Showing posts with label Islamofascism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Islamofascism. Show all posts
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Reconciling Fascism with Reality
"A fascist government is one which is terminally ill with an incurable cancer. In a fascist society this system of mutual balance has completely and utterly collapsed to the point where government is not functioning as the representative of the people, but the security guard for the corporate interests. So if “experts” can throw around the word “Islamofacism”, let me make up a term “Corpofascism.”"
Friday, December 14, 2007
Scribes of Hate: Culture Vultures and the Terror War
""Muslims are gaining on us demographically at a huge rate," Amis says, echoing the clenched-scrotum fear of the genuinely moronic Mark Steyn. "A quarter of humanity now and by 2025 they'll be a third. Italy's down to 1.1 child per woman. We're just going to be outnumbered." These are of course precisely the same kind of vapors that our manly Anglo-American elites have voiced over the years about Jews, blacks, the Irish, the Chinese, Mexicans and so on. "They" are always coming, "they" are always breeding like flies, "they" are always going to overwhelm "us" -- and steal "our" women."
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Report: "Islamofascism" blinds U.S.
"The term also "creates the perception that the United States is fighting a religious war against Islam, thus alienating moderate voices in the region who would be willing to work with America towards common goals.""
Which is exactly what the Zionists and Islamophobes want to do.
Which is exactly what the Zionists and Islamophobes want to do.
Friday, November 23, 2007
Wingnut Awareness Week
"You know that feeling people get when they drive past a car accident? It’s clear that the wreckage is terrifying, but they can’t bring themselves to look away. That’s how I felt wandering into DePaul University’s Cortelyou Commons on a rainy Chicago night in mid-October to attend “War With Iran?”"
Thursday, November 22, 2007
In identifying those trying to kill us, we should choose our words carefully
"What should we call the people who want to kill us? Islamofascists? Islamists? Jihadists? Or just plain murderers?... Take, for comparison, the last major terrorist threat we faced in Britain. Clearly it made a huge difference whether we described the people bent on blowing us up as "the Irish", "Catholics", "Irish Republicans", "Catholic terrorists", "nationalist extremists", "the Provos" or simply "the IRA". On the whole, and fortunately, we stuck with "the IRA". That helped us to win, after a long struggle."
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Islamofascism, the Imaginary Adversary
"The proper use of names and words is essential to rational argument, and the proliferation of nonsense terms and thought-policing labels is fatal. Use of propagandistic terms like “Islamofascism” and “Islamophobia” is an attempt to wield power through confusion and intimidation: they aim to mislead about the nature of our actual enemies on the one hand and invent new heresies against “tolerance” on the other. The debasement and cheapening of language are assaults on the quality of thought and discourse, and they are intended to prevent the proper, sober understanding of the realities of the Islamic world and our policies overseas."
Bravo! Bravo! Give that man cigar!
Bravo! Bravo! Give that man cigar!
Monday, October 29, 2007
Fearing Fear Itself
By PAUL KRUGMAN - October 29, 2007
In America’s darkest hour, Franklin Delano Roosevelt urged the nation not to succumb to “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror.” But that was then.
Today, many of the men who hope to be the next president — including all of the candidates with a significant chance of receiving the Republican nomination — have made unreasoning, unjustified terror the centerpiece of their campaigns.
Consider, for a moment, the implications of the fact that Rudy Giuliani is taking foreign policy advice from Norman Podhoretz, who wants us to start bombing Iran “as soon as it is logistically possible.”
Mr. Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary and a founding neoconservative, tells us that Iran is the “main center of the Islamofascist ideology against which we have been fighting since 9/11.” The Islamofascists, he tells us, are well on their way toward creating a world “shaped by their will and tailored to their wishes.” Indeed, “Already, some observers are warning that by the end of the 21st century the whole of Europe will be transformed into a place to which they give the name Eurabia.”
Do I have to point out that none of this makes a bit of sense?
For one thing, there isn’t actually any such thing as Islamofascism — it’s not an ideology; it’s a figment of the neocon imagination. The term came into vogue only because it was a way for Iraq hawks to gloss over the awkward transition from pursuing Osama bin Laden, who attacked America, to Saddam Hussein, who didn’t. And Iran had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11 — in fact, the Iranian regime was quite helpful to the United States when it went after Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies in Afghanistan.
Beyond that, the claim that Iran is on the path to global domination is beyond ludicrous. Yes, the Iranian regime is a nasty piece of work in many ways, and it would be a bad thing if that regime acquired nuclear weapons. But let’s have some perspective, please: we’re talking about a country with roughly the G.D.P. of Connecticut, and a government whose military budget is roughly the same as Sweden’s.
Meanwhile, the idea that bombing will bring the Iranian regime to its knees — and bombing is the only option, since we’ve run out of troops — is pure wishful thinking. Last year Israel tried to cripple Hezbollah with an air campaign, and ended up strengthening it instead. There’s every reason to believe that an attack on Iran would produce the same result, with the added effects of endangering U.S. forces in Iraq and driving oil prices well into triple digits.
Mr. Podhoretz, in short, is engaging in what my relatives call crazy talk. Yet he is being treated with respect by the front-runner for the G.O.P. nomination. And Mr. Podhoretz’s rants are, if anything, saner than some of what we’ve been hearing from some of Mr. Giuliani’s rivals.
Thus, in a recent campaign ad Mitt Romney asserted that America is in a struggle with people who aim “to unite the world under a single jihadist Caliphate. To do that they must collapse freedom-loving nations. Like us.” He doesn’t say exactly who these jihadists are, but presumably he’s referring to Al Qaeda — an organization that has certainly demonstrated its willingness and ability to kill innocent people, but has no chance of collapsing the United States, let alone taking over the world.
And Mike Huckabee, whom reporters like to portray as a nice, reasonable guy, says that if Hillary Clinton is elected, “I’m not sure we’ll have the courage and the will and the resolve to fight the greatest threat this country’s ever faced in Islamofascism.” Yep, a bunch of lightly armed terrorists and a fourth-rate military power — which aren’t even allies — pose a greater danger than Hitler’s panzers or the Soviet nuclear arsenal ever did.
All of this would be funny if it weren’t so serious.
In the wake of 9/11, the Bush administration adopted fear-mongering as a political strategy. Instead of treating the attack as what it was — an atrocity committed by a fundamentally weak, though ruthless adversary — the administration portrayed America as a nation under threat from every direction.
Most Americans have now regained their balance. But the Republican base, which lapped up the administration’s rhetoric about the axis of evil and the war on terror, remains infected by the fear the Bushies stirred up — perhaps because fear of terrorists maps so easily into the base’s older fears, including fear of dark-skinned people in general.
And the base is looking for a candidate who shares this fear.
Just to be clear, Al Qaeda is a real threat, and so is the Iranian nuclear program. But neither of these threats frightens me as much as fear itself — the unreasoning fear that has taken over one of America’s two great political parties.
In America’s darkest hour, Franklin Delano Roosevelt urged the nation not to succumb to “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror.” But that was then.
Today, many of the men who hope to be the next president — including all of the candidates with a significant chance of receiving the Republican nomination — have made unreasoning, unjustified terror the centerpiece of their campaigns.
Consider, for a moment, the implications of the fact that Rudy Giuliani is taking foreign policy advice from Norman Podhoretz, who wants us to start bombing Iran “as soon as it is logistically possible.”
Mr. Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary and a founding neoconservative, tells us that Iran is the “main center of the Islamofascist ideology against which we have been fighting since 9/11.” The Islamofascists, he tells us, are well on their way toward creating a world “shaped by their will and tailored to their wishes.” Indeed, “Already, some observers are warning that by the end of the 21st century the whole of Europe will be transformed into a place to which they give the name Eurabia.”
Do I have to point out that none of this makes a bit of sense?
For one thing, there isn’t actually any such thing as Islamofascism — it’s not an ideology; it’s a figment of the neocon imagination. The term came into vogue only because it was a way for Iraq hawks to gloss over the awkward transition from pursuing Osama bin Laden, who attacked America, to Saddam Hussein, who didn’t. And Iran had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11 — in fact, the Iranian regime was quite helpful to the United States when it went after Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies in Afghanistan.
Beyond that, the claim that Iran is on the path to global domination is beyond ludicrous. Yes, the Iranian regime is a nasty piece of work in many ways, and it would be a bad thing if that regime acquired nuclear weapons. But let’s have some perspective, please: we’re talking about a country with roughly the G.D.P. of Connecticut, and a government whose military budget is roughly the same as Sweden’s.
Meanwhile, the idea that bombing will bring the Iranian regime to its knees — and bombing is the only option, since we’ve run out of troops — is pure wishful thinking. Last year Israel tried to cripple Hezbollah with an air campaign, and ended up strengthening it instead. There’s every reason to believe that an attack on Iran would produce the same result, with the added effects of endangering U.S. forces in Iraq and driving oil prices well into triple digits.
Mr. Podhoretz, in short, is engaging in what my relatives call crazy talk. Yet he is being treated with respect by the front-runner for the G.O.P. nomination. And Mr. Podhoretz’s rants are, if anything, saner than some of what we’ve been hearing from some of Mr. Giuliani’s rivals.
Thus, in a recent campaign ad Mitt Romney asserted that America is in a struggle with people who aim “to unite the world under a single jihadist Caliphate. To do that they must collapse freedom-loving nations. Like us.” He doesn’t say exactly who these jihadists are, but presumably he’s referring to Al Qaeda — an organization that has certainly demonstrated its willingness and ability to kill innocent people, but has no chance of collapsing the United States, let alone taking over the world.
And Mike Huckabee, whom reporters like to portray as a nice, reasonable guy, says that if Hillary Clinton is elected, “I’m not sure we’ll have the courage and the will and the resolve to fight the greatest threat this country’s ever faced in Islamofascism.” Yep, a bunch of lightly armed terrorists and a fourth-rate military power — which aren’t even allies — pose a greater danger than Hitler’s panzers or the Soviet nuclear arsenal ever did.
All of this would be funny if it weren’t so serious.
In the wake of 9/11, the Bush administration adopted fear-mongering as a political strategy. Instead of treating the attack as what it was — an atrocity committed by a fundamentally weak, though ruthless adversary — the administration portrayed America as a nation under threat from every direction.
Most Americans have now regained their balance. But the Republican base, which lapped up the administration’s rhetoric about the axis of evil and the war on terror, remains infected by the fear the Bushies stirred up — perhaps because fear of terrorists maps so easily into the base’s older fears, including fear of dark-skinned people in general.
And the base is looking for a candidate who shares this fear.
Just to be clear, Al Qaeda is a real threat, and so is the Iranian nuclear program. But neither of these threats frightens me as much as fear itself — the unreasoning fear that has taken over one of America’s two great political parties.
So Much for Islamo-Fascism Awareness
by ALEXANDER COCKBURN - Oct 28, 2007
In America awareness never sleeps and has been on particularly active duty this October, designated as Breast Cancer Awareness Month (proclamation of President George Bush); as Domestic Violence Awareness Month (proclamation of President George Bush); as Energy Awareness Month (proclamation of President George Bush and the Environmental Protection Agency); and--we speak here specifically of October 22-29 -- Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week (proclamation of David Horowitz, a fat and hairy ex-Trot living in Los Angeles).
Cautionary interpolation: Horowitz was certainly fat last time I clapped eyes on him and he sports a beard which waxes and wanes in outreach depending on which Google image you look at. And yes, Christopher Hitchens is also a fat and hairy ex-Trot, is also a known associate of the man Horowitz, and also thunders against Islamo-Fascism. Nonetheless we speak here of Horowitz.
When I first saw Horowitz he was neither fat nor hairy nor apparently aware of Islamo-Fascism. This was in the late 1960s in London and he was working for the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, studying at the feet of Isaac Deutscher and Ralph Miliband. About a decade later I saw him again, this time in Washington DC presiding over a well-publicized "Second Thoughts" conference, announcing his departure from the Left. He spoke harshly of his parents' decision to make him watch uplifting features about the Soviet Union and forbade any Doris Day movies, a common blunder in child-brain-washing techniques among the comrades at that time.
Since then, like other Trotskyist vets, such as the above-mentioned Hitchens, Horowitz has thrown his energies into crusading on behalf of the American right, fuelled in his efforts by copious annual disbursements from the richer denizens of that well populated sector. Richard Mellon Scaife--apex demon in the "vast right-wing conspiracy" identified by Hillary Clinton amid the Lewinsky scandal--has poured millions into Horowitz's organizations, as have other well-heeled conservative foundations. Every now and again Horowitz will raise some spectacularly nutty alarum, like the Los Angeles Times being taken over by pinkoes, and I always assume that Horowitz must be filling out his annual grant applications, and reminding Scaife that others may snooze and idle, but he, Horowitz, is unceasing in his vigilance against sedition.
In Horowitz's bestiary, sedition comes in all the traditional forms, from commies on campus to commies in the press and he's churned out endless bulletins charting their insidious reach. Some of his specific accusations have no doubt been useful to fearful school administrations eager to harry and expel the few radical teachers able to find employment in these bleak times.
But the problem for Horowitz is one of supply. The left in America is really in very poor shape: near zero Commies, and really only a sprinkling of radical black profs, militant Lesbians and kindred antinomians to beat up on. The notion of pinkoes in the media is laughable to all except the fearful imaginations of millionaires like Scaife. Hence the spotlight on Islamo-Fascism, a gloriously vague term whose origin is the topic of a tussle between Malise Ruthven, who used the term in 1980 to describe all authoritarian Islamic governments, and Stephen Schwartz, yet another fat, bearded former Trotskyist who says he was the first to use it in its specific application in 2000, eventually receiving a tap on the shoulder for so doing from Christopher Hitchens and John Sullivan. Arise, Sir Stephen!
Islamo-Fascism Awareness week has been featuring Horowitz and big-name ranters of the right like Anne Coulter and Fox's Sean Hannity, plus former US Senator Rick Santorum, and noted Islamophobe Daniel Pipes. They descended on various college campuses to be received by Christian-Fascists and the curious while they hurled imprecations at the left for being soft on sons of the Prophet stoning women to death for adultery.
The reaction of the left has been mixed. In some ways it always takes Horowitz's antics far too seriously, though the latter's effect on timid college administrations cannot be entirely gainsaid. On the other hand, Awareness week is having a galvanizing effect. Coalitions have formed to combat Horowitz's version of Awareness with superior Progressive Awareness about what is good or not so good about Islam. Since Santorum and others have ripe records of intolerance for women, the air is usefully thick with shouts of "hypocrite". Horowitz is probably the best organizer the left has these days. He's an Energizer, apt to the beseechings of Energy Awareness Week, though the target in that instance was probably that other insidious element in the American way of life, the incandescent light bulb.
In America awareness never sleeps and has been on particularly active duty this October, designated as Breast Cancer Awareness Month (proclamation of President George Bush); as Domestic Violence Awareness Month (proclamation of President George Bush); as Energy Awareness Month (proclamation of President George Bush and the Environmental Protection Agency); and--we speak here specifically of October 22-29 -- Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week (proclamation of David Horowitz, a fat and hairy ex-Trot living in Los Angeles).
Cautionary interpolation: Horowitz was certainly fat last time I clapped eyes on him and he sports a beard which waxes and wanes in outreach depending on which Google image you look at. And yes, Christopher Hitchens is also a fat and hairy ex-Trot, is also a known associate of the man Horowitz, and also thunders against Islamo-Fascism. Nonetheless we speak here of Horowitz.
When I first saw Horowitz he was neither fat nor hairy nor apparently aware of Islamo-Fascism. This was in the late 1960s in London and he was working for the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, studying at the feet of Isaac Deutscher and Ralph Miliband. About a decade later I saw him again, this time in Washington DC presiding over a well-publicized "Second Thoughts" conference, announcing his departure from the Left. He spoke harshly of his parents' decision to make him watch uplifting features about the Soviet Union and forbade any Doris Day movies, a common blunder in child-brain-washing techniques among the comrades at that time.
Since then, like other Trotskyist vets, such as the above-mentioned Hitchens, Horowitz has thrown his energies into crusading on behalf of the American right, fuelled in his efforts by copious annual disbursements from the richer denizens of that well populated sector. Richard Mellon Scaife--apex demon in the "vast right-wing conspiracy" identified by Hillary Clinton amid the Lewinsky scandal--has poured millions into Horowitz's organizations, as have other well-heeled conservative foundations. Every now and again Horowitz will raise some spectacularly nutty alarum, like the Los Angeles Times being taken over by pinkoes, and I always assume that Horowitz must be filling out his annual grant applications, and reminding Scaife that others may snooze and idle, but he, Horowitz, is unceasing in his vigilance against sedition.
In Horowitz's bestiary, sedition comes in all the traditional forms, from commies on campus to commies in the press and he's churned out endless bulletins charting their insidious reach. Some of his specific accusations have no doubt been useful to fearful school administrations eager to harry and expel the few radical teachers able to find employment in these bleak times.
But the problem for Horowitz is one of supply. The left in America is really in very poor shape: near zero Commies, and really only a sprinkling of radical black profs, militant Lesbians and kindred antinomians to beat up on. The notion of pinkoes in the media is laughable to all except the fearful imaginations of millionaires like Scaife. Hence the spotlight on Islamo-Fascism, a gloriously vague term whose origin is the topic of a tussle between Malise Ruthven, who used the term in 1980 to describe all authoritarian Islamic governments, and Stephen Schwartz, yet another fat, bearded former Trotskyist who says he was the first to use it in its specific application in 2000, eventually receiving a tap on the shoulder for so doing from Christopher Hitchens and John Sullivan. Arise, Sir Stephen!
Islamo-Fascism Awareness week has been featuring Horowitz and big-name ranters of the right like Anne Coulter and Fox's Sean Hannity, plus former US Senator Rick Santorum, and noted Islamophobe Daniel Pipes. They descended on various college campuses to be received by Christian-Fascists and the curious while they hurled imprecations at the left for being soft on sons of the Prophet stoning women to death for adultery.
The reaction of the left has been mixed. In some ways it always takes Horowitz's antics far too seriously, though the latter's effect on timid college administrations cannot be entirely gainsaid. On the other hand, Awareness week is having a galvanizing effect. Coalitions have formed to combat Horowitz's version of Awareness with superior Progressive Awareness about what is good or not so good about Islam. Since Santorum and others have ripe records of intolerance for women, the air is usefully thick with shouts of "hypocrite". Horowitz is probably the best organizer the left has these days. He's an Energizer, apt to the beseechings of Energy Awareness Week, though the target in that instance was probably that other insidious element in the American way of life, the incandescent light bulb.
Ann Coulter: Nuke Them!
by Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich - Oct 26, 2007
Although her arrival had been anticipated with mixed emotions on campus, I was surprised that more people did not turn up to protest that USC, a research university, should give platform to Ann Coulter as guest speaker during the ‘Islamo-facism’ awareness week.
Guest of the college Republicans, she walked on stage dressed in a short, black cocktail dress that revealed her mid-rift. Either she had the occasion wrong or the dress; perhaps she had plans after the event. Regardless, on center stage, talking about Islam and fascism among a bunch of university kids in jeans, she looked out of place. Given that she was introduced as being one of the top 100 intellectuals of the country and a few other accompanying remarks, I was surprised to hear her insistence at wanting to divide the country, albeit that the invitation was extended to her on behalf of the Republicans.
I had never heard so much liberal/Democrat bashing. In her eyes, they were on the same footing as the terrorists. Coulter did not believe that the Democrats wanted to defeat the ‘savages’. As with the Bush Administration, she continued to link Iraq to 9/11, glorified the successes, and claimed that the Democrats deliberately wanted to lose to the ‘camel-riding Nomads’ by “rooting against their own country”
She colorfully compared Guantanamo Bay to ‘freshman dorms’ where one eats well and gains 20 pounds, not foregoing the damning reports from the neutral Swiss-based Red Cross, and as her hatred of Muslims spewed out, she exclaimed: “ “they are savage, and I want to kill them.”
It is this hatred, this desire for ‘going for the kill’ that made her give the advice which shocked me. During Q & A, a ‘college Republican’ asked her opinion about what should be done to the ‘Moslems who go around take out their swords and want to kill and convert every one’ (seriously, in the 21st century, do they even make swords any more?) After delivering a few words here and there about pain, Coulter remarked; “We dropped a couple of bombs on Japan and they are as tame as sheep, a few well placed bombs should do it”. My friends gasped. She was inciting genocide on a large scale. The young Republican seemed pleased. I took a mental pause to save my sanity.
Ann Coulter is known for her controversial remarks. She makes her living by being hateful. My apprehension comes from the fact that so many follow her blindly and are in total agreement with her. They buy her books, seek her autograph, and cling to every word, considering her to be an absolute authority. The effect that she has on so many minds is a sad reflection of our society today. Ann Coulter not only influences young minds, but older people are intrigued by her and one man who was recording me hoping to catch me saying something ‘unpatriotic’ as we were discussing Coulter said: “I would like the 14th Amendment repealed”. His wife was standing next to him.
Ann Coulter is their heroin; she is not a heroine by any stretch of the imagination. She is a fix that makes them high so they can feel good about who they are, about themselves and how they really feel, but it is all a temporary illusion, induced. When they come down, they need a stronger fix, and the time will come when such hateful discourse, the fix, will have to turn into action in order for it to be effective. Herein lies the danger, and this is why she is dangerous.
I have always been able to separate the ordinary Americans from the government. This was the first time that the two became inseparable. For the first time in 21 years I witnessed hate in America – and what an ugly spectacle it was. Thankfully, I was rescued by a more familiar America, the one I cherish. As I was leaving, I saw more protestors. I joined them and we started chanting. Rabbis, priests, and practicing Moslems were among many who held signs reading: “Thanks Ann, you have united Moslems, Jews, and Christians”. She had.
Although her arrival had been anticipated with mixed emotions on campus, I was surprised that more people did not turn up to protest that USC, a research university, should give platform to Ann Coulter as guest speaker during the ‘Islamo-facism’ awareness week.
Guest of the college Republicans, she walked on stage dressed in a short, black cocktail dress that revealed her mid-rift. Either she had the occasion wrong or the dress; perhaps she had plans after the event. Regardless, on center stage, talking about Islam and fascism among a bunch of university kids in jeans, she looked out of place. Given that she was introduced as being one of the top 100 intellectuals of the country and a few other accompanying remarks, I was surprised to hear her insistence at wanting to divide the country, albeit that the invitation was extended to her on behalf of the Republicans.
I had never heard so much liberal/Democrat bashing. In her eyes, they were on the same footing as the terrorists. Coulter did not believe that the Democrats wanted to defeat the ‘savages’. As with the Bush Administration, she continued to link Iraq to 9/11, glorified the successes, and claimed that the Democrats deliberately wanted to lose to the ‘camel-riding Nomads’ by “rooting against their own country”
She colorfully compared Guantanamo Bay to ‘freshman dorms’ where one eats well and gains 20 pounds, not foregoing the damning reports from the neutral Swiss-based Red Cross, and as her hatred of Muslims spewed out, she exclaimed: “ “they are savage, and I want to kill them.”
It is this hatred, this desire for ‘going for the kill’ that made her give the advice which shocked me. During Q & A, a ‘college Republican’ asked her opinion about what should be done to the ‘Moslems who go around take out their swords and want to kill and convert every one’ (seriously, in the 21st century, do they even make swords any more?) After delivering a few words here and there about pain, Coulter remarked; “We dropped a couple of bombs on Japan and they are as tame as sheep, a few well placed bombs should do it”. My friends gasped. She was inciting genocide on a large scale. The young Republican seemed pleased. I took a mental pause to save my sanity.
Ann Coulter is known for her controversial remarks. She makes her living by being hateful. My apprehension comes from the fact that so many follow her blindly and are in total agreement with her. They buy her books, seek her autograph, and cling to every word, considering her to be an absolute authority. The effect that she has on so many minds is a sad reflection of our society today. Ann Coulter not only influences young minds, but older people are intrigued by her and one man who was recording me hoping to catch me saying something ‘unpatriotic’ as we were discussing Coulter said: “I would like the 14th Amendment repealed”. His wife was standing next to him.
Ann Coulter is their heroin; she is not a heroine by any stretch of the imagination. She is a fix that makes them high so they can feel good about who they are, about themselves and how they really feel, but it is all a temporary illusion, induced. When they come down, they need a stronger fix, and the time will come when such hateful discourse, the fix, will have to turn into action in order for it to be effective. Herein lies the danger, and this is why she is dangerous.
I have always been able to separate the ordinary Americans from the government. This was the first time that the two became inseparable. For the first time in 21 years I witnessed hate in America – and what an ugly spectacle it was. Thankfully, I was rescued by a more familiar America, the one I cherish. As I was leaving, I saw more protestors. I joined them and we started chanting. Rabbis, priests, and practicing Moslems were among many who held signs reading: “Thanks Ann, you have united Moslems, Jews, and Christians”. She had.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Welcome to 'Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week'
The ugly face of Race and Religious Hatred in all it's twisted glory. Two terms come to mind: Jew Klux Klan and Zio-Nazi
by Khody Akhavi & Ali Gharib - Oct 27, 2007
Right-wing pundit David Horowitz was in rare form during a tightly controlled "public speech" at the George Washington University on Thursday night, decrying the US academic Left as a hateful "lynch mob" who act as apologists for the impending threat of the "Islamo-fascist" jihad.
As bodyguards and police loomed on stage and in the aisles, Horowitz launched into an unscripted two-hour tirade that meandered between selective (and dubious) readings of Middle East history and pointed attacks against those who criticized his efforts.
It was the latest permutation of Horowitz's long march as the harbinger of revolutionary knowledge in the face of public opprobrium. And as usual, he offered up a sensational and bizarre spectacle that appeared better suited for the US tabloid talk show circuit than a forum of legitimate public debate.
During his speech, sponsored by the conservative student group Young America Foundation, Horowitz condemned the "oppression of women in Islam," and what he perceived as the endemic "genocidal Jew hatred" throughout the Middle East. He took aim at the "juvenile delinquents" – GW university students – who had satirized his efforts, said that Palestinians, through their actions, showed that they did not want a state of their own. Horowitz also alleged that the Muslim Students Association, which has chapters at universities across the nation, is a creation of the "Islamo-fascist jihad."
He called Lebanese Hezbollah a "Nazi party," and warned that Turkey was teetering on the edge of becoming an Islamo-fascist state. And he described Iran as the archetype of this phenomenon.
"There is an intellectual terror in this country, which you have all seen. The president [George W. Bush] is intimidated from using the term Islamo-fascism because it is supposed to be racist," he told an audience of students, a majority of whom applauded his words.
"Why the term fascism? The analytical reason is simple," he said. "Probably Islamo-Nazism is a more appropriate term."
Horowitz's conservative Freedom Center (DHFC) designated last week as the first annual "Islamo-fascism Awareness Week" – a time to refute "the two big lies of the political Left: that George Bush created the war on terror and that global warming is a greater danger to Americans than the terrorist threat."
The program consisted of more than 30 events at 26 universities across the nation. Conservative pundits, politicians, and academic and think-tank experts, including former Senator Rick Santorum, conservative icon Ann Coulter, and historian Daniel Pipes, delivered speeches and spoke on panels.
Pipes is among a small group of neoconservatives who advise Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani on Middle East affairs.
College students were urged to stage sit-ins outside women's studies departments, and to distribute pamphlets, including titles such as "Jimmy Carter's War Against the Jews." Films screened included "Islam: What the West Needs to Know." According to its description, the film "reveals the violent, expansionary ideology of the so called 'religion of peace' that seeks the destruction or subjugation of other faiths, cultures, and systems of government."
But Horowitz's speech Thursday did not reflect a coherent policy towards the perceived threat. Instead, it overflowed with insults, sweeping generalizations and hyperbole that were aimed at smearing his political enemies – mostly liberals, whom he described as "leftists" – giving him ammunition for his fundraising drives.
Horowitz focused much of his speech on the personal attacks he had received, repeatedly alluding to violent threats, and describing the fiasco as a "national hate campaign" against him, as if a "target had been placed on" his back.
The day earlier, he said, he was shouted down and was unable to finish a planned speech at Emory University in Georgia. Horowitz's website, Frontpagemag.com, called the students "brownshirts," an allusion to a Nazi paramilitary group in fascist Germany.
Horowitz sent a solicitation email to DHFC supporters in anticipation of the week asking for additional contributions "toward the expenses of providing security" for speakers. Donors of 50 dollars or more receive two booklets – "What Americans Need to Know About Jihad," by Robert Spencer, and "The Violent Oppression of Women in Islam," by Robert Spencer and Phyllis Chesler.
On Thursday, he appeared on stage with a large bodyguard constantly scanning the crowd. Journalists were barred from asking any questions.
One protester who had snuck a banner into the theater was removed quickly by security as soon as he stood up and unfurled it. Several heated discussions occurred in the lobby and outside the building shortly after the event ended.
The publicity provided by the extreme rhetoric and protest incidents gets the attention of a cabal of wealthy and powerful conservatives who in turn fund Horowitz's activities through foundations.
The Freedom Center has received more than 15 million dollars in grants from conservative donors, according to a report from Media Transparency, an organization that monitors contributions to conservative media. Major contributors include the John M. Olin Foundation, a New York based think-tank that closed its doors in 2005, and which funded major right-wing think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute, Heritage Foundation and the Hoover Institute.
Prominent conservative billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife has poured 4.2 million dollars into Horowitz's activities, through the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the Carthage Foundation, and the Allegheny Foundation.
Horowitz also received 6.1 million dollars from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, considered the country's largest and most influential right-wing foundation.
By the end of the week, "Islamo-fascism Awareness" had descended into a publicity circus.
According to independent journalist Max Blumenthal, who was in attendance at the IFAW Horowitz talk on Friday at Columbia University, Horowitz was surrounded by a group of bodyguards that almost outnumbered the amount of people there to protest his speech. Columbia security subsequently removed the protesters from the campus.
Horowitz went on a bizarre rant – claiming that there "will never be social justice" – and launched into a tirade about the threats from the guests on the Jerry Springer Show, a US television tabloid talk show. He also compared his own father, a communist Queens schoolteacher, to Mohammad Atta, the operational leader of the 9/11 attacks.
"It was like listening to the ravings of a lunatic on a subway car," said Blumenthal. "The only difference was that on the subway the police are there to remove the lunatic and here they were there to protect the lunatic."
by Khody Akhavi & Ali Gharib - Oct 27, 2007
Right-wing pundit David Horowitz was in rare form during a tightly controlled "public speech" at the George Washington University on Thursday night, decrying the US academic Left as a hateful "lynch mob" who act as apologists for the impending threat of the "Islamo-fascist" jihad.
As bodyguards and police loomed on stage and in the aisles, Horowitz launched into an unscripted two-hour tirade that meandered between selective (and dubious) readings of Middle East history and pointed attacks against those who criticized his efforts.
It was the latest permutation of Horowitz's long march as the harbinger of revolutionary knowledge in the face of public opprobrium. And as usual, he offered up a sensational and bizarre spectacle that appeared better suited for the US tabloid talk show circuit than a forum of legitimate public debate.
During his speech, sponsored by the conservative student group Young America Foundation, Horowitz condemned the "oppression of women in Islam," and what he perceived as the endemic "genocidal Jew hatred" throughout the Middle East. He took aim at the "juvenile delinquents" – GW university students – who had satirized his efforts, said that Palestinians, through their actions, showed that they did not want a state of their own. Horowitz also alleged that the Muslim Students Association, which has chapters at universities across the nation, is a creation of the "Islamo-fascist jihad."
He called Lebanese Hezbollah a "Nazi party," and warned that Turkey was teetering on the edge of becoming an Islamo-fascist state. And he described Iran as the archetype of this phenomenon.
"There is an intellectual terror in this country, which you have all seen. The president [George W. Bush] is intimidated from using the term Islamo-fascism because it is supposed to be racist," he told an audience of students, a majority of whom applauded his words.
"Why the term fascism? The analytical reason is simple," he said. "Probably Islamo-Nazism is a more appropriate term."
Horowitz's conservative Freedom Center (DHFC) designated last week as the first annual "Islamo-fascism Awareness Week" – a time to refute "the two big lies of the political Left: that George Bush created the war on terror and that global warming is a greater danger to Americans than the terrorist threat."
The program consisted of more than 30 events at 26 universities across the nation. Conservative pundits, politicians, and academic and think-tank experts, including former Senator Rick Santorum, conservative icon Ann Coulter, and historian Daniel Pipes, delivered speeches and spoke on panels.
Pipes is among a small group of neoconservatives who advise Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani on Middle East affairs.
College students were urged to stage sit-ins outside women's studies departments, and to distribute pamphlets, including titles such as "Jimmy Carter's War Against the Jews." Films screened included "Islam: What the West Needs to Know." According to its description, the film "reveals the violent, expansionary ideology of the so called 'religion of peace' that seeks the destruction or subjugation of other faiths, cultures, and systems of government."
But Horowitz's speech Thursday did not reflect a coherent policy towards the perceived threat. Instead, it overflowed with insults, sweeping generalizations and hyperbole that were aimed at smearing his political enemies – mostly liberals, whom he described as "leftists" – giving him ammunition for his fundraising drives.
Horowitz focused much of his speech on the personal attacks he had received, repeatedly alluding to violent threats, and describing the fiasco as a "national hate campaign" against him, as if a "target had been placed on" his back.
The day earlier, he said, he was shouted down and was unable to finish a planned speech at Emory University in Georgia. Horowitz's website, Frontpagemag.com, called the students "brownshirts," an allusion to a Nazi paramilitary group in fascist Germany.
Horowitz sent a solicitation email to DHFC supporters in anticipation of the week asking for additional contributions "toward the expenses of providing security" for speakers. Donors of 50 dollars or more receive two booklets – "What Americans Need to Know About Jihad," by Robert Spencer, and "The Violent Oppression of Women in Islam," by Robert Spencer and Phyllis Chesler.
On Thursday, he appeared on stage with a large bodyguard constantly scanning the crowd. Journalists were barred from asking any questions.
One protester who had snuck a banner into the theater was removed quickly by security as soon as he stood up and unfurled it. Several heated discussions occurred in the lobby and outside the building shortly after the event ended.
The publicity provided by the extreme rhetoric and protest incidents gets the attention of a cabal of wealthy and powerful conservatives who in turn fund Horowitz's activities through foundations.
The Freedom Center has received more than 15 million dollars in grants from conservative donors, according to a report from Media Transparency, an organization that monitors contributions to conservative media. Major contributors include the John M. Olin Foundation, a New York based think-tank that closed its doors in 2005, and which funded major right-wing think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute, Heritage Foundation and the Hoover Institute.
Prominent conservative billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife has poured 4.2 million dollars into Horowitz's activities, through the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the Carthage Foundation, and the Allegheny Foundation.
Horowitz also received 6.1 million dollars from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, considered the country's largest and most influential right-wing foundation.
By the end of the week, "Islamo-fascism Awareness" had descended into a publicity circus.
According to independent journalist Max Blumenthal, who was in attendance at the IFAW Horowitz talk on Friday at Columbia University, Horowitz was surrounded by a group of bodyguards that almost outnumbered the amount of people there to protest his speech. Columbia security subsequently removed the protesters from the campus.
Horowitz went on a bizarre rant – claiming that there "will never be social justice" – and launched into a tirade about the threats from the guests on the Jerry Springer Show, a US television tabloid talk show. He also compared his own father, a communist Queens schoolteacher, to Mohammad Atta, the operational leader of the 9/11 attacks.
"It was like listening to the ravings of a lunatic on a subway car," said Blumenthal. "The only difference was that on the subway the police are there to remove the lunatic and here they were there to protect the lunatic."
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
David Horowitz Bombs on Opening Night
Ultra-hawk blog Blackfive reports on David Horowitz’s dazzling opening of Islamofascism Awareness Week:
What a let down. My buddy Ebo and I attended Horowitz’ opening night of Islamo-Fascism Awareness week and if this is our answer to sharia, then I guess Dirka Dirka Mohammed Jihad it will be.
Both of us were predisposed to agree wth most of what Horowitz was saying, but as is my complaint fairly often, his tone and delivery ruined his chances of doing his cause much good. He spoke in front of what was potentially a very hostile crowd 3/4 or so antagonistic to his viewpoint. He was so uninspiring a speaker they didn’t even really heckle him. I will give credit to the Muslim Student Association and the other groups who were there in opposition, they maintained more decorum than Mr. Horowitz. By the end he was saying “Well I guess you just aren’t able to read” and “I don’t know what to do if you can’t add two and two and get four.” …
We held out ’til the end and the Q&A had Horowitz launching the testy ad hominems I noted and complaining that the questions were too long in comparison to his epic length musings on how dumb his audience was. I heard the College Republicans, who sponsored him, were wicked pissed.
It would have been a total bomb, but Ebo decided we needed a pitcher of Optimator in the Rathskeller and we spent about an hour talking with a couple of groups of folks who came in opposition to Horowitz. It was enagaging, entertaining and so completely superior to the waste of time that was the theater in the theater, that we resolved to attend the Muslim dialogue tomorrow night. I truly enjoyed the discussion with some folks who, although we disagreed on much, came with much more open minds and helpful attitudes than the headliner.
In related news, Horowitz is lying about the number of colleges participating in his Klan-rally-on-Quaaludes. Even Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University has had its name pulled from the list. That’s rock bottom, folks.
What a let down. My buddy Ebo and I attended Horowitz’ opening night of Islamo-Fascism Awareness week and if this is our answer to sharia, then I guess Dirka Dirka Mohammed Jihad it will be.
Both of us were predisposed to agree wth most of what Horowitz was saying, but as is my complaint fairly often, his tone and delivery ruined his chances of doing his cause much good. He spoke in front of what was potentially a very hostile crowd 3/4 or so antagonistic to his viewpoint. He was so uninspiring a speaker they didn’t even really heckle him. I will give credit to the Muslim Student Association and the other groups who were there in opposition, they maintained more decorum than Mr. Horowitz. By the end he was saying “Well I guess you just aren’t able to read” and “I don’t know what to do if you can’t add two and two and get four.” …
We held out ’til the end and the Q&A had Horowitz launching the testy ad hominems I noted and complaining that the questions were too long in comparison to his epic length musings on how dumb his audience was. I heard the College Republicans, who sponsored him, were wicked pissed.
It would have been a total bomb, but Ebo decided we needed a pitcher of Optimator in the Rathskeller and we spent about an hour talking with a couple of groups of folks who came in opposition to Horowitz. It was enagaging, entertaining and so completely superior to the waste of time that was the theater in the theater, that we resolved to attend the Muslim dialogue tomorrow night. I truly enjoyed the discussion with some folks who, although we disagreed on much, came with much more open minds and helpful attitudes than the headliner.
In related news, Horowitz is lying about the number of colleges participating in his Klan-rally-on-Quaaludes. Even Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University has had its name pulled from the list. That’s rock bottom, folks.
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