Farming out atrocities to paramilitaries is standard operating procedure.

Individuals in a university - students, faculty, staff - can choose to become politically engaged, and a free university should foster a climate in which those are natural choices.

As elite attitudes towards public education over time illustrate, simple formulas are far from adequate. There are conflicting tendencies.

In the early 1940s, as a young teenager, I was utterly appalled by the racist and jingoist hysteria of the anti-Japanese propaganda. The Germans were evil, but treated with some respect: They were, after all, blond Aryan types, just like our imaginary self-image. Japanese were mere vermin, to be crushed like ants.

There’s no more morality in world affairs, fundamentally, than there was at the time of Genghis Khan.

It's not a matter of public relations and rhetorical style but of actions. It's the actions and policies under George W.Bush administration that have left the US government remarkably isolated, feared and often hated to an extent with no historical precedent.

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.