Both Statements Made in same speech! TRUMP! ===
My tongue is in my cheek:
This election may be the last opportunity for white American males to have any significant voting impact. Their influence has been diminished by the white female and growing Hispanic vote.
This same poor white male has been characterized by Obama as an angry, gun carrying, bible thumper.
Until the 1950's, his way of life and his character defined our nation but then came a presidential assassination followed by Viet Nam and with it contempt for law and order, accompanied by the rise in PC'ism, which helped justify and explain the need for compassion and the wearing of love beads and head bands.
I guess the love beads helped to distinguish those who decided the IBM white shirt and suit crowd were just a "THINKING" bunch of nerdy college educated stiffs and the head bands, I assume, allowed the love bead crowd to show they identified with the plight of native Americans, previously ravaged by their white male relatives. The pain caused by Capitalism was so bad the compassionate PC crowd had to resort to drugs in order to escape the eons of pain the white man had caused.
Along with the beads and other distinguishing paraphernalia came a wild assemblage of cacophonous rock bands starting on a farm in upstate New York, and attended by a profusion of long hair and unkempt bearded types, followed by nudity on Broadway and off to the races we went laughing and scratching our way to PC nirvarna. The world of 'anything goes' suddenly became the norm.
Technology, space travel and the perfection of missiles, carrying multiple nuclear war heads, increased world insecurity and matters got very Cold as Russia and America began their face off period which ended because Reagan raised the poker stakes causing The Evil Empire to collapse.
Since that time, various presidents have benefited from what the elite media and press folks told Reagan he could not do because logic and common sense were no longer in vogue. After all, how could a baseball announcer and second rate actor know more than those who sat at the feet of Ivy League professors who served delicious leftist pink Kool Aid in their august classrooms where knowledge oozed from the hallowed walls. One of the most revered of all - Walter Cronkite - visited Viet Nam, returned and told his dispirited listeners we could not win. So we picked up our marbles, admitted we had lost the unwinnable and turned against those who were led to believe we could win but were sent to do so but not allowed to do so.
Subsequently, the Viet Nam General, who was our wily adversary, told us we were within inches of defeating his forces but when he read the New York Times' op eds, watched Jane Fonda whip up protesting crowds while sitting on a weapon designed to shoot down planes, he knew we had lost our heart and nerve. So we built a wall decades later to assuage our guilt for the way we treated those we sent to win and whom defeatist politicians pulled the rug out from under.
Much happened in the interim and now, according to public discord and rancor, we have repeated our mistakes in another part of the world because an uneducated wild man from Texas lied and we no longer study and/or are unschooled in history.
So what did we do? Instead of building another wall we elected a man who set about apologizing for America's misdeeds - caused by the white man aka Colonialist. It became obvious to those who dispensed peace awards that this young president should be honored for preaching the path of peace so he was given a Nobel Peace Medal. Yet, 6 or so years later, this seer, this PC man of vision, this red line in the sand artist has watched and presided over the slaughter of hundreds of thousands by radicals of his own heritage and the entire disintegration of a region has become the weapons playground of revived foes - Russia and Iran.
In less than a year, this White House wizard will vacate his realm and God only knows the price the world will pay for his incompetence and arrogance.
If that is not distressing enough, one of his disciples, who wears a pant suit and lusts to become the first female to occupy the Oval Office, ( something very orifice about this description) yet is void of any accomplishments other than a neat pack of lies, is seeking to replace her former boss. Her husband, who preceded learned quickly that, if he was willing to be led by his nose by the loyal opposition, much could be accomplished. But one thing he failed to do, when given the opportunity, was to accept the gift handed to him on a platter - the head of bin Laden. The Wahhabist who later assembled fifteen radical Islamic renegades from a variety of nations and trained them to fly planes into a series of buildings on 9/11. This act set in motion and prevented his successor from focusing on a vast array of problems that needed to be addressed. Instead he chose to pursue a war constructed upon a bed of lies, or so the same elite and pesky press and media types, holdovers from the Viet Nam Days, have led us to believe.
Once again, this same uneducated white man is angry, is forlorn, is not in a good mood because he feels he has been slighted. He believes the reputation of his nation has been besmirched and that radicals have been allowed to climb the ladder of PC'ism and attack him unfairly. After all, many of these same white males paid the ultimate price in defense of others, many lost their jobs, homes and security to those who have allegedly treated them unfairly in the market place and, worst of all, they witnessed their hard won gains achieved through their own sweat, transferred to those who feel aggrieved and thus entitled.
To the rescue of this beaten down white male comes a very wealthy developer with a strange crop of unmanageable hair spouting vulgarities and beating his chest promising to restore the land of the oppressive white male to its former glory. How could that be? This false prophet has no political experience, has broken every PC rule the elite media and press types know to be correct because they have said so in their own version of the bible! And to make matters even more unbelievable, this fraud has been married thrice and his current is bejeweled and beautiful. How can they possibly relate to those he professes to care about?
Ah, he cleverly knew the source of their sullen mood. It came from a region south inhabited by Mexicans who were fording streams, breaching walls to come to the promised land of the white man!
What to do? Build a wall and make the nation from whence these illegals come pay for it through raising something else - tariffs.
And that is where the tale of the disenfranchised white male ends until such time as the rest of the story unfolds.
Will this tale of woe have a happy ending? No one knows but the fear that it could bring down a slew of 'fat cat establishment types' has caused them to rise and resist. With their weapons drawn and with large resources gathered from the threatened a serious battle is taking shape so stay tuned because the best is yet to come or maybe not.
Time will tell. It always does.
Growing distrust in government and the fourth estate - media and press - are dangerous trends. Add to them the decline in American education and shattering of the American family and the underpinnings of our free society becomes evident to all who can see regardless of their political affiliation. (See 1 below.)
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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=
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Obama has a few months left to drive a final stake through Israel because Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist is all Israel's fault.!
Did Obama read Dennis Ross' latest book or does he have any familiarity with Scott Anderson's: "Lawrence in Arabia.?" Can Obama be objective when it comes to comprehending history or is he a victim of a blind mind set? (See 2 and 2a below.)
Obama's true legacy will not be his Nobel Medal but the hate and discord he has strewn through American streets and back alleys of the world and, most of all, in the cemeteries, where hundreds of thousands of innocents are buried and who were butchered because a feckless president, who blamed everyone else, did not have the decency, the courage to stand against the radical Islamic tide engulfing the world and which he refuses to define.
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Education, which way is it going and can our colleges and universities be saved?
The spread of PC'ism on school campuses, the resulting decline in a rigorous curriculum and tough administrative oversight is wrecking American education. This along with the destruction of the family unit are ominous signs. Can this nation survive these telling blows? (See 3 and 3a below.)
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More corruption charges filed in Brazil. (See 4 below.)
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Commentary from a friend and fellow memo reader:
"RICHARD; I COULD GO WITH CRUZ BUT THE GOP ESTABLISHMENT WILL NEVER LET IT HAPPEN. TRUMP HAS MORE WARTS THAN A TOAD BUT I HOPE HE WINS FLORIDA TO GET THE ESTABLISHMENT CUBAN JUMPING BEAN OUT OF THE PICTURE . THE MONEY SOURCES BEHIND THE GOP HAVE A DEAL THAT IF RUBIO LOSES FLORIDA HE GOES. IN MY OPINION THE GOP HAD PLANNED A CONTESTED CONVENTION LONG AGO IF THEY COULD NOT ASSASSINATE TRUMP. WE ARE WITNESSING SOME OF THE DIRTY POLITICS OF THE KOCH BROTHERS. CRUZ IS SHARP BUT ALL THE RINOS IN THE SENATE WILL NOT BACK HIS PROPOSALS FOR CHANGE. ALL THE BEST; B---"
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Are we a compassionate nation that is out of step with reality but in step with PC'ism? (See 5 below.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZZlo0WZ_iU&sns=em
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Dick
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1)The Inconvenient facts the Media Ignores on Climate Change
Americans in large numbers are turning off TV newscasts, canceling subscriptions to newspapers, and seeking other sources of news. Distrust of the national media has hit an all-time high.
A recent Pew Research Center survey found that 65 percent of
Americans believe that the national news media have a negative effect on our
country.
According to a recent
Gallup poll, six in ten Americans now have little or no confidence in the
national media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly. A recent Pew
Research Center survey found that 65 percent of Americans believe that the
national news media have a negative effect on our country.
Americans are
frustrated because they know that many of the “news stories” they read are only
opinion columns in disguise. If the story does not fit the liberal worldview,
then facts are ignored, dissent is silenced, and Americans are told what to
think. Perhaps one of the worst examples of one-sided, biased reporting
involves global warming.
The Daily Signal is
the multimedia news organization of The Heritage Foundation. We’ll
respect your inbox and keep you informed.
Those who reject the
liberal viewpoint that climate change is the greatest threat to our country are
ridiculed and ignored. For example, the Associated Press recently amended its
stylebook to recommend that those who question the science behind global
warming be called climate change “doubters” instead of “skeptics.” But this is
inaccurate, since many “skeptics” don’t doubt that climate change has occurred.
Liberal groups
continue to attempt to silence debate. The repeated claims that “the debate is
over” and that “97 percent of scientists agree that human-caused global warming
is real” are false and mislead the public. In testimony before the Science
Committee, a lead author of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change stated that the 97 percent estimate “just crumbles when you
touch it.”
The source of this “97
percent” myth is a discredited study that attempted to categorize scholarly
articles on climate change by the position the papers took on the issue. But
most of the papers never took a position on climate change at all. This has not
stopped the liberal national media from touting this illegitimate statistic.
Silencing debate is
contrary to the scientific method. If these groups were confident about their
arguments, they would welcome more debate to test their theories. However, some
media outlets, such as the Los Angeles Times, have changed their policies and
no longer accept letters to the editor from those who question human-made
climate change. That this would happen in a democracy where free speech is
enshrined in the Constitution is unbelievable.
Scientists who are not
alarmists agree that climate change is a complex subject with many variables.
But the liberal national media instead chooses to focus on human contributions
and usually fails to provide both sides.
For example, the
national media hyped NASA’s finding that 2014 was the hottest year on record.
Ignored was the footnote that revealed that NASA was only 38 percent certain
this was accurate. Less than fifty-fifty. Americans would have been better
served by a coin toss.
Too often, these
alarmist announcements are based on manipulations of existing data. And when
Congress or independent researchers question federal agencies about the data,
they are criticized as “attacking scientists.”
Particularly
regrettable is that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
fails to include all relevant data sources in its monthly temperature news
releases. Atmospheric satellite data, considered by many to be the most
reliable, has clearly showed no warming for the past two decades. This fact is
well documented, but it does not fit the liberal politics of the administration
or the national media.
Americans deserve all the facts that surround climate change,
not just those that the national media want to promote.
NOAA also published a
controversial study last year where scientists altered global surface
temperature data and widely publicized their results as refuting the two-decade
pause in global warming. This week, a new peer-reviewed study was published in
the journal Nature that, according to one of the authors, shows “reduced rates
of surface warming” and “essentially refutes” NOAA’s study. Shouldn’t the media
acknowledge that their alarmist headlines are based on incomplete information?
Americans will
continue to distrust the liberal national media until the media provide
objective coverage of the news. Americans deserve all the facts that surround
climate change, not just those that the national media want to promote.
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2)What’s Obama’s Real Mideast Legacy?
Today’s front-page story in the New York Times on President Obama’s plans to promote Middle East diplomacy was about as ill-timed as an article could be. It was published on the day after a horrifying murder spree by Palestinian terrorists including an attack in the Old City of Jaffa that took that life of an American tourist who was also a veteran of the U.S. Army. That Vice President Joe Biden was dining not far away when the incident took place only highlighted the indiscriminate nature of the surge in Palestinian terrorism. It also was a reminder that Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority that President Obama has lauded as a champion of peace, is, in fact, a major source of the incitement that has created the current violence.
But just as important, the juxtaposition of the leak to the Times of President Obama’s possible plans to promote a resolution laying down the framework for an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians at the United Nations with the latest terrorist attacks illustrates everything that is wrong with the administration’s Middle East policy. Having come into office determined to create more daylight between Israel and the Palestinians in the mistaken belief that doing so would promote peace, apparently Obama is determined to exit the White House pursuing the same course. Though virtually everything that has happened in the region during the last seven-plus years has proved that his thesis was dead wrong has had no impact on the president’s thinking.
As the Times reports, the goal of the lame-duck Obama initiative is nothing less than to “save” the two-state solution, which the president and his foreign policy team believe is dying on their watch. While the details were not laid out in the article, the implication would be that the U.S. would insist on Israeli territorial withdrawals with the 1967 lines as the starting point for discussions, the creation of a Palestinian state and some sort of division of Jerusalem along with security guarantees. In other words, this would be what the foreign policy establishment has spent the last two decades telling us is the solution that “everyone knows” must be implemented.
In theory, some form of this effort might be the ideal solution to the intractable problem of two people struggling over one land. But rather than a gesture for the future that sets out principles that the two sides must point toward, the administration effort is very much mired in the reality of the present. And that is why it would be a colossal mistake that could serve as the starting point for even more violence rather than peace. Indeed, the proposal is a microcosm of all the mistakes made by Obama since January 2009 that exacerbated an already bad situation and set the stage for the very bloodshed that Biden was forced to deplore during his visit.
What’s wrong with another UN Security Council resolution on Middle East peace? Some Israelis and others in the foreign policy establishment aren’t that worried or impressed by the idea. But the problem with Obama’s Middle East diplomacy is that it is resolutely out of touch with the reality on the ground in such a way as to encourage the most destructive impulses within Palestinian society.
After all, the absence of peace isn’t due to lack of plans for it. Such plans are a dime a dozen and have been floating around the region for decades. Israel has even agreed to some of them, as evidenced by its offer of peace and independence to the Palestinians in 2000, 2001, and 2008 that would have given them their own state in almost all of the West Bank, Gaza, and a share of Jerusalem. But Yasir Arafat and then his successor Abbas turned down each one. Even the supposedly “hard-line” government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed not only to a two-state solution but also to far-reaching withdrawals from the West Bank. But Abbas not only refused to negotiate seriously but also blew up the talks by making a deal with Hamas and executing an end run around the U.S. to the UN, lest he once again be forced to say no to peace.
Abbas has made it clear he will never say yes to any peace deal because to do so he must recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders might be drawn. Nor is this mere posturing. It reflects a deeply held consensus within the political culture of Palestinians in which any compromise that forces them to end their century-long war against Zionism is seen as unacceptable. That this intransigence has been a disaster for the Palestinians is not in doubt. But it is one that has persisted in spite of the obvious benefits that might be obtained from peace. But instead of diplomatic efforts being focused on convincing them of the cost of persisting in this position, the U.S. has spent the past several years confirming their belief that sooner or later, the Israelis will be forced to bow to their demands without requiring them to end the conflict for all time.
That is why Biden’s statements about the PA having to condemn the Jaffa attack are welcome but too little and too late. After years of beating up the Israelis and treating them as the obstacle to peace, the Palestinians believe the Jewish state is increasingly isolated. With both the U.S. and its European allies continuing to send aid to a PA that continues to praise terrorists as martyrs, so-called “moderates” like Abbas have no incentive to change their policies or even to attempt to begin the work of convincing their people to accept peace. Indeed, Abbas’s lies about Israel harming the Temple Mount mosques — a cynical ploy taken right out of the playbook written by the pro-Nazi Haj Amin al-Husseini — was aimed at provoking violence in the hope of creating more U.S. pressure on Israel.
The only thing the Obama framework would accomplish is to create more such pressure and, in turn, more incentive for Palestinian terrorism, since both the PA and Hamas, believe, with good reasons, that the international community will never make them pay a price for either their support for terrorism or their refusal to make peace.
If the overwhelming majority of Israelis no longer believe that the two-state solution is viable (a consensus that now united both Netanyahu’s Likud and the leading left-wing opposition party), it is because they know that any withdrawal would lead to more terrorism. They also know that the model for an independent Palestinian state is not the utopia envisioned by Obama but the very real entity in Gaza run by Hamas as a terrorist caliphate.
Peace plans that don’t take changing this reality as their main focus and starting point are pointless. Worse than that, they convince the Palestinians that they need only wait for the West to abandon Israel. Sadly, President Obama has done much in his time in office to encourage them in that belief. His real Middle East legacy isn’t a peace plan but a framework for violence that Israelis and now even American tourists continue to pay for in blood.
2a)ABBAS REFUSES TO APOLOGIZE, BLAMES ISRAEL FOR DEATH OF AMERICAN IN JAFFA
US VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN (L) MEETS WITH PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY LEADER MAHMOUD ABBAS IN RAMALLAH ON MARCH 09, 2016.
PHOTO CREDIT: FLASH90
ON WEDNESDAY, BIDEN JOINED WITH ISRAELI PRESIDENT BENJAMIN NETANYAHU AT A PRESS CONFERENCE IN JERUSALEM. BOTH POLITICIANS CONDEMNED THE TERRORIST ATTACKS THAT TOOK PLACE IN ISRAEL THE DAY BEFORE, WITH A SPECIAL EMPHASIS ON THE BRUTAL MURDER OFTAYLOR FORCE, THE TEXAS-BORN VANDERBILT BUSINESS SCHOOL STUDENT AND U.S. ARMY VET AND WEST POINT GRADUATE.
BIDEN CALLED ON MAHMOUD ABBAS AND THE REST OF THE PALESTINIAN ARAB LEADERSHIP AND THE ENTIRE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY TO DENOUNCE TERRORIST ATTACKS AGAINST ISRAELIS, INCLUDING THE ONE IN WHICH FORCE WAS MURDERED, HIS WIFE WAS BADLY INJURED, AND 11 OTHERS WERE WOUNDED, ACCORDING TO THE JERUSALEM POST.
"LET ME SAY IN NO UNCERTAIN TERMS: THE U.S. CONDEMNS THESE ACTS AND CONDEMNS THE FAILURE TO CONDEMN THESE ACTS," BIDEN SAID.
BUT WHEN BIDEN MET WITH MAHMOUD ABBAS, THE ACTING HEAD OF THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY, LATER IN THE DAY, ABBAS POINTEDLY DID NOT DO WHAT BIDEN HAD INSISTED HE SHOULD HAVE DONE: HE DID NOT CONDEMN THE MURDERS THAT BIDEN HAD CONDEMNED ONLY HOURS BEFORE.
INSTEAD, ABAS OFFERED CONDOLENCE OVER THE DEATH OF THE AMERICAN -- AS IF THE MAN DIED OF SOME CAUSE HAVING NOTHING TO DO WITH ABBAS -- AND THEN SLID INTO ASSIGNING BLAME FOR THE OUTRAGE. NOT SURPRISINGLY, THE ARAB LEADER'S BLAME FINGER POINTED ONLY AT ISRAEL.
THE USUAL SUSPECTS WERE TROTTED OUT BY ABBAS: THE "OCCUPATION," THE "SETTLEMENTS," AND ALL KINDS OF UGLY ISRAELI MEANNESS ARE WHAT ABBAS BLAMED FOR THE VIOLENCE THAT LED TO FORCE'S DEATH. ABBAS ALSO ASSUMED HIS TYPICAL STANCE: THAT OF VICTIMHOOD.
ABBAS TOLD BIDEN THAT '"ISRAEL HAS 'KILLED 200 PALESTINIANS IN THE PAST FIVE MONTHS," NEGLECTING TO MENTION THAT THE VAST MAJORITY OF THOSE WERE PERPETRATORS OF ATTACKS OR ATTEMPTED ATTACKS ON ISRAELIS.
OF COURSE, THIS QUESTION NOW HANGS IN THE AIR: HAVING CONDEMNED "THE FAILURE TO CONDEMN THESE ACTS," WILL VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN, OR ANY MEMBER OF THE CURRENT ADMINISTRATION, ACTUALLY CONFRONT THE FACT THAT PALESTINIAN LEADER ABBAS IN FACT "FAIL[ED]" TO ISSUE ANY SUCH CONDEMNATION? AND BECAUSE THE ANSWER TO THAT QUESTION IS OBVIOUS, HERE'S ANOTHER: DOESN'T THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION DESERVE TO BE CONDEMNED FOR FAILING TO CONDEMN ABBAS'S FAILURE TO CONDEMN?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: LORI LOWENTHAL MARCUS IS THE U.S. CORRESPONDENT FOR THE JEWISH PRESS. A GRADUATE OF HARVARD LAW SCHOOL, SHE PREVIOUSLY PRACTICED FIRST AMENDMENT LAW AND TAUGHT IN PHILADELPHIA-AREA GRADUATE AND LAW SCHOOLS. YOU CAN REACH HER BY EMAIL:LORI@JEWISHPRESSONLINE.COM
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3) The Race Is On To Stop Anti-Semitism at CUNY As Israel Gets Attacked
By Seth Lipsky
Americans are mourning today the murder of one of their finest sons, Taylor Force, a West Point graduate. He made it through tours in Iraq and Afghanistan only to be stabbed to death by a Palestinian Arab terrorist on the streets of Tel Aviv.
It is a bitter moment, one that will be talked about at dinner tables in homes across America. The State Department was quick to issue a condemnation, declaring there is “no justification for terrorism.”
Could this kind of violence erupt at the City University of New York? That’s one of the questions being discussed by New Yorkers who are working on the problem of anti-Semitism at our city’s great public university.
They are alarmed at the pussyfooting by politicians as anti-Semitism on CUNY’S campuses grows more overt and edges closer to physical confrontation. Anti-Semitic incidents are being reported at world-famous CUNY campuses.
There are reports of students being harassed and faculty intimidated in the name of “justice for Palestine.” Partisans of CUNY insist its administration is marshaling the right response. Yet almost no public officials are standing up.
Mayor de Blasio is mum. The City Council hasn’t acted. The borough presidents are preoccupied. The state Legislature, except for Dov Hikind and one or two others, is cowering in silence.Neither the Assembly nor Senate has called hearings, though they pay for nearly half of CUNY’s budget. They have issued no subpoenas. No legislators or officials have offered to, say, escort Jewish undergraduates across campuses so hostile that some students fear showing a Star of David necklace.
The silence was broken by one of the oldest and most distinguished Jewish groups, the Zionist Organization of America. Last month it sent a horrifying bill of particulars to CUNY’s chancellor, James Milliken.
The details were promptly reported by the New York Post’s Carl Campanile under the headline “‘Jew-haters’ spread fear at CUNY colleges.” Mr. Campanile cited incidents at John Jay, Hunter, Brooklyn and Staten Island campuses.
“Jews out of CUNY” is the cry the ZOA says was heard at Hunter. At John Jay, ZOA reports, slurs were so frequent that three Jewish students transferred out. At a Brooklyn College faculty meeting, a yarmulke-wearing professor was called a “Zionist pig.”
The ZOA letter prompted one state senator, Jack Martins of Mineola, to write to Governor Cuomo, demanding he take action. Mr. Martins cited reports blaming a group called Students for Justice in Palestine.
CUNY answered ZOA’s letter the next day. Its answer was signed by Mr. Milliken and CUNY Chairman Benno Schmidt. High hopes had been placed on Schmidt, a former president of Yale, when he took over as chairman of CUNY.
Yet Messrs. Schmidt and Milliken seem to have consulted the law firm of Milquetoast, Nervous & Dodge. Their letter confessed that they were aware of “many” of the incidents described in the ZOA’s 10-page letter but failed to satisfy the ZOA.
The disruption of the faculty meeting at Brooklyn is “still under active investigation,” they said. They insisted that in the other cases, the colleges responded “promptly,” including with “strong contemporaneous public condemnations.”
Messrs. Milliken and Schmidt rattled on about free speech, which is not the issue. They also said they’d deploy a student-faculty “task force” and seek “additional perspective and advice” from outside counsel.
The outside counsel — Paul Shechtman and Barbara Jones, both partners at Zuckerman Spaeder — are regarded by one activist on this issue as serious figures. I hear that they were Milliken’s idea, but, separately, that they were essentially forced on CUNY by an angry Andrew Cuomo.
The Anti-Defamation League has praised CUNY’s response. ZOA’s president has suggested that had the events involved hostility to any other group, the response would have been stronger. There have been no warnings of expulsion or criminal charges.
Not that the anti-Semitism is limited to CUNY. Intimidation of Jewish students is taking place at campuses all across America. And not just America, as a column by The New York Times’ Roger Cohen marked this week.
Mr. Cohen wrote about his alma mater of Oxford. He made a point of calling this phenomenon what it is — “Anti-Semitism of the Left.” Good for him. Yet the Times itself has been silent on anti-Semitism at CUNY.
Mayor de Blasio has closed the NYPD’s demographics unit, which had allegedly surveilled campuses in and out of New York. So our guard has been reduced against what could become the kind of violence that cost the lives of Taylor Force and so many others.
This column first appeared in the New York Post.
3a) Can Our Colleges be Saved?
By Victor Davis Hanson
The public is steadily losing confidence in undergraduate education, given that we hear constantly about how poorly educated are today's graduates and how few well-paying jobs await them.
The cost of college is a national scandal. Collective student loan debt in America is about $1.2 trillion. Campus political correctness is now daily news.
How could higher education be held accountable and thereby be reformed?
Just as expensive new roofs are not supposed to leak, $100,000 educations should not leave students unprepared for the real world upon graduation. Rain and snow calibrate the effectiveness of a roofer's work, but how does society know whether students' expensive investments in their professors and courses have led to any quantifiable knowledge?
SAT and ACT examinations originated in the 1920s and 1960s, respectively, as meritocratic ways to allow applicants from less prestigious high schools and from minority groups to be assessed on their aptitude for college -- without the old-boy, establishment prejudices of class, gender and race. Would such blind exams also work in reverse as national college exit tests? Could bachelor's degrees be predicated on certifying that graduates possess a minimum level of common knowledge?
Lawyers with degrees can only practice after passing bar exams. Doctors cannot practice medicine upon the completion of M.D. degrees unless they are board certified. Why can't undergraduate degrees likewise be certified? One can certainly imagine the ensuring hysteria.
What would happen if some students from less prestigious state schools graduated from college with higher exit-test scores than the majority of Harvard and Yale graduates? What if students still did not test any higher in analytics and vocabulary after thousands of dollars and several years of lectures and classroom hours?
Would schools then cut back on "studies" courses, the number of administrators or lavish recreational facilities to help ensure that students first and foremost mastered a classical body of common knowledge? Would administrators be forced to acknowledge that their campuses had price-gouged students but imparted to them little in return?
Public corporations open their books to shareholders. Shouldn't publicly supported colleges and tax-exempt private universities do the same for taxpayers and tuition-paying students? Shouldn't the public know how much of their contributions are allotted for particular academic departments, sports programs and study centers?
Take out a car or home loan, and there are pages of federal regulations protecting the borrower. Why not give students the same truth-in-advertising protections with the liabilities they will incur?
Schools should inform all enrollees in advance of the prorated costs for a four-, five- or six-year education, including warnings about compounded interest on their debt.
Each school should publicize the percentage of its students who found employment in their particular area of studies -- and after how long, and at what salary. Majoring in media studies is fine, but teenagers entering college should be warned that such jobs have become far more scarce than jobs in engineering or accounting.
The average pay associated with a particular major should be posted. Surely an 18-year-old student should have as much information about borrowing for an education as she does about going into far less debt for a car loan.
Shouldn't campus diversity also be defined far more broadly?
Campuses need not just different races, ethnicities and religions to enrich their intellectual landscapes, but exposure to a wide variety of political and social views as well.
The country is divided 50/50 on most hot-button issues, not 95/5 as it is so often on campus. Life after college is about hearing and tolerating views one doesn't agree with -- not about shouting down dissenting viewpoints in adolescent fashion, or demanding to feel always reaffirmed rather than occasionally uncomfortable.
Why make campuses exempt from realities commonly found elsewhere?
Tech graduates will enter the workplace without guarantees of lifetime tenure at Google. There will be no "safe spaces" for supervisors at GM or Ford where others of a different race cannot enter. Employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs or NASA cannot expect their complaints and accusations to proceed by suspending the due process and free-speech rights of the accused.
No boss at Citibank will issue trigger warnings before ordering subordinates to work harder. Do not tell your supervisor at Comcast that his advice to pick up the pace was a microaggression. Try shouting down or otherwise disrupting a presenter of a new smart-phone product line whom you do not like and see what happens.
Saving the campus from itself is not about doing much that is new or different.
Instead, the challenge is simply forcing colleges that have gone rogue to grow up and to return to the rules and regulations that everyone else follows -- and which they should have long ago abided by as well.
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