Milestones in Political Rhetoric

Amid numerous attempts to exploit the events of September 11 for political gain, the case of Ron Unz stands out for its originality and tastelessness: He compares himself to the terrorist mastermind. Writing for the National Review Online (26 October 2001), Unz proudly claims the title of bilingual educators’ “personal bin Laden.”

I am not making this up. Click on the link above to see for yourself.

Unz’s article begins with a self-serving account of his recent debate with Harvard professor Catherine Snow. Then, taking a contradictory tack, he drops the mantle of Osama bin Laden and denounces his opponents as “educational terrorists,” warning that they will be judged harshly by “history.” Strongly implied is a threat of retribution against “the individuals who brought this policy about” – i.e., support for bilingual education – and against the politicians “whose cowardly and silent acquiescence [has] allowed it to continue.” He concludes:

“A few weeks ago, Americans witnessed the enormous devastation that a small handful of fanatically committed individuals can wreak upon society. Perhaps it is now time for ordinary Americans to be willing to take a stand against those similarly tiny groups of educational terrorists in our midst, whose disastrous policies are enforced upon us not by bombs or even by knives, but simply by their high-pitched voices. Americans must remain silent no longer.” 

Crazy as this sounds, Unz is not just hyperventilating. His jihad rhetoric is significant. Clearly he sees himself as engaged in a holy war to destroy bilingual education. Not satisfied merely to pass his English-only initiatives and win plaudits from fellow conservatives, he also feels the need to demonize and ridicule and punish bilingual educators. 

All of which raises the question: Should anyone so consumed with hatred be trusted to make policy for schoolchildren? 

For the undecided, here’s a sample of Unz’s earlier pronouncements:

“Mr. Unz ... referred to bilingual education advocates as ‘human vampires’ fighting to keep inplace a system that has benefited them but not students.” – Education Week, 6 September 2000

“Such statements [by Prof. Catherine Snow] sadly confirm the opinion of myself and probably every other theoretical physicist* in America that the IQs of most professors of education are not statistically significant.” – Unz note to supporters, 19 October 2001

“The once-controversial Proposition 227, which inspired so much alarmist rhetoric in 1997 and 1998, has now become a completely established part of California's education landscape.... This underlying reality is even acknowledged by the small and dwindling band of California's fanatic bilingual education holdouts, who – much like those Japanese soldiers who continued to fight the Second World War long after Sony and Toyota had conquered America in a far different manner – refuse to acknowledge that their religious cult has been unmasked as fraudulent and rejected by almost everyone except themselves. One of the most energetic of these cult members is Jill Kerper Mora, an intellectually unimpressive professor of bilingual education studies who lives in the same general area where other cult members committed mass suicide in 1997 when their expected UFO failed to arrive in the tail of a comet. However, instead of drinking poison, Prof. Mora chooses to write endless letters to the editor....” – Unz note to supporters, 31 August 2001

“‘A number of school districts are refusing to obey [Prop. 227],’ Unz said in an interview. ... ‘They are not only in the position of being sanctioned by the state Department of Education,’ he said, ‘but their individual administrators and teachers can be . . . sued.’ Unz was referring to a provision of the initiative that says educators who willfully violate the law can be held personally responsible. ‘There is a real possibility that some administrators and teachers will lose their homes and be forced into bankruptcy over this,’ he added.” – Los Angeles Times, 2 September 1998

“For the past 10 or 20 years, the disastrous bilingual educational theories of Mr. Krashen, Mr. Crawford and their supporters have destroyed the education and lives of millions of Hispanic immigrant students.” – Unz letter to the Washington Post, 18 September 2000