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Roy M. Poses MD
Brown University Center for Primary Care and Prevention
Memorial Hospital of RI
111 Brewster St.
Pawtucket, RI 02860
USA
401 729-2383
fax: 401 729-2494
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----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Mark Newman wrote:
I guess it will be up to the members of the list to decide what is
relevant or not - so i am going to speak up for the opposite view to
Roy -
I think its valuable that list members put things on the list that
affect us all as human beings - Seems to me that democracy is
an important pre-requisite for EBHC - and the chomsky article
pointed out quite clearly just how the main protatgonists in the war
(USA) has gone about systematically subverting it around the
world. Its is doing the same thing on the the home front (USA) (UK
is doing it too) - There are numerous reports of pressure being put
on the US media to stay 'on side' by the US govt and I yesterday
received a petition calling the on the US govt to stop threatening
action against US academic institutions whose academics speak
out against american foreign policy.
I accept thought that list is not perhaps the right place to put the
whole chomsky speech. - but I think pointers of where to find such
information are relevant.
An here is one for anyone in the UK who wants to find out more
about activities to stop the war
http://www.stopwar.org.uk/
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I was hoping that this discussion of politics would not continue on the EBH
list. However, the supporters of Chomsky persist. With regret, I fear
that I must reply, lest their veiws go unopposed, and therefore appear
true.
There may well be important relationships between free speech and EBH.
However, neither the post above nor the other posts about Chomsky
demonstrated what Chomsky's writings have to do with EBH.
Christopher Hitchens has offered a series of ripostes to Chomsky that are
worth reading:
http://www.thenation.com/special/20010911debate.mhtml
Hitchens is on the left, and is not gentle with Chomsky. Those on the right,
of course, are much less gentle than Hitchens. See, for example:
http://www.FrontPageMagazine.com/guestcolumnists/cohnpamph09-11-01.htm
http://www.frontpagemag.com/columnists/horowitz/2001/dh09-26-01.htm
http://frontpagemag.com/columnists/horowitz/2001/dh10-10-01.htm
Furthermore, there have been more attempts to stifle people who support the
current US administration's war on terrorism on US campuses than those who
oppose the war. Furthermore, most attacks on free speech on campus and on
academic freedom in the US in the last 10 years have come from the hard
academic left, not the right:
http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i09/09b02401.htm
http://www.thefire.org/issues/terror.php3
I hope this is the end of this discussion on the EBH list, but I suspect it
won't be.
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