[Marxism] A Bard professor chimes in

[Louis Proyect]

This was posted as a comment to my blog article on Reverend Bruce 
Chilton, the Bard College chaplain who defended the attack on Gaza on 
WABC talk radio. The author is a music professor who ran as a Green 
Party candidate in Connecticut some years ago.

John Halle:

As a denizen of the groves of academe, I am a believer in the necessity 
for civil discourse and in Voltaire's maxim to "defend to the death" the 
rights of those whose views one finds truly repulsive.

This includes those who, like Dr. Chilton, justify the massacre of 
innocent women and children and the perpetuation of  war crimes.

What I am uncomfortable with is finding the chaplain of the college 
where I work adopting an extreme position on the matter under 
consideration. Dr. Chilton's apologetics for the IDF flies in the face 
of a 14 to 0 vote by the U.N. security council, and indeed the position 
of Secretary of State Rice who joined in support of the resolution 
calling for an immediate cease fire.

The role of the chaplain is, after all, to provide moral instruction and 
ethical guidance to the community and also to represent these values to 
outside world.

It should be apparent that Dr. Chilton's views do not in any way 
represent my views, nor, as I think will become increasingly clear to 
him, those of a significant fraction of the Bard community.

This does not, I stress, imply that he should be denied a forum for his 
advocacy of state terrorism as a member of the faculty or that any 
retaliation against him can be countenanced.

What Dr. Chilton should be aware of is that his defense of 
indiscriminate violence consigns him to he margins of civilized 
discourse.  And given this fact, he has no grounds on which to speak for 
the moral consensus of the Bard community in his capacity of chaplain.

He should, therefore, resign his position as chaplain immediately.