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Index for this page...(Be aware some links below may have expired.)
All The Following Items Were Posted On July 1, 2004 The Controversial Michael Moore From Dr. Jonathan Dolhenty -- "I do not personally take a stand regarding Michael Moore's latest film 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' as I have not seen it. I have read the previews and the reviews, both pro and con, but, as much as I think Moore is probably more propagandist than documentarian, I shall reserve final judgment until I have seen his latest work myself. Based on what I've read, however, he does seem to raise some interesting questions about President Bush's actions on 9-11 and the days following." For those who want to research both sides of the issues he raises, here are some relevant websites you may want to consult:
There are also some articles about Michael Moore and the new film listed later in this Ezine. If you are interested in the new book which claims to expose all of Moore's lies and deceptions - Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man, by David T. Hardy and Jason Clarke - you can get information or pre-order it by clicking on that link. If you are interested in other works by and about Michael Moore, check out our new category in the Academy Bookstore - Books by and about Michael Moore - where we have also included the available DVDs and Video Tapes of his films. Philosophy is Also Worth Listening To! "Philosophy Talk," a radio show created and hosted by John Perry and Ken Taylor, debuted on Tuesday, January 13, 2004, at 12:00 pm PST on KALW 91.7 FM in San Francisco. The program appears weekly in this time slot on KALW. It will also be airing on the radio stations of Oregon Public Broadcasting, on Thursdays at 8 pm PST. Negotiations are underway with other radio stations on the West Coast and it is hoped that the program will be carried nationally by the end of 2004. Listeners not able to catch the show via radio will be able to listen to the live stream, both via a Stanford website and via many of the websites of the stations that will carry it. Visit the Philosophy Talk Website for more information. Listen to Philosophy Talk live via the internet by visiting KALW's web site. A rebroadcast of Philosophy Talk can be heard Thursdays at 8 p.m. on Oregon Public Broadcasting. Visit Stations currently carrying the broadcast for other stations as they are added. Is this the End for Deconstructionism, Cultural Theory, Literary Theory and Postmodernism? Some two decades have passed since the juggernaut known as ''Theory'' began to transform - some would say deform - the academic study of the humanities. Influenced by French postmodernists such as Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, literary theorists cast aside whatever was left of the old fashioned reverence for the transcendent art work and its God-like creator. They debunked the very possibility of achieving literary originality or pronouncing objective value judgments. Aesthetics and individual authors were out; discourse, texts, sign systems, and ideology were in. If theory didn't quite go mainstream, it became thoroughly institutionalized, not to say domesticated. We - those of us with tenure, at least - are all deconstructionists now. But there are reports from the academic world that theory may have run out of steam. ''Confidence in the technology of theory has faded,'' says distinguished literary critic Frank Kermode, a contributor to the recent volume ''life.after.theory.'' Theory's opacities and arcane terms may be entrenched, but ''they don't come at you with the old assurance and swagger,'' adds David Bromwich, a critic and professor of English at Yale. Roland Barthes famously announced the death of the author. This weekend, as thousands of professors and their apprentices mill about the annual meeting of the Modern Language Association in San Diego, one might ask: Has theory succumbed to the same fate? That is the opinion of one of Britain's best-known public intellectuals, the Marxist critic - and formidable theorist himself - Terry Eagleton. In his new book, ''After Theory," Eagleton administers last rites to today's theoretical enterprise. ''The golden age of theory is long past,'' he intones, reminding us that the best work of its titans - Barthes, Derrida, and Foucault; Jacques Lacan and Julia Kristeva - is now several decades old. ''Rather like Nietzsche thought God was dead but we pretended for quite a long time that he was still alive, I think the same for theory,'' Eagleton said in a recent telephone interview from his home in Derry, Northern Ireland. ''It's actually been dead for quite a while; but we've been sort of behaving as though it isn't.'' -- Read the rest of this analysis at The self-critic: The man who praised literary theory to thousands of students now wants them to bury it, by Matthew Price. And, then, there's more... Get the critic Terry Eagleton in the right mood, and he will sing his song about literary theory for you. The ditty may seem nonsensical, but just imagine the round-faced and gray-bearded Mr. Eagleton singing in a mellow baritone to the tune of "Somethin' Stupid": "Nostalgic petit-bourgeois social democrat subjectivist empiricist,/I saw the light of day," he sings, ending the verse, "Until I went and spoiled it all by writing something stupid in New Left Review." "The song is fiction, ironic," said Mr. Eagleton, 60. "It reflects a growing desperation." Yes, desperation about literary theory, from one of the most prominent cultural critics around; from a man whose best-selling academic book "Literary Theory: An Introduction" (1983) has for two decades been the classic text that professors assign to give graduate students an overview of modern literary criticism. But now the postmodernist giants -- like Jacques Derrida and Roland Barthes -- are over, he says. "The golden age of cultural theory is long past," Mr. Eagleton writes in his new book, "After Theory,"... In this age of terrorism, he says, cultural theory has become increasingly irrelevant, because theorists have failed to address the big questions of morality, metaphysics, love, religion, revolution, death and suffering. -- Read the rest of this analysis at Cultural Theorists, Start Your Epitaphs, by Dinitia Smith. Moral Philosopher Stuart Hampshire Dead at 89 Stuart Hampshire, an influential philosopher at Oxford and Princeton universities, died June 13, 2004, at his home in Oxford, England. He was 89. Professor Hampshire, who headed the philosophy department at Princeton from 1963 to 1970, was especially influential in the field of moral philosophy. Among his interests was the relevance of moral philosophy to politics. In his view aesthetics, ethics and political philosophy were all part of the same intellectual quest, which he described as the philosophy of mind. His first published work, Spinoza (1951), examined the 17th-century Dutch philosopher Benedict Spinoza, whose thinking left an imprint on the author's own world view. His other published works include Thought and Action (1960), Morality and Conflict (1983), Innocence and Experience (1989), and Justice Is Conflict (1999). Professor Hampshire was born in England, and studied at Oxford's Balliol College, where he became a close friend of Isaiah Berlin and earned his first degree in 1936. Having won a fellowship to All Souls College at Oxford, he lectured in philosophy there until he entered military service in 1940. He eventually landed in army intelligence and a position of interrogator of enemy prisoners, among them war criminals. The experience left him acutely aware of questions of morality in the realm of philosophy. He returned to teaching at University College London and New College Oxford, and went back to All Souls in 1955. He was then appointed Professor of Mind and Logic at University College London in 1960. Princeton claimed him as a professor and department chairman in 1963. He returned to Oxford as Warden, or head, of Wadham College, a post he filled from 1970 to 1984. From then until 1991, he was a professor of philosophy at Stanford University. Two Libertarian Presidential Candidates? Surprise! There may be two Libertarian Party candidates for president this year. One, of course, is Michael Badnarik, nominated at the party's convention. The other is Richard Mack, a Libertarian Party member who has just been given a shot at being nominated for president... by the cable TV network Showtime. That's right. Mack, of Provo, Utah is one of 12 finalists for a new summer "reality TV" show, "American Candidate." The premise of American Candidate -- which premieres August 1 -- is that a dozen would-be presidents compete to win a whopping $200,000 and major national airtime to run for president of the United States as the "People's Candidate." "Over the course of 10 weeks, those 12 will face off against each other in a series of challenges designed to test their presidential mettle and to show viewers what really goes on in the making of a presidential candidate," says Showtime. Each week the candidates will be assigned a series of politics-related tasks by Showtime. The candidate who does the poorest job will be booted off, week by week, until just one -- the "People's Candidate" -- is left. As the Salt Lake Tribune wryly notes, "Political candidate Richard Mack won't have to eat live maggots, crawl through muddy obstacle courses or starve on a deserted island to win the latest reality TV show contest. He has to do something worse: shake voters' hands, kiss babies and smile until his face quivers." Of course, the winner won't appear on any ballots. But... $200,000 and a big chunk of major airtime and publicity can provide one heck of a bully pulpit. Mack. a former Arizona county sheriff, was Utah gubernatorial candidate for the Libertarian Party -- until this week. He resigned from the race in order to pursue the unprecedented Showtime opportunity. And he's not fudging on the issues. Mack's Showtime Web page says he would abolish the income tax and the IRS, abolish the Department of Education, and repeal the PATRIOT Act. The site also notes his favorite president, Thomas Jefferson. And his campaign theme song? What else for a libertarian named Mack who wants to cut the federal budget: "Mack the Knife." Filming has already begun on the series. One thing is certain: Showtime's selection process is a lot fairer than the maze of outrageously unfair ballot laws, campaign finance requirements and other obstacles that state and federal governments force on alternative party and independent candidates. Sources: Salt Lake City Tribune: http://www.sltrib.com/2004/Jun/06092004/utah/173843.asp Showtime Web site: http://www.americancandidate.com/candidate_homepage.php?id=40 (Thanks to James W. Harris of the Advocates for Self-Government and The Liberator Online for the above information. If you would like a free subscription to the Liberator Online, visit: http://www.self-gov.org/liberator/maintain.html.) More on the Above: It's Presidential Showtime! What a summer. Nasty campaign ads, attack speeches, slam slogans. It's all part of election-year politics. It's also the stuff of a new "reality" show. In August, Showtime will launch "American Candidate." TV talk maestro Montel Williams will guide viewers through a mock-presidential campaign for the Oval Office. At the end of the competition, the winner will receive $200,000 and get to make a pretend "address to the nation." Howard Dean's former campaign manager Joe Trippi was hired for one of the show's episodes. The political consultant's task was to advise the day's winner on how to deal with community groups, which were set to meet with the mock candidates. Trippi recently told the Manchester Union Leader that the series "is about a system that isn't working." He said, "The candidates in the show say what they think," and "they're not worried about special interests." Trippi might or might not have been aware that Bruce Friedrich, one of the contestants, directs campaigns for that unspecial interest group called People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The Left Coast Report can't wait to see the spin-off shows ... "American Intern," "American Investigation" and, of course, "American Impeachment." (Thanks to The Left Coast Report by James L. Hirsen and the staff of NewsMax for the above information. If you would like a free subscription, please visit http://NewsMax.com/email.shtml.) Is This Insane Or What? Protestor Against Beheadings To Go To Saudi Arabia If you're a regular listener of "talk radio" shows, then you most likely heard the interview between Jonathan Kemriley and Canadian talk-radio host Rachel Hints of Canadians Unleashed 670, so this story won't be news to you, but if you didn't hear the interview, then you won't believe what you're about to read! Jonathan Kemriley, a retired US Marine, came onto the show to discuss the Canadian government's handling of two US military men who found refuge in Canada in order to not serve in Iraq, but the topic changed rather quickly. Below you can read a portion of the interview: Jonathan Kemriley: "Mrs. Hints, yes, the Canadian government is in the wrong here, but more importantly it's because those two men are scared of having their heads removed by Al-Qaeda cell members in Saudi, and I think that's a damn shame. I for one going to take a stand against these brutal beheadings by flying myself and my 14 and 17 year old sons with me to Saudi Arabia on Thursday of this week. Once in Saudi Arabia we're going to find a way to be taken in as hostages by Al-Qaeda groups. Rachel Hints: "What on Earth are you talking about sir?" Jonathan Kemriley: "These terrorists need to understand that Americans are not scared of their tactics, and most importantly I don't want my sons to be frightened of the world in which we live in. My goal is to make sure that these savages capture us and give the US government 24 hours notice to release us in exchange for prisoners....If my plan is carried out correctly, after the 24 hours are up, my two boys and I will have been decapitated.... I want those savages to see the smiles on the faces of my boy's and I as they're cutting our heads off from our bodies. It will be the biggest slap in their faces that they'll ever receive. And I guarantee that not another US citizen will ever be taken hostage by this group ever again." Rachel Hints: "Sir, no offense, but that is the craziest, most ridiculous thing I have ever heard." Jonathan Kemriley: "You just don't get it do you. Well the terrorists will 'get it' when they read the phrase on my shirt, which will be written in Arabic, "Do me a favor you savages, remove my head from the top of my neck, I bleed red, white, and blue. The stock market isn't going anywhere!' Rachel Hints: "So if I'm hearing you correctly, and I really hope I'm not, but you want yourself, and your young boys to be murdered." Jonathan Kemriley: "In the name of the USA, you better believe it." Source: Way Wierd - subscribe at http://www.wayweird.com/subscribe.php Supreme Court Limits Right to Silence, Moves Closer to National ID "Your papers, please." In movies, that chilling demand from government agents is always a giveaway that they are tools of an oppressive state. The U.S. took an ominous step in that direction this week, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the government can arrest and punish people whose only "crime" is a refusal to give police their names during a murkily-defined legal police stop. The narrowly-passed 5-4 decision held that people have no constitutional right to refuse to tell police their names if police merely have a "reasonable suspicion" that a person may be involved in a crime. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority, said that demanding a name during a police stop "serves important government interests" and dismissed privacy and civil liberties concerns by saying the request is "so insignificant in the scheme of things." Civil libertarians strongly disagree, arguing that giving police the power to command a person to disclose his name under such circumstances is unconstitutional -- a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment protection from unreasonable searches, and of the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Tim Lynch, an attorney with the libertarian Cato Institute, put it nicely: the Supreme Court has "ruled that the government can turn a person's silence into a criminal offense... Ordinary Americans will be hopelessly confused about when they can assert their right to 'remain silent' without being jailed." It is not a mere academic argument. Opponents fear the decision will encourage police to instigate far more encounters and searches, particularly on roads, at airports, and in inner cities, based on flimsy and deceptive accusations. The decision almost certainly guarantees that vast numbers of Americans will face such stops and demands. It will be easy for police to enter names into massive, ever-expanding government databases for further searching, much as is done routinely today with drivers licenses at car stops. As Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in a dissent: "A name can provide the key to a broad array of information about the person, particularly in the hands of a police officer with access to a range of law enforcement databases." And finally, this decision inevitably moves us much closer to a mandatory national ID, to be carried at all times and shown upon request. After all, the logical next question after "What's your name?" is: "Can you prove it?" Or, as those totalitarian governments say in the movies: "Your papers, please." Sources: Associated Press: http://apnews.myway.com//article/20040621/D83BGOU80.html Supreme Court decision Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of the state of Nevada, 03-5554: http://www.supremecourtus.gov (Thanks to James W. Harris of the Advocates for Self-Government and The Liberator Online for the above information. If you would like a free subscription to the Liberator Online, visit: http://www.self-gov.org/liberator/maintain.html.) "The best thing about space travel..." "When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere." -- from The Notebooks of Lazarus Long (1978), by Robert Heinlein (1907-1988), pioneering libertarian science fiction writer. Some interesting & provocative articles on other websites The Libertarian Party Stays the Course, by Brian Doherty: Reports from a political convention full of both surprises and the status quo. Repudiate or resign, by Debra Saunders: A group of students at the University of California at Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law circulated a petition last week calling on law professor John Yoo to "repudiate" a 2002 memo he wrote when he worked for the Bush Justice Department or "resign" his academic post. Language Wars, by Keith Windschuttle: In recent years, all states and territories have recognised the phenomenon called "gender reassignment". This means that throughout Australia anyone who wants to switch from being male to female or from female to male can now do so legally and have the change recorded on his or her birth certificate. The person concerned does not even have to undergo any surgery. You Have Rights -- if Bush Says You Do. by Jonathan Turley: This week, the U.S. Justice Department held an extraordinary news conference. After insisting for two years that details of the case of Jose Padilla, an American citizen accused of being an "enemy combatant," had to be kept secret even from the federal courts, the Justice Department suddenly released detailed information on his interrogations and their results. The Padilla Doctrine Doesn't Infringe on Freedom -- It Destroys It, by Jacob G. Hornberger: Critics of the federal government's two-year incarceration of accused terrorist Jose Padilla without charges or trial correctly point out that the government has violated Padilla's right to counsel and his rights to due process of law, habeas corpus, and jury trial, all of which are guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. 100 Years of Medical Robbery, by Dale Steinreich: A happy 100th birthday to the Council on Medical Education...and for the sake of all our health, hopefully not too many more. It's time for American Jews to open their eyes, by Ben Shapiro: American Jewish leftism cannot be overlooked or excused. And in a world teetering on the brink of disaster, blind loyalty to a false cause can no longer be afforded. Is Bush a Conservative?, by Nels Stemm: In his essay "The Essence of Conservatism" Russell Kirk defines a conservative as "a person who endeavors to conserve the best in our traditions and our institutions, reconciling that best with necessary reform from time to time." Conflict over Pledge of Allegiance illustrates both the right and the left's hostility to freedom, by Robert Garmong: In refusing to rule on the merits of Michael Newdow's challenge to the Pledge of Allegiance, the Supreme Court attempted to stay out of the "culture war" between the (religious) Right and the Left. The American public has no such luxury. The Purpose of Speech Codes in Schools and Colleges, by Thomas Sowell: Speech codes are meant to silence any criticism of the brainwashing and double standards that schools and colleges have increasingly practiced. I thought urinals were for men!, by Ben Shapiro: Are you a boy or a girl? Ask any 3-year-old that question, and get a straight answer. But in a society riddled with political correctness, that very simple question could be -- non-exclusive-deity forbid! -- "insensitive." And so, the first big fight of the new century has begun: Should transvestites-transgenders have the right to use whatever bathroom they choose? Accounting School Gets An Ethics Makeover, by Susan Schott Karr: If recent corporate scandals have cast a shadow on the reputation of the accounting profession, Sarbanes-Oxley has rattled the industry's cage by calling for reforms in financial reporting, corporate governance and auditing. All Hail Moore, by David Brooks: In years past, American liberals have had to settle for intellectual and moral leadership from the likes of John Dewey, Reinhold Niebuhr and Martin Luther King Jr. But now, a grander beacon has appeared on the mountaintop, and from sea to shining sea, tens of thousands have joined in the adulation. Fahrenheit 9/11: A Conservative Critique, by William Norman Grigg: I just returned from viewing Fahrenheit 9/11 here in Appleton, WI. I went to the 1:30 PM showing, which was &endash; astonishingly &endash; sold out. The crowd was overwhelmingly white and middle-class (this IS Wisconsin, remember), ranging in age from early teens to retirees. The people were polite, friendly, well-mannered (something we shouldn't take for granted on the part of contemporary theater crowds). There was tumultuous applause at the end, punctuated by a moment of reflective silence as we read the dedication card invoking those murdered by terrorists on 9/11, and those murdered through state terrorism in the aftermath. Michael Moore: on the Couch and in the Spotlight, by Richard Wall: Michael Moore is obnoxious. Stupid White Men contained a good deal of nonsense. Bowling for Columbine made me cringe at the vicious and despicable way he personally approached and treated Charlton Heston. But OK, nobody's perfect. Libertarians should be grateful that Michael Moore has learned some lessons from past mistakes and, for his movie Fahrenheit 911, which opens in the US on June 25, has apparently taken extra care to check and double-check his facts. Fact-checking Moore's political broadside, Philip Shenon: So how will Moore's movie stand up under close examination? Is the film's depiction of Bush as a lazy and duplicitous leader, blinded by his family's financial ties to Arab moneymen and the Saudi Arabian royal family, true to fact? Moore and his distributors refused to circulate copies of the film and its script before the film's release on Friday; his production team said recently there was no final script because the film was still undergoing minor editing - for clarity, they said, not accuracy. Training Wheels and Fighting Words, by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.: Michael Moore's new film debuted at Cannes. It's called Fahrenheit 9/11. The movie decries the warmongering of the Bush administration, exposes the fraudulence of his excuses for invading and crushing Iraq, unearths the unseemly ties between the Bush regime and big oil and the Saudis, and blasts the Bush regime for its egregious violations of civil liberties and massive pillaging of the American taxpayer on behalf of the merchants of death. Michael Moore terrorizes the Bushies!: The right wing is going all out to stop "Fahrenheit 9/11" -- but it's not working, by John Gorenfeld: June 23, 2004 | They're back! OK, the "vast right-wing conspiracy" Hillary Clinton warned about never really went away. But they've found new purpose in the campaign to stop the distribution of "Fahrenheit 9/11," Michael Moore's latest documentary. And just as the energetic conservative elves succeeded in making Bill Clinton ever more popular with the American public, so do they seem to be driving up public interest in Moore's film, which is expected to have the biggest opening for a documentary film ever, in a scheduled 888 theaters. Will Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" Defeat a President?, by James K. Glassman: Constructive criticism is always warranted. The sad truth, however, is that the left is so intellectually bereft at this point in its history that the buffoonery of Michael Moore is about all they've got. So they're promoting it like crazy. This is the government - How may we help you?, by W. James Antle III: If you think most of what goes on in Washington is nuts, you might be surprised to learn that the government plans to find out if the same can be said about you. Reports circulated last week that the Bush administration will soon be unveiling a major mental health initiative that will recommend screening every citizen for mental illness. This latest manifestation of the nanny state is called, in Orwellian fashion, the New Freedom Initiative (of course). The Libertarian Case Against Abortion, by Bill Barnwell: Is holding a pro-life position inherently inconsistent with libertarian philosophy? Many libertarians seem to think so. Abortion, according to them, is forced and legislated morality defended by big-government conservatives who want to impose their faith and morals on the rest of an unwilling society. Not only that, it is statist in that it invalidates a mother's right to terminate a pregnancy. The State now trumps parental rights and decides for the mother against her will that she must bring a child into the world.
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