My latest in PJ Media:
Back during the Cold War, the Soviets would occasionally trot out American defectors who would denounce capitalism and imperialism and sing the praises of Marx and Lenin. In 1960, for example, NSA cryptologists William Martin and Bernon Mitchell held a press conference to explain their defection and proclaim: “Perhaps United States hostility towards Communism arises out of a feeling of insecurity engendered by Communist achievements in science, culture and industry.” Martin and Mitchell, however, were speaking from Moscow.
Today’s defectors, in contrast, are turncoats of the mind only, staying in place to rot the nation from within. And so Charles Taliaferro, a professor at St. Olaf College, a private liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota, didn’t have to travel halfway around the world to give aid and comfort to the enemy; he did it right from the comfort of home.
The aid and comfort was not what he said, which was a predictable denunciation of Trump and the trumped-up bogey of “Islamophobia,” but to whom he said it: Taliaferro was interviewed as a friendly and sympathetic authority by the Mehr News Agency, a Tehran-based propaganda organ for the Iranian regime that has been accused of providing a platform for Holocaust deniers.
Taliferro’s friendly relationship with such an entity is no surprise. Charles Taliaferro is a reliably far-Left member of the St. Olaf faculty: He “has been a member of St. Olaf’s Department of Philosophy since 1985. Like other professors around the world, and not just at St. Olaf, which promotes inclusion and confronts white supremacy and racial inequality, Taliaferro has argued for justice in terms of race, economics, gender not just in the class and seminar room, but in three books, a series of articles, newspaper interviews (mostly in Minneapolis and in Iran), and in lectures at Oxford University, Manchester University, and at Middlebury College where he advocated Black Lives Matter.”
What would be St. Olaf’s reaction if one of its professors had given an interview to a publication that is opposed to jihad violence and Sharia oppression of women, rather than to an organ of the regime that routinely chants “Death to America”? What would be the reaction at St. Olaf’s if a professor spoke as disparagingly of the Ayatollah Khamenei as Charles Taliaferro does of Trump here? That professor would be denounced, reprimanded, and possibly fired. But no one at St. Olaf College will have any problem with Charles Taliaferro’s flacking for the Islamic Republic.
There is more. Read the rest here.
mortimer says
Did Charles Taliaferro read and study the ‘Islamic Trilogy’ (the Koran, Bukhari and the Sira)? No? Did Charles Taliaferro read and study the canonical tafsir-commentaries on Islamic source texts? No? Did Charles Taliaferro read the manuals of Sunnite and Shi’ite Sharia law and note the differences? No? Did Charles Taliaferro read and study the modern jihadist authors and modern dawagandists and then read their critics? No?
Then what exactly would make Charles Taliaferro an ‘expert’ on Islam? Apparently, he is NOT an expert on Islam.
Phil Copson says
It isn’t a lack of understanding: The Left get a kick out of violence, so more he knows – the more he loves it.
Eleanor says
For god’s sake, Mr Taliaferro, you’ve got what you wanted, now it’s time to let it go! Or is it the truth that you are really running scared about where Mr Trump will pop up next, to challenge your ideologies, with 74 million behind him?
gravenimage says
Leftist American Prof Denounces Trump for State-Controlled Iranian News Agency
………………….
Just disgusting. Charles Taliaferro is a useful idiot.
Mojdeh says
Iran’s capital and major cities plunged into darkness in recent weeks as rolling outages left millions without electricity for hours. Traffic lights died. Offices went dark. Online classes stopped.
With toxic smog blanketing Tehran skies and the country buckling under the pandemic and other mounting crises, social media has been rife with speculation. Soon, fingers pointed at an unlikely culprit: Bitcoin.
Within days, as frustration spread among residents, the government launched a wide-ranging crackdown on Bitcoin processing centers, which require immense amounts of electricity to power their specialized computers and to keep them cool — a burden on Iran’s power grid.
Authorities shuttered 1,600 centers across the country, including, for the first time, those legally authorized to operate. As the latest in a series of conflicting government moves, the clampdown stirred confusion in the crypto industry — and suspicion that Bitcoin had become a useful scapegoat for the nation’s deeper-rooted problems.
Since former President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew in 2018 from Tehran’s nuclear accord with world powers and re-imposed sanctions on Iran, cryptocurrency has surged in popularity in the Islamic Republic.
For Iran, anonymous online transactions made in cryptocurrencies allow individuals and companies to bypass banking sanctions that have crippled the economy. Bitcoin offers an alternative to cash printed by sovereign governments and central banks — and in the case of Iran and other countries under sanctions like Venezuela, a more stable place to park money than the local currency.
OLD GUY says
Charles Taliaferro just another little man who wants his moment in the sun. He is a useful idiot to the far left being used at the moment and will end up on the same trash pile as the rest of us if they get their way.
Mojdeh says
Democracynow.org is leftist as well. Shame shame … Run by the Jewish Emmy Goodman ?
gravenimage says
That would be Amy Goodman–I’m not sure what her being Jewish has to do with it. She is a pretty standard far leftist.
Mojdeh says
gravenimage says
Jan 24, 2021 at 10:13 pm
That would be Amy Goodman–I’m not sure what her being Jewish has to do with it. She is a pretty standard far leftist.
‘No borders! No nations! Abolish deportations!’ Violent anti-ICE protests continue in Portland after Biden inauguration as Seattle police chief vows to get tough on left-wing vandals
Dozens of protesters gathered at an ICE facility in Portland, Oregon, on Saturday night
Video posted on social media showed the crowd chanting: ‘No borders! No nations! Abolish deportations!’
Officers with the Federal Protective Service declared an unlawful assembly at 10pm
Protesters who resisted orders to disperse were targeted with tear gas and flash bangs in the streets
The same ICE building was targeted by 200 Antifa protesters last Wednesday after Joe Biden’s inauguration
Meanwhile Seattle’s interim police chief Adrian Diaz announced a new policy for arresting and prosecuting people who vandalize during protests
Biden’s team have said they are monitoring the unrest but have not announced a plan to address it
gravenimage says
Yes–very troubling stuff.