We at Campus Progress were very pleased that Jacob Laksin, senior editor at FrontPageMag.com and researcher for David Horowitz's book The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, was able to attend our conference last week. We especially enjoyed Mr. Laksin's participation in an engaging and informative panel discussion on academic freedom. And we are happy to see that Mr. Laksin posted a thoughtful review of our conference ("Crashing Progressive Camp") on the popular FrontPageMag.com earlier this week.
Indeed, we enthusiastically agree with Mr. Laksin's conclusion--that the overall impressiveness of the students at our conference was an "encouraging" sign of the emergence of a active, and effective progressive community on college campuses (and in America).
In short, we encourage our readers to read Mr. Laksin's review. However, we'd also like to take the liberty of pointing out two inaccuracies in it.
First, contrary to what Mr. Laksin writes, Senator Obama (the conference's keynote speaker) did not describe "the Left's unwillingness thoughtfully to consider conservative arguments as a 'poverty of ambition.'" Rather, Senator Obama used the phrase "poverty of ambition" to make the point that there is more to life than making money--a good message, we think, for young people about to enter to embark on their careers.
Senator Obama's full statement was, "It's easy to just take that diploma, forget about all this progressive politics stuff, and go chasing after the big house and the large salary and the nice suits and all the other things that our money culture says you should buy," he said. "But I hope you don't. Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself, and it will leave you unfulfilled."
Nothing in there about conservative ideas -- we wish Mr. Laksin had been a bit clearer about that.
Second, Mr. Laksin states that "slogans, rather than reflection, were the order of the day." Mr Laksin is referring to the fact that our conference featured one panel on press strategy and one on marketing--two elements we consider crucial to any successful campaign, progressive or otherwise.
However, Mr. Laksin conveys the impression that press and messaging was the main focus of our conference--writing that "not one" of the panels at our conference the day "focused on the substance of the message that students were to commit their energies to publicizing."
This is simply not true. Our conference featured nine panels on issues ranging from poverty, to foreign policy, to immigration, to science, to college affordability, to academic freedom--as anyone can see from the conference schedule.
Our differences notwithstanding, we enjoyed having Mr. Laksin at our conference. In the interest of fostering a free exchange of ideas--something we at Campus Progress are deeply committed to--we continue to welcome him and his colleagues to any and all Campus Progress events, and look forward to working with him and other conservatives in the future.
Former Virginia Governor and '08 hopeful Mark Warner was the keynote speaker at the third day of the YearlyKos convention. This was the first time I've ever heard him speak, and he seemed to connect with the crowd at times. Indeed, his personal story is compelling -- living out of his car at age 26, he got into the nascent cell phone industry and helped found Nextel. He went from business into politics, getting involved with the state party and eventually being elected governor of Virginia.
His list of aconcrete ccomplishments as governor is impressive by any acccount, ranging from improving inner-city schools to balancing the budget to expanding broadband access in rural communities. Overall, both his record as governor and the thrust of his speech emphasized effective problem-solving over partisanship.
The crowd seemed impressed by his accomplishments, and he got applause on lines like, "we need a foreign policy that unites our friends and divides our enemies -- not the reverse," and for being in favor of net neutrality. To me, the general enthusiasm seemed ample but not overwhelming. The crowd seemed to hunger for more red meat, more Bush-bashing, and talk of people power and how bloggers are changing America. On that front, for better of for worse, Warner did not deliver.
Pennsylvania State Representative Gib Armstrong, who has been David Horowitz's main backer in the PA legislature, lost his primary yesterday. This leaves David Horowitz deprvied of the most ardent supporter of his campaign to suppress the free exchange of ideas on college campuses in Pennsylvania.
Rep. Tom Stevenson, the Republican leader of the PA House and chair of the academic freedom committee, also lost. Rep. Stevenson will be missed; unlike Armstrong, Stevenson was a thoughtful guy who seemed to do his best to look out for Pennsylvanians' best interests. He was the kind of conservative you could have a thoughtful discussion with and agree to disagree (unlike Horowitz and Armstrong). Unfortunately, Stevenson was defeated by an opponent who is significantly farther to the right than he is.
According to the media coverage leading up to the primary, the fatal flaw of Stevenson, Armstrong and a lot of the other incumbents who lost yesterday was voting to give themselves a pay raise at a time when PA voters are finding it harder than ever to make ends meet.
When "Facts Count," a new report by the CP-supported Free Exchange on Campus coalition that exposes the distortions and manipulations in David Horowitz's new book The Professors, was released last week, Inside Higher Ed and the Chronicle of Higher Education ran stories covering the release. (The Chronicle story is my favorite because it contains this typically thoughtful response: "Mr. Horowitz called the report 'stupid.'" Touche!)
Apparently not wanting to disappoint readers desirous of a lengthier (if no more compelling) response, Horowitz posted his email exchange with the Inside Higher Ed reporter, Scott Jaschik on one of his many websites last week. The exchange is a vintage example of Horowitz's whack-a-mole method of argumentation: when one argument is proven false, it suddenly disappears, and another one pops up somewhere else. Read More »
This may not be new, but it's definitely notable. Last year the conservative magazine Human Events Online (HEO) asked "a panel of 15 conservative scholars and public policy leaders" to help them compile a list of the "10 Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries." Included on the list are books by Hitler and Mao, with Marx beating everyone out for the number one spot.
But just below Mein Kampf and Mao's Little Red Book are works by John Dewey, Betty Friedan and John Maynard Keynes.
Hitler and Mao were totalitarian dictators responsible for the deaths of millions; Dewey helped lay the foundation for the American system of public education, Friedan helped found feminism, and Keynes' economic theories were the basis for much of FDR's domestic agenda, including the New Deal. Read More »
You know you've really made it when David Horowitz's empire of front groups takes notice of your work. At least, that's how those of us at Campus Progress and the CP-supported Free Exchange on Campus Coalition are feeling these days. Over the last few weeks, Horowitz and his various astroturf organizations have been publishing "responses" to posts by Free Exchange and Campus Progress, each sillier and more shrill than the last (For example, see here and here).
Yesterday, Horowitz himself "responded" to the findings laid out in Free Exchange's Horowitz Fact Checker by calling us "internet fascists" and dismissing the dozens of inaccuracies, distortions and manipulations of truth we've exposed as "differences of opinion" and "trivial errors common to any published text." Read More »
Speaking at Penn State to hock his new book last week, David Horowitz got a bit more of the sweet stuff he trolls the countryside searching for - attention. Read More »
Ever have one of those moments when you've had to stop and ask yourself, "what the...?"
I had one of those moments today. A colleague of mine at Free Exchange was researching the distortions and manipulations in David Horowitz's book The Professors, and came across a doozie.
Apparently, a student at Ball State University (BSU) wrote an article for BSU's website criticizing a lecture given by Professor George Wolfe. Horowitz, apparently trolling the BSU site, wrote the student an email asking him to submit the piece for publication on his website, FrontPageMag. Naturally, Horowitz also took the liberty of suggesting a few additions to the student's piece.
The student made the changes and submitted the piece. Two days later, a piece appeared on FrontPageMag under his name, about the same professor. But that's where the similarity ends. Horowitz re-wrote the student's piece in its entirety, amped up its inflammatory tone, added inaccurate information - and published it under the student's name. Read More »
Horowitz and his followers have taken note of the CP-supported coalition Free Exchange on Campus' newest feature, the Horowitz Fact Checker (HFC). The HFC points out the myriad inaccuracies and misprepresentations in Horowitz's book "The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America," and gives the professors in it a chance to defend themselves.
Yesterday, Horowitz "researcher" Jacob Laksin responded to our post on Professor Larry Estrada by re-hashing the allegations in the book and accusing Estrada of not exhibiting a proper "appreciation for America."
As our post points out, Estrada has held publicly-elected office in Los Angeles, Colorado and Washington state; he has received commendations for his civic and community work from two different governors, along with a tribute from the Colorado state senate (which at the time was composed of a Republican majority); and he served his country honorably as a U.S. Marine during the Vietnam War.
Yet Horowitz and "researcher" Laksin question whether Estrada has a proper "appreciation for America" because he's a member of a Latino group called MEChA that describes its members as "bronze people with bronze culture." Read More »
Check out this great column from Scott Jaschik in Inside Higher Ed. In it, David Horowitz admits that he has no evidence to support his claim that the professors in his book are "murderers."
To read the piece is to watch David wriggle in classic fashion as he tries to shirk responsibility for his words. First, he tries to blame his publisher, saying he "didn't write the flap jacket on my book and was not even shown a copy of it until the covers were printed." Then, he changes his mind and makes a feeble attempt to stand behind his words, saying he has nothing to retract. Then, he caves and admits he's wrong: "Horowitz, asked if the term 'murderer' didn't normally mean someone who had killed someone else, said that 'no one to my knowledge in my book actually pulled the trigger so to speak.'"
Well David, which is it? Did the publisher do it? (Perhaps it was Professor Plum in the study with the candlestick?) Or do you stand by your allegations? Or do you admit they're not true?
On his personal blog on FrontPageMag, the nation's premier website for David Horowitz telling David Horowitz what a star David Horowitz is, David Horowitz announces to his army of aspiring David Horowitzes that David Horowitz will be "dealing with" Free Exchange on Campus, a coalition of which Campus Progress is a leading member.
Free Exchange is fighting Horowitz's efforts to get state governments to regulate what professors can and cannot teach in the classroom, and what kind of ideas students should be allowed to be exposed to. Read More »
For more on Horowitz and efforts to beat back his crazy crusade, check out Free Exchange on Campus, a Campus Progress-supported coalition that is fighting efforts to restrict the free exchange of ideas on campus.
This is Adam from Campus Progress. I'm in New Orleans this week helping out with an alternative spring break cleanup project sponsored by John Edwards' youth organization, Opportunity Rocks. I'll be blogging all week about the sights and sounds of the Big Easy, six months after Katrina.
This morning we drove into St. Bernard's Parish to see the neighborhood where we'll be working the rest of the week. The land here is low and flat, basically on a level with the river. There's not a single hill on the horizon - nothing to hold off floodwaters except the levees. It's easy to imagine how this area would find itself underwater if the levees were breached like they were when Katrina hit. Read More »
......and another defeat for David Horowitz. Yesterday the Arizona senate voted to kill an ABOR-inspired bill that would have required professors to offer alternative curricula if any student objected to the content of a course. Campus Progress is part of new a coalition called Free Exchange on Campus that helped defeat this bill.
This is second defeat in two weeks for ABOR-inspired bills - and both came in state legislatures with conservative majorities. The message is clear: America is saying no to ABOR. Time for Horowitz to pack up his marbles and go home.
In his appearance at Duke yesterday, David Horowitz was confronted by a group of students protesting his ad-hominem attacks on professors, including Duke faculty. (Here's a full list of the professors on David's blacklist.) How did David deal with the opposition? Accuse them of rooting for another 9/11, naturally.
For a succint explanation of why Americans agree more with the progressive philosophy of governance than the conservative one, check out this lede from an article in today's New York Times:
"Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to a higher federal gasoline tax, but a significant number would go along with an increase if it reduced global warming or made the United States less dependent on foreign oil, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll."
There you have it, short and sweet: taxes are bad, but we're willing to bear them in the service of a greater good.
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