Lander and other Liberals, Do you agree with this professor?

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Lander and other liberals, please read this article and tell me if you agree with the professor from Columbia quoted in the article. I know I'm asking a lot, but could you guys please provide a "yes" or "no" answer with a brief explanation of why you took the position you did. I'm curious to see if I'm right that some of you guys are not as hopeless as others might think. Grantt is obviously hopeless and Radiofreecostarica has already expressed his lament that he's not a terrorist as he clearly implied a deep admiration for Bin Laden and the rest of the 9/11 crew, but I think there may be hope for guys like Lander and FunkSoulBrother, so please answer if you can take the time. Thanks.


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.
 
not Saddam or al queda. The silent majority is waking up and these types are being shown the door.
 
The only thing I agree with is "peace anticipates a different world than the one we live in".
 

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This is offensive. The professor's comments are offensive and trying to imply that this reflects the views of all liberals or dems is offensive. That would be like saying all consevatives or repubs are in the KKK.

As a liberal (not really supportive of any particular party, but do see dems as a lesser evil than repubs), I would never wish that the U.S. lose any war nor would I ever be affiliated with the communist party. As far as this particular case with Iraq I would simply like to see us withdraw before more lives are lost and get to the business of mending international ties the Bush Jr. has shat upon.
 

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kaya: withdrawing now regardless of your good intentions would have far worse ramifications in the Arab world as well as in our foreign policies. They do respect one thing - power - and if we cut and run now and abandon the Kurds, Shiites and others for the SECOND time, it would be horrible what would happen to them.

But to debate this is useless now (for me) - we will not stop until those bastards are out of power.
 
Senior Jose,
I would appreciate it if you would properly address me as an independent ( reference ). Not being a tree hugging, save the whales kind of guy may not fit your stereotypical perception, but that unlike politics I think we should strive for "truth" and "accuracy" when possible.

As for your question -
I disagree with everything except, "because peace anticipates a very different world than the one in which we live". My disagrement is also with the "stereotypical" nature of the article written by Mr. Horowitz. His entire tone is sarcastic, his style is stereotypical & condesending. IMO if Mr. Horowitz was truly a gifted writer he would use simple logic and reasoning to argue his case, not sarcasm.

Anyone can dismiss others' views as unworthy, but few can logically discredit them. Mr. Horowitz is no better than the "treasoner" he speaks of, only on the other side.

An annoying article to say the least; I am equally disturbed by both Prof. Genova & Mr, Horowitz apparent fixation with fighting the "enemey".
 

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I'm just expressing my personal opinion, of course I realize very few would agree.
I also agree that it's too late to discuss, Bush won't stop until he has the oil. I just hope that nobody decides to pop off any nukes before this is over, that's the scariest part of all of this.
 

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Regarding the topic of the thread, I think that any person calling for the catastrophic failure of the military in a conflict is just simply idiotic. People like this get nudged up next to me because of my antiwar beliefs and it sickens me.

Jazz, with regards to your comment, do you believe that this will end when 'those bastards' are out of power? You don't believe that we will simply move on to the next 'just war' in North Korea, Iran, or Syria? Or here at home for that matter as we move closer to thought crimes becoming a reality?


Phaedrus
 

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Phaedrus: the history of civilization suggests otherwise, and I would be a fool to say life will be perfect for eternity. However, if this is done properly, one threat will have been removed. Other situations will have to be evaluated on their own merits. North Korea is a real piece of work, attempting to blackmail the US into cooperating with it after it breached the treaty it signed with Clinton almost immediately - what happens with them will inevitably involve China, who so far is cynically playing the waiting game for its own purposes.

Thought crimes a reality? That Tom Cruise movie was good, but I doubt we're headed there yet. But, there are elements in the Patriot Act I think we all need to be wary of, so I'm not all gung-ho for that one.
 

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lol - no, radio, people on the right are just getting bemused by your side's repitition as well.

I'll be on again in a few days at a 'time of my choosing', since there's not much new to talk about. Have fun in the meantime.
icon_smile.gif
 

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originally posted by Jazz:

and if we cut and run now and abandon the Kurds, Shiites and others for the SECOND time


I was just wondering when you considered the first time we abandoned them to have been.

Was it in the 80's when we gave Saddam Chemical Weapons which he used to massacre them,

or

Was it when we Gave Turkey Money and Weapons in which they used to massacre Kurds and we continued to give them money after we knew about it,

or

Was it when Saddam put down their uprising after Desert Storm and we looked the other way because our administration believed that by forcing the Iraqi population to suffer under sanctions ( which had no effect on Saddam, but killed many Iraqi civilians ) they would take care of Saddam themselves.


Just wondering which 0ne you are referring to as the FIRST time.
 
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I think this post, and indeed this forum, is representative of what occurs in society at large; its opinions and swings in morale and argument a mirror, however warped it might be.
This being said, I see reason for war falling apart on such a grand scale that within a month's time, I predict that arguing for war will cease to exist.
Protesting this war is not, nor has it ever been, a partisan issue. You are not "left" nor "anti-american" by protesting.
With each passing day/resignation of diplomats and govt. officials, the pro-war argument is dealt yet another blast which leaves this side of the argument holding water in much the same way as a chain link fence holds back a flood.
 

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i consider myself pretty open to idea's and opinions even for the sake of arguement.

However this scumbag makes me want to puke, i hope he drops dead choking on his dinner.
icon_mad.gif


If my answers frighten you then you should cease asking scary questions.
--Jules winnfield
 

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RadioFreeCostaRica said,

"This being said, I see reason for war falling apart on such a grand scale that within a month's time, I predict that arguing for war will cease to exist."

If Saddam Hussein and his boys are still in control after a month, which is questionable, the support for the war among the US population will still remain WELL OVER 50 PERCENT. You say "arguing for the war will cease to exist" and if you TRULY believe that, you are either delusional or infinitely dumber than I anticipated.

I guess we'll see who is right in 30 days?
 
we never abandoned the shiites and the kurds any time....the u.n. may have....the first gulf war was under u.n. auspices...they did not want anyone going in and removing saddam..just liberate kuwait and call it a day.....much like they didn`t want him removed this time.....or any time that france has veto power....
 

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