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Resurgence
More than five decades ago, Nmesis began a career in journalism and publishing as a Fleet Street contemporary of George Orwell. [01] Orwell had reached the pinnacle of his journalistic career and Nmesis had just started his. They never met. Unfortunately, Orwell died in 1950 at the age of forty-seven. No literary figure has since had such a visible and cleansing influence and astuteness of mind.
However, Orwell for all his wisdom, could not foresee the technological advances that now exist fifty years after his death. Neither could he prophesy the despotic behavior of those who now try to control the media. Today, the threat to intellectual freedom comes from university administrators who act as apologists for totalitarianism. The threat to personal freedom comes from state officials and attorneys general who show a complete disregard for law by supporting and defending these apologists.
These officials have negatively influenced the survival of freedom of expression. They have arbitrarily denied constitutional rights by insisting upon absolutist dogmas enforced through political correctness. Then, in actions characterized by dishonesty and incompetence, they have set up kangaroo courts that violate established legal procedures and deny due process of law. [03] Absolute power has allowed them to hold a total political and technological grip upon freedom of expression. They have tried to control the flow of information absolutely. Moreover, both public ignorance and academic apathy perpetuate their totalitarian practices.
Political correctness and political silence during the ten years covered by Contra Cabal investigations have contributed to a bizarre escalation of malfeasance and collusion between officials at Rensselaer (a private institution), the University of Washington (a public institution), the State of Washington, and the US Department of Education. The data compiled during the investigations, when added to information from other sources, show a pattern and practice that provide the basis for Contra Cabal essays.
Publishing the essays will not remedy the evils described in them. However, the exposure of the abuse rife within these institutions will give readers an opportunity to redress them. The journalistic goal for publishing this series of essays remains one of promoting public awareness not one of change. Journalists do not act as law enforcement officers. They have no responsibility either to make a judgment on the legal rights of individuals or to inform them of their rights. If individuals act contrary to law then they have no recourse when they see their names published. Moreover, identifying both sources and the names of miscreants remains a prerequisite for good journalism.
Increasingly journalists have a responsibility to report the details and to name the people that they allege have committed crimes. Withholding the names of people who have committed illegal acts for politically correct reasons subverts journalistic ethics and defines as self-censorship. The naming of miscreants previously ranked as an ethical concern, however, it has now become a legal one. State courts have ruled that journalists who witness illegal activity have no right, under First Amendment or state shield laws, not to identify the people involved. [04]
One may describe academic totalitarianism as a systematic effort to control every aspect of social and technological life. Its adherents accept the profound obligations and collective discipline imposed by their leader. They shape their lives under the watchful eyes of unaccountable tenured provosts and deans and eventually foreswear all private thoughts or feelings by maintaining "political silence." Any enthusiasm stems from exultance about the cult leader's tenets. The term "academic totalitarianism" describes the absolute reversal of radical politics and the disbandment of democratic movements. It favors a disciplined, exclusive, elite or cult that has a total disregard for law which law enforcement officials condone. Academic cultism, a religion without a theology, effects a totalitarian control over every aspect of academic life. Its adherents accept the profound obligations and collective discipline imposed by their leader
For several decades, a lethargic and apathetic professorate has allowed technocrats and administrators to establish then sanctify their own ideologies. For political expediency they have turned the idea of academic freedom into a farce. They have surrendered their power for material and political gain like their docile counterparts in German universities during the 1920s and 1930s. Moreover, they eschew any call for morals or ethics in favor of political correctness. [05] Political correctness does not allow freedom of expression because it controls disputation. It allows those in authority, both administrative and professorial, to exercise an unrighteous domain. Its adherents absorb propaganda calculated to enrich the speaker or to cover up personal insecurity. This causes an academic cloning process that perpetuates mediocre standards.
Cloning presents the real threat to academic freedom because it thrives upon the non-selection and non-promotion of those with nonconformist views. This process results in the standard of quality and excellence emanating from those making judgment. Consequently, it supports a cultic instinct toward conformity. This conformity eliminates an inconvenient nonconformity (also honest dissent) then cult or cabal members remain safe from free academic expression or criticism. [06] The cloning process guarantees the preservation of, and extends the range of, mediocrity into the graduate student population. Many students admitted to universities under affirmative action quotas have submitted to cloning processes to compensate for their lack of merit and ability. They have graduated through a process of record falsification and grade inflation to become the next generation of faculty members. Their lack of education and ability does not allow them to obtain jobs in the public sector so they remain forever indebted to the cabal.
The individuals mentioned in the essays have consistently abrogated established judicial procedures designed to safeguard the legal rights of the individual. Their despotic behavior, and failure to conform with promulgated regulations, has transformed minor issues into matters of vast proportions. They regularly conspire to act illegally and subversively. They have denied due process and issues have now reached an irrevocable state. During this investigation, more of them have committed crimes in attempts to cover up their original acts and those of their colleagues.
The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States protects the liberty to speak and to write without fear of restraint. This freedom of expression closely links with freedom of the press. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that state laws grant equal protection to all persons. However, the extrajudicial censorship that exists in academic institutions in the United States parallels that which exists in underdeveloped countries. A covert, extrajudicial act of censorship exists for every act that uses law as an excuse. [07] The end of ethical academic standards has resulted in an apolitical, totalitarian ideology within which intellectually violent forces compete. This causes academic civil war between those who have the power of tenure and those who have no power. This cultic phenomenon has its historic roots in the absolutism of Europe during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries.
Unfortunately, the attorney general supports the status quo in the State of Washington. Fortunately, judges in several recent law suits have held individual faculty members equally responsible with institutions for various forms of malfeasance. Subsequently, they awarded substantial damages against those individuals who discriminated against, and denied due process to, other faculty members and students. This could result in some change because the individuals concerned could not use free attorney services provided by the attorney general. Instead, they had to shell out retainers to personal attorneys: a sobering experience for those who have received legal services and protection at the taxpayers' expense for decades.
Fortunately, technocrats can neither gain absolute control of the content of the electronic media nor empower themselves as absolute censors. The global nature of the Internet and the world wide web preclude individual control. Therefore, in its resurgence on the web, Contra Cabal does not face the same censorship and prior restraint previously enforced by both Rensselaer and the University of Washington.
Contra Cabal, first appeared in 1992 and has published a series of expository essays that create public awareness. To prevent publication of these exposés, university officials have made frivolous claims of rules infraction to deny computer access. They have also expropriated journalistic and academic databases to censor content and prevent publication. They have abrogated journalistic rights guaranteed by the constitution and consistently tried to suppress information. Moreover, they have practiced prior restraint without due process and destroyed legally compiled mailing lists. However, Nmesis has restored the academic and journalistic databases expropriated by the University of Washington and the essays will reappear at this web site. In addition, new essays will appear that will keep readers up-to-date.
Since 1995, Richard L. McCormick, UW President, and his administrators have continued to violate procedures. They have taken action designed to suppress Contra Cabal contrary to state and federal law. Apart from destroying computer databases and denying computer access they continue to deny rightful access and conceal public records. These open records reside in the university archives and departments. Moreover, the Public Disclosure Act, State of Washington, guarantees access to them. Attorney General Christine O. Gregoire continues to support McCormick's censorship and his extensive cover-up of criminal activity by administrators. Nmesis has reported attempts to cover up crime, censorship, malfeasance, abrogation of civil rights, forgery, and fraud, to Governor Gary Locke and to each regent on the nine-member UW Board of Regents. [08] They all continue to turn a blind eye to McCormick's unlawful activities. Gregoire has taken no action despite repeated requests for her to mount an independent investigation into the myriad unlawful activities at the university.
Consistently, McCormick has condoned criminal acts by using stonewalling tactics and misusing the attorney general's services. He continues to cover up an extensive pattern of criminal activity spanning at least ten years that includes the almost five years that he has held the presidency. Moreover, the results of the investigation have raised serious questions about his own appointment as president and his joint appointment with his wife, Suzanne D. Lebsock, as tenured history professors. Lebsock's academic fraud (described in the essays) relates significantly to this joint appointment.
McCormick has bloated the salaries of his cohorts during his term as president, for example, the salary increases he has approved for Ronald A. Johnson, Vice Provost, Computing and Communications. Johnson's salary has rocketed from $125,004.00 to $231,000.00, an 84.79% increase. In contrast, the salary of a full professor increased from $60,156.00 to $74,187.00 (annualized $80,208.00 to $98,916.00), a 23.32% increase during the same period. A professor has the additional disadvantage of finding grants or alternative employment during the summer in order to realize the annualized income. Johnson, with his inflated taxpayer funded salary and Microsoft connections, does not have to worry about the legislature or violating the law because he can buy his way out of trouble.
Contra Cabal essays result from verified and validated documentation available to independent law enforcement officials. Not surprisingly, Gregoire has not requested access. Instead, her staff and university lawyers have consistently worked to cover up crimes by violating laws themselves. The Washington State Auditor, Brian Sonntag, has also taken part in this due process charade.
Many readers, to their discomfort, will identify with the characters mentioned in the essays. Any resemblance to any person or persons, living or intellectually dead, remains purely intentional. Censorship and publication of these essays remain subject to the restrictions on freedom of the press imposed by the Press Licensing Order, London 1643. Three hundred and fifty years have passed since the repeal of that act. However, McCormick and Johnson have arbitrarily incorporated similar regulations into university rules for computer use without reference to the legislature.
Nmesis cannot remedy the academic evils that he describes. However, he will expose the abuses rife in the academe also state and federal governments then leave his readers to redress them. The goal for publishing this series of essays remains one of public awareness not change.
Nmesis.
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