Skip to comments.

Posted on 09/21/2001 6:47:24 AM PDT by SlickWillard

www.frontpagemag.com       Return to normal view

America’s Enemies Rally at UNC-Chapel Hill
By Michelle Oswell and Michael Burdei
FrontPageMagazine.com | September 21, 2001

A CONGREGATION of faithful left-wing fundamentalists descended en masse at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Monday night, to practice one of their most sacred rituals: spewing hatred for America.

"If I were the President…I would first apologize to all the widows and orphans, the tortured and the impoverished, and all the millions of other victims of American imperialism. Then . . . I would announce that America's global interventions had come to an end," preached William Blum, author of Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower.

"I would then reduce the military budget by at least 90 percent and I would use the savings to pay the reparations to our victims and to increase social services. . ."

Nod, nod, nod – clap, clap, clap responded the 700 faculty, students and community members in attendance.

"If one [of the perpetrators] is Osama bin Laden, send the international police for him and pick up Henry Kissinger and Augusto Pinochet on the way home," declared Catherine Lutz, professor of Anthropology.

This recipe for national suicide received boisterous applause from the crowd, who continued to nod, smile, cough, clap... everything but actually think. But none of that mattered at the moment. The crowd obviously liked what they heard.

The UNC Progressive Faculty Network sponsored this "teach-in" on September 17, titled "Understanding the Attack on America: an Alternative View." It provided neither an understanding of the attack nor any surprising sentiments from the left: just the same, tired rhetoric that Campus Leftists have been spouting for years.

The panelists stepped forward with one Anti-American libel after another, almost as if there were a competition among them to see who could hate our country the most. One crowd-pleaser was William Blum’s jab at Cuban immigrants and America’s relations with them.

"There are few if any nations in the world that have harbored more terrorists than the United States. And one example, the anti-Castro Cubans in Miami, have [performed] hundreds if not thousands of terrorist attacks in the U.S. and Cuba and elsewhere. All kinds of murders and bombings for decades, and they have been harbored here in safety for those decades."

UNC Sociology professor Charlie Kurzman blamed recent events on a Military Industrial Complex.

"We're…playing into the hands of our own militarists, whose interests always lie, I believe, in the exaggeration of threats, armed responses, and so on. In fact, I would argue that there is tacit collusion among the militarists of all sides."

Also drawing applause was a diatribe against the perennial scapegoat, the white male of European descent by self-proclaimed Arab-American activist and "person of color," Rania Masri.

"So it seems that simply looking Middle Eastern has become a crime. And this has further fueled the xenophobic sentiment that is taking hold of this country. And I say xenophobic because it’s not simply Arab-Americans, Muslim-Americans, and Indian-Americans that are being attacked, but also Asian-Americans, Korean-Americans, Chinese-Americans. Anyone who looks different than your typical white man."

The forum hit a new low, however, when panelist Stan Goff equated the terrorist attacks with the German Nazis’ torching of the Reichstag in 1933.

"The de facto executive branch and the compliant press are putting the historical spotlight right now on December 7, 1941, and Pearl Harbor," said Goff, a disgruntled former U.S. Army Ranger. "I think we need to aim that spotlight at February 27 in 1933 and the Reichstag fire."

The mere fact that the audience clapped and... yes, nodded their heads vigorously in agreement, made it all the more nauseating.

Afterwards a long-haired twenty-something peddled 50-cent copies of the Socialist Worker; and a local left-wing bookshop sold copies of panelists’ books.

All in all, it was a shameful example of how state-funded universities are responding to the deadliest terror attacks in our nation’s history.

To paraphrase the great American poet Ezra Pound, "Utopian blindness carried beyond a certain point becomes a public menace, and there is no cure for a sucker." Those 700 people who shook their heads up and down for three hours like baby rattles could do themselves and society an enormous favor: take a break.

Michelle Oswell is a Ph.D. student in Renaissance musicology at UNC and a politically active conservative. She can be reached at moswell@bellsouth.net.

Michael Burdei is a Junior Political Science major and staff writer for Carolina Review. He can be reached at burdei@email.unc.edu.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.