I had a colleague at the University of Michigan who telephoned me one evening after the executive committee of the English Department had determined salary raises for the next year for the faculty. Though I was the most published member of my department, taught four classes instead of two, was the only member of the department to have received two university teaching awards, had also received two awards for outstanding service to students as an academic adviser, etc., as usual I was to receive the minimum salary raise. My friend told me, "Bert, if you would just learn to keep your mouth shut about things, we could pay you more." Thanks, E.J.

Now I am told I should quit complaining about things going wrong, not at the University, but in the United States and in the world. I'm not going to do it. To accept this world as it is is immoral. To accept President Obama's governance of the United States would be, to my mind, to join in the perpetration of war crimes. And I won't keep quiet--even if many of my American friends object to what I say.

The United States is running a concentration camp in Cuba. If we didn't have so many nuclear weapons and a nasty record of having used them, the rest of the world would object. The United States has suspended the constitutional guarantee of Habeas Corpus--which is of course unconstitutional. We are currently engaged in two illegal and immoral wars, and are regularly now bombing people in yet another country.

Why should I shut up about this? Why should I not complain? Why should I not be angry--at what my country is doing?

Those who say I should shut up want to pretend that everything is rosy: and they want to pretend such because everything is indeed rosy for them. They are wealthy, they live in safe communities, their kids are either finished school or in good schools, they don't even know anybody who is in the military, and they never even think about Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Pakistanis, poor Americans, people without health insurance, kids in bad schools, street crime, poverty.

I don't do all I should to try to stop our national crimes. I don't do all I should
to try to remedy the evils that infest our society, or to relieve the poor. But I do more than those who tell me to shut up--and I challenge them to show me otherwise.