A Forum for Vigorous Debate, Cornerstone of Democracy

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A FORUM FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND VIGOROUS DEBATE, CORNERSTONES OF DEMOCRACY
[For the journal--guidelines, focus, etc.--go to www.theamericandissident.org. If you have questions, please contact me at todslone@hotmail.com. Comments are NOT moderated (i.e., CENSORED)!]
Encouraged censorship and self-censorship seem to have become popular in America today. Those who censor others, not just self, tend to favor the term "moderate," as opposed to "censor" and "moderation" to "censorship." But that doesn't change what they do. They still act as Little Caesars or Big Brother protectors of the thin-skinned. Democracy, however, demands a tough populace, not so easily offended. On this blog, and to buck the trend of censorship, banning, and ostracizing, comments are NEVER "moderated." Rarely (almost NEVER) do the targets of these blog entries respond in an effort to defend themselves with cogent counter-argumentation. This blog is testimony to how little academics, poets, critics, newspaper editors, cartoonists, political hacks, cultural council apparatchiks, librarians et al appreciate VIGOROUS DEBATE, cornerstone of democracy. Clearly, far too many of them could likely prosper just fine in places like communist China and Cuba or Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Russia, not to mention Sweden, England, and Austria.
ISSUE #45 PUBLISHED MAY 2023. NOW SEEKING SUBMISSIONS FOR ISSUE #46.

More P. Maudit cartoons (and essays) at Global Free Press: http://www.globalfreepress.org

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

On "Removing Incompetent Faculty"

Open Letter to Professor Glenn Petersen:Bravo for not writing anonymously. So many professors seem to choose that road today… at the expense of their own dignity. Anyhow, “Removing Incompetent Faculty,” the brief opinion piece you wrote in NEA Higher Education Advocate, struck a little nerve. Of course, by writing such an article, unquestioning and unchallenging academic readers will automatically assume that you must be competent. Yet you fail to even mention a working definition of the term “competent.” From my perspective, as an untenured rude-truth speaking individual, “competent” faculty tend, more than anything else, to be faculty who have learned to turn a blind eye, behave obsequiously (and collegially and without spine), never speak the rude truth, and cleverly rationalize these professional traits. Your 33 years at Bernard Baruch College surely indicate a large measure of such “competence.” By the way, Advocate and Inside Higher Ed censor opinions like mine. Editor John Rosales would likely never permit this opinion to appear in his pages. Are you also an advocate of censorship… from hippie to tenured professor advocate of censorship? Well, you certainly wouldn’t be the only one! Thank you for your attention. BTW, why not get BBC to subscribe to The American Dissident. Students would likely appreciate it, though I don't think faculty would.

6 comments:

M.P. Powers said...

Tod,

Ya gotta remember... everything always comes down to $$... As my dad says (and he would know), whenever anyone says it's not about the $$, it's about the $$.

What I'm saying is if you really expect to hear the rude truth out of someone like this guy, you have to take the money/security element away.

Totally impossible since that's what he was in it for all along.

IN OTHER WORDS: THE SUMBITCH IS ONLY AN
OPINION SO LONG AS
IT DOESN'T COME BETWEEN HIM & HIS FAT
WALLET
GETTING FED.

can you blame him?

can you be angry at the sun?

am i drunk?

yes, yes, certainly....

MP

G. Tod Slone said...

Well, perhaps that's one thing that makes you and I different. I can and do blame the guy. Some of us actually do not operate on the "everything always comes down to $$" precept. Sorry.
T.

M.P. Powers said...

You might not operate on that precept, T, and of course it's not accurate all the time, but it usually is, and it can't be ignored or put aside.

"Biting your tongue is a lot easier than parting with your security blanket." ~ John Q. Cliche, Valve Grinder, Flea Hill, DE.

p.s. I still love you Tod.

G. Tod Slone said...

MP,
You sound like the guy who says: well, everyone's corrupt so I might as well be corrupt too. Academics are like that: masters of rationalizing inaction, the muzzle, and general intellectual corruption. So are poets. BTW, I did not expect to hear rude truth from that guy at all. The reason I put up posts like this one and draw cartoons is to speak rude truth where rude truth is rarely if ever spoken or even permitted in the intellectual arena. The AD serves as a public record for such truths. Thanks to the Internet, someone who googles that character will eventually come up with this blog entry. It enables people like me to have voice, where normally we would not have voice. I know this will not quite enter your cranial creases, as it did not quite enter that dude's creases either. But that was never the purpose. Thanks for the comments. How's Mather doing?
T.

M.P. Powers said...

I didn't want you to think I think you are wasting your time by going after suchlike
characters, T. Although I know my initial post might've suggested that in some way.
"I was drunk." Therefore wholly unaccountable according to group consensus.
As for the money/comfort issue, I think you should investigate it a little deeper (if you haven't
already) since that seems to be the real thing holding the academic back.
Re: my cranial creases,
here we go, back to the name calling and sophomoric ad hominem. I thought that was an AD no-no.
I thought you and I were hermanos-in-arms.
.

G. Tod Slone said...

We differ. As you know, my belief is that a poet and professor ought to speak rude truth no matter what kind of green might be flashing before the eyeballs and orange before the salivating muzzle.