdieu, Debord, Foucault, Lukacs, etc."

Then there?s "ENGL 4277-1: Early Modern Women Writers (1500-1700)," taught by Prof. Valerie Forman, whose interests range from early modern literature, drama, poetry and culture to Marxist and critical theory. Forman?s essay on "Material Dispossessions and Counterfeit Investments: The Economies of Twelfth Night" was published in Money and the Age of Shakespeare: Essays in New Economic Criticism (2003), edited by Linda Woodbridge. Forman has an essay forthcoming in The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies that would provide "A Marxist Reading of the Early Documents of the English East India Company."

Her "Early Modern Women Writers" course promises to consider such issues as, "How did women writers of 'fictional' texts engage in the writing and rewriting of history? How did women participate in the production of new knowledges?scientific, legal, political, and economic?and in revolutionary political activities? What were women?s contributions to the discursive constructions and deconstructions of nation and empire, of gender, sexuality, and desire, of social status and race?"

"ENGL 5179 (1): African American Literature and Queer Theory" is taught by Prof. Vincent Woodard, who is a poet interested in "literatures" categorized as ethnic, Third World, African-American, queer, and 19th- and 20th-century American, and who is also interested in "African diasporic studies." Woodard has published essays titled "Just as (Queer) as They Want To Be: A Review of the Black Queer Studies in the Millennium Conference" and "Haiti, Myth-making and Black Gay Identity Politics in the Writing of Assotto Saint." He delivered a 2003 "Diaspora Talk" at the University of Texas Center for African & African American Studies on the subject of "Anal-Rights, Civilized-Bodies, and the Politics of Sanctification."

Woodard?s "African American Literature and Queer Theory" primarily seeks "to understand how black queer (gays, lesbians, transgendered, transexual, bisexual and even heterosexual) artists, activists and critics have constructed queer theoretical paradigms that have originated in the intimate regions of their lives, and then translated these personal theoretical models into the more public, externalized domains of black experience" and how "this process of intersecting the personal with the public and political is a strategy inherent in African American, feminist, gay and lesbian and queer theoretical communities."

Also there is "ETHN 3010: Queer Ethnic Studies," taught by Prof. Emma Perez, who has replaced Ward Churchill as the chairman of Colorado?s Ethnic Studies program. Perez is known to FrontPage Magazine readers as one of Churchill?s "earliest?and most fanatical ?defenders," having written for Counterpunch.org that the "attacks on Ward Churchill" are "A Neocon Test Case For Academic Purges." Recently Perez lectured at Colorado College on the subject of "Racialized Sexualities in the Borderlands." She has also given a "Queer Speakers Series" lecture at UC-Santa Barbara on the topic of "The Technologies of Desire," which "examine[d] how desire works as a theory and method for social change" and a lecture at UC-Los Angeles in 2003 on "Queering the Border: An El Paso/Juarez Case Study." Perez is a founding member of Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social (MALCS) ("Women Active in Letters and Social Change"), a group devoted to "Chicana/Latina feminist perspectives," and is author of The Decolonial Imaginary: Writing Chicanas into History (Theories of Representation and Difference) and the novel Gulf Dreams. In her novel "Perez traces the life of one woman, a girl who falls in love with another girl. The narrator refuses the path laid out for female friendships ?comadres [sic] who will see one another through 'adolescence, marriage, menopause, death, and even divorce,'?saying instead 'I had not come for that. I had come for her kiss.' Ironically, the unnamed (lesbian) narrator learns sex from her (heterosexual? bisexual? otherwise queer?) girlfriend, as the latter recounts what her boyfriend does for her."

Perez? "Queer Ethnic Studies" promises to "explore the social construction of racialized queer sexuality" and that "the manner in which race and sexuality collide to construct non-heteronormative bodies and cultures will be investigated." The course will also look at "how deviant behavior in the 19th century has become a politicized queer identity in the 21st century," "challenge the manner in which 'deviance' becomes privileged rather than erotica when examining queer sexualities," and "interrogate" the problem that "the majority of historical and theoretical studies on queer sexuality ignore race." Finally, it promises to "examine representations of sexual 'deviants' and track ideologies about queer sexualities as well as interrogate theories."

"GRMN/FILM 3504: Women and German Film" is taught by Prof. Patrick Greaney, whose interests are French, German, Australian, Italian and Japanese literature, literary theory, and New German cinema. Greaney "has published articles on Holderlin, Nietzsche, Fassbinder, and theories of poverty and globalization." He also has "recently completed a book manuscript, titled Impoverished Writing, which explores the theoretical foundations of modern French and German literary and philosophical texts about poverty and power."

"Women and German Film" seeks to answer the questions "Why does violence play such an important role in the work of feminist, queer, and transgender directors? What is liberating for these directors about the destruction of bodies and identities?" It also "offer[s] an introduction to the field of feminism and film studies with special attention to German cinema after 1970 ... films about women and transgender figures and films made by women and transgendered directors."

Visiting scholar Christopher Laferl from the University of Vienna teaches "GRMN 4503-3: Divas: Cultures and Theories of Stardom." This course "address[es] the figure of the diva in a global perspective as an artistic, cultural, and historical construction that engages key issues in cultural and media theory," asking such questions as "How did these stars of the past shape themselves into divas on stage as well as in their lives? How do their followers in the early 21st century (such as Nina Hagen, Madonna and Jennifer Lopez) continue this tradition?" The course promises to "address key issues in cultural studies, feminism, and media theory that come into play when discussing divas."

Prof. Kira Hall, whose interests are language, gender, and sexuality, teaches "LING 2400. Language and Gender." Hall is co-editor with Mary Bucholtz of Gender Articulated: Language and the Socially Constructed Self, which "forges new connections between language-related fields and feminist theory" and whose essays "Refut[e] apolitical, essentialist perspectives on language and gender" and "explicitly connect feminist theory to language research." With Anna Livia, Hall co-edited Queerly Phrased: Language, Gender, and Sexuality, a "compilation of research on the peculiar use of language in gay and lesbian communities [that] breaks new ground," "documents lexical usage and variation in deaf, Jewish, Japanese, and other communities," looks at "computer-mediated text (E-mail), homophobic slang, media reports, and literary language to conclude whether characteristics specific to gay and lesbian speech must be found exclusively in speech to label them as 'gay,'" and "examines the fluid nature of gender and sexuality and how that may be seen in the conscious use of language as it applies to hermaphrodites, the castrated hijras of India, Nigerian transvestites, Yoruba priests, Parisian gays, and Japanese same-sex couples." The hijras, "a transgendered group often discussed in the anthropological literature as a 'third sex,'" is the subject of a forthcoming book.

"Language and Gender" pledges to "examine organizations of language, gender, and sexuality from a crosscultural perspective" involving "the investigation of how cultural paradigms of gender relations are perpetuated through language; the study of innovative uses of language to challenge or subvert these dominant paradigms; and the examination of how women and men use language to construct social identities and communities." The course addresses the following themes: "differences between 'men's talk' and 'women's talk'; linguistic constructions of masculinity and femininity; ritual insult, slang, and gossip; sexism in language; how children learn gender through language; language and sexual harassment; the interaction of gender with race, ethnicity, and class; gender in cyberspace; gay, lesbian, and transgender uses of language; and gender and bilingualism."

Sheila M. Rucki teaches "PSCI 4291 (3). Sex Discrimination: Federal and State Law," which "Examines continuity and change in legal treatment of sex and gender. Using the case method, focuses on family law, education equity, employment law, and gender-related criminal law."

There is also Glenda Walden's "SOCY 1006, WMST 1006: Social Construction of Sexuality." This course uses "a queer feminist perspective of the social constructionist paradigm to critically engage with essentialist and biological determinist perspectives, dominant in Western society, regarding sexual identity and sexual expression." This means that "Contemporary sexual identity, desire, behavior, health, research, and expert advice will be viewed in part as outcomes and techniques of social control." Furthermore, the course seeks to "explore the construction of heterosexuality, femininity, and masculinity as they impact our cultural and individual understandings of sexuality," "examin[e] and analyz[e] our own and others' sexualities in a sociological perspective of larger trends and social influences," and to identify "erotic injustice and oppression."

A Fall 2001 syllabus shows the course required Sexuality Today: The Human Perspective by Gary Kelly, The Good Vibrations Guide to Sex by Cathy Winks and Anne Semans, and The Good Vibrations Guide to Adult Videos by Cathy Winks. Walden wrote that she used the "social constructionist perspective [which] is founded on the principle that the language we use creates our reality and experience of the world in which we live," meaning "we will consciously use language to uncover the implicit meanings about sexuality and gender and how words are used to create our common understanding of sexuality." Class presentations included discussions of "sex pioneers," "gendered" and other "scripts" of sexuality, "sexually explicit images in video format or photographs," and a "Guest Presentation on BDSM philosophy and practices," which features "a discussion of BDSM practices and philosophy as well as a safety demonstration of some techniques" and to which "Your guests are welcome" but alas, "No cameras or recording devices are permitted."

"SOCY 1016, WMST 1016: Sex, Gender, and Society" is taught by Prof. Eleanor Hubbard, whose interests are "interpretative sociology, qualitative research methods, sex and gender, diversity." Hubbard has published essays on the topics of "Whites" and "Everyday Ideology: A Case Study of Sexual Activity." She is completing work on "Coming Out: Heterosexual Students' Emotional Experience with a Coming Out Assignment," although it?s unlikely her heterosexual students knew they were being exploited while they were being emotionally disrupted by an assignment that countered their sexual "ideology."

Bud Coleman teaches "THTR 6081: Seminar in American Theatre: Lesbians and Gays." Coleman?s recent work includes a 2004 paper on "The (Re-)Performed Gay Male Body: A Queer Biography?" a chapter titled "The Electric Fairy?The Apparition and The Woman? Loie Fuller" in Volume II of Passing Performances: Queer Readings of Leading Players in American Theatre History, edited by Kim Marra and Robert A. Shanke; and conference presentations on the subjects of American vaudeville and "Performance Transvestism." Coleman is also the author, director, and performer of one-man show An Evening?s Intercourse With Natasha Notgoudenuff, Bailiwick Theatre, Chicago.

"Seminar in American Theatre: Lesbians and Gays" looks at "the portrayal of lesbians and gays in mainstream American theatre during the 20th century, as well as the contributions of gay and lesbian theatre artists during the same period."

Currently, the LGBT Studies program offers one graduate-level course: "JOUR 6871: Special Topics: Gays in the Media," taught by Prof. Meg Moritz. Moritz was a writer and story consultant for the film Scout?s Honor, which "traces the conflict between the anti-gay policies of the Boy Scouts of America and the broad-based movement by many of its members to overturn them." She has written a documentary on the Columbine school shooting, Covering Columbine, and published an essay about news coverage of the September 11 terrorist attacks in Representing Realities: Essays on American Literature, Art and Culture. Moritz "is on the Board of Governors of the National TV Academy, Heartland Chapter, a member of the Research Advisory Board for the GLAAD and a founding board member of the Boulder Gay and Lesbian Film Festival."

"Gays in the Media" notes that "In an era of media saturation and sexual appropriation, mainstream images of sexuality and gender offer complex and shifting definitions of normalcy" and "explore[s] representations of gays in the media over the last several decades as interpreted by a range of theorists, including Butler, Duberman, Doty, Gross, Sedgewick, Fiske, Rubin and Hall."

A few courses in the syllabus are listed without an instructor specified, but like the others, their descriptions generally hew to the Marxist notion of social "construction" of one?s gender and sexuality. For example, "ENGL 3796: Queer Theory ... Surveys theoretical, critical, and historical writings in the context of lesbian, bisexual, and gay literature" and "Examines relationships among aesthetic, cultural, and political agendas, and literary and visual texts of the 20th century."

Meanwhile, "WMST 2600: Gender, Race, and Class in Contemporary U.S. Society" involves itself in "the main forms of domination in U.S. society around gender, class, and race relations" and "Examines intersections of the relations and influences in institutions and everyday life" with "[p]articular attention given to "women of color perspectives and resistance to domination."

Finally, "WRTG 3020: Topics in Writing: Queer Rhetorics" starts "with an[other] introduction to Queer Theory" and proceeds "first to examine notions of 'queer' and later to analyze, question, and explode the discourse of queer, the binary of straight/queer, and politics of power embedded in any college course, even Queer Rhetorics." The goal is "a course that is safe and encouraging for those who identify as queer, as well as those who do not, a course that questions itself, and a course that is shaped around the politics of queer. The assignments, the texts, the goals, and the space of the classroom will be 'queered,' or not quite 'straight.'"

FrontPageMagazine ~ Jon Sanders ** Queer Orthodoxy at the University of Colorado

Jennifer McBride, a kinda cute, democrat, teeny bopper Oregon Daily Emerald columnist... 10 reasons not to kill Bush
Mood:  suave
Topic: Columns

10 reasons not to kill Bush
By Jennifer McBride

Recently in Georgia, the president gave a speech only to have someone chuck a hand grenade at him. Lucky for all, the blast cap did not explode. Though originally thought to be a dud, the FBI later revealed the weapon was far from safe.

I can't possibly guess the assassin's reasoning, but I've heard enough people on campus proclaiming their hatred of George W. Bush to know that some wouldn't have shed many tears. And that's a shame.

If the assassin were looking for a way to hurt America, blowing up the president would be a good idea. Bush's martyrdom would put the last nail in the coffin of the liberal agenda. So, for those Bush-haters out there, here are 10 reasons you should stop praying for an assassinated G.W.B.:

1) Killing the president immediately generates sympathy for his cause. If the president died tomorrow, there would be no question that all of his nominees for the judicial branch would make it through the Senate.

2) A dead President Bush leaves a live Dick Cheney in charge. Need I say more?

3) The Pakistani political situation is drastically fragile. Should President Bush die, Musharraf's brutal, mostly secular dictatorship probably will be replaced by a brutal, religiously fundamental dictatorship, reducing the United States' chances of bringing in Osama bin Laden to nil.

4) Any criticisms of the administration will be regarded as more unpatriotic than ever. In the next election, you could expect to see Democratic primary candidates proclaiming that their Republican counterparts aren't "fit to follow in President Bush's footsteps."

5) Killing President Bush could spur another spate of international invasions, with or without U.N. approval. The U.S. military cannot deal with invading another country without further hollowing our ability to defend ourselves and respond to threats from other countries, such as a nuclear North Korea.

6) The news cycle would be justly co-opted. With the media so focused on one story, there wouldn't be time to examine important issues such as the government suppression in Uzbekistan or Egyptian election tampering. In fact, all foreign news that didn't directly affect the assassination would probably grind to a halt.

7) President Bush's status as a martyr would leave the electorate more polarized than ever, especially if liberals were seen as publicly irreverent to President Bush's memory. It would be a little different if natural selection decreed death-by-snacking, but toasting an assassin's success leaves a decidedly bitter taste in the national mouth.

8) Jeb Bush's popularity would skyrocket. He would undoubtedly win the Republican nomination and then the election in 2008. With the Supreme Court full of near-zombies, I would prefer a different man to pick the people who are going to strangle us with laws.

9) Killing George Bush won't end any of the policies people disagree with. An assassination would merely strengthen our resolve to stay the course in Iraq, keep troops in Saudi Arabia, support our Israeli allies, etc. Policies don't die just because the president does.

10) Slaying President Bush is simply immoral. Anyone who advocates purposefully killing someone defenseless (and a democratically elected leader, no less) is clearly value-challenged. I don't understand the logical contortions some people must go through to be anti-death penalty yet pro-assassination.

In all seriousness, I don't hate President Bush. I dislike a lot of his administration's choices, but I think he's a good man doing a difficult job. As a leader, you're always going to be hated. I am too often shocked by the vitriolic repulsion many people feel for our leader and America in general, especially because the loathing is often poorly informed. I've met people on this campus who see America as the worst human rights abuser in the world (unlike the angelic paradise of Cambodia) and people who sway liberal not because they actually know anything about issues but because it's popular.

Liberalism has to be more than a college fad or a collection of loudmouths whose idiotic comments stir headlines. The rabid dislike some people feel for a man they've never even met makes me ashamed to be a Democrat.

Oregon Daily Emerald ~ Jennifer McBride ** 10 reasons not to kill Bush

jennifermcbride@dailyemerald.com

Lawmakers fail to recognize looney lib ecoterror threat
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Columns

The FBI recently released a report that highlighted the growth in domestic terrorist attacks from radical animal rights groups and environmental extremists. Lawmakers are rightly focused on Islamist terrorist groups, but may be underestimating the violent potential of other groups.

Ignoring the ecoterrorist threat

WASHINGTON - We are all proud of the exceptional men and women who are members of the U.S. Senate. Outside the Beltway and their home states, senators often are treated with a deference that could cause revolution or rioting in some countries. They usually travel with an entourage of sycophantic staff. And those of the Democrat persuasion would wear Roman togas if they thought these ensured their re-election.

This month, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works met to quiz and harass John Lewis, the FBI's counterterrorism deputy assistant director.

This committee has them all. Chairman James Inhofe of Oklahoma has to contend with the Vermont party-switcher Jim Jeffords, self-proclaimed tree hugger Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, probable Republican Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Barbara Boxer of California, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Hillary Clinton of New York.

Little wonder that Lewis and his colleagues encountered problems in having the committee believe that environmental and animal-welfare militants are now the biggest terrorist threat in the United States. These militants increasingly use explosive and incendiary devices on targets ranging from housing developments and research laboratories to car dealerships.

The committee members, obsessed with al-Qaida, were reluctant to believe that the FBI had 150 ongoing investigations and that 1,200 crimes by tree-and-bunny huggers were reported during the past decade. Their cost to us -- $110 million. The cost to them -- minimal.

What is most disturbing is that the criminals involved are mostly members of groups like the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), which hold open and well-publicized meetings. They are well- if not over-educated, mostly middle-class people from conventional homes who grew up with everything needed to be happy, and have a hatred for the American system.

If senators, the FBI, our readers and reporters wanted to attend their general meetings, all would be welcome. Track their money? It comes from our relatives and from clever mergers and acquisitions among environmental, animal and related rights groups.

Over the April 1 weekend there was a gathering of about 400 activists in New York City from 26 states and Canada. It was called the Grassroots Animal Rights Conference (GARC) at the Holyrood Episcopal Church in the Bronx. Those attending were lured by statements such as "Some of the most experienced activists and teachers in activist movements will converge at GARC with the goal of strengthening the grass roots."

The GARC had experienced organizers for the conference. One of the speakers was Ramona Africa, from the Philadelphia group MOVE, who now "peacefully" protests at zoos and at circus performances. Ramona, the only surviving adult from the original MOVE, also has served seven years in jail for conspiracy and rioting.

One pamphlet distributed by Win Animal Rights (WAR) promised actions in May against "pharmaceutical and vivisection industries, their customers, suppliers and employees." Relying on the use of members' cell phones and the Internet, WAR's instruction -- "Be prepared to travel from one location to another taking the fight to both the business and home address of those that allow animal exploitation to continue!" -- creates a new level of fear.

Those attending the conference and the Senate hearing became aware that the direct-action phase of the animal and Earth liberation movements is, in 2005, about to enter a new and much more violent phase. "Our kids," totally oblivious of the new laws to suppress violence and terrorism and led by seasoned criminals, are preparing to vandalize and maim.

The Senate Committee does not seem to agree. Sen. Lautenberg said the Department of Homeland Security spent $40 billion a year to protect the home front but that groups based in Europe successfully had their American members attacking the homes, boats and cars of pharmaceutical executives in New Jersey and New York.

Sen. Jeffords said "nothing much could be done about individual extremists committing crimes." He continued: "ALF and ELF may threaten dozens of people, but an incident at a chemical, nuclear or wastewater facility would threaten tens of thousands."

For a senator that was quite smart. However, did the senator consider that it could be an ALF or ELF crazy bombing a chemical or a nuclear plant? These are zealots with money, education and training. And, as of now, there is no federal agency that can guarantee protection against our homegrown idealist terrorists.

Pittsburgh Live ~ Tribune - Dateline D.C. ** Ignoring the ecoterrorist threat

MoveOn.org anti-Catholic ad will hurt Dems
Mood:  cheeky
Topic: Columns

MoveOn.org has run an anti-Catholic advertisement that plays on century old fears of pontiff influence over the U.S. government. As the article points out, the KKK, xenophobes and anti-immigrant groups all used fear of the Pope?s influence as a pretext for actions against Irish, Italian and other Catholic immigrants.

MoveOn.org's anti-Catholic Paranoia

By Don Feder

Democrats lost the evangelical vote decades ago. As the last election showed, they are now in danger of permanently losing Catholics.

But the left has devised an ingenious technique for winning back disaffected Catholics – insult their Church and its leader. And they thought of this all by themselves?

As part of the campaign to defeat the Republican push to end the judicial filibuster, on May 17, 2005, MoveOn.org, PAC ran an ad appealing to anti-Catholic paranoia. The broadside was an altered photo that showed Pope Benedict XVI standing outside the Supreme Court’s chambers. The pontiff appears to be holding a gavel.

The caption reads: "God Already has a Job….. He does not need one on the Supreme Court. Protect the Supreme Court rules." Huh?

This is gibberish. The filibuster debate concerned changing the Senate’s rules to end the minority veto of the president’s judicial nominations. It had nothing to do with the rules of the Supreme Court.

Still, the clear implication of the ad is that if Bush (a Methodist) is allowed to have an up-or-down vote on his nominees (most of whom are also Protestants), it would be tantamount to turning the high court over to the Catholic Church – making the federal judiciary an auxiliary of Rome.

This makes no sense. But then, when was anti-Catholic bigotry logical.

MoveOn.org’s calumny is reminiscent of attacks on the Church by the Ku Klux Klan. In the 1920s, the cross-burners attempted to whip up anti-Catholic hysteria with visions of the Vatican taking over America. When Catholic Al Smith ran for president in 1928, the Klan instructed that a Democratic victory would signal the end of religious freedom in America.

Congress would be replaced by a college of cardinals. Protestant marriages would be nullified. The Spanish Inquisition – and not the Monty Python version – would be just around the corner.

A libel invented by bigots in bed sheets now is routinely repeated by bigots in Gucci loafers. The thrust of the MoveOn.org ad: If Bush has the same power as all of his predecessors (to appoint judges who share his values) it will be tantamount to turning the judiciary over to the Catholic Church. Abortion will be banned. There will be no gay marriage. Nuns will teach sex-education classes. Mel Gibson will be chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. The seas will boil up. Michael Moore’s head will explode. (Hmmmm.)

It’s not just the Rottweiler of leftist websites, funded by millions of dollars from (Imperial Grand Wizard?) George Soros that’s saying this. MoveOn.org is a surrogate for the Democratic Party. Established in 1998, with an e-mail list of 2.2 million, the Soros-funded site has raised a ton of money for Democratic candidates over the past three election cycles.

To say the Democrats are tight with the leftist webmasters is an understatement of staggering proportions. To a large extent, MoveOn.org and allied organizations are the heart and soul – and guts, and checking account – of the Democratic Party.

On April 28, 2005, former Vice President – and environmentalist screamer– Al Gore, speaking at a DC rally for MoveOn.org PAC, excoriated conservatives for "assaulting the integrity of our constitutional design." Why, these miscreants "even claim that those of us who disagree with their point of view are waging a war against 'people of faith," Fat Albert huffed. Presumably, Gore believes that ads suggesting a Vatican takeover of the federal judiciary are supportive of people of faith.

On May 11, 2004, former President Bill Clinton joined New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and AFL-CIO President John Sweeney in addressing a MoveOn.org rally at Harlem’s Apollo Theater. (On this occasion, bed sheets were left on the clothesline.)

The revolving door between the website and the Democratic establishment spins faster and faster. In 2002, MoveOn.org hired Internet wunderkind Zack Exley as its organizing director. He left in 2003 to run Howard Dean’s web operations. A year later, Exley again popped up as Director of Online Communications and Online Organizing for the Kerry-Edwards campaign.

According to an August 23, 2004 article in The American Spectator, in the last presidential election, a very special relationship developed between the Kerry campaign and its Internet alter ego. "In fact," the Spectator disclosed, "according to a Kerry campaign volunteer, staff members and volunteers of the Kerry campaign in New York, Washington and Los Angeles have been in almost constant contact with MoveOn.org staffers, including advanced viewings and reviews of MoveOn.org television commercials, online ads, and web content. As well, MoveOn.org staffers provide the Kerry campaign with opposition research… ."

So, where is the outrage from prominent Democrats over MoveOn’s anti-Catholic smear? Is Democratic National Chair Howard Dean denouncing the blatant bigotry? Is Gore screaming "how dare they!" (his favorite expression of indignation)? Is Bill Clinton -- who’s great at apologizing for everyone but himself -- issuing a formal mea culpa to the National Catholic Bishops Conference for his past association with these latter-day Know-Nothings?

There’s nothing but silence. The National Democratic Party, which views the Catholic Church as the enemy on issues that matter to it most, is silently cheering on this unabashed Catholic-bashing by its website surrogate.

The party is not above a little Catholic-baiting of its own. When then-Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor’s federal-appeals court nomination came before the Senate in 2003, Democrats darkly hinted at Pryor’s "deeply held beliefs" which, it was said, should automatically preclude him from wearing a black robe. New York Sen. Charles Schumer intoned, "In Pryor’s case his beliefs are so well known, so deeply held that it is very hard to believe … that they are not going to deeply influence the way he comes about saying, 'I will follow the law…"

Massachusetts Senator-for-life Ted Kennedy told Pryor, "I think the very legitimate issue in question with your nomination is whether you have an agenda, that many of the positions which you have taken reflect not just an advocacy but very deeply held views and a philosophy." And California Senator Dianne Feinstein told Pryor she was troubled his "extraordinarily strong views which continue and come out in a number of different ways."

Beliefs which are deeply held, an agenda, deeply held views, extraordinarily strong views -- to what could the Senators be alluding? It’s no secret that Pryor is a practicing Catholic who’s called Roe vs. Wade "the worst abomination in the history of constitutional law."

Are "deeply held beliefs" etc. code words for traditional Catholics? When challenged by Republicans, Democrats declared that the charge was a smear, noting that Kennedy, Patrick Leahy, Richard Durbin etc. are themselves "Catholic" – meaning they were raised in Catholic families and attend mass for photo-ops. They also support abortion on demand (including partial birth abortion), homosexual marriage, etc. In other words, they’re un-Catholics.

Whether or not the charge is valid, by their extremist position on judicial nominations, the Democrats have created an unconstitutional de facto religious test for public office.

A Catholic who is loyal to the teachings of his Church can’t be a blonde cheerleader for the Sexual Revolution. (For that matter, neither can an observant Jew or an evangelical who’s paying attention to his Bible). Democrats are saying that to adhere to traditional morality disqualifies a candidate for the federal bench (regardless of experience or other credentials). Thus, they insist that Catholics who take Catholicism seriously must automatically be rejected for judgeships.

If not intentionally anti-Catholic, this is – at the very least – anti-Catholicism in practice. Many Catholics who don’t support their Church’s teachings on social issues understand and resent this.

Catholics constitute 27% of the electorate nationwide. Though Bush lost the Catholic vote by 3 percentage points in 2000, he won by 5 points in 2004 (52% to 47%) – running against the first major-party, Catholic nominee since 1960 – albeit a Catholic who’s been to the cafeteria once too often. (So desperate was Kerry for the support of his fellow Catholics that last summer he conveniently recalled being an altar boy – memories which were probably jogged by opinion polls.)

Of MoveOn.org’s latest essay in tolerance and brotherhood, William Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights observed: "So this is the way George Soros operates. Of all the anti-Catholic canards ever expounded in American history, none is more infamous than the one that accuses the Vatican of steering U.S. public policy…."

Hey, George, while you’re at it, why don’t you and your Internet klavern call Mother Teresa a dirty name and do a polka on the grave of John-Paul II? As long as the Democrats have decided to woo Catholics by alienating them, they might as well go all the way.

Front Page Magazine.com ~ Don Feder ** MoveOn.org's anti-Catholic Paranoia

Don Feder is a former Boston Herald writer who is now a political/communications consultant. He also maintains his own website, DonFeder.com.

Michelle Malkin: New Book Aimed at 14 Year Olds Teaches Oral Sex ''Rainbow Parties''
Mood:  loud
Topic: Columns

MOMMY, WHAT'S A RAINBOW PARTY?

By Michelle Malkin

My new column on a just-published children's book called "Rainbow Party" is up. USA Today's coverage of the book--aimed at 14-year-olds--is here.

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So, what's a rainbow party? Here's the column intro:

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Here's a rich irony: I'm writing today about a new children's book, but I can't describe the plot in a family newspaper without warning you first that it is entirely inappropriate for children.

The book is "Rainbow Party" by juvenile fiction author Paul Ruditis. The publisher is Simon Pulse, a kiddie lit division of the esteemed Simon & Schuster. The cover of the book features the title spelled out in fun, Crayola-bright font. Beneath the title is an illustrated array of lipsticks in bold colors.

The main characters in the book are high school sophomores supposedly typical 14- and 15-year-olds with names such as "Gin" and "Sandy." The book opens with these two girls shopping for lipstick at the mall in advance of a special party. The girls banter as they hunt for lipsticks in every color of the rainbow:

"Okay, we've got red, orange, and purple," Gin said. "Now we just need yellow, green, and blue."
"Don't forget indigo," Sandy said as she scanned the row of lipstick tubes.
"What are you talking about?"
"Indigo," Sandy repeated as if that explained everything. "You know. ROY G. BIV. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet."
"That's seven lipsticks. Only six girls are coming. We don't need it."

What kind of party do you imagine they might be organizing? Perhaps a makeover party? With moms and daughters sharing their best beauty secrets and bonding in the process?

Alas, no. No parents are invited to this get-together. A "rainbow party," you see, is a gathering of boys and girls for the purpose of engaging in group oral sex. Each girl wears a different colored lipstick and leaves a mark on each boy. At night's end, the boys proudly sport their own cosmetically-sealed rainbow you-know-where bringing a whole new meaning to the concept of "party favors."
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Why on earth would a publisher market such smut to kids? Says author Ruditis:

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Ruditis says the book was never meant to sensationalize sex parties. "We just wanted to present an issue kids are dealing with," he says.
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Moreover, Ruditis told Publisher's Weekly:

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"Part of me doesn't understand why people don't want to talk about [oral sex]," he said. "Kids are having sex and they are actively engaged in oral sex and think it's not really sex. I raised questions in my book and I hope that parents and children or teachers and students can open a topic of conversation through it. Rainbow parties are such an interesting topic. It's such a childlike way to look at such an adult subject with rainbow colors."
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You can't make this stuff up. Or can you? Some have downplayed the phenomenon as apocryphal, but that didn't stop Oprah Winfrey from having one of her magazine editors blabbing and giggling about it in explicit language on a show ostensibly teaching parents about their children's "code language." A transcript of the exchange is up at Howard Stern's website.

For once, I agree with Stern, who points out a glaring regulatory double standard. Oprah's broadcast (on daytime network TV, accessible to children) was as indecent and titillating as anything Stern puts on the air. Why should she be allowed to hide behind the disingenuous guise of "education" while Stern faces a crackdown for vulgar entertainment?

But back to the book. The author and publisher pay lip service to the informational value of the book to families, teachers, and students. In the end, the main characters abandon plans for the event and news of an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases rocks their school. But as I point out, the front cover and book marketing (not to mention the inclusion of frequent profanities and other graphic sex scenes that I couldn't include in the column) emphasize titillation over education, overpowering any redeeming value the book might have. Indeed, according to Publisher's Weekly, the bound galleys sent to booksellers carried the provocative tagline, "don't you want to know what really goes down?"

As Ruditis suggests, this book will end up on public school library shelves in the very near future, along with other "educational" crap like this. Those who raise even the least objection are cast as out-of-touch theocrats who need to "deal with reality." Small wonder an increasing number of families are homeschooling.

If "proper socialization" means teaching 14-year-olds about group oral sex, we can only pray that more parents choose to raise social misfits.

Origional source ~ Michelle Malkin ** MOMMY, WHAT'S A RAINBOW PARTY?

The other recommended links of relevance...
Jewish World Review Column ~ Michelle Malkin ** ‘Educational’ smut for kids

USA Today ~ Carol Memmott ** Controversy colors teen book

LIFE LONG LIBERAL LEAVES THE MOVEMENT
Mood:  cheeky
Topic: Columns

Leaving the left

I can no longer abide the simpering voices of self-styled progressives -- people who once championed solidarity

By Keith Thompson

Nightfall, Jan. 30. Eight-million Iraqi voters have finished risking their lives to endorse freedom and defy fascism. Three things happen in rapid succession. The right cheers. The left demurs. I walk away from a long-term intimate relationship. I'm separating not from a person but a cause: the political philosophy that for more than three decades has shaped my character and consciousness, my sense of self and community, even my sense of cosmos.

I'm leaving the left -- more precisely, the American cultural left and what it has become during our time together.

I choose this day for my departure because I can no longer abide the simpering voices of self-styled progressives -- people who once championed solidarity with oppressed populations everywhere -- reciting all the ways Iraq's democratic experiment might yet implode.

My estrangement hasn't happened overnight. Out of the corner of my eye I watched what was coming for more than three decades, yet refused to truly see. Now it's all too obvious. Leading voices in America's "peace" movement are actually cheering against self-determination for a long-suffering Third World country because they hate George W. Bush more than they love freedom.

Like many others who came of age politically in the 1960s, I became adept at not taking the measure of the left's mounting incoherence. To face it directly posed the danger that I would have to describe it accurately, first to myself and then to others. That could only give aid and comfort to Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and all the other Usual Suspects the left so regularly employs to keep from seeing its own reflection in the mirror.

Now, I find myself in a swirling metamorphosis. Think Kafka, without the bug. Think Kuhnian paradigm shift, without the buzz. Every anomaly that didn't fit my perceptual set is suddenly back, all the more glaring for so long ignored. The insistent inner voice I learned to suppress now has my rapt attention. "Something strange -- something approaching pathological -- something entirely of its own making -- has the left in its grip," the voice whispers. "How did this happen?" The Iraqi election is my tipping point. The time has come to walk in a different direction -- just as I did many years before.

I grew up in a northwest Ohio town where conservative was a polite term for reactionary. When Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of Mississippi "sweltering in the heat of oppression," he could have been describing my community, where blacks knew to keep their heads down, and animosity toward Catholics and Jews was unapologetic. Liberal and conservative, like left and right, wouldn't be part of my lexicon for a while, but when King proclaimed, "I have a dream," I instinctively cast my lot with those I later found out were liberals (then synonymous with "the left" and "progressive thought").

The people on the other side were dedicated to preserving my hometown's backward-looking status quo. This was all that my 10-year-old psyche needed to know. The knowledge carried me for a long time. Mythologies are helpful that way.

I began my activist career championing the 1968 presidential candidacies of Robert Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy, because both promised to end America's misadventure in Vietnam. I marched for peace and farm worker justice, lobbied for women's right to choose and environmental protections, signed up with George McGovern in 1972 and got elected as the youngest delegate ever to a Democratic convention.

Eventually I joined the staff of U.S. Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio. In short, I became a card-carrying liberal, although I never actually got a card. (Bookkeeping has never been the left's strong suit.) All my commitments centered on belief in equal opportunity, due process, respect for the dignity of the individual and solidarity with people in trouble. To my mind, Americans who had joined the resistance to Franco's fascist dystopia captured the progressive spirit at its finest.

A turning point came at a dinner party on the day Ronald Reagan famously described the Soviet Union as the pre-eminent source of evil in the modern world. The general tenor of the evening was that Reagan's use of the word "evil" had moved the world closer to annihilation. There was a palpable sense that we might not make it to dessert.

When I casually offered that the surviving relatives of the more than 20 million people murdered on orders of Joseph Stalin might not find "evil'" too strong a word, the room took on a collective bemused smile of the sort you might expect if someone had casually mentioned taking up child molestation for sport.

My progressive companions had a point. It was rude to bring a word like "gulag" to the dinner table.

I look back on that experience as the beginning of my departure from a left already well on its way to losing its bearings. Two decades later, I watched with astonishment as leading left intellectuals launched a telethon- like body count of civilian deaths caused by American soldiers in Afghanistan. Their premise was straightforward, almost giddily so: When the number of civilian Afghani deaths surpassed the carnage of Sept. 11, the war would be unjust, irrespective of other considerations.

Stated simply: The force wielded by democracies in self-defense was declared morally equivalent to the nihilistic aggression perpetuated by Muslim fanatics.

Susan Sontag cleared her throat for the "courage" of the al Qaeda pilots. Norman Mailer pronounced the dead of Sept. 11 comparable to "automobile statistics." The events of that day were likely premeditated by the White House, Gore Vidal insinuated. Noam Chomsky insisted that al Qaeda at its most atrocious generated no terror greater than American foreign policy on a mediocre day.

All of this came back to me as I watched the left's anemic, smirking response to Iraq's election in January. Didn't many of these same people stand up in the sixties for self-rule for oppressed people and against fascism in any guise? Yes, and to their lasting credit. But many had since made clear that they had also changed their minds about the virtues of King's call for equal of opportunity.

These days the postmodern left demands that government and private institutions guarantee equality of outcomes. Any racial or gender "disparities" are to be considered evidence of culpable bias, regardless of factors such as personal motivation, training, and skill. This goal is neither liberal nor progressive; but it is what the left has chosen. In a very real sense it may be the last card held by a movement increasingly ensnared in resentful questing for group-specific rights and the subordination of citizenship to group identity. There's a word for this: pathetic.

I smile when friends tell me I've "moved right." I laugh out loud at what now passes for progressive on the main lines of the cultural left.

In the name of "diversity," the University of Arizona has forbidden discrimination based on "individual style." The University of Connecticut has banned "inappropriately directed laughter." Brown University, sensing unacceptable gray areas, warns that harassment "may be intentional or unintentional and still constitute harassment." (Yes, we're talking "subconscious harassment" here. We're watching your thoughts ...).

Wait, it gets better. When actor Bill Cosby called on black parents to explain to their kids why they are not likely to get into medical school speaking English like "Why you ain't" and "Where you is," Jesse Jackson countered that the time was not yet right to "level the playing field." Why not? Because "drunk people can't do that ... illiterate people can't do that."

When self-styled pragmatic feminist Camille Paglia mocked young coeds who believe "I should be able to get drunk at a fraternity party and go upstairs to a guy's room without anything happening," Susan Estrich spoke up for gender- focused feminists who "would argue that so long as women are powerless relative to men, viewing 'yes' as a sign of true consent is misguided."

I'll admit my politics have shifted in recent years, as have America's political landscape and cultural horizon. Who would have guessed that the U.S. senator with today's best voting record on human rights would be not Ted Kennedy or Barbara Boxer but Kansas Republican Sam Brownback?

He is also by most measures one of the most conservative senators. Brownback speaks openly about how his horror at the genocide in the Sudan is shaped by his Christian faith, as King did when he insisted on justice for "all of God's children."

My larger point is rather simple. Just as a body needs different medicines at different times for different reasons, this also holds for the body politic.

In the sixties, America correctly focused on bringing down walls that prevented equal access and due process. It was time to walk the Founders' talk -- and we did. With barriers to opportunity no longer written into law, today the body politic is crying for different remedies.

America must now focus on creating healthy, self-actualizing individuals committed to taking responsibility for their lives, developing their talents, honing their skills and intellects, fostering emotional and moral intelligence, all in all contributing to the advancement of the human condition.

At the heart of authentic liberalism lies the recognition, in the words of John Gardner, "that the ever renewing society will be a free society (whose] capacity for renewal depends on the individuals who make it up." A continuously renewing society, Gardner believed, is one that seeks to "foster innovative, versatile, and self-renewing men and women and give them room to breathe."

One aspect of my politics hasn't changed a bit. I became a liberal in the first place to break from the repressive group orthodoxies of my reactionary hometown.

This past January, my liberalism was in full throttle when I bid the cultural left goodbye to escape a new version of that oppressiveness. I departed with new clarity about the brilliance of liberal democracy and the value system it entails; the quest for freedom as an intrinsically human affair; and the dangers of demands for conformity and adherence to any point of view through silence, fear, or coercion.

True, it took a while to see what was right before my eyes. A certain misplaced loyalty kept me from grasping that a view of individuals as morally capable of and responsible for making the principle decisions that shape their lives is decisively at odds with the contemporary left's entrance-level view of people as passive and helpless victims of powerful external forces, hence political wards who require the continuous shepherding of caretaker elites.

Leftists who no longer speak of the duties of citizens, but only of the rights of clients, cannot be expected to grasp the importance (not least to our survival) of fostering in the Middle East the crucial developmental advances that gave rise to our own capacity for pluralism, self-reflection, and equality. A left averse to making common cause with competent, self- determining individuals -- people who guide their lives on the basis of received values, everyday moral understandings, traditional wisdom, and plain common sense -- is a faction that deserves the marginalization it has pursued with such tenacity for so many years.

All of which is why I have come to believe, and gladly join with others who have discovered for themselves, that the single most important thing a genuinely liberal person can do now is walk away from the house the left has built. The renewal of any tradition that deserves the name "progressive" becomes more likely with each step in a better direction.

Keith Thompson is a Petaluma writer and the author of "Angels and Aliens" and "To Be a Man." His work is at www.thompsonatlarge.com.

San Francisco Chronicle ~ Keith Thompson ** Leaving the left

Parents rebel against gay advocacy in schools
Mood:  cheeky
Topic: Columns

In the name of diversity, self-esteem and tolerance schools are including lessons about gays in more and more ways. Parents who object to this or who want to coordinate the school’s lessons with their own teachings are butting up against school bureaucrats and unions.

The Return Of The Parents

By Warren Throckmorton

Students are approaching the final days of this educational year but increasingly parents are heading back to school. While many students will soon be thinking of summer jobs, administrators, teachers and parents will not be getting a break. Controversies involving schools and social issues will be keeping the adults busy for the foreseeable future.

Weekly it seems a new situation comes into the public consciousness where schools are the centers of controversy over what to teach regarding sexuality and sexual orientation. Here is a sampling of the most recent situations:

♠ Two parent groups in Montgomery County, Maryland sued the school board over a proposed health education curriculum partially based on resources provided by homosexual advocacy groups. The curriculum and accompanying resources were so biased that a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order to halt the implementation of the changes. The order was recently continued until December, 2005.

♠ One of the groups involved in the Montgomery County, Maryland lawsuit was recently rejected in its bid to exhibit its literature at the national convention of the National Parent-Teacher Association (PTA). PFOX is crying foul because a comparable group, the Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), was allowed to exhibit at no cost last year and is back again this year. At least one of the state PTA associations is not happy. The Mississippi chapter of the PTA is supporting the right of PFOX to be at the national convention.

♠ The Iowa State Board of Education will soon determine if the Pleasant Valley (IA) School Board was correct to limit a pro-gay children’s book to the middle school. After a father complained, the school board voted 4-3 to remove The Misfits by James Howe from the elementary school as a read aloud book. The author of the book has said publicly that he wanted to write The Misfits with a gay character in order to change beliefs concerning homosexuality.

♠ In Massachusetts, a father was arrested because he refused to leave his son’s elementary school until the principal agreed to follow Massachusetts parental notification law concerning sexual content in instruction. The father, David Parker, wanted to introduce the subject of homosexuality to his 6 year old rather than the school taking that role. Schools officials declined to notify the father as required by law and provided books to kindergarten students that portrayed gay couples along side heterosexual couples.

♠ At this year’s annual meeting, the Southern Baptist Convention will be considering a resolution proposing that churches investigate whether the schools in their town promote homosexual advocacy. If schools do and will not listen, parents will be encouraged to find other educational options.
What are we to make of these eruptions of controversy?

The educational establishment, as represented by the National Education Association, would have us believe these parents are closed minded or maybe even uncaring. When asked about the Southern Baptist resolution, Melinda Anderson, a spokeswoman for the NEA huffed: ''It really baffles me how a caring parent could find fault with public schools for trying to teach children to be respectful of others.''

What baffles me is how groups like the NEA and PTA can miss the significance of these parental uprisings. In states blue and red, mainstream parents are becoming organized in unprecedented ways to express frustration over how homosexuality is being taught to children from kindergarten to high school. The mantra recited by the educational establishment comes off sounding like a feeble attempt at a Jedi mind trick – ‘what we teach about homosexuality is none of your concern; you want safe schools don’t you?’ Waving the club of tolerance, the educational establishment smugly proceeds to denigrate one set of beliefs regarding homosexuality in order to promote another.

Parents such as those who brought suit in Montgomery County are offended by the continual specter of unsafe schools raised by the educational establishment. Are schools unsafe because of traditional beliefs concerning homosexuality? Where is the research to that effect? The school system has produced no evidence.

Mainstream parents appear to be fed up with being told that their values and beliefs are intolerant, homophobic and even worse, responsible for the bullying of children. Read again the NEA statement concerning the Southern Baptist resolution. Ms. Anderson suggests that all the public schools are trying to do is teach respect; parents would like a little of that respect.

If the educational establishment does not make some moves to insure moral neutrality in instruction, I predict we will see lawsuits such as Montgomery County’s case replicated throughout the land.

In short, more parents will be coming back to school.

American Daily ~ Warren Throckmorton ** The Return Of The Parents

Warren Throckmorton, PhD is Director of College Counseling and an Associate Professor of Psychology at Grove City College. Professor, counselor and columnist, Dr. Throckmorton is the producer of the Truth Comes Out, a spoken word CD geared to young adults concerning sexual orientation.

New Social Security proposal exposes left-wing hypocrisy
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Columns

At his press conference last Thursday, President Bush added a new “progressive indexing” proposal to his Social Security reform plan that not only largely resolves the program’s imminent insolvency without raising payroll taxes, but also exposes an almost unconscionable hypocrisy in the Democrats’ position on this issue.

At odds for months in this debate has been how future payments to recipients are calculated. Currently, increases are tied to annual wage gains of the workforce. However, it has been argued that if they were indexed to the growth of inflation, or “prices” -- which have typically been much lower than changes in wages -- insolvency would be largely averted.

Unfortunately as this debate has ensued, the Democrats have depicted such a change as being a cut to the benefits of future retirees. As a result, this one issue has become its own “third-rail” as the left has been successful in casting it as thoroughly verboten.

Enter President Bush last Thursday, who in a stroke of sheer genius proposed preserving this form of wage-indexing for only the poorest of Americans, while allowing for a less generous calculation for the more financially successful members of the population.

The brilliance of this strategy is multifold. First, by retaining the more favorable wage-indexing for the poorest 30% of Americans, Mr. Bush has masterfully appealed to the heart of the Democratic Party. In the most recent election, this was by far the largest voting bloc for Senator Kerry who won this demographic by a margin of 63% to Mr. Bush’s 36%.

Consequently, the most left-leaning segment of future retirees should -- assuming the press accurately depicts this proposal -- be less opposed to Social Security reform, for it no longer has any conceivable negative impact on them.

However, potentially more important, this plan would significantly reduce the value of Social Security to the 70% of Americans who are going to see their guaranteed benefits reduced, and would likely make them more interested in the creation of private accounts to make up this shortfall.

Obviously, this is what has Democrats shaking in their boots concerning this new proposal, with prominent left-wing figures making statements so absurd that anyone within earshot must look as aghast as the Aflac duck after Yogi Berra says, “And they give you cash…which is just as good as money!”

Why? Because the Democrats in their desire to preserve the status quo have now been forced to defend the financial rights of the wealthiest Americans as being equally important as those of the poor.

Let’s understand that full price-indexing -- the least generous of the future benefit calculations -- will only apply to citizens making in excess of $113,000 per year. This represents the top seven percent of wage earners.

Therefore, to counter this new proposal, the Democrats have to portray the preservation of wage-indexed Social Security benefits for the wealthiest Americans -- people they regularly depict as being rich enough to absorb a greater tax burden than they currently are -- as being just as important as maintaining such benefits for the poor.

In effect, it’s okay to take money out of this group’s pockets in the form of taxes so that the poor can pay less, but it would somehow be inappropriate to reduce their Social Security benefits so that the poor can continue to receive what has been promised to them.

(Re-enter confused looking Aflac duck!)

What makes this even more ludicrous is that this upper echelon of wage earners has the greatest access to other retirement vehicles such as IRAs, 401(k)s, 403(b)s, SEPs, Keoghs, etc. As a result, this is the group that can most afford future benefit cuts, and to suggest otherwise thoroughly undermines the Democratic Party’s long-standing position that the rich have the financial wherewithal to shoulder the highest tax burden in our land.

Which leaves the Democratic Party with only one tenable position to solve the looming Social Security insolvency problem -- raise payroll taxes. Period. They can’t support anything else, for every other option reduces the socialist element of the program.

Whether it’s changing indexing, or raising the age at which one can begin receiving distributions, future benefits are cut forcing retirement planners to utilize other investment options that inherently reduce their reliance on this government program. And, obviously, so would the implementation of private accounts.

As a result, the president with this move has backed the Democrats into an extremely uncomfortable corner that is going to be very difficult for them to navigate out of, for now 70% of the country is going to be given a very distinct choice as to which horse he/she wants to back in this race: Do you want to keep your current wage-indexed benefits and pay more in payroll taxes today and until you retire, or do you want to receive less in guaranteed distributions years from now, but not have your taxes increased immediately?

Which option will the majority of Americans support? Well, Walter Mondale found out twenty years ago that campaigning on a platform to raise taxes is not typically a winning strategy.

American Thinker ~ Noel Sheppard ** New Social Security proposal exposes left-wing hypocrisy

A left-wing's witch-hunt on campus for a lone conservative
Mood:  don't ask
Topic: Columns

A left-wing witch-hunt on campus

The notion of left-wing political bias in the universities is widely pooh-poohed on the left as so much right-wing propaganda -- a smokescreen for an attempt to push a conservative agenda on college campuses. Sure, conservative professors may be a rare breed; but that, we are told, is only because the academy is all about intellectual openness, tolerance of disagreement, robust and untrammeled debate, and all those other intrinsically liberal values that conservatives presumably just don't get.

For a rather dramatic test of this proposition, one need look no further than Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, which is currently in the grip of a witch-hunt that would do the late Joe McCarthy proud -- except that it's directed by a leftist mob.

The victim of this left-wing McCarthyism, history professor Jonathan Bean, identifies himself as a libertarian but is widely regarded as a conservative on the campus; he serves as an adviser to the Republican and Libertarian student groups at the university. (There are reportedly no Republicans among more than 30 faculty members in his department.) A prize-winning author, he was recently named the College of Liberal Arts Teacher of the Year.

On April 11, six of Bean's colleagues published a letter in the college paper, the Daily Egyptian, denouncing him for handing out ''racist propaganda" in his American history course. The offending document, which Bean had distributed as optional reading for a class that dealt with the civil rights movement and racial tensions in that era, was an article from the conservative publication FrontPageMagazine.com about ''the Zebra Killings" -- a series of racially motivated murders of whites in the San Francisco Bay area in 1972-74 by several black extremists linked to the Nation of Islam. The article, by one James Lubinskas, argued that black-on-white hate crimes deserve more recognition.

Bean's critics charged that the article contained ''falsehood and innuendo" and that, in printing it out for the handout, Bean deliberately abridged it in a way that disguised its racist context -- specifically, a link to a racist and anti-Semitic website.

In fact, Bean did omit a paragraph containing a link to the European American Issues Foundation, which has held vigils commemorating the Zebra victims and which is indeed racist and anti-Semitic (its website features a petition for congressional hearings on excessive Jewish influence in American public life). He has told the student newspaper that he was simply trying to fit the article on one two-sided page.

By the time the letter from the outraged professors appeared, Bean had already canceled the assignment in response to criticism and sent an apology to his colleagues and graduate students. His letter of apology ran in the Daily Egyptian on April 12. On the same day, College of Liberal Arts Dean Shirley Clay Scott canceled his discussion sections for the week and informed his teaching assistants that they did not have to continue with their duties. Two of the three teaching assistants resigned, leaving the course in a shambles.

One may argue that Bean showed poor judgment in selecting the article for a reading given the offensive link it contained. But imagine reversing the politics of this case. Suppose a left-wing professor had assigned a reading which turned out to contain a link to the website of the Communist Party USA, or to a group that supported Palestinian terrorism in Israel. Imagine the outcry if the administration penalized this professor for such guilt by association.

Anita Levy, associate secretary in the Department of Academic Freedom and Tenure of the American Association of University Professors, says that making one's own decisions about the course curriculum as long as the material is relevant to the course is ''a part of academic freedom" and that it's clearly inappropriate to penalize a professor for such decisions -- especially without any due process. (While FrontPageMag.com has criticized the AAUP for remaining silent on the case, Levy says that the organization had not heard about it before and has not been contacted by Bean, whom I have been unable to reach for comment.)

A number of SIUC professors who do not share Bean's politics have rallied to his defense. Jane Adams, an anthropologist who was a civil rights activist in the 1960s, told the Daily Egyptian that the persecution of Bean ''puts an axe at the root of academic freedom and the freedom of inquiry." She added, ''For anybody who is a conservative, this has got to be a chilling case." Indeed, if this case is any indication, conservatives on many campuses are not just a rare breed but an endangered species.

Boston Globe ~ Cathy Young ** A left-wing witch-hunt on campus