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The latest manifestation of the conservative targetting of academia is the Professor Watchlist, created by the "activist organization" Turning Point USA, founded by rising star Charlie Kirk. It's stated purpose is to "watch" professors "who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom"
Of course, this is not new. David Horowitz has written a book called The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America . HeterodoxAcademy.org has rational articles discussing the liberal slant to modern college campuses. Nicholas Kristoff writes an interesting piece on the same topic. However, with the election of President Trump, the stakes may have been raised. A professor in California has gone incognitio after criticizing Trump in the classroom and receiving death threats.
But more important is how the attempt to blacklist liberal academics has actually backfired. George Yancy [not the George Yancey from the Kristoff piece above] published a response, "I Am a Dangerous Professor" in the New York Times, and since then it seems to have become de rigueur for all academics to get their name on the Professor Watchlist in order to cement their tenure. An entire hashtag on Twitter has taken form: #trollprofwatchlist! People have taken to mocking the list by suggesting candidates such as Thomas Jefferson, Gandhi, and Jesus, not to mention Socrates, who obviously belongs.
Charlie Kirk may not be dangerous, but he did start this list. I am watching him now.
[Editor note - This story was substantially rewritten for balance. As always, the original submission is available at the link below.]
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 20 2016, @04:03PM
No, fake news was(and continues to be) absolutely a thing. There's no need to inject opinion into it.
Idiots sharing and resharing their outrage about a protestor being paid to protest Donald Trump that was provably made up just for clicks that massively outperformed real news. Especially on the right wing. The only two groups I see whining about how the backlash against fake news are people who are stuck deep in a false-reality driven bubble and positively insane libertarians who value the right to deceive and see corporations bowing to public pressure as "economic terrorism"
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday December 20 2016, @04:52PM
Your precious "real news" stands revealed as utterly untrustworthy. Your precious legacy media have attained single digit trust numbers, comparable to Congress itself. And still you plow on ahead, oblivious to events in the real world, certain of the rightness of your Holy cause and sure that if you and your allies only yell "RACIST!" and "NAZI!" and such a bit louder you can still win.
May you languish in the wilderness for decades like the Conservatives did. They (until recently I counted myself in their number... sadly) too knew they were right and couldn't understand how they kept losing, how the country refused to see the wisdom in their policy prescriptions, how they, the Party of Abraham Lincoln, were now the racists.
I woke up, realized much of what Conservatives accept as absolute Truth is in error and, along with the whole Alt-Right, am embarked on a new journey to figure out what really is true and what is not. But just discarding a few of the stale dogmas of Conservatism inspired the country to not only give Trump a chance, they have given Republicans top to bottom a chance to prove themselves. Which of your most cherished ideas are you yet ready to question? The answer to that question, answered millions of times across the left will decide now long you stay on the outside howling in rage.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:02PM
And the exact unhinged response I was expecting. Lookit that.
You're insane. The fact that the media in general doesn't do a great job doesn't excuse you running off to fringe sites that utterly invent stories. I really do appreciate your motivation for intentionally misinforming yourself, but it doesn't make your worldview any less predicated on outright fabrications. You're full of shit, and the only excuse that your conspiracy-added mind can come up with is "You were unfair calling literal nazis nazis, WAAAH".
Fuck you Jmorris. You are absolutely part of what's destroying the country.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:51PM
Found a jew rat.
How many Shekels do you get for your demonic work?
Its either that, or you're too young and naïve to know.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:48PM
OK. You go ahead and take that long journey. Just so long as it takes you somewhere that you can't post here.
And my prediction is that buyer's remorse will set in within a year. Remember, you read it here first on SN!
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 21 2016, @02:29PM
jmorris is a guard rail on the bounds of SN discussion. If he goes, then people could sail right over the edge of the cliff.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Tuesday December 20 2016, @07:54PM
No, fake news was(and continues to be) absolutely a thing.
I can't see where I said otherwise. That doesn't change the fact there are a lot of people crying "fake news" when they disagree with opinions.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 5, Informative) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 20 2016, @08:41PM
I acknowledge how I was unfair to your post. I've just already been sick of the level of genuine misinformation permeating society for about the past 3ish years.
I started feeling like conspiracy theorists were winning online spaces towards the beginning of 2014, and it's gotten worse and worse, and the bullshit surrounding the presidential election amplified it to an unreasonable and insane degree.
I know we saw the beginning of it it with 9/11 truthers in 2k4-2k5 and birthers in 2008, but the floodgates for just utter nonsense have really flung open and we get pizzagate, paid protestors bullshit stories, anti-semitic conspiracy theories, invented murder-suicides attached to the email thing, hillary sold weapons to ISIS, Pope Francis endorsing Trump, and so many more (I sincerely tried to look for a left-leaning piece of made up bullshit so I could pretend I'm balanced, and I failed. I know there were a couple)
Regardless of whether people shout it unreasonably to maintain resistance to cognitive dissonance, there's something utterly broken going on here, and it's way worse than it has ever been.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Tuesday December 20 2016, @08:49PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:56PM
Correct answer. 100%.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @09:34AM
I sincerely tried to look for a left-leaning piece of made up bullshit so I could pretend I'm balanced, and I failed
That's because you buy into the conspiracies. The Patriarchy. GamerGate. The 23% wage gap. MRAs. Trump. The Pink tax. Untested rape kits.
And of course, the current hot conspiracies: Russian hackers, and fake news.
(Score: 2) by Hawkwind on Wednesday December 21 2016, @11:39PM