Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Moment of Truth (For the Anti-American Left)(Horowitz on the Aftermath of the De Genova Remarks)
Front Page Magazine ^ | 3/31/2003 | David Horowitz

Posted on 03/30/2003 10:01:03 PM PST by Pyro7480

Moment of Truth (For the Anti-American Left)
By David Horowitz
FrontPageMagazine.com | March 31, 2003


Every movement has its moment of truth. At an "anti-war" teach-in at Columbia last week, Anthropology professor Nicholas De Genova told 3,000 students and faculty, "Peace is not patriotic. Peace is subversive, because peace anticipates a very different world than the one in which we live--a world where the U.S. would have no place."

De Genova continued: "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."1 This was a reference to the ambush of U.S. forces by an al-Qaeda warlord in Somalia in 1993. The Americans were there on a humanitarian mission to feed starving Somali Muslims. The al-Qaeda warlord was stealing the food and selling it on the black market. His forces killed 18 American soldiers and dragged their bodies through the streets in an act designed to humiliate their country. In short, America can do no good, and nothing that is done to America can be worse than it deserves.

The best that could be said of the crowd of Columbia faculty and students is that they did not react to Mogadishu remark (perhaps they did not know what "Mogadishu" referred to). But they "applauded loudly," when the same professor said, "If we really [believe] that this war is criminal ... then we have to believe in the victory of the Iraqi people and the defeat of the U.S. war machine."2

In other words, the American left as represented by faculty and students at one of the nation’s most elite universities wants America to lose the war with the terrorist and fascist regime in Baghdad. In shorts, the crowd might just have well applauded the professor’s first statement as well.

The phrase "a million Mogadishus," has a resonance for those of us who participated in an earlier leftist "peace" movement, during the war in Indochina. In 1967, at the height of the conflict, the Cuban Communist leader, Che Guevara (still an icon among radicals today) called on revolutionaries all over the world "to create…two, three, many Vietnams," to defeat the American enemy. It was the Sixties version of a call for jihad.

In the late Sixties, I was the editor of Ramparts, the largest magazine of the New Left and I edited a book of anti-American essays with the same title, Two, Three, Many Vietnams. Tom Hayden a leader of the New Left (later a Democratic State Senator and activist against the war in Iraq) used the same slogan as he called for armed uprisings inside the United States. In 1962, as a Marxist radical, I myself had helped to organize the first protest against the war in Vietnam at the University of California, Berkeley. At the time, America had only 300 "advisers" in Vietnam, who were seeking to prevent the Communist gulag that was to come. John F. Kennedy was President and had been invited to speak on the campus. We picketed his appearance. Our slogan was, "Kennedy’s Three R’s: Radiation, Reaction and Repression." We didn’t want peace in Vietnam. We wanted a revolution in America.

But we were clever. Or rather, we got smarter. We realized we couldn’t attract large numbers of people by revealing our deranged fantasies about America (although that of course is not how we would have looked at them). We realized that we needed the support of a lot of Americans who would never agree with our real agendas if we were going to influence the course of the war. So we changed our slogan to "Bring the Troops Home." That seemed to express care for Americans while accomplishing the same goal. If America brought her troops home in the middle of the war, the Communists would win. Which is exactly what happened.

The nature of the movement that revealed itself at Columbia is the same. When the Mogadishu remark was made, it was as if the devil had inadvertently exposed his horns, and someone needed to put a hat over them before others realized it. That someone was the demonstration organizer, Professor Eric Foner, the prestigious head of Columbia’s history department. Actually, when Foner spoke after De Genova at the teach-in, he failed to find the Mogadishu remark offensive. Instead Foner dissociated himself from another De Genova comment to the effect that all Americans who described themselves as "patriotic," were actually "white supremacists."

But the next day when a reporter from New York NewsDay called Foner, the professor realized that the Mogadishu remark had caused some trouble. When asked now about the statement he said it was "idiotic." He told the reporter, "I thought that was completely uncalled for. We do not desire the deaths of American soldiers." Foner did not say (and was not asked) how he thought organizing an anti-American demonstration to protest America’s war in Iraq and express the hope that we lose would not encourage the enemy and possibly lead to American deaths.

Eric Foner is the scion of a family of American Communists (and American Communist leaders) at that. In the Sixties he was an anti-American Stalinist. After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, he wrote a piece in the London Review of Books saying, "I’m not sure which is more frightening: the horror that engulfed New York City or the apocalyptic rhetoric emanating daily from the White House." After receiving much adverse reaction, he wrote a self-exculpatory piece for The New York Times explaining that his uncertainty was actually patriotic.

Eric Foner’s cover-up reflects a powerful tactical current in the movement to derail America’s war in Iraq. Until now, the largest organization behind this movement has been "International ANSWER," which thanks in part to the efforts of the War Room and www.frontpagemag.com has been revealed as front for a Marxist-Leninist party with ties to the Communist regime in North Korea. According to a comprehensive (but partisan and sympathetic) report in The New York Times,3 some factions of the left became disturbed that the overtly radical slogans of the International ANSWER protests were "counter-productive." Last fall, they met in the offices of People For The American Way to create a new umbrella organization called United for Peace and Justice that would present a more palatable face to the American public.

As it happens, the name of the new organization was similar to that of one of the two main groups behind the national protests of the anti-Vietnam movement. It was called the People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice and it was a run by the American Communist Party. (As it happens, the other organizer of the national demonstrations was the MOBE, which was run by the Trotskyist Communist Party.)

The groups that People for the American Way assembled to create the new Iraq protest organization picked Leslie Cagan to be its leader. Cagan is a veteran of the old Vietnam left -- a pro-Castro radical who was still a member of the Communist Party after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Ms. Cagan’s politics were no less radical and anti-American than International ANSWER's. But Leslie Cagan understood the problem of too much candor. "If we’re going to be a force that needs to be listened to by our elected officials, by the media," Ms. Cagan told the Times, "our movement needs to reflect the population." In other words, we have to keep our horns hidden. According to the Times, since that meeting, the left has been hiring Madison Avenue firms to shape its messages and has been putting up billboards with the slogan "Peace Is Patriotic" to make its point.

At the Columbia teach-in, Professor Foner had this to say about patriotism. "I refuse to cede the definition of American patriotism to George W. Bush," Foner said, drawing a cheer from the audience. "I have a different definition of patriotism, which comes from Paul Robeson: The patriot is the person who is never satisfied with his country." It’s true that Paul Robeson was never satisfied with his country. He was an icon (and member) of the American Communist Party, who received a Stalin Peace Prize from the dictator himself. 4

Plus ca change,…plus c’est la meme chose.

The war in America’s streets is not about "peace" or "more time for inspections." It is about which side should lose the war we are now in. The left has made crystal clear its desire that the loser should be us. Even if the left had not made this explicit, a "peace" movement directed at one side makes sense only as an effort to force that side to retreat from the battle and lose the war. Which is exactly what the Columbia professor said. If this is patriotism, what is treason?

Endnotes:

1. Ron Howell, "Radicals Speak Out At Columbia ‘Teach-In,’" NewsDay, March 27, 2003.

2. Ibid.

3. Kate Zernike and Dean E. Murphy, "Antiwar Movement Morphs From Wild-Eyed to Civil," NYT, March 29, 2003, B1.

4. Columbis Spectator article.



TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: answer; antiamerican; cagan; columbia; communist; davidhorowitz; degenova; ericfoner; foner; horowitz; left; lesliecagan; millionmogadishus; nicholasdegenova; patriotism; paulrobeson; paw; pfaw; stalin; war
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-92 next last
To: Pyro7480
BTTT
61 posted on 03/31/2003 6:42:38 AM PST by Gritty
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: EternalVigilance
Agreed.

Everyone talks about Hitlery. I think she even scares some Dems, though. She's learning to dial it back, though - watch her in 10 years!
62 posted on 03/31/2003 6:45:21 AM PST by FrogMom
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 60 | View Replies]

To: Sonny M
>One thing I do remember that freaked me out, was his unusual and strange and rather bizare hatred for anyone asian (oriental or indian). He despised them, probably more then he would hate the klan. I have no idea why.<

This statement enrages me. My nephew-in-law is an Indian, Christian conservative College professor (too bad he's not a citizen yet, but he will be). He's darker skinned than many people who were born here.

So much for the widely held idea that there are no black racists.
63 posted on 03/31/2003 6:47:28 AM PST by Darnright
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

Comment #64 Removed by Moderator

To: Pyro7480
Bump for later read.
65 posted on 03/31/2003 7:48:27 AM PST by eddie willers
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nicmarlo
Thanks ! Here is a link to the SF-IMC site where these FAR LEFT LIBERALS posted an actual pic (below) of one of their Support Saddam/Terrorists events recently and changed the image when I posted/linked it to an FR thread. The pic at the top of that link (of 2 Allied Soldiers TORTURING someone) was what they changed it to . . .


These folks at San Francisco Indy-Media are terrorist supporters . . .

Oh, the lurkers on FR from SF-IMC CANNOT change that picture (above) now since it is hosted by FR friendly sources ! Take that, FOOLS !! . . .

66 posted on 03/31/2003 8:10:05 AM PST by MeekOneGOP (Bu-bye Saddam! / Check out my Freeper site !: http://home.attbi.com/~freeper/wsb/index.html)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: nicmarlo
bttt to finish reading the article.

Thanks, Nicmarlo ! . . .

67 posted on 03/31/2003 8:13:24 AM PST by MeekOneGOP (Bu-bye Saddam! / Check out my Freeper site !: http://home.attbi.com/~freeper/wsb/index.html)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

Comment #68 Removed by Moderator

To: MeeknMing
OMG!!! I heard about that but never saw that pic before, meekie; that's disgusting!
69 posted on 03/31/2003 8:13:49 AM PST by nicmarlo
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 66 | View Replies]

To: cherry
"and yet we have people threatening our present President, wishing death to thousands of our beloved soldiers, we have people marching with signs hoping for our officers to be shoot by the enlisted....."

That's the party of "tolerance" for you...

70 posted on 03/31/2003 8:19:45 AM PST by TheClintons-STILLAnti-American
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Beno
And how are we going to impose the Bill of Rights? By waging a war against "every nation on the face of the globe"?

We'll get our chance...Afghanistan and Iraq will work for now. It may take several hundred years...

Don't you agree that "all humans were created equal, with certain inalienable rights?"

71 posted on 03/31/2003 8:24:54 AM PST by ez (America is great because America is good.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 68 | View Replies]

To: nicmarlo
Isn't it disgusting tho!? Imagine my shock having posted the idiots with that banner, then later revisiting the thread to find my image changed by the nasty arses (pardon my language) to one of Allied Troops torturing someone ! Ouch !! Of course, I had my post removed and someone later gave me a friendly hosted pic of their ORIGINAL insanity. So now I can show them for what they are ! . . .
72 posted on 03/31/2003 10:13:08 AM PST by MeekOneGOP (Bu-bye Saddam! / Check out my Freeper site !: http://home.attbi.com/~freeper/wsb/index.html)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 69 | View Replies]

To: Beno
Masks are faling off. So it is not about and WMD and Al Qaeda after all. And how are we going to impose the Bill of Rights? By waging a war against "every nation on the face of the globe"? These are the mad Trotskyist ideas.

You need to give it up. The administration has never said this was about al Qaeda, they have stated it is more about the nexus of Saddam's generalized terrorist ties and his penchant for pursuing and using WMD that is the concern. What's more, since one of the root causes of terrorism is the tyrannical nature of Middle Eastern governments, to attempt a sea change in those governments by planting the seeds of democracy in Iraq once the war is over does indeed have much to do with the War on Terrorism. But the latter is not something the administration can articulate publicly, as it would alarm Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, et al.

Now please dispense with the nitwitery. Something tells me that not only do you not understand the meaning of the word 'hegemony,' you also do not understand much about Trotsky and the nature of communism and the New Left.

In the future, I would suggest you not construct a rhetorical house of cards around an emotional position. The well-informed can see through this sort of B.S. in a matter of microseconds.

Thank you.

73 posted on 03/31/2003 10:39:58 AM PST by Catalonia
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 68 | View Replies]

To: Darnright
This guy was a black racist to the extreme. What I couldn't understand, and he gave no attempt to explain, was his extreme hatred. I talked to him for about 3 or 4 minuits, but all he did was spit out venom, and racial slurs, and mumblings. I'm not sure if alot of african american liberals feel the same way or not, but if some did, I would be interested in knowing why. I know alot of african americans hates Koreans, and that has also puzzled me. (during the L.A. riots, koreans businesses were targeted more then any other business for looting and robbery).
74 posted on 03/31/2003 2:38:46 PM PST by Sonny M (War has never solved anything, except Nazism, Communism, slavery and the holocaust.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 63 | View Replies]

To: Pyro7480
bttt
75 posted on 03/31/2003 2:52:39 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Beno
"Bring the Troops Home"

However, during the VN war, the chants first started with "Stop the war" then "Stop the bombing" then "Bring the troops home".

Of course by stopping the bombing of North VN, it tended to tie our hands, then the pictures and stories of "innocent" civilians/children being killed etc. Eventually, it changed the mood of the country and the war became unpopular, that young men were being drafted help to sour the mood of the populace.

I see the same kind of tactics being played in this war with Iraq. Be looking for stop the bombing signs and demonstrations, comming to a neighborhood near you.

76 posted on 03/31/2003 3:49:31 PM PST by rstevens
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Thud
For your information and analysis.
77 posted on 03/31/2003 3:56:15 PM PST by Dark Wing
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Comment #78 Removed by Moderator

Comment #79 Removed by Moderator

To: Beno
That is why we cannot set ourselves above the rest of mankind, and declare ourselves the world leaders when nobody gave us the mandate.

There is nobody who could give that mandate, and we need not set ourselves above the rest of mankind, but merely recognize the moral truth. All men deserve inalienable rights, due process, and freedom from cruel and unusual punishment, among others. These things are withheld from the Iraqi people by Saddam.

The moral course is to remove the dictator, and restore natural rights for the Iraqi people.

You would use "equality" as a bludgeon with which to smash morality and say that good is equivalent to evil. I reject that worldview.

I reassert that the goal must be to foster the Bill of Rights for all the people of the world. That is the only just and moral course.

80 posted on 03/31/2003 8:31:01 PM PST by ez (America is great because America is good.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 79 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-92 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson