Andrew J. Lazarus: I certainly wouldn’t have voted for Ayers for anything and his rehabilitation is unfortunate. I don’t see him slipping Commie indoctrination into anything, though. Indeed, his educational ideas have gone over well in the Chicago business community, haven’t they?

His educational ideas go over pretty well with Hugo Chavez and his crew. Here is Bill Ayers speaking in 2006 in Venezuela.

President Hugo Chavez, Vice-President Vicente Rangel, Ministers Moncada and Isturiz, invited guests,comrades. I’m honored and humbled to be here with you this morning. I bring greetings and support from your brothers and sisters throughout Northamerica. Welcome to the World Education Forum! Amamos la revolucion Bolivariana!

This is my fourth visit to Venezuela, each time at the invitation of my comrade and friend Luis Bonilla, a brilliant educator and inspiring fighter for justice. Luis has taught me a great deal about the Bolivarian Revolution and about the profound educational reforms underway here in Venezuela under the leadership of President Chavez. We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution, and I’ve come to appreciate Luis as a major asset in both the Venezuelan and the international struggle—I look forward to seeing how he and all of you continue to overcome the failings of capitalist education as you seek to create something truly new and deeply humane. Thank you, Luis, for everything you’ve done.

I also thank my youngest son, Chesa Boudin, who is interpreting my talk this morning and whose book on the Bolivarian revolution has played an important part in countering the barrage of lies spread by the U.S. State Department and the corrupted Northamerican media.

In Venezuela, Bill Ayers will be less likely to dissemble than in Chicago. Here in Venezuela he uses a bunch of Commie buzzwords: “motor-force of revolution,” “international struggle,” “overcome the failings of capitalist education,” “barrage of lies spread by the US State Department.” Etc. He is still a Commie,or perhaps better said a commmie, and it permeates his educational ideas, as shown by the above buzzwords. Bill Ayers of the 21st century is of a piece of the Billy Ayers of 1974 who advocated dictatorship of the proletariat in Prairie Fire. (Zombietime has it online)

I’m sure you are aware that Bill and Bernadine raised Chesa from infancy while his Weatherpeople parents were in prison. Three days after Chesa got to Venezuela, on a college student tour of the continent, he was working inside Miraflores, the Presidential Palace. That’s how highly the Chavistas consider Chesa’s revolutionary heritage. (From Chesa’s book Gringo.)

“his educational ideas have gone over well in the Chicago business ccommunity, haven’t they?”

That’s Progress? Busyness and Liberalism have no inherent affinity, especially when the busynessmen are busy corrupting their governments. Whether the nomenklatura are called businessmen or apparatchiks, the same corporatism reigns, undermining liberty, and thus eventually justice.

While you’ve been busy chasing creationists, the institutions have marched through your erstwhile Left. Not much truly Left left, far as I can tell.

“Ayers’s influence on what is taught in the nation’s public schools is likely to grow in the future. Last month, he was elected vice president for curriculum of the 25,000-member American Educational Research Association (AERA), the nation’s largest organization of education-school professors and researchers. Ayers won the election handily, and there is no doubt that his fellow education professors knew whom they were voting for. In the short biographical statement distributed to prospective voters beforehand, Ayers listed among his scholarly books Fugitive Days, an unapologetic memoir about his ten years in the Weather Underground. The book includes dramatic accounts of how he bombed the Pentagon and other public buildings.”

He’s far from alone. You make the call.

And I’m no conservative. I voted for Obama and am very supportive of the work Arne Duncan is doing. Ayers and his ilk are a burden to the Progressive cause that needs challenging.

So what if conservatives don’t like him either, and tried to use him for propaganda purposes. The Comintern used our hypocrisy on race for propaganda purposes and to great effect. That didn’t mean we should have swept it under the rug. Good that we didn’t.

Martha: Example. Perhaps not as compelling as your memory of a professor fawning over a speaker twenty years ago, but you can always google more.

Nice try. I, and many other conservatives, are just as opposed to creationism in educational curricula as Marxism. So let’s dispense with the phony moral equivalence of “you have the creationist whackos so it’s OK for us to have the genocidal maniacs”.

Document, please.

Example. Perhaps not as compelling as your memory of a professor fawning over a speaker twenty years ago, but you can always google more.

Andrew J. Lazarus:
On the other hand, how many school boards could have majority Communists. I would suggest that the dumbification of our science textbooks to appease Creationists hurts the next generation more than any number of professors who forget to spit and throw salt over their shoulders at any mention of Marx.

Document, please.

Cornet of Horse: as if any Creationist curriculum could get a single vote on any court in this country

On the other hand, how many school boards could have majority Communists. I would suggest that the dumbification of our science textbooks to appease Creationists hurts the next generation more than any number of professors who forget to spit and throw salt over their shoulders at any mention of Marx.

I could name some names, but they are among my favorite professors, and I’m not sure that they would take my point the way I intend it. And again what is deplored is not overt support for Marxism and its progeny, although that is indeed worrisome enough for those with eyes to see, but at least, as in the topic of the post, the gentleman’s agreement among liberals that prevents it being properly condemned as illiberal.

If anyone is least well-served by the present arrangement, it well could be those professors themselves, who often deserve energetic engagement rather than the glib dismissal in evidence here from erstwhile defenders of the academy.

The opposite of love is famously not hate, but ignorance/indifference, and the willful blindness on display here to the Marxians in our midst, in lieu of the enthusiasm for Creationist hunts (as if any Creationist curriculum could get a single vote on any court in this country – whose consciousness is false? Shy of taking on someone one’s own intellectual size?), says odd things about where the true passions lie.

If these folks are on the fringe, how is it that they’re consistently elected to represent their fellow intellectuals? My biggest concern about that article is that Ayers is categorized as “ultra-liberal”. There is nothing liberal about the man, the tradition to which he tenaciously clings, or the reactionary nepotism that got him where he is.

Marxism has consistently produced one thing: utter social immobility. Do not think that the elites have not noticed…

Anderson: That would be a well taken point, if it weren’t for the fact that the class was basically a defense of Marxism and Communism, including the oft repeated mantra that “the Soviets were bad because they were doing it wrong.” Okay, for example: What is this professor’s name? Where did he teach at the time?I don’t doubt that there are a few idiots everywhere, but we’re addressing claims that “many” or “most” college professors are sympathetic to Marxism, so getting some names would be a useful project — perhaps even worthy of an independent VC post soliciting same.

Let’s not forget Professors Ayers (and his wife (shudder), who is even far scarier than he is), both of whom admit to being “communists” to this very day, and who praise Hugo to high heaven for his wonderfulness. Obama and he gave $100 million dollars away to leftists in the 1990′s for the specific purpose of politicizing education in order to turn out more leftists.

Ayers is beloved by a big chunk of the professoriat, as shown by this letter of support by 3,000 of them (and that was all the way back in October 2008, they could probably have had a lot more signatures by now. In fact, my google search shows that there was a site called supportbillayers.org that had 4,291 signatories but the site seems to be gone now)
Ayers Letter of Support

As I said above, one does not have to be an actual card-carrier anymore, they are happy to have useful idiots and fellow travellers as well. And of course, there are probably plenty of soft science professors who would deny under oath that they were Marxists and then teach and preach the gospel of it anyway.

Hyman Rosen: Isn’t it clear from the responses here why there’s a difference between the accounts of Nazi atrocities and the Communist atrocities? Nazi atrocities are taught as historical events. Communist atrocities are used to bash modern progressives. It’s the difference between “Hitler killed millions” and “Stalin killed millions thus Obama is evil”. The linked op-ed piece is of that sort.

I suggest that you Google bush hitler, if you are of the opinion that “modern progressives” are not inclined to use the leading spokesman for National Socialism to bash the right.

My experiences come from a top U.S. unversity where I studied engineering (but was active enough on campus/sufficiently intellectually curious to be familiar with a wide variety of programs/professors) in the late 80′s/early 90′s, a year at the University of Manchester (UK) studying Economic History during the Eastern European revolutions in 89/90, to which I traveled and about which I read deeply, especially in the daily pages of the Guardian, Independent, and The Economist as the events unfolded, and three years of graduate Liberal Arts study in the early part of this century at one of our Ivies, leavened by work experiences inside and outside our liberal insitutions and communities.

Of course the majority of academics/intellectuals are not Marxists per se (nor are many anything -ists, and studiously so, some for good reason), but the main observation of the original post certainly holds. One can be considered, and indeed not a few are, a mischievious or misguided or overzealous or even in some sense brave and visionary Marxist or Communist or Maoist, et. al. in a way that one could not be such a Fascist or Nazi, even among so-called right-wing company that is supposed (by the intellegentsia) to be sympathetic to such things, let alone in academia itself, where to even be libertarian is to draw bizarre suspicion, if one is too critical in one’s thinking.

And, no, I’m pretty sure that the preceeding observed phenomena were not merely cases of mistaken Asperger’s and/or poorly developed social skills, but thanks for thinking of me. Given the relative ease of obtaining the old Phddie Duddie these days, and its precipitously declining value, I’m pretty sure the grapes really were more sour than I had hoped during long years of pining after them.

Perhaps such hopes were impossibly high…

I do not note this to bash academia, whatever that means, but in the hope of forming a better one next generation by avoiding the mistakes of the last.

In March 1980, less than three months after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, various Sandinista comandantes made a trip to Moscow. One result of that trip to Moscow was a joint Nicaragua/USSR proclamation. Here is a partial translation:

“The USSR and Nicaragua declare their resolute condemnation of the campaign unleashed by the reactionary and imperialist forces with respect to the events in Afghanistan.”

The proclamation went on to talk about the “progressive transformations” of Afghanistan that would occur as a result of the Soviet invasion. That is, Reagan didn’t drive the Sandinistas into the arms of the Soviets: they were already there before Reagan was elected. Source: Central American Crisis Reader ( Leiken & Rubin, editors) 1987, or Barricada March 23 ,980.

Here is what Miguel Descoto said upon receiving the Lenin Peace Prize in 1987, while the USSR was warring in Afghanistan.

“This prize makes us Nicaraguans come into even closer contact with Lenin, that great personality of your state and of all mankind who is the passionate champion of peace.

I believe that the Soviet Union is a great torch which emits hope for the
preservation of peace on our planet. Always in the vanguard of the overall
struggle for peace, the Soviet Union has become the personification of ethical and moral norms in international relations. I admire the revolutionary principles and consistency of the foreign policy of the Communist Party of the fraternal Soviet Union.”

That professor fawned over Descoto. There was during this time wide spread support in universities in the US for the openly Marxist Sandinistas.Perhaps you may subsequently discount it as just one example, but it is an example.

Okay, for example: What is this professor’s name? Where did he teach at the time?

I don’t doubt that there are a few idiots everywhere, but we’re addressing claims that “many” or “most” college professors are sympathetic to Marxism, so getting some names would be a useful project — perhaps even worthy of an independent VC post soliciting same.

Havel, as in Vaclav? Czech Republic? Your history is very confused; Britain did not declare war over Czechoslovakia in March 1939, but over Poland in September 1939.

… I join Sara in wanting actual, named examples of some of these Friends of Marx in the academy. An awful lot of people’s notions on this subject seem to be informed by, at most, having read something by David Horowitz on the web once, or similarly in-depth sources.

Since so many commenters are so knowledgeable, providing some names shouldn’t be too difficult.

Anderson:
I’m not familiar with that particular work by Marx, but may I humbly submit that Marx’s works may well have the occasional interesting concept, without Marxism’s thereby becoming a valid theory?

Students of philosophy, for instance, study Plato, Aristotle, and Kant, without anyone’s being under the impression that any of these writers was actually The Truth.

That would be a well taken point, if it weren’t for the fact that the class was basically a defense of Marxism and Communism, including the oft repeated mantra that “the Soviets were bad because they were doing it wrong.” The professor’s position was that if only there had been some real Marxists (like Trotsky) in power in Russia, the revolution would have spread globally and we would all be in a Utopian communist paradise by now.

Fortunately, this was an elective course, and therefore I was able to ignore most of this apology of Communism. But the fact remains that the class was essentially a defense of Communism-lite, or more particularly, “Communism was great, except for the killings, and it can still work.”

Keep in mind, that this sort of idiocy was well after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the democratization of Russia.

It is. As such. Which is not how he [Marx]is presently taught, rather more as a liberal in a hurry, with his heart in the right place. Not unlike how White Supremacist groups see Hitler. Just misunderstood, dontcha know. Those who follow his lead also enjoying a special dispensation for being on the side of the angels, even if there have been a few missteps along the way. Entirely understandable, given the oppression, etc…

Can you give me an example of who teaches Marx this way? Admittedly, my one brush with Marx was in a class with other political theorists back in the days of the USSR, when it seemed to make sense to study him as a problematic political theorist. But he was certainly not studied in the way you claim.

The idea that Marx—who seems indeed to have made contributions with his analysis of current events, if not his economics—has to be removed from the curriculum because of his disdain for democracy and the rights of individual citizens seems backwards. As Anderson points out, with this criterion, the Gospels have to go out the window. (If the Gospels seems too far removed, is anyone crusading to rid our universities of the works of Martin Heidegger?)

I agree that universities ignore populism at their peril, but the anti-intellectual strain in American fundamentalism is over a century old. Mark Twain had to fight against it. Perhaps there are better ways of winning this battle than purges: for example, doing a better job of educating the students already there. Or working harder against the crusaders for ignorance who keep running for School Boards in Ms. Dicenza’s heartland.

It is. As such. Which is not how he is presently taught, rather more as a liberal in a hurry, with his heart in the right place. Not unlike how White Supremacist groups see Hitler. Just misunderstood, dontcha know. Those who follow his lead also enjoying a special dispensation for being on the side of the angels, even if there have been a few missteps along the way. Entirely understandable, given the oppression, etc…

And of course in practice praxis Platonism and Aristotelianism have a much wider array of results than those enjoyed by Marxism. Perhaps it just hasn’t been tried correctly yet.

I’m not calling for a witch-hunt of the Left. I’m asking that you consider what it is that truly constitutes Progress. If it’s illiberal, that ain’t it, however Left it claims to be.

On a less smarty-pants note, I guess Marx and friends serve as the lazy alternative to whatever it is that one calls our status-quo. The two problems with that are the extent to which our present libertarian-leery establishment, having completed their march through the institutions, perceive themselves as sharing the same enemies as the Marxians, if not common cause*, and more seriously, how much Marx’s discredited (outside the intelligentsia) dogma crowds out more viable real alternatives to that none-too-happy status quo.

* – by and large, actually being a Marxist has gone out of fashion, but I’d attribute that more to the post-modern suspicion of -isms as such, than to any distaste for the Old Fart himself, let alone his thought, the tropes of which very much live on.

the popularity of Marx (you can deny all you like, but the syllabi do not lie)

I just did two advanced google searches. A search for “syllabus” and Marx OR communist OR communism yielded 330,000 results. A search for “syllabus” and Hitler OR Nazi OR fascism yielded 200,000 results. Definitely more syllabi for communism, though I’m not sure how to interpret those results. Is “Fascism and Anti-Fascism in Italian Cinema” a pro-fascist course? Is “History of Economic Thought” a pro-communist course because it assigns lots of Marx? (Many of the Marx-related syllabi come from economic departments, btw, comments upthread notwithstanding.) And what to make of a history course on the 1950s that assigns no Marx but comes up in the search because it covers the HUAC (largely through primary documents)?

I personally don’t know of a single Marxist at my university (a top 10 univ–in size). That doesn’t mean there aren’t any, of course; I don’t know everyone who teaches here. So I searched my univ website and got no hits on any of those terms, then searched the course catalog (grad and ugrad) and found one course: a junior-level philosophy course called Marx and Nietzsche.

None of this proves anything, but I wanted to take at least a brief look at what those non-lying syllabi might actually show.

I would like to see *one* serious study demonstrating the supposed clutches of Marx on the American university. I studied philosophy and literature in undergrad and grad school, and I can think of maybe two classes where Marx was assigned — a Russian history class (duh) and a class on 19th century philosophy (duh). Of what must be 15 or 20 English profs, I’ve had maybe one “Marxist” (more of an Earth First type).

But it’s deeply confused to equate Marx — a philosopher with economist pretensions — with Lenin or Stalin. Blaming him for what they did is rather like blaming the authors of the Gospels for the Inquisition. Thank god no terroristic regime tried to implement Kantian philosophy at the state level!

It wouldn’t take me 10 seconds to find a dozen claims that Barack Obama is Stalin in blackface. I could find at least one on this thread.

If the rightwingers want me to take them seriously, they need to set up a right ADA to distance themselves from the nuts.

PersonFromPorlock: I don’t normally point out the obvious, out of respect for others’ intelligence. However: Nixon was famously (or notoriously) an anti-communist and it is obviously that part of his career I’m talking about. You may pick a specific statement from that mellieu at your pleasure.

JFK and LBJ were anti-communists also. It was, after all, JFK’s brother who gave permission to J. Edgar Hoover to spy on Martin Luther King, Jr. over the latter’s alliances with communists and socialists. For that matter, Reagan was a more convincing anti-communist. You obviously had a specific reason for choosing Nixon.

“Mein Kampf has pathological value at best, and I can’t think of any reason to argue the same about Marx’s work.”

Because his widespread embrace (or at least the toleration of him and his thought) by those who should know better has done great damage to the liberal project over the last couple generations?

Look, the popularity of Marx (you can deny all you like, but the syllabi do not lie) and fellow travelers in illiberal continental philosophy, and those whose statecraft claims inspiration therefrom, among our erstwhile intelligentsia doesn’t rankle because I’m afraid that it might endanger the dittoheading of America. If I were coming from the right-wing, there is no shortage of inanity coming from that direction to critique, which would be the most logical course of action for me to take if my sympathies ran that way and I sought to improve their arguments. Said inanity is likely a non-trivial source of the appeal of the Marxian, in an enemy-of-one’s-enemy sort of way. Why Uncle Miltie should be anyone’s enemy is another question entirely, and one more liberals would be well-served to ask.

But the liberal project has historically seen such petty small-mindedness for the dead end that it is. Marx and his followers are no friends of liberty, whoever the supposed enemies are, and never have been. As long as we liberals continue to pretend that the illiberal Left is some marginalized fringe not to be seriously contended with, that supposed fringe will continue to discredit the causes we hold most dear and undermine the liberal institutions to which we have committed our lives.

Those institutions depend a great deal on widespread popular support. We ignore Populous at our peril.

Let’s roll the tape:

Of course, Marx is dead in economics programs, but he is beloved in virtually every other university department.

Could those insisting that we not forget the past, possibly trouble themselves not to forget previous comments in the same thread?

I personally had one class that involved a professor defending Marx’s “Concept of Man.” I can’t imagine a class defending “Mein Kampf” making it into the curriculum, but I’d be happy to hear of any.

I’m not familiar with that particular work by Marx, but may I humbly submit that Marx’s works may well have the occasional interesting concept, without Marxism’s thereby becoming a valid theory?

Students of philosophy, for instance, study Plato, Aristotle, and Kant, without anyone’s being under the impression that any of these writers was actually The Truth.

Marx’s version of alienation, for instance, is an interesting idea, though I believe Marx’s mistake was in imagining some idyllic alternative, just as his “labor theory of value” erred in imagining that work’s value is set by the laborer, not by the market.

Whereas a distinguishing feature of Nazism, shared by Mein Kampf in particular, is its utter lack of redeeming value. Even a tyrant like Napoleon comes off well compared to Hitler. Mein Kampf has pathological value at best, and I can’t think of any reason to argue the same about Marx’s work.

Harry Eagar: It’s complete crap. And I have evidence: Hogan’s Heroes.

FYI, in my entire college and law school career, I never met anyone born after 1980 who has watched an episode of Hogan’s Heroes, unless they accidentally left the TV tuned to Nick at Night after watching Mr. Ed and smoking pot.

And for those who say academia isn’t full of Marxist apologists, I know anecdotal evidence isn’t always reliable, but I personally had one class that involved a professor defending Marx’s “Concept of Man.” I can’t imagine a class defending “Mein Kampf” making it into the curriculum, but I’d be happy to hear of any.

I do think that a lot of the ambivalence towards Marxism is due to the lack of time since the downfall of the Soviet regime. Furthermore, the fact that Gorbachev, the last public face of the USSR, has done a lot of good in his life, as opposed to the horrors and personal goals of Hitler and Stalin.

[Aside to Ms. Dicenza: "Besides, those grapes are sour."]

No, there have been several, but you refuse to acknowledge because you don’t know about them. And it’s a little strange to complain that that there is a dearth of films in the very tiny subgenre of ‘comedies about Stalinist Russia’

Furthermore, if that is your beef, you have a simple option. Make your own movie.

It isn’t that hard or costly, actually. I’ve worked an independent GLBT filmfest for years, and I know that that people of very limited means or skills can actually make a pretty good film (although the odds are that the film won’t actually be very good).

Nonetheless, if semi-talented film students can make decent films, so can you. If you really believe that there is a dearth of films that you want to see, then make them. That’s exactly how the GLBT film circuit started, out of frustration that Hollywood wouldn’t tell our stories. So we decided to tell our own.

markm: So, why haven’t young people adopted the swastika as a fashion statement? It looks cool and it would really rile “the establishment”. 

Some have. I suggest you do some research on punk, my friend.

Anyway, I find it amazing that there are those who make it their cottage industry to get outraged at the T-Shirts that the young’uns are wearing. I recommend making your displeasure clear- it would help spur sales of the T-Shirts, which might be the most ironic (meta-ironic) statement yet.

My favorite t-shirt? Che with a lattle caption- “Get off my lawn.”