May 25, 2005
Dangerous Clowns (Part 3)
By Pamela Troy
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
[Part 3 in a 4-part series.
Part 1 is at: http://www.buzzflash.com/analysis/05/05/ana05015.html;
Part 2 is at http://www.buzzflash.com/analysis/05/05/ana05016.html.]
Taking Names
We must be feared, so that they will think twice before opening their mouths. -- Eric Heubeck, The Integration of Theory and Practice
I tell people don’t kill all the liberals. Leave enough around so we can have two on every campus – living fossils – so we will never forget what these people stood for. -- Rush Limbaugh, quoted in TAKE THEM AT THEIR WORDS, by Bruce J. Miller with Diana Maio
A pattern that has become more and apparent on both the
official and grassroots level is that of conservatives compiling lists
of dissidents, or individuals perceived as dissidents. Activists have
found themselves on “no fly lists” or even the subject of “preemptive”
arrests. Attendees at events where Bush or Cheney speak have been carefully
vetted, with those identified as liberals or Democrats turned away as
if their political affiliation alone qualifies them as security risks.
In Fargo, North Dakota, about forty people were listed as barred from
Republican events for such radical activities as expressing criticism
of George W. Bush. Recently in Denver, three people were denied entrance
to the event because someone had spotted a “No Blood for Oil” bumper sticker
on their car.
The use of blacklists, of course, is nothing new. It was the hallmark
of the Red Scare, and those of us who are old enough and well educated
enough to be familiar with the history of the HUAC [House
Committee on Un-American Activities] and the career of Joseph McCarthy
are also familiar with how and why the use of such blacklists are a detriment
to an open society.
Unfortunately, like the lessons of the Second World War, the lessons of
the Red Scare are falling from living memory, and cynical conservatives
have been quick to take advantage of this historical amnesia. The Bush
administration might be somewhat cagey about its lists, blaming overenthusiastic
Republican volunteers and computer database glitches, but younger conservatives
seem to be less aware of the implications of the lists they compile, and
therefore more transparent about the attitudes and motives that drive
them.
For that reason, one of the most blatant examples of this penchant for
taking names is David Horowitz’s right-wing organization euphemistically
named Students for Academic Freedom. SAF has inaugurated a campaign in
which Republican Student organizations at American universities are invited
to keep dossiers on individual faculty members’ political affiliation.
Their web site links to a document entitled HOW TO RESEARCH FACULTY PARTY
AFFILIATIONS, which advises students on how to compile a list of school
administrators and tenured or tenure track professors and set up an excel
spreadsheet that includes the individuals’ first and last name, party
affiliation, department, address, age, and gender. They are instructed
to match these spreadsheets to voter registration records, record the
party affiliations and send the spreadsheets to Horowitz’ organization
via email. Horowitz’ organization is compiling a database of University
employees and their political affiliations.
How that information might be used by these youthful zealots was illustrated
recently at Santa Rosa Junior College in California, when ten instructors
came to work in February of 2005 to find flyers decorated with red Soviet
stars affixed to their office doors. The flyers’ text was a quote from
an obscure California law, which forbids “the advocacy or teaching of
communism” with the intent to indoctrinate, communism being defined as
“the political theory that the presently existing form of government of
the United States or of this state should be changed, by force, violence,
or other unconstitutional means, to a totalitarian dictatorship which
is based on the principles of communism as expounded by Marx, Lenin, and
Stalin.”
The Santa Rosa Junior College Republicans shortly afterwards confessed
to posting the flyers. Molly McPherson, the organization’s president first
said that “we did this because we believe certain instructors at SRJC
are in violation of California State Law,” then, more vaguely a few days
later, that “there have even been accounts of JC teachers openly advocating
Communist and Marxist theories,” then even more vaguely, that “The opinion
of the far left is presented as fact, with no alternative.”
What’s especially striking about the Santa Rosa incident is the apparent
naiveté of the students involved. The SRJC Republicans seemed unable
to distinguish between liberal opinions and the advocacy of Communism.
McPherson not only described the faculty reaction to having stars anonymously
posted on their doors along with accusations of criminal behavior as “of
a magnitude that I didn’t expect,” but made the incredible assertion that
the red stars had not been meant as a personal attack against the individual
instructors. There was no evident comprehension on the part of the SRJC
Republicans of the historical and political implications of what they
were doing.
There was also an odd attitude of either impunity or cognitive dissonance,
in which claims were made about merely wanting to promote “fairness” even
as liberal instructors were denounced as communist law-breakers and California
College Republicans gloated over silencing the opposition through dirty
tricks and intimidation.
A look at the California College Republican message boards linked to the
JRJC-CCR web site contradicts the claim that the CCR is in any way interested
in ensuring fair-mindedness on campuses. The folder entitled “Lefties
on College Campus” contains a single message enthusiastically promoting
a Horowitz wannabe site in which students are urged to submit the names
of liberal professors. Another folder, entitled “College Republican Triumphs”
contains two threads, one entitled “How to Kick Liberal Groups off Campus
101” the other by the same author entitled “Students First! Triumph 2003,”
and consisting of a long, repulsive description of how the College Republicans
at UCSD used dirty tricks to destroy a “communist” organization on that
campus. (An example of how this College Republican defines “communist”
is instructive. “While ‘communist’ is a very strong term, it is a deserved
one, this guy was a ‘Dean-iac’ watching precincts for that moron.”)
One passage from this posting describing the writer’s behavior at a debate
is especially worth reproducing here.
Robert and I decided to grab front row seats in order to debate the communist [the “Dean-iac”] … So we sat down with a couple tall glasses of beer and got ready for our oral assault. What was great was that the sound system was crappy at best. So nobody could really hear what the candidates had to say. So when the communist [name withheld] began to speak, Robert and I launched our attack. ‘COMMUNIST!’ ‘YOU’RE A GOD DAMN LIAR! BULLSHIT!’ and “STOP LYING COMMUNIST!’ were just some of the many different phrases we yelled. Since the sound system was total rubbish, no one heard what [name withheld] had to say.
That someone would boast about this kind of behavior on
a public board is, for a reader familiar with the history of the Third
Reich, a bit staggering. The image it conjures up of Brownshirts swilling
from steins and shouting down Social Democrats in a German beer hall is
inescapable.
And it’s in this atmosphere that college Republicans are being encouraged
to compile lists of college employees and their party affiliations.
Taking the names of individuals and their political or religious beliefs
serves, not only to earmark the listed individuals for future punishment,
but to notify anyone who might consider expressing or acting on similar
religious or political beliefs that they are being watched. If this trend
is allowed to continue Americans may find themselves thinking twice about
what most of us consider the normal expression of political beliefs. We
may end up on a list somewhere if we wear the “wrong” shirt or drive with
the “wrong” slogan on our bumper. College instructors may hesitate before
challenging students even in the normally acceptable venue of classroom
discussion, not because it would be inappropriate (it would not), but
because they cannot afford the professional or personal consequences of
an angry student adding them to David Horowitz’ database.
We are in danger of descending into the kind of political environment
only Streicher and his spiritual descendants could want, in which one
side has succeeded not by convincing, but by intimidating into silence
everyone who has opinions outside a narrow range of beliefs. There is
no arguing with people who simply yell, “shut up,” so loudly that you
can’t make yourself heard. There is even less argument possible with people
who yell, “Shut up or we’ll hurt you.”
[To be continued ... This is Part 3 of "Dangerous Clowns,"
presented as a 4-part series.]
by Pamela Troy
© 2005
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS