Last Wednesday evening, David Horowitz spoke at UCLA. Linked below is the Q and A after his speech. At about the 16:50 mark, yours truly asks Horowitz to comment on the Olive Tree Initiative. Listen to what he has to say about the Jewish Federation and Hillel. It ain't pretty.
I watched the entire video. Therefore, my comment will probably be a long one. Horowitz came across as a very personable man. He also dances around to avoid giving a substantive answer to most questions, although he does cite the names of his ideological friends.
ReplyDeleteHe is correct about the principle of respect for the other. I wouldn't vote for the other, but I should be able to sit down face to face and talk to the other, as we do here at Fousesquawk. He and I could carry on a civil conversation.
But then he says he would like to see the university community express the same distaste for the "Israel apartheid wall" as for a noose on a professor's door. Well, let's see... if someone were to hang a plastic model of a severed head over a Jewish student's door, he would have a valid point. But, when someone says "Israel practices apartheid" that is not the moral equivalent of hanging a noose on a professor's door. It's just not. That's demagoguery, even if delivered with an even tone, and with a smile.
Somehow, he contrives to distinguish between "free speech" and "the right to conduct political activities." That, as they say in the Navy, is a distinction without a difference. In 1964, the battle was over whether students who had participated in some very real civil rights actions (now sanctified by almost everyone, including 21st century conservatives), could set up tables to recruit fellow students. This is somehow not free speech?
Fear not, most of the time, most students are bored to death by the repetitious sameness of the miniscule number who show up in Sproul Plaza year after year to exercise their rights of free speech. Unless something really inspires the students, they mostly exercise their right to walk by and ignore the literature.
When he starts to say "I am censored" he is indulging in whining of the worst kind. I admit, he learned that kind of twisted logic as a young radical complaining about oppression in America while signing lucrative book contracts, but however far around the circle he has gone, its still whining today.
I didn't hear the full question about "genocide," and his answer was far from edifying. Let me offer a simple rule, supported by almost any dictionary: nobody should charge "genocide" unless people are being killed. Further, homicide is not genocide unless the people killed categorically fall into a defined racial group, and are killed for that reason, in large numbers. Ditto when he says there is a "war" on campus. There is no organized killing, or even organized mayhem.
ReplyDeleteCivility is a good thing. Chants featuring "al Yahud" could perhaps be ruled out on the same basis as words like "nigger." Short of that, enforceable rules of discourse are not being breached.
He cleverly evaded the substance of the question, should the Tea Party be concerned with Sharia? Horowitz never squarely addressed the question, are the terrorist acts we have seen the real substance and nature of Islam? That is probably because he cannot show that Islam is inherently totalitarian. His rants about the Muslim Brotherhood didn't speak to Islam as a whole either. Certainly Qutb came to despise the U.S. He was impressed we have so many churches, horrified that teens held dances in the church fellowship halls. But Horowitz did not address what the meaning of Islam is, or is not.
Gary, you didn't accurately characterize the question by the young black lady. She didn't initially say anything about Democrats -- Horowitz did, and neatly evaded her original question by doing so. The question about the Bush administration was a follow-up to Horowitz boosting that "vote Republican" is the answer. Then, when challenged, he fell back on advocating the two-party system, rather than pretending that Republicans have all the answers.
ReplyDeleteI am familiar with many times when Americans of African descent, who had a newspaper or some other position of influence, observed that either the Republican Party, or the Democratic Party, were taking them for granted, and its time to shake things up a bit. Except for the fact that, today, once things are shook up, different "black" voters will have their own reasons for voting different ways, that's sound thinking. There was a time when there was good reason for African Americans to vote almost monolithically, and ask each party "What are we bid for our votes?" Those conditions no longer exist.
I was glad to hear that UCI has the most aggressive MSU in the country. I really didn't think it was that bad anywhere else I am familiar with. But really Gary, you and those who agree with you are not "the community" any more than Obama For America is "the people." And you haven't whipped nobody's butt. You've showed up, expressed YOUR opinion, gotten in some witty repartees. Good for you.
Horowitz does not deliver, as Fouse advertised he would, ANY revelations about Hamas, or OTI. He betrays a wishful ignorance of history when he says that Jewish councils organized Jews to go peacefully to slaughter. Jews were forcibly rounded up, at gunpoint, and crammed into cattle cars. Even the nascent Hagganah was in no position to have stopped it, had they tried. The councils were formed AFTER arrival in the camps and relocation to remaining ghettos. Some had a beneficial effect, given the circumstance, others were straight up collaborators.
I am reminded of the story of a man - I can't recall his name - who decided it was his duty to walk into the arms of the Gestapo because he intended to ORGANIZE inside Auschwitz. He did not survive, but many who did attribute it to the astute (covert) work he did. Some of the Jewish council did the best they could with the cards they were dealt also. I have, however, heard some very self-consciously Jewish Americans talk about how the more bourgeois German Jews actually VOTED FOR HITLER because they didn't want the communists taking power!
But by his logic, African Americans ought to be armed and fighting, in America, right now, albeit they don't need a pass to leave slums that are not, in fact, ghettos.
His solutions are facile, and sound plausible precisely because they haven't been implemented. School vounchers have their own problems, including massive corruption by hustlers with an eye on the money flowing, and the logistical difficulty of supervision to insure quality, plus the dilemma of reliance on a huge bureaucracy to do the supervision.
Pleasant guy, not much substance, plenty of deception, most of it probably starting with self-deception.
Gee, I thought this might provoke a little heated discussion.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that all Gary's horses and all Miggie's men, couldn't put David Horowitz together again.
He's an amiable fellow, but he made a fool of himself in his younger years, and he's had an unfortunate obsession with that ever since.
I suggest you attend one of his talks and see how much you can argue with. What he says about leftist suppression of conservative speech on college campuses is right on the money.
ReplyDeleteGary, I just watched a rather lengthy video of one of his talks, and dissected it in detail. Did you leave something out when you posted this?
ReplyDeleteThe only difference, should he ever be in my vicinity, of going to hear him live is that I could ask my questions in real time.