scholarly politics was: Re: Bushspeak

[Lynne Murphy]

>Would that ALL scholarly groups handled things as Euralex did that day.  I'm
>thinking of MLA, for instance.
>
>Frank Abate

I am NOT saying that we should debate the candidates here, but I do
have to question the 'apolitical scholarly group' desire.  The
business of ADS is affected by government--we are often exhorted on
this list to lobby for support of the NEH.  We're also affected by
copyright and other intellectual property laws, funding for the
Library of Congress and Smithsonian, and issues of higher education
funding.   What's the difference between lobbying the existing
government, and encouraging the support of a candidate that would
reduce the need to lobby?  Now, I don't actually think that ADS has
the resources to fairly go through an endorsement procedure or
anything like that, but I do think that everything we do has
political constraints and political implications--and we shouldn't
blind ourselves to them.

(And I didn't even mention language-oriented legislation.)

Lynne, who voted yesterday  (early and often!)
--
M. Lynne Murphy
Lecturer in Linguistics
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 3AN    UK
phone:  +44(0)1273-678844
fax:    +44(0)1273-671320