Bollinger’s Email Excuse
By Marcus Traianus Posted in Breaking News — Comments (8) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Certainly, it is easy to understand that speaking to one’s adversaries has value. It permits a dialogue which potentially enables appreciation of another’s point of view. The ultimate objective is of course to resolve differences in a manner that serves both parties and in the case of world leaders, humanity. It is therefore simplistic to comprehend there is a point at which dialogue is counterproductive. That point is most visibly appreciable when a rival displays continual egregious disregard for honesty, compassion, freedom, democracy, human rights or any semblance of integrity. At that juncture, the process of interlocution becomes an abstract tool for meaningless propaganda; merely another means to achieve ignominious goals and strengthen their pursuit. Assisting in such a charade makes one a willing accomplice and forestalls any objective, reasonable or meaningful action. It is therefore not difficult to understand that any defense of such action is nothing more than an excuse; witness the following;
-----Original Message-----
From: Lee C. Bollinger [mailto:officeofthepresident@columbia.edu]
Sent: Monday, September 24, 2007 7:03 AM
To:
Subject: Thoughts on Today's ForumDear fellow members of the Columbia community:
I would like to share a few thoughts about today’s appearance of President Ahmadinejad at our World Leaders Forum. I know this is a matter of deep concern for many in our University community and beyond. I want to say first and foremost how proud I am of Columbia, especially our students, as we discuss, debate and plan for this highly visible event.
I ask that each of us make special efforts to respect the different views people have about the event and to recognize the different ways it affects members of our community. For many reasons, this will demand the best of each of us to live up to the best of Columbia's traditions.
For the School of International and Public Affairs, which developed the idea for this forum as the commencement to a year-long examination of 30 years of the Islamic Republic in Iran, this is an important educational experience for training future leaders to confront the world as it is -- a world that includes far too many brutal, anti-democratic and repressive regimes. For the rest of us, this occasion is not only about the speaker but quite centrally about us -- about who we are as a nation and what universities can be in our society.
I would like just to repeat what I have said earlier: It is vitally important for a university to protect the right of our schools, our deans and our faculty to create programming for academic purposes.
Necessarily, on occasion this will bring us into contact with beliefs many, most, or even all of us will find offensive and even odious.But it should never be thought that merely to listen to ideas we deplore in any way implies our endorsement of those ideas, or the weakness of our resolve to resist those ideas, or our naiveté about the very real dangers inherent in such ideas. It is a critical premise of freedom of speech that we do not honor the dishonorable when we open the public forum to their voices.
The great majority of student leaders with whom I met last week affirmed their belief that this event, however controversial, is consistent with the values of academic freedom we share at the center of university life. I fully support, indeed I celebrate, the right to peacefully demonstrate and engage in a dialogue about this event and this speaker, as I understand a wide coalition of our student groups are planning for today. That such a forum and such public criticism of President Ahmadinejad’s statements and policies could not safely take place on a university campus in Iran today sharpens the point of what we do here. The kind of freedom that will be on display at Columbia has always been and remains today our nation’s most potent weapon against repressive regimes everywhere in the world. This is the power and example of America at its best.
Sincerely,
Lee C. Bollinger
Your thoughts?
The last thing he said is that on the day Columbia U. offered the Iranian the invite to speak there is the same day Iran released an American Iranian who had been held as a prisoner in Iran for speaking out against Iran. coincidence? quid pro quo?
Now there's no more oak oppression,
For they passed a noble law,
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet, axe, and saw.
If there were a quid pro quo that would be a despicable act. Freedom given at the price of providing a speaking platform? I can not think of a more foolish, misguided and dangerous precedent.
I did not see the interview. However, the fact he would even leave this open to speculation is at face value patronizing and disengenuous.
"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori"
Contributor to The Minority Report
Some more information about what Coatsman was talking about on C-SPAN.
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200709/NAT200...
Now there's no more oak oppression,
For they passed a noble law,
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet, axe, and saw.
Doubtful. This is merely an example of the liberal mindset. You see, they only take hostages because we are mean to them. When we are nicer then people are set free. That's their interpretation. Appeasement is the foundation of their foreign policy "thoughts", such as they are.
absentee
For many reasons, this will demand the best of each of us to live up to the best of Columbia's traditions.
And just which traditions would that be. Giving aid and comfort to the enemy ? Promoting repressive regimes ? Ignoring the obvious so you can have pretensions of high mindedness.
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
- Selectively engaging and inviting speakers
- Rushing the stage or other antics in order to not let the person invited speak
By the way, think the latter will apply to Ahmadinejad? Doubt it; that speaks volumes.
"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori"
Contributor to The Minority Report
"Because this man would send his goons to beat us into a pulp if we protested him in Iran at a university, inviting him here is a celebration of university freedom."
It takes a lot of words to make that kind of doublethink palatable.
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Reality: Thompson/Romney Dream: Santorum/Watts.