Sunday, October 30, 2005
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Friday, October 28, 2005
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Monday, October 24, 2005
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Monday, October 17, 2005
Wednesday, June 1, 2005
Moved to another URL
The Belmont Club has moved to this URL: http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/.
The underlying cause of the outage was probably that the blog had gotten too
big. I finally got Blogger to publish through the expedient of deleting some
very old and forgettable posts. But I won't push my luck. Henceforward, all new
posts will be at the new site http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/
Monday, May 23, 2005
Choose your Ghetto
KC Johnson, a professor of history at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate
Center, asks whether a de facto test of political correctness is being required
of prospective teachers. In an article in
Higher-Ed Views, Johnson writes:
The program at my own institution, Brooklyn College, exemplifies how
application of NCATE’s new approach can easily be used to screen out potential
public school teachers who hold undesirable political beliefs. Brooklyn’s
education faculty, which assumes as fact that “an education centered on social
justice prepares the highest quality of future teachers,” recently launched a
pilot initiative to assess all education students on whether they are
“knowledgeable about, sensitive to and responsive to issues of diversity and
social justice as these influence curriculum and pedagogy, school culture,
relationships with colleagues and members of the school community, and
candidates’ analysis of student work and behavior.”
At the undergraduate level, these high-sounding principles have been
translated into practice through a required class called “Language and
Literacy Development in Secondary Education.” According to numerous students,
the course’s instructor demanded that they recognize “white English” as the
“oppressors’ language.” Without explanation, the class spent its session
before Election Day screening Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. When several
students complained to the professor about the course’s politicized content,
they were informed that their previous education had left them “brainwashed”
on matters relating to race and social justice.
Johnson argues that a required commitment to "social justice" is sometimes
used as a proxy to require a set of political beliefs. But in a sense this
requirement only sets the seal on a long-term trend. Citing a survey "of 1,643
faculty members at 183 four-year colleges and universities" by three political
scientists, he noted that the great majority of faculty members were
self-described liberals.
Faculty members in the study were asked to place themselves on the
political spectrum, and 72 percent identified as liberal while only 15 percent
identified as conservative, with the remainder in the middle. The professors
were also asked about party affiliation, and here the breakdown was 50 percent
Democrats, 11 percent Republicans, and the rest independent and third parties.
The study also broke down the findings by academic discipline, and found that
humanities faculty members were the most likely (81 percent) to be liberal.
The liberal percentage was at its highest in English literature (88 percent),
followed by performing arts and psychology (both 84 percent), fine arts (83
percent), political science (81 percent). Other fields have more balance. The
liberal-conservative split is 61-29 in education, 55-39 in economics, 53-47 in
nursing, 51-19 in engineering, and 49-39 in business.
Some reviewers of Johnson's
work sharply disagree. One Modern Languages professor said "I have worked
with many colleagues over the years whose political and religious affiliations
remained unknown to me. When I recommended hiring candidates, I always did so
based on their academic credentials." Another basically argued that
conservativism is positively correlated with intellectual inferiority. Hence
there was no bias.
I think that a more thorough and unbiased study will reveal that far fewer
conservative Christians opt to pursue academic careers (outside of religiously
affiliated schools) than other groups. This, as I’ve noted previously, is
because scholarship in prestigious research universities IMPLIES skepticism,
questioning, challenging assumptions, revising traditions, and subverting
dominant ideologies—goals that the most conservative scholars and students
resist. ... The real dispute is whether or not this isn’t the way that it’s
supposed to be. Just as the media must remain “liberal” enough to question and
challenge political authority, universities are, in fact, one of the remaining
bastions of liberal thinking. Conservative beliefs and attitudes already
dominate the political, religious, and social spheres in America (not to
mention public school boards around the country), and it’s quite obvious that
these recent attacks on “liberal academia” are an attempt to spread that
dominant influence into our colleges and universities. So let’s be clear on
where and why the battle lines are being drawn.
Another commentator also believed that self-selection was a factor in
creating a liberal-conservative imbalance. But he did not put it down to 'smart
people choosing a smart career'. He argued that liberals and conservatives
diverged in their job choices because they valued different kinds of careers.
there also is the issue of the pool for recruitment. Why are there no
conservatives? Probably because conservatives tend to seek private sector jobs
that pay more. In every field, the liberals are those paid the least. In
physics or political science or english, teaching faculty are paid
significantly less than those finding either private sector jobs or those in
academic administration. So, the pool for junior faculty is more liberal
because conservatives get higher paying positions in the private sector.
Inside the university, conservatives become administrators (and again, are
paid more).
To this way of thinking, each political persuasion creates its own ghetto by
self-selection in which a liberalism is as unlikely to be found in some settings
as conservativism in others. But while this may be the case it would be
different from formally requiring a political point of view as a pre-requisite
for entering into a career.
Gorgeous George Galloway 2
A number of readers (JG) and commenters have written to say that the Senate
only posts prepared statements. Therefore under those terms, Galloway will not
have submitted a statement and there is nothing unusual about it not being on
the Senate Website and I apologize for the dramatic flourish. More
interestingly, commenter
Rick Ballard suggests (I think) that the Senate OFF hearings aren't really
going anywhere. The
Belmont Club post said, "Unless the Oil for Food hearings have come to a
complete dead end, Coleman and Levin's examination of Galloway aren't the
pointless thrashings of Senators at a loss to respond to the devastating wit of
the British MP but tantalizing clues to the direction they wish the
investigations to take," to which Rick Ballard said:
I rarely disagree with your analysis but I see zero evidence that calling
Mr. Galloway in response to his taunting of the committee served any purpose
whatsoever. Look at the lead up to his appearance and you see pure spotlight
politics, if he comes the committee gets ink if he refuses, the committee gets
ink. On top of that add the leak of the minority report to the Guardian prior
to its publication but after the invitation to Galloway and all I see is
Washington politics as usual.
To anyone thinking that the minority report was "innoculation" against
charges that the Senate was ignoring American misdeeds wrt OFF I would ask -
why did the Dem staff spend the majority of 128 pages on transactions that
amounted to far less than 1% of the stolen OFF funds? Sen. Coleman may indeed
be a bright and honorable man but Carl Levin hisses when he speaks and can
slide through grass undetected. The Galloway/Pasqua report is here and the
minority report is
here. Until I see full exploration of the Strong/Desmarais/Paribas links
by this committee I'm afraid that I'm going to regard it as a smokescreen. Don
Kofi is a sottocapo figurehead being set up to take a fall for Mr. Big. The
PowerCorp/Total/Final/Elf connections are where the real trail leads - that
and the material supplier kick backs - not the oil surcharges.
Maybe they are headed for a dead end. It's entirely possible that Rick
Ballard is essentially right about the Senate Committee, that it is hunting with blanks.
In this scenario there are too many places that the Oil For Food scandal
shouldn't go; owing to the extremely sensitive nature of the connections, so
only low-hanging fruit like Kojo Annan, Zhirinovsky and George Galloway are
going to take the heat. Galloway, with a kind of perverted sense of honor, may
have felt the kind of outrage a small timer feels when being made to hold the
bag and lashed out at the Senate investigation because he knows he was low man
on the totem. It would be sad if Rick Ballard were right, though it is entirely
possible. In the case the Oil For Food scandal isn't the road to justice, but
simply a fuzzy glimpse into the corrupt world of international politics in the
last years of the 20th century.
Gorgeous George Galloway
Reader KM points out in a private email that the testimony of George Galloway
before the US Senate has gone missing. According to VUNet:
The website for the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government
Affairs has removed testimony from UK MP George Galloway from its website. All
other witness testimonies for the hearings on the Oil for Food scandal are
available on the Committee's website in PDF form. But Galloway's testimony is
the only document not on the site. ... Press representatives for the Committee
had no comment.
The Senate Committee website
itself has these terse entries, here reproduced verbatim which does not say
that the testimony has been removed but that "Mr Galloway did not submit
a statement".
Panel 1
Mark L. Greenblatt [View PDF] , Counsel , U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
Steven A. Groves [View PDF] , Counsel , U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
Dan M. Berkovitz [View PDF] , Counsel to the Minority , U. S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
Panel 2
George Galloway , Member of Parliament for Bethnal Green and Bow , Great Britain
Mr Galloway did not submit a statement
Panel 3
Thomas A. Schweich [View PDF] , Chief of Staff, U.S. Mission to the United Nations , U. S. Department of State
Robert W. Werner [View PDF] , Director, Office of Foreign Assets Control , U. S. Department of the Treasury
Peter Reddaway [View PDF] , Professor Emeritus of Political Science and International Affairs , George Washington University
The declaration that "Mr Galloway did not submit a statement" is
curious given the fact that he spoke for 47 minutes before the Senate, a
performance which Christopher
Hitchens, no admirer of Galloway, believed was a rhetorical
"humiliation" of the Senate. A verbatim transcript of Galloway's
testimony, together with a video record of the proceedings can be found at the Information
Clearing House. To account for the discrepancy between the factual existence
of Galloway's testimony and its nonappearance in the Senate website raises the
possibility that Mr. Galloway's oral testimony is considered distinct from a
written statement by the Senate rules or it has been expunged from the record
because it puts the Senators in a bad light. But there is a third
possibility.
The really striking thing about the Galloway's testimony as transcribed by
the Information Clearing House is how the Senators and the Member of Parliament
for Bethnal Green and Bow were pursuing a non-collision course. Galloway had
come to score press and public relations points at which, by all accounts, he
was successful at doing. But Senator Coleman and Levin seemed totally
uninterested in responding to Galloway's sharp political jibes. It was almost as
if the Senators were deaf to his political posturing. Instead, they focused
exclusively and repeatedly on two things: Galloway's relationship with Fawaz
Zureikat and Tariq Aziz. Zureikat was a board member of Galloway's Mariam
foundation who is also implicated in the Oil For Food deals. Tariq Aziz was
Saddam's vice president.
SEN. COLEMAN: If I can get back to Mr. Zureikat one more time. Do you
recall a time when he specifically -- when you had a conversation with him
about oil dealings in Iraq?
GALLOWAY: I have already answered that question. I can assure you, Mr.
Zureikat never gave me a penny from an oil deal, from a cake deal, from a
bread deal, or from any deal. He donated money to our campaign, which we
publicly brandished on all of our literature, along with the other donors to
the campaign.
SEN. COLEMAN: Again, Mr. Galloway, a simple question. I'm looking for
either a yes or no. Did you ever have a conversation with Mr. Zureikat where
he informed you that he had oil dealings with Iraq, yes or no?
GALLOWAY: Not before this Daily Telegraph report, no. ...
SEN. CARL LEVIN (D): Thank you, Mr. Galloway.
Mr. Galloway, could you take a look at the Exhibit Number 12...
GALLOWAY: Yes.
SEN. LEVIN: ... where your name is in parenthesis after Mr. Zureikat's?--
GALLOWAY: Before Mr. Zureikat's, if I'm looking at the right exhibit--
SEN. LEVIN: I'm sorry. I was going to finish my sentence -- my question,
though. My question was, where your name is in parenthesis after Mr.
Zureikat's company.
GALLOWAY: I apologize, Senator.
SEN. LEVIN: That's all right. Now, that document--assuming it's an accurate
translation of the document underneath it--would you... you're not alleging
here today that the document is a forgery, I gather?
GALLOWAY: Well, I have no idea, Senator, if it's a forgery or not.
SEN. LEVIN: But you're not alleging.
GALLOWAY: I'm saying that the information insofar as it relates to me is
fake.
SEN. LEVIN: I -- is wrong?
GALLOWAY: It's wrong.
SEN. LEVIN: But you're not alleging that the document...
GALLOWAY: Well, I have no way of knowing, Senator.
SEN. LEVIN: That's fine. So you're not alleging?
GALLOWAY: No, I have no way -- I have no way of knowing. This is the first
time...
SEN. LEVIN: Is it fair to say since you don't know, you're not alleging?
GALLOWAY: Well, it would have been nice to have seen it before today.
SEN. LEVIN: Is it fair to say, though, that either because you've not seen
it before or because -- otherwise, you don't know. You're not alleging the
document's a fake. Is that fair to say?
GALLOWAY: I haven't had it in my possession long enough to form a view
about that.
SEN. LEVIN: All right. Would you let the subcommittee know after you've had
it in your possession long enough whether you consider the document a fake.
GALLOWAY: Yes, although there is a -- there is an academic quality about
it, Senator Levin, because you have already found me guilty before you --
before you actually allowed me to come here and speak for myself.
SEN. LEVIN: Well, in order to attempt to clear your name, would you...
GALLOWAY: Well, let's be clear about something.
SEN. LEVIN: Well, let me finish my question. Let me be clear about that,
first of all. Would you submit to the subcommittee after you've had a chance
to review this document whether or not, in your judgment, it is a forgery?
Will you do that?
GALLOWAY: Well, if you will give me the original. I mean, this is not --
presumably, you wrote this English translation.
SEN. LEVIN: Yes, and there's a copy underneath it of the...
GALLOWAY: Well, yes, there is a copy of a gray blur. If you'll give me --
if you'll give me the original ...
SEN. LEVIN: The copy of the original.
(CROSSTALK)
GALLOWAY: Give me the original in a decipherable way, then of course
I'll...
SEN. LEVIN: That would be fine. We appreciate that.
GALLOWAY: Yes.
It is clear that Coleman and Levin were attempting to pin Galloway down on
what he knew and when he knew it. They were also attempting to get him to
categorically declare himself on the veracity of the Zureikat document. In the
end, Galloway denied talking to Zureikat about oil deals with Saddam before it
became a public issue. He also undertook to evaluate the veracity of the
document which named him -- in parenthesis admittedly -- in one a document
related to Oil for Food.
SEN. LEVIN: ... I wanted just to ask you about Tariq Aziz.
GALLOWAY: Yeah.
SEN. LEVIN: Tariq Aziz. You've indicated you, you--who you didn't talk to
and who you did talk to. Did you have conversations with Tariq Aziz about the
award of oil allocations? That's my question.
GALLOWAY: Never.
SEN. LEVIN: Thank you. I'm done. Thank you.
SEN. COLEMAN: Just one follow-up on the Tariq Aziz question. How often did
you uh ... Can you describe the relation with Tariq Aziz?
GALLOWAY: Friendly.
SEN. COLEMAN: How often did you meet him?
GALLOWAY: Many times.
SEN. COLEMAN: Can you give an estimate of that?
GALLOWAY: No. Many times.
SEN. COLEMAN: Is it more than five?
GALLOWAY: Yes, sir.
SEN. COLEMAN: More than ten?
GALLOWAY: Yes.
SEN. COLEMAN: Fifteen? Around fifteen?
GALLOWAY: Well, we're getting nearer, but I haven't counted. But many
times. I'm saying to you "Many times," and I'm saying to you that I
was friendly with him.
SEN. COLEMAN: And you describe him as "a very dear friend"?
GALLOWAY: I think you've quoted me as saying "a dear, dear
friend." I don't often use the double adjective, but--
SEN. COLEMAN: --I was looking into your heart on that.--
GALLOWAY: --but "friend" I have no problem with. Senator, just
before you go on--I do hope that you'll avail yourself of this dossier that I
have produced. And I am really speaking through you to Senator Levin. This is
what I have said about Saddam Hussein.
SEN. COLEMAN: Well, we'll enter that into the record without objection. I
have no further questions of the witness. You're excused, Mr. Galloway.
GALLOWAY: Thank you very much.
In the exchange above it is abundantly clear that both Coleman and Levin
simply wanted to enter Galloway's denial of having discussed Oil for Food
business with Tariq Aziz in the record. Levin immediately ends his questioning
after eliciting Galloway's "Never". Coleman is content to merely
establish that Aziz and Galloway were
"friends" who had met "many times" before saying "I
have no further questions of the witness".
Unless the Oil for Food hearings have come to a complete dead end, Coleman
and Levin's examination of Galloway aren't the pointless thrashings of Senators
at a loss to respond to the devastating wit of the British MP but
tantalizing clues to the direction they wish the investigations to take. The
question that must have been in Galloway's mind -- and which is uppermost in
mine -- is what else did the Senators know? The persons named by the Senate investigation so far -- Zhirinovsky, Pasqua and Galloway -- reads less like a list of principals than a list of fixers. The truly remarkable thing about Galloway's many meetings with Tariq Aziz was how much time the Iraqi was willing to devote to an obscure British backbencher with no official power. The unspoken question is why Saddam should take the trouble to bribe Galloway, if it were Galloway who was being bribed. The Senators were building a causal bridge to something, but to what? I am in no position to say, but will guess that Galloway's testimony and its disappearance from the Senate website can only be understood in the context of what Coleman and Levin were trying to achieve. My own sense is that the investigations are cautiously nearing far bigger game than George Galloway; but that his evidence or his refusal to give it is somehow crucial to achieving this larger goal. Other pieces of the puzzle may exist but there are two the public know about which may cast an interesting light in hindsight on Galloway's words. The first is contained in the Volcker Commission files which investigator Robert Parton turned over to the Senate Committee and the second is the forthcoming trial of Saddam Hussein and Tariq Aziz. George Galloway may have appeared in the Senate but even he must be uncertain, until
the missing pieces are played on the board, what he really said.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
