come anticipate AHMADINEJAD at COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY with me

whoa! when?

I was wondering when someone would post. The right's been going batshit for days.

Columbia visit ---- > assassination ----> Intern'tl Incident ----> WWIII

Nice knowin' y'all.

http://www.superunicorn.com/erik/uploaded_images/beatlemania-783942.jpg

You just know he'll be hitting on undergrads at the reception.

i know i would be

JEWBILATION

http://www.nysun.com/article/40142?page_no=2

that was last year

the holocaust denier bit is weird to me, as if that takes precedence over the fact that he wasn't like, you know, THE PRESIDENT OF IRAN or anything important like that.

well, I guess they're trying to establish a general principle for unacceptable speakers? but yeah.

BAN PRESIDENT AHMADINEJAD

"unacceptable speakers"

i don't mean to call you out on a phrase but you'd think that the distance between what is and what should be re: the president of the middle east's largest democracy would demand more open dialogue and communication, not less

no, I agree; I was just trying to get at the motivations of those who didn't want Ahmedinejad to speak. I didn't mean to endorse the idea that there are acceptable and unacceptable speakers.

Here’s Columbia law student Ruven Ellberger, proving himself something of a demagogic simpleton:

“I think there's four things to say about that. The first is that when Americans talk about free-speech rights, we're talking about a constitutional right that all U.S. citizens have. Ahmadinejad is not a U.S. citizen. He's a U.S. enemy. So he doesn't have anything close to a free-speech right.

The second thing is that only the government has to give people free speech. The government cannot restrict free speech. Columbia University doesn't have to give a soapbox to every lunatic in the world.

The third thing is that even if we want to hear minority opinions, dissenting opinions, things like that, I can understand giving it to somebody who just doesn't have the access to the media. Ahmadinejad is probably one of the most publicized people in the world today. He has a microphone wherever he goes. He can conduct his own press conferences. He is routinely interviewed on ABC and CBS. He will be speaking at the U.N. He has the media to convey his messages. We don't need to be the ones giving it to him.

And the fourth thing is that it just lowers the standards of Columbia University. Even if after all of this, you make the case that he has a free-speech right, you shouldn't just go around giving a platform to everybody. You're supposed to exercise judgment. Basically, Columbia University wouldn't find anything wrong with giving Stalin or Hitler a platform to speak, based on that rationale. I think Columbia owes it to itself and its students to exercise a little more judgment.”

so there's no such thing as an unacceptable speaker?

I'm curious, as well as knowing under what terms a speaker would be unacceptable.

you would be an example of one, i'm sure

that ms jacobsen and her "campus scholars for peace" sound like a nasty piece of work

my students agree!

we had Deepak Chopra a few years ago -- talk about excitement.

Basically, Columbia University wouldn't find anything wrong with giving Stalin or Hitler a platform to speak, based on that rationale

ah yes, shining examples of the dangers of too much free speech

the thing about speakers who espouse some abhorrent views is that they usually end up getting schooled by audience members which is awesome. not saying this example is in any way equivalent, but dinesh d'souza came to my college to speak on affirmative action and proved himself a total douche and it was profoundly satisfying. there was a protest against the administration for inviting him, but it was way better that he said his piece and was taken to task for it.

yes my thoughts exactly, but from some of the stuff posted on this thread you wonder if columbia students will be up to the task. hopefully bollnger will be up to it.

I agree. The protests from the right willfully ignore the fact that the U.S. has, in fortifying Shiia militias in Iraq, has indirectly been strengthening the hand of Tehran. As for recent history, I'm sure there's some imans who remember Bud McFarlane, a birthday cake, and salutations from the Gipper.

i don't recall anybody protesting when ahmadinejad was on CSPAN but i might not have been paying attention.

on an unrelated note was it nixon or reagan who was willing to debate students in the street? was it chile? mexico? does anybody remember what i'm talking about? they don't build americans like that anymore.

It may have been when Nixon was veep.

As for this Hitler analogy: god, how stupid. Maybe we'd have less Holocaust deniers had Hitler gotten an audience before American Jews in 1941.

you're right, i think it was his visits to peru + venezuala i'm thinking about ... i have one of those time/life photos of the 20th century books that has a great picture of him debating some guevara looking dude in the street as cops try to pull them apart.

looking for info on this reminded me that nixon debated khruschev in 1959!! can you imagine bush doing something like that?

i tell you, it's a fucking sad state of affairs when we're talking nostalgically about nixon.

Thing is, as far as the standard gray area about academic spaces and the meaning of speakers goes -- you know, the difference between having a speaker as an endorsement and the academic claim that speakers are there for critical observation -- Ahmadinejad is a fairly good claim toward the latter: he's the nominal leader of a country that's been made one of the most important issues in our foreign policy (and this is the context in which he's speaking, not as some kind of "dissenting voice" in a Holocaust conference), and it's really hard to argue that students wouldn't get some educational benefit from having him at an event! Especially if you count getting riled up and offended and engaged as an "educational benefit," which it basically is.

Either way, though, this part strikes me less as a moral or political issue (anyone who acknowledges that he's important is basically affirming the reason he's fair game as a speaker) and more as just whether Columbia feels like having him or not. The only part that galled me as a political matter is that the NYPD offered a fairly neutral justification for why he can't lay a wreath at Ground Zero (public safety, logistics, etc.), and Bush felt the need to do a little political twist and ascribe to them the motivation that Ahmadinejad is, you know, against us instead of with us.

nabisco, you can be one of the audience member's taking him to task, yes?

members

xpost to "nostalgically about Nixon" -- during a long McLaughlin Group discussion of Ahmadinejad this morning, in and around Buchanan going "I wrote toasts for Nixon to give in China," there was this great nuclear-history reversal where Clift and Page were all "well Mutual Assured Destruction with Iran might be a better plan than pre-emptive war," and then Tony Blankley of all bastards is like "well, Jimmy Carter said in 78 that nuclear proliferation is the biggest danger we have, and everyone laughed at him then, but NOW YOU'LL SEE" -- i.e., freaking Tony Blankley is retroactively on the side of the CARTER presidency

the thing about speakers who espouse some abhorrent views is that they usually end up getting schooled by audience members which is awesome. [...]

-- horseshoe, Sunday, September 23, 2007 11:20 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

yeah, that'll totally happen.

"well Mutual Assured Destruction with Iran might be a better plan than pre-emptive war"

what i don't get is that isn't this already on the table?

yeah, that'll totally happen.

-- That one guy that hit it and quit it, Sunday, September 23, 2007 10:49 PM (1 minute ago)

if they don't get tasered first, amirite

xpost - I have to work tomorrow :( Plus I think you had to register for spots online far in advance, so I will probably settle for being annoyed by protests on the walk to the subway. It'll be a mess up here, I'm sure.

xpost again re: "yeah, that'll totally happen" -- hahaha we're talking about college students, the ghost of Mother Theresa could be speaking and they'd be flipping through Hitchens's book for zingers to throw at her before getting tazered (haha xpost!)

The only person who can safely speak on a first-tier college campus without getting shit is basically Dane Cook circa 2003

The problem: a lot of college students dress like Ahmadinejad.

lotta beards at columbia too

you all know not wearing a tie is part of khomeini-era revolutionary dogma, right? it's the equivalent of bush's denim shirts + carhartt jackets.

WHY AHMADI-NIJAD DRESSES LIKE HE DOES

i wrote a research paper on iranian graphic design a couple years ago that had a section on revoultionary fashion

a lot of college students dress like Ahmadinejad

He tucks his shirt in, so no.

Plus it's early in the year, so the kids still all look like a really slutty American Idol audition. (It's better the last week in August, when you get freshman boys trying to pull off every "cool" piece of clothing they own at once.)

naw i'm sure they'll chuck zingers at him. he was interviewed on british tv (channel 4) by jon snow (as close as you'll get to a left-wing news anchorman) recently and snow threw heat re. the holocaust, etc, and ahmadinejad listened.

what i'm snarking about is the idea he'll get schooled.

this is partly cos i once interviewed a very famous (not as famous as this guy, i can't front) person when i was 19 and figured i could school them.

I don't know; I think he could get schooled.

I am not 19.

ahmadinejad's not a genius, but hes not dumb. hes also totally batshit insane, which works in his favor with stuff like this.

well, sure, he'd never calmly acknowledge that he'd been schooled, fair enough.

seriously: he is not going to get schooled.

max is otm, he is a total menk but he is able to make simple equivalence arguments, so: why shouldn't iran have weapons if the US does; why shouldn't iran intervene in iraq if the US does; why shouldn't iran take an interest in the future of israel if the US does, etc etc.

these kinds of arguments go over big with students so mayhbe he'll be a hit.

I’m curious, as well as knowing under what terms a speaker would be unacceptable.

I, too, happen to think Ahmadinejad could carry his own pretty well if attacked by some supercilious freshman. Not the least as his not speaking English very well (at all?) means he can wilfully misinterpret any biting attack and steer every topic straight to his stump speech.

AWW MAN this thread had stalled out at 666 posts and then you had something else to say!

I am gonna get the local news to Shame Shame Shame you.

Sex is only a construction if you use an Erector set.

are you saying that i dont know who goebbels is, or that i dont know who mission of burma is?

my set is erector every time i have sex

max and moonbeam both have the evangelical fervor of the newly-radicalized. Hold on to 16 as long as you can, kids.

God you're a dick.

btw ^ red diaper baby

Dally, you have the simple-mindedness of the never-gave-stuff-too-much-thought

Whatever else happens, can we not ruin John Cougar Mellencamp with this thread?

http://images.greatseats.com/300x180/John_Mellencamp300.jpg
this is rowr country

So, I guess that's a "no"? ;_;

the red diaper of the newly radicalized

"We stand in solidarity with our peers in Iran, but we do not presume to speak for them. We cannot possibly claim to understand the multiple and diverse experiences of living with same-sex desires in Iran."

This is a token nod to High Priestess of postcolonial studies Gayatri Spivak ("Can the Subaltern Speak?"), yes? CQA's afraid of being construed as imperialist, which is not entirely invalid since human rights language has repeatedly been used to justify military invasion. Nevertheless, I agree that the statement is watered down and rambling, for all their intentions. Maybe it would make a more watertight conference paper, but sort of falls flat as a public condemnation.

P.S. What exactly is good about that Dowd piece?

I assumed it was a nod to Ed Said, but you're much closer I think.

"What exactly is good about that Dowd piece?"

That she looks pretty good in her picture.

Sorry man, her last book is titled Are Men Necessary? Plus I got a feeling she's got some baaaaad Irish skin under all that foundation.

I'm Irish. I'll let it go. Plus I'm not really necessary, I won't debate that point.

Most of the comments on the CQA statement are on the mark, but I would like to stress that when it comes to international matters of some importance, the most nuanced take on an issue is far from always the morally correct one (if I may be so presumptious as to be the arbiter of that). Nuance isn’t worth hoot if it means you concede the ideological highground to some rough-hewn demagogue. (I’m on perilous soil here, I know, but I’m talking about pretty narrowly defined situations, not your average local council debate or whatever.) So, for my money, this is a prime example of a situation where they should have shed the academic argot and gone for the kill.

otm.

here's a transcript of his UN speech, by the way:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iran/2007/iran-070926-irna01.htm

"internet eye for the academic":

"asian studies, can i have a word? just look at that dry-ass course description. you know it. i know it. it needs to be... FIERCE."

http://jezebel.com/assets/resources/2007/09/janesiran092707.jpg

i got an email today inviting me to an LGBTIQQ kickoff party

I'm so old when I was in college they only had the LBG union.

In my day it was the S-S-P

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Seven chancellors and presidents of Iranian universities and research centers, in a letter addressed to their counterpart in the US Colombia University, denounced Lee Bollinger's insulting words against the Iranian nation and president and invited him to provide responses for 10 questions of the Iranian academicians and intellectuals.

The following is the full text of the letter.

Mr. Lee Bollinger
Columbia University President

We, the professors and heads of universities and research institutions in Tehran , hereby announce our displeasure and protest at your impolite remarks prior to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent speech at Columbia University.

We would like to inform you that President Ahmadinejad was elected directly by the Iranian people through an enthusiastic two-round poll in which almost all of the country's political parties and groups participated. To assess the quality and nature of these elections you may refer to US news reports on the poll dated June 2005.

Your insult, in a scholarly atmosphere, to the president of a country with a population of 72 million and a recorded history of 7,000 years of civilization and culture is deeply shameful.

Your comments, filled with hate and disgust, may well have been influenced by extreme pressure from the media, but it is regrettable that media policy-makers can determine the stance a university president adopts in his speech.

Your remarks about our country included unsubstantiated accusations that were the product of guesswork as well as media propaganda. Some of your claims result from misunderstandings that can be clarified through dialogue and further research.

During his speech, Mr. Ahmadinejad answered a number of your questions and those of students. We are prepared to answer any remaining questions in a scientific, open and direct debate.

You asked the president approximately ten questions. Allow us to ask you ten of our own questions in the hope that your response will help clear the atmosphere of misunderstanding and distrust between our two countries and reveal the truth.

1- Why did the US media put you under so much pressure to prevent Mr. Ahmadinejad from delivering his speech at Columbia University? And why have American TV networks been broadcasting hours of news reports insulting our president while refusing to allow him the opportunity to respond? Is this not against the principle of freedom of speech?

2- Why, in 1953, did the US administration overthrow the Iran's national government under Dr Mohammad Mosaddegh and go on to support the Shah's dictatorship?

3- Why did the US support the blood-thirsty dictator Saddam Hussein during the 1980-88 Iraqi-imposed war on Iran, considering his reckless use of chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers defending their land and even against his own people?

4- Why is the US putting pressure on the government elected by the majority of Palestinians in Gaza instead of officially recognizing it? And why does it oppose Iran 's proposal to resolve the 60-year-old Palestinian issue through a general referendum?

5- Why has the US military failed to find Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden even with all its advanced equipment? How do you justify the old friendship between the Bush and Bin Laden families and their cooperation on oil deals? How can you justify the Bush administration's efforts to disrupt investigations concerning the September 11 attacks?

6- Why does the US administration support the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) despite the fact that the group has officially and openly accepted the responsibility for numerous deadly bombings and massacres in Iran and Iraq? Why does the US refuse to allow Iran 's current government to act against the MKO's main base in Iraq?

7- Was the US invasion of Iraq based on international consensus and did international institutions support it? What was the real purpose behind the invasion which has claimed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives? Where are the weapons of mass destruction that the US claimed were being stockpiled in Iraq?

8- Why do America's closest allies in the Middle East come from extremely undemocratic governments with absolutist monarchical regimes?

9- Why did the US oppose the plan for a Middle East free of unconventional weapons in the recent session of the International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors despite the fact the move won the support of all members other than Israel?

10- Why is the US displeased with Iran's agreement with the IAEA and why does it openly oppose any progress in talks between Iran and the agency to resolve the nuclear issue under international law?

Finally, we would like to express our readiness to invite you and other scientific delegations to our country. A trip to Iran would allow you and your colleagues to speak directly with Iranians from all walks of life including intellectuals and university scholars. You could then assess the realities of Iranian society without media censorship before making judgments about the Iranian nation and government.

You can be assured that Iranians are very polite and hospitable toward their guests.

nothing but rhetorical questions = teh lolz

why because it sound interesting

they sent us their prime minister, we send them chris deburgh

http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2228549,00.html

IN MY DREAMS: ahmadinejad plays a concert at madison square garden; deburg gives a brief lecture at the university of tehran

Ahmadinejad: “Nuclear weapons are so 20th century.”

http://thepage.time.com/2008/07/28/nbc-news-sits-down-with-ahmadinejad-monday/

something about these protests makes so depressed

*makes me

Okay. So the first 13 minutes of this half-hour speech could've been given in a mosque....endless drinking-game opportunities with the word "god."

But overall: sno-o-o-ring. Nothing new or fiery!

I liked that Hiroshima & Nagasaki line though

lol

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5394734.ece

^^^ doesn't include the short film C4 showed immediately before which summarised Iran's current position vis-a-vis nuclear research, public executions, human rights violations, etc..
As for the actual speech, Ahmadinejad pulled off the trick of sounding less right wing than the Pope...

yeah that actually seemed pretty harmless except for the bit at the end about nations aligning to prepare for the return of christ and The Other Prophet

"If Christ were on Earth today, undoubtedly He would stand with the people in opposition to bullying, ill-tempered and expansionist powers.

If Christ were on Earth today, undoubtedly He would hoist the banner of justice and love for humanity to oppose warmongers, occupiers, terrorists and bullies the world over.

If Christ were on Earth today, undoubtedly He would fight against the tyrannical policies of prevailing global economic and political systems, as He did in His lifetime. The solution to today's problems is a return to the call of the divine Prophets. The solution to these crises is to follow the Prophets - they were sent by the Almighty for the good of humanity."

A little disingenuous and hard to take coming from a national ruler, here.

i don't think it's at all disingenuous coming from an avowed enemy of the West. i think he means it insofar as he wants his particular version of Christ's vision to be fulfilled, skewed as that vision may be towards a fundamentalist and nationalistic aim.

i happen to think he's right a la lettre but i suppose the uproar is over the altered meaning when these words are spoken by someone with an anti-semitic agenda or something

fuck it i just tend to give popularly supported anti-western leaders the benefit of the doubt no matter how odious some of their views may be, it's a remnant of my lol high school "all anti-imperialists are good" short sighted ideology.

wow no more rum nogg for me

my objection actually has nothing to do with his being anti-western or anti-semitic, it's that christ's vision was so NOT ABOUT nationalistic aims and inherently opposed to being used for particular political regimes. setting christ up as a political standard-bearer has certainly been done before, but it's pretty self-serving and misunderstood - coming from a political leader especially.

i haven't been following the uproar though, i may be totally missing other people's objection.

The media uproar isn't based on the contents of the speech, it's based simply on the Ahmadinejad appearing on C4. Of course a serious discussion about whether or not he's misrepresenting Christ's teachings is way beyond the scope of the popular media, because it require a detailed level headed approach rather than 30 second sound bytes. However, I do think he's co-opting Christ as a political tool - as you noted, certainly not the first time that's happened.

I also dislike the way that the BBC are claiming that "Channel 4's Alternative Christmas Message will cause "international offence", the UK government has said."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7799652.stm
One Labour MP and one Conservative MP, both backbenchers, are not "the governement".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7877740.stm

good news, i guess

good as to be expected