The cowardice of the drive-by shooter: Never put yourself at risk.
That's what Andrew Breitbart does.
With no responsibility to anyone, Breitbart can manipulate anything any way he wants, never caring that he will be caught, never caring who he hurts, for no one can do anything to him.
If they try, he can hide behind the shirts of the First Amendment to the Constitution.
Outside of his so-called "journalism," only children (and drive-by shooters are children, even if grown physically) hide in such fashion, never taking responsibility, always putting blame on the victims. Only children and, of course, the abusers in abusive relationships.
Shirley Sherrod was a Breitbart victim, her career destroyed so that he could promote his own vanity by shooting at the NAACP. Instead of being ashamed of what he's done, Breitbart claims to be 'excited,' now claiming the important thing is something else entirely than what he did.
Now, a labor activist and part-time teacher named Don Giljum has lost two jobs, one with a union, one teaching, so that Breitbart can strut his stuff once more.
Breitbart and his people are just so proud! Breitbart has promised to'go after teachers,' and this is his first drive-by in this particular crusade. Or should I say, "charade."
This has to stop. We, as Americans, have to start forcing the Breitbarts of the world (including Donald Trump, but that's another story) to take responsibility for what they are doing. We need to stop allowing them to force their drive-by horror on us. We need to stop them before they destroy any more lives.
Here's what Breitbart's drive-by this week is like:
The video posted on Breitbart’s BigGovernment website is entitled “Thuggery 101: Union Official, Professor Teach How-To College Course in Violent Union Tactics.” The violence that is being done, however, is to the academic freedom and employment security of the instructors, and to the privacy and safe classroom environment of the students, some of whom speak on the video clip. When students voice their views in class, they should not have to fear that their comments will be spread all over the Internet. When faculty members rightly explore difficult topics in class, they should not have to fear for their jobs or their lives. (Death threats to the instructors have been posted on Breitbart’s blog). [from an American Association of University Professors press release]
The University of Missouri-Kansas City continues to review approximately 18 hours of unedited video from the Labor, Politics and Society class. From the review completed to date, it is clear that edited videos posted on the Internet depict statements from the instructors in an inaccurate and distorted manner by taking their statements out of context and reordering the sequence in which those statements were actually made so as to change their meaning. Such selective editing is disturbing and the release of students’ images without their permission is a violation of their privacy rights. [from the Provost's Office, University of Missouri at Kansas City]
The University of Missouri system has been besieged with angry letters and phone calls, and top officials at its St. Louis campus have asked an adjunct faculty member to resign, as a result of the conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart's posting videos this week that appear to show two labor-studies instructors advocating union violence.
A contributor to Mr. Breitbart's Web site produced the two videos, which run roughly seven minutes each, from about 30 hours of lecture footage taped as part of a distance-education course and uploaded onto the university's Blackboard course-management system. [from The Chronicle of Higher Education]
It's easy enough to find Breitbart's dishonest edit of the class. Crooks and Liars has
posted the unedited full quote from one of the instances.
Here are some other links:
http://www.columbiatribune.com/...
http://www.kansascity.com/...
http://www.columbiamissourian.com/...
http://faireconomy.org/...
http://www.kclabor.org/...
Letters of support for Don Giljum can be sent to University of Missouri-St. Louis Chancellor Thomas F. George at chancellor@umsl.edu and Deborah Baldini, Associate Dean for Continuing Education at BaldiniD@msx.umsl.edu. If you do, you might want to call into question forcing a resignation with no investigation, no due process, and clear violation of academic freedom.
Over the next few days, I will be posting more about Breitbart. Check back here.