Revolution #106, October 28, 2007
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Statement In Response to Lies and Slanders
“from the Desk of David Horowitz”
October 15, 2007
David Horowitz has called for a “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” on the major campuses in this country for October 22-26, 2007. Literature calling for this week, posted on Frontpagemag.com, states:
“The purpose of this protest is as simple as it is crucial: to confront the two Big Lies of the political left: that George Bush created the war on terror and that Global Warming is a greater danger to Americans than the terrorist threat. Nothing could be more politically incorrect than to point this out. But nothing could be more important for American students to hear. In the face of the greatest danger Americans have ever confronted, the academic left has mobilized to create sympathy for the enemy and to fight anyone who rallies Americans to defend themselves. According to the academic left, anyone who links Islamic radicalism to the war on terror is an 'Islamophobe.' According to the academic left, the Islamo-fascists hate us not because we are tolerant and free, but because we are 'oppressors.'
"Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week is a national effort to oppose these lies and to rally American students to defend their country.”
This is part of a larger campaign Horowitz has been aggressively pursuing, which includes an effort—hypocritically called for in the name of academic freedom—to target what he calls “leftist” professors and progressive organizations and cast them as enemies of America who should be driven off campus. (His book, The 101 Most Dangerous Professors—a book whose facts have been disputed by many of those he has targeted—is an illustration of this.) As has been documented in Revolution newspaper as well as by others, Horowitz does not genuinely support academic freedom, nor the search for the truth. Taking the lead from people high up in the ruling circles of this country, Horowitz likes to paint himself and people who agree with him as victims of suppression who are barely able to express their views, as he heaps slander and calls for witchhunts and purging of the universities—the firing and worse—of those who oppose the reactionary agenda he espouses.
David Horowitz, and those he is allied with and proudly promotes as his “great line-up of speakers like Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, former Senator Rick Santorum, Michael Medved, Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes, Dennis Prager” for his “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” are proven liars and advocates of the most reactionary causes. To have a situation where people like this—people who are organizing a whole fascist movement in society, people who right now are seeking to rally the populace to the next step of an illegal and outrageous “war on terror” which they expect to last for generations—to have them come to campuses and not be politically challenged and exposed for what they are would be very dangerous, and unacceptable.
Different groups and individuals are organizing in different ways to oppose and expose this “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week," and the more people are becoming clear on what this is all about, the more they are stepping forward to get out the truth on the issues that Horowitz claims he wants to have openly discussed and debated. All of this has been met with cries of “foul” from the promoters of “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week.”
And now, in yet another example of the kind of lies and distortions that are the stock-in-trade of David Horowitz, a fund appeal has gone out in his name raising a series of false and slanderous accusations about the Revolutionary Communist Party and its intentions regarding the “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week.” It is nothing new for David Horowitz to publish outright lies about his opponents—the flagrant lies he packages in a single paragraph are too numerous to refute here—but in this case he has gone so far as to manufacture claims of physical threats to himself and other speakers who will appear as part of the events during this week. This would be bad enough if it were only a cheap ploy to raise funds for his crusade using supposed threats to his “personal security,” but in fact it is a dangerous attempt to set people up and create a situation where those who choose to challenge politically what the “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” is all about can become targets of repression or worse.
So it is necessary to set the record straight. Many articles have appeared in Revolution newspaper on this subject: they have exposed the truth about Horowitz and the confusion he is seeking to create. What these articles have consistently called for is politically confronting this whole Horowitzian effort—bringing to light the real agenda and opposing this with real facts and the truth. (These articles can be read at revcom.us.) In "Close Encounters of the Horowitz Kind," by Alan Goodman, the author summarizes from his own personal experience that:
“.... we have to take on Horowitz with substantial, hard-hitting arguments that expose what he is all about. We have to go after him with facts, using his own words to damn him, and drag out and expose his real agenda to his followers. Anything less than that won’t cut it and will even play into his hands.”*
It is just this kind of political debate that Horowitz and friends fear and hope to prevent .
Each day new lies and fabrications appear on the websites that promote the views of Horowitz and company. No one should believe or give any credence to anything that these people claim to have been said or written by the Revolutionary Communist Party. No lie is too big for them to fabricate.
In this fund appeal, Horowitz claims that the call for politically confronting this whole fascist movement really means something else. No it does not mean something else: in everything that has been published and advocated in Revolution newspaper, it has been made clear that what should be done is politically confronting their goals and politically defeating them, and that is exactly what is meant. No threats of physical violence or confrontation against speakers or participants have been made, implied or intended by the Revolutionary Communist Party. When Horowitz makes this claim, this is a blatant lie. He claims that in the past he has been physically assaulted by people associated with the Revolutionary Communist Party. This is also untrue—no such assault ever took place.
What should not happen is that people retreat from the desperately needed debate and controversy; that the intimidating accusations being hurled at those who oppose this whole agenda have the effect of silencing those who need to speak out. Exactly the opposite is what is needed.
“Indeed, all people who care anything about critical thinking and academic freedom, and about the issues of war, repression, racism and the oppression of women must rally together, and seek out, confront and put this whole effort on the political defensive. Horowitz’s project has to be opposed and taken as an opportunity to raise awareness of the growing danger of U.S. fascism and the reality of the fascist direction and measures being taken by those in the highest reaches of power." (from “Resist ‘Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week’ Confront the Horowitz Fascists with Real Facts and Truth”, Revolution #102, September 23, 2007).
* For those who want to understand what kind of political confrontation with David Horowitz and his ilk is being called for, read "Close Encounters of the Horowitz Kind," parts 1 and 2, in Revolution newspaper issues #47 and #48, by Alan Goodman.
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