I plan to stop messaging and start calling my senators and representative. It can't hurt. I am still concerned our senators have long since placed themselves so high above us as to no longer represent us and my House district is so weighted in another geographic area my interests are rarely considered important to her. When I was in school (both high school and college) a course on American exceptionalism and the horrors of communism was required. I suppose it worked kind of the same way right wing media does, i. e., that it appealed to those who needed affirmation that we were the best country in the world, but was not necessary for the rest of us. In either case, it was indoctrination - the same kind President Trump hinted at requiring during his first term. Ironically, it also used tactics common in communist countries. The first time I took the course in college I expressed opinions about this openly in class and in the written assignment. I failed the course. The next time I took it I toed the line and made an A. Who among us thinks such a thing is appropriate in an educational setting? And, what conclusion should we draw about strength of character and confidence to lead when we see a leader is so thin-skinned s/he attempts to punish any and all detractors, even those making jokes?
There was a report in the French press this week of a case similar to that which befell Professor Levy. A Professor of Law at the University of Toulon noticed on campus a tract by a far-right student group denouncing the giving of financial aid to three foreign students that should have, they said, gone instead to native-born French students. The professor took a copy of the tract to class and made of it the lesson for the day: she said that the tract amounted to a call for discrimination made illegal by both article 14 of the European Court for the Rights of Man and the first article of the French Constitution, and urged her students to study both those articles. Her statements in class were (illegally) recorded and an excerpt of the recording was posted to Twitter by a far-right member of the French National Assembly (equal to our House of Representatives). The professor was then subjected to a torrent of online abuse coming from all corners of the right-wing spectrum. The bright side of this is that there was never any way that she would have been dismissed from the university for her lecture, the far-right student group lost badly in the student council elections occurring at the same time, not gaining a single seat, and the tweet containing the recording vanished suddenly after a few days, giving rise to speculation that the lawmaker who posted it had received, too, her share of intimidation from the left. Here’s hoping that Professor Levy's case is resolved in as sanguine a manner.
I plan to stop messaging and start calling my senators and representative. It can't hurt. I am still concerned our senators have long since placed themselves so high above us as to no longer represent us and my House district is so weighted in another geographic area my interests are rarely considered important to her. When I was in school (both high school and college) a course on American exceptionalism and the horrors of communism was required. I suppose it worked kind of the same way right wing media does, i. e., that it appealed to those who needed affirmation that we were the best country in the world, but was not necessary for the rest of us. In either case, it was indoctrination - the same kind President Trump hinted at requiring during his first term. Ironically, it also used tactics common in communist countries. The first time I took the course in college I expressed opinions about this openly in class and in the written assignment. I failed the course. The next time I took it I toed the line and made an A. Who among us thinks such a thing is appropriate in an educational setting? And, what conclusion should we draw about strength of character and confidence to lead when we see a leader is so thin-skinned s/he attempts to punish any and all detractors, even those making jokes?
There was a report in the French press this week of a case similar to that which befell Professor Levy. A Professor of Law at the University of Toulon noticed on campus a tract by a far-right student group denouncing the giving of financial aid to three foreign students that should have, they said, gone instead to native-born French students. The professor took a copy of the tract to class and made of it the lesson for the day: she said that the tract amounted to a call for discrimination made illegal by both article 14 of the European Court for the Rights of Man and the first article of the French Constitution, and urged her students to study both those articles. Her statements in class were (illegally) recorded and an excerpt of the recording was posted to Twitter by a far-right member of the French National Assembly (equal to our House of Representatives). The professor was then subjected to a torrent of online abuse coming from all corners of the right-wing spectrum. The bright side of this is that there was never any way that she would have been dismissed from the university for her lecture, the far-right student group lost badly in the student council elections occurring at the same time, not gaining a single seat, and the tweet containing the recording vanished suddenly after a few days, giving rise to speculation that the lawmaker who posted it had received, too, her share of intimidation from the left. Here’s hoping that Professor Levy's case is resolved in as sanguine a manner.