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Islamofascism Awareness Week
Coming to a college campus near you:
Time to get your fear and bigotry on.
Here’s the “Student’s Guide to Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week”. Jim Henley notes the key passage:
Distributing a petition is an excellent protest tactic for several reasons. First, it is a very easy and cost-effective way to draw attention to the issues at hand. Second, a petition can serve as an advertisement for other events, such as film screenings and panel discussions (when you ask students to sign the petition, hand them a flyer about the other activities you have planned throughout the week). Perhaps most importantly, a petition forces students and faculty to declare their allegiances: either to fighting our terrorist adversaries or failing to take action to stop our enemies. For this reason, we encourage you to make a special effort to bring this petition to those groups who might be least likely to sign it, for example to campus administrators, student government officers, and the Muslim Students’ Association.
In short, the main goal of the “David Horowitz Freedom Center” here is to write up a petition deliberately designed to be unlikely for Muslim groups to sign and then to use Muslim groups’ failure to sign the petition as evidence that they’re on the side of “our terrorist adversaries.” This is a great way to go about things if you want to (a) be a campus troublemaker, (b) over the long run turn hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world into hardened enemies of the United States, and (c) create a large group of disaffected Muslims inside the United States who’ve been made to feel that adherence to their faith is unwelcome in America and fundamentally incompatible with loyalty to this country.
Oy. Do they get a free hood and cross burning kit with each petition they fill?
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Oy indeed. Just got off the phone with Marietta and this little dog-and-pony show may be coming to her campus, which is Catholic,, and In D.C.
Ann Coulter and David Horowitz, together, spreading fear and hatred everywhere.
How do these students justify their support for a government and its policies that would let critical information about Bin Laden be LEAKED, therefore useless?
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN09428167
In the face of incompetence, it's stupid to even take sides.
We used to hear from the top down that anyone not agreeing with the government was on the side of the terrorists.
That black-and-white type of thinking is a trick that no one should fall for. It protects no one.
At first, I thought the idea of a petition was pretty good until I read the small print. The question is: would we do or be able to do the same thing in reverse?
I once spoke to someone who said that you have to fight just as hard, and be willing to fight back, because being Mr. Niceguy isn't going to work.
So would it be wrong to do this too?
The following comment was posted in the comments section of the article in Atlantic.com to which Casey links :
Here's what would be really fun: Add to that petition a pledge not to bomb abortion clinics, gay bars or community centers and the like. Now you'll have the fundie "Christians" refusing to sign! Which will make them look disloyal as well. Just a thought.
Posted by John | September 28, 2007 1:37 PM
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I think it is a good answer to Sparrow's question right before my post. Personally, I have no qualms trapping the hypocrites using the same tactics they use. What's good for the goose is good for the gander is an expression that comes to mind.
On the petition thing, yes, I agree that tit-for-tat, especially with tongue-in-cheek and chutzpah, is a good tactic.
But I am also deeply concerned about the level of critical analysis skills on campuses these days.
If Ann Coulter comes spreading her love, poking at icons (which is what s/he thinks s/he is doing), how many can actually parse out her arguments and statements of "fact"?
Islamofascism IS a danger.
But so is Christofascism.
We do need to unmask Mann Coulter for the phony that it is - a phony to be exterminated under the laws of Christofascism it supports so much.
Karen,
I think students are pretty savvy about Mann Coulter and those like her. Most go to see her just for the spectacle (in case a pie gets thrown again).
While we are indeed a liberal arts college, her visit a couple of years ago generated mostly just extreme disgust, and wonder at the amount of money she was paid to spread her hatred. Students who follow her are already lost causes anyway, as far as I can tell.
oncall and sparrow,
Count me in when it comes to using the same tactics against the Christofascists. We must be able to fight dirty if needed.
Fundamentalism of any kind is dangerous, and close cousins of each other. Islamic and Christian fundies will eventually work together fighting their common enemy.
This is the great irony, that there is any difference between a bomb strapped to a individual, or one falling from a B-52.
The Bush administration is single handedly destroying the US economy and Constitution, quite an achievement when we think about it. Most leaders destroy their nations by miscalculating wartime enemies, relying on
outdated technology to compete with their neighbors factories...mistakes made by hundreds of leaders over humanitys history.
Our president Bush has purposely drivin this nation into the ground with the applause of democrats and republicans alike, quite a feat for C average student that cannot read or write.
Ann Coulter is like watching a car crash...its terrible, nothing good will come, it is a lot of plastic and metal, but you just cant look away..
Fundamentalism of any kind is dangerous, and close cousins of each other. Islamic and Christian fundies will eventually work together fighting their common enemy.
This is the great irony, that there is any difference between a bomb strapped to a individual, or one falling from a B-52.
The Bush administration is single handedly destroying the US economy and Constitution, quite an achievement when we think about it. Most leaders destroy their nations by miscalculating wartime enemies, relying on
outdated technology to compete with their neighbors factories...mistakes made by hundreds of leaders over humanitys history.
Our president Bush has purposely drivin this nation into the ground with the applause of democrats and republicans alike, quite a feat for C average student that cannot read or write.
Ann Coulter is like watching a car crash...its terrible, nothing good will come, it is a lot of plastic and metal, but you just cant look away..
Fundamentalism of any kind is dangerous, and close cousins of each other. Islamic and Christian fundies will eventually work together fighting their common enemy.
This is the great irony, that there is any difference between a bomb strapped to a individual, or one falling from a B-52.
The Bush administration is single handedly destroying the US economy and Constitution, quite an achievement when we think about it. Most leaders destroy their nations by miscalculating wartime enemies, relying on
outdated technology to compete with their neighbors factories...mistakes made by hundreds of leaders over humanitys history.
Our president Bush has purposely drivin this nation into the ground with the applause of democrats and republicans alike, quite a feat for C average student that cannot read or write.