Foehammer’s Anvil

Have you been looking for proof that Socialists, Leftists, Marxists and the like are still alive, kicking and looking to uplift Islamists? Well, here you go, from Socialist Worker Online:

HADAS THIER and AARON HESS look at how racist caricatures of Islam are used to justify war and occupation.

AT A recent antiwar panel discussion in New York City, Columbia University professor and antiwar activist Hamid Dabashi commented that whenever the U.S. goes to war, it projects an image of itself as the embattled underdog–an �army of Sparta,� rather than an aggressive superpower bent on conquest.

When the real underdogs resist, however, they are inevitably depicted by the U.S. political and media establishment as driven by an oppressive ideology, with the ultimate goal of undermining �Western values� of democracy and freedom.

Please stop with the tired proposals that standing up to Islam is “racist”. Islam is not a race. Muslims are not a race. Arabs are a race.

However, perhaps Socialists should be ranked as insane along with the warped minds of Leftist Democrats? I’m starting to lose any doubt.

Here is some absolute absurdity and propaganda from the same article:

OVER THE years, Islamophobia has been given an intellectual gloss by a whole industry of well-paid �experts� on Islam and the Arab world. Two of the most renowned examples are Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington.

At the core of their writings is the idea that Islam and the Arab world have produced a static, unchanging civilization averse to Enlightenment ideals that they claim are the sole province of the �West�–such as religious tolerance, women�s rights and democracy.

These views have little use for historical facts. For example, while Western Europe remained stuck for centuries in what historians call the �Dark Ages,� the Islamic world was the center of intellectual inquiry, preserving and advancing the scientific breakthroughs of the ancient world.

I can hardly contain my laughter. To claim that Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington, renowned scholars, do not deal in “historical facts” is like calling the Pope a Muslim. And as for an “intellectual gloss”, if Lewis is guilty of anything in my eyes, he’s been too nice to the Islamic world! And yet the presumably socialist writer complains about the extreme efforts of Lewis to play it “fair”; little do would be destroyers of personal freedoms and espousers of mediocrity like Thier and Hess seem to realize that Lewis does a great deal, perhaps unwittingly, to uplift the Islamic world through “balanced” research. Or perhaps they do understand this, but like so many enemies of the United States and the West, they are not satisfied to feed from an open hand, instead they intend to bite it repeatedly.

There is no such thing as “Islamophobia”, my friends. Islam gives us clear-cut reasons to be disgusted by its teachings, to fear for the safety of our loved ones and to rail against its fascism. Only Islamists, lemmings, soft-brains and sycophants do not question Islam, and apparently Socialists, too.

While the authors of this quoted article strive so very hard to perpetuate the myth that the United States is some great and terrible Imperialist Power in disguise, masquerading as a great power for truth and justice in the world, they utterly fail to hide their true bias with statements like the following:

Working-class people in the U.S. have also been forced to pay–with continuing cuts in social services, with shredded civil liberties, and with their lives, in the case of the soldiers used as cannon fodder in Iraq and Afghanistan–for U.S. wars.

Building the strongest possible movement for peace and justice requires clarity about who the victims are and who�s to blame.

It also requires completely rejecting the caricatures about Islam peddled by U.S. leaders to justify their war at home and abroad. If the antiwar movement fails to thoroughly expose the distortions and myths about �reactionary Islamic fundamentalism,� it allows American rulers to keep using one of their most powerful ideological weapons for continuing their wars.

I am sick and damn tired of hearing that only minorities and the poor serve in the United States Military! This is an absolute distortion. If you do not believe me, look at the ROTC programs on almost every college campus in the United States, especially at schools surrounding Washington, DC — like Virginia Tech. Look at our military academies like West Point — the finest such institutions in the entire world, attracting not only Americans from every spectrum of our great nation, but also many hundreds of future foreign military officers as well.

It is this kind of disgusting lie that is used by enemies of the U.S.A. to attempt to blind us all to reality, just as they try to propose that Islam is a benevolent ideology.

I remember quite clearly sitting through a ten minute memoriam on Ted Koppel’s Nightline not so many years ago, and watching the faces of American soldiers lost in Iraq and Afghanistan. The point that struck me that night was that 90% of those young men were white.

All Americans love their country. All of us, no matter what color, no matter what social circles, fight for it and are willing to fight for it — yes, even the Democrats.

The simple fact is, if you don’t love the United States and you live on American soil, you’re not an American. And yes, that includes citizens that squander that gift. To those people I simply say: leave.

And as for Socialists? Go back to your caves.

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