DHS and US Campuses

It might be a good thing that I'm not on a campus right now. But it does mean that there's lots I don't know about them these days, because I'm not reading every issue of The Chronicle, I'm writing and living. The good thing about that is: I don't have a job to lose over this. But, um, yo goddammit, this is not cool. Michael Gould-Wartofsky's "Repress U" about the police state being established at college campuses in order to root out terrorism in the homeland.....

Read it if you're not already hip. It's amazing. Not surprising, but amazing.

Well, here's the thing. Were I a terrorist, rather than merely a smart person who disagrees some of my federal government's policies and actions, I would not be organizing protests, or teaching poetry, or going to school here to try to convince the comfy kids at the Name Schools to help me destroy America.

If I were a terrorist, I would be blowing up or fanning anthrax over those very universities. I would be killing the next generation of imperialists as fast as I could. Because dudes, it is not hard to drive right up to a student union, or tool around campus in a maintenance truck. Not for these guys.

Teaching Irigaray and Emerson and talking about the Frankfurt School will not destroy America.

Please, dear DHS, chill out. Go get the bad guys. The profs and poets and the students are not the bad guys.

But, if you'd like to take that budget for TALON and whatnot, and invest it in higher education, be my guest.

And, this is not about the bad guys.