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A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
November 21, 2001
Tariq Ali
Killing
Mr. Biswas
November 20, 2001
Sam Bahour
Plain
Truths About Palestine
Michael Ratner
Moving Toward
a
Police State
November 19, 2001
Edward
Said
Suicidal
Ignorance
November 18, 2001
John Farley
Shame on You,
Chelsea!
Kalpana
Sharma
Flower
Power:
A Blow for Peace
Tony Mauro
The Quirin
Ruling:
FDR's Horrible Precedent for Bush's Terror Courts
C.G. Estabrook
American
Crusades
November 17, 2001
Zoltan Grossman
It Ain't
Over Til It's Over
November 16, 2001
Rick Giombetti
Rep.
McDermott and
the Decay of Liberalism
Fawzia Afzal-Khan
The Voices
of Muslim Feminists
Mokhiber/Weissman
Kill,
Kill, Kill
November 15, 2001
George
Monbiot
Blasting
Our Way
Toward Peace
Jack McCarthy
Hitchens
Mind-Meld
and Hot Bodies
Steve
Perry
Afghan
Puzzle Palace
RAWA
We Do Not Accept
the Northern Alliance
November 14, 2001
Jensen/Mahajan
The
Press Must Press Harder on Afghanistan
David Vest
The Great Unificator
Harry
Browne
Preventing
Future Terrorism
November 13, 2001
Peter Mahoney
Veteran's
Day, 2001
Rep. Ron
Paul
Expanding
NATO
Is a Bad Idea
November 12, 2001
Robert Jensen
Goodbye to
All That...
Patriotism
Nancy
Oden
My
Day at the Airport
CounterPunch Wire
East Timor
10 Years
After the Massacre
C.G. Estabrook
Instead
of Terror
Alexander Cockburn
Wide World
of Torture
November 11, 2001
Douglas
Valentine
Homeland
Insecurity: The Politics of Terror in America
November 10, 2001
Grover Furr
Seeking an Opposition
to the Afghan War
Bruce
Kyle
Anatomy
of a Green Smear:
Backstabbing Nancy Oden
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bin Laden and Bush
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The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
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Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
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A Pocket Guide to
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November
21, 2001
Academia Under
Attack:
Sketches For A New Blacklist
By David Price
My office is cluttered with over 20,000 pages
of FBI files chronicling the damage inflicted on academic freedom
in America by McCarthyism. These hundreds of different files
tell divergent stories with various twists, turns and morals,
but most of them are bound together by a simple feature: the
names of these individuals who's lives were invaded and altered
appeared somewhere, sometime on a list of subversives, and the
FBI read these lists and opened investigatory files (or added
to existing files) on these individuals. There were countless
lists of suspect academics printed in publications such as the
American Mercury, Readers Digest, newsletters of the American
Legion or various religious denominations. Most often these
individuals had taken public stands on unpopular issues such
as peace, racial, economic or gender equality.
These lists are making a comeback, as
once again intellectuals with minority views are being identified
and tracked by censorial groups. One such group is the American
Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA). The ACTA is a Washington,
D.C. based organization with the proclaimed mission of being
"dedicated to academic freedom, quality and accountability."
Oddly enough its primary means of reaching this stated goal
is by intimidating scholars who assert these principles of academic
freedom in ways that run counter to the ACTA's narrow views of
the past and present.
The ACTA recently produced a 38 page
pamphlet that in many ways reads like a prototype of a neo-McCarthyist
blacklist for our new hot war (see: http://www.goacta.org/Reports/defciv.pdf).
The pamphlet, "Defending Civilization: How our Universities
Are Failing America and What Can Be Done About It" compiles
117 quotes from respected American academicians critical of current
US policies. These quotes range from gentle questions concerning
the propriety of specific actions, to radical critiques of American
policies and practices, but theses quotes lead the ACTA to make
the charge that "college and university faculty have been
the weak link in America's response to the attack" of September
11th.
ACTA Chairwoman Emeritus and national
"Second Lady", Lynne Cheney, is quoted on the pamphlet's
cover endorsing the need for Americans to study the past-though
the envisioned past she'd have us study is clearly compartmentalized
in ways that serve hegemonic interpretations of the current crisis.
Cheney tells us that "living in liberty is such a precious
thing" as the pamphlet compiles a list of Americans whose
liberties the ACTA would like to see reduced. But Republicans
like Cheney are not alone to blame for this pamphlet designed
to threaten those who would actually practice academic freedom.
Besides Cheney the remaining members of the ACTA governing board
are two of Cheney's NEH colleagues (Jerry Martin & Anne Neal)
and two conservative Democrats Joseph Lieberman and Richard Lamm.
The pamphlet has a few tantalizingly
strident quotes such as the widely publicized (and later apologized
for) quote by University of New Mexico historian, Richard Berthold
that "anyone who can blow up the Pentagon gets my vote",
but most of the quotes are moderate in their view and tenor.
In fact, one of the remarkable things about this pamphlet is
how relatively tame or even common-sensical many of the quotes
are. For example CCNY sophomore Nuriel Heckler's observation
that "we don't feel military action will stop terrorism,
but it will lead to racism and hate," or Jesse Jackson's
statement that we should "build bridges and relationships,
not simply bombs and walls." To the ACTA such moderate
suggestions are too much, and must be shouted down.
This pamphlet title's use of the term
"civilization" is significant. As anthropologist Thomas
Patterson recognizes, traditionally "civilization's champions
have claimed that the institutions and practices of the ruling
classes and the state are desirable and necessary in that they
maintain order and underwrite the conquest of nature."
That academics are not choosing to engage in supporting this
modern conquest is indeed disappointing to the ACTA.
That American intellectuals would raise
the ire of censor-prone conservatives like those at the ACTA
is natural. The refusal of academics to reduce the current war
to simplistic analyses of good versus evil, or civilization versus
tribalism should be upsetting to those who view intellectuals'
chief duty as rationalizing the actions of state. The ACTA is
opposed to independent thought during this time of war and it
seems to sense no danger in their wish to muzzle and intimidate
knowledgeable individuals who are trying to add more information
to an ill informed public during a time a crisis.
The American Association of University
Professors (an organization who abandoned many professors during
the days of McCarthyism) has thus far come out with strong support
for the principles of academic freedom. Last month Mary Burgan,
the AAUP General Secretary noted "a distrust of intellectuals
has always lurked beneath the surface of American popular opinion.
Now it has begun to leak out again-either through the frontal
assault in the partial reporting by the New York Post of a forum
at the City University of New York, or the sidewipes at "campus
teach-ins" by a respected columnist like Tom Friedman or
others such as John Leo." So far the AAUP is standing on
the side of academic freedom, but this is a fight in which we
must remain ever vigilant.
There is no criticism too strong for
those who would intimidate and stifle free thought and expression-especially
during times such as these when knowledgeable scholars' access
to the public via the media is being curtailed. That members
of the ACTA's board are among those who can bend the ear of our
new Home Security Office should cause us all grave concern, and
we must be doubly vigilant in protecting the rights of those
of us who exercise our rights of descent. CP
David Price
is Associate Professor of Anthropology at St. Martin's College.
His forthcoming book is Cold War Witch Hunts: The FBI's Surveillance
and Repression of Activist Anthropologists. dprice@stmartin.edu
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