The Story So Far:
1. The conservative juggernaut Young America’s Foundation (YAF, successor to Young Americans for Freedom) schedules an event called “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” at Washington, DC’s George Washington University (GWU).
2. Pranksters post outrageous flyers (“Hate Moslems? So Do We!”), heavy-handed parodies that purport to promote the YAF event and point to the actual event website which, frankly, looks as goofy as the mock posters.
3. Moslem groups at GWU, University officials, and YAF all respond with the punch line to a well-known light bulb joke: ”That’s not funny.”
4. The press refuses to see the admittedly clumsy humor for other reasons: “campus hate speech” – I mean “Campus Hate Speech” — is news; campus pranks aren’t, unless they involve a cow.
5. The Post allows the intended mockery, but omits a few key details, like the facts that poor little YAF has a $20 Million annual budget, a director who earns $360,000 a year, buildings in Herndon and California and big-time media and donor backing.
6. Blogosphere erupts with anonymous ignorance, as per usual.
7. YAF posts a STATEMENT on their website about the MALICIOUS INTENT of this OUTRAGE and somehow ends up blaming ”Leftist administrators” at GWU on a “rampage.” Everybody is ganging up on members of this poor multimillion dollar organization just because they are, well, different.
8. Personally, I am thoroughly bored with the whole thing by now and comment to the YAF blog. Since my comments have been sitting in a queue awaiting moderation for several hours, I reprint them here:
Comment from Mike Licht
Time: October 9, 2007, 8:37 pm
You omit one significant detail – the posters are obvious, if amateurish, parodies of your activities and statements. For your multimillion-dollar organization to pretend otherwise and cry victimization is just as absurd as our local Islamic groups pretending to feel genuinely threatened. You will both look stupid in the long run if you attempt this spin.
I’m sure you are paying maximum hourly rates to some Crisis Management practice for your stance. Ask them to reimburse you if I’m right. I can guess their reaction. Best advice: chill out; if you try to get mileage out of this the resulting ridicule will rub off on your big-name speakers, donors and advisors.
While I don’t share your views, I don’t want to see college pranksters caught in the vise-like grip of media hype and pretense. Let these kids learn from this and go on to develop a more refined sense of irony.
Sincerely,
Mike Licht
NotionsCapital.com
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October 10, 2007 at 9:16 am
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October 10, 2007 at 11:06 am
“obvious…parodies of your statements”
Of which specific YAF statements are these posters “obvious parodies”?
And what possible relevance does the operating budget of the YAF have to the activities of the far-left organizations who sponsored this screamingly funny, sophisticated “satire”.
From all reports, there are lots of people, from GWU administrators to Muslims on campus, among others, who were simply not able to discern the nuanced humor in the poster, and instead saw incitement, hate speech and bigotry associated with the name and website of a conservative organization.
Which was of course, the goal of its authors.
Define the political opponent in advance as beyond the pale of civilized discourse, and you don’t have to trouble yourself with confronting or debating their ideas. It’s a staple of leftist strategy.
The perpetrators turned out to be leftist political activists, not frat boys on a harmless lark. Kind of blows your “cow on the roof” analogy.
October 10, 2007 at 11:45 am
Racist is as racist does.
October 10, 2007 at 12:08 pm
>Of which specific YAF statements are these posters “obvious parodies”?<
Start with http://www.terrorismawareness.org/ Dan, then try http://students.yaf.org/conferences/ranch_center/index.cfm
That’s a good start.
what possible relevance does the operating budget of the YAF have
It lets people know that rich bullies are mobilizing their millions against a few college pranksters.
there are lots of people, from GWU administrators to Muslims on campus, among others, who were simply not able to discern the . . . humor
We agree the “Ugly Poster Seven” need remedial humor writing courses . I urge the GWU administration to reuire thee as well as the public-service punishment often meted out to college pranksters.
As for the rest, if it is not to the advantage of someone to see humor or irony, they often deny it is intended. The different motivations of each the parties you mention is covered above.
>>saw incitement, hate speech and bigotry associated with the name and website of a conservative organization<The perpetrators turned out to be leftist political activists, not frat boys on a harmless lark. Kind of blows your “cow on the roof” analogy.<
Oh. I didn’t know you had to be a frat boy or a crew team member to be a college prankster. I guess those kids will have to fry then.
Dan, these are college kids spending a couple of bucks at Kinko’s. Are you telling me their lack of frat jackets somehow puts them beyond the pale of discourse?
Thanks for the comments. Love your blog, BTW
(Dan is wizblog at http://www.danwismar.com/)
October 10, 2007 at 3:30 pm
I didn’t suggest any college kid should “fry” for this incident. I am suggesting that this so-called prank was not undertaken with a goal of “irony” or “humor” in mind.
And a $20 million budget is tiny compared to the organizations, from Int’l ANSWER to Soros-funded Media Matters and others, who are engaged in a national campaign to smear and undermine conservative voices. A few impressionable college kids (or a nationally recognizable “anti-war” activist in this case) are merely tools to be used in the larger project.
I have looked at the links you provide, and I have yet to find anything remotely resembling hate speech, or bigoted, stereotyped characterizations of Muslims in general of the sort in the poster. Again, I would ask you (if you care to) to show me one actual specific statement from YAF of which the inciting poster could be considered “an obvious parody”. I’m not saying no such statement exists…just that I have not seen it.
You must also admit that whenever leftists get busted in behavior that would get conservatives roasted on a spit, (politicians in blackface as but one example) they play the “satire” card, and accuse their critics of a lack of appreciation for irony and humor. It’s old and it’s lame. Its intent is to portray as “hateful” those people with whom they disagree, in the attempt to discredit in advance anything they might have to say.
And it’s also a bit blinkered to equate campus “pranks” like organized and repeated programs of stealing and/or destroying conservative newspapers, or the shouting down of conservative speakers, the intent of which is to censor not to amuse, with the apolitical and pointless “cow on the roof” types of college youth mischief.
Enjoy your blog too, based on what I’ve seen so far. Thanks for the thoughtful response.
October 10, 2007 at 5:47 pm
Dan:
The characterization of all Muslim people as Islamo-terroristic-fascistic-unhygienic threats to the safety of home and golf course, to be feared-watched-contained is clear in those indoctrination films masquerading as education.
We agreed the posters are less than artless. How do we know their aim? Written on them. It reminds me of poor old Herblock’s cartoons; they guy couldn’t draw so he had to label “Ike” “JFK,” etc. but the aim was clear (and also not very funny, either).
you say:>>this so-called prank was not undertaken with a goal of “irony” or “humor” in mind.<>a $20 million budget is tiny compared to the organizations, from Int’l ANSWER to Soros-funded Media Matters and others, who are engaged in a national campaign to smear and undermine conservative voices.<>And it’s also a bit blinkered to equate campus “pranks” like organized and repeated programs of stealing and/or destroying conservative newspapers, or the shouting down of conservative speakers, the intent of which is to censor not to amuse, with the apolitical and pointless “cow on the roof” types of college youth mischief. <<
Did these guys steal papers and shout, too? In blackface? First I’ve heard of it. As for cows on the roof, see above. BTW, when are those frat boys gonna bring my cow back?
I always advise listening respectfully to those with whom you disagree. It’s the only way to collect enough of their rhetoric to bludgeon them with.
Best,
ML
October 10, 2007 at 5:55 pm
Huh. Let me try to enter that middle part again:
you say:>>this so-called prank was not undertaken with a goal of “irony” or “humor” in mind.<>a $20 million budget is tiny compared to the organizations, from Int’l ANSWER to Soros-funded Media Matters and others, who are engaged in a national campaign to smear and undermine conservative voices.<<
Did Soros pay the Kinko’s bill for those posters? I missed that.
-ml
October 10, 2007 at 6:10 pm
As I suspected. No specific statements from YAF cited.
October 10, 2007 at 7:01 pm
>> No specific statements from YAF cited.<<
Jeez, Dan, doesn’t the URL count? The name of the event? Those YAF fear-monger sites really creep me out. I had to pretend they were from a country other than our own just to click through ‘em before.
October 10, 2007 at 10:05 pm
Horowitz and others are at great pains to differentiate between moderate Muslims and the radical jihadists who are at war with the West and with modernity in general. You ignore these very clear distinctions to create the strawman you then proceed to ridicule…
“all Muslim people as Islamo-terroristic-fascistic-unhygienic threats to the safety of home and golf course, to be feared-watched-contained”
This is obviously your wording (doubtless however, an obvious parody of hateful fear-mongers as yet unidentified) but similar stuff is common in the Left’s own caricature of conservatives. From browsing your comments at some of the other posts linked here, I’m wondering how fruitful it may be to quibble with you over the particular name we should assign to this particular ideology and its attendant political movement (What, exactly is your definition of fascism?) when you appear to be in denial that such a movement even exists.
You know what “creeps me out”?
The stoning of homosexuals, the imprisonment of democratic activists, the shrouding and subjugation of women, the exploitation of ignorance and illiteracy for political power, blinding Jew-hatred, the mass murder of innocents, the rejection of secular law, collapsing skyscrapers, burning embassies, exploding pizza parlors…for starters.
None of that can be happening in the world today though, because according to you, there is no “movement”. These events must be random, without an ideological inspiration, or a political objective.
I find that way of thinking profoundly unserious and potentially very dangerous. Does that make me a fear-monger?
October 11, 2007 at 11:40 am
Dan:
“moderate Muslims” is as much as empty stereotype as “radical jihadists.”
Isn’t Horowitz’s training in Lierature and History? Let him speak about that and I may listen. I don’t take advice from Jane Fonda on politics, Linus Pauling on nutrition, or Horowitz on nonwestern cultures. Celebrity ignorance is as worthless as any other ignorance.
Naming is indeed important. It creates a category. It is how humans order the universe, even the parts they don’t understand. Especially the parts they don’t understand. They become so invested in those names that the names become a barrier to further exploration and comprehension.
That is what I see happening with the so-called islamo-fascism scam. It is a way to avoid learning actual facts about real people in real communities and real societies and dealing with them. It is an excuse for ignorance, and I find this more than a disgrace; it is an abomination.
I don’t want to get too personal about this, but just let me say that I have been personally aquainted with some of the actual experiences you say “creep you out,” enough to know that they were made possible by entrenched ignorance of the type I see in indoctrination materials of the Horowitz ilk.
Lumping together disparate peoples of disparate cultures, each with different elements who may disagree with with us on different things and pretending this is a single unitary “movement” is both intellectually and ultimately morally bankrupt.
The results of this certainly have been serious enough. It is the intellectual underpinnings (or lack of them) that are so laughable. And humor is a tool of the the poor and weak, the only one currently available to people of reason and goodwill.
The efforts of the poster-hanger kids are only unitentionally humorous. The sad part is that their teachers, the GWU faculty, are so cowed by the climate of fear personally manufactured by Horowitz that they let his road-show of ignorance fester on campus without holding concurrent seminars to help lance this wound to their school’s intellectual integrity.
As far as YAF goes, I don’t know much about it. Maybe it is doing some good things somewhere, though calling George Allen a “scholar” doesn’t bode well. Acting as the cross-country vehicle for the islamo-scam campus circus can’t be helpful for the long-term health of any organization, even one so financially well-off. Then again Disney studios produced some wartime propaganda so horrendous they tried to get it destroyed, and they’ve done okay.
As for you last question, allowing oneself to be manipulated by fear-mongers is not a longterm recipe for health and hapiness.
Best,
Mike
October 11, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Why does this have to be considered a prank? Isn’t the use of irony and theatricality in protest just as protected by free speech as straight-forward statements like you might see on posters at a rally?
I don’t think this was merely a “prank” it was politically motivated and constitutionally protected free speech.
If the group owes an apology, then it is to any Muslims they may have inadvertently offended on campus. If one group wishes to impose a curt and oftentimes misplaced descriptive such as “Islamo-Fascist” on an undefined portion of the global population (the only definition I can see is the Islamic) then I see no reason why another group cannot claim in sum that the first group is racist.
In short, the YAF are supporting an event with a purposefully incendiary title that doesn’t even pay lip service to “good Muslims:” without further inspection beyond the website and title it seems reasonable to question whether there are racist (or religion-based) discriminatory ideals being pushed. This other group has simply accused the YAF of this apparent racism, however poorly you may find their means of doing so.
Sidenotes:
1. I do feel that some nations could be adequately described as Islamic Fascist states (the Islamo title strikes me as childishly demeaning, along the lines of calling the US the Great Satan.) See the Euston Manifesto for an interesting bit on realignment of the left on foreign policy.
2. YAF man up – the conservative groups in this country are embarrassing their hard-nosed forefathers and otherwise strong positions by crying foul here. If you think the shift in domestic feelings about the “war on terror” necessitates a shift further to the right for you, so much so that you need to adopt the ridiculous title that is “terrorismawareness.org” (its terrorism, the whole point is to make those targeted aware) then you had really ought to consider turning in your “conservative” colors. As a liberal I admire the conservative point of view as a foil to my otherwise overly optimistic views on the world; however as of late I’ve found the quality of conservative opponents to be greatly diminished – you are drinking your own Koolaid and the brilliant among you (which I firmly believe there are) need to pull themselves from this mess.
October 11, 2007 at 1:37 pm
John:
I agree; of course I greatly admire good pranks. I”m chiefly using the word to keep any consideration of punishment in perspective.
I’ve put some related thoughts about the YAF Director’s letter in a comment to DCist at
http://dcist.com/2007/10/11/morning_roundup_108.php#comment-1217437
Something I haven’t elaborated on is the role of the press as a gauge in determining what is happening in the GWU Muslim community. A student who tells a reporter that the posters are an obvious goof is not going to get quoted in the paper. A student who tells a reporter that he’s offended and scared by the poster is not going to be asked if he has seen the terrorismawaressdotorg site or what he thinks about it. Anyone who thinks otherwise is simply not familiar with the 21st century press. And of course this is also happening during Ramadan; on the one hand a time of reflection, on the other a time when Muslims have a lot of better things to do, even at GWU.
October 11, 2007 at 3:13 pm
Again, Mike, thanks for the dialogue.
Your point is well made on the disparate cultures and the complexities the issues, and the perils of the “lumping together” of such things in any discussion.
But for purposes of that discussion, can we not just posit for the moment that “radical Islam”, despite all the obvious internal disparities, can be said to generally embrace the idea that liberal pluralistic democracy (and Western modernity generally), is incompatible with Islam, properly practiced, and claims divine justification for actively working toward its destruction by whatever means necessary, to include martyrdom and murder?
Or that “moderate” Islam might generally be said to include those with a greater tolerance for religious freedom outside of Islam, or for the rule of secular law, or for greater gender equality, or for greater freedom of expression, etc.?
To speak in generalities is not necessarily to ignore complexity and nuance. The fact that the issues are complex, and the various cultures disparate and fluid, are not reasons to avoid discussion of the areas where they do obviously converge.
The fact that you say you have experienced some of the injustices I name in my last comment prompts me to remark that it is fortunate for you that you are at least still alive, unlike thousands of other victims of the ongoing campaign against the “infidels” (their word, not mine).
Is the Horowitz rhetoric often inflammatory and off-putting to some people. Sure. He is a polemicist on the right, but he is a man with impeccable (small ‘l’) liberal bona fides, none of which has he contradicted with his current positions. (Read “Radical Son” if you doubt this)
What always seems to me conspicuously absent among all the liberal hand-wringing about dangerous generalizations, and the distressing avoidance of considering the many complexities and nuances of the issues, is any acknowledgment of the actual death and destruction wrought by the adherents to radical jihadist ideology.
Does the fact that there is no obvious bureaucratic cohesion, nor an easily discernible nation-state identity, nor a strict adherence by all to a single theological doctrine among the adherents to a wider vision, make the 9/11 victims, as one set of examples, any less dead? Or for that matter, the victims in Spain, Britain, Bali, India, The Phillipines, Indonesia……?
Is our practical inability to counter every last Muslim who wishes to see America destroyed a reason to suggest that the motivating ideology of the terrorism and the killing not be discussed, nor confronted, nor actively opposed, for fear of injudiciously “lumping together” disparate groups?
Where is the liberal acknowledgment of the profound illiberalism of societies under Islamic rule today?
Is your suggested response to the threat to American citizens’ lives by Islamists similar to your response to the leftist smear posters at GWU, essentially…”Chill”? (How many times, and with how many dead bodies must they prove that there IS indeed a threat?)
Maybe the 9/11 victims’ families, among others, would be comforted by your assertion that “there is no movement”.
October 11, 2007 at 6:39 pm
Dan:
While I’ve enjoyed some of this discussion, I must ask you to refrain from speaking on behalf of my dead.
I would also remind you that one third of the people who perished in the Trade Towers were not Americans, and among the third who were there were people of many faiths, including the one you insist on demonizing.
Our country is still participating in efforts to police and rebuild areas of Eastern Europe where Orthodox Christians and several kinds of Catholics still engage in the kinds of activities and actions you seem to think stem solely from a religion that, unlike the Christian denominations just named, does not have a centralized hierarchical authority structure.
I do not know much about Horowitz, but I have read a panel-juried review of his work detailing the sixty percent of it which was easily documented as falsehood, easily checked facts about events in our own country. I see no reason to consider anything he maintains about other cultures, either. His insistence on conspiracy theories now and in his past may be a matter for his physician; it is certainly no concern of mine.
It is the director of YAF I advised to chill; he has not. What he has done is invite the kind of media and public scrutiny of his organization which I strongly believe will have his more reasonable supporters, speakers and donors fleeing for the exits. Well, I tried.
There have always been small violent groups of dissatisfied young men in their 20s and 30s who are disappointed in life and angry enough to kill themselves and others. In Europe, the U.S., and elsewhere, militarizing society instead of providing an effective police response within civilian law has always been disastrously counterproductive. We end up with Pinkertons and Guardsmen killing women and children while looking for nonexistent anarchists and recruiting real anarchists as a result. We get societies where constitutions are suspended for the duration of imaginary emergencies that never end. We get scapegoating of the innocents up to the point of death.
That is why I am unwilling to theoretically lump all the evils in the world into a single, imaginary “movement.” There were witchcraft laws on the books of several of our states for many years, but they have all been repealed. Let’s have no more new ones.
October 11, 2007 at 6:52 pm
A few more things; I was a little bummed Dan didn’t address my contribution;
I won’t argue with you about the existence of a threat Dan, however a movement is a false characterization of the variety of enemies that we face. The reason for attacking “lumping” together is because it denies us the only true method we have for protecting ourselves which is understanding our adversaries, their wishes, weaknesses and methods.
By misrepresenting their beliefs, goals and motivations you take away the very protections you hope to aid through “awareness.” While I’m fresh out of school, one of my primary areas of study was international terrorism (a strange fascination I picked up pre-9/11 thanks to Rainbow Six and other video games) and I can safely say that a remarkably broad range of people on both sides of the political spectrum have enough hatred for some aspect of US policy to act violently against us. My problem with “Islamo-Fascist” is that it misuses fascist, I suspect, to link our present situation with our more noble battles from WWII.
I will grant you that fascism doesn’t necessarily need a state to exist; a fascist movement could in theory have its base in a religious movement (although there are probably more appropriate descriptors for the situation.) However, in this case there is no “Islamo-fascist” movement as such because these groups are not unified. They have differing leadership, goals, ideals, beefs with the West and methods for getting their message across. Al-Qaeda for instance is marked by a sincere urge to inflict reprisal casualties on the US for the deaths of Muslims they claim are due to US policy. There are also “wannabe” Al-Qaedas who adopt the name and some pieces of the rhetoric of the primary branch but are in no literal way affiliated with the organization.
The groups only posing as “Al-Qaeda” is just the most simple example of why “Islamo-Fascism” is an inappropriate term. There are disagreements in the individual groups on doctrine to say nothing of the disagreements over Pan-Arabism, Sunni v. Shiia, the historical tribal battles, the modern post-colonial territorial battles, and the seemingly endless list of variables that separate out these violent organizations. This is why the juvenile “Islamo-” tag is patently wrong.
Moreover everyone is aware that there are people in the world deemed terrorists; sometimes accurately sometimes not but the semantic issue is probably a little base for this discussion; and I would venture to guess most people in America are aware that a large number of these terrorists are Islamic fundamentalists.
So if we can agree that America is generally aware of the threat (and if you wish to disagree by all means do so though I’m not sure what evidence you could display that would suggest that) then I have to ask, “what is the point of this awareness week?” Why not a panel on the variety of terror groups in the world today? Or even better why not a discussion of crime organizations that work in tandem with these political groups; some of the most convincing cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian forces is seen in that regions black market. Money and power have a long history of trumping religious and political beliefs.
-J
October 12, 2007 at 4:01 am
I “demonized” no one. Nor did I suggest that one religion is solely responsible for all the world’s terror and violence, or “lumped all the evils of the world into one imaginary movement”. It takes quite a distortion of my statements to get there.
I have not defended the group’s use of the term “Islamo-fascist”
The moral equivalence talking points are standard issue. And very tired.
The point about the 9/11 victims is not their nationalities (of course they were diverse…where did I say they were all Americans?) but the fact that they were innocents. I also made a point to list several other, including Muslim, categories of victims of Islamist terror…oh, sorry…victims of the terror perpetrated by random disaffected 20 to 30 year-olds from a variety of different cultures and backgrounds and circumstances.
Your first statement about me speaking on behalf of your dead, I don’t get at all.
October 12, 2007 at 7:20 am
Dan: You say I have not defended the group’s use of the term “Islamo-fascist”
You haven’t? That’s the name of the whole YAF nationally-touring campus workshop crusade. That’s what we’ve been discussing. Of course you have.
As for the part that puzzles you, I refer to
The fact that you say you have experienced some of the injustices I name in my last comment prompts me to remark that it is fortunate for you that you are at least still alive,
I don’t wish to elaborate further; I merely suggest in all kindness that you not use this reasoning even with those you know well.
Regards
Mike
October 12, 2007 at 12:44 pm
My earlier point was that it seems silly to quibble over what is or is not an appropriate handle for the movement, when you cannot bring yourself to admit that a movement even exists.
This despite repeated articulations of the movement’s goals, its Koranic scriptural justifications, it’s long term political vision, and its proud confessions of its terrorist acts by its principal planners and operatives.
John at least admits the existence of an Islamic fundamentalist terrorist movement, going so far as to say that it is so self-evident, and that we are so aware of it as a country that an awareness week shouldn’t even be necessary.
He goes on to suggest, somewhat counter-intuitively if I may say so, that the threat is so obvious and people are so universally aware of it that we should instead discuss the various OTHER terrorist movements in the world today. OK.
But it sounds like you two should be hashing this one out between yourselves.
If I offended you with the statement you cited, I apologize.
October 12, 2007 at 3:25 pm
Dan:
John says “there is no “Islamo-fascist” movement as such because these groups are not unified. They have differing leadership, goals, ideals, beefs with the West and methods for getting their message across.”
He and I agree; you and the million-dollar sideshow coming to GWU and other campuses are positing an illusion, one which hurts innocent people, Americans among them, and diverts resources from legitimate, effective police efforts.
Mike
October 15, 2007 at 11:21 am
Don’t play with my words Dan, its unbecoming. I stated clearly that there is no “Islamo-Fascist” movement; take away the official title that the YAF is using and my point stands, there is no movement. Suggesting it is a movement is wrong for all of the same reasons that suggesting it is an “Islamo-Fascist” movement. Unless you’re going to make an argument along the lines of Hardt/Negri (suggesting that a movement exists regardless of structure or literal cooperation) I don’t see anyway that you can suggest that a movement exists. There are a variety of groups that seek to attack Western states, no more no less.
Moreover I didn’t suggest we should ignore any threat; I suggested that you are pointing to a false threat and that we should focus on a real threat. Your twisting of my words to fit your argument led to this incorrect conclusion. Its entirely worthwhile to track terrorist organizations of all ilk; my point is that the false demon of “Islamo-Fascism” is taking up the valuable time of dealing with the very real individual groups with the intent to strike civilians.
These groups may look alike, sound alike, and share a broad religious background, however they are not the same and treating them as though they were is foolhardy and dangerous.
October 22, 2007 at 12:33 pm
[...] George Washington, Georgetown and George Mason. The activities are not without controversy, here and elsewhere. “Islamo-Fascist Awareness Week” is a production of the David Horowitz [...]