by Lydia Howell

As the Bush Administration’s distortions (mis)leading us into war on Iraq are exposed, thoughtful people might ask: What defines real “debate”? During two weeks of evening news surrounding Colin Powell’s presentation of (now discredited) “evidence” to the United Nations last winter, media watchdog FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting) conducted analyses of NBC, CBS, ABC and PBS. They found 393 instances of arguments for war; only three against. Yet, right-wing commentators still relentlessly claim a “liberal media bias.

“These groups don’t want a marketplace of ideas. They want to shut down the moderate majority,” says Brian Kaller, member of a new Twin Cities progressive think tank, the Center For Prosperity. “Most Americans opposed going to war without world support. This extreme minority is attacking the college president for standing with the majority of Americans,” Kaller says alluding to a December 2002 L.A. Times poll that found that 68 percent of Americans were against unilateral action in Iraq.

If one doubts Counterpoint is a CAE endeavor, e-Pluribus’ director, Katherine Kersten writes about the Internet organization’s first campaign:

“Countering the one-sided” 16th annual Nobel Peace Prize Forum this February at St. Olaf. Counterpoint demanded that this Forum, whose “controversial” mission is avoiding war and violence, include “alternative viewpoints.” Kersten suggested, in her commentary, “St. Olaf’s Peacenik Prize,” that “law professor, Scott Johnson, speak about ‘the dangers of appeasement’ and another speaker describe ways ‘sweatshops’ benefit Third World workers.” Both of these suggestions were rejected by the Forum. Johnson ended up speaking at a “counter-protest” to the Nobel Forum. The counter protest featured “mug shots” of some Nobel honorees, including pro-democracy activist Rigoberta Menchu. The caption to the “mug shot” alleged “much of her autobiography about racism and exploitation is fabricated.” Flyers against the keynote speaker, President Jimmy Carter, were labeled “Appeasement Prize.” It replicated smear tactics perfected by Rush Limbaugh and other right-wing commentators.

Counterpoint also produced a 25-page indictment of alleged “liberal bias” by professors and in curriculum, including the campus bookstore (citing books critical of Bush as examples). When a professor sent an e-mail satirizing Bush’s “resume” (circulating on the Internet for months), complaints were sent to deans, alumni, regents and the media. The targeted professor issued an apology, vowing “to keep my private thoughts to myself.” Touted as a victory for “academic freedom,” it was aimed at pressuring professors to leave their First Amendment rights off campus, a strange way to “promote debate.”

(right): Professor Bob Jensen is a speaker hosted by the Center for Prosperity

“The national right wing provides the template, funding and ideas for these student groups. They talk about ‘academic freedom’ which sounds like a progressive endeavor—I’m for it! Who isn’t? But, the point of these groups is to go after teachers with any critical/left politics,” says Robert Jensen a University of Minnesota alumni who currently teaches Journalism and Ethics at University of Texas-Austin. The Center For Prosperity is hosting Jensen for several events April 1-3.

The Young Conservatives put Jensen on their “Professor Watch List” for his progressive views and critique of corporate media. He’s been publicly criticized by the University of Texas’ president for opposing the Iraq war. As a professor with tenure, Jensen doesn’t worry for himself, but says, “These attacks impact graduate students and junior professors who get the intended message: Keep your head down. Stick to ‘conventional wisdom.’ Don’t get too far outside the lines. If you do, your career’s in jeopardy. That’s how people are controlled.”

The Progressive magazine (from Madison, Wisconsin) and Democracy Now! (broadcast Mon.-Fri. noon, KFAI Radio) regularly report post-9/11 attempts to silence critique and dissent on campuses nationally. A danger of Counterpoint is that censorship is being pushed under a banner of “intellectual diversity.” This is classic Orwellian “Newspeak” which is now standard operating procedure by the Bush Administration: you call what you’re doing the diametrical opposite of what it actually is. This propaganda technique created Republicans’ “Clean Skies Act,” eliminating environmental protections, and “No Child Left Behind” de-funding the nation’s poorest schools.

Center for Prosperity member Eric Esse challenges the way “left” and “right,” liberal and conservative, are currently defined. He explains that conservatives label a wide spectrum of philosophies (from anarchists to moderately liberal Democrats), with the political designation “liberal/left.” Then, they term their own rigidly-defined views (free-market corporate capitalism, ‘family values’ and American militarism) as “conservative/right.” This kind of “political tribalism” limits real debate, distorts issues and leads people to support policies against their own interests.

“Conservative think tanks, like the Center of the American Experiment, are funded by people with a certain income—the upper 2 percent. It’s the elites of an area networking for their interests. Yet, they claim to be representing 50 percent of Americans,” Esse, a Green Party member and sustainable economics advocate, explains. “These terms are ways to quash criticism and bash people they don’t like. It claims to represent more people than you do.”

The CAE has had a “behind the scenes” role developing much of Gov. Pawlenty’s right-wing agenda with its “Economic Blueprint for Minnesota.” The goals are: “smaller government,” at least in terms of addressing ordinary people’s needs; more “privatization” of public services, meaning control by elites and profit-making at the majority’s expense. The current bus strike is an example of this. It is a government-sponsored attempt at union-busting and fits into Pawlenty’s goal to give public transportation to private profiteers. The Met Council’s president Peter Bell is a former CAE director. If one looks at CAE funders, advisors and board, it’s a roster of past and present conservative Republican office-holders or supporters. (see http://www.mediatransparency.org) This is the context for CAE’s e-Pluribus-led assault on alleged “radical bias” at St. Olaf. The same attack is planned for other Minnesota campuses.

“Colleges are radical?” laughs Kaller. He’s edited Minnesota Green Party newspaper The Sunflower. “When was the last time a business class taught students how to form a union? What ROTC program teaches students to question authority? What’s at work here is three things: unprovable allegations repeated until they seem ‘true,’ ‘political correctness’ as urban legend and putting one rigid ideology—labeled ‘conservative’—against everything else.”

“When conservatives say ‘universities are too liberal/radical,’ that’s an opportunity to say: ‘yes, there’s a problem with systematic bias on campus—but, it’s not liberal/Left ideas. It’s conventional wisdom!’” observes Jensen, who’s essays appear on Internet sites and mainstream newspapers, from St. Paul Pioneer Press to the Dallas Morning News. “Business schools are an example where it’s ideologically restricted, no thinking ‘outside the box,’ They teach corporate capitalism and no diversions are allowed. The real weight of ‘political correctness’ is instant support for American foreign policy with corporate capitalism as the only sane and possible system. These are the facts but conservatives want to give the impression that colleges are run by a crazy, left-wing, homosexual, feminist, white-hating man-hating crowd. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

Early this winter, St. Olaf’s student group Political Awareness Committee (which arranges speakers on campus) suggested a debate between Jensen and CAE Cultural Studies Fellow Kersten. She agreed, but almost immediately canceled “due to a conflict.” Kersten promised CAE would provide another conservative to debate Jensen in April, but never followed through.

“When we (Center for Prosperity) spoke with St. Olaf’s campus Greens, their perception was that Counterpoint wanted to complain to outside media, but they did not want to engage in actual debate,” says Esse. Interviewing conservative counter-protesters of the Peace Forum in February, Esse found they still believed Iraq was linked to the 9/11 attacks, despite evidence disproving it.

Kersten spoke at St. Olaf last year, contradicting claims of conservatives’ exclusion. Some ideas that Kersten propagates (in essays available online): racism can be eliminated by denying it exists; diversity programs create racism; social studies standards should minimize slavery and genocide of Native Americans (which existed from 1492 to the late 1800s), instead emphasizing “America’s special place in the world”; colleges ethnic and women’s studies departments are “ideologically biased,” ignoring longstanding textbooks’ ommissions of people of color and women. Kersten dismisses environmentalists as “fear mongers” and defends corporate-sponsored scientists that deny global warming. Would Kersten’s ideas prevail if they were matched up with a progressive opponent?

Rather than have their ideas subjected todebate, it appears conservatives want to control all discourse. A phone interview with Kersten’s boss, Center of the American Experiment director Mitch Pearlstein, strongly reinforced this impression. Pearlstein met every question with obvious hostility retorting, “Where did you get that?” and little else. He denied knowing about the invitation for Kersten to debate Jensen. His only direct response was repeating pat phrases about “making different points of view welcome.” I’ve found interviews with police officials after brutality incidents or challenging the last two Minneapolis mayors on the homelessness crisis their policies create, more pleasant than Pearlstein. It was a stunningly rude encounter.

Begun primarily by co-op workers and Greens, the Center for Prosperity stands in contrast to ideological purity and public relations practiced by conservatives. Instead the new project is based on practical visions of solutions.

“I hope we can offer sustainable agriculture, sustainable economy that’s good for people and the environment,” Esse explains. “It’s not just a PR battle. It’s about scientific process for real solutions. Then, telling people about them so they can be applied in a broader scope. As it stands, they’re not solving what to do when the oil runs out. They’re not solving how to have an international system that’s not based on violence.”

Esse optimistically observes that the majority already supports things like environmental protections and addressing AIDS, which is why conservative proposals are being “misnamed” in terms implying liberal positions.

“Corporations have to pretend they’re down with these things. To some extent, we’ve won the ‘concept’ battle,” he says. “Now, we have to win the practical and informational battles. We have to apply these values and have media that will tell people if it’s actually happening or it’s like Bush’s ‘Healthy Forests’ bill, destroying old growth. The Center for Prosperity will be doing very grounded work that’s like how a worker co-op creates products and services that work in an enterprise that works for the people who work there.”

Robert Jensen’s new book, “Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle To Reclaim Our Humanity,” lucidly dismantles right-wing ideology, confronting post-9/11 forced “patriotism” as cover for expanded American militarism, elites’ tax cuts and escalating plunder of public resources. It answers many progressives’ despair with a profound soul-searching about what true democracy demands of us.

“We have to remember this is not the first time progressive values have been under the gun. I wanted to remind people that we still have expanded rights of political expression in this country. We should use them! We should respond with more activism, more connections, more truth-telling,” Jensen said. “Part of the real obstacles progressive people face is bizarre conceptions of American history, a mythology of this country, deeply woven into education and everyday life. Phrases like ‘America is the greatest nation on Earth.’ We have to ask, what does that mean? It’s a pathological claim to make about any one nation. If we can’t challenge mythologies, it gets real hard to challenge policies.”

An especially moving element in Jensen’s writings, whether on sexual, economic or military violence, is his call to common humanity discovered through an ethic of empathy. “We live in a culture in America doing its best to drive empathy out of us. We see pictures of war on TV where we never understand what happens to people on the other end of the bombs.”

Hear my extended interview with Robert Jensen from “Catalyst” archived on http://www.kfai.org. Look for the Mar. 30 edition.

The Center for Prosperity (612)824-4373 http://www.prosperity.org

EVENTS with Robert Jensen:

FRI. April 2, 7pm: Booktalk: “Citizens of the Empire”, Ruminater Books, 1648 Grand Ave. St. Paul FREE

SAT. April 3: Workshop Day 10AM-noon “Working With Mainstream Media”(drawing on Jensen’s “Writing Dissent”) 1pm-3:30pm “Critical Thinking/Public Speaking” Walker Church, 3104—16th Ave. S. Minneapolis ($15, 1 workshop, $25 both RSVP (612)824-4373)

Evening Gathering, 7pm, with Jensen and Center for Prosperity members. Seward Cafe, 2129 East Franklin, Minneapolis (refreshments included) FREE.