[WCUSP] Be Aware & Resist: "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week"

[Barbara Taft]

Hi Katharine,

Thanks for sending this out.  There is an Arab-American doctor here in Phoenix who has
bought into this whole thing and who writes a lot of articles slamming CAIR and the local
mosque.  He has started his own organization, but he speaks mostly for himself. Reminds
me of some of the anti-Arab Arabs the networks grabbed during the '90s to shill for their
anti-Arab biases.  This doctor also appears on some right-wing talk shows.  Makes me
wonder if he spends any time in his medical practice.  He seems to be trying to distance
himself from the Muslim community (and he is succeeding) by saying that politics has no
place in the mosque.  By that, he means politics that don't agree with his.  It also
reminds me of the term "self-hating Jew," which many of my friends have earned from the
right-wing Jewish community.  He calls himself a Muslim, but the local imam has locked
horns with him over what is appropriate behavior at a mosque, and politics are still a
part of the mosque agenda, at the imam's behest.

I've always wondered what specific thing turned Horowitz from the left-wing radical he
once was to the lapdog for the right wing that he is today.  As for this doctor, he has
written about being upset by the insertion of social justice issues (his term is
"political" but what he describes is social justice) into mosque worship services, and
that seems to have been one turning point.  The other was the indoctrination he got as
a member of the U.S. military.  My guess is that he got harassed for being a Muslim and
rebelled by becoming what he imagined to be "more American"--his term, not mine.

Hope you are doing well.

Barb T.

--- KATHARLOW at aol.com wrote:

>  
> ====================================================== 
> David Horowitz and his army of Campus Republicans are launching  
> "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week" October 22-26 on hundreds of college campuses  across the 
> country. They are ominously calling this "the biggest conservative  campus 
> protest ever." Invoking 60's-styled themes like "free speech" and  combating the 
> "oppression of women in Islam" as a cover, they plan to harass  Muslim Student 
> Associations and Women's Studies Departments, and silence anyone  that 
> questions the Bush Regime's official narrative, including even those  concerned 
> about global warming!  
> The first thing that must be said is that "Islamo-fascism" is a Bush term  
> which all thinking people need to reject. It's a label concocted to whip up the  
> xenophobia, blind patriotism, and intellectual conformity necessary for the  
> ongoing U.S. crusade in the Middle East. Especially given the Bush regime's  
> escalating threats toward Iran, the danger of a complicit campus environment  
> cannot be underestimated. The College Republicans can claim to be the victims 
> of  the "academic left," yet it is people like them who run this country and  
> dominate the world. They are the ones holding "Catch an Illegal Immigrant Day"  
> at the same time as the Bush Regime's ICE raids are ripping apart immigrant  
> families. This is not just a question of campus politics and a few loudmouth  
> assholes. If we ignore them, they will not go away. They have their  sights 
> set on the last remaining bastions of critical thinking – in particular,  
> schools like SF State, UC Berkeley, and Stanford – with the aim of transforming  all 
> of society. If they can create an atmosphere at these colleges where it is  
> OK to be openly racist and reactionary, where progressive faculty are  
> intimidated by ridiculous claims of "left wing academic dictatorship, They have their  
> sights set on the last remaining bastions of critical thinking – in 
> particular,  schools like SF State, UC Berkeley, and Stanford – with the aim of 
> transforming  all of society. If they can create an at 
> On the other hand, if we can politically confront these College Republicans  
> and their "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week," expose their real agenda, raise  
> awareness of the growing danger of U.S. fascism and the real fascist  direction 
> that the Bush Regime has been taking this country on – the endless  war, the 
> torture, the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act, the  shredding of 
> habeas corpus and constitutional law, the unlimited domestic  spying, homeland s
> ecurity and the whole police state infrastructure, the  Christian 
> fundamentalism that is undermining women's rights, gay people's  rights, science, and 
> rational thought – and if we can bring forward a radical  student movement that 
> refuses to choose between Islamic fundamentalism and the  Bush Regime's 
> Christian fascist war on the world . . . then we can turn  Horowitz's plan upside down 
> and campuses can become the centers of intellectual  ferment, activism, and 
> organized resistance that are so desperately needed at  times like these.  
> Who is David Horowitz? 
> From: _http://www.rwor.http://wwwhttp://www.rworhttp://_ 
>
(http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=v8q69ecab.0.6zjw5ecab.9ii95sbab.7474&ts=S0278&p=http://www.rwor.org/a/102/
> resist-fascist-en.html)  
> Horowitz is a self-described "battering ram" against any thinking in academia 
>  that challenges a whole range of lies this system has perpetrated. As the  
> accompanying article points out, he's played a major role in slandering,  
> hounding, and even ending the careers of progressive teachers.  
> Horowitz established his credentials with the ruling class by renouncing his  
> involvement in the 1960's movements for social change in a series of 
> slanderous  articles, books and conferences. He "made his bones" in the 90's, by 
> waging a  high-profile campaign against reparations for African-Americans, with the 
> theme  that Black people should be grateful for slavery! Horowitz took out 
> huge ads in  campus newspapers proclaiming this vicious lie and to this day 
> makes it a major  part of his attack.  
> He wrote a book on the "art of political war" that Karl Rove distributed to  
> key Republican campaign operatives. He is a vitriolic defender of everything  
> from the extermination of the Native Americans and the enslavement of Black  
> people, to the savage and criminal wars against Iraq and Afghanistan and the  
> torture of those whom this regime deems to be terrorists. He has set up a  
> website that clamors for the arrest and imprisonment of revolutionaries,  
> radicals, dissenters and liberals and reports every slander, rumor, lie and  innuendo 
> that comes his way. And, bankrolled from the ruling class, he has  organized 
> the falsely named "Students for Academic Freedom," which literally  takes notes 
> on lectures and rips things out of context in an attempt to get  professors 
> who do not sufficiently bow down to the Bush agenda fired. The  modern-day 
> Nazi-type student groups inspired by Horowitz organize so-called  "games" like 
> "Catch an Illegal Immigrant" on campus.  
> In short, Horowitz defends every crime that this system has ever committed  
> and is now preparing to justify even more, and to intimidate and silence any 
> who  would question or resist this.
> 
> 
> 
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