I guess Morton Blackwell's Leadership Institute needs
more money?
A good friend of mine received a letter from DeLay two days ago bemoaning the takeover of college campuses by liberal professors, promoting Morton Blackwell's "Leadership Institute" (which is an organization that funds conservative student groups on college campuses) and asking for money. Of course, my friend is one of those liberal professors (and more on why he got this letter in a bit), so he was pretty amused by the flat out lies in this letter.
I'd like to share some choice passages with you below...
This seven page letter is full of anecdotes and lies. It begins with the "story" of Jason Redding (a "young college student" - we know not where). DeLay claims Redding was told this by a professor:
If you are a conservative, you might as well leave this class because your viewpoint is not welcome here.
Excuse me if I am a bit skeptical about this "story" - I know a lot of professors and doubt this is true - especially when DeLay claims, "Jason's story is not unique."
DeLay also claims that, "liberals enjoy a near stranglehold on American college campuses. They often overwhelm students with a flood of leftist propaganda."
Liberals also "control the textbooks, the course selection, the 'official' student newspaper, the student government and, of course, what's taught in the classes."
Okay, let's see here...
- Textbooks: Um, McGraw Hill is real liberal...Plus, I pick my books based on whether or not they adequately cover course content and are useful to the students.
- Course selection: Not really sure where he's going here. Since when are courses like math, physics, business, economics, public relations, I could go on and on, liberal?
- The 'official' student newspaper: Sure, sometimes faculty are advisors, but the students usually create the content (unless you teach where I do and the university president influences the paper - and he's best buds with Tenant, so I wouldn't call him a liberal...)
- The Student Government: whaaaa? I don't know of many faculty who have anything to do with student government, and i would bet money that the students involved in student government organizations would not welcome the kind of faculty involvement DeLay is suggesting.
- What's taught in classes: well, after you get through teaching the required non-political content of most classes, there's not much time left over for politicking - and I don't know many profs who bring politics into the classroom anyway (unless the class is about politics). I suppose if teaching critical thinking is liberal, he might have a point...
This is, effectively, an effort to trample on First Amendment rights and silence the voices of some on college campuses through misinformation and lies. The letter states that the purpose of Morton Blackwell's Leadership Institute is to train, "...the right people to have a long-lasting influence on public policy." I'm sure we can guess who those right people are.
This letter goes on to tout DeLay's hard work ('cause that's what got him where he is today). I guess ethics violations are hard work. I suppose "The Hammer" believes that 106K trip to South Korea was a well-deserved reward for his hard work.
In addition, the letter describes how representatives of this Institute fight the good fight on college campuses:
The first step to establish a new conservative student organization is to run a membership table to attract students.
The Institute's table proudly displays a big, colored 24-inch by 36-inch poster with prominent pictures of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. [I didn't realize these were still the poster kids for today's conservative youth...]
A large sign above the poster invites young conservatives to "sign up here." And they do.
Many, many young conservatives are attracted to these membership tables.
But liberals stop by, too. And they're angry.
And here's where it really gets good. DeLay includes a few more anecdotes - Are they true? You be the judge:
- When Morton's staff set-up a membership table at one university in Virginia, a professor brought his class over to harass Institute fieldmen. The professor screamed and yelled wildly, then retreated to his classroom.
- At Old Dominion University in Virginia, thieves stole conservative literature and the valuable list of eager students who had signed up that day at the membership table.
- One history professor said, "Fidel Castro is the greatest leader of our century."[historians don't label people this way - they don't go for "top ten" type lists and such...]
- At one campus, two Institute fieldmen and one local student were actually kicked off the property by administrators. [Gee, if this is true, do you suppose they did anything to warrant the dismissal?]
The letter goes on to hype the successes of a few conservative student groups (The Berkeley Conservative Foundation, The University of New Mexico Conservative Alliance, and Wake Up America - a conservative student group at Vanderbilt University) and ask for money.
And while all of this BS is pretty pathetic, what's really amusing is the fact that the recipient of this letter has never given a dime to conservative causes, yet the letter repeatedly thanks him for doing so and encourages him to continue his support of conservative causes. Wonder who DeLay's people bought the mailing list from?
My friend has tried to get his name off these lists many times - and is told it's been done - but the letters and phone calls keep coming. He's contemplating a lawsuit for the simple purpose of gaining discovery to see if the GOP is doing anything illegal with their lists. Hmm, ya think?
I am just really tired of the liberal college bias BS that DeLay and others use to scare people into giving money. It really provides a false impression of what goes on on college campuses and what the purpose of a college education is. Right wingers are afraid of education because it might actually cause a young person to question what they've been told is right and what they've believed in their short 18-22 years of life. Opinion and dissent does not need to be silenced - it needs to be encouraged. If DeLay is worried conservative youth can't think for themselves (which I tought was to their benefit) and can be so easily swayed by the perceived mad ramblings of some professor, they've really got a problem.