Too many academics have visions of themselves as Alec Baldwin in The Hunt for Red October. Some of them as Sean Connery.

Been there, done that–all of it. The beginning of the whole business in the 1970s was “Black Studies,” followed rapidly by “Women’s Studies,” and now it’s “Islamic Studies”: all the same in one thing: they’re all “victim” groups-with-grievances. Against whom? Again, all the same: western white heterosexual males, whose sins include having created Western civilization (feminists want more “dead white males” and say so in their class rooms and academic publications), same for the Islamists except for the fact that they want everyone else who isn’t Islamist either dead or “dhimminished.”

I can tell you that the fundamental failure was a failure of nerve of heterosexual white males in academe to defend themselves and to go on the offensive. Their weakness was that they were all liberals, and therefore in fundamental sympathy with all the excrement heaped on them. Self-loathing, intellectual small-mindedness, and moral cowardice: these are liabilities that are impossible to overcome.

But there is one element in all this business that offers hope: these academic campaigns are not conducted by firearms but by the spoken and written word. What we need is more people in academe and outside of it as well to hone in with attack rhetoric on these people., The conservative blogosphere leads the way in this connection, and long may it wave.

The reason why this will work is that the “grievance” types themselves are enormously vunlerable to being “told off.” They don’t fear guns–that’s because they still live in polities that conducts private vengeance by government-enforced law. What they fear is the “bad word.”

So it comes down to the willingness and guts to speak out not only despite but because of the pushback, which does and will consist of nothing more than verbal insults.

They’ve bought large, sometimes owning shares of our corporations and institutions, directly and via prox8es. Their ownership of large portions of our debt, public and private, give them say over national and financial policy.

This money may be likened to a huge river, which flows all around, with branches and tributaries too numerous to name or keep track off.

As to male college enrollment, anyone notice how many of the country’s richest men are college dropouts, starting at the top with Bill Gates?

Moral – go to college when there is something you NEED to learn. Otherwise, go be productive.

Seriously — why should my taxes fund studies that, if carried to their intellectual conclusion, would result in the replacement or overthrow of the Constitution and our form of goverment?

“Change is definitely coming. But what kind of change? There’s the rub.”

For the best in what Saudi money can buy in scholarship, subscribe to ‘Saudi Aramco World,’ a free and superbly produced publication featuring fine scholarly articles that present Islam in a flattering light. Just traditional scholarship, almost all by American scholars. Money well spent by the Saudis.

The academic change has already occurred among the agenda setters of higher education and ngo’s. While the general electorate splits 50-50, there is no similar proportion in higher education or non-profits. Survey any on-line listing of campus events and speakers, or any annual meeting of non-profits, and you get the picture. Government and private budgets for higher education provide the funding for the academic scene; government and foundation funding puts the gas in the tank of the non-profits. Tenure, and a steady stream of funding, fuels the change. Americorps provides government-funed and subsidized educated workers for the non-profits (many of which are doing great work, and many others, including ACORN, not doing work that I appreciate).

Re. Islam, the day has already arrived when the grievances of the Islamic faction of scholars can dominate an agenda. The liberal faculty contorts in every way possible to promote an agenda of mutual aid against the forces of conservatism/Bushism. But the contempt of the former faculty for the latter, especially when Jewish, oozes forth. The Islam faction has a trump victim card to play, the one the leftists handed to them, and know how to use it. This regularly occuring scene might be funny, in a Tom Wolfe kind of way, if it weren’t so sad and corrosive.

The tipping point will come, perhaps, in the aural realm. When the campus carrilons are programmed to play not only vaguely hymn-like tones but also calls to Muslim prayer, the change will be profoundly upon us. Our attunement to the sound of church bells is so ingrained that we don’t even recognize its significance or register its meaning. We think we own the sound waves that travel through our neighborhoods? Wait until your local Human Rights Commimssion recommends otherwise.

“I head a church bell softly chime/ In a melody sustainin’/ It’s a long road to Canaan/ On Bleeker Street Bleeker Street …”

I think the best non-violent way to being down the deranged left is through ridicule. Each person that has no been indoctrinated in their nonsense is one more person who will laugh at their hysterical rantings.

Money doesn’t make you happy. I now have $50 million but I was just as happy when I had $48 million. ~Arnold Schwarzenegger

A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don’t need it. ~Bob Hope

I am having an out of money experience. ~Author Unknown

By the time I have money to burn, my fire will have burnt out. ~Author Unknown

Money doesn’t talk, it swears. ~Bob Dylan, “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)”