David Horowitz's "The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America" By Carol Rae Bradford

David Horowitz's "The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America"

By Carol Rae Bradford

Al-Jazeerah, October 31, 2006

PART II

In the first part I related to you that this book is quite offensive in that Horowitz is disputing--no, rather--defaming 101 professors which is not quite fair (really, illegal) in a country that believes deeply in the Freedom of Speech.

I will begin by telling you how I feel about this insult to dignity with my small but important life experience: Recalling my first days at college (night school), I first experienced the very delight in a new ability to speak out for the first time in my life, with honest fervor about what I believed to be true. This delight contained a brightness as I listened to each professor in turn. I celebrate silently to myself each time I encounter a mind. I took copious notes. Class discussion would release me from a long-term silence.

Formerly, trying to be oneself and bringing out ideas openly but gullibly to close-minded associates, even some friends and relatives, I felt as if I were a blind or deaf and dumb person, but one who clearly and painfully saw the near impossibility of making myself understood, with a consciousness filled with the futility of expressing myself. This ineptitude brought forth a feeling of impotence for I wasn’t being heard, a trial of thought alighting upon absolutely nothing but dark space. I became agoraphobic. I was a being on trial by those who would not or could not investigate, nor seek to understand what I attempted to voice. Support was not to be found. The lack of openness, the lack of exchanging uninterrupted words with real minds. Trite replies. Folks who did not change their thinking from year to year. A professor from South America decades ago said he was heavily criticized for his manner of dress and his beliefs.

It was a hurtful place to be in my young years.

Like a bright light, an epiphany, my world suddenly changed for the better during college years and after. To have this now quashed, is shocking to hearts that still live a life of freedom, of liberty, though never preaching license.

How can any group or ideology, or a government wish to stomp upon the freedom of utilizing one’s consciousness? Stop those would profess ideas independently? The attempt to grow with knowledge? The expansion of mind? The desire for illumination? But we see this happening now.

Further, how can any group or government or a religion stop one from reading "forbidden" books? Or worse, put out of work professors that preach "forbidden" subjects? This is the premise of the book we are about to look at. Academia, since 9/1, has suffered extensively. And it doesn’t help to see books such as this one published. crb

PART III:

There is not too much more to say about this writer, David Horowitz, who would most enjoy a kind of Schadenfreude against professionals. This author not only criticizes the 101, but also inserts, in many cases, many diatribes with regard to Professor Ward Churchill. He starts on Churchill even in the Introduction to this book. This professor is mentioned so very often that it would make one wonder why. Surely, it would seem that this book has been put together with an abundance of animosity and loathing. Calling some of these people Communist or Marxist or Maoists is clearly uncalled for. Marxism as I understand, is just another type of economy unlike Capitalism.

Most revered among intellectuals are Professors Finkelstein, Zinn and Chomsky, but Horowitz has more than a few words to say against them. Personally, I welcome their writings with zest. It is a blessing that everyone does not think alike. What a dull world it would be if it were so!

Horowitz is most repetitive in the two or three pages written about each of these professors. What is most serious is that in Europe and now, in Canada, we see laws being put into being where it is now illegal to write anything against Israel, even though we have seen proof that Israel is breaking international laws as we speak. Breaking these newly-made laws which forbid criticism of Israel can now bring imprisonment,
as has happened with Faurisson, Irving, Zundel (covered in this book), along with others. Sadly, there are movements within our own State Department to impose laws in America in similar fashion. This is frightening to those Americans who like to discuss, dispute and oppose proposed laws or resolutions, which, if brought into being, could be a serious detriment to this democracy. There are already some laws that hurt us presently, such as the taping of our telephones, and we may see some future laws forbidding free speech with regard to the Internet.

Moreover, the loss of these professors, some of which have already been ousted from their positions, is a detriment to a living and breathing United States Constitution as we have known it. This represents a stopping of our freedoms, the respect of the "other," and a gain for those who would dare, as does Horowitz, to stamp out our most precious freedom to think, and then to state publicly what we will. The case of Professor Sami al-Arian is so totally sad and unfair, it would seem that it cannot happen in America, but it has, and even though cleared to a great extent, he is still in jail. He is another attacked by Horowitz.

Truthfully, it is not that most would stop Israel from its perhaps precarious existence, but that Horowitz and others like him, would attempt to impose unjust laws that would stop Israel from even being criticized! Other countries are constantly being given sanctions for doing even less than Israel is guilty of. Or, they are attacked, but certainly not for the reasons given to the American people by its present Administration.

These 101 professors, to be sure, should now counter with a book against Horowitz’s thesis, and strongly object to this kind of writing that would impose and has already imposed sanctions on academic research and discussion not totally in agreement with pro-Israel ideology and its strong aversion and world-wide movements against healthy, diversified and wider-based views.

On a positive note, I give thanks that David Horowitz has introduced this reader to a detailed list of professors who share a variety of dissident views, views that provoke thought and open discussion. Perhaps we can’t agree with all of these teachers, but certainly they have a right to be heard.

As someone has already said, "Dissent is Patriotic!"

***

By David Horowitz, a former leftist, President of the Center for the
Study of Popular Culture; Founder of Online Newsmagazine: FrontPageMag.com

REGNERY PUBLISHING, Inc., 2006
An Eagle Publishing Company, Washington, DC

_________________________________________________________________

Carol Rae Bradford, M.Ed., October 17-21, 2006
Cbrad4334@aol.com
The writer is a 10th Generation Direct Descendant of
Governor William Bradford of Plymouth Colony

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

Apartheid Wall


The Israeli Land-Grab Apartheid Wall built inside the Palestinian territories, here separating Abu Dis from occupied East Jerusalem. (IPC, 7/4/04).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank, like a Python. (Alquds,10/25/03).