Saturday, February 21, 2009

The Foot Connects

Need proof that academics can be as craven as industrialists? Check out this link posted at Foot's:

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn02202009.html

1 comment:

Beijing York said...

That was a good read.

The industrialists/corporations have increased their control over university campuses over the past fifty years. Even in the early 80s, I remember chatting with the Dean of Science at a certain university where I was studying and working part-time for their PR department, and he was commenting how they were trying to make a silk purse out of the questionable funding they were receiving from the Department of Defense. Most of the funding universities are receiving are tied to interests beyond the public good.

But what is worse in recent years is that any critical or independent thought is also being discouraged. The climate for pushing the envelope on radical and innovative thought has been snuffed lately. In fact the role played by university research and thought advancing public policy has been seriously diminished. Instead partisan "think tanks" have taken their place.