Another Stone Wall
While Stonewall is Glorified, Another Wall's Anniversary Passes in Obscurity
Charles Johnson
Last Updated: 12/29/09 Section: Opinion
Those stories are no more familiar to Claremont students than is the Stonewall Inn, but you'll never hear about them at the Athenaeum. I don't know if any students at Claremont have family members who escaped from East Germany, but I know that some have families who waited in bread lines in Ukraine or endured the pink ration cards in India. Some students' families started over from scratch when the Vietnamese government took their property and forced them out onto boats. Millions of people around the world have suffered as a result of socialism and communism.??Yet the Athenaeum continues to bring speakers who apologize for some of the evils inflicted by communism. One was Bruce Cumings, author of North Korea: Another Country and DPRK apologist.
When he spoke here, he compared the treatment of blacks on the south side of Chicago to the gulags of North Korea. ??Unique among national colleges, CMC was founded to train men in political philosophy, public affairs, and economics. Founder George C. S. Benson wanted the school to impart an education that would imbue its students with a "deep sense of the values of American life." ??Tolerance for people who are different is one of those values. But you might think the school would also pay attention to the importance of freedom itself and particularly to great events such as the fall of the Berlin Wall. Unfortunately, the culture here celebrates only some kinds of freedom.
A version of this essay appeared on the website of the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.
When he spoke here, he compared the treatment of blacks on the south side of Chicago to the gulags of North Korea. ??Unique among national colleges, CMC was founded to train men in political philosophy, public affairs, and economics. Founder George C. S. Benson wanted the school to impart an education that would imbue its students with a "deep sense of the values of American life." ??Tolerance for people who are different is one of those values. But you might think the school would also pay attention to the importance of freedom itself and particularly to great events such as the fall of the Berlin Wall. Unfortunately, the culture here celebrates only some kinds of freedom.
A version of this essay appeared on the website of the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.
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