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one more clarification point: the sycophants i have in mind are those like Benny Morris and any other scholar that supports or excuses either Israeli state terrorism or Palestinian parastate terrorism. so, not even Newman could be included here, and certainly not anyone on this listserv that has written messages on the issue. i should have made this clear immediately, but i thought it was obvious, so my apologies to Wood for this. let us not bicker inside the small bucket of critical geography, which is being held and shaken by processes much larger than us (hence the need to participate in existing movements). and it is also true that many would not divulge their viewpoints in a manner that would invite public consternation, such as antisemitic statements. but is it not odd that the same does not apply for being overtly anti-Palestinian in terms of public sanctions against such statements by rather big names in academia, like Huntington? i am sure everyone is aware of this discursive double standard. i have not seen such in the critical geog forum, at least overtly. saed Salvatore Engel-DiMauro wrote: > taking things personally helps no one. the sycophants to whom i refer > do not include you and no one in this discussion list, as far as i can > tell. please do not lecture about how grey the world actually is ... > that misses the point entirely. critical perspectives must be grounded > in understanding actual power relations, rather than evading the issue > altogether, as, i am afraid, is done when failing to tackle > institutional racism. > > saed > > D F J Wood wrote: >>> such a stance promotes the Israeli government and its sycophantic >>> academics by default. >> >> Oh, I see now. If you're not for us, you're against us. The position >> which we all so heartily mock when it comes from the likes of George W. >> Bush, but which we uncritically applaud when it comes from those backing >> 'the right causes.' >> >> This is exactly the kind of thing that I meant by being unable to apply >> critical reasoning universally, and is exactly why I am tired of >> academic discourse on this. If we (as academics) have anything to offer >> the world that is different from the arguments and actions of those who >> are politicians or activists or fighters, it is because we can the >> critical thinking that we have been given the space and time to develop. >> Otherwise we might as well engage just as polticians, or activists or >> fighters and not pretend there's anything particularly based in the fact >> that we are academics that drives us - 'critical thinking' merely >> becomes a servant of whatever it is we believe already. >> > -- Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro Department of Geography, SUNY New Paltz 1 Hawk Drive, New Paltz, NY 12561 tel: 1/845/2572991, fax: 1/845/2572992 e-mail: [log in to unmask] Senior Editor Capitalism Nature Socialism: A Journal of Ecosocialism Editor ACME: An international e-journal for critical geographies http://www.acme-journal.org/