We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Friday, January 15, 2016

Are US academics who cite WikiLeaks blackballed?

Click here to access article by Chris Spannos from Crikey (Australia). 

Although the author doesn't offer any final answer to the question posed in the headline, but he provides numerous pieces of evidence that indicate the affirmative. 

My own position based partly on my experience at a university and the reading of the experience of others (sources like Disciplined Minds by Jeff Schmidt) clearly and emphatically answers this and a more general question in the affirmative: does US academia act to discourage anti-capitalist ideas or anti-Empire material? This is one part of my theory that the ruling capitalist class has infiltrated their ideologists in every sector of society: mainstream media, entertainment, education, and most of all in the political institutions of the nation.