Not In This Case

Michael Coren Tells Off the “Occupy” Crowd

Marquette’s Education School Supports Terrorist, Anti-Private Schools Organization

From Badger Catholic:

Marquette University, Alverno College, and Mount Mary College are listed as sponsoring the speaking engagement of terrorist Bill Ayers at Stonefly Brewery in Milwaukee.

The host group Rethink Education is like a socialist/communist/activist movement ostensibly for “better” schools (which I think we all agree we need) but that comes at the price of indoctrination; like what they wrote about a teacher coming out as a lesbian to her students.

It’s ironic that Milwaukee Catholic schools are in direct competition with public schools and yet all the Milwaukee Catholic colleges signed on to co-sponsor that event, when Rethinking Schools is anti-private-schools.

The real story here is a bit more complicated, but equally appalling.

The Marquette Education College as a whole did not support the event, but rather only the Educational Policy and Leadership program. Education College Dean William Henk disclaimed any knowledge of the sponsorship, but noted that a particular department or program might have sponsored the event.

Ellen Eckman, Chair of Educational Policy and Leadership, confirmed that her department had ponied up the $250 for the sponsorship.

Eckman, asked whether she was put off by the fact that Ayers is an unrepentant former terrorist, replied that “I see him as an educational professor dealing with reform.” She added “We use a tremendous amount of Rethinking Schools materials. . . .”

Asked whether she saw their agenda as hostile to choice schools or private schools or Catholic parochial schools, Eckman said she didn’t see this as being the case, and that they are “interested in creating really good thoughtful teachers.”

We decided to ask someone who is actually in favor of school choice about this, going to George Mitchell, formerly of School Choice Wisconsin and a long-time pro-school choice activist. His reply:

Rethinking Schools was founded by Bob Peterson, the current president of the MTEA. The publication has contained countless articles over the years condemning school choice. Peterson’s wife, Barbara Miner, has what sometimes seems like a permanent commission from the Crossroads section [of the Journal-Sentinel] for anti-choice articles.

So it seems we have Marquette’s College of Education contributing not merely to an organization that honors an unrepentant terrorist, but one that opposes any competition with government-run schools, including that from Catholic schools.

Welcome to our “Catholic university.”

Eckman said “we’re in there with Mt. Mary and Alverno . . . they sponsored them too.”

This of course, it the argument that no sensible parent will accept from a teenager: everybody is doing it, so it must be fine.

In fact, this just shows that the corruption that afflicts “Catholic” colleges is rather widespread.

Education schools have a symbiotic relationship with the government education monopoly. That monopoly creates a demand for the education credentials that the education schools produce. Deep down, the people who produce those credentials know that a free education market would not value those credentials to nearly the degree that the government monopoly does, and for good reason.

The credentials the education schools provide have little to do with teaching effectiveness.

So as is typical at places like Marquette, if there is a conflict between a Catholic perspective, and secular political correctness, secular political correctness wins. This applies to the gay lobby, and it applies to the Education College.

Ward Connerly, Affirmative Action Opponent, to Speak at Law School

From Marquette News Briefs:

Ward Connerly, founder and president of the American Civil Rights Institute, will speak at the Law School on Thursday, Oct. 27, at 12:10 p.m. Connerly, who is speaking at the Law School at the invitation of the Federalist Society, will present “Affirmative Action: Is It Equality or Discrimination?” RSVP online by Thursday, Oct. 20. Space is limited.

Connerly is in fact an heroic figure, fighting to end racial discrimination in an era when the politically correct kinds of discrimination (anti-white, anti-male) are embraced (although heavily out of fear) by most powerful institutions in society.

Documentary on Conservative Talk Radio, With a Milwaukee Focus

Marquette’s Brien Farley (an employee of University Advancement) has spent several months working on a documentary about conservative talk radio, and has interviewed all the top talk radio hosts in the market (with the exception of Belling) as well as the most visible local critics of the genre.

The entire thing will be six parts, but at the moment the first three parts are available as streaming video on his website.

These are an absolute “must see” for anybody interested in conservative talk radio, Milwaukee politics or indeed the media in general.

[In the interests of full disclosure: we technically “supervised” the project as a Marquette internship for academic credit. In fact, Farley needed virtually no “supervision” as he is quite media savvy and politically savvy.]

Your humble blogger is one of the people featured in the video.

College Republicans to Protest College Democrats Support of “Occupy Milwaukee”

Earlier today, we blogged about a plan by the Marquette College Democrats to drum up support for an “Occupy” event tomorrow under the Bridge at the library.

The actual “Occupy” event, involving leftists from all over, will be Saturday.

The College Republicans will be staging their own counter-protest nearby.

From a press release from the College Republicans:

Milwaukee, WI – On October 14, the Marquette community will see that not all young people believe in the victim mentality of the Occupy protesters. Members of the College Republicans at Marquette will be hosting an information table outside Raynor Library from 10am through 2pm in an effort to drown out those attempting to occupy America. The students will be promoting free market values, limited government, and exposing the lackluster, job-creating performance of the Obama Administration.

Professional protesters and freeloaders that make up the Occupy Wall Street movement has spread to cities across the country. These out-of-touch demonstrators will be continuing their blitzkrieg on American values in Milwaukee on Saturday, October 14th. The College Republicans of Marquette will be making a stand to defend their turf.

So the College Democrats and the College Republicans will be simultaneously holding demonstrations a few paces apart next to the library.

Cool.

We expect everything to be perfectly civil, although a bit of good-natured badinage between the two groups would be entirely appropriate.

We would urge everybody who will be on campus tomorrow to drop by and offer your support to whichever side you happen to favor.

Even asking polite but pointed questions of the side you oppose is fine. But any incivility hurts whatever point you are wanting to make.

And besides, any uncivil behavior these days is invariably caught on video and shortly made visible on You-Tube.

But we don’t see any problems. We expect everybody to have a good time.

The Occupy Wall Street Protesters

There are tons of videos on these folks, but this is pretty good, and probably fairly representative.

Marquette College Democrats Drink the Kool-Aid: Supporting “Occupy Wall Street” Event

From an e-mail to members of the College Democrats:

From: Heffernan, Erin
Sent: Monday, October 10, 2011 5:13 PM
To: LS-CollegeDemocrats
Subject: Occupy Wall Street event

Hey MU College dems!

Several things are going on this week you all should know about:

1. The occupy Wall Street movement is growing and Occupy Milwaukee is having their first protest this Saturday.

The Occupy Milwaukee’ movement has been endorsed by figures like Russ Feingold, Rob Zerban, the New York Times, and Nancy Pelosi. It is a great movement and we hope many of you can come out for the protest.

Here is a link for more information: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=143038022460557

2. We are having an informational table under the bridge this Friday to advertise for the Occupy Wall Street event and to promote general membership. We need people to sit at the table in one hour shifts from 10am until 3pm. If you can make anytime at all during that period, please email us at: marquettedems@gmail.com

3. Once again, our next meeting on October 18th at 7pm we are holding e-board elections. If you are interested in running or voting you must come to the meeting in person. If you would like to run for a position you should also email a paragraph describing why you would like that position and what makes you qualified to us at: marquettedems@gmail.com. These paragraphs will be sent to the club to inform our member’s about each person running.

Here is a link to RSVP for the meeting/elections: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=247051955337218

And if you haven’t already:

Like us on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Marquette-University-College-Democrats/168055839891684

Follow us on twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/MarquetteDems

Thanks and have a great week!

Erin Heffernan
College of Arts & Sciences, ‘14
Secretary, College Democrats
Marquette University
erin.heffernan@marquette.edu

Historically, this is out of character for the Marquette College Democrats.

The organization has traditionally been dominated by students who were moderate liberals, not given to anti-capitalist rhetoric. And the reason for that has been that the College Democrats have been students with an interest in real-world politics: working on campaigns, interning on Capitol Hill, and so on.

You can be liberal and do that, but you can’t be extreme.

But now they are associating themselves with a bunch of air-headed, supercilious, smug, spoiled and not-very-bright people.

To the extent that the movement has a coherent message, it’s socialist.

But mostly it’s whining about the trials of privileged kids who can skip class, and who got to go to an expensive college because daddy worked for one of those corporations they are demonizing.

They feel put-upon because their Women’s Studies major doesn’t get them a good paying job. And they think it’s unfair that they have to repay student loans.

Thus it seems the Marquette College Democrats have lurched to the left.

[Update]

Rick Esenberg nailed the issue of the protests in a recent blog post:

The occupation protests are straight up demagoguery. The protesters are either incoherent (rants about “corporations,” “we are the 99%”) or call for incredibly stupid and destructive things (guaranteed “living” incomes or debt forgiveness.)

The protests are less about a program than they are about a psychology. They are fueled by the frisson of opposition and manned by the usual suspects. To be sure, there is real economic uncertainty. If you borrowed $100,000 for a degree in Comparative Literature, the prospect of paying it back with your earnings at Noodles is frightening. Unemployment is scary. Underemployment is frustrating and there is too much of both.

But the protesters have no solution. The “movement” largely reduces to a claim that other people have something that I want and should be made to give it to me. It’s easy to rail about a few people who are very wealthy but the notion that the nation’s economic problems can be solved by taking their stuff away doesn’t bear the slightest scrutiny. You can’t balance the budget that way. You can’t solve sluggish economic demand. Maybe the world would be a better place if Steve Jobs and Bill Gates couldn’t become filthy rich by revolutionizing the way we live and work, but I don’t think so.

There is a reasonable critique of government bailouts and the overheated financial industry but it’s a complicated one that can’t be reduced to narratives about greed (although greed is certainly part of the story) or unfettered capitalism.

I think that the occupation protests will wither away but expect continued emphasis on the class warfare theme by the Democrats and their allies. Without an unexpected economic turnabout, the President can’t run for re-election based on his record. He needs a scapegoat - someone to blame and somebody to fear.

Move to Start a Libertarian Student Group at Marquette

A Marquette student named Ryan Kulp wants to start an organization called Students for Liberty on the Marquette campus.

You can see the flyer here.

A lot of people call themselves libertarians, and we rather like some and aren’t a fan of some others. We think of Ron Paul as close to being a crackpot. And the Wisconsin Libertarian Party has had a badly misbegotten flirtation with 9/11 conspiracy theories.

On the other hand, the flyer associates Students for Liberty with the Cato Institute and the Institute for Humane Studies, two organization for which we have a great deal of respect.

Our view about speech and political discourse on campus is “the more, the merrier.”

Kulp only needs a small handful of students to sign on to begin the process of getting recognition as a student group at Marquette.

Any student who is a Ron Paul fan, or maybe not a Ron Paul fan but considers themselves a libertarian, would do well to contact Kulp and ask for more information.

Free Speech Wins Over Gay Political Correctness in Texas

We blogged about this a while ago, and now we find that a student who offered the polite opinion that homosexuality is sinful has been vindicated, and the teacher who persecuted him has been put on administrative leave.

The problem with this, of course, is that for every conservative Christian kid who is willing to challenge the orthodoxy there are doubtless several who shut up rather than endure a hassle.

The gay lobby prates constantly about “bullying,” but in fact it’s the conservative Christian students who are most likely to be bullied by teachers and school officials.

This has certainly been the case at Marquette, where the gay lobby tried to get the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship thrown off campus.