From: gary@isis.cgd.ucar.edu (Gary Strand)
Subject: Re: The Big Lie (PC)
Organization: Climate and Global Dynamics Division/NCAR, Boulder, CO
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 04:00:40 GMT

hb> Harel Barzilai (misc.activism.progressive co-moderator)

hb> Political Correctness (PC) is the Big Lie campaign. If you are against
hb> racism, abortion clinic bombings, union-busting and imperialist war--then
hb> maybe you're just too "politically correct" and a dangerous enemy of the
hb> state.

  As if people opposed to PC are *for* racism, abortion clinic bombings, &c.

  What's that we've been hearing from the Left for years about compartment-
  alizing and marginalizing people who view things differently?

  Sorry to tell you, but PC does exist. Get a copy of "Heterodoxy" magazine
  sometime and read it from cover to cover. Chock full of gory details of
  various radical "progressives" and their doublethink war against people
  who dare question their dogma.

hb> Who are the targets? You and I, and a few professors and courses in Black
hb> and women's studies.

  You mean the kind of courses that teach that IcePeople and SunPeople are
  reasonable ideas, and that consensual sex and rape are one and the same?
  Puhleeze. Some of the stuff coming out of so-called "scholars" mouths these
  days is absolutely totally perfectly ridiculous. And these same "scholars"
  enjoy virtually unconditional support from the PC crowd.

hb> Grabbing the mantle of free speech to champion the right of punks to hurl
hb> words like "nigger" is to profane the purpose and spirit of free speech.  

  This is a strawman, and you know it. The core is the exchange of ideas, and
  crap like PC is designed to interrupt and forbid certain ideas from being
  expressed. Just goes to show that Left and Right can be the same point, ie,
  if one realizes that political thought is more like a circle than a line.

hb> Do you know what PC really is: Ed Herman writes in his doublespeak
hb> dictionary, it is "The challenge of dissidents and minorities to
hb> traditionally biased usages and curricula, as perceived by the vested
hb> interests in existing usage and curricula and those seeking a basis for
hb> attacking the current challengers."

  Ha! There were "dissidents and minorities" on campuses 25 years ago, now
  they're the Establishment. Tragically, they're stuck in the same old tired
  dogma and rhetoric, reliving Vietnam and draft-card burning as if it all
  happened just yesterday. Hello? Hello? It's 1992, now, folks.

  BTW, since when did the fact that Aristotle is a Dead White Male make his
  ideas any less meritorious?

hb> What these attacks from the Bush camp, petty-bourgeiois students and the
hb> fascist far RIGHT are doing is inciting straight-out racist violence with
hb> their forcible repression of independent thought and action.....in a LOCK
hb> STEP march to total *CONFORMITY.* 

  Funny, I thought this was the PC ideal. *CONFORMITY* to Far Left ideals and
  philosophy. No room for anyone slightly to the right of Jesse Jackson.

--
Gary Strand                      Opinions stated herein are mine alone and are
strandwg@ncar.ucar.edu            not representative of NCAR, UCAR, or the NSF
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