You Can't Defeat Fascism by Ignoring It

[redwinter]

Revolution #104, October 14, 2007 (http://www.revcom.us)

You Can’t Defeat Fascism By Ignoring It
Part 2

by Toby O’Ryan

The past week has seen increasing attention and polarization around “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week,” David Horowitz’s attempt to shut down dissent against the war on terror on campus, set for October 22-26. Some of this has come as Horowitz’s threats against women’s centers and Muslim students have come closer to reality. Some was generated by the exposure of a hoax by Horowitz—his fraudulent attempt to pass off a picture from a fictional movie of a woman being stoned to death in Iran as if it were authentic. And some of this came off the uproar at Columbia University over the speech there by Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, the president of Iran. The debate among progressive people over how to respond has correspondingly sharpened.

Last week we posed the choice as one of either confronting this fascist threat, or hoping that it will just go away if it is ignored. We argued for the first course and people responded. This week we’re going to outline and address their responses.

“Yes, this ‘Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week’ poses a threat. In particular, there is a danger in the demonizing of Muslim students on campus, with Horowitz’s demand that they sign an oath supporting the ‘war on terror.’ But if you try to counter this by confronting and debating Horowitz about the truth, you run the danger of offending people on certain questions. It’s better to figure out non-confrontational ways to promote peace and understanding.”

Clearly, one big intent of this week will be to promote a pogromist atmosphere on campus against Muslim and Arab students. One example: following the Ahmedinejad speech, racist graffiti appeared at Columbia University attacking Muslim students, as well as Black and minority students. As Horowitz’s campaign picks up momentum, there will be more. The main website for “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” is promoting the idea of pressuring Muslim students to sign petitions supporting the “war on terror”: “[A] petition,” they write, “forces students and faculty to declare their allegiances: either to fighting our terrorist adversaries or failing to take action to stop our enemies. For this reason, we encourage you to make a special effort to bring this petition to those groups who might be least likely to sign it, for example to campus administrators, student government officers, and the Muslim Students’ Association.”

Horowitz aims to label every Muslim student with the brush of Islamic fundamentalism, to conflate any opposition to U.S. imperialism and its violence with support of Islamic fundamentalism, and then on that basis to force Muslim students to prove their loyalty to imperialism and to shut up about the huge amount of reactionary violence carried out by the U.S. Forcing people into public avowals of allegiance is medieval and truly ugly—and is a typical tactic of fascists.

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.

But back to Horowitz’s attempts to create a pogromist atmosphere against Muslims: can this be effectively countered by calls for peace and understanding? Horowitz takes advantage of a whole set of assumptions which are deeply embedded in this society and, consequently, in most students—the most fundamental of which is that “the Americans are the good guys.” And there is a whole habit of thought—of not wanting to know, or perhaps better put, wanting not to know, what their government actually does—that goes along with that assumption. Unless and until that foundational thinking is sharply challenged, people will find a way to turn their heads or, worse yet, will be enlisted into Horowitz’s fascist crusade. The only way to make people feel compelled to examine those assumptions is by effectively challenging them with the truth—with hard-hitting and documented facts to back it up. That means taking on and tearing to shreds Horowitz’s arguments and bringing forward the truth in opposition to that.

The controversy at Columbia last week provided what is sometimes called “a teachable moment.” Yes, things became polarized—people argued and lost their temper and all those other things that happen when core beliefs are challenged. But that polarization aroused the students from the narcotizing effects of the everyday routine and the radicals were, even in those difficult conditions and on extremely short notice, able to influence the terms of the debate among the students (with some even breaking into the national coverage of it). In the process, many people began to change their minds—and had the progressive side been nimbler and bolder in seizing on this opening, and if more people who do know better had thrown themselves into it, much more could have been accomplished. The “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” poses the potential to be much more two-sided if the people who understand what is really going on here dare to take it on, compellingly.

This leads us to another argument: “I agree—the danger of letting this go unchallenged is great. And if we could do what you propose—actually confront the Horowitz-led forces with the truth and involve thousands of students in debate, winning over a good section of them—that would be very important. But if we can’t—if we try and are not able to mount a sufficient counter-challenge—that will grant Horowitz a victory and put us in a worse position.”

Obviously, it would be better if we could only choose struggles that we were assured of winning. And, granted, it will take a lot of work and “coming from behind” to do this well. But what if this week goes effectively unchallenged? What if the core assumptions that the Horowitz crowd will be promoting and reinforcing—and all with the avowed open aim of building support for the “war on terror,” which as we write is being used to justify U.S. military aggression against Iran—what if all that just sets the terms, and if people just assume that there is no counter-argument, that what these reactionaries say, after all, is the truth? Especially when everything that these forces will put out is reinforced by the media and even their so-called liberal opponents, with Columbia President Bollinger as a case in point. What effect will that have on mounting any protest at all against the current further depredations being carried out by this government against people all over the world? And how will that play around the world, to those who do not want to be forced to choose between U.S. imperialism and Islamic fundamentalism, but who see no hope of the American people doing anything meaningful to stop the horrors perpetrated by their government?

There’s really no time to lose here. Either those who know better will mount an effective challenge to this, or there WILL be a major victory for the reactionaries and fascists. The chill will set further in at the very time when aggressive new actions are being planned by Bush. And make no mistake, these people will follow up on any such victory and not just make life hell for any who dare to oppose them, but silence the dissenters and drive them out of the academic arena—as they have already done to Ward Churchill and Norman Finkelstein and now threaten to do with others, openly and boastfully publishing “hit lists.”

“But hasn’t Horowitz already exposed himself as a fraud by putting that hoax of a picture on his website? Maybe if we don’t give him attention he’ll go away.”

Briefly, on whether this will give Horowitz attention. Horowitz has attention and will get much more through this week. He is a dangerous force, attempting to transform the universities into sites of uncontested reactionary indoctrination. Moreover, he is backed by people at the very center of the ruling core of the government. The problem right now is not “too much attention,” but the fact that not enough people know about this fascist and understand his aims and methods of deception and coercion.

As to the fraudulent photograph, Horowitz has in fact shown people a great deal about his utter lack of respect for the truth, and his corresponding lack of integrity, through his attempt to pass off a posed still from a movie as a real incident, and everyone should be constantly reminded of this wherever Horowitz goes. On the other hand, the fact is that women are stoned to death for adultery in countries ruled by Islamic theocracies and that the treatment of women overall in these countries is oppressive and unconscionable—and this issue has to be boldly addressed.

First, Horowitz’s proposed solution—the imposition of U.S. rule on these countries—in addition to making things much worse overall, will only make it less possible to deal with this particular outrage. Horowitz actually cites the Shah of Iran as a positive example in this regard! Yes, the Shah carried out certain reforms, from above. What Horowitz neglects to say is that the Shah was implanted in Iran by a military coup engineered by the U.S. against the popularly elected nationalist leader Mossadegh. The U.S. then backed the Shah in carrying out the most horrible methods of torture—indeed, the CIA and Mossad, the Israeli spy force, trained SAVAK, the Shah’s torturers—against any who dared oppose his rule. Thousands died at the hands of the Shah’s repressive forces and when the dam finally burst, a good 80% to 90% of the population participated in his overthrow. Why and how the ayatollahs were able to gain control of and essentially short-circuit and betray this revolution—a revolution which was made by a very broad front of forces, including communist, revolutionary and progressive forces—including the role of the U.S. within that, is beyond the scope of this article.

But if Horowitz is searching for examples of Middle Eastern governments that attempted to carry out reforms of some aspects of women’s oppression, why doesn’t he mention the Afghanistan regimes of the late 1970s and ’80s? These regimes, which were backed by the Soviet Union, including through military invasion and occupation, did in fact institute many reforms in the situation of women which were, at least on paper, much more thorough than either the Shah’s Iran or the laws of the current U.S.-backed government of Afghanistan (which, by the way, is officially an Islamic state). But the regime did not do this through a bottom-up revolution and the reforms did not take root. The power relations in the rural areas remained essentially untouched. And as Bob Avakian notes in his article in this current issue, “the U.S. backed and provided arms to the Islamic fundamentalist Mujahadeen, because it was recognized that they would be fanatical fighters against the Soviets. Other forces, including not only more secular nationalists but Maoists, opposed the Soviet occupation and the puppet governments it installed in Afghanistan, but of course the Maoists in particular were not supported by the U.S., and in fact many of them were killed by the ‘Jihadist’ Islamic fundamentalists that the U.S. was aiding and arming.”

Horowitz doesn’t mention this because this is one of those “inconvenient truths” that undermine the whole framework of “the Americans are the good guys” that he is trying to reinforce, and because he doesn’t really give a damn about the oppression of women, as he’s shown by his alliances with the most reactionary patriarchal forces in this country, like Pat Robertson. The fact that Horowitz is now working with someone like Phyllis Chesler, who was once a progressive feminist, shows however that this notion that the U.S. will somehow emancipate women in the Arab world has to be taken on with real substance, and from different points of view. We intend to address this in more depth next week—including going into how women’s oppression in both the oppressed nations AND within the imperialist countries themselves can be abolished through revolution. But it is crucial for everyone who envisions and works for a world without the oppression of women to enter the fray, from their own points of view, to combat this attempt by Horowitz to create a “wedge issue.” And the same holds true for taking on Horowitz’s claiming to oppose the persecution of gay people when he is aligned with people like Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell who declared that the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina and the attacks on 9/11 were God punishing America for—among other things—tolerating gays.

There are high stakes here. How people understand such things as the U.S. role in the world and the direction of U.S. society; the real choices before people, here and around the world; the roots of women’s oppression and what keeps it going with such virulence everywhere on the planet; and the actual role of religious fundamentalist political movements of all stripes are going to be very contested during this “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week.” There can be no bystanders; the question is whether the right side of this argument will speak up with all the power and sweep that it can muster and not only prevent a worsening polarization on campus, but start to change things for the better.

[LSD]

You Can't Defeat Fascism by Ignoring It

No... but wouldn't it be great if you could?


The past week has seen increasing attention and polarization around “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week,”

It has? Really? 'Cause I haven't heard a thing. Nor, it would seem, is it making any news.

A search in Google News for Islamofascism + Horowitz returned 59 hits. To put that into context, typing in "Paris Hilton" returned 5,918 and "Al Gore" returned over 11,000!

And even those paltry 59 hits were mostly fluf. Most were either conservative blogs praising it or left-leaning ones panning it. At least 4 were actually pieces written by Horowitz himself!

And as for those few actual news organizations that bothered to cover it, their coverage could basically be sumarized by the following:

"Islamofascism"? There is no such thing. -- The Dallas Morning News (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/DN-geyer_12edi.ART.State.Edition1.429431b.html
).

In other words, aside from those few right-wing groups who get off on this kind of provacative display of their conservativism and those left-wing ones who get off on "fighting fascism", this is a complete and total nonstory.

You're giving this guy and his "group" far too much credit, not to mention precisely the kind of attention they're trying to get. This is why they do what they do, to get the left pissed off and, in their deluded minds, fight the "liberal establishment" that's "taken over America".

You want to do something about "fascists"? Try Syria. Meanwhile if you're interested in some useful activity, I would suggest dealing with the forces that are actually hurting Muslim workers.

'Cause I promise you, the group of people who hate Muslims because David Horowitz told them to doesn't extend beyond his immediate family. No, people are hating Muslims because they're constantly permeated with anti-Muslim and anti-Arab imagery promulgated by a government and bourgeoisie desperate to find a scapegoat to avoid its own incompetency.

None of which has anything to do with "fascism"!


But back to Horowitz’s attempts to create a pogromist atmosphere against Muslims

:rolleyes:

Yeah, he's a "pogromist", and Osama Bin Laden is a "fascist".... What is this obsession with stealing political terminology from the 1930s?

You see it on this board all the time, people writing as if the world never moved beyond 1936, as if the working class was all gruff men in overalls and the "fascists" were marching down the street.

I suppose it comes out of the fact that the 30s, in many ways, were the hight of the radical workers movement, certainly in this century anyway. Not only does that give the period a romantic attraction, but it also means that a great many classic socialist works date from around that time -- works that can't help but reflect the era in which they were written.

And it would seems that a great many people have internalized those works to such a degree that they, unconsciously or not, think that they're still fighting the Battle of Cable Street.

In fact, as I understand it, even the term "Islamofascism" was coined by a former Trotskyist! It makes sense, 'cause no one outside of the radical left really even uses the term "fascist" anymore; nor does political Islamism actually bear any real similarity to fascism.

Rather Hitchens was probably searching for a synonym for "evil" and his years of Trotskyist indoctrination steered him to "fascist".

And if you look at many of the posts on this board, that is precisely how people seem to use the word! We critisize them for it and remind them that "fascism" has a specific meaning and context. But they keep on doing it.

I suspect that that's because they read all this talk of "fascism" and yet see absolutely no manifestation of "fascism" in their daily lives. Looking around, they don't see any "fascists" or "fascist" parties, nor can they even find a reference to "fascism" outside of socialist pamphlets and books on the 1930s.

And so they conclude that "fascism" must just be another way of saying "bad" or maybe "right-wing". After all, it can't possibly refer to the political and economic movement of Hitler and Mussilini. That died sixty years ago.


He is a dangerous force, attempting to transform the universities into sites of uncontested reactionary indoctrination.

Something which he has precisely zero chance of accomplishing.

So ...why should I care?


But if Horowitz is searching for examples of Middle Eastern governments that attempted to carry out reforms of some aspects of women’s oppression, why doesn’t he mention the Afghanistan regimes of the late 1970s and ’80s?

Are you seriously trying to debate with this man? 'Cause I've got to tell you, I seriously doubt he reads your paper -- actually I find it hard to believe that anyone reads that paper, but that's neither here nor there...


But as Bob Avakian’s article in our paper last week pointed out...

And as Bob Avakian notes in his article in this current issue...

Wow, that's pathetic.

[redwinter]

if your connection to the real world is through google searches, you might not be able to really understand everything that's going on with this shit.

on dozens of major campuses around the country (including some of the most prestigious universities worldwide) a group of reactionaries whose support and funding goes all the way up to the white house (including david horowitz, ann coulter, and rick santorum) are going to be staging modern-day nuremburg rallies.

these are not your average "conservatives": coulter, who has regular syndicated columns in newspapers around the country, has in her new bestselling book of quotes essentially called for anyone who disagrees with the president in any way to be executed (by saying that they are guilty of treason). you can pick that up in your local supermarket (i don't know if it's on google yet).

there is a battle that has started on the campuses. look at these very esteemed professors: ward churchill has been fired and norman finkelstein has resigned under massive pressure, for their political beliefs and after a massive assault led by horowitz and his allies. (meanwhile some of the campuses the IFAW is hitting have open nazi white supremacists teaching there - without a peep from horowitz and crew)

this guy somehow pulls the money to get ads in student newspapers all over the country talking about how black people need to be grateful for slavery. this is coming from somewhere - he's got serious backing and if you pick up a copy of any student or campus paper for somewhere the IFAW tour is going to be, I'm pretty sure that there will be something about it. i know i've read some heated back-and-forth about this tour from students and faculty in various papers.

hitler happened in the 30s - and the communists and others in germany said "it can't happen here" - or worse, "after hitler, then us." we can see how that worked out. let's not wait for it to be too late...let's put a stop to this shit now!

[LSD]

if your connection to the real world is through google searches, you might not be able to really understand everything that's going on with this shit.

What I understand is that "this shit" consists entirely of unimaginative fliers and empty rhetoric. What I furthermore understand is that the only people who apepar to care are conservative fanatics and "socialist" rags with names like "revolution".

I have no doubt that David Horowitze believes that "Islamofascists" threaten his "America" and that George W. Bush is a fantastic President. I also know, however, that he knows that his chance of convincing college students of either is precisely nil.

College campuses are some of the most staunchly anti-war and anti-Bush places in the US. Recent polls indicate that something like 4 out of 5 students opposes the war in Iraq.

This isn't about "changing minds", it's about agitating, about flaunting conservativism in the face of a very hostile audience. That's why Horowitz keeps talking about "liberal acadmia" and "leftist inflitration". It's why he's so gleeful about the response he's gotten.

This is why people like him and Anne Coulter get out of bed in the morning. It's why they go on talk shows and make ridiculous statements. It's there way of getting attention and proving their conservative cred for to all their fellow travelers out there.

And being called a "fascist" by a bunch of "revolutionary communists" certainly helps in that endeavour.


on dozens of major campuses around the country (including some of the most prestigious universities worldwide) a group of reactionaries whose support and funding goes all the way up to the white house (including david horowitz, ann coulter, and rick santorum) are going to be staging modern-day nuremburg rallies.

:o

Wow, I'm not even sure how to respond to that paragraph. I have to believe that you're not so deluded as to imagine that this miniscule "campaign" of Horowitz's has anything to do with the US government, but when you start talking about things "going all the way up to the white house", I can't be sure.

Please tell me that I'm misunderstanding you, 'cause otherwise I have no choice but to conclude that I'm arguing with a 6 year old.

Not only does this have nothing to do with "the white house", but I would even venture that no one in the white house has even heard of this little "awareness week". And I'm not talking high-level here, I don't think that there's a single person in the building who's heard a thing about it.

I can also pretty much asure you that within a week I'll have forgotten about it too; in a month so will everyone else you read your little article. And in a year, I would be seriously astonished if even you remember what "Islamofascism awareness week" was all about.

That's how incredibly unimportant this story is. The only proof that this even will even have occured will be all the wasted space that papers like yours devoted to it.

Not that your paper suffers from a lack of waste. At this point the ink you've spent writing the name "Bob Avakian" could probably fill the Grand Canyon.


a group of reactionaries whose support and funding goes all the way up to the white house (including david horowitz, ann coulter, and rick santorum)

Sorry, but I just had to quote that passage again since it's one of the more atonishing things I've ever read on this board.

Not only are you making the fantastical contention that the "white house" is secretly behind this campaign, but you actually have the balls to cite Ann Coulter support as proof!

But OK, I'll bit, let's take a look at these "powerful reactionaries" who "go all the way up to the White House".

Well, the first one is ...David Horowitz again! Of course he's supporting this campaign, he is this campaign. And he has about as much to do with the White House as Bob Avakian does to the working class.

As for Anne Coulter and Rick Santorum, to I seriously need to get into why they ard anything but "supported the white house"?

Anne Coulter is an author and occasional TV personality who is famous specifically for running around and making provocative insulting statements. Her advice following September 11th was to invade the middle east and convert everyone to Christianity.

Does that sound like official government policy to you? Does it sound like the type of person that the Bush administration or anyone else in government would be "supporting" or "funding" a year before an election?

Rick Santorum, meanwhile is an ex-Senator nobody who couldn't even hold on to a seat in the most conservative district in Pennsylvania. He certainly hasn't been invited to the White House since.

So much for your grand conspiracy...


[b]are going to be staging modern-day nuremburg rallies

You just keep getting whackier and whackier don't you?

Do you know how many people attended the Nuremburg rallies? The point about Nuremburg isn't that crazy things were said, it's that they were said in front of adoring crows of hundreds of thousands.

Show me that Horowitz is attracting an audience of a thousandth of that size and I'll pay attention. Otherwise, he's just another kook with a kooky idea, like millions before him.

Like Anne Coulter, who's great at selling books and getting people riled up but hasn't moved the United States one inch closer to fascism.

In fact, if anything, people like her and Horowitz probably do more to hurt the Conservative movement than anything else. They certainly belie the myth of the "compassionate conservative" and the "big tent" Republican party.

Every time Coulter comes out with a book, the DNC can slap it on a flier and raise a couple hundred million easy. She's to the American left what Ward Churchill is to the right, a talking point.


these are not your average "conservatives": coulter, who has regular syndicated columns in newspapers around the country, has in her new bestselling book of quotes essentially called for anyone who disagrees with the president in any way to be executed

Yeah, that's what she does; she says outrageous things to sell books.

I'm still waiting to hear what this has to do with "fascism".


there is a battle that has started on the campuses. look at these very esteemed professors: ward churchill has been fired and norman finkelstein has resigned under massive pressure, for their political beliefs

And that's "fascism" to you? Universities firing professors for saying whacky things?

You must have an incredibly broad view of fascism! Indeed, I can't think of a country that isn't fascist by that defintion, including by the way, your precious Maoist PRC.

'Cause if there's a country famous for its intimate relationship with censorship and academic oppression it's Maoist China.

Forget about violating tenure, academics durring the Cultural Revolution were liable to beaten on sight if they couldn't recite passages from Quotations on demand!

So yeah, Ward Churchill was fired, he was fired for plagiarism actually, but even if you believe everything he and his supporters claim and it was all just a cover, it's still far from unprecedentws.

The man compared the closest thing the US has to secular saints to Adolf Eichmann, and he got burned for it. That sucks for him, and it sucks for American "democracy".

But then "American democracy" sucks. That's the nature of bourgeois "democracy", it's crap.

"Fascism", however, is not another word for crap! Fascism, as I've tried to explain to so many people on this board, is a specific kind of political and economic organization.

One which does not describe United States of America, nor anything the Untied States is "sliding towards", eschatological prophecies notwithstanding.

The US is what it's been for a hundred years, an imperialist neocolonialist bourgeois liberal republican regime. During those hundred years, it's had its ups and downs, its swings to the left and right.

It swung pretty far to the right in the 1950s, but even at the hight of McCarthyism, it was nowhere near fascism.

I know its attractive to imagine yourself fighting a "life or death struggle" against the "forces of fascism", but you are living in one of the most liberal societies on earth.

There are countries on this planet who's governments are reminiscent of fascist regimes, Syria comes to mind; but you dishonour the memory of the hundred million victims of actual fascism when you dare to compare yourself to them.

You have no idea what fascism is, or what it's like to live under it. And that you would have the gall to proclaim the firing of a plagiarist "proof of facsism" is one of the despicible examples of middle class arrogance I have ever seen.

Try living as a woman in Saudi Arabia or as a farmer in Myanmar, then you can talk to me about oppression. Until then, how about you try spending your time dealing with the real issues going on around you.

Here's a hint: they don't involve David fucking Horowitz!


he's got serious backing

Yeah, Like Anne Coulter... :rolleyes:


hitler happened in the 30s -

Yes he did, and he ended in the 1940s, and fascism hasn't been a serious threat since.

There may be a couple of rump fascist organizations out there and all number of groups that you might choose to label "fascist", but the fact is, big-F Fascism just doesn't exist anymore.

Indeed this whole leftist obsession with fighting "fascists" is more of a holdover than anything else, a mimicking of the great revolutionary movements of the twenties and thirties which really did have a powerful fascist enemy to fight.

Today, however, the primary agents of destruction and exploitation are not fascists, not in name and not even in ideology, but liberal capitalists and their agents.

Which means that wile "bashing the fash" might seem emotionally satisfying -- and makes for good copy -- it isn't the "great struggle" that "anti-fascist" groups like to make it out.

Cable Street ended a long time ago. it's time stop recreating past glories and start dealing with the world we've got now. It's a much tougher world in many ways, the working class is much less radicalized, the promise of Leninism no longer shines; but on the bright side at least we don't have to deal with fascism anymore!

Not only have the socioeconomic forces that precipitated fascism expired, but the events of the thirties and forties have terminally discredited the ideology in the minds of both the working class and the petty-bourgeoisie.

The bourgeoisie will still fight workers' power, and they'll do it with every tool at their disposal; but they'll use a different approach.

Fascism's usefullness died at Normandy.


and the communists and others in germany said "it can't happen here" - or worse, "after hitler, then us." we can see how that worked out. let's not wait for it to be too late...let's put a stop to this shit now!

Are you seriously comparing David Horowitz to Adolf Hitler?

[Red Heretic]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13, 2007 06:44 am
Are you seriously comparing David Horowitz to Adolf Hitler?
What Horowitz leads today is the equivalence of a modern day Hitler Youth.

* Fascist purges of left-wing professors
* students recording what professors say in class so they can be purged
* attacking other students who are not joining these fascist purges as being terrorist sympathizer
* throwing rocks at professors and calling them "commie *****"
* holding events such a "catch an illegal immigrant day"

What has to happen before you consider these people fascists? When are you going to do something? When they're knocking on your door?

I recommend that people listen to this talk on Horowitz and the Hitler Youth:

"Balance" is the Wrong Criterion - and a Cover for a Witch Hunt (http://bobavakian.net/talk7.html)


There are countries on this planet who's governments are reminiscent of fascist regimes, Syria comes to mind; but you dishonour the memory of the hundred million victims of actual fascism when you dare to compare yourself to them.

You have no idea what fascism is, or what it's like to live under it. And that you would have the gall to proclaim the firing of a plagiarist "proof of facsism" is one of the despicible examples of middle class arrogance I have ever seen.

No one here is arguing that we live under fascism in the US. What IS being argued, is that there is a fascist regime in power that is trying to remake society in a fascist way, for generations to come.

As for the firing of Ward Churchill for "plagiarism," this obviously came within the context of an overall fascist attack on him. It was only raised when it became overwhelmingly apparent that they were not going to be able to purge Churchill for the reasons they originally had gone after him. Again, I would like to point people to Bob Avakian's talk on this, which I linked to up above.

[LSD]

What Horowitz leads today is the equivalence of a modern day Hitler Youth.

The Hitler Youth, at its height, had about eight million members. By 1936, virtually every boy in Germany was a member. The HJ was a massive fully integrated organ of the state which operated thousands of facilities and permeated virtually every aspect of the education system.

And you want to compare it to David Horrowitz???

Not only is that a despicable insult to the victoms of the Nazi regime, but it shows an astonishing lack of materialism, especially coming from a self-described Marxist.

Even a rudimentary understanding of Marxist theory would compel you to recognize that the significance of an organization or political movement is not derived from the whackiness of its ideas, but by the material foundation of its power.

The reason that the Nazis were such a threat was not that their ideas where bad, bad ideas are as old as humanity, but that they had the capacity to excute those ideas.

That they were able to tap into a social confluence of weakening bourgeois power, working class disorganization, collapsing mittelshtadt, and just the right combination of ascending nationalism and declining absolutist confidence.

None of those factors exist today. Sure the bourgeoisie's got itself into a couple of messes, but that's hardly anything new. Capitalism has been through far more tumultuous periods than this.

The 1930s were a period of real socioeconomic instability. Not since the 1870s-1880s had the capitalist world been so shaken. By comparison what we're living right now is a bourgeois utopia.

That's not to say that capitalism doesn't have its toubles ahead of it. We're all well aware that the system is fundamentally doomed to collapse. But we are nowhere near that precipice and the bourgeoisie is hardly running scared.

And when that time does come, I can promise you that it won't be fascism that they turn to. Not this time.

Again, the left is living in the past, deluding itself into believing that just 'cause it happened once it somehow "must" happen again.

Well sorry to burst your Cable Street reinactment party, but the capitalists are far more resourceful and evolved than you give them credit for. They have learned form the past half-century, and one of the things they've learned is that fascism is ultimately not that good for business.

That's why they spent a couple of billion dollars tearing down Hitler's Reich; it's why they've banned fascist parties all across Europe and relegated the ideology to the waste-bin of politics.

Don't you think there's a reason that Horowitz and people like him love this term "Islamofascism"? The whole point is to denigrate political Islamism, and nothing is so repugnant to the modern consciousness than fascism.

There may be a couple of rump fascists in the US today, but they have no power, no influence, and no shot of any real power.


* Fascist purges of left-wing professors

:lol:

Wow, I've got to say I didn't think that even you could assert a logical fallacy that idiodic.

Something isn't fascist just 'cause you say it is, if your argument is that Horowitz is fascist, you can't prove that case by asserting that he does fascist things!

First of all, there's no such thing as a "fascist purge". All political purges are basically the same, you kick someone out 'cause you don't like what they have to say. It doesn't matter if it's Hitler, Stalin, or George fucking Steinbrenner doing the purging, the formula's the same.

Secondly, of course, "purge" implies mass expulsion. I suppose technically the word could refer to a single firing, but your conotation is clearly that there's some sort of large-scale programme going on, when in reality there's nothing of the sort.

So far, you can point to two professors that are victims of this "purge", one of whom quit of his own volition, the other whom was fired for plagiarism.

I don't know if that charge is valid or not, but even if I accept everything the conspiracy theorists claim, one political firing and a resignation under pressure hardly amounts to the Third Reich.

Rather it sounds like any bourgeois republic on a good day. 'Cause, remember, a bad day would be 1954 in which a leftist professor would be likely to blacklisted for life.

Today, college campuses are some of the more left-leaning (albeit rather soft-left) places in America. Again, all surveys of students and faculty show a definite bias against conservative causes. 80% of students oppose the war, large majorities support liberal social issues, gay rights, abortion, etc...

So while American universities might not be brimming with Communists, they are hardly the "fascist" playground your delusional mind imagines them to be.


* students recording what professors say in class so they can be purged

Oh my God, you mean someone is actually listening to what their professors say and holding them accountable?

How shocking! :o


* attacking other students who are not joining these fascist purges as being terrorist sympathizer

Oh, so they're ....calling them names? Well, I stand corrected then; that sounds exactly like the Hitler Youth.

As I recall the SS used to call their enemies names too. Of course that was before they would beat them, arrest them, and ship them off to Treblinca. ...hmm, so I guess they're not actually that similar.

Still though, words can hurt. "Sticks and stones..." and all that, but I can understand why you'd be concerned about name-calling, it can be quite psychologically distressing.

And then I remember that the Hitler Youth? They had sticks and stones, sticks and stones that they would use to beat people in the street before murdering them and their families.

And suddenly being called a "terrorist sympathizer" doesn't seem so bad. Suddenly I have the irresistable urge to call you a couple of names; names like asshole or coward or pathetic worm that gets off on glamourizing his pathetic "struggle" at the expense of all those heroes who actually faced true oppression and dared to fight back.

You're a sad little man RH, you and your whole little cult of stutter-worshipers, fantasizing that you're "great resistance fighters", all the while disgracing those who actually did resist and, in large part, die in the process.


* throwing rocks at professors and calling them "commie *****"

Oh, so there's a mad rash of stone throwings at American college campuses, is there? Really?

Ok then, cite me ten cases of that happening in the last 20 years. Hell, make it five. Find me a professor who was seriously injured by a stone attack, find me a student who aimed to kill a teacher for being a "commie *****".

You can point to isolated incidents of professors being harrased for being "too leftist", but then I can find a dozen in which professors were harrased for being "too rightist", or for being "too religious", or even, unfortunately, for things like being "too Jewish".

The fact is there are a lot of intolerent people out there, on all sides of politics. None of which indicates a massive "fascist" campaign to take over academia!


* holding events such a "catch an illegal immigrant day"

And how many "illegal immigrants" did they actually "catch"? How many helpless souls did they capture and beat to death in their march of hatred? How many did they mutilate and disfigure in their relentless mass movement of popular bigotry and terrorism?

Thousands? Tens of thousands? Oh right ...none.

No this "day", much like this "week" you're so riled up about now, was a political stunt meant to inflame leftists and garner attention. Not a single actual person was harmed.

And do you know how I know that "fascism" is not afoot? Because if even a single person had been killed, the perpetrators would be in jail right now.

When you're really living under a "fascist regime", people who kill "enemies of the state" get medals. In the United States, despite all the rhetoric and noise, "illegal immigrants" were able to hold a massive demonstration and, as far as I know anyway, not a single participant currently resides in a death camp.


What has to happen before you consider these people fascists?

They have to actually do something fascist; they have to espouse a fascist ideology, rather than just a conservative republican one.

Show me an article in which David Horowitz legitimizes siezing state power by un-democratic means, or promotes murdering American civilians to attain polititical ends, or argues that he, or anyone else, should assume absolute authority.

Fascism is not just another word for "right-wing"! I don't know why we keep having to explain this to people, but here we go again. Fascism refers to a specific kind of socioeconomic arrangement, the kind that existed in Germany, Italy, Spain, Croatia and a couple of other countries in the 1930s.

Merely being a racist does not make one a fascist; merely being nationalistic does not make one a fascist; merely agitating for the firing of leftist professors does not make on a fascist!

Being a fascist means advocating a kind of political and economic reorganization that is not only light-years further to the right than anything David Horowitz would endorse, but also means abandoning the economic and theocratic paradigms that people like him are so in love with.

Fascism is not compatible with Horowitz's brand of conservativism; which is, incidently, why he reserves the term ("islamo-fascist") for the people he hates the most.


No one here is arguing that we live under fascism in the US. What IS being argued, is that there is a fascist regime in power

Sorry, but that sentence is self-contradictory. If you live under a fascist regime then by definition you live under fascism. If your government is fascist then your state is fascist, that's what it means to have a "fascist regime in power"!

No, what you're meant to be arguing (that is, what old Stuttering Avakian wants you to be arguning) is that the US government seeks to be fascist, they just haven't amassed enough power yet to make the transition.

That's why you're supposed to be out on the street prattling about "worlds to win" and encouraging people to legitimize bourgeois "democracy" and vote because "this election counts", blah blah blah...

Just another tired attempt to portray yourselves as more than you are, as a "vanguard" of some grand "anti-fascist" struggle; when in reality you're an insignficant party with a microscopic membership that has not and will not amount to a single serious thing in the history of the United States.

You're a footnote in the American left, RH, a speck of dust on the rock of capitalism. You're nothing ...and you know it.

So you inflate your pathetic egos by fantasizing that your something greater, something meaningful. You're pampered middle class "radicals", living in some of the greatest political freedom and economic prosperity in the world, making as though you were fighting the Warsaw Uprising.

It's truly sickening.


there is a fascist regime in power that is trying to remake society in a fascist way, for generations to come.

No, there is a bourgeois regime in power trying to protect bourgeois power by means of classical liberal bourgeois political techniques.

In other words, business as usual.

[RedStarOverChina]

Originally posted by LSD
Show me that Horowitz is attracting an audience of a thousandth of that size and I'll pay attention. Otherwise, he's just another kook with a kooky idea, like millions before him.

Like Anne Coulter, who's great at selling books and getting people riled up but hasn't moved the United States one inch closer to fascism.

I disagree. For sure, no one in their right mind would take Anne Coulter seriously.

But we are not talking about people in their right mind. We are talking about the "Holy Alliance" of Christian fascists and Neo-cons.

Clearly what Anne Coulter opens says is what Christian fascists secretly believe! I can't give a accurate accessment of how much political influence the Christian fascists have had over the current administration, but Dick Cheney's association with the likes of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell is quite evident.

Right now, the Christian fascists seem to played like a flute by the Republicans. But who's to say the table won't be turned?

[bcbm]

But we are not talking about people in their right mind. We are talking about the "Holy Alliance" of Christian fascists and Neo-cons.

Clearly what Anne Coulter opens says is what Christian fascists secretly believe! I can't give a accurate accessment of how much political influence the Christian fascists have had over the current administration, but Dick Cheney's association with the likes of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell is quite evident.

Right now, the Christian fascists seem to played like a flute by the Republicans. But who's to say the table won't be turned?

The moral majority and other ****ish christian fundamentalist (not FASCIST, for FUCKS SAKES) had far more power and influence (slightly less than Tarot, however) during the Reagan era, and no "switch to fascism" was managed then. I doubt a movement that's about to enter a whole world of hurt in the 2008 election is in any position to try and create a fascist society here. :rolleyes:

[Red Heretic]

The Hitler Youth, at its height, had about eight million members. By 1936, virtually every boy in Germany was a member. The HJ was a massive fully integrated organ of the state which operated thousands of facilities and permeated virtually every aspect of the education system.

And you want to compare it to David Horrowitz???

How many members did the HJ have in 1923? Did it just simply instantly have all of those members? Or was there a whole process of mobilization of a fascist base?

Horowitz has been mobilizing Young Republican Clubs as a part of a process creating a fascist base among the youth.

Furthermore, the fact that you would downplay "events" like "catch an illegal immigrant day" in which Horowitz's fascist base run around acusing Latino youth of being illegal is very disturbing to me. They might not be lynching these youth today, but what they are not yet able to do today, they very well will be doing tomorrow if they get their way. The things I listed were the same tacttics that the Hitler Youth used during their early days. It wasn't until much later until they were able to do the things you listed.

This brings me to my next point, which I believe is very important...



Sorry, but that sentence is self-contradictory. If you live under a fascist regime then by definition you live under fascism. If your government is fascist then your state is fascist, that's what it means to have a "fascist regime in power"!

No! Just because fascists like George Bush have political power does not at all mean that we live under fascism. There is both freedom and necessity for these fascists and neo-cons.

They want a situation where they can freely invade Iran without having to worry about upheaval back home like they had with Iraq, ban all abortion, enforce literal Biblical law, establish a total police state, and to deepen their oppression of Black people and immigrants.

...but they don't yet have the freedom to do that! If they did those things there would be massive upheaval at this point. That is part of why they are mobilizing this fascist base on the campuses, and in other key sections of society. They need to basically ice dissent on the campuses while at the same time mobilizing a whole fascist juggernaut.


and encouraging people to legitimize bourgeois "democracy" and vote because "this election counts", blah blah blah...

No where has the RCP ever claimed that "this election counts," and no where has it ever called on people to legitimize bourgeois democracy. Stop lying!

The RCP has specifically condemned Dimitrovism (the trend during the 1930's in which Dimitrov called on people to defend bourgeois democracy from fascism), and called on us, as communists, to fight this fascist juggernaut from our point of view, revolution.

Not Being Jerry Rubin, Or Even Dimitrov, But Actually Being Revolutionary Communists - THE CHALLENGE OF DEFENDING FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS -- FROM A COMMUNIST PERSPECTIVE, AND NO OTHER (http://revcom.us/a/007/avakian-jerry-rubenhtm.htm)


You're a footnote in the American left, RH, a speck of dust on the rock of capitalism. You're nothing ...and you know it.

What the hell is this personal attack? Grow up LSD.


Just another tired attempt to portray yourselves as more than you are, as a "vanguard" of some grand "anti-fascist" struggle; when in reality you're an insignficant party with a microscopic membership that has not and will not amount to a single serious thing in the history of the United States.

If anything, the fact that you feel you need to sit here all day pumping out these essays attacking the RCP and Avakian, or the fact that every Spaticist League member carries around "The RCP Truth Kit" with them, must be quite flattering to the RCP. It proves the exact opposite of what you say here, that they are not some "insignificant party with a microscopic membership," but rather a very influential revolutionary vanguard party.

[RedStarOverChina]

Originally posted by black coffee black [email protected] 15, 2007 01:13 pm
The moral majority and other ****ish christian fundamentalist (not FASCIST, for FUCKS SAKES) had far more power and influence (slightly less than Tarot, however) during the Reagan era, and no "switch to fascism" was managed then. I doubt a movement that's about to enter a whole world of hurt in the 2008 election is in any position to try and create a fascist society here. :rolleyes:
Actually if I remember correctly, the Christian fascists really began their political alliance with the Republican party during the reign of George H. W. Bush, not Reagan. Even then, the Christian fascists were not really all the influential, often used by the Republicans for their own gains, as I mentioned before. But today, we find Christian fascists in every cornern of the American government. And their protentials are not to be underestimated.

Lefties MUST confront this threat consistantly and with no reservations.


P.S. The Christian fundamentalists exihibts ALL of the traits of the fascists in the 1920s and 30s, PLUS the religious fervour. Therefore they deserve the name "Christian fascists".

[Red Heretic]

Check out this very important video!

Horowitz and Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week (http://www.worldcantwait.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4382&Itemid=223)

[bcbm]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 05:10 pm
Actually if I remember correctly, the Christian fascists really began their political alliance with the Republican party during the reign of George H. W. Bush, not Reagan.
No, the Moral Majority was founded in 1978 as a lobbying group, and had a membership in the millions made up of various political action committees who helped secure a large number of votes for Reagan in the 1980 election. Throughout his time in office, there was a lot of cooperation between the groups until the MM dissolved in 1989.


Even then, the Christian fascists were not really all the influential, often used by the Republicans for their own gains, as I mentioned before. But today, we find Christian fascists in every cornern of the American government. And their protentials are not to be underestimated.

What we have today is essentially the same thing as in the 1980's, and something that happens rather often in US politics, if not the world... things swing to the right, then back to the left, but ultimately they maintain the bourgeois status quo. There is nothing for them to gain from implementing a fascist order as they are under no serious threat.


Lefties MUST confront this threat consistantly and with no reservations.

We must confront the bourgeois through building class consciousness and working with our comrades in the under classes, not creating false fascists to engage in some "heroic" (read: pointless) struggle against. To be sure, we should confront open racism, etc when it presents itself, but misusing the fascist label and inflating their threat helps them, not us.


P.S. The Christian fundamentalists exihibts ALL of the traits of the fascists in the 1920s and 30s, PLUS the religious fervour. Therefore they deserve the name "Christian fascists".

No they don't. The Christian fundamentalists still cling to American notions of individualism, free markets, liberal democracy, etc, for a start, and that alone disqualifies them as "fascists."

[metalero]

it's not good to understimate the fearmongering about "islamofascism", an usual tactic by these ultra rightists to approach a society relatively ignorant of world history and politics. here's a goog article (http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp10102007.html) on counterpunch.org:


Horowitz's Latest Hate Campaign Heads for Campus
Spreading Awareness or Smearing a Religion?
By GARY LEUPP

With much fanfare, a collection of far-right ideologues backed by right-wing "think tank" money are proclaiming an "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week" on college campuses beginning Oct. 22. It is a calculated effort to vilify Islam in general, place Muslim Student Associations on the defensive, and generate support for further U.S. military action in the Islamic world.

Muslims constitute about a quarter of the world's population and around two percent of the U.S. population. They include members of many ethnic groups. Arabs are a minority in the Muslim world; the most populous Muslim countries (Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh) are non-Arab. The Muslim world is complex and divided, religiously (into Sunni, Shiite, and other groups) and politically. There are Muslim absolute monarchies, constitutional monarchies, secular states and Islamic republics. To understand this world, one needs to dispassionately examine it, avoiding stereotypes.

But immediately after 9-11, the Bush administration, having no patience with "nuance," set about trying to link the secular republic of Iraq with the (mostly Saudi) al-Qaeda religious fanatics. It believe that having been attacked by al-Qaeda most Americans would support an attack on the completely unrelated target of Iraq. But what did al-Qaeda and Iraq have in common? The former hated the latter for its suppression of Islamic religious activism, and its tolerance for Christians and other religious minorities. But somehow Bush was able to conflate the two, so that even today about a third of Americans believe Saddam was involved in 9-11. Those on the Christian right are most inclined to this view, and to embrace sentiments like those expressed by right-wing extremist Ann Coulter in National Review Sept. 13, 2001: "We should invade [Muslim] countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." But they're joined by secular neoconservatives like Norman Podhoretz who has called on Bush to bomb Iran, which he calls "the currently main center of the Islamofascist ideology."

Iran is another country with no ties to 9-11 or al-Qaeda, and indeed a mortal enemy of the latter. But it is another Muslim state in the Bush administration's crosshairs, along with Syria-yet another, very different, Muslim country. It's in this context, and that of general disillusionment with the Iraq War, that the radical neoconservatives are pushing this "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week." It's the brainchild of David Horowitz, professional "former leftist" and Fox News commentator, proponent of the Iraq War who called one antiwar demonstration in 2002 "100,000 Communists," and author of a book attacking college professors as "far left" in general. He founded (as a non-student in his 60s) "Students for Academic Freedom" which insists that conservative students are treated unfairly in academe. Horowitz is known for his 1990s ads in student newspapers protesting calls for reparations for slavery, stating that African-Americans should be thankful that they're here. In 2003 he maligned Rachel Corrie, killed by an Israeli military bulldozer while protesting a house demolition in Gaza, as a "terrorist" supporter. He is not about spreading "awareness" but selectively focusing on aspects of the Muslim world that might produce sympathy for more U.S.-sponsored "regime change."

The "Islam-Fascism Awareness Week" strategy is apparently to focus on gender inequality in the Muslim world. Participating students invite women's groups and gaylesbian groups to get involved, hoping to build a united front of general indignation at Islamic oppression of women and gays. Of course, in the Muslim world the status of women varies; under Saddam's secular Iraqi women were subject to no dress code, were among the best educated in the Arab world, and served in government, while under U.S. occupation their status (and that of gays) has plummeted. There is a big difference between the status of women in Syria and in Saudi Arabia. Recall how Laura Bush made a big deal about the burqa in Afghanistan, implying that the U.S. invasion would somehow remove it? It's still worn by the great majority of Afghan women. It was not invented by the Taliban and has not disappeared just because the U.S. has installed a client regime.

The term "Islamofascism" itself---popularized by Eliot Cohen (Condi Rice's deputy), Frank J. Gaffney and other neocon writers for the National Review, and used by President Bush in saber-rattling speeches---is highly problematic. It's defined by the New Oxford American Dictionary as "a controversial term equating some modern Islamic movements with the European fascist movements of the early twentieth century." I teach every year Japanese fascism in the 1930s and 40s. I discuss different definitions of fascism, pointing out how some seem to fit the Japanese case, while others don't, causing some scholars to even reject application of the term. But there is precious little in any mainstream scholarly definition of fascism that applies to the Islamic world in general or even specific countries. What "ideology" links the disparate targets of this administration-the al-Qaeda and Taliban Sunni fanatics, the Baathists of Iraq and Syria, the Shiite mullocracy"guided democracy" of Iran---other than the common denominator of Islam? But you can't in polite company attack Islam in general, so you dub it "Islamofascism."

Those seeking to link contemporary Islam with European fascism emphasize feelings of victimization and dreams of restoring lost glory. But where in the Muslim world is the charismatic leader? Bin Laden? The Baathists and Shiites hate him. Where's the mass-based party? Where's ultranationalism or racism? Islam emphasizes the equality of peoples before God, while the Qur'an explicitly states that righteous Christians and Jews will enter Paradise.

The real intention here is to couple "Islam" with a powerful epithet, devoid of analytical content, conjuring up images of a universally detested past. Bush insists on comparing the constitutionally weak Iranian President Ahmadinejad, leading a country that hasn't attacked another in hundreds of years, with Hitler (as his father compared Saddam to Hitler). Similarly, the proponents of the "Islamofascism" concept want to play upon emotions rather than really spread "awareness." Their historical analogies are absurd, while their planned week is more than an affront to Muslims. It is an insult to everybody's intelligence.

Inmediately an U.S army sargeant reply to the article with typical apologies for more Imperialism. Professor the replied in Response to an angry Marine (http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp10152007.html):

You assume I have never been in the Middle East. I have, actually, but that is of little importance. You and I can be living in the same neighborhood of Boston but very different assessments of what is going on. Your very specific sort of experience in Lebanon hardly entitles you assert superior knowledge of the Islamic world, and your references to Palestinians (and apparent disinclination to even capitalize the name of their late leader) suggest you have acquired a very skewed understanding of their plight and response to it.

You make several assertions, implicitly demanding I accept or refute them:

(1) Islamic leaders around the world call for a "world Caliphate."

(2) Iran (contrary to my claim to the contrary) has in fact attacked other countries in recent times.

(3) Even "moderate" Muslims want to "rule over all" in America.

Before responding to these, I'd like suggest that religion is as much as anything else a matter of cultural identity. It's not genetically determined, but is generally inherited from one's parents. Those who come to abandon the faith in which they were raised are surely in the minority. In other words, the billion-plus Muslims about whom you so confidently generalize are comparable to a huge ethnic category (like Europeans) or linguistic group (like English speakers). Among them there is enormous variety. But when you attack the whole group, you tend to encourage them to pull together in self-defense.

These days those who stereotype Muslims and essentialize Islam not only don't know what they're talking about but are vilifying and dehumanizing others in order to justify more war. I'm not saying that's your intention, Sergeant, but it's encouraged by your rhetoric about "the Caliphate."

click on the link to read the whole article.