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Islamo-Fascism Awareness week, round one!: Kulawik and co. organize a non-partisan “candlelight vigil” at the sundial. Chopin plays tastefully in the background; more or less sombre-looking College Republicans mill about, ostensibly in remembrance of alleged “Islamo-fascism’s” alleged victims.
But what’s this? Revolution party folk handing out fliers and displaying some choice David Horowitz quotes? Seems even candlelight vigils can’t go unprotested around here, although given the sticky subject matter Bwog isn’t all that surprised. We are, however, gratified to see that protester and counter-protester are keeping out of each other’s business. Hooray for civility!
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37 Comments
@ugh the left wing seeks to fix the problems at home and lead by example.
the right wing seeks to marginalize the problems at home and lead with violence.
sorry, but i’m not about to go complaining to the hoa about the neighbor’s horrendous yard upkeep when i have a few rusted out chevy’s in my own.
@rjt I love everyone.
@Sprinkles Typical Republicans: Spitting in our eyes and telling is it’s raining, then exploiting people’s emotions.
@Holy shit That was spot-on.
@What fucking hypocrites. Fat chance they’d hold a bullshit candle light vigil for Iraqi civilians that were killed during the US War on and occupation in Iraq, or other victims of brutal US imperialism. Where’s their support of victims there? Why not support equal civil rights for homosexuals and women at home, in the same vein. They make me sick, using victims of ruthless leaders to bolster agendas of our own ruthless leaders, and playing on hate rhetoric and pervasive prejudice and paranoia to do it. Absolutely sickening.
The extent of my opinion on Kulidick before was that he’s an attention-whore elf looking positioning himself for a job at a neocon ‘think’ tank. Now I just find him plain repulsive.
@thank you but what are morals?
i’m serious, those of you who just lambasted moral relativism please answer my question, and please also include a brief outline of what the correct moral system is.
@sorry no cigar i’m not some absolutist
which is why my response in that other post was that in a democracy its society that erects a positivist set of morals which then become the basis off of which everything is judged
just a note–i’m not talking about a political democracy, but a cultural concensus–it will always exist and you will be judged against it
@sorry if i wasn’t clear
it was to support that horowitz second quote in those that have been listed isnt’ that far off base..in fact “There are 50,000 professors…who are anti-American, they’re radicals, they identify with the terrorists, they think of them as freedom fighters. It’s a huge danger for the country.” is actually soemwhat truthful (50000 is hyperbole)
As for feeling repulsive for feeling this way, the beauty of academy is that when it works correctly nobody necessarily feels bad for teh views they hold. However, holding particular views can often demonstrate how reasonable a certain group of people are to society at large. I think the sentiments echoed by those professors would be greatly rejected by teh american people and are in fact only one action away from becoming an actual open attack (as opposed to just an intellectual one) on america [and some of these profs have even taken those step]
Academy in a democracy allows the majority of a democracy to confront opposing or rarely held views and also helps promote vigilance against possible enemies [both from an intellectual standpoint and then a pragmatic one]. While you may find truth in these statements, the majority of americans probably don’t agree with you–they certainly don’t wish the death of american soldiers. The fact they know their intellectual opposition helps them more effectively combat it.
@Controversy? The parallels between the American war of independence and the global Islamic insurgency are not exact. The colonists did not deliberately target civilians; the nineteen hijackers did. Nevertheless, this difference should not obscure the more basic fact — when viewed from the perspective of the protagonists in each case — that there exists a similarity of aims. Both insurgencies seek to overthrow what they perceive to be foreign occupations. If we choose to ignore this, as most Americans have done, we may fail to arrive at a correct response to this insurgency. —Prof. Shahid Alam
He’s not supporting the insurgency, and he clearly states that “global Islamic insurgency” has targeted civilians in contrast to the US war of independence. He’s pointing out the obvious that *from the view of the rebel/insurgent,* the action is morally just. Does anyone really think that terrorists recognize their acts as immoral? You can’t even infer that Amin is promoting moral relativism in that statement. Come on.
@that's missing the point
it certainly is relativism as he prefaces the ‘parallels’ precisely with the exception that innocents are targeted in the modern insurgency–thus while the means in this case are exclusive that doesn’t mean the larger analogy still doesn’t hold
this is visible in a number of ways. First he attaches no moral value to either’s ideological impetus–he claims they parallel each other–instead he only talks about means (which can certainly be somewhat unscrupulous while aiming towards a moral goal)–you’ll find that a recurrent argument amongst apologists for those insurgents is that attacks against innocents are justified as attacks against the larger machinery of occupation–in any event there is no judgement made on the ideological basis but instead a comment on teh methods of achieving the goals
This is reflected in the last sentence as well—understanding how to deal with the insurgency according to Amin must be done through the same lens as how one would deal with the revolutionaries. Again, their ideology and perspective is similiar and there is no moral distinction that has been made. The idea that they should be responded to in similiar manners precisely is the definition of relativism, that while there may be a trivial difference in the details or substantive issues of the movement, their motivations and perspective are equivalent and should be the governing criteria through which their entire position and the consequent response should be viewed and decided
The choice of the american revolutionaries versus insurgents is even more disconcerting. The average person when asked about the righteousness of the american revolution would probably believe in indepedence and that the revolutionaries were justified because of past and continuing wrongs (there is a strong argument to the contrary here that isn’t approached because of patriotically fueled laziness and generally negative attitudes towards colonialism) and such a reflection on the insurgents motives smacks of the argument a lot of saudi and middle east observers blithely suggested after 9/11 while at the same time donating money–that the US got what it deserved
@the point I would also disagree with you that this is relativism. Alam is saying that the motivations or justification within terrorist groups is similar to that of revolutionaries and that we need to recognize this fact or we may respond wrongly is not. To imply, as you do, that he is placing terrorists and revolutionaries on the same moral plane takes a huge leap of faith. Specifically, the neoconservative movement has generally put forth that terrorists are motivated because “they hate our freedom,” or they are “evil-doers,” and the appropriate response in this case would be an intense military campaign, shock & awe, etc. On the other hand, if we look at their motivation as revolutionaries, such a response would, in fact, encourage more terrorist recruitment and be counter-productive (unlike, say, secularizing their school system). So, pray tell, which outlook has been effective for us so far?
And if you think you can handle my moonbat style, let’s actually discuss the similarities between insurgents in Iraq (those that are only fighting US troops, say) and the guerrilla fighters of our revolutionary war.
@Wait Are you saying “past and continuing wrongs” didn’t occur in the Middle East? I hardly think terrorism is justified in any case, but I do find it disconcerting that even a lot of well-educated Americans never read, say, the statements Bin Laden made before 9/11 — there were long laundry lists of specific complaints against specific acts of American foreign policy.
I mean, basically, that’s what the American Revolution was: “We’re being occupied by an oppressive force that’s antithetical to what we perceive to be our collective way of life, so let’s start shooting at them.”
Anyway, Alam is right — whether or not you agree with me, it is very dangerous to deny that terrorists see THEMSELVES as righteous revolutionaries. And you don’t end revolutionary spirit by bombing the crap out of people’s homes; you have to co-opt it and wreck it for everybody. Duh. Sort of like the last 30 years in America.
@this is meant to #24 as well
The problem with both arguments (you both now admit that he makes no distinction on the relative merits of their actions but rather points out a difference in their methods–do you understand relativism? you both are now arguing whether the relativism he tries to argue in favor of is legitimate, not whether he’s makign that claim) is one that is characteristic of Americans who percieve all islamic terrorism only through the lens of the middle east and the consequent response by this govt becuase of their own silly political inclinations
Islamo fascism doesn’t refer to al qaeda singularly or to one particular group [or to your bogeyman bin laden — by the way you forgot his letter where he asked americans to “reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and usury.” and your arrogant claim that bin laden is only politically motivated is stupid when one considers that he understands that his videos are most effective as recruitment by offer pragmatic examples buttressing the need to defend islam and ensure its proselytization {he is a self proclaimed scholar of islam}–in fact he even says in his videos as a sort of frame “It was also confirmed by an authentic source that prophet Muhammad said no one could be faithful until he loves me more than he loves his parents, his sons and all other people. Therefore, the Umma has reached a consensus that he who offends or degrades the messenger would be killed. Such offence is regarded as kufr (infidelity).” and reaffirms that Allah has made it taboo ‘to offend him’] and thus its very myopic to ignore that the entire ‘they hate our freedom’, ‘they want to impose their values on all outsiders’, ‘they want to rule a state according to their religious–not political principles’ ideology is in fact precisely the connecting string amongst many of the insurgents who for example plague indonesia/the phillipines/malaysia/russia/kashmir/the middle east/somalia/yemen/egypt/etc
I could care less about the american revolutionaries vs islamic insurgents argument because as i mentioned before (if you’d actually read) the belief that the american revolutionaries were morally correct in their actions is an uncontested idea due to the atmosphere of stifling patriotism in the country (as is what the response could/should have been)–however the point again is that i do agree that Alam believes that both see themselves as analagous freedom fighters. it appears you both see them the same way while ignoring the fact just like alam does that in one case there is a political dissidence (by the way, a million times no on your perception of american revolutionary history where the qualms were on legal and economic issues moreso than overarching republican ones) where in the other there is mainly a religious one (again, please look outside bin laden and iraq, in many islamic extremism cases there is no ‘outside occupying oppressor’ but instead dissatisfaction with the political conditions within a state) which is then couched in political disputes as its outlet-that is precisely the reason why we can’t just naively win hearts and minds like i believe #20 is suggesting (by the way this is truly priceless–you’re suggesting we not use any violence tactics agianst those who kill civilians and advocate their relgiious views in a violent method adn instead try to use and win at propaganda in generally closed, tightly structured or authoritarian communities to have a long term effect that changes their minds?—would you have made this same argument with regards to slavery or stand and watch while countless ‘non gays’ in iran are hung? not to mention this discounts the fact that extremists have evolved their structure and their propaganda techniques in such ways that practical implementation of this is incredibly hard)
by the way to poster #24..what is a moonbat style? and to answer the rest of that paragraph, again it reveals an utter lack of knowledge about how such a comparison is worthy (are you suggesting common guerilla tactics–which i can guarantee you have evolved between the two groups–and i would gladly have that argument somehow correlate to the substantive merits of the guerilla? you’re aware there have been rightist and leftist guerilla in the last 200 yrs right? heck there have been both in the same country in the same time period (colombia for example)) especially considering your ridiculous ‘those that only attack american troops’ statement? I mean do you really want to talk about the distinction between rivals clerics religious armies and their use of civilian attacks to inflame hatred/attacks against other religious groups/attacks against the same religious group but opposing clerics, al qaeda members, foreign islamic extremists and probably the very small number of unassociated iraqi freedom fighters? Because I can bet you you can’t find one article where someone can definitively say an insurgent was not associated with a clerics army, a foreign fighter, an al qeada fighter, or a religiously motivated casue so it might be hard to draw that parallel of american revolutionaries (whose aims were solely political for teh country as a whole [and not as a faction within the country] which is why there were geographically opposed revolutionaries fighting side by side) except to maybe a scant few kurdish insurgents who (i even doubt this because many want their own autonomous state) fight for iraq as a whole against the occupation–especially considering the country down to its soccer players are mired in secretarian disputes
Alam’s claim is disturbing precisely for the fact that it posits that the similarities between the two are so obviously evident and equivalent when in fact they’re very complicated and not analagous–by his tactics you could claim that any two dissident groups are similiar and should be treated simialarily
@me again basicaly i’m asking the person who posted them to tell me what his/her thesis is and why they chose this specific selection of statements.
@i'm sorry, but when did it become unacceptable to utter anti-american sentiments? i feel like the majority of those quotes had merit. would someone like to explain to me why am “repulsive” for feeling this way?
@some words “The only true heroes are those who find ways that help defeat the U.S. military, I personally would like to see a million Mogadishus.” Nicholas De Genova, assistant professor of anthropology at Columbia University
“If [the War on Terror] is about terrorism and terrorism is the killing of innocent civilians, then the United States is also a terrorist.” —Prof Gordie Fellman
The parallels between the American war of independence and the global Islamic insurgency are not exact. The colonists did not deliberately target civilians; the nineteen hijackers did. Nevertheless, this difference should not obscure the more basic fact — when viewed from the perspective of the protagonists in each case — that there exists a similarity of aims. Both insurgencies seek to overthrow what they perceive to be foreign occupations. If we choose to ignore this, as most Americans have done, we may fail to arrive at a correct response to this insurgency. —Prof. Shahid Alam
” The Jihad is here, at home, and it’s going to be enforced by the neoconservatives;” — Prof. Bernardine Dohrn
“it’s about time that we have an intifada in this country that change[s] fundamentally the political dynamics in here” –Prof. Hatem Bazian
“It is time for the United States to declare a truce with the Muslim world, and radical Islam in particular.” — Prof. Mark LeVine
“I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.” — Prof. Bill Ayers in reference to his time w/the terrorist group Weather Underground
“The United States is, I think, by any honest account, the leading terrorist institution in the world today.” — Prof. Robert McChesney
“”We have got to eliminate the gringo, and what I mean by that is if the worst comes to the worst, we have got to kill him.” — Prof. José Angel Gutiérrez
Former Prof. Sami Amin Al-Arian pled guilty to a count of conspiracy to provide services to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad
Prof Ebrahim Moosa claimed Bush and Blair were “the Christian Taliban”
“If Saddam Hussein is a monster, as hardly anyone would doubt, the United States is in many respects his Dr. Frankenstein.” — Professor Matthew Evangelista
In the United States today, the Declaration of Independence hangs on schoolroom walls, but foreign policy follows Machiavelli. —Prof Howard Zinn
@My favorite: “The ‘Gay international’ creates homosexuals where they do not exist.”
-Joseph Massad
@You almost certainly do not understand what Massad meant by that.
Massad’s point is that being ‘gay’ or a ‘homosexual’ is a Western label that equates certain sexual practices with a specific political identity. If you like to have sex with someone of the same gender, the thinking goes, then you should assume a specific label describing yourself in those terms.
Massad does not dispute the fact that men have slept with men (I think he pays less attention to the more-rarely documented cases of women sleeping with women) for thousands of years in the Middle East and elsewhere. But he does deny that these people were ‘homosexuals’ in the sense that they based their political identity on their sexual practices and demanded certain rights on these grounds.
@scholarship refutes him, and I’ve seen the phrase “gives no evidence to support his central thesis” used at least twice in reference to Desiring Arabs, including in the New Republic. I’m sure I’m not misunderstanding him.
@invisible_hand oh armin…
did you really just use the phrase “scholarship refutes him?” for serious?
as a man of letters, you must have a more sophisticated view of the production of scholarship than that.
And I hardly think the New Republic is the world’s authority on post-colonial scholarship. even if it is what POTUS reads while he shits on Air Force One.
@well, if the answer is so obvious, then you should, like the learned New Republic, also be able to produce evidence that Massad’s argument is not so.
Do you remember reading about gay rights movements during the Ottoman Empire? How about in Safavid Persia? Did those who administered either state target homosexuals as a distinct group deserving of reprobation? Enlighten us, please.
@well... State repression against gay people happens on a frequent basis across the Middle East. Massad, however, who claims to be a supporter of sexual freedom per se, is oddly impassive when confronted with the vast catalogue of anti-gay state violence in the Muslim world. Massad, unlike Ahmadinejad, does acknowledge that “gay-identified” people exist in the Middle East, but he views them with derision. Take, for instance, his description of the Queen Boat victims as “westernized, Egyptian, gay-identified men” who consort with European and American tourists. A simple “gay” would have sufficed. He smears efforts to free the men by writing of the “openly gay and anti-Palestinian Massachusetts congressman Barney Frank” and the “anti-Arab and anti-Egyptian [Congressman] Tom Lantos” who circulated a petition amongst their colleagues to cut off U.S. funding to Egypt unless the men were released. He then goes onto belittle not just gay activists (one of whom, a founder of the Gay and Lesbian Arabic Society, referred to the Queen Boat affair as “our own Stonewall,” in reference to the 1969 Stonewall riot when a group of patrons at a New York City gay bar resisted arrest, a moment credited with sparking the American gay rights movement) but the persecuted men themselves. The Queen Boat cannot be Stonewall, Massad insists, because the “drag Queens at the Stonewall bar” embraced their homosexual identity, whereas the Egyptian men “not only” did “not seek publicity for their alleged homosexuality, they resisted the very publicity of the events by the media by covering their faces in order to hide from the cameras and from hysterical public scrutiny.” Massad does not pause to consider that perhaps the reason why these men covered their faces was because of the brutal consequences they would endure if their identities became public, repercussions far worse than anything the rioters at Stonewall experienced. “These are hardly manifestations of gay pride or gay liberation,” Massad sneers.
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=b41d10c0-1bfb-4d8f-83fa-47ae8776b2b5
@Anonymous I’m not sure that you fully understand the last quote from Zinn, because it’s pretty much spot on. Zinn isn’t being anti-American; instead, he’s saying that the US follows a realist foreign policy, taking power wherever we can get it, and changing alliances to suit our interests (among other things). Most historians and political scientists would agree with Zinn.
Most of these other statements are pretty tasteless and horrific, but I think that draws an interesting parallel to Horowitz’s words: while they might have a grain of truth in them, there are some things that are so tasteless and base that they’re just not worth saying.
@I tend to agree with you actually. Zinn’s quote doesn’t fall in line with the rest of those quotes and I probably shouldn’t have included it. In fact many of Horowitz’ ‘anti american’ professors are really just offering different lens of interpretation of history or sociology/psychology that horowitz doesn’t like and which are not necessarily anti american per se. However, there are an astounding number of profs who do echo sentiments which are pretty repulsive and anti american.
@Did Zinn JUST read the Prince (which, anyone who took CC should know that it was just a brown-nosing resume) but not the Discourses??
@Choice Quote “African-Americans have benefited from slavery too, since the average income in America is….” whatever, can’t be fucked. You know how it goes.
To me, that quote sums up Islamo-Fascism week. While there is some truth to it, why would you choose to say something so fucking distasteful. It’s like saying Jewish persecution was great for the Jews because it facilitated the creation of Israel.
@umm the two girls in the bottom picture aren’t republicans. they’re democrats.
@in the library There’s a sign with a quote that reads:
“The Muslim Students Association is a creation of the Muslim Brotherhood and is…part of the Islamo-fascist jihad.”
And another:
“There are 50,000 professors…who are anti-American, they’re radicals, they identify with the terrorists, they think of them as freedom fighters. It’s a huge danger for the country.”
@... What fucking morons…
Yes, clearly people of a faith getting together to share their faith with one another is a demonstration of islamic fanaticism. That makes as much sense as saying Hillel is part of some Jewish conspiracy.
As these hate-filled posters demonsrate, this whole week is a week of xeno phobia and islamaphobia. This isn’t about fascism, this is about stirring up hate.
And another thing, why in the world do we need a whole week to focus on the negative aspects of Islam? Every damn day of the calender year is a day when you will see that side of the coin magnified on the news. If anything, we need a week to raise awareness about the good side of things.
@calm down if you look at the MSA at schools like UC Davis, they are absolutely fanatics. Not so at Columbia. The MSA here is pretty timid.
In any case, the point of all this isn’t to attack muslims, it’s to attack fanatics. and as a former muslim i absolutely do believe that islam is incompatible with freedom and human rights.
@Anonymous Troll detected. Was it worth the lulz, troll?
Anyway, I want to start putting up pictures of the Ku Klux Klan with “Christian-Fascist” printed on the bottom, but I don’t have a print quota to rasterbate with this week, so can someone get on that for me? Feel free to use a picture with Hitler or Mussolini and the same quote.
Eat that, you rich white retards.
@anonyMOUSE And you have the audacity to call the Republicans racist? HILARIOUS! Thanks for showing the true “tolerance” of the anti-Islamofascism awareness week crowd.
I think you just might be stupid and racist enough to be a part of World Can’t Wait.
@... Thank you for illustrating what is wrong with this week.
You took the example of UC Davis to justify theat poster… But still, that poster makes a pretty broad blanket statement about a diverse group of organizations and labels them all as a certain thing (unless there is some footnote there on the poster that i missed)…
What events like this do are raise antipathy towards all muslims… you say it’s not about attacking muslims but just fanatics… but then you go on to say islam is completely incompatible with human rights, etc?
So, you’re not attacking the believer but just what they believe in? and not just the creed of the fanatic but all of islam?
You sound rather confused; or at the very least you’ve made me rather confused…
@anonymous “What events like this do are raise antipathy towards all muslims…”
You keep *saying* that.. but you’re not giving us any reason to believe you.
Who exactly is experiencing this antipathy toward moderate, human-rights-respecting Muslims? You say these people exist, but I haven’t met them.
@let me spell it out for you. Islam in and of itself is anti-human rights and anti-freedom. I should know. I was raised Muslim and had to study it for years (thanks, Mom). Luckily, Muslims do not all follow Islam to the tee (much like any other religion, really, people pick and choose what they want to follow). See? No contradiction. Islamofascism week is aimed at those who seek to follow Islam as literally as possible–namely, they are fanatics and terrorists.
The MSAs that really stand out in this country are at the UC schools, and they’re just fucking crazy. Anyone who criticizes MSAs like Horowitz does is clearly talking about the loud MSAs that promote terrorism in Israel, praise the terrorists for 911, etc, not groups that sit around and eat dinner at Eid.
@curious what are some of these “choice david horowitz quotes”?
@me! SECOND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!