Students For Academic Freedom

Blatant Politicking at UCLA · 25 September 2003

by Sean MacGowan

I completed a UCLA documentary production course two weeks ago. It was taught by Mr. Alon Bar. Mr Bar started off on day one by informing us that he was born in Israel and has been disappointed with his stay in America. He said that "The American dream is a lie".

Out of twelve class meetings he expressed sarcastic disapproval of the Bush administration during at least nine.

His comments were what you would expect: the war is over oil, the war is to finish what Bush senior didn't, Bush lied to the public, Bush can't properly pronounce nuclear, Bush's presence in the White House is unjust and Gore should be there instead, Bush is only president because of his family ties and family wealth, Bush doesn't care about minorities or poor people, Bush is evil, "this is Bush's war", and on and on.

He went on to claim that most Americans are strongly opposed to the war; not only the war in Iraq but the war on terror as a whole; according to him we citizens do not know that most Americans are opposed to the war because the media, especially the Fox News Channel, are constantly lying to the public.

Of course he criticized the fact that (x) amount of dollars are spent daily in the war effort while our economy is unstable and that Bush should be more worried about the economy. Here is the bottom line: imagine the things that Al Gore or Tom Daschle would say to criticize Bush; Mr. Alon Bar said all of those things and more.

Further, Mr. Bar spent a whole night raving about Michael Moore's documentary "Bowling for Columbine"; a corrosive take on how the Columbine shooting was the fault of fat white conservative greedy bastard males and the NRA; I'm sure you've heard of this documentary and I'm sure you have heard of Michael Moore's many lashings out at the Bush administration during his acceptance speech at a nationally televised Hollywood awards show (I think it was the Oscars).

Mr. Bar spent a full (three) hours praising the genius of Michael Moore. Students were grunting and groaning, trying to give him a hint to get on with it. One student asked, "Where are you going with this?" However, my stomach turned with how many students vacantly nodded their heads in agreement with his blatantly biased report of the film.

At least (ten) times during the (thirty-six) hours of instruction Mr. Bar commented on how the Fox News Channel's slogan "fair and balanced" is a complete falsehood and nothing more than pure propaganda; O'Reilly's slogan "the spin stops here" was also slandered and explained to be nothing more than spin in itself.

Sean MacGowan is a student at UCLA.

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