Monday, January 01, 2007

CLINGING TO MARX

The Young America's Foundation has come out with their 2006 list of the most bizarre and Politically Correct college courses of the year and it shows, once again, the foolishness being called an "education" that is foisted upon our children in our colleges and universities.

The number one most ridiculous is Occidental College's "The Phallus", supposedly a study on the relation "between the phallus and the penis, the meaning of the phallus, phallologocentrism, the lesbian phallus, the Jewish phallus, the Latino phallus, and the relation of the phallus and fetishism."....

There were a myriad of other "courses" that our highly priced and woefully inadequate universities have wasted time and effort upon, many of which attack America, the male of the species, white people and western culture. Of course, they all assault the sensibilities of any student who wants to actually learn something useful.

But, to my mind, the worst one on the list was Amherst College's "Taking Marx Seriously: Should Marx be Given Another Chance? Let me answer that query with a word even the pointy heads at University might understand: NO. A resounding no! Here is Amherst's course description:

Should Marx be given yet another chance? Is there anything left to gain by returning to texts whose earnest exegesis has occupied countless interpreters, both friendly and hostile, for generations? Has Marx's credibility survived the global debacle of those regimes and movements that drew inspiration from his work, however poorly they understood it? Or, conversely, have we entered a new era in which post-Marxism has joined a host of other "post-" phenomena? This seminar will deal with these and related questions in the context of a close and critical reading of Marx's texts. The main themes we will discuss include Marx's conception of capitalist modernity, material and intellectual production, power, class conflicts and social consciousness, and his critique of alienation, bourgeois freedom and representative democracy. We will also examine Marx's theories of historical progress, capitalist exploitation, globalization and human emancipation.

In light of the 100 million human beings murdered over the last 100 years or so by people inspired by Marx, it is a continual amazement to me that certain types of people still wonder if the failed theorist's ideas could still work "if only it were tried right".

Marx's ideas have nearly all proven chimerical at best and murderous at worst, yet we get one person after another traipsing about our college campuses claiming the mantle of thoughtful, professor positing the absurdities of Marx and his many murderous acolytes and ruefully pontificating upon their unrealized potential.

These are the same sorts of people who point to things like the Spanish Inquisition and the many wars launched under the name of Christ in previous centuries as reasons to de-legitimize Christianity. They proclaim Christianity's hypocrisy because of the many that have died in Christ's name. Yet, far more people have died as a result of Marx's religion than any other ever created. And not a word about the millions upon millions of Marx's victims is ever acknowledged by the ivory tower set.

So, according to such people, religion should be cast out because of such depredations, religion should be banished from the mind of man and excised from the university because of such historical excess, yet the excess caused by Marx? Well, let's not bring that up shall we? After all, they plaintively claim that Marx's ideas were never "really" implemented right as this fetid course description seems to allude, so his ideas must deserve a second look. Marx's followers just didn't get it because of how "poorly they understood it". Regardless of what Marxism has led to, let's give it another shot. no pun intended.

So, why can't we use the same argument for religion? Why can't we say religion has never been tried right, too? Not that I am equating Christ to Marx, far from it. But the pointy heads don't see their dichotomy. In fact, they don't even acknowledge it as a legitimate query.

Marx has proven an utter failure through every manner of implementation of his ideas on both large and small scale and does not behoove the time spent on him as a legitimate course of study unless it is as an adjunct to political science or history, and then only as a negative example therein. Marx deserves nothing but the contempt of everyone. And our universities don't deserve much better for their slavish love for this murderous, beast at this rate. Yes, he should be taught. But he deserves to be placed as the worst human being in human history. Worse than Hitler, worse then Stalin, even worse then Torquemada.

Source






MONEY, SHMONEY! THE BRITISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT NEITHER KNOWS OR CARES ABOUT MILLIONS IT IS SUPPOSED TO SUPERVISE

If someone owed me millions, I would know all about it all the time

The government has been forced to release official accounts showing that in its rush to sign up city academy [charter school] sponsors it may have failed to collect millions of pounds pledged by wealthy businessmen. The Department for Education and Skills (DfES) has released figures showing that it has received only 32 million pounds of the 74m pledged to build academies that have already opened. Ministers said that for seven academies they "did not know" how much money had been paid by sponsors. It is not clear whether the money has not been paid, is not formally due, or whether the figures reflect lax accounting at the DfES.

The disclosure, made in a written parliamentary answer on the day Tony Blair was interviewed by detectives investigating the cash-for-peerages scandal, comes amid increasing concern over the city academy programme. Blair is desperate to sign up hundreds of sponsors before he steps down in the new year amid fears that Brown may halt the scheme. The premier has lauded and honoured businessmen backing academies. City academies are controlled by wealthy men or companies who have pledged 1.5m to 2m. The money is supposed to pay for the construction of the buildings.

However, the new figures show that for the 45 academies already open, the government can account for the full sponsorship pledged from only five donors. Teaching unions and other critics were led to believe that the sponsorship would be paid before any academy opened. The biggest shortfall in the DfES figures appears in the payments pledged by United Learning Trust (ULT), a Christian charity that has Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, on its board. The ULT has pledged 14.6m for the academies, but the government said it could account for only 2,979,000 received. The government has paid more than 120m towards the capital costs of building ULT academies.

In some cases, the DfES figures appear to be out of date. Lord Harris is recorded as having paid 1,157,000 of the 4.5m he pledged for four academies. However, yesterday he detailed how he had given all the money due so far. Last week ARK, the charitable group headed by Arpad Busson, the financier, which has opened one academy, also insisted it was up to date with its pledges, raising questions over the internal accounting system of the DfES.

The DfES figures also show that Barry Townsley, the stockbroker who secretly loaned Labour 1m before being nominated for a peerage, has handed over only 896,000 of his 2m. He said recently that he was up to date with his payments. Peter Shalson, another Labour donor, is said to have handed over only 989,000 of his 1,490,000. He could not be reached for comment.

Paul Holmes, a Liberal Democrat on the Education Select Committee, described the figures as outrageous. He said: "Nobody - either politician or DfES official - has ever been able to give clear figures on the finances of the academies. There's also a question over what is being handed over `in kind'." Under the system, each donor forms a trust that oversees the construction and running of the new school. The DfES then hands over tens of millions of pounds and the private sponsor provides their share of the money. The development plans are jointly agreed and regular accounts and invoices are submitted to the DfES.

Sarah Teather, the Liberal Democrat education spokeswoman, called for urgent action. She said: "The government does not know whether sponsors are actually giving the money to the academies. ULT has had 120m of public money and yet parents can't tell whether their schools have had any sponsorship."

More here

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"


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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

it is a continual amazement to me that certain types of people still wonder if the failed theorist's ideas could still work "if only it were tried right".

I don't see how the course examines 'how the ideas could still work'. I do see how the course examines the ideas.

Why shouldn't a liberal education examine all the important ideas - political and otherwise - of modern history?

Should Phsycology majors read Freud even though some of his theories have been improved upon and some dismissed by more modern psychology? Of course, Freud invented the construct, the underpinnings of modern psychology.

Critical thinkers are trained by being exposed to good ideas as well as bad ones.