"islamo-fascism awareness week"

[redwinter]

http://www.defendcriticalthinking.org/

anyone organizing against this horowitz "islamo fascism awareness week" tour in their areas?

this is horowitz's site, check if this is going on in your area (http://www.frontpagemag.com)

[Forward Union]

It's a shame the right have taken this initiative. I might try and organise a proper Islamo-fascism awareness week in my home town.

[Pawn Power]

Yeah. They are coming to Philly and my uni but there will be opposition. ;)

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

WE, the great shame is that you want to put a left-tinge to this semi-fascist assault on an oppressed monority.

[redwinter]

Originally posted by William [email protected] 12, 2007 04:44 pm
It's a shame the right have taken this initiative. I might try and organise a proper Islamo-fascism awareness week in my home town.
Some stuff needs to be cleared up here.

First off: Islamic fundamentalism is reactionary and does not present any alternative for the masses of people.

However, studying what this IFAW offensive really is and how it is an attack from the US ruling class, targeting academia and critical thinking in general, and preparing public opinion for the US war machine to continue its offensive and invade Iran in particular.

I would recommend checking out Bob Avakian's pamphlet, "Bringing Forward Another Way," for an in depth analysis.

Here's something that helps understand this:

"Horowitz points to the fact that there have been many instances of violent acts directed against ordinary people by Islamic fundamentalist political groups. And, of course, there have been. But, let’s be real clear: the scriptures of ALL major religions contain quite a bit that upholds and indeed commands reactionary violence on every major social issue. When people apply these scriptures politically, they find “divine justification” for all sorts of horrible acts against “unbelievers.” But as Bob Avakian’s article in our paper last week pointed out, the only reason that at this point not as many Christian fundamentalists are going around outside the government engaging in the kinds of violent acts that are commonly labeled terrorism on the same scale as the Islamic fundamentalists is because “violence which serves ends that are passionately supported by the Christian fascist fundamentalists [within the U.S.] has been carried out on a massive scale by the imperialist ruling class of the U.S., utilizing the armed forces and police of the imperialist state.” And the violence perpetrated by the U.S. has been on an immeasurably greater scale and incurred a far greater human cost for literally millions of ordinary people in Iraq alone than anything yet done by Islamic fundamentalists."
-from You Can't Defeat Fascism by Ignoring It, Part 2, by Toby O'Ryan (http://revcom.us/a/104/horowitz-islamo-facism-en.html)

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Redwinter:


Islamic fundamentalism is reactionary and does not present any alternative for the masses of people.

So is Maoist fundamentalism -- except the latter has killed more people.

[RNK]

Apparently not enough. We'll do better next time, and start with you.

[Rawthentic]

Apparently not enough. We'll do better next time, and start with you.
I love how you can easily downplay her reactionary anti-communist shit.

Every time we make a post Rosa shits out her liberal anti-Maoist shit.

[RedStarOverChina]

Where do you live? Unless you live in a Muslim-majority society, then I think it makes more sense to launch a "Christian-fascism awareness week".

Get your priorities straight, folks.

[redwinter]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12, 2007 11:51 pm
Apparently not enough. We'll do better next time, and start with you.
(I'm trying not to get this thread distracted from the original topic - but I had to say something about this.)

This is a very wrong approach to take towards critics of the communist project (the "off with their heads" approach). firstly there is no such thing as "maoist fundamentalism" and that phrase is an oxymoron. secondly, this was not the approach of mao tse-tung.

in fact, when this approach of "kill those who raise disagreements" takes hold, society is definitely not on the communist road and society becomes a horror for the masses of people.

mao went out of his way during the great proletarian cultural revolution to emphasize that line struggle needed to be conducted on a high and principled plane, and specifically without the use of violence. in fact during some of the fiercest battles around political line at chinese universities the revolutionary factory workers were organized to stop the students from killing each other. capitalist roaders like deng were specifically not executed - even though mao pretty much knew that if the guy took power he'd put shit back to capitalism. this is because bourgeois political lines emerge from material reality, and that the new bourgeois line comes from within the communist party in power (nothing you can do about that, except for line struggle, until classes are abolished).

it's extremely wrong when revolutionary communists are in the midst of a heated battle to defend critical thinking and dissent, someone supposedly upholding the banner of maoism is going to write something like that about a critical thinker (no matter how incorrect you may think they are). the author should please reconsider what she wrote.

[RaiseYourVoice]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13, 2007 04:52 am
Where do you live? Unless you live in a Muslim-majority society, then I think it makes more sense to launch a "Christian-fascism awareness week".

Get your priorities straight, folks.
but why? that would endanger our feeling of somehow being cultural superior to the world, which even for us leftist should be an obvious fact. Following that logic it only makes sense that their religious fundamentalism MUST be worse then ours. Of course that also means we have to realize when seeing presidents pray before they start wars, that it is of course just a borgouise habit and when we see muslim presidents calling on their gods for their ruling class aggression its of course a fashist tendency.

:rolleyes:

[LSD]

A complete non-story (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=71774).

[bezdomni]

Originally posted by redwinter+October 13, 2007 04:41 am--> (redwinter @ October 13, 2007 04:41 am)
[email protected] 12, 2007 11:51 pm
Apparently not enough. We'll do better next time, and start with you.
(I'm trying not to get this thread distracted from the original topic - but I had to say something about this.)

This is a very wrong approach to take towards critics of the communist project (the "off with their heads" approach). firstly there is no such thing as "maoist fundamentalism" and that phrase is an oxymoron. secondly, this was not the approach of mao tse-tung.

in fact, when this approach of "kill those who raise disagreements" takes hold, society is definitely not on the communist road and society becomes a horror for the masses of people.

mao went out of his way during the great proletarian cultural revolution to emphasize that line struggle needed to be conducted on a high and principled plane, and specifically without the use of violence. in fact during some of the fiercest battles around political line at chinese universities the revolutionary factory workers were organized to stop the students from killing each other. capitalist roaders like deng were specifically not executed - even though mao pretty much knew that if the guy took power he'd put shit back to capitalism. this is because bourgeois political lines emerge from material reality, and that the new bourgeois line comes from within the communist party in power (nothing you can do about that, except for line struggle, until classes are abolished).

it's extremely wrong when revolutionary communists are in the midst of a heated battle to defend critical thinking and dissent, someone supposedly upholding the banner of maoism is going to write something like that about a critical thinker (no matter how incorrect you may think they are). the author should please reconsider what she wrote. [/b]
He was joking, although in somewhat poor taste.

[Comrade Rage]

Christo-fascist, Islamo-fascist--they're both threats to any kind of progressive movement, as well as a large obstacle to any kind of progressive change in the world.

If some religion opposes the rights of women, etc-I'll oppose that religion.


Where do you live? Unless you live in a Muslim-majority society, then I think it makes more sense to launch a "Christian-fascism awareness week".

Because it's Christo-fascist awareness week-month-year right now! There's not a day that goes by that I don't hear about why my taxes should go towards some bible-study group right now!

The only semi-redeeming thing that the Islamists have going for them is that they're a thorn in Christianity's side.

BTW, most of the fundamentalist-religious terrorism in the world affects working-class people [bus bombings, etc]. It doesn't make you leftist to ignore it when a muslim does it.

It makes you stupid.

[RedStarOverChina]

Originally posted by COMRADE [email protected] 15, 2007 07:03 pm
Christo-fascist, Islamo-fascist--they're both threats to any kind of progressive movement, as well as a large obstacle to any kind of progressive change in the world.

If some religion opposes the rights of women, etc-I'll oppose that religion.

Of course you are supposed to oppose it. but Islamic fascism has no influence here in North America. Christian fascism HAS. In fact, the real possibility of Christian fascism becoming dominant in American politics cannot be ignored. We live in a society under the shadow of Christian fascism and it would be an act of cowardice to turn around, ignore the real, immediate enemies you face and attack another more distant form of fascism. There is such a thing called priorities for revolutionaries.

At first I thought this idea of joining the "Islamo-fascism awareness week" to be quite lame. The more I think about it, the more it seems to be the most terrrible idea ever conceived; to jump into a Horowitz bandwagon and attack Islam/Muslims along side the reactionary fucktard!

That's close to the best thing you can do if you want to ruin the movement. :wacko:

http://www.youtube.com/jp.swf?video_id=ktl...63rQRCqlbBp8ju8 (http://www.youtube.com/jp.swf?video_id=ktl7yWvXo3I&eurl=&iurl=http%3A//img.youtube.com/vi/ktl7yWvXo3I/default.jpg&t=OEgsToPDskL_3t0BG63rQRCqlbBp8ju8)

[mandy_z]

Cool video on this topic (http://youtube.com/watch?v=o4m1DcqJZz0)

Check it out.

[Wilfred]

I hate religion and i hate those right-wing nutters. What to do?
Bah, I agree with the sentiment of an earlier poster. It's a shame the right-wing has taken the initiative in pointing out the problems with moslims.

[Faux Real]

Originally posted by [email protected]er 21, 2007 11:16 am
I hate religion and i hate those right-wing nutters. What to do?
If you don't indiscriminately hate people just because they're religious (or a religious minority in your area) then this shouldn't be such a difficult choice.

[blackstone]

This is from ISO's Socialist Worker


A campus crusade against Muslims

NICOLE COLSON reports on David Horowitz’s plans for a week of Islamophobia on university campuses.

COMING SOON to a college or university near you: A crusade of racist hate against Arabs and Muslims, featuring some of the right wing’s most vile figures.

Beginning on October 22, conservative groups on more than 200 campuses will hold “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week”--an invention of David Horowitz, the self-appointed chief of the new campus thought police, that is being billed as the “biggest conservative campus protest ever.”

Horowitz--a former leftist turned hard-core right-winger--sees communist and Islamic plots to take over America lurking on every campus. In the past, he has organized witch-hunts against progressive academics and attempted to introduce legislation that would enforce “codes of conduct” that would silence left-wing voices on campus.

Now, he’s organizing his tour to expose what he calls “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.”

According to FrontPage Magazine, the online publication run by Horowitz, the goals of the tour include: “To explain who the enemy is...a fanatical religious movement associated with the Muslim Brotherhood”; “to protest the violent oppression of women in Islam”; and “to strengthen those on campus who reject the anti-American curriculum of the tenured left.”

What else to read

The Campus Progress Web site has “Know your right-wing speakers” archive with useful information about many of the right-wingers featured during Horowitz’s Islamophobia week.

The Campus Antiwar Network Web site has information about organizing against Horowitz’s crusade.

There are several ongoing campaigns of scholars against Horowitz; see Teachers for a Democratic Society and Free Exchange on Campus Web sites. Two media watchdog groups that keeps tabs on Horowitz are Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting and Media Matters for America.

For an examination of Horowitz’s right-wing record, read “The witch-hunts of David Horowitz,” by Dana Cloud, a University of Texas associate professor who was named in Horowitz’s book on the “101 most dangerous academics in America.”

One of the best exposés of Horowitz and his witch-hunt is The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy, by a reformed ally of Horowitz, David Brock.


A petition from the misnamed David Horowitz Freedom Center demands that “students and faculty...declare their allegiances: either to fighting our terrorist adversaries or failing to take action to stop our enemies.” In a throwback to McCarthyism, right-wing students are encouraged to issue press releases condemning those who refused to sign.

But just who are the “Islamic fascists? According to FrontPage, they include the Muslim Student Association, which has chapters on hundreds of U.S. campuses--and the Council on American Islamic Relations, which advocates for civil rights and tracks hate crimes against Arabs and Muslims.

The right wing’s rhetoric about “Islamic fascism” is really about repackaging the U.S. government’s increasingly unpopular Middle East wars by identifying a current enemy with something everyone opposes--fascism.


http://www.socialistworker.org/2007-2/649/...2_Crusade.shtml (http://www.socialistworker.org/2007-2/649/649_12_Crusade.shtml)

[RedStarOverChina]

David Horowitz Shut Down at Emory University
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRgPKAglmzc

[Pawn Power]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 03:09 am
A complete non-story (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=71774).
This is true.

There were student groups planing to do something but they decided not to on the basis that know one knew about it and the people who did know, didn't care.

[Pawn Power]

Originally posted by Pawn Power+October 31, 2007 11:01 pm--> (Pawn Power @ October 31, 2007 11:01 pm)
[email protected] 15, 2007 03:09 am
A complete non-story (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=71774).
This is true.

There were student groups planing to do something but they decided not to on the basis that know one knew about it and the people who did know, didn't care. [/b]
Actually, I just found out, that some student groups did take action. They went to the speech however it appeared that there were more students there opposing it then there was actually listening.

What would one expect. It seems the whole thigs was really done to piss off leftists.