Silence of the Professors

We are one week from a potentially pivotal election. The sleeze is dripping from this campaign in a way I have never seen before. The media have become tamed, made obsolete, or fauxized. And where are the much feared academic liberals in all this?

The attack on SCHOLARLY writings in Virginia is going without protest from academics!

Webb vs. Allen, the Senate race in Virginia, is what caught my attention this morning. I am pretty agnostic in politics. The fuss over Allen's use of terms like Macaca and claims that he is a secret Jew were reasons for me to doubt Webb .. as were the claims that Mr. Webb has actually, horror of horros, used the N word at some time. PFEHHGH ... of both sides, as my grandmother said in Yiddish.

So, when I read the cites from Webb's novels I put it down to more of the same. OK, so this guy made a buck writing cheapo porn. Tsk Tsk. Next week, I expected to read, that Allen rented the "Story of O" or donated sperm and asked for a copy of Hustler to help his efforts.

Was I wrong! The Washington Post today finally got around to reporting on Webb's books. Read it! The "porn" cited is part of novels published by such sleeze houses as the U.S. Naval Institute, an independent organization that produces books about the military. " "Fields of Fire," a novel about the Vietnam War, has been on the Marine Corps reading list for 20 years and is the "most-taught piece of literature regarding the Vietnam War on college campuses."

In other words, these are serious works by a serious guy who actually served in Vietnam. The sort of material that is essential to our primary challenge .. educating people about reality. What happens if the keepers of intelelctual integrity, the faculty of Universities, allow this sort of distortion of the truth?

I do not know how to find out if Webb's book is required at the UW, but here are some comments from Amazon:
“In my opinion, the finest of the Vietnam novels.”
— Tom Wolfe

“Few writers since Stephen Crane have portrayed men at war with such a ring of steely truth.”
— The Houston Post

“A novel of such fullness and impact, one is tempted to compare it to Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead.”
— The Oregonian

And more of the same. Clearly this is a classic book.

If Webb can be smeared, who is next? Darwin?

Imagine what would happen if some UW professor were to run for office after writing a novel about the complex life of Lenin ? Something is very wrong when WE are silent when this sort of anti-intellectual activity is NOT discussed on campus.