Ahmadinejad to speak at Columbia
So this story has been kicking around a bit, and it got no mention here. I thought I would maybe bring it up, see what our Columbia alums maybe have to say on the matter.
I personally don't care that he's speaking. Universities should be open forums for any and all ideas, and since it's a private institution, we can let the school's donors worry about that. However, in that regard, I do wish the student body would be more consistent--they have shouted down Minute Men, members of Jihad Watch, and other conservatives. And then we have this story from "Mr. Zine": Quote:
So the message is pretty clear--it's ok to protest if it means obstructing business at the World Bank, or blocking Cheney's motorcade, or screaming on and on about the wrongs of Israeli "apartheid," yet when a genuine religious fanatic comes to campus, you go silent. When the president of a regime that has contributed to global terrorism for over two decades comes to one of our more prestigious universities, we do nothing. Liberalism, in my mind, is truly dead. |
I was floored when I heard this. I'm surprised that fuck is even allowed in this hemisphere, let alone our borders.
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I wonder if they'll have a followup editorial in which they explain what he really meant when he said that the Holocaust never took place.
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Is it really possible to "demonize" a person like that? I mean, how in the world could you make him seem any worse than he is?
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Personally, I think he's more trouble than he's worth, and I'm certainly not looking forward to maneuvering around thousands of angry people on campus this afternoon, but I can't help but agree with much of university prez Bollinger's statement:
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New statement, fresh from my Inbox:
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I heard on the radio this morning that students will not be allowed to address him directly and will have their questions screened by a proctor.
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Kevin, I had a lot of the same thoughts you did regarding the relatively small protest going on today. "Now they get picky about the company they keep?"
I think the whole thing is stupid. Its not like he has any real power. He's just a mouth piece for the Ayatollah thats running Iran right now. What does Columbia hope to accomplish? As if he isn't prepared to do a verbal dance around whatever they can throw at him. What do the protesters hope to accomplish? Yes, everybody knows he is an asshole. Both parties are simply going to be feeding into his propaganda machine that he's already got running for the fanatics throughout the Muslim world. One way or another, he'll be sticking it to the Great Satan. We treat him with respect and dignity, the policies of Iran get legitimacy. If we get all flustered and attack him, he gets to tell the fundamentalists how awfully he was treated and how the West really is waging war on Islam. It would have been best for Columbia to have never extended the invitation. The best thing now would be to just ignore it. Don't show up to it, don't protest it, just let it go on in deafening silence. |
I don't agree entirely about Ahmadinejad's role and power...I think his role is often intentionally down played by the neo-progressives so that they can be contrarian.
I personally think he's worth protesting, en masse. He isn't just a bad guy, he is the president of a regime that stands in blatant defiance of whatever the Bush Doctrine is supposed to mean. Iran had a hand in the Khobar Towers bombing, and their weapons are killing Americans and Israelis all across the Middle East. He isn't just a mean guy, he is the enemy. Once upon a time, Liberals stood up to totalitarian pigs like this. Now they call for polite discourse and self-censorship. |
I wasn't aware of the connection to the Khobar Towers.
Dude, Columbia had members of the Third Reich speak to their students. shit like this isn't new for them or anywhere in academia. I'm not sure liberalism is dead. I think a lot of the people who seem to lead it have lost sight of why they are "liberal" in the first place. Its become more about partisan bickering and sticking it the other side than about making any progressive strides for the betterment of mankind. I agree that the defense he is getting from people that are supposed to be standing up for civil rights and such is appalling. I'm wondering where MoveOn.org's full page ad over this is. At least, the NYPD is telling him to go fuck himself regarding visiting WTC. |
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Instead I saw almost an entire campus, thousands of people, stand up and applaud after Lee Bollinger trashed Ahmadinejad for fifteen or twenty minutes or so. He called him a petty tyrant, uneducated, and said that he probably lacked the intellectual honesty to answer the questions properly. It was pretty inspiring, actually. The air of the whole event -- media circus, telecasts, closed-off auditorium, protests, counter-protests, counter-counter protests, blistering attacks from faculty and students -- was not at all "visit of a distinguished guest." It was like the entrapment and dissection of a raving monster. In an academic environment, he just looked petty, self-righteous, ignorant, and small. |
And now he has footage of him being ambushed attacked and assaulted by Western Infidels. Which could have been avoided by not extending the invitation in the first place.
While I'm glad Columbia stuck it to him, it is somewhat pointless. So you told him he is a tyrant, petty dictator, and a whole other bunch of nasty and true things with all the tact of a Rosie O'Donnell ambush interview. For what? What was gained by it? Does he see the light now? Do you think this will change things one iota? And just out of curiosity, is there somewhere I can see the video? Just because I think it was useless doesn't mean it doesn't sound like fun. |
The students gained, the university gained, academic freedom gained. We had the opportunity to speak openly and challenge a particularly heinous world leader, and we didn't give him the velvet glove treatment or back down from basic liberal principles like conservative talking heads assumed we would. This wasn't a political move; Columbia University is not the United States government, so whether or not Ahmadinejad has juicy footage is beside the point.
And we can't say for certain whether this will affect change or not. He at least agreed to let Columbia students and faculty visit schools in Iran and engage students there. Might happen, might not. The full program should be up on http://www.cutelevision.org/ later today. |
The audience also gave a big applause when he chastized the Dean for attacking him before he could speak.
Where are you guys seeing these other videos? Again, I'm fine with him speaking (althoughthe discussion of all these "gains" is certainly a stretch). I'm not fine with members of the Columbia "peace" movement discouraging people from protesting for the sake of not appearing like war mongers. A lot of demonstrators were imported to the scene, and many on the campus Left dismissed the idea of protesting. "And we can't say for certain whether this will affect change or not. He at least agreed to let Columbia students and faculty visit schools in Iran and engage students there. Might happen, might not." Well that's super. Just don't look at a dude the wrong way. |
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The fact that doing so changed nothing is the best part, Blanco. I don't know Lee Bollinger personally, but if we can judge where he stands by his enemies, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity surely see him as a veritable icon of the left's intelligensia/castrati. You guys on the right that begrudge even acknowledging Ahmadinejad can now point to this as the time the Left got to handle something just as they wished and nothing came of it. Talking to dictators now, officially, does not work, so the only option left is, of course, turning the whole place to glass. |
In my opinion, the forum was more about our country than Iran's (sorry Canadians). I'm sure Ahmadinejad's appearance has already been heavily censored/spun, and it won't make much of a difference there, except to those who are able to break through media censorship.
This was, perhaps more importantly, a test of the values that this country supposedly holds dear. The comments by buffoons like Assembly Leader Sheldon Silver (who should be excoriated for what he did to Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan, and now drawn and quartered for his threats to cut off state funding for the school), and clowns like Christine Quinn and Andrew Weiner, both of whom have open mayoral ambitions (and who can only hope to be 1/4 the mayor Bloomberg currently is), are alarming and dangerous. Basically extorting the school for exercising the 1st Amendment. Bollinger was far more tactful about it than I would be. As for the Minuteman thing, well Columbia did invite them, and punished the students who interfered. They cancelled a 2nd invitation, but I don't know if they ever revealed why. There were problems with how they handled the whole thing, but charges that they were biased in how they interpret free speech don't hold up. |
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I'll say it again--I am glad Ahmadinejad spoke, and I think the whole event went well (despite the absurd applause they gave the ass when he whined about being attacked).
But the topic was started on the inconsistencies of the campus Left within the student body, not the campus administration itself. The crowd sat there and politely applauded an extremist and terrorist money man, and chuckled when he invited them to tour Tehran. How would Cheney be received there? How about other foreign leaders, like Sarkozy or Howard? Would they even be able to finish their speech? Where was Code Pink yesterday to interrupt a man whose government hires super nuns to walk around with sticks in order to police females and children? It's an inconsistency that exists in other dark little corners on the Left, and it's a sad, sad game of moral equivalence. |
Also, the "American values" argument holds no water with me. This isn't a guy who wrote a controversial book and was given the podium. He's a head of state, and the mouthpiece for an extremist regime.
There are a lot of people who could not get their dose of Columbia free speech. I'm sure you or I couldn't. So let's not over play the speech card here, because as Preechr pointed out, his remarks were rather restrained by mahmoud standards. I would've preferred he given his Friday prayer tirade, while the academics and limo liberals at Columbia squirmed in their seats. Now that would be some speech! |
I think this whole thing is kinda dumb.
I mean, Ahmadinejad knows that Westerners don't like him, so why is everyone excited about telling him for like the hundredth time? Nothing some lame-ass hippy or bow-tied suit says to him or about him matters at all. He's not going to go back home and say, "Gee, I really think I should change my ways so they don't bust my balls so much." Excersizing your free speech is one thing (USA! USA! USA!) but protesting stuff like this or arguing about who said what (or who didn't say enough) is just a waste of breath. |
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Lol that was great. I don't agree, but that was great |
can we please stop making fun of him and like, chat about what he actually had to say in his speech and like, stuff? full transcript of his speech here...
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=6107339 |
THERE ARE NO HOMOS IN IRAN
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can't we all get along? just for once??
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Yeah, let's get to the substance of his speech, he's such a nice guy.
You're a douche bag, Geggy. |
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