I kind of agree with the person in the article that says the politicians that meddled in the fact that the lecture would be given did the very thing they claim they were concerned about.<p>That’s not the first time it happens. It’s always fine if they do it, but terrible if the other side does.
You can agree or disagree with Ben-Ghiat's thesis, but legislative meddling in the autonomy of institutions that set American defense strategy is a horrible precedent to set.<p>The whole point of these kinds of lectures and discussions are to spark debates and conversations among decisionmakers.<p>It is especially ironic because Ben-Ghiat's research is explicitly about that - political meddling in military administration lead to degraded institutional capacity.<p>Look at 10/7 in Israel or Russia's fiasco in Ukraine - both are examples of how military and intelligence capacity can be degraded by political meddling.
“PEN America today sharply criticized some Republican members of Congress”<p>The press release claims that the org sharply criticized but did not provide any evidence that actually occurred. Did they do this via a text message, visit offices or what?
Government institutions are not meant to be autonomous. Outside of a narrow set of explicitly political positions, everyone who is in government should be apolitical in the carrying out of their duties.
I graduated from "Annapolis" (AKA USNA, "The Boat School") in the 70's. My second career was in high-tech here in Silicon Valley.<p>Let me state the "quiet part" of the Naval Academy's mission out loud: It aspires to train the Services' future admirals and generals. It is not a vocational school, nor is it really a college. It's something else.<p>It strikes me that the relationship between flag-rank officers and their civilian (political) leaders is fair game.<p>Having said that, the selection of this speaker is edgy. But it's the <i>timing</i> of the event that I think puts it in the bad-judgement-or-worse category. We used to call this "poor headwork."<p>My recommendation would have been to postpone the event until next year, and then reexamine the issue more closely. And to do all of the above quietly.
The problem with attempts to controll knowledge, aka limit it, is that it has a tendency to spiral. You limit information about this and that- some zealous partymonger goes astray and limits all the information related.
Next you have a famine and because of the involved parties guilt about the dysfunction, knowledge is limited even further.
You either have all the information, including the one about retardations going awry in the past. Or you do not and spiral down to become one of those figures in the history lectures doing bizar things, repeating past failures.
Looking both ways in this comment.
The whole narrative control thing of the left, which is completely blind to physical realities causing problems and makes everything a theater-society-production with a racist villian is almost as disgusting as the ahistoric "isolationism will solve our problems" of the right.
"Ben-Ghiat has stated that she did not intend to discuss Trump or contemporary America during the lecture, noting that the event was to be strictly nonpartisan."
It's a bedrock of our system that the US military remain firmly under civil control and politically neutral. The article elides but deep-links through to Ben-Ghiat's Substack announcing the lecture, which is what set off the firestorm:<p><i>- The Real Reason Donald Trump Insults the U.S. Military -</i><p><i>I am pleased to announce that I will be giving the Bancroft Lecture at the U.S. Naval Academy on Oct. 10. This lecture is not open to the public. I will be speaking about what happens to militaries under authoritarian rule, touching on Fascist Italy, Pinochet's Chile and the Russian military during the war on Ukraine.</i><p><i>_______________</i><p><i>That brings us to today's post, on why Donald Trump insults the military. ... Why does he do it? His authoritarian character, desire to destroy democratic values and ideals, and loyalty to autocrats who see the powerful U.S. military as an obstacle to their geopolitical aims.</i><p>I can see both sides of the argument on cancellation, but it's frankly idiotic to announce your lecture to the Naval Academy in an essay you directly title and then expound on your criticism of a leading presidential candidate vis-a-vis the military, weaving that criticism into the very topic of the lecture you are to give to the military. The same would be true if the politician was Biden, Harris or anyone else. The military needs to stay a 10 foot pole away from politics. The alternative is incredibly dangerous.<p><a href="https://lucid.substack.com/p/the-real-reason-donald-trump-insults" rel="nofollow">https://lucid.substack.com/p/the-real-reason-donald-trump-in...</a>
What Republicans are doing is <i>not normal</i> and we are not safe from it in technology.<p>If you think you should be able to moderate, or not turn over commenter data because of their political content, then you should be worried. It's no different that trying to plan a curriculum with guest lecturers. If they feel welcomed to intrude on this decision, then it won't stop there.
So, her books compare Trump to Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, and people are surprised that the event was cancelled.<p>Trump by the way is Netanyahu's favorite candidate.<p>All U.S. media organizations attempt the "Trump is Hitler" shtick as a final Hail Mary because they sense that Harris is going to lose. Just like in 2016.
I find it interesting. Basic google check suggests that Ben-Ghiat is a political commentator. If that is true and accurate then her presence and presentation at Naval Academy is at best an opinion and not strictly a 'lecture'.<p>I have technically zero problem with her presenting, precisely because I am very, very pro-free speech, but this is akin to interpretative dancing representative performing at defcon.. kinda silly.<p>edit: I will add one more thing to the lazy disagreements via negative points.<p>If I am right, then her very presence there is political propaganda aimed for specific candidate. In other words, it is not clear whether she should be there at all.