The Essence of Politics

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Higher Education Today: Theory and Practice--by Harry Targ

August 10, 2009

In the Beginning
I am a child of the cold war. I was born in 1940, was an adolescent in the 1950s, and devoid of political consciousness when President Eisenhower warned of the "unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex" in 1960. I was modestly inspired by the young President Kennedy's admonition to "ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country." In fact I have thought a lot about that exhortation recently as I compare the enthusiasm with which young people embraced the Kennedy campaign in 1960 and the way young people today are energized by Barak Obama. While most of us did not realize then that JFK spoke for American empire, he helped mobilize young people who throughout the 1960s fought against it.

I was not just an empty vessel, ready for cooptation, however. I read and heard about the courageous people organizing and participating in the Montgomery bus boycott, the lunch counter sit-ins, and the freedom rides in the south. And I slowly but significantly drifted into the cognitive orbit of the melodies and messages of Pete Seeger and the Weavers, but the politics of social change only marginally entered course work in high school and college. As a student of foreign policy and diplomacy and international relations I gravitated toward the most "radical' paradigm reflected in curricula at the time, "the realist" perspective. This view suggested that all nations, even our own, were driven by the pursuit of power. Defending freedom, fighting totalitarianism, standing up to communism, the realists said, was the discursive "cover" for the drive to power for which all nations were driven.

I attended a graduate program in political science that was in the forefront of the new "behavioral science" revolution. We were told we were scientists in the academy and citizens when we returned home. As scientists we were engaged in the pursuit of the construction of empirical theory about human behavior. Our task was to better describe, explain, and predict -- not change -- political behavior. The unverifiable "laws" of human nature, embedded in the realist logic, were to be replaced by rigorously acquired data and verifiable knowledge claims.

When I came to Purdue University in 1967, assigned to teach courses on international relations, I was troubled by the fact that neither the realists nor the behaviorists helped me understand the escalating war in Vietnam. I was also increasingly troubled by the assumption that it was not my place as a professor to do anything about the war, as teacher or citizen, presumably armed with a body of knowledge that might have value to the debate about the war.

I started teaching a course with the ambiguous title "Contemporary Political Problems," and through it my students and I explored the writings of the day that we thought bore upon our place in the world. These ranged from The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965), to the Port Huron Statement (1995), to Camus' The Rebel (1992), to C. Wright Mills' The Power Elite (1959), to William Appleman Williams' The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (1972). Later on I organized courses around anarchist and utopian thought. My exposure to the Marxist tradition came later.

Almost invariably, our discussions ended up exploring what the various theorists and activists we read thought about education. We added to our readings in these courses essays on education by Paul Goodman (1964), Ivan Illich (1999), Jonathan Kozol (1968), Herbert Kohl (1988), Robert Paul Wolff (1970), and such eclectic writers as Lewis Mumford (1963). And this was before the availability of the works of Paulo Freire in the 1970s, and followers such as Henry Giroux (2007), Peter McLaren (2000), and other radical educational theorists. Out of all this, I began to develop an analysis of the political and economic contexts of higher education; a sense of the contradictory character of education, particularly higher education; a conception of how my education had been shaped by the cold war and U.S. empire; how the modern university was "contested terrain," as to ideas and behavior; how "theory and practice" were connected; and, for me, what the obligations of the educator were in the modern world.

The Political Economy of Higher Education
In his presidential address to the Society for the Study of Social Problems in 2000, Robert Perrucci refers to "Galileo's crime." He argues that while most claim that Galileo was punished for proposing that the planets moved around the sun, others have pointed out that he was condemned because "he chose to communicate his findings about the earth and the sun, not in Latin, the medium of the educated elite, but in Italian, the public vernacular, parola del popolo" (Perrucci, 2001).

This thought, for me, constitutes a parable for the history of higher education as we know it. In my view it is not unfair to suggest that institutions of higher education have always been created and shaped by the interests of the ruling classes and elites in the societies in which they exist. This means they serve to reinforce the economic, political, ideological, and cultural interests of those who create them, fund them, and populate them.

Robert Paul Wolff years ago wrote a book entitled The Ideal of the University (1970). In it he identifies the historical university as the training ground for theology, literature, and law. In each case, sacred or secular canonical texts were studied with a microscope. Their study was designed to reify and transmit the core knowledge claims, ethics, and laws across generations. Wolff's description, written forty years ago, about a reality hundreds of years earlier might still resonate with us today.

Thus the activity of scholarship is in the first instance a religious and literary activity, directed toward a given corpus of texts, either divine or secular, around which a literature of commentary has accumulated. The corpus is finite, clearly defined, growing slowly as each stage in the progress of Western civilization deposits its masterpieces in the Great Tradition. Though the tradition may contain pregnant, emotionally powerful commentaries upon life and men's affairs, the scholar's concern is with the textual world, not with the world about which the text speaks. (Wolff, 5)

Wolff (1970), Berlin (1996), Smith (1974) and others add to this discussion an analysis of how the university changed in the late nineteenth century to serve the needs of rising industrial capitalism in Europe and North America. The university shifted in the direction of serving new masters: from the clerics and judges to the capitalists. Plans were instituted in elite universities to develop "departments," compartmentalizing knowledge so it can be fashioned for use in research and development, human relations, making the modern corporation more efficient, developing communications and accounting skills, and developing good citizens. Elite universities initiated the changes that made higher education more compatible with and an instrumentality to modern capitalism. The model then "trickled down" to less prestigious universities, which in the end become even more effective developers and purveyors of knowledge for use in capitalist societies.

Wolff quoted Clark Kerr, the former president of the University of California system and the target of the student movement in that state in the 1960s, who hinted at this theme of connectedness between certain societal needs, power, and education, and a parallelism between the era of the industrial revolution and the quarter century after World War II.

The American University is currently undergoing its second great transformation. The first occurred during roughly the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when the land grant movement and German intellectualism were together bringing extraordinary change. The current transformation will cover roughly the quarter century after World War II. The university is being called upon to educate previously un-imagined numbers of students; to respond to the expanding claims of national service; to merge its activities with industry as never before; to adapt to and rechannel new intellectual currents. By the end of this period, there will be a truly American university; an institution unique in world history, an institution not looking to other models but serving, itself, as a model for universities in other parts of the globe. (Wolff, 33-34)

For Kerr, the modern "multiversity," responding to the needs of society as reflected in federal and corporate research funding, is obliged to produce scientists, engineers, and doctors. This university, he said, was "a model" for higher education around the world.

During World War II and the cold war, the modern university began to serve powerful new masters. As Charles Wilson, president of General Motors, advocated in 1946, there was a need to maintain the coalition of forces that defeated fascism in Europe and Japanese imperialism in Asia to stave off new threats to U.S. and global capitalism and to forestall a return to the grim Depression economy of the 1930s. To do that, Wilson said, we needed to justify the need for government (particularly the defense department)/corporate/and university collaboration, a collaboration that did so much to secure victory during the war. He once referred to his vision as "a permanent war economy" (Jezer, 31). As the post-war years unfolded, that justification was created, the threat of international communism. The military, defense-related corporations, and research institutions had a reason to work together: to lobby for dollars, do the research, produce the technologies, train future scientists and engineers for the cold war, and educate the broader non-technically trained population in and out of the university to accept the basic parameters of the cold war struggle.

Henry Giroux paraphrased President Eisenhower's warning, referred to above: ". . . the conditions for production of violence, the amassing of huge profits by defense industries, and the corruption of government officials in the interest of making war the organizing principle of society had created a set of conditions in which the very idea of democracy, if not the possibility of politics itself, was at stake" (Giroux, 14-15).

Giroux claims that in Eisenhower's first draft of his famous farewell address he refers to a "military-industrial-academic complex." In it Eisenhower recalls that in prior days scientists tinkered in their laboratories with experiments that intrigued them. Now, because of huge costs, of course, scholarship and research required federal and corporate dollars. But, and here is the warning, ". . . the prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded." Later in the 1960s, J. William Fulbright, former senator from Arkansas, warning about the influences of defense spending and the arms industry, wrote that "In lending itself too much to the purposes of government, a university fails its higher purpose" (Giroux, 14-15).

What kind of claims can be derived from these formative statements; the variety of literatures of more recent vintage, such as those by theorists such as Giroux; and our observations of universities, curricula, and academic professions?

First, higher education remains subject to, influenced by, and financially beholden to governments and corporations. These influences profoundly shape what professors and graduate students teach and research.

Second, as history shows, conceptions of disciplines, fields, bodies of knowledge, appropriate methods, fundamental truths pervasive in disciplines (rational choice in economics and the pursuit of power in political science) and the academic organization of universities are shaped by economic interest and political power.

Third, the sociology of professions -- professional associations, journals, peer review, the validation of professional work, definitions of the substance of courses, dominant paradigms governing disciplines -- is largely shaped by economic and political interest.

Fourth, in the main, the university as an institution is, and has always been, designed to serve the interests of the status quo, a status quo, again governed by economic and political interest.

Discourse and Contradiction in Higher Education
It would be a mistake to leave the impression that all that the university does is diabolical, even as it is shaped by and serves the dominant economic and political interests in society. Within the confines of what Thomas Kuhn called "normal science," researchers and educators have made enormous contributions to social advancement in scholarship and human development. However, the argument here is that the university as we should see it does serve some more centrally than others. But even this is not the whole story.

There emerged over the centuries and decades a view that this institution, the university, should have a special place in society. It should be, as Lasch referred to the family, "a haven in a heartless world." Through its seclusion, professors could reflect critically on their society and develop knowledge that could be productively used by society to solve human puzzles and problems. In other words, the doctrine of higher education diametrically conflicts with the reality described above.

The Galileo case suggests he was punished for his theoretical and communications transgressions by the academic hierarchy of his day. More recently, scholars such as Scott Nearing were fired for opposing World War I, and over the years hundreds more for being communists, eccentrics, radicals of one sort or another, or for challenging accepted professional paradigms. Of particular virulence have been periods of "red scares," when faculty who taught and/or engaged in activism outside some mainstream were labeled "communists," which by definition meant they were traitors to the United States.

In response to the ideal of the free-thinking scholar who must have the freedom to pursue her/his work, professional organizations and unions embraced and defended the idea of "academic freedom." Academic freedom proclaimed that researchers and teachers had the right to pursue and disseminate knowledge in their field unencumbered by political constraints and various efforts to silence them and their work. To encourage young scholars to embrace occupations in higher education and to encourage diversity of views, most universities in the United States gave lip service to academic freedom and in the main have sought to protect the principle in the face of attacks on the university in general and controversial scholars in particular.

During periods of controversy and conflict in society at large, universities become "contested terrain." That is external pressures on universities lead administrators to act in ways to stifle controversy and dissent. The targets of that dissent and their supporters, and students and colleagues at large, raise their voices in protest of efforts to squelch it. Interestingly enough, the university, which on the one hand serves outside interests, on the other hand, prizes independence from outside interests.

Red Scares in Higher Education
Ellen Schrecker documents the enormous impact that the red scare of the 1940s and 1950s had on higher education in her book, No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities (1988). She interviewed academic victims of McCarthyite attacks on faculty at prestigious universities. They were subpoenaed to testify before state legislative or Congressional committees about their former political affiliations and associations. As was the requirements of the times, those ordered to testify could not just admit to their own political activities but were required to give witness against others who they may have known.

Some victims were former members of the Communist Party, others were signatories to petitions supporting the Spanish loyalists during their civil war, and still others had supported banning atomic weapons. The most troubling element of the red scare story was the fact that university administrations refused to defend those of their faculty attacked and in fact, as she reports, some university officials demanded that their faculty cooperate with the investigatory committees. Her subjects reported that they received little or no support from administrators because officials wished to protect their universities from funding reductions.

Since the collapse of the cold war international system, some scholars have begun to examine other aspects of the anti-communist hysteria as it related to the academy. Fones-Wolf (1995) and others have addressed the multiplicity of ways in which funding priorities, rightwing assaults, official pronouncements from government officials, lobbying efforts by big business groups, and shifting electoral political currents affected and shaped the content of academic programs. For example, disciplines can be seen as reflecting dominant "paradigms" which include assumptions about what the subject entails, what aspects of the subject deserve study, what theories are most appropriate for understanding the subject of the field, and what methods should be used to study subjects in the field. All the social sciences and humanities privilege paradigms that did not challenge ongoing U.S. cold war assumptions about the world.

In each case, dominant paradigms of the 1950s and beyond constituted a rejection of 1930s and 1940s thinking, which was shaped by the labor and other struggles of the Depression era. Literature shifted from privileging proletarian novels to the "new criticism," separating "the text" from historical contexts. History shifted from a model of historical change that highlighted conflict to one that emphasized consensus-building. Sociology shifted from class struggle/stratification models of society to "structural functional" approaches. Political science shifted from "elitism" and institutional approaches to emphasizing "pluralism," in political processes. For political science, every citizen in a "democracy" can somehow participate in political decision-making.

In other words, the military-industrial-academic complex shaped personnel recruitment and retention and the substance of research and teaching. Some new disciplines, such as Soviet studies, were funded and rewarded at selected universities and the scholars trained at these institutions then secured jobs elsewhere. Thus an anti-communist lens on the world was propagated. Disciplines with more ready access to research dollars -- from engineering to psychology -- defined their research agendas to comport with government and corporate need.

In response to the university in the "permanent military economy," students in the 1960s began to demand new scholarship and education. Opposition to the Vietnam War particularly stimulated demands on professors to rethink the historical character and motivation of United States foreign policy. William Appleman Williams and his students, the so-called revisionists, articulated a view that the United States practiced imperialism ever since it became an industrial power. Classrooms where international relations and foreign policy were taught became "contested terrain" for argumentation and debate between the older and more benign view of the U.S. role in the world and the view of the U.S. as imperial power. Dependency and world system theories gained prominence.

The contestations spread. Students demanded more diverse and complicated analyses of race and racism in America, patriarchy and sexism in gender relations, and working-class history. Every discipline and every dominant paradigm was subjected to challenge. The challenges were also reflected in radical caucuses in professional associations and even in some of the more upright (and "uptight") signature professional journals. As a result there was a diminution of red scares in higher education, for a time.

The spirit of ideological struggle in the academy diminished after the Vietnam War and especially after Ronald Reagan became president. Reagan brought back militant cold war policies, radically increased military expenditures, declared Vietnam a "noble cause," and developed a sustained campaign to crush dissent and reduce the strength of the labor movement. The climate on campus to some degree returned to the 1950s.

However, a whole generation of 60s-trained academics were now tenured faculty at universities around the country. They had institutionalized programs in African American Studies, Women's Studies, Peace Studies, and Middle East Studies. Critical theorists populated education schools, American Studies programs, and other pockets of the university. These faculty continued the debate with keepers of dominant paradigms, created interdisciplinary programs, and developed programs shaped by key social issues such as racism, class exploitation, gender discrimination, and war.

But by the 1990s, a new red scare was surfacing. Some conservative academics and their constituencies talked about declining standards brought by the new programs. Others criticized what they regarded as an insufficiently rosy view of United States history. They claimed that the United States was being unfairly condemned for being complicit, for example, in a holocaust against Native Americans or because slavery and racism were central to the history of the country. They formed academic associations and interest groups to defend against critical scholarship.

Then David Horowitz came along. Overseeing a multi-million-dollar foundation funded by rightwing groups, Horowitz launched a campaign to purify academia of those who have records of teaching, research, and publication that he saw as unduly critical of the United States, ruling political or economic elites, or the global political economy. He opposes those scholar-activists who participate in political movements or in any way connect their professional life with their political lives. And he opposes those academics who participate in academic programs that are interdisciplinary, problem-focused, and not tied to traditional fields of study. He published a book in 2006, The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America (2006), in which he presents distorted profiles of illustrative faculty whom he believes have violated academic standards because of a variety of transgressions. Most of those identified either engage in political activity and/or participate in interdisciplinary scholarly programs that he finds offensive: Middle East Studies, Women's Studies, African-American Studies, American Studies, and Peace Studies.

In conjunction with the book and similar assaults on those he disagrees with on his electronic news magazine, Horowitz has encouraged right-wing students to challenge the legitimacy of these professors on college campuses and has tried to get conservative student groups to get state legislatures to endorse so-called "student bill-of-rights legislation." Such legislation would establish oversight by state legislatures over colleges and universities, especially their hiring practices.

In conjunction with campaigns led by Lynn Cheney, the former vice-president's wife, and Senator Joe Lieberman, senator from Connecticut, an organization called the American Council of Trustees and Alumni was created. As Giroux summarizes it, ". . . ACTA actively supports policing classroom knowledge, monitoring curricula, and limiting the autonomy of teachers and students as part of its larger assault on academic freedom" Giroux, 162).

Horowitz, ACTA, and others who attack the university have targeted visible academics for scrutiny and persecution. Ward Churchill, a provocative professor of Ethnic Studies, at the University of Colorado, was fired after a university committee was created to review his scholarship because of controversial remarks he made off campus. Norman Finkelstein, a DePaul University political scientist who had written several books critical of interpreters of Israeli history and foreign policy, was denied tenure after a coordinated attack from outside his university led by Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz. Distinguished political scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have been the subject of vitriol and false charges of anti-semitism because they published a long essay and book analyzing the "Israeli lobby."

This latest red scare against higher education has had failures and successes. Horowitz has had a visible presence on national cable television and radio. He used it to attack some of the 101 dangerous professors. However, his supporters have not been able to get any of their legislative proposals accepted. Also, most university administrators have defended their faculty from the crude assaults from Horowitz and his followers. In addition, many of the 101 and others like them have stepped up their public defenses of their scholarship and teaching. It is unusual for any students to level attacks against targeted professors. If anything, they defend the right of professors to be critical analysts in their subject areas in the classroom.

But, the new red scare has reinforced and legitimized the dominant paradigms in various academic disciples and created an environment of intellectual caution in the academy. While the impacts are immeasurable, younger faculty cannot help but be intimidated by the public attacks on their senior colleagues. The system of tenure and promotion in most institutions is vulnerable to public pressures, individual reviewer bias, and honest disagreements among faculty about whether published work and teaching is worthy of promotion and tenure. Therefore, just as the administrators and faculty of the 1950s felt vulnerable to outside assault on their institutions, those passing judgment on today's faculty might see the necessity of caution in hiring and retaining faculty whose perspectives are new, different, radical, and engaged.

Intellectuals, the Critical Organic Discourse Model, and Higher Education
The latest red scare has rekindled debate concerning the role of higher education and faculty as to research, teaching, and activism. Those propagating the red scare insist that education should focus on celebrating American society, history, and institutions. Anything less, to them, constitutes bias and a violation of the principles of academic freedom. In addition, educators should not engage in political activism. Being an academic and being a citizen must remain separate.

While ACTA and others complain about the negativity of those reflecting on United States history, more sophisticated red scare spokespersons, including Horowitz himself, emphasize one or another of two different approaches to the academy. Some argue that the professorate must be "fair and balanced" in their academic work. That is, they should in the classroom present all points of view, indicating favoritism to none. Presumably their research and writing should strive for this balance as well.

Parallel to the fair and balanced position is the argument that teachers and researchers should be objective, that is, apolitical, and indifferent to the merits of competing sides to a conflict being studied. The objectivity standard requires that the professor abstain, in his/her public role from participation in society. It should be noted that some targets of the red scare attacks have responded by claiming they are fair and balanced and objective, and occasionally their students have defended them on these grounds as well. In fact, when Horowitz has been asked on national television if he has proof that his victims have not been fair and balanced and objective in the classroom, he has been forced to admit that he has no way of knowing since he and his researchers had not had occasion to observe the professors in question.

While being fair, balanced, and objective are worthy goals, they stand in contradiction to the history of the university alluded to throughout this paper. What I call the critical and organic discourse model is a more appropriate standard of scholarship, teaching, and engagement for these critical times. It has several dimensions: speaking truth to power; critically reflecting on all institutions and processes in society, privileging unpopular ideas, and applying those ideas in social settings where they may be helpful to bring about change.

The last point, inspired by Gramsci's idea of the "organic intellectual" and the discussion by Jacoby and others about the role of the "public intellectual," suggest that knowledge in the end comes from and should be used in support of those in society who have been disenfranchised politically, economically, and culturally. As Gramsci put it, "The mode of being of the new intellectual can no longer consist in eloquence, which is an exterior and momentary mover of feelings and passions, but in active participation in practical life, as constructor, organizer, 'permanent persuader,' and not just a simple orator. . ." (Gramsci, 10). Gramsci's "organic intellectual" is the intellectual who is connected to various social groups or movements and acts in concert with and stimulates the activities of such groups. The organic intellectual in class society is linked to the project for historical change of the working class. Historically the university has not served their needs, and those who embrace this model of teaching, research, and engagement should stand with the disenfranchised, such as the working class.

In sum, the most important elements of the critical and organic discourse model involve giving voice to the voiceless and engaging in education, research, and activity to pursue peace, social, and economic justice.

Conclusion
We have seen that the university historically has reflected and represented whatever ruling classes were prevalent at a given point in time. We have also seen that the university is a site of contestation defined by a public ideology of academic freedom that justifies critical thought, pedagogy, and practice. In this latter regard, Giroux points out, the university is an uncommon institution in modern life where full democratic participation in dialogue and critical reflection can take place. Being fair, balanced, and objective is not enough to meet the needs of building a democratic space. The university (its educators) must use this democratic space to engage students in reflection about the pursuit of peace in this violent world, and the striving for social and economic justice and against racism, sexism, and economic inequality. (Some peace researchers have defended their practice by using a medical education metaphor. Medical education is based on the study of creating health out of illness. Fields like Peace Studies are based on the creation of a healthy body politic out of violence, discrimination, and inequality.)

Each approach to teaching in the university is evaluated on the basis of different "validation principles," that is, the standards of judgment of success or failure. For the crude celebration-of-America approach, teaching and writing is judged on the basis of how positive it has been about the American experience. For the fairness and balance and objectivity approaches, validation comes from colleagues who judge the quotients of different points of view and/or the distance of the research and teaching from a point of view. For the critical and organic discourse model, validation comes from the extent to which the ideas developed resonate with and reflect the voiceless and the extent to which the total product of the professors activities -- teaching, research, and activism -- have facilitated peace and justice or not. This is indeed a very high standard but, given the world we live in, the only realistic standard that should be applied both to the university and those of us who work in it.

References
Aronowitz, Stanley,
The Knowledge Factory: Dismantling the Corporate University and Creating True Higher Education, Beacon, 2001.

Berlin, James. A.,
Rhetorics, Poetics, and Cultures, Refiguring College English Studies, National Council of Teachers of Education, 1996.

Camus, Albert,
The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt, Vintage, 1992.

Fones-Wolf, Elizabeth,
Selling Free Enterprise: The Business Assault on Labor and Liberalism, 1945-60, University of Illinois, 1995.

Friere, Paulo,
Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2000.

Giroux, Henry,
The University in Chains, Paradigm, 2007.

Goodman, Paul,
Compulsory Mis-Education and the Community of Scholars, Vintage, 1964.

Gramsci, Antonio,
Selections From the Prison Notebooks, International Publishers, 1971, 10.

Horowitz, David,
The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, Regnery, 2006.

Illich, Ivan,
Deschooling Society: Social Questions, Marion Boyais Publishers, 1999.

Jezer, Marty,
The Dark Ages: Life in the United States, 1945-1960, South End Press, 1982.

Kohl, Herbert,
36 Children, Plume, 1988.

Kozol, Jonathan,
Death at an Early Age, Bantam, 1968.

Malcolm X,
The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Grove Press, 1965.

McLaren, Peter,
Che Guevara, Paulo Friere, and the Pedagogy of Revolution, Rowman and Littlefield, 2000.

Mills, C. Wright,
The Power Elite, Oxford, 1959.

Mumford, Lewis,
Technics and Civilization, Harvest, 1963.

Perrucci, Robert,
"Inventing Social Justice: SSSP and the Twenty-First Century," Social Problems, May, 2001, 159-167.

Schrecker, Ellen,
No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities, Oxford, 1988.

Smith, David N.,
Who Rules the Universities? An Essay on Class Analysis, Monthly Review, 1974.

Students for a Democratic Society, "The Port Huron Statement," in Alexander Bloom and Win Breines,
'Takin It to the Streets,' Oxford, 1995.

Williams, William Appleman,
The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, Delta, 1972.

Wolff, Robert Paul,
The Idea of the University, Beacon, 1970.

Harry Targ is Professor at the Department of Political Science of Purdue University. This article is the text of his public lecture, presented at the Departments of Philosophy and Political Science, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, 1 April 2008.

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Jay-Z - History



(Jay-Z - History)Jay-Z - History with Lyrics

LYRICS : [Chorus: Cee-lo]
Now that all the smoke is gone
(Lighter)
And the battle's finally won
(Gimme a lighter)
Victory (Lighters up) is finally ours
(Lighters up)
History, so long, so long
So long, so long

[Verse 1: Jay-Z]
In search of victory, she keeps eluding me
If only we could be together momentarily
We can make love and make history
Why won't you visit me? until she visit me
I'll be stuck with her sister, her name is defeat
She gives me agony, so much agony
She brings me so much pain, so much misery
Like missing your last shot and falling to your knees
As the crowd screams for the other team
I practice so hard for this moment, victory don't leave
I know what this means, I'm stuck in this routine
Whole new different day, same old thing
All I got is dreams, nobody else can see
Nobody else believes, nobody else but me
Where are you victory? I need you desperately
Not just for the moment, to make history

[Chorus: Cee-lo]
Now that all the smoke is gone
(Lighters)
And the battle's finally won
(Lighters)
Victory is finally ours
(Yeah)
History (yeah), so long, so long
So long, so long

[Verse 2: Jay-Z]
So now I'm flirting with death, hustling like a G
While victory wasn't watching took chances repeatedly
As a teenage boy before acne, before I got proactiv I couldn't face she
I just threw on my hoodie and headed to the street
That's where I met success, we'd live together shortly
Now success is like lust, she's good to the touch
She's good for the moment but she's never enough
Everybody's had her, she's nothing like V
But success is all I got unfortunately
But I'm burning down the block hoppin' in and out of V
But something tells me that there's much more to see
Before I get killed because I can't get robbed
So before me success and death ménage
I gotta get lost, I gotta find V
We gotta be together to make history

[Chorus: Cee-lo]
Now that all the smoke is gone
(Lighters. Up.)
And the battle's finally won
(Lighter. Up.)
Victory is finally ours
(Lighters. Up.)
History, so long, so long
So long, so long

[Verse 3: Jay-Z]
Now victory is mine, it tastes so sweet
She's my trophy wife, you're coming with me
We'll have a baby who stutters repeatedly
We'll name him history, he'll repeat after me
He's my legacy, son of my hard work
Future of my past, he'll explain who I be
Rank me amongst the greats, either 1, 2, or 3
If I ain't number one then I failed you victory
Ain't in it for the fame that dies within weeks
Ain't in it for the money, can't take it when you leave
I wanna be remembered long after you grieve
Long after I'm gone, long after I breathe
I leave all I am in the hands of history
That's my last will and testimony
This is much more than a song, it's a baby shower
I've been waiting for this hour, history you ours


[Chorus: Cee-lo (2x)]
Now that all the smoke is gone
And the battle's finally won
Victory is finally ours
History, so long, so long
So long, so long



Man in the Mirror--By Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson - Man in the mirror

I'm gonna make a change,
for once im my life
It's gonna feel real good,
gonna make a diference
Gonna make it right...

As I, turn up the collar on
my favorite winter coat
This wind is blowing my mind
I see the kids in the streets,
with not enought to eat
Who am I to be blind?
Pretending not to see their needs

A summer disregard,a broken bottle top
And a one man soul
They follow each other on the wind ya' know
'Cause they got nowhere to go
That's why I want you to know

I'm starting with the man in the mirror
I'm asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer
If you wanna make the world a better place
(If you wanna make the world a better place)
Take a look at yourself, and then make a change
(Take a look at yourself, and then make a change)
(Na na na, na na na, na na, na nah)

I've been a victim of a selfish kind of love
It's time that I realize
That there are some with no home, not a nickel to loan
Could it be really me, pretending that they're not alone?

A willow deeply scarred, somebody's broken heart
And a washed-out dream
(Washed-out dream)
They follow the pattern of the wind ya' see
'Cause they got no place to be
That's why I'm starting with me
(Starting with me!)

I'm starting with the man in the mirror
(Ooh!)
I'm asking him to change his ways
(Ooh!)
And no message could have been any clearer
If you wanna make the world a better place
(If you wanna make the world a better place)
Take a look at yourself, and then make a change
(Take a look at yourself, and then make a change)

I'm starting with the man in the mirror
(Ooh!)
I'm asking him to change his ways
(Change his ways - ooh!)
And no message could have been any clearer
If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make that..
(Take a look at yourself and then make that..)
CHANGE!

I'm starting with the man in the mirror
(Man in the mirror - Oh yeah!)
I'm asking him to change his ways
(Better change!)
No message could have been any clearer
(If you wanna make the world a better place)


Michael Jackson - Man in the mirror

A Change is Gonna Come by Sam Cook






It's been a long time coming but a change is surely going to come in America and the World! I am the Future of America and the World and that is the message that each of us must carry with us each and every day that we wake up on Earth! I am the Future! You are the Future! We are the Future of America and the World! That is way every election is important--primaries, special elections and general! So vote every year and hold our politicians accountable. Hold our political officials accountable by writing them, calling them and making sure they attend meetings that we the people have. "The Time for Change is not Now but Right Now!"

"EmPOWERment By Any Means Necessary" should be our anthem and should be our creed as we make the positive differences in America and the world that so many people beg for and hungry for year after year! A Change is Gonna Come, A Change is Gonna Come, that's what we must say as we say "God grants us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, Courge to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference" each morning before we go about the task of making a positive change in America and the world a reality.



Born In The U.S.A. - Bruce Springsteen


“When will people realize that we are Americans first and foremost, not Democrats or Liberals, not Republicans or Conservatives, not Independents or moderates. We are Americans. Stop putting a political party above America and stop putting any politican above America. America succeeds because of us the people holding our government responsible no matter the political party because the main two political parties are to blame for the condition America is in."—Hodari P.T. Brown

America with its flaws and all is a country I am proud to have been born in. America is not perfect but my love for it is perfect. That’s why all Americans must realize that we are all Americans. In fact we are Americans first and foremost. We are not Democrats or Republicans. We are Americans.

We are not Muslims, Christians or Jews. We are Americans. Too many times we recognize our differences with others rather than appreciating our similarities which are, we are Americans. We are Americans first and foremost, no matter if we were born here or moved here legally. We are all Americans, here in this country to make not only our lives better but the lives of other Americans better so future Americans can enjoy the rights and freedoms that make us all Americans.

We are all Americans. We are one party united under God. We are Americans and this is the only political party that matters. We are Americans and this is our country so let’s make sure that we make America better than how we found it so future Americans can live prosperous and joyous lives. We are Americans and must not ever forget that.

America will prosper as long we make sure we are doing our part to make it prosper and that means we can’t put any political party or politician above America. Long live America forever and long live America’s service to the world. Together, America and the world will prosper for future generations to enjoy America and the world we live in.


Lift Every Voice and Sing


This video of the ' Negro National Anthem' was originally screened at the historic African-American Church Inaugural Ball in Washington, DC on January 18th, 2009. Many of the esteemed individuals featured in this video in attendance and we presented with the ' Keepers of the Flame' award for the monumental contributions to social justice.

This version of the song was performed by the Grace Baptist Church Cathedral Choir, conducted by Derrick James. The video was produced and donated by Ascender Communications, LLC (www.ascender-c.com) at the request of The Balm In Gilead, Inc.

If I Was President--Wyclef Jean




If I was President that is the people's anthem. We all have ideas of what we can do as President and through this website, we will fulfill our deam as a people!

Somethings Gotta Give--Big Boi ft Mary J Blige



Somethings Gotta Give people and it begins today for all us to make sure that something is us. We the people are sick and tired of suffering. Where is our piece of the Dream that so many people dead for so that we all could see today. This is our time people to change America and the world so that the Next Generation has a better future than the past we inherited.

This is our call to service. This isn't about one political candidate or one political figure. This is about us as people coming together to finally leave up to our potential and achieving the great feats that those before us have achieved. This is our moment to lead our nation and our world to greater heights.

Somethings gotta give people and it starts with us the people making it happen. We have to improve our education system in America. We have to rid the world of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. We have to go to the streets and lift a hand to another in order to decrease poverty in this world. We have to take a stand today and make sure that the future of America and the world is brighter than it has ever been.

Somethings Gotta Give and that is why we must "Remember Each One, Reach One and Teach One so America's future and the World's future continues to prosper."

John Legend - "If You're Out There"


If you're out there than you need to get started in helping to change America and the world. The world and America won't change until you get involved in making the changes you want to see in this world. If you're out there, than you must know that tomorrow started now and today started yesterday so you are behind in helping to the change. If you are tired of hatred, racism, poverty, war, and violence than the time to change it is now. If you want universal health care, world peace, democracy for every nation, equal rights, and happiness for all than you must get involved now to help the save world.

You must believe in the change that you want to see and you must act on making that change a reality. If you're out there than say it aloud and show the rest of America and the world that you're out here to make a real positive change in the communities we stay in. If you're out there than get involved now. I'm calling every women and men to join me as we take back our country right here, right now. If you're out there than the future started yersterday and we are already late so we have lots of work to do but I know we can do it together as one.

YES WE CAN



Yes We Can accomplish anything that we set out to do! We don't need charismatic or inspirational leaders to believe in ourselves and to take responsiblity for our own faith, we just need each other. Yes We Can build a new America and a new world if each of us would take action now to make the changes that we want to see in the world. Yes We Can control government by holding our political officials accountable for their actions by calling them out when they don't pass legislation that supports the common good of all man and by voting in every election to ensure that we have people representing the people locally, state wide, nationally and in the world.

Yes We Can be great! Yes We Can be what we want to be! Yes We Can be glorious in not only America but the world! Yes We can put action behind our worlds and change the world starting right here, right now! Yes We Can as Republicans, Democrats and Independents become one as we freely think about our fellow men and women and make decisions that will be in the best interest of all people and not one single group.

Yes We Can be the change that we want to see in the world! Yes We Can show the world that the youth are ready to lead! Yes We Can put our egos, our social economic statuses, our religions, our educational statuses and our skin color to the side for the better good of the world! Yes We Can be Greater than we have ever been and help others be Greater than they have ever be!

YES WE CAN and YES WE WILL BE VICTORIOUS IN ALL THAT WE DO! YES WE CAN, no matter what others may say, we will be glorious! YES WE WILL and YES WE CAN! YES WE CAN!

YES WE CAN! YES WE CAN! YES WE CAN is what will be sung from every mountaintop, every riverbank, every household, every school yard, every factory, every sporting event, every college campus and even every place you can imagine in the world is where YES WE CAN, will be said and heard!

YES WE CAN!

Keep On Pushing - Curtis Mayfield & the Impressions


Wake Up People! No matter who is elected to any public office, we have to “Keep On Pushing” as a people to make sure they don’t leave us in a worst state than what they inherited. We as a people have to “Keep On Pushing” to make a difference in the lives of others. We have to have an “EmPOWERment By Any Means Necessary” attitude as we continue to push our agenda that we the people deserve and want better. We have to “Keep On Pushing” to bring about change in a positive way that will benefit all Americans no matter their age, their religion or skin color. We have to “Keep On Pushing” to bring about change that will improve our education system, improve our military, improve our national security, improve our healthcare system and improve our economy. We have to “Keep On Pushing” to bring about change that will leave America’s future in a better than how we found it and that will leave the world’s future in a better state than we imagined we could live it. We have to “Keep On Pushing” to make life better for our neighborhoods, our families and even our quote on quote enemies. We have to “Keep On Pushing” to inspire, to uplift and to guide those who need help spiritually, physically and mentally. We have to “Keep On Pushing ” so that our lives, our future generation’s lives and the lives of those who came before us does not die in vein.

“Keep on Pushing”

A War For Your Soul

A War For Your Soul-regular version from Erisai Films on Vimeo.


The moment has come for us as a nation of people to finally wake up and realize that our destiny and fate in society has rests on our shoulders. We cannot allow the forces of evil and darkness to drain us out. We have to continue to overcome all odds in order to make the future of our nation better and the future of future generations of Americans better. We have to continue to pray to our Lord and we have to continue to uplift each other in prayer as well as take action against those things that are trying to destroy us. We have to stand up once and for all and be the future that we want to be. Now is our time and we shall do together by any means necessary.

This video was created to inspire young African-Americans not to fall prey to some of the problems they face in society. The use of the voice "Master of Darkness" represents evil, which is where the blame of all problems should be placed, and not on any one group of people. This video should not to be used to divide people (Black & White), there are images of heroes that are white in this video, and there are images of Black & White coming together with the words of Dr. King in the background. Some of the images from the past can be unsettling, but they are used to show all Americans how far we have come, and how far we still have to go. This film is being strategically placed in school systems, churches and youth orgs around the country, in hope of helping a lost generation of kids that we as Americans have forgotten. As fellow Americans we must continue to love each other, and take that love and spread it to the rest of the world. **THIS VIDEO IS NOT FOR SALE & I AM NOT ACCEPTING DONATIONS FOR THE FILM, I ONLY WANT THE MESSAGE TO REACH AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE WITHOUT ANY HIDDEN POLITICAL OR FINANCIAL AGENDA.

Sitting On the Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding



"The time for sitting is over! The time for action is now! The time for hope without action is hopeless! The time for change without a positive attitude is a change that we can't believe in! We need change that is positive of helping all people! Our time for action is now, our time for hope is now, our time for change is now and our time to believe that we can do whatever we set our minds to is not now but right now!"

STAR SPANGLED BANNER


The Star-Spangled Banner by Francis Scott Key

O say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming;
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?


On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream;
'Tis the star-spangled banner; O long may it wave
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave,
From the terror of flight and the gloom of the grave;
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave!


O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land,
Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just.
And this be our motto— "In God is our trust; "
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

Black President



Our Time is not now but Right Now! Our Time has finally come to change the world not now but Right Now! If you don't believe that we can change the world than watch as we do it by changing your mind into believing in us and what we can do! This is OUR TIME RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW!

FIGHT THE POWER



We got to FIGHT THE POWER! We can no longer sit on the sidelines and watch injustices take place. We can no longer sit by and allow our right to vote to become unexercised. We must FIGHT THE POWER for our past, present and future! We can no longer allow our rights to be oppressed and our voice to become drained by the powers at be. We must FIGHT THE POWER and show that we have a lot to say that needs to be heard by the mainstream media. We must FIGHT THE POWER and live up to our potential as dynamic, unbelievable and phenomenal people.


We must not believe the hype but we must become the hype. We are not Harriett Tubman, Marcus Garvey, MLK, Malcolm X, Booker T. Washington, Carter G. Woodson, W.E.B. DuBois, the Black Panther Party, SNCC, or any other activists but we are the fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, uncles, aunties, and relatives of those who came before us to pave the way for us to FIGHT THE POWER! We are not next Generation of leaders who will not be honored and praised until they die but that’s the fight we accept. We are not fighting the power for glory or fame but we are fighting the power for just causes that most men and women will not understand until years or decades later.


We are fighting for our sisters and brothers in Darfur, Georgia, Iraq, Iran, China and Mexico. We are speaking for those who are poor and have no food or water. We are fighting for those who are sick and dying. We are fighting for universal healthcare across the world and human rights for all people. We are fighting for rich and poor! We must FIGHT THE POWER no matter how hard and tough the road may be. We must FIGHT THE POWER for a better today and an even greater tomorrow!


FIGHT THE POWER!

PEOPLE GET READY


“People Get Ready” our time is coming! We have come too far to turn back now. Our train is coming and it is coming in waves. “People Get Ready”, we don’t need a ticket but we need faith and the Lord will help guide us as we take back America and the world. “People Get Ready” our moment is now and we are ready to see the change we want in America and the world. All we got to do is have faith, hope and prosperity. “People Get Ready” to face your fears. “People Get Ready” to face your demons and the challenges of yesterday because today and tomorrow we will conquer & be victorious. “People Get Ready” a change is coming and our actions will make sure that change is a real positive change that lasts forever.


“People Get Ready” because we have had enough of just talking but now is our time to show action. “People Get Ready” to take back America and the world. “People Get Ready” to take back our communities and to make our streets safer and schools better. “People Get Ready” to make all our dreams come true. “People Get Ready” to see a better present for everyone and a better future for future generations. “People Get Ready” to live up to your potential and to help others live up to their own potential. “People Get Ready” to move past hatred, bigotry, racism and sexism. “People Get Ready” to fulfill the dreams of those who came before us and those who will come after us.


“People Get Ready” as we make our actions speak louder than our words. “People Get Ready” to make words mean something again as we put action to back up our rhetoric. “People Get Ready” as we embark on a new journey that will re-write America’s history as well as the world’s history. “People Get Ready” as we make the lives of others better and the lives of future generations better. “People Get Ready” because all we need is faith, hope and action to make this world a better place. “People Get Ready” to make a difference. “People Get Ready” to fulfill the American dream. “People Get Ready" to live out the American Dream as our founding fathers wanted us to live it. “People Get Ready” because our time is now, our moment is now and our moment in time to change America & the world is not now but right now. “People Get Ready” because a change is coming!


Alicia]
(Let me tell you now)
People get ready, there's a train comin'
You don't need no baggage, you just get on board
All you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin'
You don't need no ticket, you just thank the lord

[Lyfe]
People get ready, for a train to Jordan
Picking up passengers coast to coast
Faith is the key, open the doors and board them
There's hope for all among those loved the most

[Alicia]
There ain't no room for the hopeless sinner
Who would hurt all man kind just to save his own (believe me now)
Have pity on those whose chances grow thinner
For there's no hiding place against the kingdoms throne

[Alicia & Lyfe]
So people get ready there's a train coming
You don't need no baggage, you just get on board
All you need is faith to hear the diesels humming,
You don't need no ticket, you just thank the lord


“PEOPLE GET READY!”

God Bless the U.S.A. by Lee Greenwood


Lee Greenwood-god bless the U.S.A