Global Intifada

Part I: Know Thy Enemy

 

From October 22 to 26, the David Horowitz “Freedom” Center is promoting “Stop Islamo-Fascism Week”, supposedly being conducted on 200 college campuses across the country (in reality, its only 26 campuses) According to their website, Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week will have a variety of features, most notably, lots of Islam-bashing based on weak inferences and excessive rhetoric such as the same old myths about how Islam condones terrorism, oppresses women, and just won’t leave those darn Zionists alone in Israel. Horowitz declares that the purpose of this event is to spread awareness to the “greatest danger” America has ever confronted. Before evaluating the plethora of assertions being put forward by this blitzkrieg of propaganda, it might be prudent to first understand who David Horowitz is and what this event is REALLY about.

Who is David Horowitz?

David Howoritz is the founder of the David Horowitz Freedom Center (formerly the Center for the Study of Popular Culture) and gets paid quite a hefty salary as its president. As passionate as an ideologue can get, one would think that Mr. Horowitz was doing all this Islam-o-bashing for the love of it. But interestingly enough, he gets paid $350,000 a year to bash Islam and Muslims. In fact, he’s been getting a six-figure salary for over a decade. [Media Transparency]

 

Year	Role	Hrs/wk	Pay
David Horowitz Freedom Center
2005 President 70 $ 352,647 2004 President 60 $ 352,611 2003 President 70 $ 330,186 2002 President 70 $ 269,008 2001 President 70 $ 265,420 2000 President 70 $ 266,864 1999 President 70 $ 191,751 1998 President 70 $ 157,909 1997 President 70 $ 137,227

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Where does his money come from?

Who could possibly afford to pay a man $350,000 to bash Islam? Where is the money coming from? The Freedom Center gets its funding from a variety of wealthy sources that seek to promote a conservative agenda in America. Over the years, the Center has received a total of $15,579,000 through 156 grants from such organizations as:

 

Funder

Assets

Total # of Monies

 

Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Inc.

$706 million in 2005

$6,028,000

 

Sarah Scaife Foundation

$290 million in 2005

$4,100,000

 

John M. Olin Foundation, Inc.

$20 million in 2005

$2,285,000

 

Scaife Family Foundation

$87 million in 2006

$1,225,000

 

Carthage Foundation

$30 million in 2006

$625,000

 

Allegheny Foundation

$47 million in 2005

$450,000

 

Castle Rock Foundation (founded by the Coors Brewing Co.)

$60 million in 2006

$300,000

 

Randolph Foundation

$69 million in 2005

$245,000

 

Jaquelin Hume Foundation

$17 million in 2005

$150,000

 

Brady Education Foundation, Inc.

$13 million in 2005

$76,000

 

Hickory Foundation

$20 million in 2005

$55,000

 

 

William H. Donner Foundation

$129 million in 2004

$10,000

 

Gordon and Mary Cain Foundation

$123 million in 2005

$10,000

 

Shelby Cullom Davis Foundation

$111 million in 2004

$10,000

 

Barre Seid Foundation

$9 million in 2005

$10,000

However, this chart can be somewhat misleading since the greatest number of funding is actually coming from a single source, the Scaife foundations, which consists of (a) the Sarah Mellon Scaife Foundation, (b) the Carthage Foundation, (c) the Allegheny Foundation, and (c) the Scaife Family foundation. Combined, they have given $6.4 million dollars to the Center, roughly 40% of the organization’s funding. All four of these foundations have been devoted to promoting conservative thought under the aegis of Richard Mellon Scaife. Through these foundations, it is estimated that Scaife has given from $340 million ($620 million in current dollars, adjusted for inflation) to $600 million ($1.4 billion in current dollars, adjusted for inflation) to people and institutions who promote the conservative cause. [Washington Post] Scaife was expelled from Yale after a drunken party and transferred to University of Pittsburgh where his father was on the Board of Trustees. [Source]. Lucky for him, he was the descendant of some of the richest men in America. The Scaife family fortune is largely derived from (i) ownership of Gulf Oil corporation, (ii) ownership of Alcoa and Alcan going back to 1891, (iii) ownership of Koppers and Carborundum corporations, and (iv) dabbling in the uranium cartel. [Source Watch]

The Gulf Oil company has had its fair share of “fascist” involvement. In the 1970s, Gulf developed oil fields in Cabinda during the Angolan civil war that required the raising of a mercenary army. In effect, Gulf was funding a Soviet government in Africa when the US government was trying to overthrow it. [Source] Let’s also not mention the company’s shady dealings in Kuwait when it was less then a paragon of a liberal democratic state under the monarchy which denied basic human rights and democratic processes to its people. [Source]

However, not only is a good portion of the monies from Horowitz’s main funder from questionable origins, Scaife has some interesting links to some Christian fascists himself. Between 1994-1995, Scaife gave $330,000 to the Western Journalism Center run by Joseph Farah. [Washington Post]Farah is known primarily for setting WorldyNetDaily where he once advocated the punishment of execution for adultery in a tongue-and-cheek-manner. [WorldNetDaily] The Western Journalism Center has links to the Reconstructionism movement through Wayne Johnson, who has been on World Net Daily’s board since it was created. Johnson is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Chalcedon foundation, which is the far-right group that explicitly advocates this radical fascist ideology. [Source] Gary North, a prominent Reconstruction theorist, explains that the basic tenets of this religious movement is the complete domination of Christianity in American politics. Individuals who refuse to recognize its dominance would be denied citizenship. Reconstructionists believe that the Old Testament, comprised of 600 Mosaic laws, should be the law of the land. They believe that government belongs to righteous males, and thus would deny political offices to women. They promote executions, with stoning as the preferred method and witnessed by the community as a whole. The death penalty would also be extended to “women who commit adultery or lie about their virginity, blasphemers, witches, children who strike their parents, and gay men. [Mother Jones]

Is Horowitz connected to Fascists or Fascist movements in America?

Although this is undoubtedly fascinating information, what does this have to do with Islamo-Fascism Awareness week? The point is rather simple: if David Horowitz objects to fascism as being immoral, he must object to it in all of its forms. He must object to fascism when it is exhibited by the people who fund him such as Richard Scaife and, in good faith, should return a year’s worth of his hefty salary back to his donor since that is roughly the same amount of money that he also donated to WorldNetDaily. If the tree of fascism is evil, then so are its fruits. Horowitz must condemn the source of his funding or at least sever himself from the fascist links. If Horowitz objects to the notion that Islamic law is barbaric because it promotes the death penalty and doesn’t ascribe to liberal values, then he must condemn Christian reconstructionism and the people who donate to them, including the man whose paid for over 40% of his own institution.

Additionally, there are severe theoretical flaws with the term “Islamo-Fascism” that are so self-evident, they expose the inherent agenda of Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, which is not an innocent reminder to the average Americans of potential threats, but rather, the dehumanization of an entire religion that is a precondition for committing violent acts against them. Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week is a week long Orwellian 10 minutes of hate.

Lastly, the term “Islamo-Fascism” is anachronistic, inaccurate, and incoherent. The definition of “fascism” that Horowitz et al are utilizing is so broad that it could not only be applied to all religions to some degree, but to America itself, if not to Horowitz himself and his merry band of conservatives.

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