A STIRRING CULTURAL REVOLUTION

Is this for real, or simply another line of digital dope offered up in the form of political wishful thinking? As much as we might pine for the ushering in of that new post-racial worldview that Obama promised but can hardly deliver even if he tried, which he obviously isn't when it counts the most—on the fly—the dividend bearing reality remains that "until you see the reds of their eyes" racial politics is big business and too formidable a stick of ill repute to simply fade away.

However, words will be words, and often fetch a handsome price on the information markets these days. So the knaves with their knives on all sides of the compost pile continue to line up in service to their killing fields of choice.

Former associate of the Oakland, CA of the revolutionary Black Panther Party, and now conservative agitator—David Horowitz—on the aftermath of the recent Henry Louis Gates spectacle, writes:

NOW, FOR WHITE PEOPLE the term "racist" is really tantamount to being called a "ni---er" if you're black, except that blacks are free to call whites racists while whites can't even write the word n-i-g-g-e-r without risking repercussions. Watching this show—watching this cop be not only unapologetic but demanding that Gates apologize to Crowley and his mother (for the trash-talk Yo Mama), it occurred to me that a great turn is indeed taking place as a result of the election of Obama.

First we had the spectacle of Sotomayor—a race-preference leftist—backing off entirely from race preferences, and now we have policemen who normally would just be under fire, saying enough—we're not going to take it anymore. Saying: For years we've bent over backwards to apologize for racial injustices, some of which occurred and some of which did not, we've taken so many hours of courses and training to be sensitive to minorities, and we're not going to be called racists anymore when we're not. You are a professor making five or ten times what I make. You are in state whose governor is black; you're in a city whose mayor is black. You're pretending you're a powerless victim and at the same time phoning my chief and calling me a racist, telling me I don't know who I'm messing with because your friend who is black is the president of the United States. F--- you! And that's something of a cultural revolution.

Read it all.

While we can agree with the Horowitz analysis of the racial game as it is historically played, it is far too early to presume that this president has actually achieved racial consensus and has flatlined the old racist beast by inadvertently appealing to those very same tactics in solving this social dilemma that has supposedly led to the often cited racial polarity in the first place, beer garden or no beer garden.

THE OTHER SIDE OF RACISM

DAVID HOROWITZ has commented on Facebook today concerning the continued silence of the liberals with regard to the historical peoples revolt against the totalitarian theocratic dictatorship. His remarks are as spot on...

And let us not get carried away. No one, not even the neo-cons are advocating interceding militarily in Iran, but a voice of support for those marching hordes who are not only exercising the rights of free expression in calling for free elections that we support here in the United States, but they are also voicing opposition to an unquestionably sworn enemy of ours in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

How much plainer can this opportunity to extend textbook American graciousness to an oppressed people be? But I suppose in this case, only the wistful teleprompter of our much heralded Barack Obama knows for sure.

Horowitz writes:

Here's one scene from the historic revolt in Iran. Everything liberals pretend to be concerned about is on the line in Tehran today. Basic freedom to vote and have your vote counted; basic freedom to protest and not be killed. Even the style of the revolt is something for liberals to celebrate—the Tweeter revolution, the women's revolution, the revolution of the young. But liberals are silent. They want their government, their White House, to pretend it has no stake in the outcome, that it can deal with either Iran, the Iran of the Islamo-fascists who oppress their own people and want to kill us, or the Iran of those freedom loving citizens whose blood is running in the streets. Shameful.

Props to Mr. Horowitz for pointing out what seems to be obvious to anyone not blinded by party shenanigans, those poor souls who prefer a knotty grudge match to anything remotely akin to what some of us prefer to call principles. Don't misunderstand me. I speak plainly here. As far as I'm concerned, the Left and the Right are opposing butt cheeks of the same dumb-ass political machine.

As a staunch constitutionalist I prefer a strict adherence to those founding principles that inform individual liberty with abiding responsibility and uniform and unifying justice. But why did we and why do we continue to waste the perceptions and inertia our founders left us in writing and in deed? Our nation is floundering in a mess. Both parties have contributed heavily to the burdens now foisted upon the American people. And as a result, I fear the worst is closing in upon us all. But I can appreciate the work David Horowitz and Anne Wortham is doing for America today, even though folks of our intellectual ilk will continue to be called racists and nazis by small minds.

So even as we note that the landscape is littered with false assumptions and intellectual scoundrels, let us turn to another important American voice on the issue of racial politics gone awry, Professor Wortham as she writes with a special combination of intelligence and self-awareness:

MY FELLOW AMERICANS, please know I am black. I grew up in the segregated South. I did not vote for Barack Obama; I wrote in Ron Paul’s name as my choice for president. Most importantly, I am not race conscious. I do not require a Black president to know that I am a person of worth, and that life is worth living. I do not require a Black president to love the ideal of America.

I cannot join you in your celebration. I feel no elation. There is no smile on my face. I am not jumping with joy. There are no tears of triumph in my eyes. For such emotions and behavior to come from me, I would have to deny all that I know about the requirements of human flourishing and survival—all that I know about the history of the United States of America, all that I know about American race relations, and all that I know about Barack Obama as a politician. I would have to deny the nature of the “change” that Obama asserts has come to America.

Most importantly, I would have to abnegate my certain understanding that you have chosen to sprint down the road to serfdom that we have been on for over a century. I would have to pretend that individual liberty has no value for the success of a human life. I would have to evade your rejection of the slender reed of capitalism on which your success and mine depend. I would have to think it somehow rational that 94 percent of the 12 million Blacks in this country voted for a man because he looks like them (that Blacks are permitted to play the race card), and that they were joined by self-declared “progressive” whites who voted for him because he doesn’t look like them.

I would have to wipe my mind clean of all that I know about the kind of people who have advised and taught Barack Obama and will fill posts in his administration—political intellectuals like my former colleagues at the Harvard University ’s Kennedy School of Government.

I would have to believe that “fairness” is equivalent of justice. I would have to believe that a man who asks me to “go forward in a new spirit of service, in a new service of sacrifice” is speaking in my interest. I would have to accept the premise of a man that economic prosperity comes from the “bottom up,” and who arrogantly believes that he can will it into existence by the use of government force. I would have to admire a man who thinks the standard of living of the masses can be improved by destroying the most productive and the generators of wealth.

Finally, Americans, I would have to erase from my consciousness the scene of 125,000 screaming, crying, cheering people in Grant Park, Chicago irrationally chanting “Yes We Can!” Finally, I would have to wipe all memory of all the times I have heard politicians, pundits, journalists, editorialists, bloggers and intellectuals declare that capitalism is dead—and no one including, especially Alan Greenspan, objected to their assumption that the particular version of the anti-capitalistic mentality that they want to replace with their own version of anti-capitalism is anything remotely equivalent to capitalism.

So you have made history, Americans. You and your children have elected a Black man to the office of the president of the United States, the wounded giant of the world. The battle between John Wayne and Jane Fonda is over—and Fonda won. Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern must be very happy men. Jimmie Carter, too. And the Kennedys have at last gotten their Kennedy look-a-like. The self-righteous welfare statists in the suburbs can feel warm moments of satisfaction for having elected a Black person.

So, toast yourselves: 60s countercultural radicals, 80s yuppies and 90s bourgeois bohemians. Toast yourselves, Black America. Shout your glee Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Duke, Stanford, and Berkeley. You have elected not an individual who is qualified to be president, but a Black man who, like the pragmatist Franklin Roosevelt, promises to—Do Something! You now have someone who has picked up the baton of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. But you have also foolishly traded your freedom and mine—what little there is left—for the chance to feel good.

There is nothing in me that can share your happy obliviousness.

Dr. Anne Wortham is author of “The Other Side of Racism: A Philosophical Study of Black Race Consciousness” which analyzes how race consciousness is transformed into political strategies and policy issues. She has published numerous articles on the implications of individual rights for civil rights policy, and is currently writing a book on theories of social and cultural marginality. Recently, she has published articles on the significance of multiculturalism and Afrocentricism in education, the politics of victimization and the social and political impact of political correctness. Shortly after an interview in 2004, she was awarded tenure.

THE SPECTACLE OF RACE TWITTERING

In the national debate on Islam, oops, that's right there is none, but here is an honest perspective by Mark Quinn who frequently comments on what most in the West ignore—the obvious nasty nature of Islam.

ONE OF THE MOST frustrating things about the whole debate about Islam and its destructive influence around the world is this notion of racism, perpetuated by the extreme left (liberals) and the extreme right (Muslims), who as we know are all in bed together in some unholy union.

No, it is not correct to call Islam a race. However, if you take a look at the originators of Islam, the Arabic people, you will find no greater example of culture-wide and institutionalized racism. Most of us are extremely frustrated, for instance, when we see the speed with which Islam is growing among people of sub-Saharan African decent. We listen to their naive claims, planted by Muslims, that Islam is the true faith of Africa. We tell them the Arab people enslaved them for centuries, that the entire slave trade itself would have been nil if not for the Arab brokers who started it all. And yet they don't want to listen. The Arabs did far more than practicing "racism" against African people. It was a lot closer to genocide.

And yet, here we are, people who see a legitimate threat from Islam, and we have to endure being called racist when in fact we're the most liberal, modern people in the world. By "we" I mean people in western societies. We intermarry with each other on a fairly regular basis, we provide equal opportunities for people of all races, religions and genders, and generally speaking, we're happy to pull all the strengths of all the cultures of the world to make ours better and unique. I don't think there are too many of us on this forum who would throw a fit if we saw a member of our own race dating a member of another, or if we were working alongside someone from another race.

Now go and try to date a young Muslim woman. Best case scenario, the father would forbid it. Worst case scenario, your bride would be a head shorter.

I'm not so naive to think racism is non-existent in the world. I've seen a lot of prejudice among east Asians with regard to interracial dating. I myself come from an Italian-Irish background, and I know a lot of Italian-American fathers who wouldn't even allow their kids to have black friends come over. But two points on this. First, every decade that seems to fade more and more. Second, there's no such thing as institutionalized "honor killing" in the world at large. Islam might not have strict guidelines about racism, but I think I've made a point about their gross intolerance.

That's why this whole debate is so frustrating. If it wasn't for terrorism, if it wasn't for Jihad, if it wasn't for calls for Sharia Law, if it wasn't for endless demands for special treatment and consideration, if it wasn't for riots over cartoons, any of us would welcome the Muslim people into our societies with open arms.

How many Muslim societies would welcome us, even if we settled in their countries and conducted ourselves more quietly and unobtrusively than so many mice? Go ask the Copts that question, or the Kurds.

So here we are, having to endure this ridiculous argument that we're racist or intolerant, when in fact we've made a gargantuan effort to appease anyone and everyone who settles in our part of the world. Meanwhile, Muslims are an affront to everyone they encounter, and even as they plot our demise in their mosque services and literature, they preach about how horribly intolerant we are.

You almost feel like banging your head against a wall. It's like living in the Twilight Zone.

TIS WHAT IT TIS

THE LEFT IS NOTHING if not suicidal. Here is perfect example of how leftists "create what they hate."

Now, it is clear that the most progressive people in the United States come from its native, non-immigrant population. Most of these progressives are "white." Even the so-called evangelicals are far more liberal than most immigrant populations, such as Muslims, and even Hispanics.

But the left has visceral contempt for "whites," or anything familiar—boring to them—like Western culture. The left is addicted to foreignness, and "exotica." Immigrants, whether illegal or not, superficially fit that bill even though they are really the vast majority of humanity—not exotic at all. Immigrants from underdeveloped countries offer a double for insulated leftists--they are "different" from the hated "white" American culture, and they provide a way for leftists to act out their aggressions against more pragmatic Americans by concocting a strategy of phony moral superiority. So sure in their political correctness, even studying the suitability of immigrant cultures for integration into the United States is a condemned as being a racist act.

Read it all in the fierce vernacular of Max Publius.

And if you thought global warming is a tad bit overstated, here's the straight dope on that slippery slice of strategic misdirection.

THE MYTH OF OBAMA DECENCY

LAST WEEK, JAMES T. HARRIS went from being an average guy to one of the most reviled men in Black America. At a Waukesha, Wisconsin, town hall rally with Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin on Thursday, the African-American radio host from Milwaukee pleaded with McCain to step up his attacks against Barack Obama. “We have the good Reverend Wright. We have [the Reverend Michael L.] Pfleger,” Harris said to the cheers of thousands of white audience members. “I am begging you, sir. I am begging you. Take it to him.” In a show of true solidarity, Harris, 44, and the Republican nominee then hugged.

As this moment spread throughout the media, many African-Americans likened his impassioned remarks to racial betrayal and subservient shuffling. Theories circulated that Harris was a plant for the McCain campaign. Black women's fashion magazine—ESSENCE —talked with Harris, who describes his political beliefs as being “right of Rush,” about how he ended up at the town hall, receiving an avalanche of hate mail.

"You know, this is sort of a sampling of the emails that I've been receiving," Harris said. " Hey Sambo, maybe Master McCain will let you shine his shoes since you did such a good job licking his boots."

Read it all.

Of course, Obama will remain dumb and numb to this sort of rather unsavory activity of his own camp following, capable only of acknowledging criticism aimed at him.

MICHELLE'S BOOT CAMP FOR RADICALS

ELECTION CYCLE 2008 is highlighting an era in national politics where the idea that one should "beware of the euphemism" is sage advice. From Investor's Business Daily is this rather frightening notion of Far Leftist radicalism (American style) organized straight from the White House:

The Democrats' reintroduction of militant Michelle Obama in Denver was supposed to show her softer side. But it only highlighted a radical part of her resume: Public Allies.

Barack Obama was a founding member of the board of Public Allies in 1992, resigning before his wife became executive director of the Chicago chapter of Public Allies in 1993. Obama plans to use the nonprofit group, which he features on his campaign Web site, as the model for a national service corps. He calls his Orwellian program, "Universal Voluntary Public Service."

Big Brother had nothing on the Obamas. They plan to herd American youth into government-funded reeducation camps where they'll be brainwashed into thinking America is a racist, oppressive place in need of "social change." The pitch Public Allies makes on its Web site doesn't seem all that radical. It promises to place young adults (18-30) in paid one-year "community leadership" positions with nonprofit or government agencies. They'll also be required to attend weekly training workshops and three retreats.

In exchange, they'll get a monthly stipend of up to $1,800, plus paid health and child care. They also get a post-service education award of $4,725 that can be used to pay off past student loans or fund future education.

But its real mission is to radicalize American youth and use them to bring about "social change" through threats, pressure, tension and confrontation—the tactics used by the father of community organizing, Saul "The Red" Alinsky.

"Our alumni are more than twice as likely as 18-34 year olds to . . . engage in protest activities," Public Allies boasts in a document found with its tax filings. It has already deployed an army of 2,200 community organizers like Obama to agitate for "justice" and "equality" in his hometown of Chicago and other U.S. cities, including Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New York, Phoenix, Pittsburgh and Washington. "I get to practice being an activist," and get paid for it, gushed Cincinnati recruit Amy Vincent.

Public Allies promotes "diversity and inclusion," a program paper says. More than 70% of its recruits are "people of color." When they're not protesting, they're staffing AIDS clinics, handing out condoms, bailing criminals out of jail and helping illegal aliens and the homeless obtain food stamps and other welfare.

Public Allies brags that more than 80% of graduates have continued working in nonprofit or government jobs. It's training the "next generation of nonprofit leaders"—future "social entrepreneurs."

The Obamas discourage work in the private sector. "Don't go into corporate America," Michelle has exhorted youth. "Work for the community. Be social workers." Shun the "money culture," Barack added. "Individual salvation depends on collective salvation."

"If you commit to serving your community," he pledged in his Denver acceptance speech, "we will make sure you can afford a college education." So, go through government to go to college, and then go back into government.

Many of today's youth find the pitch attractive. "I may spend the rest of my life trying to create social movement," said Brian Coovert of the Cincinnati chapter. "There is always going to be work to do. Until we have a perfect country, I'll have a job."

Not all the recruits appreciate the PC indoctrination. "It was too touchy-feely," said Nelly Nieblas, 29, of the 2005 Los Angeles class. "It's a lot of talk about race, a lot of talk about sexism, a lot of talk about homophobia, talk about -isms and phobias."

One of those -isms is "heterosexism," which a Public Allies training seminar in Chicago describes as a negative byproduct of "capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy and male-dominated privilege."

The government now funds about half of Public Allies' expenses through Clinton's AmeriCorps. Obama wants to fully fund it and expand it into a national program that some see costing $500 billion. "We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded" as the military, he said.

The gall of it: The Obamas want to create a boot camp for radicals who hate the military—and stick American taxpayers with the bill.

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WHITE ENEMY

THE CHURCH WHERE Sen. Barack Obama has worshipped for two decades publicly declares that its ministry is founded on a 1960s book that espouses "the destruction of the white enemy."

Trinity United Church of Christ's Web site says its teachings are based on the black liberation theology of James H. Cone and his 1969 book "Black Theology and Black Power."

"What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love," Mr. Cone wrote in the book.

Mr. Cone, a professor at the Union Theological Seminary in New York, added that "black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy."

Mr. Obama's campaign, which for weeks has weathered criticism about inflammatory racial language by the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. at Trinity, said the candidate "vehemently disagrees" with those tenets.

"It's absurd to suggest that he or anyone should be held responsible for every quote in every book read by a member of their church," said Obama spokesman Reid Cherlin.

STEREOTYPING 101

The following essay is a very astute and quite complete analysis from a writer named Selwyn Duke one of the most profane horrors of the PC crowd.

In a racial profiling lawsuit against the Maryland State Police (MSP), a plaintiff's attorney named Eliza Leighton said that some training documents contain "startling examples of racial stereotypes about Hispanics."  According to the Associated Press:

For example, one document cautions that Hispanics generally do not hold their alcohol well. They tend to drink too much and this leads to fights. And it notes, Hispanic males are raised to be MACHO and brave, while females are raised to be subservient. Other stereotypes include the assertion that the weapon of choice for Hispanics is a knife and that Hispanics are reluctant to learn English.

Regardless of the outcome of this lawsuit, we can now expect such information to be purged from the training documents.  But, as I wrote about Dr. James Watson's comments regarding Africans, intelligence and genetics, this is part of a very distressing pattern.  Everyone fixates on the fact that such comments constitute generalizations (about groups that are supposed to be immune from such things), as if this is an offense in and of itself.  Yet, no one seems to ask the only relevant question.

Are the generalizations true?

Before anyone waxes stupid, please don't tell me that all generalizations are invalid because not every member of the given group will conform to a generalization.  Intelligent people understand that legitimate generalizations are statements about a group's general characteristics, not individuals' specific ones.  For example, if I say that men are taller than women, I don't mean that every man towers over every woman; nevertheless, it is an accurate relation of a general difference between the groups. 

This brings us to an important point: While we must judge everyone as an individual, there are differences within groups but also differences among them.  Thus, it makes no more sense to paint every group with the same brush than it does to pain every individual with the same brush.

My response to those who cannot or will not accept this is that if they can't understand commentary written for adults, they shouldn't read it.  Besides, not all generalizations can be invalid simply because the statement that all generalizations are invalid is itself is a generalization.

Modern dogma holds that diversity is one of the greatest qualities a society can enjoy, that it bestows many advantages.  But what does this imply?  Well, by definition "diversity" refers to differences among groups.  Now, not only is it illogical to assume that every one of these differences will be flattering, the supposition that diversity is beneficial implies otherwise.  After all, if diversity is beneficial, it is only because certain groups bring qualities or strengths to the table that others do not.  And, if a given group possesses a certain unique strength, then other groups are wanting in that area relative to it.

Any which way you care to slice it, this is a corollary of diversity dogma. 

So, ironically, despite the fact that the diversity dogmatists would eschew stereotyping, a version of it imbues their ideology.  So it's not that they don't have biases relating to generalizations, only that their understanding of group differences is clumsy and primitive, sort of like Archie Bunker but with advanced degrees, the illusion of intellectualism and the inability to be honest with themselves and others.  So let's be honest now.

Stereotypes often arise because they have a basis in reality.  For example, often it has been remarked that Irishmen liked to drink.  Once again, intelligent people know this doesn't mean that every Irishman is a drunkard, but informed people might know something else: Ireland ranks number two in the world in per capita alcohol consumption next to Luxemburg.

Another difference among groups is that some are more patriarchal than others.  We know that Moslem societies are quite so, as women are usually afforded fewer legal rights.  In fact, Westerners will often emphasize and lament this difference as a way to burnish their credentials as believers in women's liberation. 

In light of this, let's now analyze the MSP's statement that "Hispanic males are raised to be MACHO and brave, while females are raised to be subservient."  Since some groups are more patriarchal than others, this can be true; and I venture to say that anyone who has had great contact with Hispanic people and possesses eyes and common sense will know it's often enough true compared to, say, Swedes.

As to these matters, Raul Caetano, Catherine L. Clark and Tammy Tam, three Ph.Ds who received a government grant to study common sense, implicitly vindicate two of the MSP's assertions.  They write in their paper, Alcohol Consumption Among Racial/Ethnic Minorities:

"One traditional explanation for heavy drinking patterns among Hispanic men, particularly Mexican-Americans, is the concept of ‘exaggerated machismo.'"

While these researchers didn't accept or reject this explanation, they didn't question the suppositions that Hispanic men drink too much and are "macho."  So then why are the Maryland State Police probably going to have to pay money for saying what these academics got paid money to say?  Well, it neither serves the left's agenda to sue a few eggheads nor can cash be extracted from them. 

Besides, there is another factor: If a truth hurts, since you can't destroy the Truth, you destroy the truth-teller.

And here is another truth.  I have only one thing to say about the idea that Hispanics are reluctant to learn English: I've never been asked if I wanted to press two for German.

Stereotypes aren't just woven into flawed leftist ideology (please forgive the redundancy) and million-dollar research substitutes for common sense; they also appear in entertainment.  Just think about all the times that whites are characterized as nerdy, lacking rhythm or liking mayonnaise (as to this, watch the movie Undercover Brother or Al Yankovic's music video "White & Nerdy").  Yet, golfer Fuzzy Zoeller was practically clubbed to death for quipping that Tiger Woods shouldn't request fried chicken or collard greens after the latter's record-setting performance at the 1997 Masters tournament.  (I was "startled" myself; since Woods' mother hails from Thailand, I would have thrown in phat gapow).  Seriously, though—or almost seriously—if whites can be smeared with mayonnaise, other groups can be coddled with their cuisines.

This isn't to say that every stereotype or generalization—or what is known as a "profile" in the realm of law enforcement—is completely accurate.  But when one is found wanting, it simply warrants the alteration of its flawed elements, not the throwing out of the baby with the bath water.  If a difference is frivolous and fun, it should be a source of mirth; if it indicates greater ability, it should be applauded; and if the difference is damning, remedy should be sought.

But this standard won't be embraced until we accept what is perhaps the most valid generalization of all: The leftist thought police are a menace to civilization and free speech.  They are turning us into an ideological state, a place where ideology isn't rejected when it departs from truth but truth is rejected when it departs from ideology.

As for remedy, the best antidote to political correctness is its opposite.  We don't have to speak and joke and talk and think in a way that pleases those who prove that infantilism doesn't always peak in infancy.  Instead, we should stand up for truth—be it in the form of wit, policy or paradigm—and those who speak it.  Do this en masse and "startle" those thought police enough, and we just might be rid of them after all.  That is, if they actually do have hearts.  

Selwyn Duke is a frequent contributor to American Thinker.

NICK GRIFFIN IN AMERICA

Nick Griffin on the Islamization of Europe and other controversial but related topics. Griffin is the chief spokesman of the British Nationalist Party, arrested, tried and acquitted a few years ago for hate speech.

IN SHARPENING OUR VOCABULARY

Defending Islamofascism. It's a valid term. Here's why.
By Christopher Hitchens


The attempt by David Horowitz and his allies to launch "Islamofascism Awareness Week" on American campuses has been met with a variety of responses. One of these is a challenge to the validity of the term itself. It's quite the done thing, in liberal academic circles, to sneer at any comparison between fascist and jihadist ideology. People like Tony Judt write to me to say, in effect, that it's ahistorical and simplistic to do so. And in some media circles, another kind of reluctance applies: Alan Colmes thinks that one shouldn't use the word Islamic even to designate jihad, because to do so is to risk incriminating an entire religion. He and others don't want to tag Islam even in its most extreme form with a word as hideous as fascism. Finally, I have seen and heard it argued that the term is unfair or prejudiced because it isn't applied to any other religion.

Well, that last claim is certainly not true. It was once very common, especially on the left, to prefix the word fascism with the word clerical. This was to recognize the undeniable fact that, from Spain to Croatia to Slovakia, there was a very direct link between fascism and the Roman Catholic Church. More recently, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, editor of the Encyclopaedia Hebraica, coined the term Judeo-Nazi to describe the Messianic settlers who moved onto the occupied West Bank after 1967. So, there need be no self-pity among Muslims about being "singled out" on this point.

The term Islamofascism was first used in 1990 in Britain's Independent newspaper by Scottish writer Malise Ruthven, who was writing about the way in which traditional Arab dictatorships used religious appeals in order to stay in power. I didn't know about this when I employed the term "fascism with an Islamic face" to describe the attack on civil society on Sept. 11, 2001, and to ridicule those who presented the attack as some kind of liberation theology in action. "Fascism with an Islamic face" is meant to summon a dual echo of both Alexander Dubcek and Susan Sontag (if I do say so myself), and in any case, it can't be used for everyday polemical purposes, so the question remains: Does Bin Ladenism or Salafism or whatever we agree to call it have anything in common with fascism?

I think yes. The most obvious points of comparison would be these: Both movements are based on a cult of murderous violence that exalts death and destruction and despises the life of the mind. ("Death to the intellect! Long live death!" as Gen. Francisco Franco's sidekick Gonzalo Queipo de Llano so pithily phrased it.) Both are hostile to modernity (except when it comes to the pursuit of weapons), and both are bitterly nostalgic for past empires and lost glories. Both are obsessed with real and imagined "humiliations" and thirsty for revenge. Both are chronically infected with the toxin of anti-Jewish paranoia (interestingly, also, with its milder cousin, anti-Freemason paranoia). Both are inclined to leader worship and to the exclusive stress on the power of one great book. Both have a strong commitment to sexual repression—especially to the repression of any sexual "deviance"—and to its counterparts the subordination of the female and contempt for the feminine. Both despise art and literature as symptoms of degeneracy and decadence; both burn books and destroy museums and treasures.

Fascism (and Nazism) also attempted to counterfeit the then-success of the socialist movement by issuing pseudo-socialist and populist appeals. It has been very interesting to observe lately the way in which al-Qaida has been striving to counterfeit and recycle the propaganda of the anti-globalist and green movements. (See my column on Osama Bin Laden's Sept. 11 statement.)

There isn't a perfect congruence. Historically, fascism laid great emphasis on glorifying the nation-state and the corporate structure. There isn't much of a corporate structure in the Muslim world, where the conditions often approximate more nearly to feudalism than capitalism, but Bin Laden's own business conglomerate is, among other things, a rogue multinational corporation with some links to finance-capital. As to the nation-state, al-Qaida's demand is that countries like Iraq and Saudi Arabia be dissolved into one great revived caliphate, but doesn't this have points of resemblance with the mad scheme of a "Greater Germany" or with Mussolini's fantasy of a revived Roman empire?

Technically, no form of Islam preaches racial superiority or proposes a master race. But in practice, Islamic fanatics operate a fascistic concept of the "pure" and the "exclusive" over the unclean and the kufar or profane. In the propaganda against Hinduism and India, for example, there can be seen something very like bigotry. In the attitude to Jews, it is clear that an inferior or unclean race is being talked about (which is why many Muslim extremists like the grand mufti of Jerusalem gravitated to Hitler's side). In the attempted destruction of the Hazara people of Afghanistan, who are ethnically Persian as well as religiously Shiite, there was also a strong suggestion of "cleansing." And, of course, Bin Laden has threatened force against U.N. peacekeepers who might dare interrupt the race-murder campaign against African Muslims that is being carried out by his pious Sudanese friends in Darfur.

This makes it permissible, it seems to me, to mention the two phenomena in the same breath and to suggest that they constitute comparable threats to civilization and civilized values. There is one final point of comparison, one that is in some ways encouraging. Both these totalitarian systems of thought evidently suffer from a death wish. It is surely not an accident that both of them stress suicidal tactics and sacrificial ends, just as both of them would obviously rather see the destruction of their own societies than any compromise with infidels or any dilution of the joys of absolute doctrinal orthodoxy. Thus, while we have a duty to oppose and destroy these and any similar totalitarian movements, we can also be fairly sure that they will play an unconscious part in arranging for their own destruction, as well.

DEALING RACISM A SOFT BLOW

Can you believe the pure genius of this beautiful, articulate woman? Who is she? Sarry Crey, that's who...