Originally published as Birdman's Weekly letter #329 - June 14, 2005
To: Steven Lawry, President, Antioch College
Date: 12 June 2005
Copies to: Richard Jurasek, rjurasek@antioch-college.edu -
Interim president
Sally Frye, sfrye@antioch-college.edu - Executive assistant to
the president (For forwarding)
Bob Devine, bdevine@antioch-college.edu - past president
Callie Cary, ccary@antioch-college.edu - Alumni relations (For
publication in The Antiochian)
Antioch Record, record@antioch-college.edu - For publication
Dear Steve:
Hey, I can call you Steve, can't I, Steve? I mean, Antioch is a pretty hang-loose place with all those wonderful multicultural graffiti scrawled all over the expensive brick-work, right, Steve? Of course maybe it's all the graffiti, along with all the other earmarks of the ghetto, the barrio and the bagnio that have caused the announcement of a 'major campus renovation' this summer so you and your cronies won't have to be reminded of the destructiveness that the policies of the liberal/left inevitably bring.
But don't get me wrong, Steve. I wanted to offer you my congratulations for becoming Antioch's new president. I mean, you are so well connected to the Foundations that you should be able to extract literally ZILLIONS of Zogbucks for Antioch to pursue what Antioch and the Foundations have been pursuing for yea so many years, namely, the transformation of America into a Turd-World hell-hole.
Now maybe you think it is unfair that I say that, Steve, but it isn't. I mean, the Foundations, of which you have been a part for so long, have been pouring money into LULAC and Mecha and other organs of the Oppression Industry, presumably to 'fight oppression', but in reality to flood America with aliens who hate America because America 'stole' the Southwest from Mehico, who are prolific breeders that can be relied on to split off the Southwest by their demographics, and who are therefore capable of making a major assault on the only real beacon of freedom and happiness in this world, and the only country capable of resisting the New World Ordure of fascist Big Government and its 1984 wet dream.
Now please, if you will, Steve, spare me your wet noodle arguments about what important work you and Antioch are doing in fighting 'oppression', because they can be refuted with one simple observation: Turd-Worlders are beating down our doors to get into this 'oppressed' country, just like they were beating down South Africa's doors to get into THAT 'oppressed' country, and just like they were beating down the West's doors before the Berlin wall came tumbling down. Or to put it another way, Steve, all this 'oppression' talk is just a gussied-up dickie intended to cover an antifreedom, Big Government, New World Order agenda. And that's very cool and clever, Steve, because who would have ever thought that people who preach a philosophy of hating oppression would actually be the oppressors? You and your Foundation friends are like the blind whore, Steve -- I have to hand it to you.
And I like your style, too, Steve. In particular, I like the calls for an 'Assistant to the President for Diversity' and a 'Diversity Advocate' in the new 'Center for Cultural and Intellectual Freedom', all of which are described on the same sheet as the announcement of your presidency, and are evidently intimately connected with it. I like them because I like to experience the thrill of observing liberal/leftist hypocrisy in establishing a 'Center' (aren't liberals and lefties always establishing 'Centers' in the back rooms of bars and whorehouses?) for 'intellectual freedom' whose 'mission statement' calls for 'understanding and challenging oppression by developing strategies that serve diversity, freedom, responsibility and justice'. I love the hypocrisy because anybody who has been around liberals and leftists for more than two seconds knows that 'diversity' is a code word for LACK of diversity in what really matters -- ideas -- and even lack of diversity in race itself, where 'diversity' in such cases just means 'more negroes' (or whatever). In fact, the logical extension of the liberal/leftist boosting of diversity is, in Hofferesque fashion, actually the same policy as that of the liberal/left's presumed opponents, bigoted redneck whites, to wit, complete exclusion of whites, and thus COMPLETE SEGREGATION. Like I have always said, Steve, strike while the irony is hot.
Now Steve, I am sorry to have taken up so much of your valuable time, but I would like to point out that while the liberals and leftists like you are accustomed to calling people like me a 'hater', the reality is that my kind are the people who love Western civilization and the race which created it, while YOU are the people who want to destroy Western civilization, and destroy the white race right along with it. In short, YOU are the haters, Steve. And not only haters, but TRAITORS. You are a traitor to your race, your country and your civilization, and are happy to see them destroyed by mixing the unique and irreplaceable white genome with that of the multicultural muck, in spite of the fact that the white race has brought humankind to the highest point in its civilization, while the black race never even invented the wheel, and the browns have never gone much further than cutting people's hearts out on an altar.
That's what you are. Steve -- a hater and a traitor. So welcome to Antioch -- you've come to the right place.
-Birdman
PS: Speaking of liberal hypocrisy, I have sent this letter to the Antiochian and the Record for publication, but it is a fair bet that it will never see the light (or dark) of print in either of those places, in spite of the following impassioned little extract from the Antioch website (http://www.antioch-college.edu/Community/index.htm):
"Antioch College is a vibrant academic environment dedicated to passionate and rational dialogue in a community that embraces all forms of diversity."
Yeah -- YOU BET!!!
[Bob Devine responds:]
First let me say that the use of a pseudonym and a post office box gives some clear indications of character. Hiding behind your anonymity makes it extremely difficult for any serious-minded person (of any persuasion) to take you seriously, and clearly leaves no room for engaging in the sort of dialogue and deliberation that is the true hallmark of truth-seeking. The College is an easy target for both left and right.
Second let me apologize for some of the ways that Antioch clearly failed you in your undergraduate education. No, not because the College did not succeed in indoctrinating you with the ideology of liberalism (though perhaps bad experiences in coming to terms with difference are reflected in your writing). Rather, it's sad to me that Antioch did not impart some of the basics of reasoned argumentation. Your critique seems to consist in lobbing anonymous soundbites and opinions anonymously over the fence. Don't get me wrong, your opinions are interesting (though somewhat middle of the road), and sometimes clever, but there IS a difference between opining and reasoned argumentation. The ideas are not critically developed, are not supported with evidence, are not connected with the sort of tissue of logic that would make them persuasive. To paraphrase the late Edward R. Murrow, even though your opinions are distributed half-way around the world via the internet, that doesn't make them any more significant or true than when they only reached the end of the bar. As it is, the effect is that of a "drive-by-mudding."
And, I'm afraid your "rapier wit" is rather dull and sophomoric. I would hope that forty years after graduating from College you'd have found a more productive outlet for your penchant for offensive self-promotion and entrepreneurship. It seems to me that challenging Antioch publications to print your rant arrogates more importance to you and to your opinions than they deserve. Again, opinions from an anonymous source do not exactly provide an invitation to the sort of "passionate and rational dialogue" described by the Antiochian.
Sincerely,
Bob Devine '67
[Birdman replies to Bob:]
To: Bob Devine
From: John 'Birdman' Bryant (www.thebirdman.org; john@thebirdman.org)
Copy to original recipients
Dear Bob:
I want to apologize for not fully identifying myself in my letter to Steve Lawry; however, this was because the letter was originally written to be printed on my stationery where full ID already appears. I will point out, however, that shortly after sending the original letter I realized that I had failed to provide ID, with the result that I sent another copy of the letter with ID attached. But of course the hoo-ha you made over ID was a bullshit objection, because my email was not anonymous, and it might have occurred to someone with so elevated an IQ as that of a Former College President that the omission was unintentional.
But now that I have confessed my very small sin, what about you and your Antioch friends confessing your extremely large ones, namely, a continual failure to adhere to your own stated philosophy as quoted at the end of my letter and elsewhere? That's the real question, Bob, and the one that you are trying like hell to avoid confronting by bringing up irrelevancies like ID.
And I say 'continual' because that is exactly what it has been. As Antioch presidents have come and gone, I have written to most of them pointing out the grave deficiencies of the philosophy they are acting to support, and wondering why all of them seem unable -- either out of stupidity, ignorance or just plain dishonesty -- to confront the very reasonable and rational arguments which I have presented to them.
Take yourself, for example, Bob. On September 21, 1998 I wrote you a letter containing a little essay of mine entitled '20 Questions for Liberals'. Do your remember that one, Bob? Well, don't strain your brain, Bob, because I have attached a copy of that letter. It's still unanswered, Bob. And it contains not one, or two, or three arguments against liberalism, but TWENTY! Count, 'em, Bob! A full set of fingers and toes!
And herein lies a tale, Bob. To begin, lets start with your remark that
it's sad to me that Antioch did not impart some
>of the basics of reasoned argumentation. Your critique seems
to consist
>in lobbing anonymous soundbites and opinions anonymously over
the fence.
>Don't get me wrong, your opinions are interesting (though
somewhat middle
>of the road), and sometimes clever, but there IS a difference
between
>opining and reasoned argumentation. The ideas are not
critically
>developed, are not supported with evidence, are not connected
with the
>sort of tissue of logic that would make them persuasive.
Now you see, Bob, that what I did when I wrote you in 1998 was to elaborate a very detailed piece of 'reasoned argumentation'. But guess what, Bob? IT DIDN'T WORK! You didn't pay any attention, and neither did anyone else I sent it to! So after a few encounters like this, Bob, I start to get the idea that 'reasoned argumentation' won't cut the mustard or even muss the custard around Antioch, so I have to do something else. Like satire, mockery, irony and a few things like that. So if you see this reflected in my letter to Steve, I guess you will just have to get out your big box of forgiveness and chuck me a dollop.
But really, Bob, if you are hungering for rationality, 'reasoned argumentation', supporting evidence and all those other wonderful forensic ornaments, you can just trip over to my website at www.thebirdman.org where you will find stuff enuf to keep you busy for a whole season of cold winter nights, to say nothing of hot summer days. We have articles up the wazoo which confound every twist and turn of liberal logic and leftist lies, with new ones posted EVERY FRIGGING DAY, Bob. (OK, make that 6 days a week -- on Sundays we Bonk For Jeezez).
Now just one final point, Bob. I noted with amusement your reference to Edward R Murrow in your remark that
To paraphrase
>the late Edward R. Murrow, even though your opinions are
distributed
>half-way around the world via the internet, that doesn't make
them any
>more significant or true than when they only reached the end
of the bar.
>As it is, the effect is that of a
"drive-by-mudding."
Now let's start with the facts, Bob. The ciggie-sucking smoke-belching Murrow is loved by the Left because he was the Left's Big Bertha in bringing down Joe McCarthy. But something funny happened on the way to the history books, Bob -- the real history books, that is, the ones which are not filled with leftist lies -- because it turns out that Joe McCarthy was not only RIGHT, but that he actually UNDERSTATED HIS CASE. Since McCarthy's time, documents have been accumulating -- everything from the Diaries of Major Jordan to the Venona Intercepts, and it turns out that the liberal/leftist cancer was not only everywhere, but that it went RIGHT TO THE TOP. So what Murrow had to say about 'being widespread does not mean being right' certainly applied in spades to him. But on the other hand, while I do not have anywhere near the audience that Murrow had, I did have more than 12.000 unique visitors to my never-advertised website last month, with about a third of a million hits, suggesting that whatever I have been saying for the last 5 years, there are a hell of a lot of people who think I am credible. Furthermore, I am being tested against the world's toughest competition, namely, other websites, unlike Murrow and his leftist colleagues, who had a monopoly on what people could see and hear. So if you want to talk credibility, Bob, better not rely on the sleazy Murrow for your quotes. And in fact, since 12,000 or so people are going to see this letter, maybe you had better worry about YOUR credibility rather than mine.
And don't forget, Bob -- I'm still waiting for an answer to my 1998 letter.
-Birdman
PS: Any response you or your Antioch friends may have to this letter will be posted on my site, along with my response, if any. At least I am honest enuf to publish my enemies' responses. How about you and your friends, Bob?
[The following is the 28 Sep 1998 letter to Bob from Birdman:]
September 21, 1998
Bob Devine, Interim President Antioch College Yellow Springs OH 45387
Dear Bob:
I'm sure you've heard of the game 20 Questions. Well, I've created a new game, called 20 Questions For Liberals, which I give below. The purpose of the game is to see whether you can go thru and ask yourself all the questions and still remain a liberal. My belief is that a rational person can't, but then who says that liberals are rational?
Let me be frank with you, Bob. The liberalism that has taken hold of Antioch makes me sick. And it makes me sick because it is so irrational, so stupid, so detached from the facts of the world that it is hard for me to imagine that anyone with an IQ above the single-digit range could ever give it the least credibility.
So I want to challenge you, Bob. I want to challenge you in the name of the college mission -- as stated in the Antiochian, p 3 -- to oppose "racism, oppression, intolerance and bigotry". In particular, I outline in the 20 Questions numerous ways in which liberalism is racist, how it oppresses whites, how intolerant it is of legitimate white needs, and how bigoted it is in dealing with whites and legitimate white aspirations; and I challenge you to oppose this liberal racism, liberal oppression, liberal intolerance and liberal bigotry by publishing this letter and the 20 Questions in the next Antiochian and in the campus's Antioch Record. As a liberal, Bob, I know how interested you are in promoting "diversity", so let's have some of the only kind of diversity that really makes a difference -- diversity of ideas.
Of course, I realize that you, as a liberal, are unlikely to be tolerant (Note that word, Bob!) of any challenge to the liberal paradigm, even if that challenge uses the very standards put forth by liberalism to judge liberalism itself. I will, however, offer you a choice: If you publish this letter and the 20 Questions below in the Antiochian, I'll agree not to submit this material for my regular column in the Nationalist Times. That way, we can keep the dispute in-house, rather than outhouse.
How's that for a stinker, Bob?
PS: I'm sending copies of this letter to various individuals mentioned in the Antiochian so that, in the likely case that you don't publish this letter, all these folks will have seen for themselves in real time the complete hypocrisy and corruption which liberalism represents.
Copies to:
Arwin K Dewey ('99), Student Union, Antioch College, YSO 45387 Kim Baker ('99) Caitlin Billings, Founder, BRIDGES (Building Respect in Dialogue, Growing With Every Step)
Shadia Alvarez, Assistant to the President for Community Development, Multicultural Affairs and Recruitment and Head, Multicultural Affairs Office, Antioch College, YSO 45387 Dennie Eagleson, Assistant Professor of Photography Patricia Linn, Associate Professor of Psychology and Women's Studies Jimmy Williams, Associate Dean of Students Dianne Brou Fraser, Alumni Board President Prof Jim Dunn, Founder, People's Institute for Survival and Beyond, Advanced Undoing Racism Training
20 Questions for Liberals
(1) Why -- at least in the case of whites -- do liberals denounce as "racism" the normal human desire to live, work and be with one's own kind, and the pride which one normally takes in his racial heritage and group identity?
(2) Why do liberals think it is desirable and even praiseworthy for minorities to preserve their ethnic identities, customs and gene pool, but not whites?
(3) Why do liberals denounce "racism" when the victims are black, but applaud it when the victims are white (as in the case of affirmative action)?
(4) Why do liberals think it is not racist for blacks to have their own college dormitories, their own graduation ceremonies, their own cheerleaders, their own unions, their own year-end celebrations, their own congressional caucus, and virtually anything else of their own they want, but not whites?
(5) Why do liberals make a federal case out of preserving the spotted owl, the snail darter and other obscure and unimportant species, but -- by encouraging such things as Third-world immigration and the subsidizing of black reproduction via welfare -- seem uninterested in preserving the one species that has made more contributions to human civilization than any other, namely, the white race?
(6) How can liberals be opposed to "genocide" and yet rejoice, as our liberal president recently did, in the fact that demographic changes induced by liberal policies will reduce the white population to a minority in America within 50 years?
(7) How can liberals rejoice in "diversity" when it is precisely "diverse" populations which have been an unending source of racial and ethnic conflict, as we are seeing today in every place from the Balkans and the Middle East to our own "integrated" cities, schools and workplaces?
(8) Why did liberals create a national holiday for Martin Luther King -- a notorious womanizer, plagiarist and communist -- when there is no national holiday for any other single man, including such icons (and paragons of virtue) as Jefferson and Washington?
(9) Why do liberals insist that blacks and whites are "equal" when there has never been a black civilization worthy of the name (ancient Egypt was not a black civilization), and that the civilizations which whites constructed in Africa have all essentially collapsed since the whites' departure, South Africa being just the latest example?
(10) Why do liberals insist that blacks and whites are "equal" when the black crime rate is nine times (900%) that of whites?
(11) Why do liberals insist that blacks and whites are "equal" when each year there are 20,000 whites raped by blacks, but less than 100 blacks raped by whites?
(12) How can liberals maintain that blacks and whites are "equal" when the average black IQ (85) is substantially below that of the average white IQ (100)?
(13) Why do liberals whine about white abuse of blacks when there were fewer than 6000 blacks lynched in the 100 years following the Civil War, but more whites than that are now killed by blacks every single year?
(14) How can liberals continually invoke "racism" as the explanation for black failure when others groups which experienced at least as much discrimination as blacks -- the Irish, Jews and Japanese, for example -- all achieved economic success within a generation or two?
(15) Why do liberals insist on spending more and more money on the public schools when there is no correlation between educational achievement and per-pupil spending, but considerable correlation between educational achievement and racial makeup? (For example, the highest spending and lowest achievement may be found in the black DC schools, while the lowest spending and highest achievement is found in mostly-white midwestern states.)
(16) Why do liberals cry "racism" and "sexism" when a company's management doesn't contain the prescribed racial and sexual quotas, but have no complaints about such things as the fact that 80% of the players in the National Basketball Association are black?
(17) How can liberals pretend to be in favor of "sexual freedom" when they have supported "sexual harassment" legislation which makes virtually anything sexual in the workplace to be a federal crime?
(18) Why are liberals in love with the abnormal, the ugly, the failures and the other dregs of society (eg, pedophiles, the handicapped, blacks), while despising the normal, the healthy, the beautiful and the successful (eg, whites)?
(19) Why do liberals denounce "hate", yet shower the most virulent forms of hatred on whites, and especially white heterosexual males?
(20) How can liberals continue to pursue the policies which they have pursued for the last half-century -- from communism/socialism to school integration -- in view of the fact that all of those policies have been egregious failures?
[Bob responds:]
Dear John,
My "hoo-ha" was only in part related to your anonymity. It also involved the shallowness of your analysis, the weakness of your argumentation, and the lack of evidence in support of your assertions. A good friend of mine used to advise me, "...never argue with a drunk, " and it seems to me that "white liberationist" arguments fall easily into that category. I'm just not going to engage with you -- not because I can't, but because it would take me a very long time (a) to unpack the numerous logical fallacies contained in the manner in which you've framed your "20 questions" and (b) to point out the irrationality of your bumper-sticker "positions". Further, I don't think it would make much difference to you; your paradigm seems to be one of "that which disagrees with what I believe is a bunch of leftist lies." Not much point in trying to seek the truth through dialogue.
One of the rewards of teaching is that students grow, change and enlarge their world view, and I sense from your web site that such is not the case with you. Let me suggest a couple of readings that might make a dialogue possible:
1. Bruce Kimball "Orators and Philosophers: A History of the Idea of Liberal Education." New York: College Entrance Examination Board, 1995.
2. James Allen, Hilton Als, et. al., "Without Sanctuary," Atlanta: Twin Palms Publishers, 2000.
3. George Lipsitz, "The Possessive Investment in Whiteness." Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998.
4. Dalton Conley, "Being Black, Living in the Red." Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
The awful truth, John, is that a lot of people -- perhaps even a majority -- see the world differently than you do, and you're just going to have to make accommodations to that reality. Twelve thousand people might visit your web site, but on any given day 12,000 people might slow down to see an accident out of perverse curiousity. Create a spectacle and they will come...
It's my good fortune to have moved on from the Antioch Presidency four years ago. I'm no longer be responsible for responding to communications like your own, and don't have (and never did have) any responsibility for publishing or not publishing yours or any other self-aggrandizing diatribes. In fact, I'm elsewhere, doing work that you'd probably find leftist and pernicious, and I only access my Antioch email account irregularly. So please don't bother to respond.
Bob
[Birdman replies:]
Y'know, Bob, all you liberals and leftists are pretty much the same -- when they get their ass in a crack, like the one you're in, they start racheting up the ad hominems. I have a phrase for that which I often use, Bob -- "Insult is the last refuge of the out-argued". That's because when you can't think of any arguments, then insults -- 'shallowness of analysis', 'weakness of arguments', 'lack of supporting evidence' etc etc etc -- are the only thing left for you to say. No surprise here, Bob -- it's the same old liberal/leftist shit.
But really, Bob, I can understand where you are coming from. You want to 'move on', you don't want to 'engage with me', 'unpack', 'dialogue with a drunk', etc etc etc, because the 'drunk' who has been 'dialogueing' you has whupped your ass by sticking your liberal hypocrisy and irrationality directly to you and the rest of the Gang of Howevermany up there at Auntie Yuck. Good show, Bob -- it's Fight or Flight Time, and you are doing the only thing possible for a liberal/leftist who has been a Cream Pie Bullseye -- run like hell.
Now before I go, Bob, let me tell you a little story. The first quarter I was at Antioch I got together with this girl Sandy who posed for a snapshot bundled up with me in her night clothes, and then I took the snapshot and made a Christmas card out of it with the caption (as I remember it) "Having a great time at Antioch/Merry Christmas" or some such. So when the card came back from the printers, I handed a few out to my friends in the dorm, and within a very short time somebody in the Administration building called me over and started whining that this card might harm Antioch's image, etc etc etc and could I please not send them. So I dumped the cards in the trash, because I was loyal to Antioch and the really great place I thought it was at the time. But my point is not that I was a good guy as far as the college was concerned, but rather that the Admin is highly sensitive about Antioch's image. And you're Admin now, but you are walking away and turning up your nose at what 12,000 people think. Which sounds to me NOT like you don't care, but rather that Flight is the best damage control you can muster. Yeah, 12,000 people are going to slow down to see your 'accident', Bob. Or should we just say 'wreck'?
-Birdman
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