In connection with my post for yesterday, “Misunderstanding and Misrepresenting the Charges Against Ward Churchill,” I was delighted to get extra ammunition and free advertising from what appears to be a smear blog whose primary obsession is Ward Churchill, and whose intended aim seems to be the ceaseless production of libel and slander while sleeplessly policing the Web for any possible Churchill sympathizers who deserve a smacking. I say I was delighted, because it is a charmingly American phenomenon: apparent victims of cerebral palsy taking up blogging with such rabid passion. As always, my clinical diagnoses may be mistaken: this may be a veterinary issue, and the problem may simply be distemper.
Let’s look at how a bad argument is made, produced off the cuff. Churchill’s detractors have not only diminished in number, but it seems also in intelligence levels. Let’s begin:
Forte’s main point seems to be that Professor Thomas Brown (who, if we remember correctly, was not on CU’s committee investigating Churchill) in a comment to a blog post over at the Chronicle of Higher Education accuses Churchill of habitual fabrication…
Let’s stop there. Thomas Brown, as I explicitly did say, submitted material to the CU Investigative Committee. I did not say that he was on the Committee. This is what happens when remedial reading lessons get neglected for, say, 30 years.
Forte goes on to define “habitual” for those third-graders following the case…
Apparently the third-graders have been too busy on Pirate Ballerina producing spit balls for Churchill to actually pay any attention.
and then dismisses this straw man with a Cheyfitzian “[a]nd yet, the CU Report only came up with seven select instances, with reference to over 12,000 footnotes.” Well, once they discovered the bodies of two or three boy scouts under John Wayne Gacy’s house, did they really need to find another 11,997 to know what he was?
Hilarious. And is Brown now a straw man? The CU Investigative Committee combed through every page of Churchill’s work, and found only seven questionable items. The blogger above suggests that they stopped when they had enough. Where does it say in the Investigative Committee’s report that they found many other questionable items, but felt no need to investigate them because seven was enough? The answer: nowhere. And the foolish idea that any police force would stop looking once it found three bodies, and would look for no more, is the kind of thinking that is the by product of an unhealthy love affair with crystal meth.
(Making Forte’s argument even more specious is the fact that he doesn’t even bother to confirm that the author of the CHE blog comment is actually Brown.)
Since that blogger is an authority on specious arguments, I will say that I am not really Max Forte. Perhaps when Thomas Brown Googles his own name, and discovers that someone posted under his name, then he can stand up and proclaim innocence. Until then, “Thomas Brown” is Thomas Brown, especially when making use of Thomas Brown’s actual arguments and previous work. Apparently the attack blogger is so embarrassed to see Brown get a taste of his own medicine, that an escape route had to be fabricated: maybe he isn’t Thomas Brown. Hilarious again.
Astonishingly, Forte later equates Churchill’s invention of people who never existed in order to bolster his historical fabrication to Brown’s use (in one of his refutations of Churchill’s defense) of an imaginary college student to demonstrate the immorality of Churchill’s historical misdeeds.
Astonishingly, nowhere in the CU Investigative Committee’s report is there any charge of Churchill making up historical characters, and then making up their dialogues, that is not then contradicted by other parts of the same report. These people attack “fabrication,” by engaging in outright fabrication (as they did in their comments below, and on that same libel blog following this post — even fabricating a comment that is made to look as if I posted it). And when you need to advance your cause by spewing lies, and the lies are proven as such, what does it say about your cause?
One of our rotating quotes is from Friedrich Nietzsche: “‘The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it with faulty arguments.” Mission accomplished, Forte.
Thank you. But you misunderstood Nietzsche — unsurprisingly — as you should have seen your clear reflection in his words. You can attack Churchill if you like, but don’t lose your marbles in the process. Hopefully, we can look forward to critics who have a greater sense of dignity. If not, then…
_______
eliza2009
24 February 2009
Don’t count on it Max!
That is about as dignified as they get, from what I read on that blog, the Chronicle and a few other blogs. You’re right: they sound absolutely spastic – like they’re thrashing in every direction. Maybe they suffer from an intellectual variant of epilepsy but then that would mean crediting them with intellect.
I read on the Chronicle where one person debating you – Clyde Barrow – first claims he never mentioned anything about genocide, then you quote his words back to him where he did, and then he answers basically ‘oh yeah, but that’s not like the holocaust’ ??? The same person claims to have a doctorate. Dumber than a sack of hammers. At the same time Brown argues with your straight quote from that U. Colorado report into Churchill and says that is a fundamental misinterpretation – as if you were saying it, not the report itself. These bozos cannot even see straight, forget remedial reading lessons. They need to lay off the home brew!
Maximilian Forte
24 February 2009
Very funny Eliza, thanks! I missed those comments on the Chronicle of Higher Education, but I gather from you that they have kept themselves busy in their idleness. Good for them, every critter needs a little play time in the muck.
Since I expect that the court will consist of at least nominally intelligent persons who actually study the evidence, rather than rehearse their cheers and jeers, I would be very surprised if Churchill does not make significant gains. The University of Colorado administration was just amazingly foolish to open itself up to this — they might be facing a crippling result, but let’s see. American courts can sometimes produce some incredibly preposterous results.
MadAxe
25 February 2009
Oh this is rich! So you did not “confirm” if that was Thomas Brown posting comments on CHE. But did this “Pirate Ballerina” confirm whether it was “Maximilian Forte” who was posting on CHE? Maybe you are not really Max Forte. Maybe Marc Bousquet did not really write that article. Maybe the article doesn’t exist. Maybe the Chronicle of Higher Education is not really the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Sure, why not? Let’s just throw everything up in the air and say that what is is what is not, because that’s exactly what their arguments against Churchill boil down to anyway: imaginary bullshit.
Cerebral palsy? That’s giving the disease a bad name Max :D
Maximilian Forte
25 February 2009
Well then another way of putting it is that cerebral palsy gives these fools a good name. By the way, thanks for sending me the STFU picture. You always seem to get the good art work, thanks again.
Ari.F.
25 February 2009
LOL!!! Great way to end a night of blog surfing! This is cracking me up! You’re a great writer Mr Forte but you have to admit this gaggle of drooling idiots made the job easier for you. Still, I couldn’t have put this better myself! Rock on!
jwpaine
25 February 2009
Libel and slander are specific legal terms, Max. Impossible to prove PB has slandered anyone, and as far as libel goes, prove it. Otherwise, issue a retraction.
Maximilian Forte
25 February 2009
You proved the case for me: you fabricated outright lies about Churchill and you did it to harm his reputation. They may be legal terms, but they are freely available to us, to use within the limits of their recognized and accepted definitions, which is what I am doing. I issue no retraction — you must be extremely delusional to even ask for one — and in fact I reaffirm everything I said.
Fred
25 February 2009
Max:
“The CU Investigative Committee combed through every page of Churchill’s work…”
Every page?? I don’t need to read any further as this is a lie and either you know it to be or you’re ignorant of what the committee actually did. Where’d you get your degree, out of box of crackerjacks—same as Ward?
Maximilian Forte
25 February 2009
I notice that the vulgar and debased critics of Churchill, like yourself for example, can never write a single sentence without puerile insults. Let this be the education that you could never afford to get in those things you call “schools” in the U.S. As for “where’d” I get my degree (I have more than one, I know, that is unusual around your parts), it was where “where’d” would be laughed at. You have a problem not only with the English language, but with math, so let me instruct you in the facts and perhaps next time you will research before you howl.
According to Ward Churchill’s CV, he has 17 authored and co-authored books: 17.
He has 7 edited and co-edited volumes (which often means at least one chapter in each): 7
He has 58 book chapters (not counting reprints, and possibly counting items from the second line above): 58
He has 28 refereed articles: 28
The rest of the material consists of small items such as book reviews, film reviews, and newspaper articles, which I don’t think the Investigating Committee looked at.
Add it up: 110 items.
Now read the March 24, 2005, statement by Chancellor DiStefano:
“we assembled and studied upwards of 100 works by Professor Churchill and reviews of his work”
They expressly excluded his 9/11 essay…we already knew that, and I did not count those as pages they reviewed. For months, the University solicited allegations of misconduct in research by those who had read his works, significantly expanding their coverage by indirect means, to ALL of his work.
Now, who is ignorant? Who is the liar? YOU ARE AN IDIOT, and thanks for allowing me to make a fool of another critic.
Feel free to come back for more, jackass.
Maximilian Forte
25 February 2009
…and from that vast mass of work, that I would like to see “Fred” match his malnourished little CV in comparison, what do critics focus on: some 1837 smallpox epidemic. One would think that: (a) Churchill is a historian, and (b) that the epidemic is a central and recurring feature of all his work. Instead, it is an absolutely minute segment of a enormous corpus of work, much of which is focused on the contemporary period. In fact, all of the disputed passages were small sections of the works in which they appeared — the CU Investigative Committee in some cases wrote many times more on a given subject of contention, than Churchill did, and inflated the importance of those passages far out of proportion to their original context.
That is also falsification, because you create a false image of a work.
Desperation, and a fanatical witch hunt, will lead the already ignorant to triumphantly declare “Eureka!” when they finally discover an ambiguous footnote, as if that were in any way the measure of Churchill’s work as a whole. His attackers are not scholars, they are people who hate scholarship with a passion, and their hate-filled obsession coupled with their fundamental ignorance speaks of individuals who are fundamentally pathetic and in utter disrepair.
Maximilian Forte
25 February 2009
Finally, let it also be noted, that I sign my name and use my actual identity, not a pseudonym, not a partial name, and I do not hide like a coward from where I can launch spurious, slanderous allegations. Moreover, my own CV is directly available through this very blog, and on my other sites, so there is also no mystery about my own many academic accomplishments, as a tenured professor in a large, urban, North American university.
On the other hand…there is “Fred.”
Ben
25 February 2009
Styling, sir. I can’t stop laughing.
Ben
25 February 2009
Fred? Fred? Are you out there Fred?
Fred
25 February 2009
Max:
“…what do critics focus on: some 1837 smallpox epidemic.”
Ward’s going to love you for this one. That epidemic is his crown jewel, the one through which he hoped to establish his historic chops, the very one central to his charge of US genocide, quack, quack, quack. This is the one for which he produced half-a-dozen different and contradictory versions. It’s Ward’s special football which he teed up, took a long run, kicked at and landed flat on his back—kind of like you. “Some 1837 smallpox epidemic” indeed.
Maximilian Forte
25 February 2009
“Fred,” when I said, “feel free to come back for more, jackass,” it was meant in two ways: come back for more, and if you do, you agree to be identified as “jackass.” Thank you for agreeing, you are now simply, “Jackass.”
Jackass, we already proved that you cannot do math or even preliminary research based on published documents, when you accused me of being a liar and ignorant. I established that my statements were based on both documented fact, and logic, but I take it that you have trouble with both. Normally I don’t let any jackass come and make baseless charges against me on my blog, and then return without an apology — but you are a special jackass and deserve special treatment on this one occasion. I will now proceed to show how reading, rather than foaming at the mouth, could have served you better.
Ward Churchill has often produced many versions of many of his works, as they went into reprint and were published in other collections. Repetition of a small part of a larger argument does not increase the size of that small argument, it repeats it in different ways, and so does the much larger argument also get repeated. The principle here is that of proportionality, and your manifest falsification lies — lies — in continuing to cast the 1837 smallpox epidemic as the central feature of Churchill’s work, as if, for example, it figured in his essays and books on COINTELPRO, U.S foreign policy, etc.
Here is what those who have studied Churchill’s work, both friends and inquisitors, as well as Churchill himself, have actually said, and note how far they contradict you, Jackass, since once again you return armed without any supporting facts:
In “Submission of Professor Ward Churchill to the Board of Regents of the University of Colorado – July 12, 2007″:
“Professor Churchill’s two paragraph statement that in 1837 the army deliberately spread smallpox among the Mandans at Fort Clark generated 44 pages of analysis on the fourth allegation. While basically affirming his conclusions, the Committee expressed displeasure with the nature, thoroughness and, in some cases, the sources of his citations. Although numerous scholars have made the same general point without any citation, Professor Churchill was charged with falsification, fabrication, and deviation from accepted reporting practices.” (Note what I said in my previous comment: 44 pages versus two paragraphs, clearly inflating the size and importance of Churchill’s own statement, and that is falsification itself: it creates the illusion, which you bought, Jackass, that this is a central part of Churchill’s overall body of work. It was not even central where it actually appeared.)
Also, had you even perused any of my recent prior posts, you would have read this, not from “friends” of Churchill at all:
The actual CU Report stated on pages 67-68 (emphasis added):
“Our investigation has found that there is some evidence in written accounts of Indian reactions in 1837 and in native oral traditions that would allow a reasonable scholar who relies heavily on such sources to reach Professor Churchill’s interpretation that smallpox was introduced deliberately among Mandan Indians near Fort Clark by the U.S. Army, using infected blankets. We therefore do not conclude that he fabricated his account.”
Read it again, then return to a day spent weeping.
Someone other than Jackass would then ask: So how could the CU Investigative Committee proceed to continue making a charge, when its own report contradicts itself on this issue? Exactly. It proceeded to exceed its duty by imposing itself as the ultimate arbiter of historical truth, imposing its interpretations as the correct ones. You do not fire someone because they have a different view of events, that is contrary to academic freedom, and it is pure Stalinism. So the big question is: why was he fired? And that is where the court battle comes in. It’s not about 1837. It’s not about two paragraphs.
What it is about is that weak minds, with totalitarian instincts, do not like knowing that someone is speaking with authority and saying what they do not want to hear. They therefore need to silence the man, utterly and permanently. This is the right-wing for you, and this is how it loves “democracy,” so much that it cannot stand any difference of opinion outside of its own ranks.
Are you not ashamed, Jackass, to see what you are? To see yourself devoted to destroying someone, while you yourself hide in the background, posting anonymously, posting lies? You don’t see how little you differ from any ordinary, base, vulgar, and ignorant member of the KKK, hiding behind your sheet, burning a cross on the lawn of Churchill? Do you not understand how despicable you are, and why people like you will necessarily lose this battle?
Why do you not have the courage to identify yourself in public, instead of being the gossipy, malicious whisperer? What is your record? Let’s scrutinize it in as much detail, let’s see how it stands. But I gather that on this point, you are ashamed, and will neither reveal yourself nor put your record out for examination. You have nothing to show for yourself, and you are ashamed. You need to put Churchill down or else you cannot pretend to raise yourself off your knuckles.
I was going to say come back to further your education, Jackass, so you can be promoted to a more senior rank in the stable. However, in the absence of any apology for your previous insults, you will not have that privilege.
Fred
25 February 2009
“Fred? Fred? Are you out there Fred?”
Sure, but Max deleted my post. Read it at PB. So much for this shithole.
Maximilian Forte
25 February 2009
(Fred came back, but he would have not seen your comment since moderation is switched on. Sorry about that, but on other issues I still get some extremely vulgar attack spam that I cannot allow to appear…and to respond to every troll like I do to Jackass below risks degrading the entire blog.)
Maximilian Forte
25 February 2009
Where was your post deleted? I approved all the filth you submitted here, Jackass.
Maximilian Forte
25 February 2009
Not only did I approve all the crap “Fred” sent here, I responded to it, in one case I responded in three separate postings right above. Now he is claiming his comment was deleted — which is another PLAIN AND OUTRIGHT LIE. This is how these “people” function.
Let’s see how they malfunction:
If you want to make the 1837 argument that Fred Jackass wants to make (but apparently cannot make, beyond mere allegations), this is how you proceed.
(a) The unit of analysis is: ALL of Churchill’s work;
(b) You identify all the thematic elements of all of his work;
(c) You identify each distinct argument he makes, and then list the kinds of supporting facts he uses to justify his argument;
(d) You then follow the author’s lead in telling you what is more important, what is less important;
(e) You then come to an estimation of the weight of 1837 in relation to all of the above.
It is not a simple task, and not one for fools. However, I can simplify it, even for fools:
Let’s pretend for the sake of argument, that I control all time, past and present. As this kind of deity, I decide one day to simply delete 1837 altogether. There is 1836, and 1838, but no year in between. Everything that happened that year, everywhere in the world, is now gone.
Can Ward Churchill still make an argument that American Indians suffered genocide? I say, yes, of course he can, because it is not one smallpox epidemic that makes genocide. Prove me wrong.
And if you can’t prove me wrong, see the image above.
Maximilian Forte
25 February 2009
Finally, a note to all readers: “Fred” is privileged to post here, it is not his right. I have not deleted any of his comments, yet. Should he return yet again, without apologizing for the false and baseless charges he made here, against me, his next comments will most certainly not be approved.
eliza2009
25 February 2009
Fred is almost certainly suffering from dementia. Either that or his reading ability is far worse than even you imagined, Max. I went to his shithole in fact, and saw him post the exact same comment to which you responded above. He says it was deleted here. I see it. He doesn’t. He is either drunk or the dumbest liar I have seen on the Internet, and that is one hell of an accomplishment.
Maximilian Forte
25 February 2009
Eliza, thanks again, and I don’t know what his game is now. That blog, as I said, and as absolutely everyone can verify for themselves, is an obsessive smear blog populated by anonymous characters who manufacture complete lies. That they also try to create new lies, in plain broad daylight, as Fred just did, shows you just how desperate and how extreme they are. If they were academics, they would be immediately fired for gross misconduct, because you cannot go and spread lies and baseless allegations against other academics without paying a heavy price. Personally, I don’t think any of them are scholars. They hear one version of an allegation, ingest it, further simplify it, and they all recite it as truth. Thomas Brown is the only academic I recognize among them and you tell me if you can find him in any department anywhere. I tried — whatever he thinks his accomplishments are in publicly flogging Churchill’s footnotes, one might be forgiven for assuming that Lamar University was not impressed enough with him to keep him there. Where he is now, I don’t know — the most I could find is a blank entry (on Rate My Professor) for a certain “Thomas Brown” at some Northeast Community College. They like to assert that distinguished historians have disagreed with Churchill — you can be certain that is true, since Churchill aimed to be unorthodox, which means going against received wisdom — but what none of those distinguished historians do is either run vulgar attack blogs infested with snide and gross remarks, nor do they visit and praise such blogs. These bloggers are on their own, and they know that.
Again, thanks for your visits and your comments.
Maximilian Forte
25 February 2009
For those who are interested, I can further back my claims that the people at PIRATE BALLERINA engage in outright libel, slander, and smears, and that they engage in plain fabrication. As I said before, when you have to advance your cause with LIES, what does it say about your cause?
Besides lying about my deleting “Fred’s” inanities above, they also lie about me posting on their lurid little blog. It is my very strict policy to not add free content to blogs that I despise.
See this link:
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/pirateballerina/881/?src=hsr#90739
That is not me posting. That is one of them, simply adopting my name, and claiming that I would say: “I am a professional, god damn it!”
They have been further exposed for what they are. This is what Churchill’s opposition looks like, and this is what real academics need to be exposing and condemning.
Another of the self-deluded members of their mutual stimulation ring writes, “Once you wade through all the ad hominem and posturing, Forte appears to finally have realized — two steps behind the rest of the world — that Churchill did some wrong things. Now he’s retreating to the position that Churchill’s transgressions are not that big a deal.” Notice they can dish out the ad hominem, but not take it, and only complain once thet get a taste of their own medicine. Then, another complete fabrication: that I retreated. I retreated on no point, I advanced. I defy anyone to look anywhere above, or in my previous posts on Churchill, to see where I say that Churchill either did some wrong things, or that his alleged “transgressions” are not a big deal.
These characters simply cannot write one single sentence that is either not an insult, or a gross lie. Their only specialization is libel and slander, and they are disgusting.
MadAxe
25 February 2009
Oh please Max let me go and throw peanuts at the animals in their little comment cage! I yearn for the chance to meet assholes like these in person.
I smell a stench coming from that shitpile and it’s the stench of an imploding empire.
larry c wilson
25 February 2009
There is no profit in using reason with unreasonable individuals.
Maximilian Forte
25 February 2009
I like Larry Wilson’s advice and I think it is the best way to end on this post.
Maximilian Forte
25 February 2009
No, follow my advice: do not add free content to blogs such as that, it only serves to add value to them. I think we have done enough to further expose them for what they are, they have proven our case for us with their every word. Everything they say, how they operate, serves to fortify Churchill’s case, and ours. Apart from right-wing shock-blogs, nobody will ever quote that blog approvingly. They are also doing a wonderful job at setting themselves up for a libel case in court. They live in peril, and you can detect it in their shrill statements.
For logistical reasons, my advice would be the same: if it cannot wrap its small head around a single sentence or fact, then how do you expect a bacterium to wrap its small mouth around something as huge as a peanut?
Leaving them aside, I have some good news that may interest you and Eliza, and when I next get a chance I will post it: a very interesting conference by a group called R.A.C.E., that I participated in when I was in Toronto in November — a really great multidisciplinary event focused on colonialism, past and present, I wanted to write a mini “report” but have not yet found the time — will be holding its next conference here in Montreal this coming June. Even if you don’t want to present a paper, you should consider attending it. I know that Eliza lives in Montreal, and it may be a period in which you are also here, I hope. Until soon, thanks again.
Tyndale
26 February 2009
Mr. Forte, you really shouldn’t waste your effort. I’m not as thorough or adroit as you are in crushing Fred but it hardly matters. He won’t respond to issues of substance and he won’t engage in real debate. I occasionally waste me time arguing with these ninnies and usually get sucked in rather quickly and brought to their level. I am certain you have better things to do with your time, and I encourage you to pursue those endeavors. That being said, this has been fun to watch, especially the math section. Thank you.
eliza2009
26 February 2009
Hello Max! There is always room for dessert as they say: I went to save copies of the Chronicle of Higher Ed. messages and I found this one for you it was the last one when I checked. I think you’ll like it. Come to think of it, you had better make your own copies too, the administrators of that site might start deleting comments after this one came in. (To be honest the first paragraph made me feel a little ashamed. I wish I had taken part there.)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
This was very disturbing and disheartening banter. I congratulate Dr. Forte for having the fortitude to bear alone with what I see are between three and five debating adversaries and and yet he managed very effectively. I also thank him for doing a service to the rest of us who appreciate that this is indeed a controversy generated by political intolerance and that threatens academic freedom. I do not believe that it is possible to reason any further with the likes of some of the villainous individuals who have sullied this website but once again we must thank Dr. Forte for trying.
Thomas Brown, you take issue with Dr. Forte’s words. Yet it appears he was quoting the words of a report that you apparently supported because it was the report that led to the firing of Prof. Churchill. You now find yourself in a situation of contradiction and you fall back on some irrelevant details about an epidemic thereby missing the larger point. The report was flawed, and your very disagreement with a point made by that report must show you, even you, that there is a problem here.
“Not a CU Alum” I pray is not an alumnus of any self-respecting degree granting institution. His/her commentary is too highly strung, unreasonable, and even downright irrational. You come across as an inebriated sports fan at a college tailgate party. You refer to Dr. Forte’s “theory”, but there was no theory as such. You too have therefore missed the point altogether and you disqualify yourself as a reasoning interlocutor who is too prey to his or her emotions. You appear to be driven by a deeper hatred and not a thirst for knowledge and that makes you shameful.
Mr. Barrow, you are by very far the most contemptuous and downright hysterical writer here. You unfairly, and to be candid quite idiotically accused Dr. Forte of essentially putting YOUR very own words back into your mouth. Rather than humbly acknowledge that simple fact, and that you lost track of your statements (as forgettable as they rightly are), you instead try to change the discussion to one about Israel. You have provided sufficient reason for your degree to be revoked and whichever low grade institution granted you that degree will now stand embarrassed by you. You have the temerity to call Dr. Forte a “crackpot” and yet many of your comments consist of screams. You are hysterical and should avoid all academic debate as you are clearly neither emotionally nor intellectually equipped for such discourse.
Leah you are dishonest. As a matter of fact, 199 CU professors, not seven as you say, took out an ad to protest the treatment of Prof. Churchill. That may still be a minority but it is a very large minority to say the least, and far more than seven. If you did not know this, you should have reserved comment until that time that you could better acquaint yourself with the facts of the case.
I would like to request that the comment moderator delete their comments as they do a clear disservice to the quality and reputation of what is generally a fine and respected publication. Indeed, I was extremely disappointed to see them here. I hope that such a situation will not be allowed to repeat itself.
Thank you.
— Xever · Feb 26, 01:10 AM ·
Maximilian Forte
26 February 2009
Many thanks for your comment Tyndale. Of course, I know you are right. I believe that what first suckered me in was seeing such commentary on the Chronicle of Higher Education, which I had not realized had become a bit of a YouTube in terms of the level of the commentary — I wanted to believe that academics could not post such astounding remarks, unsupported by anything except extreme prejudice, and then found myself believing that many were not academics and were exploiting a space without challenge. The Chronicle, until then, was a place where I thought it was safe to discuss issues from many viewpoints, without extreme acrimony. To see the repetition of this stereotype of universities as dominated by “liberal leftwing whackos,” even in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, in spite of the very fact that the discussion is about the firing of a figure they would immediately classify in the same way, seemed shocking. These are people who do not let actual facts disturb their very rigid, and very extreme view of the world, so they pose a danger to others, and ultimately to themselves.
I realize that for some in the U.S. (and really, this seems to be true nowhere else in the world except in Muslim dominated dictatorships) “liberal” being left of Ultra-Fascist is then treated simply as “left.” It makes one wonder what kind of positions these types are really advancing, and what kind of university they would see as appropriately “mainstream” in their world. Perhaps it really would be one that teaches that the earth is 5000 years old, and Jesus walked among dinosaurs. It is frightening, but some tens of millions of people actually did go out and vote for the likes of a Sarah Palin and John McCain only recently.
Maximilian Forte
26 February 2009
Eliza, I have read this about five times, and I am extremely grateful for it. You have nothing to feel guilty about, rest assured, just put that aside. “Xever” (to me the name sounds Albanian) has made all of the points that really needed to be made, with much greater clarity than I was able to do. It is a sharp and lucid statement that does not descend to their level. He (or she?) makes the same observation that I made to Tyndale, that it was shocking to see such commentary (a la YouTube) on the Chronicle. I am not against diversity of opinion, but clearly the ad hominems came from one side only to begin, and they ended with ad hominems, and it would seem that the Chronicle would not want to tolerate debased forms of communication. I also think that Xever carefully read through the comments and clearly saw the pattern that was in them, what was being evaded, what deflections were being created, and the fabrications that were being advanced. To my mind, if I had been the recipient of his comment to one, “You appear to be driven by a deeper hatred and not a thirst for knowledge,” I would feel embarrassed and ashamed for a very long time and would not be able to apologize enough to clean myself of this charge. This was an amazing piece, I am very happy for it.
Maximilian Forte
26 February 2009
Finally, since I did receive a legitimate complaint from one person who felt that victims of cerebral palsy were being unfairly and wrongly stereotyped as intellectually dysfunctional, my sincere apologies. I believe that if any impairment that carries a formal name had been used, then at least some of those with that impairment would feel as if they personally had been named. No such offense was intended.
However, it is also vital that an academic should go beyond reading the discussion for its possible relevance to their personal situation, or the particular situation of those close to them, on matters not germane to the actual point of the discussion.
MadAxe
26 February 2009
Max, I was just kidding! Those bums have not done anything to earn free food. Besides that would be another socialist handout, right? I would bet they think socialist handouts are good only for their father figures in private industry.
Maximilian Forte
26 February 2009
I know you were kidding, I was playing along in a way.
Maximilian Forte
26 February 2009
This is Fred Jackass moaning about his idiotic commentary:
“Odd, but the time stamps don’t support your version. After I posted here, my stuff magically reappeared at Max’s shithole with later time stamps. Imagine!”
Jackass, I can change a time stamp to suit if I wanted to. Clearly I did not, and you engage in another bald faced lie. You are not capable of anything better, obviously. You can alter timestamps, which is what you probably did to make your case. The fact remains, your comment is here, it did not need to be, and I responded nonetheless.
You fled, you are thus a cowardly jackass to boot.
And note: there are NO time stamps here.