egregious @ 30

…communism …
It’s soul-killing.

It is as if they were beating us with a cudgel and at the same time demanding, “You must rejoice, you must rejoice.”

- Dmitri Shostakovich (this quote is real)

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“We want you to like us. That’s all, just like us.” — military commanders to Yossarian in Catch-22

Okk, gotta disagree with you there. I always thought people were exaggerating when they said communism was evil, til I went over there to work. It’s soul-killing.

They’re both examples of a horrible imbalance of power in society. Individuals need more than freedom, they need a degree of power, so they can manage their lives. Centralized power structures suck all the air out of the room and leave no alternative views, plans or lives. They do suck the life out of a person — as if they could channel it into some bank account or bottle where they can use it for themselves. In essence they seek to enslave everyone.

What I’d like to know is what is the fundamental structural problem with our Democracy and Capitalism style of society which tends toward letting things slip out of balance (as it did in the 1920s, leading to the great depression and as it has in recent decades).

If we can keep power from slipping away from the many and into the hands of the few, then we might really achieve something new and great.

BTW, the thread down below about dogs certainly shows why this is fireDOGlake.com Thank you everyone for sharing your experiences.

My take.

1) Marv Davidov is a wonderful hell-raiser. He was the den-father on a bus I rode to the great Nov. 15 1969 march on Washington. He WAS the Honeywell Project. Davidov is progressive eyewash at STU. He does NOT reflect the values of the empire builders that run the school.

2) St. Thomas is a notorious diploma mill. If you have a way to pay the tuition, the admission test is Do you have a pulse? The place is crawling with idiot rich kids. The prime directive of St. Thomas administration is to provide a place where wealthy parents can send their underachieving progeny secure in the knowledge that their children will learn the ethical superiority of finance capitalism.

3) The fact that St. Thomas is this PRO-business place does not mean they are any good at what they do. A close friend took one of STU’s MANY how-to-grow-your-small-business type courses. She got an A on writing a business plan. She thinks this is a sign to try her plan in the real world. It was a DISASTER. She has finally recovered from this STU-induced fiasco but she nearly lost her house and it took 15 YEARS!!!

So forget what the officials of St. Thomas claim about this controversy. The decision to invite Ann Coulter wasn’t controversial because for much of their student body, Ann is good, light-hearted entertainment.

On the other hand, Desmond Tutu is precisely the sort of person that rich parents don’t want their darlings to hear. That is STU’s customer base. STU may argue that they have programs that allows an occasional poor kid to be exposed to their extremely conservative rich-kid education, but that hardly excuses their academic sins. Because what they offer is what Veblen called “trained incapacity,” their “generosity” towards the poorer students may actually be their greatest crime of all.

My friend Cecile Suransky has posted a letter by Father Dennis Dease, president of the University of St. Thomas, to his students here.

It appears peterr is correct that Father Dease had reason to feel an event was being planned over which he had little control.

So Fr. Dease is saying that he vets each and every person invited to speak at UST?

If so, he must have approved Ann Coulter personally, then.

St. Thomas wants to open a fourth Medical School within the state of Minnesota–in collaboration with Alina, one of the big Health Care Providers…

What is St. Thomas going to do when someone starts criticising their business-based scewed health-care delivery and processes set up by Alina,… They’ll have a choice to make: Good PR marketing or good science?

Won’t that be fun if the crux of the issue has to do with contagious disease!

I guess that Universities should start listening to those who were “offended” by Nobel Peace Laureates who lambasted their governments. The Honduran military regime should have been able to veto speeches by Menchu. Maybe the regime despots of Myanmar should be consulted when and if they ever release Ang Son Suu Kyi. Or the Chinese when the Dalai Lama questions their activities? Or the Protestant and Catholic bully-boys in Northern Ireland who might get upset at those “peace mothers” for speaking out against them.

And apparently the faculty member that was removed from her Chairmanship of the Peace Studies program has a letter from the University specifying quite explicitly that she was removed because of her advocacy of bringing Tutu to campus and her telling Tutu precisely why he was being banned. So President Dease is being more than a bit disingenuous when he asserts that her demotion was unrelated to the cancellation.

http://www.peacejam.org/chronology.htm

we didn’t realize mr carter would be advocating the use of hammers, nails, drills, power-saws, 2X4s and screwdrivers in solving the plight of the homeless!

And we mustn’t invite Samuel Adams or John Adams to speak, as they advocated and took part in terrorist actions themselves!

By the way: If Fr. Dease really is (as he tries to imply) supposed to be signing off on each and every guest speaker at UST, then he’s not only nixed Tutu and approved Coulter, he’s also approved Michelle “internment camps” Malkin as well!

Go to http://students.yaf.org/events…..events.cfm and scroll to the entry for April 4, 2006. Ack! My bad — she was at a college on that date, but it wasn’t UST. Some other con did a presentation there that day.