<p>"Have either of you considered that “average US citizens” - including college students - are constantly barraged with right wing propaganda of the sort which could convince 40% of the public to believe that WMD’s actually were found in Iraq long after it was clear that there were none there (55% of Republicans who got most of their information from Fox News)?
"</p>
<p>Kluge, allow me to respectfully disagree with your proposition that Joe Average is constantly barraged by right-wing propaganda. It is a fact that MOSt of what the average citizen listens or watches is liberal or left wing based, starting with Hollywood, the press, the media, and academia. </p>
<p>Regarding academia, it is not even worth debating that the group ranges from mild left to the abject left, with a few token conservatives who sueaked through. That does not, however, bother me much at all because one learns by listening to the other side while going through a process of self-evaluation and … self-improvement. </p>
<p>The fact that ultra-liberals DO teach at the pinnacle of education is not a real problem; the problem starts when the sheer number becomes overwhelming and stifling under the direction of a few rotten-to-the-core apples. </p>
<p>As far as the existence of WMD, would you be kind enough to share with us what the “other” party line was in the previous 10 years, starting at the end of 2000. The faulty information did not simply surface at the “coronation” of Dubya. On this issue, can we not assume that Junior Senator Clinton had the benefit of being a Senator and having been First Lady. </p>
<p>PS I only watch Fox for the football coverage and a few select shows. Heck, I still follow Troy Aikman! On the other hand, I thought that their coverage of the last presidential election night was better. Well, that was not hard … when Dan Rather was an option. Oops, the right wing is supposed to have all the biased reporters!</p>
<p>Xiggi, you are confusing content with the message. We bombarded with the materialistic message from the moment we get up to the moment we go to sleep.</p>
<p>We are taught from a young age that the way to a successful life is to be obedient, work hard, accept the corporate culture, accept your place in life and don’t make waves, and buy stuff. </p>
<p>We are bombarded with ads from radio, tv, newspapers, magazines, the internet, and soon to be the cell phone. You can’t sit in a movie theater without ads showing up. </p>
<p>We are taught from a young age that the key to happiness is to buy stuff.</p>
<p>We are not taught that one of the keys to happiness is to learn how to think.
We are supposed to go to our jobs, then go home, have a beer, relax, and then go shop or spend money. </p>
<p>The more we produce, the better. The more stuff we own, the better. The higher the GDP, the happier we will be.</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong. I like making money. I’m part of the culture. :)</p>
<p>I do not necessarily disagree with your rather common view, but for the life of me I cannot figure out in which way it refers to either Xiggis post, or the OP. </p>
<p>Your comment reminds me of the Verizon commercial wherein the chief executive of X corp purchases a Verizon phone plan so he can stick it to the man: he is the man. As is George Soros, Michael Moore, Streisand the liberal Hollywood Mafia, and many other media-mavens and million and billionaires made rich on the sale of the products of a materialists society. </p>
<p>Many million/billionaires are also conservative or Republican. Still, no one denies that Academia is heavily tilted to the transparent end of the liberal spectrum. I distrust all people in power, from presidents and prime ministers, to husbands in patriarchal societies, to studio heads, to university presidents, to department heads, to professors intoxicated by their own dispositions. It serves us well to mis-trust the current administration because they sit in the seat of power (with sanity and reasonableness). In the universities, these positions of power are maintained by left-wing professorsvery left of center liberals, many with a chip-on-their-academic-shoulders. Most believing (as Mini) that the Democratic Party is a right-wing party, sold out to the man. A pedantic herd of liberal individualists.</p>
<p>There was recently a thread involving a piece Id written on a Shakespeare bio. There could hardly be a less political subject, and yet many felt it was quite politicized; maybe, maybe not. It makes me wonder, though; if Shakespeare can be a political subject, imagine women and ethnic studies departments; History; Sociology; Psychology; Religion, etc.</p>
<p>Paying for lectures is a cheap and vulgar trick; however, UCLAs response seems an overly restrictive policy for an academia that prides itself on the free exchange of ideas.</p>
<p>I am responding to this paragraph in Xiggi’s post.</p>
<p>“Kluge, allow me to respectfully disagree with your proposition that Joe Average is constantly barraged by right-wing propaganda. It is a fact that MOSt of what the average citizen listens or watches is liberal or left wing based, starting with Hollywood, the press, the media, and academia.”</p>
<p>We are not bombarded with left wing propaganda.</p>
<p>The media networks are not owned by left wing nuts. They are owned by corporations. These corporations want to make money. </p>
<p>I really like the Verizon commercial. The content of the ad is to make fun of the number 1 guy. The message is to buy Verizon products. The message is what is important.</p>
<p>The democratic party isn’t very different than the republican party. It is also owned by the corporation. The democratic party needs money to survive and the corporate world has the money.</p>
<p>I kind of have a problem with the George Soros, Michael Moore, Barbara Streisand types. The way they live does seem to be contrarian to their public messages, but life isn’t black and white. It is very gray.</p>
<p>What do you think is more “common”: well-meaning liberals who decry the state of our materialistic, corporate culture, or well-meaning conservatives who rail against the out-of-control liberalism of the academy?</p>
<p>Wait, i just thought of something even more common than either of those: the easy condescension that the safety of the internet affords us.</p>
<p>Care to compare each others tendency to avail themselves of the easy condescension that the safety of the internet affords us.</p>
<p>Ill go first:</p>
<p>Beyond the attention he gives to diversity and change, etc. etc., President Wright does not give the audience too much to work with. That is, his stance is socially and culturally neither good nor bad. Vague, and all at once inoffensive and phlegmatic, President Wright leaves the audience with not a few loveable bromides: Dartmouths diversity mirrors the richness of our society; Responsibility comes because we embrace it, it does not come otherwise; what affects any of us affects all of us. Lets just get it out, at Dartmouth College the bell tolls for thee, jerk-off!
<a href=“http://www.dartreview.com/archives/2006/01/20/forbes_keys_off_mlk_day_celebration.php[/url]”>http://www.dartreview.com/archives/2006/01/20/forbes_keys_off_mlk_day_celebration.php</a></p>
<p>I wrote that little vignette about James Wright, the President of Dartmouth Collegethe one I attend. It was published last week in The Dartmouth Review. My name is on the by-line. Safety, huh?</p>
<p>I didn’t think anybody read any of my posts! But, yes, you’re right–I’ve indulged, and a tasty dish it is. I’m sure I’ll go back for more, striving, as always, to leaven its sharp flavor with a dash of wit, or at least some intelligence. Bon appetit.</p>
<p>I think the essential right-wing message that suffuses every public communication in our environment has become so pervasive that it has become simply accepted as delivered truth: “He who dies with the most toys wins.” Greed is good. There’s no such thing as “too rich” or “too thin.” Success in life means being “in” with the right crowd - rich, popular, influential. Helping others is for suckers. When you shape a people’s attitudes and values you shape their politics. Academia, which defies the prevailing message by insisting that there are values that are more important than accumulating wealth (i.e., accumulating knowledge) necessarily violates the underlying tenet of American society. It’s no surprise that Academia would be perceived as being “left” of the rest of America. How could it be otherwise?</p>
<p>Xiggi: Did it ever occur to you that University campuses are centrist, and the corporate American mentality which dominates every other aspect of life is actually right of center? Everyone assumes that their beliefs are in the center, but compared to what? “Liberal”, “conservative”, “right”, “left” - all relative terms.</p>
<p>The WMD comment was directed at the fact that in May, 2003, long after it was known that no WMD’s were found in Iraq, half of the people in America were not merely unaware of that fact, but affirmatively believed that WMD’s had been found there. (And like I said, a majority of those who were republicans and claimed to be actively following international news developments held that false belief.) Don’t you find that something to be concerned about? And don’t you feel it’s worth keeping in mind when contemplating the political beliefs of “average” Americans?</p>
<p>Correct! Relative to the Americans they instruct, their American parents, American neighbors, American mom & pop shop owners and those Americans stuck in traffic. That is, the only beliefs that matter (for matters of comparison). It would take a big lump of sugar to get <em>anyone</em> to swallow the centrist academic pill.</p>
<p>Kluge, I really do not want to go into a lengthy debate. </p>
<p>As I said I am confused by what DS wrote, and still confused after reading your post. I really do not understand the discussion about greed being an attribute of … non-liberals or that the values that are more important than accumulating wealth are held only by liberals or democrats. </p>
<p>I do -more or less- understand what democrats and liberals “think” they stand for. I also think they really and unequivocably stink at implementing most of their lofty ideas. From my vantage point, I do not see them taking many responsibilities. They love to hide behind idle and hypocritical rethoric - especially in the highest ivory towers of academia. </p>
<p>Crass materialism may be bad, but, just to repeat a few names, I rather see more wealthy people such as Bill Gates than cynical buffoons such as Michael Moore. One tries to change our high schools by spending billions of his own fortune; the other attempts to amass millions by merely sensationalize our misfortunes. Who is the hypocrit?</p>
<p>PS If academics are really centrist, shouldn’t they start answering polls about their political affinities in a different way? Don’t they vote 9-1 anti-republican, and would they not continue to do so even Bozo the Clown were leading the dems? Oh wait, maybe he was, but just wearing other clothes in 2000 and 2004!</p>
<p>Talk about hypocrits- during a WAR, companies are profitting beyond their wildest dreams</p>
<p>That is so patriotic of them to sacrafice some profits to help our nation in its time of battle</p>
<p>Please, the word Conservative - all that means know is stick your nose in my business and make as much money as possible without talking any concern for your fellow Americans</p>