Crazy College Professor

I know this isn't news or anything, but my professors are liberal wack-jobs. I've had the problems with my history teacher that I spoke about, but the worst (best?) example of crazy professors misusing the pulpit happened in a different class today.

It was my poetry class, and the prof had already gotten me to be on my toes about my politics/religion (in my mind, those words mean 'thoughts' but I wanted to be more specific) in my poems, but whatever, I know people don't want me to be preaching to them...it doesn't mean I'm going to be any different in my introspective poetry writing...grrr.

But today, one of the other students wrote a 'poem.' I used the quotes because it was really just a list. It was a list of things that are supposedly happening because of the Patriot Act...and in my mind, moonbattery ensued. It was just a list, and everyone loved it. The prof loved it. Someone said it should be published in the Peaquod (the campus lit. magazine). But it was a list! I guess some politics were shading their views...but ok, my view of the poem was a little shaded as well. I'm no huge fan of the patriot act, but I think something like it is necessary, and I certainly don't think that the cops are going to start beating down our doors because I checked out a book of revolutionary poetry from the library.

After our discussion and 'critique' of the poem, the prof decided to say some things. We had already had another slightly political poem to discuss earlier in class, so I guess the juices were flowing good. She started to talk about how all the great poets were democrats, and if we weren't a Democrat, we might as well stop writing now, while there's still time to withdraw from the class. I'm actually not sure if that's a small 'd' or a big 'D.' That's important to me, because it would be ok to say that great poets are all democrats (stupid, probably, but ok) because she would be saying that great poets like to have freedom and the individual power to choose. If it was big 'D' Democrat, well, that's just not true, and it's probably not something that should be said in class.

Those comments were just the warm up. She went on to talk about how this administration is the closest thing to fascism she's ever seen. Her examples? "Have you read about what happens to the people who disagree with the administration and then lose their jobs? I'm old, and I've never seen anything like it. It's really similar to what happened in Hitler's Germany or with Pol Pot. " (not a direct quote, but pretty close.) Um, Hitler killed people who disagreed with him...sometimes before they left the room. And Pol Pot just killed people for fun or something. He wasn't even really Fascist...he was just a dumb dictator in need of some pre-emptive intervention.

I just sat next to her, stone-faced. I felt like asking her to leave the political analysis to Gov. majors and profs, and I'll let her teach me about poetry, but there wasn't enough time left in class to argue the point, and really, what was there to argue with in her reasoning? I just wish the Bush-Bashing and Democrat Cheerleading I heard in class was more substantial. Then I might be able to learn something from it. I think that all my profs are brilliant people, and it just disappoints me to hear such childish reasoning from them because I expect more.

There is an echo chamber in place on my campus, and well, what can I really do about it?