A civil liberties pressure group has called for the resignation of Prof Janet Hartley, the academic responsible for banning Islam critic Douglas Murray from chairing a discussion tonight at the [London School of Economics].
Modern Islamists will cut a women’s face if she uses make-up and kill women for such ‘crimes’ as being raped, but they are in favour of wild spending and printing (“expansionary fiscal and monetary policies for a counter cycle effect” as the scum of the Economist would put it) – even though such antics are actually denounced by the Koran.
That so many academics sides with the forces of radical Islam should come as no surprise – for the modern left (including modern mutant forms of Marxism that have combined Marxist and Keynesian doctrines in ways that Karl Marx himself would have had nothing but contempt) and radical ‘Islamists’ favour many (although not all) of the same economic policies – as Comrade President Barack Obama would have been reminded by both his leading Marxist (well mutant heretic modern Marxist) and leading Islamist neighbours in the Hyde Park area of Chicago. Although, of course, this is what he had already been taught as a child (both by his Mother and by Frank) and then at Occidental, Columbia and Harvard. Before he was ever sent to Chicago to join the operations of the Comrades there.
“You are off the point Paul – we are talking about academics and free speech”.
Well Pigou (the Cambridge ‘Economics’ Prof who Keynes implies was free market in one of the in-jokes in the ‘General Theory’…) held that anyone who questioned the need for more government spending should be sent to prison.
Collectivist academics have never been pro free speech (it would not be consistent with collectivism if they were in favour of free speech) – the academic that Dr Gabb attacks was following in the tradition of Plato himself.
The function of a university (as explained by Gramsci and Marcuse) is to produce minds indoctrinated with ‘progressive’ thought – so indoctrinated that any ideas that are hostile to the cause will be rejected by them (without consideration), and reject them with great hatred.
Universities are not totally successful – in that most students are just given a vague mind set of support for ‘progressive’ ideas and a built in hostility to ‘reactionary’ ideas, but only in a very loose way, enough to, say, vote for Obama – but not enough to kill for him. They become the sort of people who think the Economist is free market, laugh at the “humour” of the Communist comics on Radio 4 without actually sharing their ideology and do not see anything odd in the selection of books in British bookshops.
“But what has this got to do with radical Islam”.
Sadly quite a lot – as far from being seen as reactionary (with its hatred of women’s rights and so on) radical Islam is seen as progressive. And it is (if one defines progressive in the way the academics would) – Islamic socialism (the word “socialism” is used) is common among both the Sunni and the Shia radicals.
And communist groups (in spite of the atheism of Karl Marx and co) ally with them – look for the banners on the demonstrations (they are there). Students are taught to be anti-American (this will continue in spite of Comrade President Barack Obama) and anti Israeli – and anti capitalist. And radical Islam is all three. Therefore they feel vaguely “pro” it – in spite of its tearing women to bits, and so on, and so on… after all plenty of female radical Islamists can be found – and we must not be “culturally imperialist”.
As for reforming the universities – they can not be reformed. They must be de-funded – no more taxpayers money for them (directly or indirectly).
Oh and if anyone thinks I am judging the ‘educated classes’ too harshly, then spend five minutes in a British book shop (not just the wall of Obama books, but the other books you will find – and the books you will not find) or listening to the news (or film reviews) of private broadcasters such as ‘Classic FM’
They know their market – the people who accepted (or half accepted) the ‘progressive‘ ideas they were taught at school and university, such as a ‘progressive conservative’ leader who attacks ‘big government’ whilst at the same time explicitly promising to… increase the size of the government.
I have to say I was really short-changed by my university education – I can’t recall a single incidence when there was a hint of liberal indoctrination, even when we were covering the pros/cons of Taylorism, or the history of trade unionism. I didn’t even pick up any residual liberalism, despite being in the same building as the Peace Studies course. Maybe I could get a partial refund…
The above article reads like a stream of thoughts from a person in a rage (“scum” of the Economist magazine and so on) – oh I wrote the article, well that explains it. I am in a rage a lot of the time these days – when I am not in blank despair. Still the article was not far from the truth.
Paul – you say you studied “trade union history”.
Was it ever suggested to you that (for example) the British 1875 Act was anything other than a good thing.
And if not why not?
After all their are many economists who have argued that allowing “picketing” and so on (and places unions above the law in the respects that the 1875 and 1906 Acts did, does not increase the long term wages and conditions of workers – but actually (over the long term) actually means that they are worse than they otherwise would be.
You can now refute me by showing how you were taught about arguements against as well as implied arguements for the 1875 Act.
With references to economists like W.H. Hutt (he of the “The Strike Threat System” and “The Economics of the Colour Bar” and so on) and F.A. Hayek (he of “Unemployment and the Unions” and other works).
When I was at Leeds University in my final year in 2006, a professor of Russian was forced out of his job thanks to the PC lunatics running the student union and the cowards running the university. If I remember correctly, his sin had been to say in an interview with the student newspaper that there are racial differences in IQ.
I remember that an expert on terrorism was prevented from taking part in a discussion on campus as well.
Of course, all sorts of commies were allowed on campus.
Admittedly, not everything at Leeds University was so bad. I studied Psychology, and I don’t think that department is entirely infested by PC yet. Of course, we had to do a course on ‘Critical social psychology’ (Foucault and other boshmongers), but the course was so badly taught that most of the students I knew just regarded it as confusing and highfalutin nonsense. I certainly did.
I studied a lot about sociobiology and it was refreshing to know that both of the professors that taught the course were contemptuous of Marxist critics of sociobiology such as Richard Lewontin and Stephen Jay Gould.
Well, yes Paul, you probably should ask for a refund.
Paul,
Nice piece of work adressing a very important issue – the Left/Islamist alliance. You have fed my curiousity but not sated my hunger which is what the best or writing does.
It amazes me that so many people find it surprising that the international left and the international islamofascists are in an unholy alliance.
They are at war with western liberal society.
We try in so very many ways to ignore and minimize and tolerate and wave away that one basic fact.
One of their most dangerous weapons is the inability of the average western citizen to wade through the smokescreen of obfuscation, double-talk, and multi-culti nonsense from the “chattering classes” and their media acolytes in order to come to grips with the threat.
The recent situation in Holland is a perfect example, as are the many bizarre incidents in other European countries, when the rights of those opposed to islamic fanatacism are simply trampled in deference to the threatening fury of the islamicists.
As for the left and academia, well, the takeover there is nearly complete. What we are seeing in every new, screaming headline these days is the hysterical assertion of every leftist myth and anti-capitalist tenet as being the only solution to the endless crises that these very same ideas have brought about.
Shannon Love at Chicagoboyz says it very well when he describes the left’s only real operating principle as being the never ending search for power. Nothing else matters.
And, yes, they are smugly, and cynically, sure that they can outwit and out-manuever the islamic types when the time comes, just as the islamic fanatics are convinced that they can behead these foolish infidels at their leisure once the “Great Satan” and its allies are vanquished.
The mystics of muscle and the mystics of spirit have been allies for centuries. Why should we be surprised that they would team up again in an attempt to extinguish their greatest common enemy—the independent human mind and spirit.
Someone get Paul his meds.
O/T, did anyone pick up the news about Islamic terrorists in Algeria being hit by the Black death? Verily, sometimes Allah is great…
With help from the bolshevik islamonazi mainstream media such as the BBC and the new york nazi times the fascist islamomarxist comrade obama will soon resurrect the ghost of stalin and join forces with robert mugabe, fidel castro, kim jong ill and al-quada to destroy capitalism, America and Israel and raise the hammer and sickle on the white house lawn (which by then will have been coverted into a mosque housing the embalmed body of Vladmimir Lenin). Chrisitanity and the republican party will be oulawed on pain of death and there will be free abortion on demand, compulsary sex education and free condoms for pre-school children who will also be forced to salute a flag of comrade Obama every morning and to recite das kapital and the koran from memory every day.
mark my words..
I might have done but if you can’t be bothered to write in coherent paragraphs, I can’t be bothered to read what you wrote. Try breathing deeply when you type, it helps.
Vaguely on topic, at the firm where I work, a young Muslim chap and very bright university graduate who recently worked with me – he’s now off for another job – told me calmly over lunch that he is now off to Pakistan to get married. Wow, congrats, we all said. Then he said that he has spoken to his bride only once and never met her. My boss was speechless, dumbstruck. (And that takes some doing).
The intern’s favourite newspaper is the Guardian and his favourite columnist is Polly Toynbee.
A good example from J.P.
I think that Veryretired comment sums it up.
Of course there are decent leftists (Nick Cohen and Clive James spring to mind), but the mainstream are not just mistaken in their ideas – they are also just plain bad, the hate Western civilization and they want to destroy it (and they do not care who they ally with in order to achieve this task).
As for academia:
I do not know what it is like in, for example, Germany – but in the English speaking world it is rotten to the core.
One thing I did not point out was that the many of the supposed pro free enterprise forces are nothing of the kind.
For example, from the “Economist” in Britain to the RINOs in the United States they declare that increasing government spendin-borrowing is good in a recession (it stimulates the economy) – the opposite of the truth. Why do they claim that more govenment spending is good? Partly because they are gutless (cutting government spending, which is what needs to be done, has a heavy political cost) and partly because they were taught (and believed or half believed) insane nonsense at school and university.
These “free market” people (who include many, although not all, of the Chicago School) are no opposition to the left – indeed they help them along.
The Economist actually “came out” with the truth last year – they endorsed Comrade Barack Obama for President of the United States.
I had denounced the Economist for years, but even I was slightly shocked.
What horrifies me is that people read the Economist (those few who do read it – outside libraries and other such of course) as a guide to the free market view of things. For example, there was a major section on banking in this week’s issue – and it was (of course) a total mess. Not giving even basic information.
As long as this sort of publication (and the RINO politicians and the establishment economists) are presented as the alternative to the left, the West has no chance of survival.
Perhaps this is an unfair statement, but I do suspect that when the likes of The Economist and Wall Street Journal say they are in favour of the free-market, what they really mean is they are in favour of whatever is good for banks. When the bank bailout took place in the US, I remember that while the Economist was cheering for the bailout, they were whining about how Congress might impose pay limits on bankers working for bailed out firms. I think that says a lot about the Economist’s priorities. The taxpayers can go to hell, but the bankers must have their bonuses!
I would draw a distinction between the Wall Street Journal and the Economist.
Warning another example “Paul Marks being paranoid again” is going to come up when I talk about the Economist.
Some people on the W.S.J. really do believe that if the banks went down we would all end up eating each other – so they are prepared to try to do demented things (like the bailout) to try and prevent this terrible event.
Generally W.S.J. editorial page people tend to really be free market – at least in the Chicago School (not the Austrian School) sense.
The Economist (remember my warning above) may have been like the W.S.J. in the past – but these days it is not.
It is far more like its sister publication the “Financial Times” – the leftist publication that is also the main financial newspaper in Britain (the fact that a leftist publication is the main financial newspaper here should tell people all they need to know about Britain – do not invest your money here).
The F.T. folk are university trained – and they are trained in something I touched on in my article.
Two Italian thinkers are important in this regard:
Piero Sraffa – who mixed Marxism with Keynesianism.
And Antonio Gramsci – who taught that leftists should gain influence in the “cutural superstucture” (such as the universities) to help them gain control over the “economic base” (thus turning classical Marxism on its head – as it taught that “economic base” determined the ideological superstructure, not the other way round).
I could go on about the vast influence (all over the Western world) that Piero Sraffa and Antonio Gramsci have had – influening the thoughts of academics and other such (even many of such folk who have never heard of these two Italian thinkers).
However, people are already thinking “get paranoid Paul Marks his meds”.
So I will prove their point by blatently saying that both the F.T. and the Economist show the influence of Sraffa and Gramsci.
And the W.S.J. does not – at least not on the editorial page.