Cheers, your essay; Jeers, their non-response

Submitted by David J Crook (United States), Dec 28, 2002 at 15:26

I read Dr. Pipes' essay and agree wholeheartedly. There are indeed some very pronounced voices of anti-Americanism and anti-Westernism in American academe.

An excellent example of these established patterns is "A People's History of the United States", by Prof. Howard Zinn. This is as loathsome, vitriolic and anti-American as anything I've ever read that emanated from Pravda or any of the Islamo-fascist organs. I was greatly disturbed to find this particular book is practically the standard undergraduate American history textbook in many US colleges and universities.

To read it, one gets the impression that America is the New Nazi Germany, founded on racism, sexism and capitalist exploitation of almost everyone by the elite Anglo-Saxon few.

To the matter at hand. The response of Professors Foner and Gilmore was a non-response to the original theme of the essay, that there are huge numbers of academics, including Foner and Gilmore, who evince this pronounced anti-Americanism. Dr. Pipes is shedding the light of day on this and merely asking for balance, neither seeking censorship nor limitation on the right to dissent. Their response implies denial of what this light of day shows and a rejection of balance as McCarthyite.

Such intellectual dishonesty is hypocritical and as repulsive as is their philosophy.

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