Note: This is a separate post for Sunday, Feb. 14. It is cross-posted on another blog to which I contribute, "Dead Horse."
David Price, writing for Counterpunchh, reveals a huge and horrifying new addition to our sorrowful list of crimes against freedom. In "How The CIA Welcomes Itself Back To American University Campuses: Silent Coup," he informs us that for the past five years, the CIA, under the names of the "Intelligence Community Centers for Academic Excellence," and its dark affiliate, the "Intelligence in Advance Research Project Activity" (the jerks should be prosecuted just for the horrors they inflict on the language) have been infiltrating college campuses.
After I read a snippet about this, I e-mailed Mr. Price asking for a list of the institutions that accepted this depravity. He promptly sent back his full article, which includes:
"In 2005, the first ICCAE centers were installed at ten campuses: California
State University San Bernardino, Clark Atlanta University, Florida International
University, Norfolk State University, Tennessee State University, Trinity
Washington University, University of Texas El Paso, University of Texas-Pan
American, University of Washington, and Wayne State University. Between 2008-
2010, a second wave of expansion brought ICCAE programs to another twelve cam
puses: puses: Carnegie Mellon, Clemson, North Carolina A&T State, University of North
Carolina-Wilmington, Florida A&M, Miles College, University of Maryland,
College Park, University of Nebraska, University of New Mexico, Pennsylvania
State University, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute."
Price deplores what seems to be the indifference of the academic community: "...the silence surrounding this quiet installation and spread of programs like ICCAE is extraordinary. In the last four years, ICCAE has gone further in bringing government intelligence organizations openly to American university campuses than any previous intelligence initiative since WW II. Yet, the program spreads with little public notice, media coverage, or coordinated resistance."
Oh, damn. As a long time (27 years) employee at Rider University (also an alum), I feel such a sense of heavy darkness at this revelation. We learned long ago not to trust our elected representatives around a glass corner, that the mass media are ass-kissing slaves of the pols, and that churches can be as much a force for evil as good. I thought--fool that I am--that a tiny corner of idealism was still alive in Academia. Okay, I was wrong, and maybe there just isn't any hope anywhere.
Unless...unless...a viable third party can be born. God knows the other two are slouching toward Bethlehem in tandem.