Published yesterday in Magic City Morning Star News, was Professor Paul Eidelberg's article: The Egalitarian Syndrome which goes some way to explaining current world politics in relation to the situation in the Middle East.

Professor Eidelberg wrote:

• I invite readers to think about the educators of our "politically correct" or non-judgmental media, because the core of the problem consists not in cowardly or obfuscating journalists but rather the universities that educated them.

Today, almost in answer to this request, comes another article from Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green) entitled: Anti Semitism on Campus-Deja Vu by Professor Steven Plaut. It makes for interesting reading, and today I will just give you some brief highlights of it's content.

• Campus political extremism today is shocking... the roots go back to 1930.
   
  Its story is the topic of a new book, "The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower," by Stephen H. Norwood (Cambridge University Press, 2009). The author is a professor of history at the University of Oklahoma and holds a PhD from Columbia University (of all places. The book is already flaming controversies and debate.
  
  Norwood's study shows that that the appeasement, support for totalitarian aggression and atrocities committed on Kristallnacht.
  
  Many of the faculty members at Harvard were openly anti-Semitic - Harvard went out of its way to host and celebrate Nazi leaders. - In 1935 the German consul in Boston was invited by Harvard to lay a wreath with a swastika on it in the campus chapel.
  
  Yale was only marginally less friendly to the Nazis than Harvard. - Some MIT professors came out vocally in support of Hitler and Nazi Germany - Professor Thomas Chalmers of the history department at Boston University publicly demanded a "hands off " policy regarding Hitler
  
  Columbia University, collaberated with Nazi Germany in many ways. - A Columbia Dean .. especially approved of the Nazi policy of forced sterilizations. - The "Seven Sisters," as the seven elite women's colleges in America were called, were unwilling to take any anti-Nazi stand.
  
  All of the above sound familiar? It does to Norwood, who says he sees frightening similarities between what has been happening in American campuses since the early 1990s and what transpired in the 1930s.

This is rather frightening stuff isn't it? Is it possible that these things went on in colleges back then? Is it possible that it goes on now?

We tend to trust that when our kids go off to college, that they are being taught that which is relevant to their future careers. We trust that they are being taught to be analytical; to study the facts; to form their own opinions and make their own judgements. But in reality, we don't know what and whose influence they fall under.

Are they learning the facts at university? Or are they like sheep and following the leader? Are they caught up in Campus Life or Academic Studies?

In my article Political Correctness 21st Century Religion I stated that "When a person ceases to control their own thoughts, beliefs and actions, they become nothing but slaves to whomever it is that is controlling their thoughts and actions!"

Is it possible that we and our kids are living in a state of 'stupor', controlled by external forces that seek to mould us to their wills? Does the media and do the Universities engineer what we think? Do they try to cast a spell over our minds and our thoughts?

Some, like J. Grant Swank would even argue that the American Nation as a whole has fallen under the spell of it's new President and become his slaves.

• They're groupies caught up in Obamamania. And for those who know what group psychology can do, there is no question that that kind of phenomenon can carry on for a long, long time - sometimes decades. To a logical mortal it is downright frightening as well as shivering to listen to the string of tin-pan-alley slogans Obama can sling in a twenty-minute speech. "Change." "Unite." And so forth. (Feb 13, 2008)

Humankind (I'm afraid to write 'mankind') loves and admires charasmatic speakers and leaders, and naturally we expect students to 'look up to' their teachers. What happens when those leaders and teachers are not worthy of honour, or are teaching that which is contrary to our own (family/ social/ cultural or traditional) culture?

So we don't like a particular teacher in a particular school. What can we do about it? We can try all sorts of things, but we have to be careful that we don't fall prey to the political correctness agenda.

Can we demand the dismissal of someone who preaches something that we don't approve of? They do have their rights you know! It's called 'free speech'! And to deny them this right makes you discriminatory.

But beware, because if you do object to their political or religious stance, then you may stand accused of something worse. Stand up against someone who is vilifying Israel for instance, and you would be accused of being a supporter of 'racism' and 'religious discrimination'.  Stand up against your kids being taught that the gay lifestyle is OK, and you will be accused of 'homophobia'. This is how 'political correctness' works.

Political Correctness is ultimately a game where the one who is speaking is free to speak, and anyone who speaks against him/her is in the wrong, unless of course what you are saying, has the support of the majority of the 'socio-political' elites. In truth, Free Speech is a Myth

• I doubt that there are many westerners who would consider that China is a truly free and open country, where people can think and act as they please. Generally speaking however, it actually is a place where one is free to think and say what one pleases, except that is, when what you say runs contrary to the 'official and sanctioned opinion'.
• That my friends is how Political Correctness is ultimately defined. Unless you think, say and do that which is the 'officially sanctioned position', you are in deep 'do do'.
• Political Correctness activism permits no dissension, nor allows any disagreement with the officially presented view on any topic, and it is for that reason that we have to be on guard against it and those who fanatically preach it. It is also the reason why it is absolutely necessary to constantly offer the public, 'the other side' of the 'activist agenda coin'.

But what is Political Correctness? Well here is one definition: Political Correctness: The Scourge of Our Times By Agustin Blazquez with the collaboration of Jaums Sutton.

• Does anyone know the origins of Political Correctness? Who originally developed it and what was its purpose?
• I looked it up. It was developed at the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt, Germany, which was founded in 1923 and came to be known as the "Frankfurt School." It was a group of thinkers who pulled together to find a solution to the biggest problem facing the implementers of communism in Russia.
• The problem? Why wasn't communism spreading?
• Their answer? Because Western Civilization was in its way.

What is it about Western Civilization that the Cultural Marxist finds so objectionable?

In essence, it is that Western Civilization is based in Judeo-Christian theology/philosophy. It is a culture that ultimately demands truthfullness, moral living, actions stemming from clear conscience, and a regard for an authority that supercedes any man-made system.

Judeo-Christian culture does not allow one to excuse oneself on the basis that one was merely doing what 'the leader' instructed. That of course was the basis of the Nuremberg Trials.

• The majority of the defendants claimed they were unknowing pawns of Adolf Hitler or were simply following orders.

Our Judeo-Christian heritage values truth, but as I wrote in Political Correctness: Corrupting Democracy:

• What matters in today's world, is not 'truth', not 'fact', but perception. Political Correctness DENIES the truth, covering it under layers of deception. It is a 'pathological illness' affecting millions of people with little knowledge of or interest in 'truth'.
• one of the offshoots of 'political correctness', is the attempt to introduce 'hate speech laws'
• The most vocal people in the support of these types of laws, are in fact not the least bit interested in stamping out 'racism or discrimination'. The whole purpose of the law, is to prevent you from expressing your right to freedom of expression.

Today, truth is irrelevant. What is expedient is relevant. What brings in the money is relevant. What others think of us is relevant. What our publisher or University President, or even our country's President thinks of us is relevant. But not truth.

I began this article with references to two articles relating to the activities of Academics and Media, and I will finish by quoting from an article written by Steven Schartz but which is no longer accessible on the net. In his article entitled: "Denying the Soviet Holocaust", he wrote:

"To see the respectable caste of mediocrities in Western media and academia exposed as liars and charlatans, that would be something, to say the least. To see this reptile breed (as Trotsky once described the writers of The Nation magazine) called to account for a generation's worth of history betrayed, hope prostituted, and ideals treated as a pretext for belly-crawling propaganda.. is, to repeat, tempting. Perhaps too tempting."

It's time that we took 'time out' to educate ourselves, into just how much we are being led up the garden path by the elitists who hold the reins of power in our society.

It's time to stop the 'Deja-Vu' of past mistakes. It's time to take a good hard look at where we have been and where we are headed. If we don't, we may find ourselves somewhere that we don't want to be.

R.P. BenDedek

Email: rpbendedek@hotmail.com

America: The Final Stand

• This is not a liberal issue, nor is it a conservative or a libertarian issue. This cancer is infesting all that it touches, destroying anything and everything in its wake!

Two Stories for Children

• That America has fallen so far to allow such a movie to be shown to children is another matter. But what is the political significance of these two stories?

R.P.BenDedek is the pseudonym of the Author of 'The King's Calendar: The Secret of Qumran' (http://www.kingscalendar.com/), and is a guest columnist at Magic City Morning Star News. An Australian, he is currently teaching Conversational English in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, China.

BenDedek Social Commentaries at Magic City

"The King's Calendar" is a chronological study of the historical books of the Bible (Kings and Chronicles), Josephus, Seder Olam Rabbah, and the (Essene) Damascus Document of The Dead Sea Scrolls.