The "Stunning Fragility" & Vindictive Political Correctness of Today's Students

[Chris]

An intelligent argument for political diversity in higher education.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snqXOvnHzcQ&t=469s

[midcan5]

"The 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: The growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy." Alex Carey


That was interesting, I've read lots of these authors and hear both sides, but my view as always is a little more complicated. Maybe just maybe some are waking up. This challenge to authority or to bias and bigotry happened during the Vietnam war era too. And the idea that our playing outside may have made us better people is wrong. And whites and especially affluent whites abandoned the cities where we played as kids. We were always outside, fifties / sixties, that was then, go to the well groomed burbs today and the children (our own grandchildren) are in organized sports. Nothing really wrong with that when done right, getting a chance to play even when you are small or slow isn't a bad thing in my opinion. It actually builds a person up. Tolerance isn't a bad thing and these guys miss that point as always. Of course what happens next, and in this they are correct is the people in authority get carried away. No one wants trouble. But if anyone thinks Richard Spencer or Anne Coulter or any homophobe or wackjob supremacist shouldn't be criticized, they should move to Russia. Is some criticism over the top, sure, but given the control the 'corporate conservative complex' has had on media and even education for the past sixty years people must speak up for American diversity, if shouting helps, shout. College educated whites voted for DJT too and are republicans, so all this gnashing of teeth etc is simply more of the same narrative, a piece of PC from the right that makes the dubious claim the challengers are the problem and we should all welcome conversation from bigots and racists. We can do that but maybe too we need to call them what they are - racists bigots and wealth supported puppets.

The excerpt below is from 'Dark Money' and while it mentions a small piece of the CCC, it gives a sense of their attempts to control the minds of the youth. In their favor of course.

"As for gaining adherents, Charles suggested, their best bet was to focus on "attracting youth" because "this is the only group that is open to a radically different social philosophy." He would act on this belief in years to come by funneling millions of dollars into educational indoctrination, with free market curricula and even video games promoting his ideology pitched to prospects as young as grade school.

In support of building their own youth movement, another speaker, the libertarian historian Leonard Liggio, cited the success of the Nazi model. In his paper titled "National Socialist Political Strategy: Social Change in a Modern Industrial Society with an Authoritarian Tradition," Liggio, who was affiliated with the Koch-funded Institute for Humane Studies (IHS) from 1974 until 1998, described the Nazis' successful creation of a youth movement as key to their capture of the state. Like the Nazis, he suggested, libertarians should organize university students to create group identity.

George Pearson, a former member of the John Birch Society in Wichita, who served as Charles Koch's political lieutenant during these years, expanded on this strategy in his own eye-opening paper. He suggested that libertarians needed to mobilize youthful cadres by influencing academia in new ways. Traditional gifts to universities, he warned, didn't guarantee enough ideological control. Instead, he advocated funding private institutes within prestigious universities, where influence over hiring decisions and other forms of control could be exerted by donors while hiding the radicalism of their aims.

As Coppin summarized Pearson's arguments, "It would be necessary to use ambiguous and misleading names, obscure the true agenda, and conceal the means of control. This is the method that Charles Koch would soon practice in his charitable giving, and later in his political actions." Soon after the 1976 conference, Charles plunged into Libertarian Party politics. He became not just the group's financial angel but also the author of its plank on energy policy, which called for the abolition of all government controls. The brothers took an even more audacious step into electoral politics in 1979, when Charles, who preferred to operate behind the scenes, persuaded David, then thirty-nine, to run for public office. The brothers were by then backing the Libertarian Party's presidential candidate, Ed Clark, who was running against Ronald Reagan from the right. They opposed all limits on campaign donations, so they found a legal way around them. They contrived to make David the vice presidential running mate, and thus according to campaign-finance law he could lavish as much of his personal fortune as he wished on the campaign rather than being limited by the $1,000 donation cap.

"David Koch ran in '80 to go against the campaign finance rules. By being a candidate, he could give as much as he wanted," the conservative activist Grover Norquist later acknowledged. "It was a trick," suggests Bartlett, the economist who formerly worked at a Koch-funded think tank." P 68-69 'Dark Money'

News for ?

"Charles [Koch], meanwhile, kept a lower profile but assiduously invited sympathetic members of the media to his donor summits, such as the talk radio host Glenn Beck, the Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, and the National Review columnist Ramesh Ponnuru. Two of the top donors in the Koch network owned their own news outlets. The oil tycoon Philip Anschutz owned the Washington Examiner and The Weekly Standard, and the mutual fund magnate Foster Friess was the largest shareholder of The Daily Caller. The Kochs seriously considered buying the Tribune Company in 2013, too." p68 above



"Not only does there seem to be widespread social fragmentation and disillusionment with democracy in the United States, but the possibility of reversing this sense of alienation appears to many of us to be already lost. Any democratic president who wants to institute the desperately needed reforms in health, welfare and the environment faces one of two options. He can stick by his reform program and suffer a loss of public confidence through orchestrated campaigns to publicly portray him as 'too liberal' and ineffectual (the Carter image) or too indecisive or sexually indiscreet (the Clinton image). Alternatively, a reforming democratic president can move further to the Right, forget his promises and become part of the propaganda campaign. Given the history of democratic propaganda in the United States, some of us doubt that another Roosevelt or New Deal is possible. The political system is now so attuned to business interests that this kind of reformer could no longer institute the substantial health, welfare, education, environmental and employment reforms the country needs." Andrew Lohrey, Introduction, Alex Carey "Taking the Risk Out of Democracy"

[Peter1469]

The SJWs who get indoctrinated in college this way are going to have a hard time adjusting to work when they graduate and look for jobs. The real world will not be kind to them.

[midcan5]

The SJWs who get indoctrinated in college this way are going to have a hard time adjusting to work when they graduate and look for jobs. The real world will not be kind to them.

The SJW soon becomes lots of things, again kinda like the sixties and hopefully they carry a bit of that intolerance for bigotry to their next life. But I gotta say from personal observation most college grads are very conservative or libertarian today, when you live in a bubble, the bubble becomes your world. The privileged live differently, they believe the slogans, the ads on TV with exotic autos are their reality.

The rest are here and remain here. 'White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America' by Nancy Isenberg


"Will Trump make America great again? The question is absurd. The real question is this: when was the country great, and for whom? In the not-so-distant past, it was certainly better for union members who could earn a living, for educators whose jobs were not tied to test scores, for anyone who worked in manufacturing. The country is better now for people of color, for gays and lesbians, for women, and for the disabled. This progress has been grotesquely misinterpreted to mean that the country is worse for white people. Such thinking is false logic. One does not rule out the other. Straight white men, especially those who have inherited family fortunes, are doing just fine in America. The problem is that some of them are trying to ruin it for the rest of us." By Chris Offutt 'IN THE HOLLOW, The changing face of Appalachia — and its role in the presidential race' Harper’s Magazine / November 2016

[Chris]

But I gotta say from personal observation most college grads are very conservative or libertarian today...

Do you live in a bubble?

The rest of your post has nothing at all to do with the topic.

[midcan5]

Do you live in a bubble? ... The rest of your post has nothing at all to do with the topic.
Hardly, and the post is directly related. The narrative is there for those who see. And speaking of fragile students I say bravo to those who spoke up on the un-American values Cornyn represents.


https://www.texastribune.org/2017/05/12/texas-southern-university-cancels-speech-gop-sen-john-cornyn-amid-outc/

"The university's statement didn't specifically give a reason for the cancellation. But Cornyn's planned appearance had been generating pushback. A petition on Change.org had generated 846 signatures. The petition said, "Having a politician such as him speak at our institution is an insult to the students, to TSU, and to all [historically black colleges and universities]."

The petition cited Cornyn's votes to confirm two of President Donald Trump's cabinet appointees — Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. It also raised complaints about Cornyn's support for voter ID laws and efforts to block funding for "sanctuary cities."

"This is our graduation. We have the right to decide if we want to refuse to sit and listen to the words of a politician who chooses to use his political power in ways that continually harm marginalized and oppressed people," the petition said. "

[Peter1469]

No the fake intolerance meme won't work for the SJWs. We need to eliminate free money for the people emotionally unable to work. The can starve to death with no effect on our economy.


The SJW soon becomes lots of things, again kinda like the sixties and hopefully they carry a bit of that intolerance for bigotry to their next life. But I gotta say from personal observation most college grads are very conservative or libertarian today, when you live in a bubble, the bubble becomes your world. The privileged live differently, they believe the slogans, the ads on TV with exotic autos are their reality.

The rest are here and remain here. 'White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America' by Nancy Isenberg


"Will Trump make America great again? The question is absurd. The real question is this: when was the country great, and for whom? In the not-so-distant past, it was certainly better for union members who could earn a living, for educators whose jobs were not tied to test scores, for anyone who worked in manufacturing. The country is better now for people of color, for gays and lesbians, for women, and for the disabled. This progress has been grotesquely misinterpreted to mean that the country is worse for white people. Such thinking is false logic. One does not rule out the other. Straight white men, especially those who have inherited family fortunes, are doing just fine in America. The problem is that some of them are trying to ruin it for the rest of us." By Chris Offutt 'IN THE HOLLOW, The changing face of Appalachia — and its role in the presidential race' Harper’s Magazine / November 2016

[Chris]

Hardly, and the post is directly related. The narrative is there for those who see. And speaking of fragile students I say bravo to those who spoke up on the un-American values Cornyn represents.


https://www.texastribune.org/2017/05/12/texas-southern-university-cancels-speech-gop-sen-john-cornyn-amid-outc/

"The university's statement didn't specifically give a reason for the cancellation. But Cornyn's planned appearance had been generating pushback. A petition on Change.org had generated 846 signatures. The petition said, "Having a politician such as him speak at our institution is an insult to the students, to TSU, and to all [historically black colleges and universities]."

The petition cited Cornyn's votes to confirm two of President Donald Trump's cabinet appointees — Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. It also raised complaints about Cornyn's support for voter ID laws and efforts to block funding for "sanctuary cities."

"This is our graduation. We have the right to decide if we want to refuse to sit and listen to the words of a politician who chooses to use his political power in ways that continually harm marginalized and oppressed people," the petition said. "


My challenge was to this statement of yours: "But I gotta say from personal observation most college grads are very conservative or libertarian today..." Care to defend that? Giving an example of Cornyn, a conservative, having trouble speaking at a graduation because liberal students objected hardly supports your statement.