Snow prefers Iranians to U.S. college professors

Yes…this is always the repressionist fear ridden way (whether it be a Republican repressionist or an Iranian repressionist) …. down with dangerous academic institutions of free thought and ideas! Spy on John Q…he is dangerous if he starts to think. Up with government enforced lock stepping. Use the Shock Doctrine to keep them as fearful followers…hmmm …. torture a few so that the rest will get in line?

From Wikipedia, concerning the site of Snow’s speech:

According to the University’s Mission Statement, “Oklahoma Christian University is a higher learning community which transforms lives for Christian faith, leadership, and service.” President Mike O’Neal (2002-present) has attempted to make the campus more progressive in its language, its diversity policies, and evangelistic outreach, while retaining the school’s commitment to traditional Biblical principles as generally expressed throughout the Churches of Christ. These efforts can be seen in policy changes, and the appointment of an ethics ombudsman. Full-time, tenure-tracked faculty are still required to be members of a Church of Christ. However, adjunct professors are hired and are not required to be members of a Church of Christ. There is no requirement that students be members of a Church of Christ, but all students are expected to abide by the “OC Covenant” which emphasizes that the “values and behavior of this Christian community are derived from the Bible.”

So perhaps good old Snowjob was just pandering to his audience. But that doesn’t make his comments any less stupid.

Old adage:

If you can’t say anything good about someone… don’t say anything at all.

Now you know why when Snow announced his cancer had returned I didn’t say anything at all.

I’ve sure heard a lot of my liberal, NJ college and law school professors say the word “God” many times before, and not in the phrase “God damned,” either.

Comments like Snow’s tell you more about what people (his core audience) in more “red” parts of the country are ignorant about the rest of our country, or are willing to believe, than it does about- you know- reality.

Maybe there are some staunch liberals out there in the (so-called) “red” states insisting on never using the word “God” or saying “Merry Christman” and stuff like that, but I’d be vey surprised if they amounted to more than a very few people, and I certainly have never known a single person like that here in NJ or in near-by New York City in my entire life.

Of course, Snow knows this from his time spent living in Iran. The alternative would mean that his “knowledge” of what the average Iranian thinks and feels came from Intelligence Briefings. And the intelligence services are unreliable, because they are only correct on the occasions that their judgment supports what he president wants to do.

“The average Iranian is more Pro-American than virtually any college faculty in this country.”

Well he is working on one big assumption, to be ‘Pro-American’ you must agree with him and/or GWB.

Let’s face it, using his definition, he is right. I wonder if he and the whole crowd that buys into this have ever stepped back and thought, geez, what if everyone was our definition of ‘Pro-American’. We would be Iran, no doubt in my mind. Idiots.

Mark wrote:

Of course, Snow knows this from his time spent living in Iran. The alternative would mean that his “knowledge” of what the average Iranian thinks and feels came from Intelligence Briefings. And the intelligence services are unreliable, because they are only correct on the occasions that their judgment supports what he president wants to do.

Well– as I think the rest of us make the point– you also have to assume that Snow’s words reflect what he’s actually told in those briefings, and that he doesn’t feel he has a reason to try to portray Iranians as wildly pro-American (or American college professors as anti-American, either).

Part of this is to help justify a military confrontation — we can launch attacks without fear of inflaming the Iranian population because, at heart, they all really like us. (Indeed, we’d be “greeted as liberators.”)

Yup. Because everyone with an unpopular leader in power is dying for a foreign occupier to come “liberate” them from that leader. And, you know, stick around, put up a puppet government, take your natural resources. People love that – why, I’m sure there were wingnuts in the ’90s who were just dying for someone suitably conservative to swoop in from another country, overthrow the Clinton “regime” and stick a puppet in the Oval Office because they disagreed with Clinton so much. Maybe they hoped that Spain or Italy would come and save them from the “great oppressor” or something.

This “Iranians love us and will greet us as liberators” canard shows up a LOT among my wingnut relatives. And it’s successful because there’s a grain of truth to it – the Iranian people actually do have a segmented relationship with America. They really do, as a whole, actually tend to like Americans as people – especially the educated and urban Iranians. The counterpoint to this is that they hate the American government as much as anyone else in the Middle East does. Because they separate what the American government does from what the American people do. So, no, if we invaded Iran we wouldn’t be greeted as “liberators” – we’d be greeted as occupiers. And it doesn’t matter how much respect the Iranian people may or may not have for the American people one iota. I wish this zombie meme would die – I think I’ve been hearing it since the Reagan days.

As a college professor at a public university, I resent Mr. Snow’s thoughtless and uninformed statement. I am strongly committed to providing objective information and stimulating balanced discussion in all my courses.

At our December graduation ceremony two days ago, several thousand students, parents, and faculty gave a distinguished alumnus a standing ovation for his service to our country as a Captain pilot in the air force, transporting wounded American soldiers.