Qualifications?

Submitted by Nick A. (United States), Jul 29, 2003 at 15:49

I see, Chomsky et al. are in no position to persuade us on US foreign policy because their expertise isn't exactly on point. So naturally, we should listen to President Bush, whose experience involves...owning a baseball team? being a part-time governmor? owning a string of failed oil companies?

One reason academics speak loudly (though by no means uniformly) against government policy is the long, long history of academic support for govenment policy, especially US foreign policy. The University of California has run our nation's nuclear weapons labs for over half a century; many academics have gotten research grants thru the US government, even from intelligence agencies.

The Right likes to exagerate the level of leftism in the Academy. The vast majority of Political Scientists, Sociologists, Historians and (especially) Economists are in this country's political center. But it's much easier to pick out the few who go against the flow than the many who go with it.

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