“She was the ‘wrong’ kind of victim, and therefore didn’t exist”
[Hat tip: commenter “AesopFan”]
Harry V. Jaffa, a professor of political philosophy at Claremont College, gave a farewell address to the school in 1989 that appears here in its entirety. The speech has some commonalities with the work of Allan Bloom (The Closing of the American Mind) written at around the same time. It describes destructive leftist forces in academia that were already strongly entrenched and which have only gained power in the ensuing years.
The title of this post refers to the victim of a bombing that occurred at Claremont in 1969 in a situation that very much resembled that which occurred at Cornell in the same year, described by Bloom in detail in his book, and about which I’ve written previously.
Here’s Jaffa:
I recall one AP wire service story [about the Claremont bombing and resultant grave injuries to a 19-year-old woman] that crossed the nation the day the bomb went off, and then, after a short flurry in the local media, silence. In the twenty years that have intervened I have told this story hundreds of times. I have never met anyone outside of Claremont who knew about it. I have never met anyone in Claremont who was not here at the time — and that includes students who came in the fall of 1969, and in all the years that have followed — who knew about it.
To the best of my knowledge, the bombs that exploded in Claremont in February of 1969 were the first bombs to explode on any American campus in that time of turbulence across the nation. This dubious distinction is one that has been as thoroughly suppressed as any of the innumerable non-events that have occurred within the Soviet Union, at any time in the last 70 years, or until the arrival of Glasnost
.
The shabby treatment of this innocent victim reflects less the miserliness or parsimony of this extremely wealthy college, than a collective desire of all the colleges to suppress the memory of what happened. She was the “wrong” kind of victim, and therefore didn’t count.But the shame does not stop here. No arrest in the case was ever made, although shortly after the Claremon episode a young Black Panther in San Francisco engaged in putting together a pipe bomb blew himself up. It was common knowledge at the time that there was a Panther unit in the nearby City of Pomona, supplying “technical assistance ”to the radical students on campus. Had Pomona or Scripps or any of the other colleges had any real interest in finding the criminals who planted the bombs, they would have offered a substantial reward for information leading to arrests and convictions. They never did. They were perfectly terrified at the prospect of what might happen if there were arrests.
The entire episode was very much in the vein of the events at Cornell in 1969, although there was no bombing at Cornell and what happened there was covered quite heavily in the press.
Jaffa also wrote of Claremont:
There was no wish to eliminate racial bias from the courses of study in the Claremont Colleges. Rather did it wish to encounter white bias with black bias. The assumption was that an unbiased education was a delusion. Education was understood to be, not a function of the freedom of the human mind, but of its determination by race and ethnicity. What stands out finally in my memory of this meeting, was the declaration of a Brown leader, that he had been in Vietnam, and had seen there what bullets could do, and that he knew therefore what they could do in Claremont. This was followed by a rhetorical question asked by a Black leader — a young woman who the next year was an assistant dean at Pomona College. The question was, “Do you want this campus burned down this summer or next summer?”
There’s much much more in the speech, but it’s long. So I’ll close with this quote, in which Jaffa describes a now-familiar leftist approach to “debate”:
Debate, like religion, had become in their minds only an opiate. You defeated your opponent’s arguments by trampling on your opponents, and by treating them with contempt.
In recent years this approach has been markedly successful in achieving a type of persuasion – not through the mechanism of logic but through emotion. The feelings to which it appeals in its practitioners are the desire for power and revenge, and the feelings it attempts to engender in its targets are fear, shame, remorse, and the desire to surrender.
The most important element in any leftist framing of any story is always the Leninist Who/Whom? within the paradigm of Oppressor and Oppressed. Several months ago, The Philadelphia Inquirer (once upon a time a respectable newspaper) announced its decision to discontinue, in its “news” coverage, any photographs of suspected perpetrators of violent crimes (because of the obvious racial disparities in the commission of such), while at the same time disallowing almost all comments on its website, in order that the hegemonic narrative not be disrupted by the intrusion of inconvenient facts.
“…in order that the hegemonic narrative not be disrupted by the intrusion of inconvenient facts.”
Yes, reality ultimately prevails—MUST prevail—over those who create their own reality, though unfortunately it may take a while—even a long while—before this happens; before the “created reality” (along with its fabulating creators) collapses like a house of cards.
Which is precisely why “Biden” has to be as destructive as possible as quickly as possible. And why the Corrupt Media, the Corrupt Infotech cartels and the Corrupt Democratic Party-controlled agencies HAVE TO double, triple and quadruple down—HAVE TO tough it out—HAVE TO weaken the country—as much and for as long as they can hold on.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/hezbollah-inc-emanuele-ottolenghi
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/bryan-preston/2021/06/02/texas-gov-abbott-declares-border-emergency-as-intel-community-warns-of-rising-terrorist-threat-n1451521
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2021/06/02/house-republicans-skewer-bidens-pathway-to-bankruptcy-n1451483
The clock is ticking…
File under: Destroy America NOW.
“attempts”? Does it really work?
The glove has just been thrown at the feet of Antifa and its Democratic Party/Corrupt Media enablers:
https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1399758557000704006
…while the “Capital Insurrection” Narrative is on life support, sustained only by a criminal Democratic party and its committed helots in corrupted government institutions and the media:
https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1400083135522643980
…as the pressure on Dr. Fauci—and his enablers—mounts:
https://twitter.com/SKMorefield/status/1400101507358470152
Should be an “interesting” next few weeks…
It’s called “psych-ops” and yes, it’s been known to work.
(Depends on the person it’s being used to bludgeon of course…as well as the kind of leverage that’s being “applied”.)
Time is of the essence, and so…pulling out all the stops?
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/greenwald-new-domestic-war-terror-has-already-begun-even-without-new-laws-biden-wants
Um, er, make that “psy-ops”….
(Of course one could always call it “torture by other means”…)
It is pathetic that a majority of Americans do not (and have not, 1969?!) demand their Press report honestly, openly and thoroughly. We should not be surprised that there are multiple, interested parties willing to bury, change or create a narrative to fit their interests. However, I am disgusted that so many U.S. citizens not only tolerate being lied to, we willingly FUND the lies. We are complicit.
I just heard evolutionary biologist Heather Heying read an excerpt from the science journal Nature that was astounding for its bias and lack of support of the scientific method.
James Lindsay (who successfully pranked feminist studies journals) posits an interesting theory on his podcast regarding the overproduction of an educated class who are increasingly frustrated that they are not revered as the elites academia and the culture have assured them they would become by pursuing degrees that cost more than society values:
https://newdiscourses.com/2021/05/bourgeois-overproduction-problem-fake-elite/
Does anyone here imagine that, in the aggregate, other university professors of today are any less cowardly than the ones described by Jaffa at Claremont and Bloom at Cornell?
No? So we can safely conclude that 98% of university professors are moral cowards. It’s a truism that moral cowardice is the sire of physical cowardice. A coward is not an appropriate steward of the young. A society’s children and young adults are its future and thus of inestimable importance.
Which leads me to a modest proposal; a mandatory requisite for teaching at a public university or college should be prior experience in combat. Only those who have “seen the elephant” and demonstrated a willingness to if necessary, pay that “last full measure of devotion” have earned the privilege of being entrusted with student’s adult* education.
* adult in that they’ve reached the age of gaining the voting franchise
FWIW, I realize the practical difficulties that would arise in implementing this suggestion. But as always, where there’s a will, there’s a way.
Count me as someone who has never heard of the Claremont bombing. Count me also as someone who found Jaffa’s exposition rambling and vague. Who has injured, what were the circumstances, who was likely responsible and why?
Here’s the Pomona College summary:
_________________________________________
On Feb. 26, a bomb went off in the Politics Department in Carnegie Hall, seriously injuring the department secretary, Mary Ann Keatley. Mrs. Keatley lost part of her right hand and suffered severe eye injuries when she picked up a shoebox wrapped in brown paper from a government professor’s mailbox and it exploded in her hand. Another bomb went off at approximately the same time in a women’s bathroom at Scripps College, with no casualties. No one ever took responsibility or was arrested for the bombings, which took place during a time of publicized protests and heightened tensions concerning the creation of ethnic study programs at the College and the Vietnam War.
https://www.pomona.edu/timeline/1960s/1969
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The “ethnic study programs” mentioned above was a “Black Studies Center” being pushed by the “Black Students Union” at the time. Intriguingly, members of the BSU were placed in hiding within hours of the bombing by the college:
____________________________________
Members of the Black Students Union at the six Claremont Colleges were in hiding today, with the consent of the administration, following two bombings. The students reportedly dropped from sight a few hours after the homemade time bombs went off Tuesday afternoon at Scripps College and Pomona College within a few minutes of each other. Dr. Mark H. Curtis, president of Scripps and provost of the Associated Colleges at Claremont, said he did not believe the BSU was involved in the terrorist attacks.
–“Desert Sun, Volume 42, Number 178, 28 February 1969”
https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=DS19690228.2.98&e=——-en–20–1–txt-txIN——–1
____________________________________
Meanwhile fast forward to 2018 and we find a BLM-style document explaining the bombing purely in terms of the violence directed at blacks then and also blaming the victim’s husband, as the rumored head of vigilante out to avenge his wife’s injuries.
____________________________________
Approximately 80 black students evacuated on-campus and off-campus housing in light of wrongful speculation of Black students as the conspirators, and rumors of a white vigilante group, possibly headed by Mary Ann Keatley’s husband, who was allegedly opposed to Black Studies and the Black Studies movement. The archival materials of the event, and Gutierrez’s thesis, allowed me to identify the climate of violence in which black students lived following the
establishment of the BSC, conditions that persist and continue to create an exigency for black student organizing.
–“The Black Studies Project: Uncovering the History of the Black Studies Center at the Claremont Colleges”
____________________________________
The author, Dray Denson, places her essay in the context of “movement workers” Angela Davis and Assata Shakur, who were violent black radicals of the domestic terrorist variety.
Geoffrey Britain:
The small liberal arts college I graduated from in the early 70s had one professor who was a US Army POW from the Korean War. He was an outlier and had no use for the trendy anti-American leftist tripe prevalent on campus. Personal lived experience with communists I guess.
Zaphod; always ready to play with matches and gasoline in someone else’s country. Such a sweet child, he had good intentions.
Couple of others, in situations where most of the “important” factors are similar, but some others are not. Justine Damond and Katie Rouse.
GB, reference your modest proposal:
would you consider expanding the allowed faculty to include other real world exposures, such as first responders (law enforcement, fire, medical), or small business leaders who have had to and have met payroll for 3 or 5 or 8 years?
These are all people/groups that can provide a positive answer to the age old free market question “what have you done for me, LATELY!?”
@R2L:
Victor Davis Hanson would probably like to restrict the Professorial Franchise to 4th Generation Scandinavian Raisin Farmers who can quote Hesiod.
Not really. I think he’s a rather more open-minded than that.
I’m not.
May I suggest Newman’s Idea of a University? Most ‘Universities’ today are not. And should not be. Most people who attend or preside in said ‘Universities’ have no business being anywhere near one.
For the CivNats: Jefferson had similar things to say about this, too.
Geoffrey – in re faculty credentials – Heinlein went further by conditioning citizenship on veteran status.
Probably too much to ask for educators, because of the numbers, but I’m willing to sign on to an Amendment that elected officials must do a tour of duty before tossing their hat in the ring.
Even if most just end up being paper pushers.
IMO the Vietnam war among other problems was unevenly fought by draftees that generally did NOT include academics & elites (except for a few volunteers).
Of course, this entire argument is undercut by noting that John Kerry is a veteran.
Let the memes roll down like waters…
https://twitter.com/ginacarano/status/1400090763430481932
…and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
https://twitter.com/SebGorka/status/1400246033821618185
This was as close as I could come to a CRT thread — look for that super dad and his cute daughter on the Dave Rubin show soon.
AesopFan:
The Vietnam War was not “unevenly fought by draftees that generally did NOT include academics & elites (except for a few volunteers).” Of course, it depends what you mean by the phrases. But here are the statistics:
Also here:
It’s a truism that moral cowardice is the sire of physical cowardice.
George Bush the Elder was a decorated combat veteran who demonstrated his moxie in the business world as well. He also fathered six children, not something an anxiety-ridden man does, and his contemporary correspondence reveals that after his 5th child was born they were still hoping for one more.
In public life, he gave no evidence of a clear set of principles and programmatic objectives apart from his shtick in re the capital gains tax, and his public peregrinations made it appear his opinion was that of the last person to whom he’d spoken. (Recall the confidential meetings he attended during the Iran-Contra scheme in 1985 and 1986. Reviewing the minutes, the Tower Commission couldn’t discern just what his views were on any aspect of it. Alexander Haig amused himself during the 1988 Republican primary debates sticking a stiletto in him; it seemed to be the reason Haig elected to run).
So we can safely conclude that 98% of university professors are moral cowards.
Don’t know about ‘98%’, but the vast majority of them are other-directed, status-conscious, self-centered, and far more adept at formulating excuses and sophistries than actual principles. It makes institutions vulnerable to fanatics and wire-pullers. If a critical mass of them were actually serious about their vocation, higher education would look quite different.
Note, the actual purpose of higher education is to provide agreeable salaried employment for people who want to work as professors. Everything else is by-product.
The quiet word when I first started paying attention to who was who in China Grift game back in early 90s when the world was young (for naive bushy-tailed me) was that George Bush took advantage of his time in Beijing
https://bushchinafoundation.org/u-s-china-relations-legacy/
as de-facto Ambassador in 74/5 to get the Bush Family Office / Private Equity Arm / Whatever they called it back in those days firmly wedged into the meatiest bits of whatever trade was being lined up.
Now I don’t know how true this is. I *do* know an individual whose father was a member of the first post-Nixon visit PRC Trade Mission to the USA around the same time. That family did so well from that chance at grabbing first dibs that they’ll never go hungry for abalone and Patek Grand Complications this side of the Year 3000. And that’s who gave me the Bush tip, FWIW.
One of my friends was a officer and Vietnam volunteer and he said the draftees don’t want to be here and we don’t want them here. He was rather contemptous of the draftees. Considered them a bunch of pot smoking slackers.
Neo – thanks for the statistical historic update. (I forgot my own “check twice, post once” rule.)
I was speaking from the zeitgeist of the sixties and seventies (we are all about lived experiences now), when the prevailing view of most college students was that of the potential draftees doing their best to avoid being sent over to ‘Nam. I knew there were volunteers, of course, but a lot of those (per AesopSpouse’s AF dad) were low-lottery-number men signing up for the Air Force or Navy to avoid being drafted into the Army.
My personal friends in graduate school included several intelligent, very personable veterans who did their hitch, although I never asked if they were voluntary or forced.
(IIRC Bush the elder was also CIA chief for a stint, but I assume he’d prefer we’d all forget about that episode…though that experience most likely would have helped him navigate his presidency…to the extent that he was able to do so.)
Now I don’t know how true this is.
Yes you do.
One brother was in the insurance business, one in the investment management / private banking business, and one ran a modest local bank before going into the investment management business. The father was employed in investment banking; he retired from that business in 1952 and died in 1972.
(IIRC Bush the elder was also CIA chief for a stint, but I assume he’d prefer we’d all forget about that episode…though that experience most likely would have helped him navigate his presidency…to the extent that he was able to do so.)
Which he?
Bush the Elder was used as a utility man by Nixon and Ford, placed in four quite different jobs over a six year period.
Art+Deco:
Must you be so obtuse?
Bush the Utility Man? Use your head.
This guy was as mobbed up as it was possible for a WASP to be. Phillips Andover, Yale, Skull and Bones, and never looked back. Bush the Mister Fixit Man. Bush the Machine Man. Bush the Finger in Every Pie It’s a Big Club and We Ain’t in It Man.
Simpler, happier times, though. At least back in those days the Elites had to send their youngsters off to the wars they started to risk their skins.
Read the man’s Wiki Page. This fellow had Gonnections. Even if he didn’t fix the World Series 🙂
WRT Viet Nam and volunteers: The question is the definition–when ever is it not?)–of “volunteer”,
One might volunteer for the Army as a way to avoid the draft and get a choice as to branch assignment. Whether or not that worked out, volunteering for the Army to avoid drafting isn’t, you know, completely volitional when it comes to service. But would that be a volunteer?
If you volunteered for the Marines instead of the Army–drafted or not–is that materially different when you end up in Viet Nam? But how can you tell that from a guy who just flat wants to be a Marine, accepting that Viet Nam is on the schedule?
The helicopter guys saw a lot of action and a lot got killed. If you “volunteer”, or apply for, aviation, you’ve volunteered for something. Is that the same as volunteering for Viet Nam?
Things got so complicated that we used to joke about if you go vol indef (voluntarily indefinite term of service which we never figured out), can you get an early out?
If you re-up and your next short tour is Viet Nam, you volunteered for something, right, by re-enlisting?
Point is that the number of volunteers is a contentious item, one way or another, and in situations like that, the definition is important.
I didn’t deploy, so I have no first-hand knowledge, but it seemed to me that most of the young guys I met who were going, or who had gone, had not volunteered in the sense of SEND ME!