Last summer, one of my professors started every class with Orwellian “Five-Minute Hate” condemnations of President Bush. The instructor did not understand how ridiculous he looked: a 50-year-old guy in sandals and a worn-out jacket with hanging threads, who didn’t make it to an Ivy League university, giving hysterical speeches calling President Bush “a moron” and “a good for nothing idiot.”

This confused me. Was the professor referring to the George W. Bush who was elected governor of Texas and then the president of the richest and most powerful country in the world? Was he referring to the George W. Bush who graduated with a B.A. from Yale and an M.B.A. from Harvard, who made $14 million in the baseball business, who was a military pilot and acted with courage and nobility as a leader during one of the worst moments of American history on September 11?

“What is this?” I asked myself.

At least this professor can be credited for giving me my well-deserved grade of C. Another professor, who hated President Bush because he, like Bush, also graduated from Yale, gave me an F with a note saying that I would never overcome the language barrier.

I couldn’t help reflecting that, at the same age as Bush, this professor had achieved little more than a few divorces and five children spread all over the country — information that he poured on us before even learning our names, which, by the way, he never managed to do.

Considering how irritated he was by my essay, which ridiculed his leftist views, this professor was not conducting himself in a fair and unbiased manner. Obviously, I was not the only student who complained about my grade. As a result, the English department quickly changed my grade of F to “no credit.” The following semester, I repeated the same class with a famously tough teacher, receiving a B+ and many compliments on my writing. It seems that I had overcome my allegedly insurmountable “language barrier” after all.

I noticed a recurring pattern in SFSU’s anti-American professors: the degree to which a professor condemned American “imperialism” was usually in direct proportion to his lack of personal hygiene and steady decline in personal appearance.

I was especially fascinated by one middle-aged guy who had alcoholism written all over his face, in bathhouse flip-flops revealing dirty overgrown toenails, and with his belongings stuffed in a plastic grocery bag. If I hadn’t seen him behind the teacher’s desk, I would have mistaken him for one of San Francisco’s deranged homeless, lost on the campus having wandered from the neighboring shower program. Instead of his

subject, African Studies, he was teaching that America was rich only because it dishonestly made money on rebuilding Europe after WWII. If not for that lucky strike, he argued, this country would be even more terrible than it is now. He never had notes or a clear structure for his lectures; he just improvised on his well-worn, beloved topic of anti-Americanism.

Over time I found the inverse proportion worked as well: the more well-kept and professional the teacher was, and the harder he worked, the less inclined he was to get himself into the mess of quasi-political discussions instead of the work he was paid to do: teach.

One female instructor, who had no idea how to fill the three hours of class, used to spend 40 minutes taking attendance and often started her lectures with the sentence, “In this country. . . .” Instead of discussing literature, she would consistently praise socialism and what she considered to be the Soviet workers’ paradise. Only my cobra-like gaze and “rude” remarks made her choke on her words. For this offence, I received a D, even though my essays were so good that she told me she didn’t believe I was the one who wrote them.

Immediately before the war in Iraq, I watched two different kinds of professors at SFSU: both of them, naturally, antiwar. Some of them did their work with professional integrity even though their hearts were on the antiwar side, trusting students to make their own political decisions. Some others not only served as ideologues to the anti-American mob organized under their patronage, but also agitated and incited students to leave classes for antiwar demonstrations.

This pointed out the major difference between my education in the Soviet Union and my education at SFSU. When I wanted to transfer credits from my Leningrad University degree to SFSU, I was told by the International Admissions Office that it couldn’t be done, because as a professor of Marxist-Leninist philosophy, I had only gone through “indoctrination.” I find this fascinating, because the difference between Leningrad University and SFSU is that my professors in Leningrad were forced to teach socialist propaganda for fear of brutal punishment; here a bunch of aged hippies, who put students through forced indoctrination instead of academic work, were materially rewarded for their radical activism.

Not only am I as amazed as Alice in the Socialist Wonderland of San Francisco State University, but I feel as though I need to attend a third university to receive a real education. At SFSU, I’ve merely had my second Marxist indoctrination.

—FrontPageMagazine.com, December 3, 2003

Oberlin College: The Left’s Playground
by Jean Pearce

Most parents would not knowingly send their kids to a college where radical political and sexual indoctrination by the faculty and administration was virtually inescapable. Most parents would be concerned if their offspring were taught that the Arab television network al-Jazeera was the best source of news about the Iraq war or if faculty and administrators indoctrinated students with a one-sided message about U.S. foreign policy both inside and outside the classroom, then helped them organize protests against their country. Most parents would be concerned if their kids were exhorted to have sex by campus-sponsored speakers or encouraged to get promiscuous at orgies hosted by the college and attended by both students and faculty.

But the folks who send their kids to Ohio’s Oberlin College aren’t typical parents. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Oberlin is the number-one college choice for professors’ kids in the Northwest. It’s also popular with the children of far-Left activists, many of whom attended the school themselves. And it’s become a haven for gay and “transgender” students.

All this helps explain why the leftist magazine Mother Jones named Oberlin one of the nation’s Top 10 activist colleges in 2001. It also explains why Oberlin, a school of only 2,900 students, typically sends 200 students or more to most major anti-war and anti-globalization protests across the nation. Oberlin has become the place to get an education for future radical activists.

But that doesn’t begin to capture the surreal atmosphere at Oberlin, where even the campus newspaper recently acknowledges that digging up a Republican among the student body is nearly impossible to do – they found only two – and conservative, or even moderate, voices are virtually non-existent.

Perhaps that’s why no one complains or even seems to notice the lines that faculty, administrators and campus-sponsored speakers cross in students’ lives. At Oberlin, it’s difficult to tell where activism ends and education begins.

It wasn’t enough that women’s studies professor Frances Hasso humiliated herself before the nation by writing a column for Newsday that argued that al-Jazeera, – the same network that referred to the Sept. 11 terrorists as “martyrs” – was the best source of fair and balanced news on the Iraq war.

The school beamed Hafez Mirazi, al-Jazeera’s Washington Bureau Chief, into a school auditorium via satellite feed for a live interview with students and faculty. Mirazi assured them that contrary to U.S. news reports, most Iraqi civilians opposed the invading U.S. forces and some of them initially tried to defend their country against invading troops, only to give up in the face of overwhelming U.S. firepower.

At Oberlin, all “education” and college-sponsored “discussion” on the war in Iraq is markedly one-sided and failure is routinely predicted. In early October, the school sponsored a talk by U.S. Major General William Nash, the director of the Council on Foreign Relations’ Center for Preventive Action. Nash, who opposed the war, criticized U.S. post-war strategy and told students and faculty that time is “running out” for democratic prospects in Iraq and the time for “dramatic action” has come.

This spring, College President Nancy Dye led the faculty in what the Oberlin Review described as a “scathing critique” of the Bush Administration on Iraq at an anti-war “teach-in,” an indoctrination session considered to be a form of protest. Dye has also publicly praised and encouraged students’ protests against the war.

But then, Dye has a long history of hypocrisy on Middle Eastern policy. Oberlin, which has a large Jewish student population, recently received national attention after anti-Semitic graffiti equating Zionism to racism and Nazism appeared on campus. Dye was quick to tell the media the graffiti was “hurtful and divisive and makes it more difficult to have an open, engaged dialogue on campus.”

Yet Dye has had no public quarrels with the one-sided rhetoric that’s fueling the problem – namely vitriolic anti-Israel teach-ins and education sessions led by Oberlin’s faculty. Flyers advertising a week of pro-Palestinian propaganda by faculty and guest speakers called “Locked In: A Week of Education About Palestine,” featured pictures of Palestinian “victims” reaching their hands out between the bars of an Israeli prison. The “Jewish” point of view was presented by Jewish speakers – who opposed the existence of Israel.

In April, anti-war activist Liz McAlister gave a talk on civil disobedience. McAlister lists the fact that she is a convicted felon and served three years in prison for vandalizing (or “disarming,” as she euphemistically puts it) a B-2 bomber at Griffiss Air Force Base in 1983 among her qualifications on a biography, posted on the college’s website.

continued on page 8

The Radical Left’s Cyber Space
by Michael P. Tremoglie

In the wake of the anarcho-socialist invasion of Miami to protest the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) meetings, it is important to understand how such events are organized. Independent Media Centers (or IMC or Indymedia) are the “cyber-grapevine,” the “CNN,” and the “Clear Channel,” for just about every lunatic leftist fringe group dedicated to eliminating capitalism from the world. Indymedia is the institution developed so the anarcho-socialists can communicate with each other and coordinate their activities. In fact, no less an authority than Mother Jones magazine paid tribute to IMC in their November 17 edition, observing that, “The global antiwar protests that surprised the world on February 15 grew out of the networks built by years of globalization activism, from Indymedia to the World Social Forum.”

Officially the IMC states—rather unctuously—that it is “a network of collectively run media outlets for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of the truth. We work out of a love and inspiration for people who continue to work for a better world, despite corporate media’s distortions and unwillingness to cover the efforts to free humanity. “

However, as one source who attended an IMC meeting in Seattle told me by email, “Indymedia is funneling money from foundations like Soros and Ford to be used in their campaigns against democracy, capitalism, and the US government. They are receiving donations from organizations like Mercy Corps. … .money …initially donated by Nike and Microsoft for charity in Africa, [which IMC Brazil] will use for [its own] purposes, without their consent.”… One IMC activist said, “These companies are either too stupid, or we are not yet considered a big threat to world capitalism!”

If one has any question about the purpose of IMC, all one needs to do is read this quote from the Austin Indymedia Center - published November 11,2003. The article—about the FTAA protests—proclaims, “Miami is the setting for one of the most important mobilizations of the global justice movement since 9/11. In the defiant spirit of Seattle’s 1999 World Trade Organization (WTO) protests, a broad coalition of grassroots activists, trade unions and non-governmental organizations are planning large-scale demonstrations to derail the trade meetings and map out alternatives to corporate globalization. From anarchists to family farmers, Miami will be overflowing with people who know that another world is possible.” (italics mine)

An article published by the Pittsburgh Indymedia declares the same objective. It states, “The government expects 20,000 to 100,000 people to attempt to derail the summit and we see no reason to disappoint them…. The diverse range of events already planned include: forums… trainings, a massive outdoor concert by the AFL-CIO, a steelworkers rally, a mass march and rally, a padded contingent to shut down the meetings… There will be a wide variety of tactics employed by groups opposed to the FTAA meetings. Some of these will likely involve the possibility of arrest. “ (italics mine)

Yet, for all its invective about corporatism—the Great Satan of the anarcho-socialists—it is corporatism that created IMC. Independent Media Centers were conceived during the 1996 Democratic convention in Chicago. However, it was not until 1999 that Indymedia was actually founded in Seattle during the WTO protests.

The founders were Dan Merkle, a Seattle lawyer and Sheri Herndon a professional protester. Merkle was the ideal person to lead this effort. His law partner, Bob Siegel, is the current president of the Seattle National Lawyers Guild - a communist front organization dating to the 1930s. Merkle founded other nonprofits in the Seattle area. Merkle and Herndon possessed the finances, organization, expertise, and ideology to create the Seattle IMC.

Donations to Indymedia became tax deductible by using a fiscal sponsor. A fiscal sponsor is an organization - the contributions to which are deductible for federal tax purposes by the donor—which then funnels the donation to another organization that does not have tax-exempt status. The fiscal sponsor for Indymedia was Jam for Justice—a Seattle nonprofit established by Merkle. Currently the fiscal sponsor is the IMC of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, which is now a tax-exempt organization.

Ironically, one of IMC’s first donors was the Glaser Foundation. Rob Glaser is the founder of RealNetworks and RealPlayer—a very profitable Internet corporation. So although Indymedia claims to eschew corporations and financiers, it is these very institutions to which they owe their existence. He is enamored with Indymedia.

The IMC is, paradoxically, the nexus of capitalist technology wealth and anti-capitalism. Yet, then again maybe it is not so paradoxical. The fact that Indymedia was created and financed by wealthy individuals such as Soros, Glaser, and Merkle is emblematic of the Vanguardism of Lenin. Lenin’s philosophy was that a vanguard of educated, talented people was needed to lead the workers into paradise. Indymedia is part of that vanguard.

The true paradox of the Independent Media Centers is their name. They are not independent although they delude themselves into believing they are. Quite the contrary, the IMC’s are indeed very dependent on the leadership of the communists, anti-capitalists, and anti-Americans. People whom Thomas Sowell termed the “anointed.” People who believe that they are in possession of some special wisdom that will make the world a better place—if only the rest of us have the good sense to listen to them.

The people who operate IMC are the modern version of those who created, over a century ago, the International Workingmen’s Association (IWA). The IWA, or First Internationale, was created in London in the late 1800s. The purpose of this organization was to create a classless and stateless society that would bring happiness and peace to the world.

The results of the efforts of this communist international were the deaths of 100 million people and the poverty of billions. It was a bad idea then, and is a bad idea now.

—FrontPageMagazine.com, November 26, 2003

Marxism’s Evil: America
by Aryeh Spero

Karl Marx claimed “religion is the opiate of the people.” More than a century later it is clear that Marxism is the opiate of the intelligentsia. Or, as the events of recent weeks have illustrated, anti-Americanism is the opiate of the left, including the left living here in America.

The left’s refusal to acknowledge the heft of evidence supplied over the last five months by the Bush Administration regarding Saddam’s lethal arsenal of mass destruction and his obvious defiance to conform to the disarmament required of him demonstrates the left’s attitude of: “Don’t confuse me with the facts, ma’am.”

For too long, we’ve been laboring under the false assumption that enough evidence would convince the left. But tons of evidence is never enough to those who neither seek the truth nor are open to objective persuasion but instead are motivated by an unyielding desire to oppose America no matter what and stand forever behind liberal causes. As with everything with today’s left, the Cause overrides facts, logic, or evidence.

However frustrating and demoralizing the verbal assault on the United States during the last months, it has been very eye-opening in making us realize that the left is not guided by motifs of liberty, freedom and human rights but anti-Americanism and international socialism. The descriptions and eyewitness accounts of the long-list of most gruesome, monstrous, and systemic torture performed by Saddam and his goons have not moved the hearts of those evolved into fascists of the left.

This apprehension should be vital in bolstering our self-confidence—knowing that the left does not hold the moral high ground, simply a control and manipulation of the vocabulary and language needed to camouflage and appear altruistic.

Moreover, it is now apparent that the left no longer shares our historic American values. It is thus futile to try to convince them by referring to these ideals. Sadly, the left’s emotions soar only when advocating boundary-less, one-world socialism. The events of the last weeks have been tectonic in alerting us to an America that is not divided simply politically

but bifurcated by two separate value systems, one American, the other nouveau European.

That America is more than simply a country but an ideal and ethos is daily reified by the worldwide pronouncements of anti-Americanism. There is no such phenomenon of, say, anti-Belgianism or anti-Swissism.

It has become crystal-clear that there exist in this country many Americans who are anti-America, especially when it is governed by a President who boldly acts in a fashion reflecting the ideology of Americanism. Be they from academia, Hollywood, journalism, or wayward students, they are bound by the glue of leftist ideology and would, in a heartbeat, elect the nouveau European Leftist Jacques Chirac President of the United States if such were possible.

Some come to their anti-Americanism having ingested the ideological poison against America fed by their teachers, clergy, media, and those who are called “artists.” Some are infected by the psychological disease of self-hate or the age-old tendency in human nature to destroy or deconstruct that which is good and noble. Many are, of course, propelled by a self-righteous sense of moral and intellectual superiority. What began forty years ago as domestic self-criticism has degenerated into a simpatico with anything anti-American.

Still, we ask why; Why would people voluntarily and enthusiastically see in their own good country only evil while exonerating the truly evil empires and movements present in the world? Perhaps because such is the membership card into the clique. It is the entry and sustaining ticket into the fashionable fraternity of those whose association they crave.

History has shown that the need for acceptance induced many toward membership into the Nazi or Communist Party. It then, as now, reflected a personal need to be part of an elitist corps, a fellow traveler in the sought-after circle. Despite the success many have achieved here precisely because of Americanism, anti-Americanism and anti-capitalism are the attitudes necessary for membership into the coveted club. It reflects not courage but weakness. As for leftist true believers, anti-Americanism is the new-found religion, Marx’s opiate.

—Human Events, October 27, 2003, p. 13

Carlos the Jackal: Communist to Radical Islam
by Amir Taheri

Few convicted murderers and hijackers accept the label “terrorist.” One who does—indeed, who embraces terrorism as among man’s “noblest pursuits”—is a Venezuelan now serving a life sentence for murder in France. He is Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, better known as “Carlos the Jackal.”

He has just published a book in French to announce his conversion to Islam and present his strategy for “the destruction of the United States through an orchestrated and persistent campaign of terror.” Entitled Revolutionary Islam (Editions du Rocher, 2003) and published under the name Ilich Ramírez Sánchez CARLOS, the book urges “all revolutionaries, including those of the left, even atheists,” to accept the leadership of Islamists such as Osama bin Laden and so help turn Afghanistan and Iraq into the “graveyards of American imperialism.”

Son of a militant Communist, Ilich was sent to Moscow to study at Patrice Lumumba University, an institution set up by the KGB to train terrorists from the Third World. That was in the 1970s, when the most fashionable cause was opposition to the U.S. intervention in Indochina.

Ilich opted for the less fashionable cause of Palestine, and soon moved to Lebanon, where he trained for operations organized by George Habash’s People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

Western intelligence services first noticed Ilich when he murdered two French policemen and a Lebanese informant in Paris in 1975. But the peak of his career came in 1975, when he led the team that took 11 OPEC oil ministers hostage in Vienna, , then flew them to Algiers. He spent most of the next 20 years on the run, living under assumed identities, constantly changing protectors, until his Sudanese friends finally betrayed him six years ago, when they allowed French authorities to abduct him from his home in Khartoum and fly him to Paris for trial.

In his book, Carlos recounts that he was born into a “fairly prosperous” bourgeois family. His father had attended a French school run by Catholic priests but soon rejected their beliefs. “Having lost faith in God,” Carlos says, his father “looked to Marx and Lenin to fill at least part of the gap.” Sánchez père was so passionate about his new creed that he named all three of his sons after the founder of Bolshevism: Vladimir, Ilich, and Lenin.

The chief interest of Carlos’s book, however, lies not in the reminiscences of a bit player from the 1970s, but in the light it sheds in two areas. First, it recounts how Arab states like Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Syria, and Iraq routinely used terrorism as an instrument of state policy, often with support from the Soviet Union and its allies. And second, it illuminates the connection between radical atheism and radical religion, showing how one ideology can serve as the antechamber to another seemingly its opposite. Just as Carlos’s father made Marxist-Leninist ideology his religion, so Carlos has turned his new religion into the ideology of “revolutionary Islam.”

By the mid-1980s Carlos had decided that Marxism-Leninism was a dying creed. Yet its goal, the destruction of imperialism personified by the United States, remained in his view “the highest goal of humanity.” Carlos had also concluded that the United States could not be destroyed by any military rival. What was needed was a campaign of terror that would separate the United States from its allies and then destroy its self-confidence. This campaign would require a large number of volunteers ready both to kill and to die for the cause. Carlos saw that only revolutionary Islam could recruit the large numbers of killers and martyrs necessary to destroy the United States.

Carlos claims that terrorism is “the cleanest and most efficient form of warfare.” By killing civilians, he argues, the terrorist saps the morale of the enemy and forces its leadership to submit to the demands of the revolution or surrender. By killing a few, the terrorist saves the lives of the many. He cites several examples.

In November 1979, Iranian “students” raided the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took diplomats hostage. The Carter administration, fearful that the Americans would be executed, abandoned its “plots” against the Khomeinist revolution, and thus forestalled events that could have led to the deaths of tens of thousands of people.

Similarly, when Hezbollah suicide bombers attacked American targets in Beirut in 1983, a total of 300 Americans, including 241 Marines, were killed, forcing Washington to abandon its ambition of reshaping Lebanon. And in 1993 the murder of 18 U.S. Army Rangers in Mogadishu forced President Clinton to withdraw American peacekeepers from Somalia and abandon plans for the Horn of Africa, avoiding bigger conflicts that could have cost many more lives.

Carlos does not say why it is good for mankind to destroy the United States. His method is religious and admits of neither doubts nor counter-arguments. The West is evil, and the United States is the leader of the West. Thus the United States is evil. At one point he says the United States is evil. At one point he says the United States is an incarnation of

Satan (Shaytan) and should, therefore, be hated without question, just as believers hate Satan without asking why.

Carlos urges Islamist groups to conclude alliances with all radical elements, including Maoists and nationalists, in a joint campaign against the United States. He wants all radicals to rush to Afghanistan and Iraq to kill Americans, while hordes of “volunteers for martyrdom” organize suicide attacks inside the United States.

And he makes a number of forecasts: The United States will reshape Iraq, Syria will disintegrate, and Lebanon will fall apart while Hezbollah is destroyed. Kosovo will become independent, and Sudan will be carved up. Libya will surrender to the United States. Even France will be divided into smaller countries, according to what Carlos claims is a secret American plan worked out by Henry Morgenthau in the 1940s. Carlos believes that, in the medium-term at least, only two states—North Korea and Iran—will be able to resist the United States, thus representing “the last hopes of mankind.” The war against the United States, then, is going to be a long one, and the Americans will win the first rounds.

One question worth exploring in all this is whether Carlos is really a Muslim. Since Islam has neither baptism more excommunication, we have no grounds for saying he’s not. But neither is there reason to think he has any authority to speak on behalf of Islam. He is an individual with a peculiar view of the world that has nothing to do with what Islam has taught for 15 centuries. Moreover, his knowledge of Islamic doctrine, theology, history, and political philosophy is almost nonexistent. He thinks the first four caliphs were members of a dynasty known as the “Rashidis,” and he confuses Hajjaj Ibn Yussef, the brutal governor of Kufa, with Mansur al Hallaj, the mystic who was crucified for blasphemy.

At one point Carlos presents himself as “the voice of Islam and history.” At another point he poses as an authority on theology (fiqh) and offers a plan for “reforming the faith” under which “obligations” such as prayer, fasting and the pilgrimage to Mecca become secondary. Instead, the number one duty of Muslims becomes “fighting the United States by any means” available. He dwells on the necessity for all Muslim men to grow beards and all Muslim women to wear the “revolutionary” head-cover (the hijab) invented in Lebanon in the 1970s. He says that beards and the hijab can be used as tools of terror, to dishearten the Americans by reminding them that “Their Enemy Islam” is in their midst.

Carlos tells us little about the Islamic utopia that will cover the globe once Islam is established as “the sole religion of

mankind.” At one point he praises the Khomeinist system of rule by a mullah or group of mullahs. At another, he presents the “emirate” created by the Taliban in Afghanistan in 1998 as the model. Carlos is not interested in Chechnya, Kashmir, the Philippines, or Myanmar, where Muslim minorities are in conflict with non-Muslim states. Nor does he care if Muslims live under corrupt or even genocidal rulers, as long as those rulers are unfriendly toward the United States.

Where Islamists are fighting regimes that Carlos favors, he brands them “bandits” and “murderers.” In this way he condemns Islamists who are fighting the Libyan regime. He is especially harsh on Algerian Islamist terrorists, whom he labels “gangsters.” The reason is that Carlos was for years protected by the Algerian secret service.

A name-dropper, Carlos makes his own terrorist career out to have been something of historic significance. He pretends that many Arab leaders, from Muammar Qaddafi to Hafez al-Assad to Yasser Arafat, were his friends. He also claims to have known former Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto “very well,” though he does not say in what circumstances.

Carlos mentions the names of the seven men he most admires. Oddly enough, five are Palestinian Christians: George Habash, Waddi Haddad, Nayef Hawatemah, Kamal Nasser, and Naji Allosuh. Two are Muslim Arabs: The Algerian president, Abdul-Aziz Bouteflika, whom he calls “my beloved brother,” and fugitive terrorist Osama bin Laden, upon whom he bestows the title of “sheikh.”

Carlos’s admiration for Bouteflika is based on a misunderstanding. Carlos writes that Bouteflika agreed to become president of Algeria mainly to prevent his country from being absorbed into the NATO system, “a tool of the United States.” Carlos seems unaware that Algeria had already established a relationship with NATO. Indeed, at next May’s NATO summit, Algeria along with three other Arab states and Israel will join a “partnership for peace” with the alliance.

Carlos is wholly dedicated to inciting Muslims to hate the United States and not at all interested in inspiring them to change the regimes that oppress them. The reason may lie in his own long association with some of the most repressive Arab regimes—regimes that, frightened by the liberation of Iraq, fear they may be the next dominoes to fall as the democratic impulse reaches the Middle East.

—The Weekly Standard, November 24, 2003, p.17

continued from page 3

Oberlin also indulges in “hating whitey.” Demonizing Europeans and their ancestors is another dominant theme on campus. Dorm education sessions, panel discussions on white privilege and a for-credit class called “Unbearable Whiteness,” apparently weren’t enough to make the point. Hence, last May, the faculty approved an entire academic program called “Comparative American Studies” – which includes “queer studies” – the central focus of which will be how white males have oppressed all those of an alternate sex, race or sexual preference since before our country’s inception.

Although the visceral hatred of the United States is palpable, what sets Oberlin apart from the average activist college is its in-your-face sexuality.

Some 800 to 1,000 students typically attended an annual college-sponsored, administration-approved “Safer Sex Night,” an orgy held on campus. The Oberlin Review, the student newspaper, described the scene: “Educational, sexually explicit videos played on TV screens, and students sat in booths in g-strings and halter tops.” Other students, the paper reported, simply go naked. Students can enter something called the “Tent of Consent” to, shall we say, interact sexually.

In the spring, Oberlin hosts another equally popular on-campus sex party called the “Drag Ball,” which is organized by students and faculty. “Drag Ball” is the final event at the end of the school’s annual “Transgender Awareness Week,” an event created to “celebrate Oberlin College’s queer community. It is the culmination of a week of “talks and film screenings to celebrate the experiences of transgender, transsexual, intersex and other gender-variant people.”

As its name would imply, students are encouraged to cross dress for the “Drag Ball” party. “Others will attend simply baring their Birthday Suit,” the Oberlin Review reports.

While the school’s administration likes to present itself as promoting Oberlin as a “safe and tolerant space,” it has done little more than brush aside increased reports of sexual assault connected with the two events by the campus’ Sexual Assault Prevention Team and local law enforcement authorities.

After an alleged staff-on-staff rape outside the 2001 “Drag Ball,” even students protested what they saw as a dismissive attitude on the issue by the administration, which is very protective of the two events. Rather than ban the parties entirely, administrators backed the Student Union’s decision to ban alcohol at the events, under the assumption that those who attend the parties couldn’t legally or morally “consent” to sexual activity if they were drunk.

All this and more was coordinated until recently by a full-time, paid “Community Coordinator” for the school’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Union.

None of this is surprising when you consider that Dye, the school’s president, has vocally supported students’ efforts

to officially charter a BDSM (Bondage, Discipline and Sadomasochism) Club at the school, which would qualify the group to receive school funds like other campus clubs. Dye considered chartering the club to be a “free speech” issue.

At Oberlin, gay faculty wear their homosexuality as a badge of honor, championing their commitment to adding a “queer focus” to their subject matter in their personal biographies, which are displayed on the college’s official website for all to read.

Many of the paid, on-campus speakers at the school in recent years have been gay or transgendered and/or promoted promiscuous sex in some fashion. Your typical hate-America politics is usually secondary in these speeches, though it is often present, as well.

Speakers have included a gay Muslim who gave a talk called “Being Queer and Muslim.” Annie Sprinkle also paid a visit to campus. The former porn star and hooker conducted a meditation for a packed auditorium of students and faculty called “Zen Pussy.” Sprinkle showed graphic sexual images including a graphic to illustrate how many men she’d performed fellatio on. The rest of her presentation was too obscene to recount.

The school’s 2001 “Transgender Awareness Week” was kicked off with a lecture by a “gender neutral” person named Leslie Feinferg who arrived dressed as a man and asked the audience to refer to her as “ze,” rather than he or she. Feinberg briefly bashed President George W. Bush before focusing on “past rejection of transgenders from the queer community.”

In April, Carmen Vazquez, a self-avowed butch lesbian socialist, gave a lecture in which she reproached the queer movement for avoiding larger public policy issues. She enjoined queer activists to battle neo-conservative American leaders in a quest to prevent a new fascist American state. Then she encouraged students to have sex.

So did author and poet Nikki Giovanni, another campus speaker. Not to be outdone, Joani Blank, owner of the Good Vibrations sex superstore in San Francisco and Down There Press, a publisher of erotica, not only encouraged students to have sex when she spoke at Oberlin in 2000, but discussed her business’s role in providing sex toys to customers the world over. Apparently, she is the only capitalist Oberlin could appreciate.

Whatever the radical leftist issue currently being pushed on campus, Oberlin offers students four years of extremist indoctrination for the bargain price of only $30,000 a year. Oberlin embodies a far-Left paradise of agitation, Marxist activism and sexual licentiousness. It is, in short, a model of the Left’s paradise. It is specifically for this reason that it resembles most traditional Americans’ version of Hell.

—FrontPageMagazine.com