Home

Apr. 8th, 2008

Jane, nano, stress, cross, national novel writing month, pretty, phantom, eragon and saphira, fantasia, spaceballs, hate everything, awesome

Abortion makes me sick

I can't believe it.

Wait - strike that.  I can believe it, which makes it all the more depressing.  While I was looking online for the rubric for an upcoming Goddess Religions assignment, I stumbled across another article posted on the class's electronic reserve page.  This article is called "A Consistent Life Ethic?: Supporting Life After Birth" and is by Rosemary Radford Ruether, and can be found for free on this page.  Considering that, on the class page, the article is referred to as "Abortion/Ruether," I of course was immediately curious, and opened it up.

Actually, the article itself is pretty impressive, when you consider that it manages to spend two pages critiquing the Catholic church without once even mentioning the Bible or anything even vaguely resembling God, AND that it covers almost every single one of the liberal hot issues: abortion, the war in Iraq (and with it the nation's completely failure to do anything good, in her not-so-humble opinion), global climate change, global disarmament, unfair distribution of wealth... am I missing anything?  On second thought, it's not that special after all - she just shoved God out of the picture to make room for her pet issues.  Typical.

I could spend a long time pulling apart her argument, especially her criticism that, because people will do it anyway, we should just concede that abortions are ok.  That's very much like saying ,well, people will murder anyway, so we might as well make them legal, since it's not going to stop anything anyway.  She cites some horrific case of a mother of three who was imprisoned for getting an abortion in some other country, and her three children were of course left completely helpless as she languished in jail. Depressing, certainly, and by no means is that the best way to go about punishing a woman for her bad decision - but does that mean that she is not in the wrong for choosing to end the child's life rather than seeking help?  One of the girls who went on the Arizona mission trip with me shared her story - she was adopted, and her birth mother had had several abortions before becoming pregnant with my friend.  She didn't say why her mother chose not to abort her, either, but she stated very clearly that she recognizes how easily she might have been aborted, too.  No wonder she is against abortion.

 But I digress.  Regardless of whether or not I agree with a single word the Ruether says, what on earth is this article doing in my course reserves?  Granted, it's not required reading - at least, not that I have seen so far.  But, despite the fact that Ruether is a well-known feminist theologian, whose arguments I have encountered and refuted before, this article mentions nothing that is even vaguely related to goddesses OR religion.  So, what is it doing on a list of  offered readings for a goddess religions class?  I'm no rocket scientist, but even I can clearly see that this article is way out of line.  There is no reason whatsoever for her to post this other than to foist her own political beliefs onto us, her unwitting students.  Never mind that most of the people in my class probably agree with the article.  Never mind that it isn't required reading.  This is WAY outside the scope of the class and has absolutely NO reason to be on that list.  This sort of thing makes me absolutely livid.  It's exactly what Indoctrinate-U is all about.

If I was not so close to graduation that I am scared of saying anything that would potentially jeopardize my  chances of being done (I do need this class to graduate, sadly),  I would try to do something about this.  As it is, while I was already planning to give a scathing review on the course evaluations at the end of the semester, I now must remember to include this, as well.  Perhaps I will included something to the effect of, 'Dr. Mitchell, I suggest you listen to the Right Brothers' song entitled "SHUT UP AND TEACH."'

It's almost too bad that I already have a calling.  Otherwise, I might consider contacting Evan Maloney and seeing if he needed any help fighting the liberal indoctrination going on in our universities, because this is just plain wrong, folks.  And it needs to stop.

-Jaya-

Feb. 21st, 2008

Jane, nano, stress, cross, national novel writing month, pretty, phantom, eragon and saphira, fantasia, spaceballs, hate everything, awesome

Indoctrinate-U!

All right, folks, it's time - time for my review of Indoctrinate-U!  I know you've all been looking forward to this, and I'm going to  try to strike a balance between giving you an idea of the things that are discussed and not spoiling the whole film for you.

The basic premise of the film is the suppression of intellectual diversity on college campuses.  But the stories that come out of it are incredible.  A boy who spends 18 months and is threatened with expulsion for hanging fliers advertising a conservative black speaker.  A conservative professor who lost her position as head of the department for being a Republican.  A group of five white boys from Jackson, TN who dressed up as the Jackson 5 - complete with blackface - for a Halloween party which resulted in their fraternity being suspended (yet, a student who said of a conservative on that same campus, who wears a turban, "shoot that f****ing raghead in the face" received a token "talking-to").  A Kuwaiti student who wrote a pro-American essay being compared to suicide bombers and Hitler, as well as being threatened with being deported from the country.

The number of times that Evan Maloney gets shut down for trying to find out the truth of what happened on campus.  Not only are people not allowed to think for themselves, they're not allowed to figure out why.  He has more people call the cops on him for simply wanting to talk to various people than I would ever have imagined.

There's a clip that especially disturbed me: mobs of angry students shouting at military recruiters, vandalizing military institutions on campus and driving military recruiters off campus.  Yet the official spokesman for the Taliban in Afghanistan was invited to come study at Yale.  Never mind that the military are the ones who fight for your right to come and shout them off your campus, or invite terrorists to come teach students or to learn with them.  Or ban the display of the American flag after 9-11.

None of this should come as a surprise.  But I want to encourage every single one of you to watch it.  It's good to know just to what extent the persecution is being taken.

Make no mistake.  Persecution is rampant on the school campuses - not of races (except those damn whites), genders (except those damn men, of course), or religions (except those damn Christians) - but of people who think for themselves.  People who disagree with the dominant viewpoint.  In fact, so often do we learn about various groups who have not been allowed to speak out against the dominant ideology (read: conservative views) and how wrong that is, I find it incredibly ironic that students who don't agree with the dominant (liberal) ideology are being expelled and harassed.  Anyone who reads this blog can see that - just take a look at my most recent post about Goddess Religions.  This is sick.  And it needs to be stopped.  The first step to doing that is to spread the word -and this film is a great way to do that.

If you can afford it, consider purchasing a copy and supporting Evan Maloney's effort.  Sign up for a screening to come to Fort Collins and hold up a mirror to the university campus.  Spread the word.  I have a copy of the movie - if you want to see it before you buy it (I'll do everything I can to convince you to buy it... but you know) let me know, and we can see my copy.  The most important thing is to get the word out.

And, on that note, I'll leave you with the lyrics to the song that plays during the end credits.  It's called Shut Up and Teach, and it's by the Right Brothers.

Shut Up and Teach
Nowhere in this textbook does it say Bush equals Hitler
Nowhere in this chapter does it claim we had it coming
No way in this room can you blame Capitalism
No way on this earth will I be swayed

Chorus
Shut up and teach
Don’t give a speech
Keep your political beliefs
All to yourself until the bell
Your job as far as I can tell
Doesn’t include indoctrination so could you please
Shut up and teach

I will not be force-fed any more of your liberal garbage
And I will not write down what’s on the board cause it’s so stupid
I can’t just sit back and ignore your biased grading
This is not what we all came here for

Repeat Chorus

It’s called a textbook, why don’t you read it
You’d be amazed at what you’d find inside
It’s nothing like what you’ve been feeding
I guess you must’ve thought we were blind

Just keep ranting while I sit in here with my recorder
I’ll see you at McDonald’s next school year and you can take my order
Cause you might lose your job if you can’t learn to stick to the curriculum
You had your say now I think it’s our turn

Repeat Chorus
Just show up, do your job, I know it sounds extreme


Spread the word, and stop indoctrination!

-Jaya-