Obama has surrounded himself with socialists, Marxists, Maoists, Communists, etc. The amazing thing is they are starting to come out of the closet now and openly admit their extremism. Even Obama said this about himself during that period, and what his friends and collegues are saying now.

“To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist Professors and the structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets.” — Barack Obama, as he described himself in Dreams of My Father.

“We Are All Socialists Now” — Cover story, Newsweek Magazine.

Frank Marshall Davis – Member of the Communist Party USA

- Rev. Jeremiah Wright – Black Liberation theology has its roots in Marxism

- Bill Ayers says “I’m an anarchist; I’m a Marxist.” He praised Cuba’s educational system and worked with Obama on a massive educational failure in Chicago.

- Van Jones, former Green Czar declared himself a Marxist and praised looting and rioting.

- Anita Dunn, Communications Director turns to Chariman Mao for inspiration.

- Ron Bloom, manufacturing czar, ““We know that the free market is nonsense. … We kinda agree with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun. ”

- Mark Lloyd, Obama’s FCC Diversity Czar., ““In Venezuela, with Chavez, is really an incredible revolution – a democratic revolution.”

- John Holdren, Obama’s Science Czar, ““Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society…”

- Ezekiel Emanuel, Obama’s health policy adviser: “When implemented, the Complete Lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated… The Complete Lives system justifies preference to younger people because of priority to the worst-off rather than instrumental value.”

- George Soros Democratic financier and media mogul admitted on 20/20 to collaborating with Nazis to turn in his fellow Jews. Now he is promoting a soft fascism of the left.

Jeff Jones of the Apollo Alliance former Weather Undergrounder, domestic terrorist and admitted Marxist whose organization has been instrumental in writing some of the large Congressional spending bills.

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How does one get selected to join the history faculty at one school – it mostly depends on what the other historians think (they are the trusted experts). Once the number of historians who feel strongly about an issue reaches a critical point in a department, they have all the power they need to surround themselves over the years with like-minded colleagues.

It may even explain why the Ivy League lost its Christian identity.

p.s.
tell your son-in-law to check the Institute for Humane Studies (IHS) at George Mason University

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Some part is surely due to self-selection, who knows perhaps some sort of Ricardian mechanism . Why do some study 18th C literature and others decide their future lies marketing? My real hunch is that underneath there are issues of long standing cultures, and even (horrors!) social class.

Going a bit off topic: I would also say that some part of the problem is a failure on the conservative side to seriously engage the issues. Historically, religious conservatives have found this engagement fairly challenging. The result is that we encourage fewer or our young people to do the heavy lifting of academics, with its discipline, and yes its quant. (I do have personal stake here: the son-in-law is interviewing for his first post, in Classics.)

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You’re right, it’s unlikely that the lady supports Mao’s atrocities even if she finds attraction in some of his ideas. But when a public figure is caught saying such things the expected response is an apology – “I was trying to make a joke, I do not approve of Mao’s mass murders, communism is a horrible system…” or something like that

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I guess they’ll have to contact the authors and check the numbers and methods of the quoted “reliable published studies of professors’ political and ideological attachments”, “quantitative analysis of a large-scale student survey”, and “strong statistical evidence” – the scholars must have checked quite a few swallows before publishing

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if you refer to racial minorities here, they may have this problem precisely because of government attempts to rectify past problems with EOE acts that turned out to have undesirable unintended consequences

what else is new about government interference

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so it may be that the academia is not a free market – does anyone have any thoughts?

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I’m sure that Reader appreciates the irony here, that this complaint is the one minorities repeatedly face: “our group has to work twice as hard to get respect….” That such in-group v. out-group behavior is common does not remove the question of justice or equity, but an awareness of such inequity ought to broade our sensitivity to others. If we see it only as our injustice, that wrong can curdle in us in some spiritually very unhelpful ways.

But back to our subject.

Reader: I wonder if this is a difference analogous to that between the quant-driven and the qual-driven in economics (and social sciences). Those more data oriented will look at the quote and ask for other corroborating evidence (”one swallow not making a spring” being a useful proverb); those looking at qualitative data may be more ready to jump (”hey! I saw the swallow, where’s by bathing suit?”). Thus, some find a single quote to be compelling others do not (I actually think you are a quant, hence your “I hope …”).

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I listened to the speech in context and it was distirbing to hear so prominent a person use Mao as a positive example, especially to a room full of students. It does make one wonder just what’s going on in the classroom.

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