Demagoguery: the dark side (some DtB apologetics)

From Dissent 63

March, 2002?

[originally entitled THE DARK SIDE OF DEMAGOGIC MOONS
by Chunk Wheeler, aka Roy Bauer]

Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.

—Mark Twain

     I once read that, back in the 20s, Huey “the Kingfish” Long, that notorious demagogue, accused a political opponent of “living in open celibacy with his sister.” The clueless Louisiana voters were horrified. The Kingfish won the election.
     Think of what it takes to do something like that. Wow.
     Well, at the SOCCCD, we seem to have a veritable Kingfishery.

Graphic demagoguery:

     In the early days of the ‘Vine, I often fashioned caricatures by pasting headshots onto the bodies of cartoon figures, other people, and (rarely) onto beasts. My first such effort, back in ’97, involved the placement of Mr. Frogue’s head on the body of a Neanderthal (get it?). Later, I placed Teddi Lorch’s head upon the body of a pterodactyl, thereby producing the now-beloved Teddidactyl figure, available in fine stores everywhere.
     Now, it never occurred to me to exclude the then-IVC president or the then-union president from the “caricature” treatment. Why should those two be excluded? They were at least as evil as Frogue or Lorch. Probably more so.
     When the Mathur and Miller-White caricatures appeared, so did the demagoguery. For instance, on Pacifica Radio’s Lawyers’ Guild program, the Old Guard’s Ken Woodward, in full gaping sneerage, declared:

     I have right in front of me a publication that Mr. Bauer is responsible for called the ‘Vine, which is one of the most vitriolic, hateful publications, you know, [it’s] racist; [it] shows the African-American, uh, president of our union, you know, the, uh, president of his college—that’s a person of color—with their heads decapitated and put on animal bodies. It’s just absolutely outrageous [therefore] that he makes these charges of racism [against Trustee Frogue]! (2/19/98)

     For the record, none of my newsletters had ever depicted any sort of decapitation, though, in response to Woody’s absurd accusation, I later published a lovely depiction of a Frogueian beheading.
     Further, as a lover of animals, I have never attached Sherry’s head onto any beast.
     I did, however, place her head on the body of a woman dancing with a joker. (See.) For some reason, Mr. M’Goo and his gang of visually impaired buffoons have always insisted that this graphic depicts Sherry “dancing with the devil” or dancing with animals. Nope, but I do wish I’d have thought of that. (Pace animals.)
     In the early days of the ‘Vine (and Dissent), Raghu’s head appeared on all sorts of bodies. Recently, I examined the old issues and discovered that I had placed the Mathurian Noggin on the following bodies: Julius Caesar, Henry VIII, Eraserhead, the Grinch, teen wolf, Beaver Cleaver, Pinocchio, an action figure doll, Austin Powers, Abe Lincoln, Alfred E. Newman, Tweedledum, Henry Fonda, Ferdinand Marcos, Uma Thurman, Napoleon, Tweedledee—and, my personal favorite, Fat Elvis.
     True, I once placed his head on some sort of primate, as part of my ape/Neanderthal series, which started with Frogue.
     Did I mention that I once lived in open celibacy with my sister?

No animals,  no decapitation

The Dark Side:
     When I hear the phrase, “the Dark Side,” I do not think of race. Nope. I think of evil.
     A perusal of internet sites reveals that I am not alone in this: a search on YAHOO for “the dark side” yielded 60 hits; a similar search at the LA Times web page yielded 152 hits. None of these instances concerned race or skin-color; all of them seemed to refer to evil, though often ironically.
     One fairly typical use of “the Dark Side” (TDS) occurred in an April 19 review of the movie Murder By Numbers. According to the reviewer, the movie’s director has an “affinity for the dark side”—that is, he is attracted to the theme of evil, having once provided employment for Mickey Rourke.
     A search at the OC Weekly website yielded 29 hits, including the subtitle of a 1999 article, by Scott Moxley, that said that the LA Times has crossed “over to the dark side”—that is, it has ceased reporting local corruption and, instead, has joined the forces of evil, namely, developers.
     The most recent appearance of the phrase “the dark side” in the Weekly appeared on April 19. In a letter to the editor, a man named Stephen Smith, of Irvine, wrote that

[El Toro Airport foe] Larry Agran has gone over to the Dark Side by accepting tens of thousands of dollars in Newport Beach pro-airport developer money….

     Do you suppose that Smith, Moxley, and that Times reviewer are talkin’ about dark-skinned people?
Like me, when they talk about “the dark side,” they’re talkin’ evil, not race.

J’accuse:

     A few years ago, I began on occasion to refer to “the dark side” (TDS) in my newsletters. Like Moxley and Smith, I used the phrase to refer to a semi-organized group of evil bastards. More specifically, I used it to refer to the union Old Guard/Board Majority/Mathur AXIS. Accordingly, I sometimes called individual members of that AXIS—e.g., Ken Woodward, Lee Walker, et al.—“dark siders.”
     To my surprise, however, soon, various members of that odious confederacy started citing the usage as evidence that I am a racist. (See, for instance, John Williams’ remarks in his piece in the OC Register, 11/14/99.)
     “How’s that?” thought I.

Reasoning:
     I could think of two possible arguments for the “Bauer as racist” thesis—both unsound. The first goes something like this:

1. Roy uses the phrase “the Dark Side” to refer to the union Old Guard/Board Majority/Mathur AXIS.
2. Two members of the AXIS (viz., Miller-White and Mathur) happen to be people of color.
3. Thus, Roy uses the phrase “the Dark Side” specifically to refer to people of color. (Thus, Roy is a racist.)

     The problem here, of course, is that the conclusion does not follow from the premises. That I use the phrase TDS to refer to a group does not imply that I use the same phrase to refer specifically to a subset of that group. Duh.
     But the Dark Siders might have another argument in mind. Perhaps they think that it is quite evident that I use the phrase “the Dark Side” specifically to refer to people of color. The argument starts there:

1. Roy uses the phrase “the Dark Side” to refer specifically to people of color (namely, to Miller-White and Mathur and to no one else).
2. Anyone who uses the phrase “the Dark Side” to refer specifically to people of color is a racist.
3. Thus, Roy is a racist.

     The problem with this reasoning is the falsity of the first premise. I do not now, nor have I ever, used the phrase “the Dark Side” to refer specifically to people of color. And everyone knows it.

The crucial IF:
     Nevertheless, let’s pursue this matter. Now, as we all know, context can determine meaning. Though the term TDS does not refer to race per se, IF I had consistently used TDS to refer only to people of color, then one could justly suspect that I had something racial in mind by speaking of TDS.
     But, again, I (and other ‘Vine/Dissent contributors) always use the phrase to refer to the entire Old Guard/Board Majority/Mathur Axis. Just look at the newsletters themselves. I shall spare you the tedium of demonstrating this thesis. (But, please, look.)
     But wait! What about the early days of Rebel newsletterage? How did Dissenters use the phrase back then?
     I have examined many old issues of ‘Vine and Dissent—you are welcome to do the same—and the same was true then.
     Let’s consider a concrete instance. The earliest use of “the dark side” that I could find—I’m still lookin’—was in ‘Vine 12, November 30, 1998, in an article entitled “Truth, Lies, and Masking Tape,” which concerned the Brown Act lawsuits.
     Now, the Axis powers—a.k.a. the Dark Siders—love their ad hominems, which is to say, they are the sort who will try to defeat a point by trashin’ the guy makin’ it. Often, this ploy—popular even outside the state of Louisiana—takes the form of describing a person’s motives, as though that casts any light on the cogency of his views.
     By 1998, Mathur and his cronies had sought to discredit my rebellious clamor, not by identifying failings in my reasoning (never that), but by attempting to characterize my motives—by suggesting, specifically, that I was “disgruntled” over loss of my gig as School Chair.
     In response, in November of ’98, I wrote the following, in which I made use of the phrase “the dark side”:

     I started my involvement in the Brown Act lawsuits in mid-May of ‘97—i.e., before I became School Chair and before the July 16 reorganization that eliminated the chair model. Hence, logic fans, contrary to the denizens of the Dark Side, my involvement in the [law]suits cannot be explained in terms of my supposed anger at having lost the chairship and/or its reassigned time. (11/30/98)

     To whom was I referring when I wrote of “denizens of the Dark Side”?

Econo demagogue:
     By far, most prominent among the logically-challenged “denizens” who, at the time, had “charged” that I was “just disgruntled” was a certain Caucasian instructor, the Old Guard’s Ken “Econo Boy” Woodward, one of the chief architects of the current contract. As I reported at the time (‘Vine, 2/22/98), Woodward had publicly asserted that

Roy Bauer has never belonged to the union until, you know, suddenly, he became interested when he lost, you know, some of his administrative duties…But, you know, it’s a very small group of people who are disgruntled about having, you know, to teach again.

     He said this, you know, during the aforementioned Lawyers’ Guild program, you know, about eight months after the Reorganization, you know.
     How accurate (if that is the word) was Ken’s ad hominem? That is, did he at least correctly identify what motivated me to dissent so?
     Nope. I lost my “administrative duties” in July of 1997, when, to everyone’s surprise, the Board reorganized the district. But, as Ken well knows, I joined the union—and, more importantly, I attended many of its meetings—long before then. Ken knew that, for he too attended those meetings, sneering and bleating most indecorously, as I have occasionally reported.
     Further, as numerous newspaper articles and letters to the editor attest, I was a card-carrying member of the Rebel Alliance by the mid-90s, long before the 1997 Reorg. (See my quote in the Times, 11/25/96, and my piece in the IVC Voice, 5/11/95. See also the 1996 letter, signed by “concerned faculty,” to CCA/CTA.)
     And, finally, I helped initiate the Brown Act process (May 1997) months before I was canned from the Chair job.
     Q.E.D.

*  *  * 

     Very recently, Woody has resurfaced, this time as a spam-happy candidate for the Faculty Association president-elect. Please note that, at the time of the Lawyers’ Guild program, Ken was a negotiator for the union, then controlled by the Old Guard. When Jan Horn and I noted (on the Guild program) that, during negotiations, the union had sought to eliminate reassigned time for everyone except union officials, Ken responded by bleating: “What they said about reassigned time being eliminated is completely false!”
     In reality, dear reader, what we said about reassigned time being eliminated was completely true.
Think of what it takes to fib like that. Wow.
     It gets worse. Though, as union apologist, Ken repeatedly demonized teachers who held “administrative duties” and who, he said, were “disgruntled” about “having…to teach,” he later arranged to have himself appointed dean.

A Force is a Force, of course, of course:
     As noted earlier, when I first used the phrase TDS, I had in mind a semi-organized group of evil bastards, like OC developers. But I also intended an allusion to the Evil “Galactic” Empire of the Star Wars saga. In fact, that saga reads like an allegory of the SOCCCD. Check it out:
     Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a regime called the Old Republic went belly up:

From the bloated carcass of the Old Republic, an ambitious politician carved the Galactic Empire…Rather than offer the people of the galaxy newfound hope, the Empire instead became a TYRANNICAL REGIME, presided over by a shadowy and detached despot steeped in the DARK SIDE of the Force. PERSONAL LIBERTIES WERE CRUSHED, and the governance of everyday affairs was pulled away from the SENATE, and instead given to UNSCRUPULOUS regional governors. (From the official Star Wars website; caps added.)

     The Empire’s oppressiveness inspired rebellion; chief among the rebels were the “Jedi warriors,” people who, owing to a familiarity with The Force—evidently, a kind of cosmic oomph—were vulnerable to its “dark side.”
     Darth Vader, scourge of the Jedi, “abandoned the precepts of knowledge and defense and instead [sought] abandon and strength through the Force’s hateful energies,” i.e., its “dark side.”
     …But enough about that.

Epistles to the Times:
     Well, the district’s demagogic satellites are spinning again. In response to the Times’ coverage of the recent court victory against the district by students, the Old Guard’s Ray Chandos—evidently, chair “for life” of IVC Accreditation—wrote the editors to say:

     Your article about the South Orange County Community College District Speech and Advocacy Policy neglected certain basic facts … The policy was written in part to respond to some faculty-sponsored activities that were disruptive or life-threatening. One event called for students to smash a car with a sledgehammer as a “blow” against the administration. Students were hospitalized as a result…. (Times; 3/31/02)

Ray Chandos

     Chandos, like Woodward, can always be counted on to whitewash the Empire’s dirty linen and to invent lurid rebel atrocities. The car-smashing event (apparently, car-smashings are commonplace on campuses) was not, as he suggests, a political demonstration; rather, it was a non-political fund-raiser for the Honors Society. Faculty-sponsored? The event was concocted, as a fund-raiser, not by faculty, but by the Honor Society, and it was duly approved, as such, by the administration.
     True, at one point, a peripatetic wag named Jeff spontaneously sprayed “El Presidente” on the side of the car, causing Armando Beyondo to soil his trousers, but that hardly justifies Chandos’ description of the event as an anti-administration demonstration! Further, though, at some point, a student was mildly injured by flying glass (she was not, as far as I know, “hospitalized”), nothing about this event was remotely “life-threatening.”
     Think of what it takes to do fib like that. Wow.
     Ray went on to write:

Some faculty newsletters attack ethnic background, integrity, families, religion and the gender orientation of district employees….

     Do you suppose Ray is referring to ‘Vine/Dissent? D’ya think?

Integrity-attackage:
     It is true, of course, that I have impugned the integrity of some persons, including Mathur. Is that objectionable per se? When they are not busy castigating me, some Dark Siders condemn my castigations, implying that castigations are intrinsically illogical or unseemly. At such times, they seem to reason as follows:

1. Roy is “attacking” (e.g.) President Mathur.
2. Thus, Roy is being illogical and unjust.

     This, dear reader, is patent nonsense.
     Castigating a person can, of course, be illogical, as when one supposes (falsely) that facts about the person (e.g., his lack of integrity or his motives) have relevance to the cogency of his views. I have not supposed that. I have castigated Mathur, not in order to cast doubt upon his views, but, rather, in order to reveal that he is an inveterate liar and schemer—the sort of person who ought not to hold a position of authority.
     Castigating someone can be illogical—and rude and unjust—when the criticisms leveled against him are leveled unfairly, as when, for instance, he is accused of racism owing to his innocent pop cultural allusions.
     So now we come to the heart of the matter. Is it unfair to suggest that Mathur lacks integrity, that he is a liar and a schemer?

A Paradigm of Duplicity

Or: THE GOOFISH

     On July 7, 1997, nine days before the infamous Reorg, in a memo, Mr. Goo assured IVC faculty that no reorganization (from the chair model to a dean model) would be considered until after faculty returned in the fall. He wrote:

…[I]nstructional Council cautioned that more input is needed from the Academic Senate, which does not meet over the summer, and from faculty who may be gone over the summer months. Based on their recommendation, this matter [viz., adopting a “Dean model”] will not be considered at this time and it will be set aside until a permanent president is in place this fall.

     In fact, however, as several sworn legal declarations later established, nearly two months prior to the memo, Mathur had ordered the Vice President of Instruction to prepare a plan to reorganize the college from chairs to deans.
     According to then-VP Bob Loeffler:

In May of 1997, during an executive meeting of the three Vice Presidents and interim President Mathur, Mathur directed Vice President Burgess to develop a plan for the reorganization of the administrative structure of the college. Mathur stated that he wanted Vice President Burgess to develop a plan to institute a “Dean Model” for the college. (Legal declaration, signed, 9/8/98)

     Stunning, isn’t it?

     There’s more. On July 16, during a closed session, over howls of protest from the Board Minority, the Board Majority adopted Mathur’s plan. (That it was Mathur’s plan is also sworn to in legal declarations.) Accompanied now by the Chancellor and the two presidents, the Board Majority emerged from the session and announced the reorganization. When they started to leave, faculty clamored for an explanation, especially from Mathur, who, again, just nine days earlier, had assured the faculty that no reorganization would be “considered” without their input.
     Chancellor Lombardi and Saddleback’s Doffoney, neither of whom had a hand in the plan, stayed to take the heat; in the meantime, Mathur, the plan’s de facto architect, wedged his nose deep inside a passing trustee’s butt and deftly tracked said butt out the door.
     Kingfish? Behold the Goofish.

*  *  *

Religion-attackage, etc.: 
     I have no idea what Ray means by saying that the newsletters have attacked “families.” Maybe I said somethin’ negative about the Manson Family. Who knows.
What about religion? ‘Vine/Dissent has on occasion criticized Pat Robertson’s odious, right-wing political organization—the Christian Coalition—the local coven of which has been a minor player in district politics. (They defended Frogue.)
     And gender orientation? For what it’s worth, I was the faculty advisor of IVC’s short-lived Gay and Lesbian Associated Students, and, as far as I know, all ‘Vine/Dissent contributors are supporters of gay and lesbian rights.
     We have, of course, occasionally referred to the district PIO as Pam “Same-Sex” Zanelli, but that, dear reader, is a reference, not to her sexual orientation (who knows? who cares?), but to her role in Sherry’s decision to use the aforementioned homophobic flier—a document upon which was emblazoned, in large red letters, the phrase “Same-sex ‘marriage.’”

Put up or shut up:
     At a recent Academic Senate meeting in which Ray was in attendance, I stood up to read his Times letter; I remarked on the Rayster’s stunning disregard of the truth. I then turned to Ray and said that, if he is going to accuse people of racism, homophobia, and the like, at the very least, he is obliged to cite concrete instances. I sat down.
     More than three weeks have passed, and I have not heard a peep from the fellow.

     Ray’s letter to the Times was accompanied by a similar epistle by one Anthony Kuo, president of the IVC Associated Students, who, despite his role as student advocate, wrote to “commend Raghu Mathur for four years of superb service to the college as president.” According to Kuo, IVC has been beset, not by a tyrannical rights-violating college president, but by “rebel faculty…and a small number of students” who “have tried to make our campus a war zone by using hate literature….”
     About two weeks ago, I wrote Mr. Kuo. Referring to his accusations regarding the use by “rebel faculty” of “hate literature,” I said:

I hereby request that you show me exactly what it is that I have written or published that constitutes “hate literature.” If I…or some unnamed person or persons…[are] to be publicly charged with “using hate literature” by you, surely you are obliged to provide evidence…I await your response.

     There’s been no response.
     Student government officers tell me that, despite the care I took to fashion my letter as a “request,” Kuo is describing it as a threat.
     I’m told that Mr. Kuo has made the best of the situation, for he has distributed copies of my letter to members of the Board Majority.
     No doubt, soon, I will be visited by stormtroopers, determined to avenge the “violence” done to their hero, Darth Kuo.
     May the Force be with you!

—Chunk Wheeler