Maggie's FarmWe are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for. |
Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page
Categories
QuicksearchLinks
Blog Administration |
Thursday, January 27. 2011Brooklyn College Rescinds Appointment Of Pro-Palestinian Activist (Update)I wrote on January 19 about the appointment at Brooklyn College, my alma mater, of a pro-Palestinian activist – just 1 ½ years into his own PhD studies -- to teach a graduate course on the Middle East. After that the New York State Assemblyman of the district adjoining the college protested in a letter to the college president and copied the Chancellor of the City University of New York (who had also received letters of protest from other influentials).
Here’s the follow-up article. The Assemblyman says, “I am absolutely thrilled that Brooklyn College made the right decision and removed Professor Petersen-Overton from his post.” So am I. It should still be a serious concern to know more about the appointment, as I originally wrote,
Here’s the straight forward TV coverage from WPIX-New York. Petersen says on TV, “I have very vocal views in favor of the Palestinian cause for self-determination.” The reporter says that Petersen hopes to rally support from other professors and that he plans to appeal. That would be an opportunity to further reveal the answers to how and why this pro-Palestinian activist was hired, and to reveal the CUNY professors who may believe Petersen is a qualified professor. -- Update: The PoliSci department chair who hired Petersen doth protest. Surprise, not. Update: A pro-Palestinian supporter of Kristofer Peterson shares Peterson's email to him: “I was not contacted by Brooklyn College administration at any time during their decision-making process. This politically motivated action undermines CUNY’s longstanding legacy as a stalwart defender of academic freedom.” Here's a sample of the graphics that is featured with the writing of this friend of Peterson: "You must act now to stop the Holocaust in Gaza..." Comments
Display comments as
(Linear | Threaded)
Nice report --on the academy's interminable 'fourth wall' experiment --
Bravo to the assemblyman for having academic standards that apparently the college itself lacks. Mr. Peterson's supporters will make this an issue of free speech, but his hiring was a travesty. Free speech means he can stand on a street corner and say whatever he likes, but he has no business teaching a course on the Middle East. Hopefully further exposure will explore how this non-scholar political agitator was hired by an accredited college.
Unfortunately, B.C. has become a hotbed of pro-Palestinian anti-Israeli activities. Several years back I went to an IRPE lecture on the middle east. What a fiasco that was. 3 people got up and began condemning Israel. When everyone protested, we weren't permitted to talk. I sent a letter to the dean where I objected regarding what had gone on. Despite the fact that the dean was not in attendance, she said my letter was inaccurate. I never went back to IRPE. B.A.,M.S. B.C.
Pro-Palestinian does not mean Anti-Israel--however, it does make for a facile rallying point, patriotism being the last refuge of scoundrels (and illiterate scoundrels, here).
To illustrate: since the U.S. State Department continues to state that in order to protect our access to oil in the Middle East three million people in Gaza must continue to be starved into submission under conditions identical to a medieval siege while watching as the land of their forebears--dating back thousands of generations--continues to be usurped using "legal" means rooted in racial, ethnic, and religious exclusion, we must identify the population being starved and bombed and summarily vilified by their new colonial masters--as "Araboushim" the Israeli word for nigger. Our American ancestors called "indians" "redskins" while mercilessly mowing them down with muskets and skinning them and displaying their carcasses as a warning to terrorize women and children to create what the Germans called "lebensraum" for ethnic (white) Americans. We then marched them off their lands into camps and backwaters, where they died of starvation and disease or by means of massacres identical to those being perpetrated against Palestinian Arabs by the U.S. funded State of Israel. (Three billion dollars per annum). To blind oneself from the realities on the ground is to abet the same forces that ran wild within the Third Reich--ones that it becomes too clear with each passing day the Israeli state has fallen prey to. Theirs has been a betrayal of a once benevolent idea--seeking to constitute a state where none existed in order to protect a decimated religious and racial minority. It is a vicious irony that the very same crimes done to the ancestors of those who created Israel, are now being done to Palestinian Arabs by them. It is more vicious that the Americans are accepting such crimes. The victims of victims are not lesser human beings. Alas, I am merely a sixteenth generation American with direct ties to the first slave plantations chartered in 1619, to those who founded the Republic, whose great-grandmother served in the Eisenhower administration, and whose uncles served in the U.S. Congress, as an Admiral in charge of the North Atlantic Fleet, and, one whom ran the General Dynamics corporation. What do I/we know about these things? You say:"What do I/we know about these things?"
Apparently a slanderous use of inapplicable analogies coupled with distortions. @ED
You do realize of course, having all the degrees you do, that pro-Palestinian does not automatically mean anti-Israeli, right? Just checking... Higher education professionals sometimes forget that not all of the alumni squandered their 60's and 70's college years at demonstrations, riots, and political actions. Some actually went to class and learned stuff, like how to think for themselves.
This thwarts the professionals intentions to stack the faculty with those who share their own political biases. Unfortunately, they don't get thwarted often enough. Obama is allowing the Muslim Brotherhood into the U S. Will they be teaching also? Our media forgot to mention this little item.
From the Israel National News-- "The Barack Obama administration has decided to lift a ban preventing Muslim Scholar Professor Tariq Ramadan from entering the United States. Ramadan, an Egyptian currently living in Switzerland, is a leading member of Europe’s Muslim Brotherhood branch and the grandson of the movement’s founder Hassan al-Banna. The Muslim Brotherhood is the parent organization for Hamas and some of the groups that recently merged into al-Qaeda, including Ayman al Zawahiri’s Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Ramadan was invited to teach at the University of Notre Dame in 2004 but the George W. Bush administration revoked his visa, citing a statute that applies to those who have “endorsed or espoused” terrorism. The administration later dropped the terror endorsement claim and linked the ban to $1,336 in donations Ramadan made between 1998 and 2002 to a Swiss charity that was later blacklisted by the US." IT is time for Aljazeera (Arabic) to stop plugging the lousy Muslim Brotherhood. They had no role in the protests whatsoever. This is a most lousy and reactionary organization in contemporary Arab history. During the Cold War, they served as a mere reactionary tool for the Saudi-American alliance. They went against Nasser (only to serve Saudi agenda and to sabotage preparation for war against Israel) and yet they were asleep during the Sadat and Mubarak regimes. The branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in Lebanon, Al-Jama`ah Al-Islamiyyah, is bought off by the Hariri family, and in Jordan it spends its time paying tribute to the ruling family.
Read people, read for yourselves!!!!!!!!! |
Tracked: Jan 27, 18:00
Those of you spending tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars for your children’s college education, and paying taxes to support colleges, may be interested in a current brouhaha at my alma mater, Brooklyn College. A doctoral student, 1 ½ years
Tracked: Jan 28, 14:39
Brooklyn College President Karen Gould today announced the re-hire of Kristofer Petersen. His appointment to teach a graduate course on the Politics of the Middle East had been rescinded last week, after a furor over his avid pro-Gaza writings, activ
Tracked: Feb 01, 01:01
Tracked: Feb 01, 11:47
Tracked: Nov 29, 11:40