From The Cambridge Film Archives

Verita$: Everybody Loves Harvard [see trailer] Showing Thursday, June 18, in Cambridge [please download & distribute flyer] 'The best and the brightest' is how Harvard University is described today. People all over the world admire Harvard. But Harvard is not just an Ivory Tower. It is an organ of American ruling class. This documentary critically examines Harvard's historical role and its global impact. As a training ground for the elite, Harvard has maintained close ties with the U.S. government and provided crucial dimensions of state ideology, particularly during the Cold War. Including the Harvard Russia aid scandal which led the Russian economy into bankruptcy, the director exposes many unknown episodes in Harvard's history. The documentary questions what the real purpose of education should be. It contains interviews with many progressive American intellectuals including Prof. Noam Chomsky. "Today, everybody loves Harvard. But noone knows what it is  and what it really stands for. Understanding the real Harvard is a first step in understanding the world controlled by US capitalism."  ~Verita$ "Harvard today is more of a business than a university. It's more of an arm of the military than it is of intellectual freedom. This is a sad commentary on the state of the United States."  ~George Katsiaficas, MIT class of 1970, Professor at Wentworth Institutue of Technology; member of SDS at MIT "The most desirable target would be a vital war plant employing a large number of workers and closely surrounded by workers houses." ~James B Conant, Harvard President (1933-1953) - suggesting target for the nuclear bombs "A University which does not try to develop a maximal degree of interest, cooperation and understanding between its staff members and those of the National Defense forces is not doing its full job."  ~McGeorge Bundy (Harvard dean) - in a 1955 presentation to a ROTC panel "If Harvard would celebrate its 300th anniversary by burning itself to the ground and sowing its site with salt, the ceremony would give me the liveliest satisfaction."  ~George Bernard Shaw "I thought at the time, and still think now, that Harvard is a terrible mess of a place ...an incubator for an American ruling class that is smug, stratified, self-congratulatory, and intellectually adrift... Meritocracy is the ideological veneer, but social and economic stratification are the reality." ~ Ross Gregory Douthat, in his memoir Privilege of his four years in college, class of 2002 When/where doors open 6:40; film starts promptly 7pm 243 Broadway, Cambridge - corner of Broadway and Windsor, entrance on Windsor rule19.org/videos Please join us for a stimulating night out; bring your friends! free film & free door prizes[donations are encouraged]feel free to bring your own snacks and soft drinks - no alcohol allowed "You can't legislate good will - that comes through education." ~ Malcolm X UPandOUT film series - see rule19.org/videos Why should YOU care? It's YOUR money that pays for US/Israeli wars - on Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Palestine, Libya. Syria, Iran, So America, etc etc - for billionaire bailouts, for ever more ubiquitous US prisons, for the loss of liberty and civil rights...