Uncovering the Right on Campus

[Chuck Grimes]

``_Guide to Uncovering the Right on Campus_, eds. Dalya Massachi &
Rich Cowan, is a helpful countermove by the Left.  Naturally, we don't
have the same financial resources as the Right, but we have enough
manpower to make some change Last I checked the Intercollegiate
Studies..''  (Yoshie F)

``Institute (ISI) was still the largest foundation, with a huge
apparatus covering all sorts of stuff including the Collegiate
Network, which is the network of right-wing student newspapers.  (The
1997 edition of "Uncovering the Right on Campus" still has the
Collegiate Network listed under the rubric of the Madison Center, but
I know that ISI bought them out some time ago.  Don't know if they
swallowed up the entire Madison Center or just the Collegiate
Network.)  Plus there's the Young America's Foundation (YAF), which is
an offshoot of the Young Americans for Freedom (does this latter
organization still exist?); they have a bunch of the high-profile
noxious right-wingers that they send out to the campuses, including
D'Souza, Oliver North, and Star Parker..'' (John Lacny)

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I am sure everybody knows this, but the best way to undermine the
rightwing (beyond shooting each and everyone of them and their
children) in just about any of its moves either on college campuses or
in publications and politics, is just follow the money. Their money is
always dirty and it is always ideological. So, when you trace the
money, you trace and demonstrate the ideology. 

If I was interested enough in Horowitz, I would start with his
non-profit organization whatever it is called and look up the broad of
directors, past and present and begin to follow their other community,
business, financial and political contacts. Chances are they are well
connected and chances are they serve on other boards, commissions,
community advisory boards and so forth. There are probably direct
grants from conservative foundations or foundations with a lot other
reactionary client programs. All that is probably already known--but
the connections to more serious and much more nasty people are
probably in there some where.

All this probably sounds ludicrous. Think again. 

I was in an e-mail debate in the early nineties over Martin Bernal's
Black Athena, versus Mary Lefkowitz Not Out of Africa (NOA), conducted
between academics in Classics and Ancient Near Eastern history. The
rightwing and racist tinge to the ML's position made me suspicious and
I went looking for her book at Cody's.  I read the copyright page,
where down at the bottom was an acknowledgment to some grant or
other. From this institute grant, I found out that their main source
of funding was the Olin foundation. I recognized Olin as a
manufacturer of cartridges for concrete stud guns and asked friends
who told me their main retail line was hunting ammo. Okay, I thought
that was probably the NRA (rightwing, white supremacists). But that
was just their homey retail product front. Another guy (nicknamed
Zapata) in this list debate traced Olin's empire. Olin's main line
turned out to be integrated weapons systems of mass destruction---like
missiles, heavy ordinance, artillery, and coordinating hardware
systems for what the military likes to call the three dimensional
battlefield (sea, land, air). Olin was neck deep in cold war ideology
via its defense contracts, and therefore all its attendant ideologies,
right on up to the master white race sort of crap---which brings us
back to Not Out of Africa, and why Lefkowitz could get funded to write
it. Nice huh?

NOA turned out to be funded by the same folks who brought us those
wonderful weapons of mass destruction now aimed at the dark hordes of
the earth who threaten our very white way of life---blah, blah.

So, the bottom line is (for those who care) go back to these student
institutes, associations, and other rightwing front campus
organizations and trace the money. Somewhere along the way you will
probably find some real shit in all the stink. Somebody out there is
`getting involved' in `education', and they will leave a money trail
and that trail will lead to the real assholes. Since the Left has no
money, you can bet, it's not us.

Sometimes this backfires. About three years ago San Francisco State
was toying with the idea of exchanging education research and teacher
training materials developed on campus for a new campus computer
system. When I heard of this I immediately thought it was
Microsoft---some sleeze-bag locked-in contract so they could
authenticate their own edu-tainment as certified educational materials
(probably re-sell it to University of Phoenix) and pilfer SFSU faculty
work for their own development---blah, blah, blah. It turned out I was
wrong. It was actually Sun Microsystems and there was no formal tit
for tat arrangement---other than Sun keeping their foot in the
education door. Paranoia can be a problem. But not very often.

I haven't read or even looked at Guide to Uncovering the Right on
Campus, but I will bet it doesn't go half far enough.

Chuck Grimes