The Second Annual Academic Freedom Conference came to an unceremonious close with a "debate" between David Horowitz and President of the American Association of University Professors Cary Nelson. And by "debate," I mean "an oppurtunity for Horowitz and his supporters to make ad hominem attacks against the AAUP and liberals."
Horowitz chided Nelson for not partaking in intelligent discourse on at least three occasions, and, each time, preceeded to call the AAUP anti-freedom, supporters of terrorists, or holocaust deniers. And I guess that's what passed for intelligent discourse, since one of the 30 people still in the room after the debate confronted Nelson about AAUP taking "a third of its budget" from terrorist groups. My guess is that the only way this could have been less intelligent is if Horowitz and co. insulted the moderator -- oh wait, that happened. Now Scott Smallwood of the Chronicle of Higher Education knows that he, too, is opposed to academic freedom.
Horowitz had obviously lost his grip on reality, but by his closing statements, he really let loose. He began by complaining that he was only one man and therefore couldn't be expected to actually verify anything he says (even though he has his own magazine, a student organization, and a budget of $14.5 million). He then went on a tangential rant about how corporations are funding....liberals? Some great moments:
"Everyone knows that businesses fund liberals." So thats why businesses gave over $600 million to Republican candidates in 2004, $200 million more than they gave to Democrats and more than 65% of the republican party's budget. It was an elaborate ruse, some sort of double-cross -- good work, Horowitz!
"Businesses do business, not politics." Just because the Students for Academic Freedom can't walk and chew gum at the same time, doesn't mean that corporations can't do it. They gave more 60% of all political donations in 2004, totalling more than $1.5 billion and far surpassing any other group.
"95% of all CEO's are liberal." This is just a dirty, dirty lie. Business associations provide more than 80% of their political donations to Republicans, and CEO's of the automotive, tobacco, food, chemical and waste industries all give substantially more money to Republicans than Democrats. Out of top 20 most pro-Democratic industries, the only groups with CEOs to speak of are the entertainment and media industries.
Now this all would have been insulting if anyone cared. But Cary Nelson, who looks like Santa Claus raised in the 60's, spent the whole debate chuckling, and our undercover blogger contigent already had their brains melted by four hours of wingnuttery. So congratulations, David Horowitz, you successfully preached to the choir and that one guy watching you on C-SPAN. You can put this one in the win column.
And Mao ZeDong's attempt at indoctrination (and violent revolution, I guess):
COINCIDENCE?
Rule number one of youth indoctrination: Don't call your philosophical manifesto the "little red book." Needless to say, David Horowitz broke this rule within 30 seconds of taking the mic at the Second Annual Academic Freedom Conference this Saturday -- and seriously, did a movement that wants to muzzle free speech on campus really need more authoritarian overtones?
Good news everyone! Democrats are invited to join the Students for Academic Freedom, and all they have to do is to concede that they are bad people who hate America! While Joe Lieberman may still want to join up, it was pretty clear to everyone at the conference that Democrats were either a) not fit to be in the presence of Mr. Horowitz or b) too busy aiding terrorists to come out to the conference.
David Horowitz introduced the second panel by saying that "it was always my ambition to make this a nonpartisan organization" -- and then the panel proceeded to tell us that we should join the College Republicans on campus and make 9/11 memorials that aren't "politically correct" like the liberals want (I'm still trying to figure out what the difference is between a liberal and a conservative 9/11 memorial). Only one speaker talked about professor bias at all, and even he explained that College Republicans was "a great organization."
Former Pennsylvania Rep. Gib Armstrong out-wingnut-ed the rest of the panel, though, by saying that "it's a great irony that people whose fundamental instinct is totalitarianism are called liberals." He also explained that liberals "hate freedom" because they want to allow professors to express their opinions in the classroom and that its no wonder that they support terrorists. He also said that "those who trade freedom for security deserve neither" -- which was totally irrelevant to the rest of his speech and a wonderfully ironic move for a Bush "let's wiretap and torture everything" Republican.
This is a conference where, when a veteran was explaining how he was called a "baby killer" by a socialist (who has no connection to the college's administration, but its somehow their fault anyway), a member of the audience called out "just like those abortionists!" Horowitz, who admits to getting millions of dollars from conservative donors, is pretending to be non-partisan; but when liberals are treated as totalitarian, evil, anti-american baby killers at his conference, its a hard sell.
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