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.

-- (moreinterpretation@ugly.com), September 21, 2001

Answers

We had a wonderful time because we are wonderful people and our cause is wonderful so there.

-- (Tom J. Wright @ flea.market), September 21, 2001.

Well, gee whiz, Tom.

Just send a box of cookies to Osama and blow him a kiss for me, would 'ya?

(:raig

-- Craig Miller (CMiller@ssd.com), September 21, 2001.

Answer one question. Do you think we are going to war to protect the right to free speech, among other things.? If you have a problem with this, and it seems you do, then you are the heretic. You are the hypocrite. Do you support the american way of life, or do you support a way of life that will have increasing restrictions on the press and individuals?

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), September 21, 2001.

FS, I smiled when I read this. Absolutely, free speech and freedom of the press to report it. And I respond to it with, "Who cares what you think!"

And more accurately, our civilians were attacked, not just 'freedom'.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), September 21, 2001.

Free speech is a great thing, but the speech itself can still be ridiculous. The bozos out in Berkley act like if we had somehow done things differently the last six months from a political standpoint, the plans for this attack would have been cancelled. That is the most naive bullshit I've ever heard. If we had carpet-bombed Israel, then Osama may have changed his mind, but nothing short of that would have halted the plans to do what was done September 11th, and the socialists attending these rallies need to understand that.

-- libs are idiots (moreinterpretation@ugly.com), September 21, 2001.

For the record, I do not necessarily agree with these folks at Berkeley, but they have a right to be wrong.

And that is very important. We all have the right to be wrong in this country. The KKK was allowed to March in Illinois....

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), September 21, 2001.

Only Socialists love others enough to have a circle-jerk. Free-enterprisers are so selfish that they only jackoff their own selves.

-- (Tom J. Wright @ bath.house, jerking), September 21, 2001.

Tom,

Do you prefer circle-jerks that are clockwise or counter-clockwise?

-- (nemesis@awol.com), September 21, 2001.

No one exercises the right to be wrong more eloquently than you, FS.

-- Boo (hoo@hoo.com), September 21, 2001.

How about daisy-chains?

-- (nemesis@awol.com), September 21, 2001.