[Peace-discuss] Holocaust scholar cancels prestigious Illinois lecture over Steven Salaita firing

[Carl G. Estabrook]

The elite among the settler/colonialists of 18-century North America were too small a group to rule on their own - even without considering the indigenes & the enslaved - so they had to couch their demand to rule in universal terms: "all men are created equal…"

But when they came to construct a government (largely to protect themselves against indigenes, chattel-slaves, and wage-slaves), the elite did so in such way as “to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority" (as James Madison said of the Constitution he drafted in 1787). The promissory note was worth only what could be wrenched from the elite. The Constitution was designed to prevent democracy, not to enable it, for fear of the economic consequences of an actual democracy. (Madison feared what he called an “agrarian law” - a more equitable division of wealth, wealth being primarily a matter of land-holding in his time.)

Various emergencies - notably depressions and wars - have forced the elite to make concessions on occasion, but they’ve usually quickly recouped their losses after the emergency: e.g., 40 years of neoliberalism are today capped by virtually all the income gains since the 2008 economic emergency accruing to the 1%.

As Frederick Douglass famously said, "Power concedes nothing without a demand.” The radical demand is that the liberal elite live up to their stated principles.

—CGE


> On Apr 15, 2015, at 2:43 PM, Robert Naiman <naiman at justforeignpolicy.org> wrote:
> 
> That's kind of like a fundamental idea in American history, isn't it? The idea that the Declaration of Independence is a promissory note that can be redeemed at any lunch counter. 
> 
> 
> 
> Robert Naiman
> Policy Director
> Just Foreign Policy
> www.justforeignpolicy.org <http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/>
> naiman at justforeignpolicy.org <mailto:naiman at justforeignpolicy.org>
> (202) 448-2898 x1
> 
> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 1:33 PM, Carl G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu <mailto:galliher at illinois.edu>> wrote:
> It's been remarked that sometimes the most radical thing to do is insist liberals live up to their principles.
> 
> 
> > On Apr 15, 2015, at 12:59 PM, David Green via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net <mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>> wrote:
> >
> > Although I would add that there's no reason to even imply that it is at all debatable that Salaita is anti-Semitic, or that his scholarship or teaching  (i.e., job qualifications) are of dubious merit in the context of his field. This should not be framed as a matter of protecting "despised" speech, although that is the standard. Nor is there any reason to downplay the substantive nature of the BOT's actions in terms of the I/P conflict and profitable relationships with Israel, and perhaps in the larger context of the relations of academia with USFP and the military-industrial complex. Once the academic freedom/civil liberties issue is addressed, those issues will remain and should also be addressed. As long as academia is part and parcel of all of these wealth/power relationships, then the primary context of these outrages will remain. I appreciate liberal ethics when applied consistently, but that should be the absolute minimum to expect.
> >
> > DG
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wednesday, April 15, 2015 12:44 PM, Robert Naiman via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net <mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>> wrote:
> >
> >
> > I have to say that I have been impressed and even surprised by the principled reaction of many, many Jewish liberals in academia to the Salaita case. Cary Nelson is an outlier. Most Jewish liberals in the academy who have spoken out seem to see it as a clear-cut free speech and academic freedom case. Which, of course, it is.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Robert Naiman
> > Policy Director
> > Just Foreign Policy
> > www.justforeignpolicy.org <http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/>
> > naiman at justforeignpolicy.org <mailto:naiman at justforeignpolicy.org>
> > (202) 448-2898 x1 <tel:%28202%29%20448-2898%20x1>
> >
> > On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 12:08 PM, Stuart Levy <stuartnlevy at gmail.com <mailto:stuartnlevy at gmail.com>> wrote:
> > What a beautiful letter.   Congratulations to Prof. Presner.   And thanks Robert for passing it along to us.
> >
> >
> >
> > On 4/15/15 12:01 PM, Robert Naiman via Peace-discuss wrote:
> >> http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/holocaust-scholar-cancels-prestigious-illinois-lecture-over-steven-salaita-firing <http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/holocaust-scholar-cancels-prestigious-illinois-lecture-over-steven-salaita-firing>
> >> ------------------------------snip
> >> A prominent Holocaust scholar has canceled a prestigious lecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in protest over the firing of Professor Steven Salaita.
> >> Professor Todd Samuel Presner, the director of Jewish studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), wrote to UIUC Chancellor Phyllis Wise to tell her he would not visit the campus as long as she was in charge.
> >> His letter, dated 28 March and addressed to Wise and UIUC trustees, was publicly released today (full text and a PDF copy are below).
> >> Presner had been scheduled to deliver the 2014-15 Rosenthal Lecture, titled “A Message in a Bottle: Holocaust Testimony and the Jewish Future,” on 27 April.
> >> He said a workshop also planned during his visit would not be canceled, but would be moved off campus and he would not accept any funding or payment from UIUC.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> 
> 

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