Charlie points out that some students at UWM don't want former PLO terrorist Walid Shoebat to speak on campus.
This, of course, is the same university that opened its arms to 9/11 conspiracy nuts Kevin Barrett and James H. Fetzer.
But when someone like Shoebat is invited to deliver a lecture detailing the REALITY of his experiences and his transformation from a terrorist to a supporter of Israel, that's a problem. That presents a danger to students.
Charlie has the relevant MSA e-mails here.
To the UWM administration:
[I]t has been brought to our attention that an event entitled "Why I Left Jihad" is scheduled to take place at UWM on December 4th at 7:30PM in the Union Wisconsin Room. The speaker of the event is Walid Shoebat, a well known addict of hate-speech. His writing and speeches have deliberately rotated around inciting Americans with fear of Muslims and Arabs, associating them with terrorism. The
ramifications of allowing such hate-mongers to spread hate has been clearly driven in the physical attacks on Muslims, Arabs, or anyone with Middle-Eastern appearance following the events of September 11 th.
The Muslims at UWM feel that their safety will be in danger if the above mentioned event takes place on the UWM campus. We ask the UWM Administration to cancel the event due to these circumstances for the safety and comfort of the students. We take such an event as a direct attack on us and will hope the university will ask the sponsoring organizations to discontinue the program.
Nice try, but I assume that UWM will not bend on this one.
I think Muslims at UWM may have reason to fear for their safety on and around campus, but no more so than anyone else.
There's a disturbing increase in crime in the area. That's been documented. Be afraid, but not of Shoebat.
The idea that Walid Shoebat poses a threat to their safety is ludicrous.
Walid has spoken all over America and the world including Chile, Mexico, Canada, UK and South Africa. He has appeared on national television also all over the world including CNN, CNN International, FOX News, ITN, RTE, NBC, CBS, and ABC. He has also been featured on BBC radio 4 and 5.
Speaking Highlights:
Harvard Law School lecture
Special forum on Capital Hill Washington DC
Columbia Unversity lecture
Concordia University
UCLA, USC, University of Georgia, Washington University, Penn State, San Diego State and many others.
Keynote address to more than 700 Jewish leaders and rabbis from all over the world and North America at its Partners Conference in Stamford, CT, which is the highlight of Aish's calendar, and again in New York later in November.
Encounter conference, largest gathering of orthodox Jews in UK.
Jewish communities of St Petersburg, Memphis, St Louis, Scranton, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Albany, Dallas, Tampa, W. Palm Beach, Seattle, Cincinnati, Toronto, Motreal, Winnepeg, Calgary, Vancouver, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Rockville MD, Atlanta, St Louis, Minneapolis, Phoenix, and soon Las Vegas and Cleveland.
Look at that lengthy list. After Shoebat's many, many appearances, have there been incidents of violence against Muslims that have been directly tied to Shoebat? Has a clear pattern emerged?Of course not.
It's unreasonable for the MSA to demand that UWM cancel Shoebat's lecture.
I think it's extremely narrow-minded for these students to believe that non-Muslims at UWM are incapable of making the distinction between radical Muslims using Islam as an excuse to engage in terrorism and peaceful, law-abiding Muslims. The MSA has the right to protest the event, but shutting it down would be a violation of free speech rights. 
Kevin Barrett: "I think President Bush very well may have signed an authorization for the 9/11 attacks."(Photo/Rick Wood)
Wisconsin taxpayers fund the UW system.
If you pay taxes in Wisconsin, this is what your money is buying.
From The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:"Your tax dollars are paying for the killing of American soldiers in Iraq. The CIA is paying for resistance in Iraq."
So closed Kevin Barrett's fourth and final lecture on the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, delivered as part of his course on Islam at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
My tax dollars are paying for slandering elected officials and trashing the American government, all under the guise of academic freedom.
Anticipation of this part of the course, and Thursday's class in particular, had been building for months.
Barrett has been at the center of a national controversy that also focused on tax dollars - specifically, whether they should be used to teach material considered outrageous, manipulative and inaccurate.
Gov. Jim Doyle and state legislators called for Barrett to be fired last summer for arguing that the Sept. 11 attacks were orchestrated by the U.S. government. University administrators defended Barrett's right to the classroom in the name of academic freedom. But they threatened him with dismissal if he did not keep his enthusiasm for his views in check in the classroom and did not stop seeking publicity outside the classroom.
When asked by reporters, Doyle remarked that he thought Barrett should be fired.
Doyle DID NOT work to get rid of Barrett. To the contrary, he said that it would be inappropriate for him to get involved in the matter.
The JS makes it sound like Doyle actively sought to have Barrett axed. Not so. The part-time teacher vowed to teach the official version of the attacks alongside the Sept. 11 theory to which he subscribes. He said he would neither tell his students what his view was nor penalize them for not buying the theory. And he emphasized that 9-11 was just a small part of the course that he didn't get to until a period late in the semester.
That period was last week and this week.
Andrea Bromley, a sophomore, came away saying Barrett had failed to be impartial.
"It's become much more opinionated now that we're doing 9-11," Bromley said, referring to the tone and progress of the course. "He's trying to explain both views, but he's biased. I don't feel like he's presented enough info on the other side."
Freshman Jesse Moya disagreed, saying Barrett had been "very objective."
Moya, who said his uncle died in the World Trade Center attacks, said he had entered the course believing the attacks were the work of Islamic terrorists. He now believes otherwise.
"It seems like a more logical explanation that it was the U.S. government," he said.
Notice how it's suggested that Moya has absolute moral authority on the subject of the 9/11 attacks because his uncle was killed at the WTC. It's implied that Moya's views carry greater weight. That's a typical lib strategy. Victims, such as Cindy Sheehan or the 9/11 widows, are untouchable.
The fact that Barrett convinced Freshman Moya to believe that the U.S. government orchestrated the 9/11 attacks proves what a mistake it was to let Barrett spew his lies to kids. Barrett began Thursday's lecture by reviewing the work of several Muslim writers who believe the Sept. 11 attacks were the work of terrorists. One argues that the attacks reveal broader clashes within Islam; another believes they indicate a blossoming clash between the Muslim world and the West. The writings were among works that had been assigned to Barrett's students to read.
Barrett then moved on to an essay by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, who argues that the Sept. 11 attackers were part of a broad network of terrorism sponsored by the United States and other Western intelligence agencies. Ahmed argues that the U.S. has used terrorism to destabilize other countries and gain control over their resources.
In his lecture, Barrett sprinkled in the phrase according to this analysis periodically at the end of his sentences. But he stated much of Ahmed's argument as fact and offered up his own views or observations to bolster the claims.
On the conventional idea that terrorists were motivated by their belief in Islam, Barrett said: "That's simply not true. That story gets blown out of the water."
On Ahmed's writings, he said at one point: "This is all standard narrative. What he's said so far, no one disputes."
Ahmed ends his essay by arguing that the U.S. is attempting "to exacerbate the deterioration of security by penetrating, manipulating, and arming the terrorist insurgency, thus legitimizing permanent Anglo-American military involvement in Iraq purportedly to promote security."
It was while discussing this argument that Barrett made his comment about American tax dollars being used to fund the killing of American soldiers.
Ahmed's essay is to be published in a book that was co-edited by Barrett. Barrett himself has an essay in it. He writes that the official version of 9-11 was a myth created by the U.S. government to help perpetuate war that would further its quest for world domination. The truth, he writes, was that "on 9/11, the World Trade Center collapsed, blown up by the globalists themselves." He likens President Bush to Adolf Hitler, arguing that both sold hatred to further their agendas.
What an utter disgrace!
Barrett is a nut. That we know.
What's disgusting is that the Board of Regents gave this loon a UW classroom to use as forum to spread his anti-American venom. And taxpayers subsidized it!
Barrett is requiring his students to take two exams and review one of the assigned or recommended texts. He said exam questions about the other 9-11 essays were likely.
His faith in his ability to grade fairly is unwavering.
"I try to lean over backwards to be fair, to give students the benefit of the doubt," he said. "Students would probably do better trying to argue against me."
I don't care if Barrett is doing backflips to be fair.
Barrett has can believe that 9/11 was an inside job. He can compile books about it and go on the radical Leftist lecture circuit charging the U.S. government with slaughtering three thousand people on American soil.
He has the right to be an idiot.
But--
TAX DOLLARS SHOULD NOT BE USED TO PUMP BARRETT'S GARBAGE INTO THE HEADS OF STUDENTS.
Back in July, when Jessica McBride introduced 9/11 conspiracy theorist and UW-Madison lecturer Kevin Barrett to the public, there was controversy.
Another academia nut was going to receive tax dollars to spew anti-American falsehoods at a taxpayer subsidized university.
To calm the uproar, Provost Patrick Farrell and others reviewed Barrett's teaching plans.
The public was assured that Barrett would keep his wacko anti-Bush administration theories out of the classroom for the vast majority of the semester.
UW-Madison's statement, July 10, 2006Following a thorough review, University of Wisconsin-Madison Provost Patrick Farrell today announced that lecturer Kevin Barrett will teach, as scheduled, a class titled "Islam: Religion and Culture."
Barrett's remarks regarding his theories on the events of Sept. 11 recently drew widespread attention and criticism.
As a result, Farrell, along with Gary Sandefur, dean of the College of Letters and Science, and Ellen Rafferty, chair of the department of languages and cultures of Asia, met with Barrett. They reviewed his course syllabus and reading materials and examined his past teaching evaluations.
...Farrell says that Barrett told him that the semester-long course will spend a week examining current issues, including a brief discussion of various views on the war on terror. Barrett told Farrell that he plans to base the discussion on readings from authors representing a variety of viewpoints.
"I am satisfied that Mr. Barrett appreciates his responsibility as an instructor. I also believe that he will attempt to provide students with a classroom experience that respects and welcomes open dialogue on all topics," Farrell says. "And I fully expect that the vast majority of his teaching will involve aspects of Islamic culture and religion wholly unrelated to his controversial views of the events of 9/11, which we know had a profound impact on the world and many members of our campus community."
Farrell notes that a broader issue at play in the Barrett case is the UW-Madison's long tradition of protecting classroom expression and encouraging students' critical thinking by allowing analysis of even the most controversial ideas.
Does Madison's long tradition of "classroom expression" include hate speech?
I suppose to a certain extent it does, at least since the Vietnam era. "We cannot allow political pressure from critics of unpopular ideas to inhibit the free exchange of ideas. That classroom interaction is central to this university's mission and to the expansion of knowledge. Silencing that exchange now would only open the door to more onerous and sweeping restrictions," he says.
..."Although the university does not endorse Mr. Barrett's political views or his theories regarding the events of 9/11, our review showed that he has a record of quality teaching, including as a teaching assistant in this class," Farrell says. "His plan for the course appears to offer a sound learning experience for students interested in gaining a better understanding of Islam."
It looks like Farrell and the others involved in the decision to hire Barrett exercised exceedingly poor judgment.
Barrett has failed to live up to his promises to the university.
Rather than keeping a low profile, self-promoter Barrett has used his affiliation with UW-Madison to lend credence to his loony views when sucking up the national media's attention. He is also gaining international prominence via the taping one of his lectures by the BBC.
Barrett's association with Madison disgraces the university and the entire UW system.
ABC's Madison affiliate, WKOW 27, gives a glimpse into required reading for Barrett's students. A textbook required of students in UW-Madison instructor Kevin Barrett's introductory class on Islam features Barrett's 9/11 conspiracy theory, comparisons of President Bush to Adolf Hitler, and harsh criticism of Israel.
A proof of the book, "9/11 and American Empire: Muslims, Jews, and Christians Speak Out," was obtained by 27 News.
The 325 page textbook draws on essays from fifteen authors, including Barrett. Barrett's contribution is entitled, "Interpreting the Unspeakable: The Myth of 9/11."
Barrett's writing makes a case for the mainstream account of what happened on 9/11 to be consistent with other myths throughout history.
On the events of 9/11:
* "The major television networks, largely owned by defense contractors that would be lapping up 9/11's trillion dollar windfall, made absolutely sure we couldn't forget it, by running the same footage over...and over...and over."
* "The obviously false 'let's roll' heroic mini-myth of Flight 93."
I wonder if Barrett will encourage his students to read David Beamer's take on what his son Todd experienced aboard Flight 93 before he was killed. On the Bush administration's alleged orchestration of the destruction:
* "Like Bush and the neocons, Hitler and the Nazis inaugurated their new era by destroying an architectural monument and blaming its destruction on their designated enemies."
* "It was intended to set the American empire in stone for at least a hundred years, perhaps even to found a new, imperial 1000-year Reich like the ones the Nazis dreamed of."
On response to the Bush administration's alleged complicity:
* "We have erected a wall of repression around 9/11 because deep down inside, we experienced a powerful wave of forbidden pleasure at the destructive spectacle."
On Israel:
* "The architects of the 9/11 myth were trying to preserve the very empire they so efficiently destroyed. The US empire, and especially its Iraeli outpost, were doomed in the medium-term anyway, with or without 9/11."
* "The European Union was already bigger, both in population and GNP, than the United States, and Israel was losing its demographic race with the Palestinians it had always needed to expel as a precondition for an aparheid 'Jewish state.' "
"I'm going to reserve judgement on whether it's anti-Semitic," Madison Jewish Community Council Executive Director Steve Morrison told 27 News. "I find it clearly to be anti-Israel."
What garbage!...While the book dismisses mainstream accounts of Muslim hijackers costing lives and causing damage by piloting airplanes into buildings, Barrett has said other, required class reading will represent mainstream views on 9/11's destruction.
The problem is Barrett is a spokesman for the "out of the mainstream" views of the 9/11 attacks.
The man has said, "I think President Bush very well may have signed an authorization for the 9/11 attacks."
He's a kook. I agree with Mark Green that he should not be receiving taxpayer dollars to teach his absurd and hateful theories.
Jim Doyle, on the other hand, deferred the decision on Barrett's fate at UW-Madison to the "wise" Provost Farrell. He says that he doesn't want to get involved.
Big mistake. Doyle could apply pressure if he cincerely believed that telling Barrett to hit the road would be the right course of action. He doesn't. Instead, Doyle chooses to be Farrell's enabler who in turn is Barrett's enabler.
The course syllabus indicates the book will be discussed by students next month.
...In response to criticism from Doyle, Green and several Republican lawmakers, UW-Madison Provost Patrick Farrell reviewed Barrett's syllabus and teaching plans before allowing Barrett to teach the course.
In other words, Provost Patrick Farrell is fine with what Barrett is teaching. He agreed to give Barrett a forum to teach his fantasies.
I'm not saying that Farrell agrees with Barrett's belief that 9/11 was an inside job, but he certainly supports Barrett in his teaching as truth that the U.S. government was behind the attacks.
And Doyle is more concerned with sucking up to his Lefty base than maintaining the integrity of the UW system.Bottom line:
Barrett is a liar and a loon.
Farrell is a chump.
Doyle is a crook.
Kevin Barrett, UW-Madison lecturerWisconsin Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Green is taking on UW-MADISON LECTURER KEVIN BARRETT again, and rightly so.
Don't know KEVIN BARRETT, UW-MADISON LECTURER?
Read some background on KEVIN BARRETT of UW-MADISON here and here and here.
Green Campaign: Renews Call for Termination of UW Lecturer Barrett
UW lecturer Kevin Barrett is at it again. After being instructed by UW-Madison administrators that he should not use the university to advance his absurd and slanderous theories about the September 11th terrorist attacks, Barrett ignored their warnings and scheduled another lecture in an official, taxpayer-funded academic building. Barrett also announced that the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) would be on hand to tape the event.
Instead of firing Barrett for thumbing his nose at the university, the UW-Madison administration has decided to allow the lecture to take place.
After hearing of Barrett’s upcoming lecture, gubernatorial candidate Mark Green issued the following statement Tuesday:
“Rather than stick to their guns and fire Kevin Barrett for openly defying university policy again, the administrators at UW-Madison have, once again, refused to put a stop to this charade.
“For far too long, Kevin Barrett has been allowed to propagate his libelous theories at the UW, and this time he’ll be doing it in front of a worldwide audience.
“This is a slap in the face to the thousands of families who lost loved ones on September 11th, and an insult to hard-working Wisconsin taxpayers and students who are being forced to pay the salary of a man who would have you believe the U.S. government orchestrated those terrible acts.
“The university needs to terminate Mr. Barrett immediately. He has soiled the good name of our proud UW system too many times, and made a complete mockery of academic freedom.
“Elect me governor, and I’ll inject some Wisconsin common sense back into the University of Wisconsin.”
Being filmed by the BBC isn't keeping a low profile, as Barrett had promised.
The man is a disgrace to the UW system.
I completely agree with Mark Green.
I am disgusted that Wisconsin tax dollars are funding Kevin Barrett and that he is using his position at UW-Madison to gives his views an air of legitimacy.
Barrett, UW-MADISON LECTURER, takes a national stage and now an international stage to express his theories that the Bush administration orchestrated the 9/11 attacks.
In an interview on Sean Hannity's nationally-syndicated radio program, Barrett named the neoconservatives behind the destruction of the World Trade Center. "As I said before, Dick Cheney, Richard Perle, Douglas Faith, Paul Wolfowitz, Scooter Libby... um ... and, you know, I could probably throw out a few more but I think that's enough for now."
When challenged to throw out a few more names, Barrett hesitated, but then added:
"In fact, I could be wrong about this... I would certainly throw two members of the Bush Crime Family in there as suspects. That would be... Well, actually three,... the President's cousin Walker,... as well as the President's brother Marvin,... and I would throw in there the Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush."
Barrett went on to say:
"The Bush Crime Family is intricately involved with the CIA drug cartel, and yes these people certainly knew what was going on."
As if that's not loony enough, Barrett then said that he believed President Bush may have been in on the 9/11 plot.
Barrett said, and I quote:
"I think President Bush very well may have signed an authorization for the 9/11 attacks."
There is no place for someone like Barrett in the UW system.
It's a joke that Jim Doyle proclaims himself to be the champion of quality education.
How can he consider Kevin Barrett fit to teach?
Quality education and Kevin Barrett are irreconcilable.
