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From: cheryl@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU (cheryl)
Newsgroups: soc.college
Subject: Re: Accuracy In Academia (AIA)
Message-ID: <1135@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU>
Date: Tue, 30-Sep-86 23:22:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: batcompu.1135
Posted: Tue Sep 30 23:22:06 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 4-Oct-86 08:51:13 EDT
References: <530@meccts.UUCP> <3331@mit-eddie.MIT.EDU> <676@looking.UUCP>
Reply-To: cheryl@batcomputer.UUCP (cheryl)
Organization: Theory Center, Cornell University, Ithaca NY
Lines: 55

In article <676@looking.UUCP> brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes:
>I don't understand.  Will somebody please explain what this group does?
>What special powers do they have?  All I have been able to piece together
>from the net is that they denounce professors whose leanings they don't like
>and try to catch them out making errors.
>Isn't the right to denounce people whose political views you don't like one
>of the most fundamental parts of a free society?  I am not sure what the
>fuss is.

There's a difference between disinterested inquiry and biased harassment.

For instance, I could call you on the telephone and claim that I have
the right to do so, it's free speech -- 25c speech from a payphone.

However, if I call you repeatedly, and insinuate nasty things with the 
intent of disrupting your  life, that's harassment.

Groups like NICPAC, AIM, AIA, the Moral Majority and Vrdolyak's buddies 
on the Chicago City Council use harassment tactics when they're cornered  
and they know that they're in the wrong.  They constantly put their opponents
on the defensive by calling everything they do and say into question, much 
the same way women who try to do something nontraditional are treated by 
antifeminist men and women.  They have no constructive purpose, besides 
feathering their nests and kissing the butts of the already rich and powerful.
Oh, and declaring a "war on drugs" (because it hurts people) while strafing 
the El Salvadoran countryside (because it kills people).  Or how about 
their tendency to condemn abortion and support continued nuclear arms 
buildup in the same breath?  I mean, these so-called "conservative" 
"Christians" are the most slimy worms on the face of the earth, and they've 
advocated so many clearly contradictory policies that they dare not try
to speak up in an enlightened informed community such as a university.

The only thing they can even *try* is harassment.  Don't forget, 1955
was *NOT* a long time ago.  Many, many, many faculty members in good
universities were fired, blackballed, harassed, and so on during that
era just because somebody called them communists behind their backs.
Faculty members were AFRAID for their jobs, their families and so on --
afraid to speak up for what they thought was right.  For goodness sake,
Steven Smale, a MATHEMATICIAN, was awarded a prize in mathematics 
by a group of Russian mathematicians.  The day after he got on the plane 
to go accept his award, he had the misfortune of being summoned before
the House Committee on Unamerican Activities.  Since he wasn't in
town, he did not get the notice, and I think he spent some time in
jail upon returning to the US.  The media (and the Committee) interpreted
his journey to Moscow as *defecting* -- running away from a summons
that he had no idea even *existed* when he got on the plane.

Sure, it was in the committee's rights to question (and even misinterperet)
his actions, but do you really want to live in (or next to) a country
like this?  

>Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473


Cheryl Stewart