janw@inmet.UUCP (09/10/86)
Protagonists: Adolfo Calero : Nicaraguan Contra leader. Played a major role in bringing down Somoza. Barbara Foley: professor at Northwestern University - professor of English. She teaches about Mark Twain's "liberal racism". Also about "fetishization of social relations that characterizes what Lucacs called the 'problem of commodities' in the early twentieth century, etc.". That's her kind of English. ------- Act one: spring 1985. Calero is invited to speak at the university meeting hall. He is shouted down by a determined minority, led by Prof. Foley. In explaining her action, she remarks that he was lucky "to get out of here alive". Act two: 1986. Professor Foley is denied tenure in spite of a positive vote by her colleagues. Losers: academic stormtroopers of the Left. Gainers: the students; freedom of speech; academic freedom; the Sandinista regime, assuming brave Barbara joins its secret police, and does not let any disapproved speaker stay alive.