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Iraqis at Harvard
Peter, is there any way the Ashbrook Center can provide Harvard’s poor Iraqi guests a somewhat less alienating vision of American freedom? A sample of what’s in store for them in the PRC: Here is a bit of the syllabus for Prof. Bernstein’s course to be attended by the Iraqi visitors at Harvard:
We will use the methods of Cultural Studies to consider US imperialism not only as a military venture, but as a cultural project. Cultural Studies is (to offer a very condensed definition) an interdisciplinary field that focuses on the creation and flow of power and resistance, especially through ordinary people’s uses of mass-marketed products. The field of Cultural Studies enables us to consider imperialism not as a narrowly defined governmental venture, but rather as a sprawling set of practices in which many, if not all, people participate. These practices include performances on stage and screen, tourism, holiday rituals, and the writing and reading of literature (both “high” and “popular”). One may look for imperialist practices not only in military units, but in World Fairs, museums, and schools.
Cultural Studies opens unique avenues by which to consider issues of gender. Analyses of imperialism based in military history or international relations often focus on men as colonizers and conquerors, women as victims. In contrast, this course’s focus on culture opens the following questions:
1. How has gender affected the experiences of colonized people (and how has the experience of being colonized affected those people’s genders)?
2. How has gender affected the experiences of colonizers (and how has the experience of colonizing affected those people’s genders)?
3. How has gender functioned as part of the ideologies and strategies of American imperialism?
4. How has gender functioned as part of the ideologies and strategies of anti-imperialist activism and resistance?
These four questions constitute the heart of this course. Here’s Win Myers’s conclusion: All of this adds up to an attempt to leave the six visiting Iraqi students with the impression that America, liberator of their country, is in fact a racist, sexist, homophobic land. They will learn, in effect, just how awful life here really is, as seen through the eyes of one of the world’s most prestigious institutions.
But will they believe it? At the very least, the danger exists that they will speak with media, here or abroad, and tell of what they learned in this course. So armed, anti-American media in the Arab world can bombard its audience with news from the belly of the beast on just how horrendous life here is. Or, conversely, they may seize upon such a class to demonstrate our ostensible degeneracy to an audience already propagandized by decades of anti-Western bile.
Let’s hope that our Iraqi visitors find the presentation of life at Harvard to be so at odds with the world they observe around them, and with the nature and generosity of their hosts while they’re in America, that the conclusions they draw will be more enlightened than the ideology of some Harvard professors. Let’s hope, that is, that they ask themselves: how could a people so vicious sacrifice blood and treasure to free us from Saddam? If they draw the logical conclusion, they will have a leg up on many Harvard students and professors who, never having experienced real tyranny, spend their lives imagining themselves victims of the freest society on earth. Here’s hoping that the Harvard Republicans, mentioned in the NYT piece on Karl Rove’s speech at CPAC, make the effort to offer the Iraqi guests a different picture of life in America. Update:
Betsy’s Page has a lively discussion--well, a discussion--of Win’s post. Here’s the Harvard course catalog for this academic year; you pick the courses the Iraqis should be sitting in on. (I named my choices here.)
Posted by Joseph Knippenberg | Link to this Entry | Comments | 2/18/2005 12:46 PM
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Greenpeace Gets Stuffed
It seems some Greenpeace protestors thought it would be fun to storm the international petroleum exchange in London yesterday, but the oil traders were not amused and beat the crap out of them, sending two to the hospital. Would this have happened 20 years ago?
Reminds me of the moment in 1970 when a bunch of long-haired construction workers opened up a can of whup-ass on some anti-war protestors who burned the flag in New York city. The point to be grasped then was that while the Vietnam War was unpopular, the anti-war movement was even more unpopular. Today, while most people are "pro-environment" in the ordinary sense, much of the environmental movement has lost its moral authority and is no longer popular. I’m sure most readers in London are saying today, "Those silly blokes got what they deserved."
Posted by Steven Hayward | Link to this Entry | Comments [18] | 2/18/2005 12:10 PM
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Karl Rove speaks at CPAC
Read this, this, and then this. The President has set an agenda and the best the Democrats can do is say "us too!" The humility Beinart urges is already present in Bush’s speeches and he has already articulated the standard to which we are to be held. So the Democrats seem to be caught between rigid opposition and shameless imitation. Not a good place. Hat tip: Democracy Project
Posted by Joseph Knippenberg | Link to this Entry | Comments | 2/18/2005 11:15 AM
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The 2008 campaign
Craig Crawford swears that the campaign has already started for 2008, much earlier than ever before. O.K. Maybe. But if I were advising the Democrats, I would say this: Do not worry about 2008; be seriously concerned about the 2006 elections. You must not lose any House or Senate seats for if you do, you will have no chance of winning the presidency in 2008. And, even if you should win the the presidential election in 2008, no good will come of it for your party. Be concerned with your party, not with who the candidate for president should be. The Republicans, by being concerned with party victories in 2006, are playing very smart politics that will have lasting consequences. The Demos still seem not to get it. Hillary Clinton’s contribution to this debate (along with John Kerry and other Demos) is to urge that Election Day be made a federal holiday to encourage voting. She also pushed for legislation that would allow all ex-felons to vote. This will not solve your party’s problems, Hillary. Peter Beinart’s advice to the Demos about their rhetoric is more serious, but they are not listening to him, or, they know they can’t do it. If the Demos don’t get their act together, politics will become boring.
UPDATE: A bad omen for Hillary’s prospects. Llloyd Grove reports on a speech given by David Geffen:
Friends no more? I hope Sen. Hillary Clinton isn’t counting on help from Hollywood mogul David Geffen in her possible run for the White House in 2008. Geffen, a generous supporter and pal of Bill Clinton when he was President, trashed Hillary’s prospects last night during a Q&A at the 92nd St. Y. "She can’t win, and she’s an incredibly polarizing figure," the billionaire Democrat told his audience. "And ambition is just not a good enough reason." Geffen’s dis was met with hearty applause. (Thanks to Drudge)
Posted by Peter Schramm | Link to this Entry | Comments [4] | 2/18/2005 8:25 AM
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Big Government Conservatives
I think President Bush is a great man and I’m happy that Dennis Hastert is Speaker of the House and that Bill Frist is Majority Leader in the Senate. But did you know that since George Bush became President that the Federal Budget has grown by 38% to $2.57 trillion dollars.
George Will offers some thoughts on that here .
As Bob Dole said to equal effect, "Where’s the outrage?"
Posted by Mickey Craig | Link to this Entry | Comments [302] | 2/18/2005 8:03 AM
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The Lawrence Summers speech
Reuters
announces that Harvard President Lawrence Summers--bowing to faculty pressure--has released the full text of his speech on women. This is the so-called controversial speech that almost put an end to his career as president. Here is the full text
of the speech. The Reuters story also states that he released "a letter in which he again atoned for the things he said." I couldn’t find the letter. Now look, do yourself a favor and read this speech, which includes questions and responses, and then ask, is Summers deserving of the kind of treatment he got? Are his detractors--you know, the ones who thought they would have to run outside to throw up because of his opinions--correct in saying that this guy is some sort of closed-minded ideologue? Or, is the world quite mad? If I’m missing something, please inform me. Perhaps it shouldn’t surprise us that college presidents (Summers, and maybe six others) never have anything interesting to say. Go ahead, make a cup of Java, and read it. I’d like to hear some opinions on this.
Posted by Peter Schramm | Link to this Entry | Comments [8] | 2/17/2005 7:16 PM
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Jimmy Carter, attack submarine
The Jimmy Carter, the third and final submarine of the Seawolf class, will be commissioned in two days. It’s an attack submarine. This has led to much commentary if not merriment. My chivalrous spirit (as Bertie Wooster might say) prevents me from saying more. But others have opined, here and, perhaps the best is this cartoon.
Posted by Peter Schramm | Link to this Entry | Comments [9] | 2/17/2005 7:01 PM
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Negroponte to DNI
The President has nominated John Negroponte to the newly created position of Director of National Intelligence (DNI). Here
(PDF file) is the full record of the Senate Foreign Relations hearings (September 13, 2001) when he was nominated to be Ambassador to the United Nations. The Senate voted 95-3 to confirm him to the UN post. He has been in Iraq since June, 2004.
Posted by Peter Schramm | Link to this Entry | Comments [1] | 2/17/2005 5:44 PM
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Polygamy denied
U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart
rejected the argument that the state’s ban on polygamy violates constitutional rights of religion and privacy, saying the state has an interest in protecting monogamous marriage.
The judge emphasized his ruling was about marriage, not personal sexual conduct. He cited cases as far back as an 1878 Supreme Court ruling upholding the polygamy conviction of George Reynolds, personal secretary to Mormon pioneer leader Brigham Young.
Posted by Peter Schramm | Link to this Entry | Comments [4] | 2/17/2005 2:32 PM
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The purple finger in Lebanon?
Thomas L. Friedman is calling for a revolution in Lebanon. He makes perfectly clear that the mischief in Lebanon--once called the oldest real democracy in the Arab world--is directly related to Syrian imperialism. He reminds us that the city of Hama was leveled by the Syrian army (10,000 to 20,000 Syrians slaughtered) in 1982, and that that method is still alive. But Friedman says that Hama no longer rules, rather "Baghdad Rules" is now the name of the game:
What else can the Lebanese do? They must unite all their communities and hit the Syrian regime with "Baghdad Rules," which were demonstrated 10 days ago by the Iraqi people. Baghdad Rules are when an Arab public does something totally unprecedented: it takes to the streets, despite the threat of violence from jihadists and Baathists, and expresses its democratic will.
Rafik Hariri stopped playing by "Lebanese Rules" - eating any crow the Syrians crammed down Lebanon’s throat - and openly challenged Syrian imperialism. If the Lebanese want to be free, they have got to take the lead. They have to summon the same civic courage that Mr. Hariri did and that the Iraqi public did - the courage to look the fascists around them in the eye, call them in the press and in public by their real names, and confront the European Union and the Arab League for their willingness to ignore the Syrian oppression.
Read it all. 
Posted by Peter Schramm | Link to this Entry | Comments [9] | 2/17/2005 2:17 PM
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Read this and weep
Via Democracy Project, a post by Bill McClay about a CHE article on a suicide hotline, originally sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ. Here’s Bill’s conclusion: Having been associated for the past twenty-five years with American institutions of higher learning, most of them secular in character, it takes a great deal to shock me. But this article did. Imagine the fact that universities like Brown, and others all over the country, which bend over backwards in other respects to be as touchy-feely as possible---but where suicide among students is a shockingly common problem---have refused to make use of this service, for which there is an obvious and crying need, SIMPLY BECAUSE THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED BY A RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATION, even though there is not a shred of religious content in what that organization does---nor is anyone claiming that there is. Better to run the risk that suicidal students have nowhere to turn, than to run the risk that they might turn to.....a Christian organization. That says all that needs to be said about their priorities. And Mr. Repak has decided, it is better to renounce any and all vestiges of Christian identity than to cease providing the service.
Does the animus really extend that far? And is this the sort of attitude that proponents of "faith-based" initiatives have to look forward to? I fear that the answer to both questions may be "Yes." Enough said.
Posted by Joseph Knippenberg | Link to this Entry | Comments [1] | 2/17/2005 10:37 AM
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Politics as usual in Iraq
This is heartening. Here’s a taste: for the moment, Iraq does seem to have turned a corner politically. The most telling sign is that the Sunni Muslims who mostly boycotted the political process are now said to be looking for ways to get back in. One prominent Iraqi describes a recent meeting with leading Sunni sheiks who complained that they had mistakenly assumed that the Americans would lose their nerve, postpone the elections and thereby enhance the power of the insurgents. Now the sheiks want a piece of the action.
Whether this Baghdad Spring continues depends largely on the wisdom of the leaders of the Shiite alliance that won nearly 50 percent of the vote. This week they are negotiating over who will get the top positions in the new government that was elected Jan. 30. But perhaps more important, they are debating ways that would give the Sunnis a role in the new government. Read the whole thing.
Posted by Joseph Knippenberg | Link to this Entry | Comments [1] | 2/17/2005 9:43 AM
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More on the wrong Right
John Moser’s post below on the Birch Society reminds me to tell you that he knows of what he speaks (not that you would doubt that!). When his next book is published (next month, I think), Right Turn: John T. Flynn and the Transformation of American Liberalism you will have the opportunity to read something quite interesting and engaging about John Flynn, a man who moved from the Left to the Right, and thereby revealed some problems and contradictions in both positions. Moser does a masterful job of laying out Flynn’s "ideological odyssey." Look for it (published by New York University Press).
Posted by Peter Schramm | Link to this Entry | Comments [2] | 2/17/2005 9:14 AM
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Thunder on the Right
Schramm’s mention of the Politically Incorrect Guide to American History reminded me of a notice I received recently about the opening of the new Robert Welch University. An online degree-granting institution (its web address is a dot-org rather than a dot-edu), it is committed to "providing a liberal arts education combined with an emphasis on the timeless principles of limited constitutional government." Many of the new institution’s history courses will be taught by the author of the book Schramm was talking about. Some of you might be familiar with the name of Robert Welch; in 1958 he founded an organization called the John Birch Society. In 2000 the official magazine of the JBS, The New American, published a series on twenty five "Heroes for All Time." Among them were such advocates of "the timeless principles of limited constitutional government" as Joseph McCarthy, Augusto Pinochet, Francisco Franco, and Chiang Kai-shek.
Posted by John Moser | Link to this Entry | Comments [5] | 2/17/2005 8:47 AM
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Do Deficits Matter?
Since Bob Bartley died, I’ve been looking for a columnist who can make sense of economics for me. Irwin Stelzer, who writes for the ’Weekly Standard,’ does a good job of bringing common sense to the dismal science.
In this article, Stelzer raises the question
’Do Deficits Matter? His answer is that the current deficit of some $400 billion probably doesn’t matter that much since it is only 3% of GDP. He worries about the trade deficit.
I still miss my daily dose of Bob Bartley.
Posted by Mickey Craig | Link to this Entry | Comments [4] | 2/17/2005 8:20 AM
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Wrong history
Killing time at a bookstore I am accustomed to frequent, listlessly looking toward yet another shelf, my tired eyes were stopped by a great title: Politically Incorrect Guide to American History. Couldn’t resist, got down to it, hoping it lived up to its title. No dice. I was reeling, the hogwash between the covers gave me quite a wallop. Max Boot has done us a service. He has read it and pointed out some of the crap to be found in it. You know the stuff, Calhoun was a good guy, Lincoln a tyrant during the war between the states (as the Civil War is called), and on and on. Boot is right, shame on Regnery for publishing this hooey. The author of it, by the way, seems to be a founding member of the League of the South which "advocates the secession and subsequent independence of the Southern States from this forced union and the formation of a Southern republic." Read Boot, but don’t buy the book.
Posted by Peter Schramm | Link to this Entry | Comments [7] | 2/16/2005 7:31 PM
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Syria and friends
As thousands mourn the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in a raucous display of the depth of their anger and unity against those they blame for his assassination, the governments of Lebanon and Syria, we recall our ambassador from Syria and Russia it wanted to supply Syria with advanced missile systems. You might want to note the few comments of the Belmont Club on Syria. Note that Israel claims Iran will have the necessary knowledge to build an atomic bomb in six months. Timing. Timing is important in politics.
Posted by Peter Schramm | Link to this Entry | Comments | 2/16/2005 4:26 PM
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California GOP upbeat
There is a new mood among California Republicans, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
These are heady days for the California Republican Party, a once bitterly divided band that is unified, energized and relentlessly upbeat today.
The difference: California’s Republicans, who failed to win a single statewide office in 2002 for the first time in nearly half a century, are cheering on popular Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as he takes to the road to push his reform agenda, and following a confident President Bush as he does the same on the national front.
Posted by Peter Schramm | Link to this Entry | Comments | 2/16/2005 4:20 PM
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High school graduation rates
The Manhattan Institute (PDF file, 27 pp.) has published a study, "Public High School Graduation and College-Readiness Rates: 1991-2002." Interesting stuff. For example, Ohio graduation rate is 78%, Pennsylvania 80%, California 67%, Tennessee 57%. Worth a look.
Posted by Peter Schramm | Link to this Entry | Comments [3] | 2/16/2005 4:14 PM
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