White Power USA: Video Report By Al Jazeera

[AlicetheKurious]

So Alice, you are aware of what the Pacifica Forum is doing, and you support their work?

No, and no.

Smells fishy to me, and incredibly convenient for those who have been campaigning unsuccessfully to have the Forum banned. I'd be very interested in the results of a proper investigation to determine just who is really behind this vandalism.

[American Dream]

Alice, you can read about them further upthread and/or by using a search engine. They are Nazi-types who indulge in a lot of rhetorical posturing about "Zionists" which in several ways overlaps with yours.

I would personally say that it is extremely important to have a clear position renouncing collaboration with these kinds of people, though I know you have differed on this point.

They are extremely bad news for all kinds of just causes, most especially for Palestinians and the other people directly targeted by Israeli violence and oppression.

[AlicetheKurious]

Alice, you can read about them further upthread and/or by using a search engine.

I have, and if one discounts the claims of organizations like the SPLC and their ilk (which I do, given their track record), then the Pacifica Forum appear to be exactly what they say they are: a neutral forum for every kind of free speech, from across the spectrum. That may include speakers that you don't like, or that I don't like, but as far as I'm concerned, as long as the forum does not promote one point of view over another, and allows a broad diversity of speakers to speak freely, then that's very good, and an excellent way to promote critical and well-informed thinking among the student body.

Unlike you, I believe that given an equal playing field, the strongest arguments, based on solid evidence, logic and morality, will easily win the vast majority of hearts and minds, hands down. I don't believe that people should be shut up and prevented from speaking their minds, no matter what their minds contain, as long as there is an equal opportunity for opposing points of view to be expressed, and for critical evidence to be presented.

Such a forum is especially rare and valuable in the context of what passes for information, "news" and debate in the U.S. today, in which not only are dissenting ideas ruthlessly suppressed, but ignorance, racist incitement and warmongering by corrupt, mass-murdering sociopaths are systematically promoted, while uncritical passivity on the part of American citizens is portrayed as the ideal. While you seem to be advocating even more suppression of information, less access to dissenting and unpopular views, I am arguing that a university is a great place to host a neutral forum for the free exchange of ideas and information. When did American "progressives" become so unabashedly fascist in their attitude toward free thought and free speech? When did it become acceptable for self-styled "human rights" advocates to hold such contempt for other people's rights? What's next, book-burning? Thoughtcrime legislation? How very progressive.

Furthermore, it seems that the University of Oregon, in refreshing contrast to many other universities in the U.S., is a pretty wonderful and stimulating place to be a student regardless of one's race or religious creed or orientation. That's one reason why this incident of vandalism, complete with spray-painted swastika, hits a false note. In too many ways, it uncannily echoes the Kerri Dunn case, where a visiting professor spray-painted her own car door and hood with a swastika, "n*gger-lover" and "k*ke whore", broke its windows and slashed its tires, all supposedly in order to raise the alarm about intolerance on campus. Dunn's is hardly a unique case.

The fact that this specific incident took place just as the Pacifica Forum was trying to defend itself against accusations, spear-headed by the likes of the SPLC, that its organizers are "Nazi-types", just makes it too convenient, as I indicated earlier.

They are Nazi-types who indulge in a lot of rhetorical posturing about "Zionists" which in several ways overlaps with yours.

Nice. Another thing that rings awfully false is your insultingly transparent disclaimers about zionist front groups like the ADL and the SPLC, while consistently using the same sleazy tactics that they do. You can't help it, the mask always slips. Not everybody is as stoopid as you think.

[Sounder]

Yeah I was about to say again for the umpteenth time that fascists that pose as liberals are more worrisome than Nazis that pose as Nazis, but upon review I see that Alice and 23 already said it, so never mind.

Alice wrote…

I think that a far greater danger to social justice movements is the insidious damage to morale and solidarity by organizations that purport to be "progressive" and "anti-racist", but whose modus operandi is to exaggerate the "nazi" threat, build up a reputation (and a huge financial budget) as fearless crusaders by suing and campaigning against extremely weak and marginalized fringe "nazi" or "white supremacist" groups, then use their "credentials" to sabotage and subvert Leftist movements on behalf of a zionist agenda.

23 wrote…

The bad guys who clearly appear as bad guys aren't as potentially harmful to us as the bad guys who appear as good guys.

My radar tends to be more fixed on the latter.

They're a lot harder to spot and deserve more of our collective radar detection, IMO.

Thank-you Alice for illustrating so well the MO of these fascists that go around in drag making like ‘liberals’.

AD wrote…

Alice, I happen to agree with you that the ADL is bad news.

If the ADL is so bad to you, then why do you so closely follow and use their methods?

[17breezes]

[American Dream]

AlicetheKurious wrote:

if one discounts the claims of organizations like the SPLC and their ilk (which I do, given their track record), then the Pacifica Forum appear to be exactly what they say they are: a neutral forum for every kind of free speech, from across the spectrum.

Sounder wrote:

If the ADL is so bad to you, then why do you so closely follow and use their methods?

Well, I'll just say that I very much don't agree, and let it go at that for the moment.

[AlicetheKurious]

My understanding is that the Pacifica Forum had no members and no specific agenda, but was a free-speech zone where a wide variety of even extreme opinions were encouraged to be voiced and exposed to critical interventions from anybody who cared to attend. Calling it a "Nazi group" is therefore a gross misrepresentation, since it was not even a "group", let alone a "Nazi" one.

BTW, following the mysterious and still unsolved vandalism incident, the Forum has been closed down, and their web-site no longer exists. I even tried the Wayback Machine, with no luck. Also, I've just spent the last few minutes trying to locate one website or source where the supporters or founders of the Pacifica Forum tell their side of the story directly, and found none. Not one. For people being accused of the wrong kind of speech, they're either being remarkably shy, or somebody's making sure that their voice cannot be heard at all.

This may not be on-topic, but I couldn't help thinking: funny how that sort of thing never happens to groups like Daniel Pipes' Campus Watch, with their virulent Anti-Muslim agenda. I mean, Pipes actually called for Muslim-Americans to be profiled, and suggested that "internment" (concentration) camps for civilians are a wonderful idea. There are all kinds of blatantly racist groups proliferating on American campuses, many, if not most of them, zionist. At least, the best-funded and more powerful ones are:

Horowitz, president of the David Horowitz Freedom Center (previously the Center for the Study of Popular Culture) editor-in-chief of FrontPageMag.com, and founder of Students for Academic Freedom (!!), is, of course, a former leading New Leftist who has found fame and fortune – he made $352,647 in 2005, according to tax records – on the extreme right and has done particularly well since 9/11 when he got in on the “Islamo-fascist” ground floor.

“Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week,” according to Horowitz will be a “national effort …to rally American students to defend their country” and will feature “memorial services for the victims of Islamic terror both in America and around the globe” (the guide suggests putting up crosses to commemorate victims presumably regardless of their religion); sit-ins (Horowitz suggests the office of the Women’s Studies Department or the campus Women’s Centers “to protest their silence about the oppression of women in Islam”) teach-ins on ‘’The Oppression of Women in Islam;” “a student petition denouncing Islamo-Fascist violence against women, gays, Christians, Jews and non-religious people” (and press releases at the ready if Muslim student groups, campus administrators, or student government officers fail to sign); and prominent speakers, such as the American Enterprise Institute’s (AEI) Ayan Hirsi Ali, columnist Mark Steyn, Frank Gaffney, Daniel Pipes, Rick Santorum, as well as Horowitz himself.

In addition, participants will distribute pamphlets on Islamo-Fascism, including “The Islamic Mein Kampf,” “Why Israel is the Victim,” “Jimmy Carter’s War Against the Jews,” “And What Every American Needs to Know About Jihad.” Films to be shown include “Suicide Killers,” “Obsession” (about which my colleague, Khody Akhavi, wrote earlier this year), or “Islam: What the West Needs to Know.” For the films, Horowitz advises campus organizers to invite a “local radio host or other local figure to introduce the film and possibly moderate a discussion on it afterwards.” Organizers are encouraged to request funding from the student government. If is not forthcoming, according to the Guide, “it will prove the hypocrisy of your university’s claim to be committed to intellectual diversity and academic freedom.” Other possible funders and sponsors include Young Americans Foundation, the Leadership Institute, the campus College Republican club and Hillel.Link

These guys don't fool around: as a direct result of the very well-funded and well-organized racist campaigns against Muslims and Arabs in which such groups play an important role, how many hundreds of thousands of innocent people have been killed, how many more maimed and crippled for life? How many have become homeless, stateless, orphaned, widowed, stripped of everything they have? How many American citizens have faced job and housing discrimination or hostility and harassment because of their faith or ethnicity? Surely if anybody should be deprived of their right to speak, by your own standards, AD, it would be these advocates of ethnic cleansing, wars of aggression (the most serious violation of international law), racial, religious or ethnic profiling and discrimination, and of violating America's own laws by supplying weapons to a rogue state whose very existence is predicated on racism and war crimes.

For my part, I've never demanded and wouldn't dream of demanding that even these morally repulsive proponents of ethnic and religious persecution be silenced, but only for their victims to be allowed to respond, and for ordinary Americans (who finance them) to be allowed to hear the other side. In the current context, this is itself a radical demand and would get me in big trouble if I lived in the U.S. Probably, unlike here at RI, I wouldn't even be allowed to speak for myself, but would have the ADL and the SPLC tell people all about my beliefs in their own words.

So, to repeat my question. American Dream: based on your support of shutting down this comparatively far less destructive Forum that used to be on the University of Oregon campus, I suppose that in principle, at least, you believe groups like Campus Watch and the organizers of "national efforts" like "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week", or even much less influential groups advocating zionist ethnic cleansing and war crimes, should be forcibly shut down and made to shut up?

[American Dream]

AlicetheKurious wrote:

American Dream: based on your support of shutting down this comparatively far less destructive Forum that used to be on the University of Oregon campus, I suppose that in principle, at least, you believe groups like Campus Watch and the organizers of "national efforts" like "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week", or even much less influential groups advocating zionist ethnic cleansing and war crimes, should be forcibly shut down and made to shut up?

Alice, you are putting words in my mouth. The facts are that I do have a negative opinion about the Pacifica Forum and I also have a negative opinion about Campus Watch. That doesn't however mean that I do or don't want either shut down by the authorities. For that matter, it doesn't mean I do or don't want either shut down by grassroots activists.

So here you are creating your own straw man.

[AlicetheKurious]

That doesn't however mean that I do or don't want either shut down by the authorities. For that matter, it doesn't mean I do or don't want either shut down by grassroots activists.

So here you are creating your own straw man.

Well, no, that's not a straw man. It's what I call "a question". In response to which, is that what you call "an answer"?

[17breezes]

BTW, following the mysterious and still unsolved vandalism incident, the Forum has been closed down, and their web-site no longer exists. I even tried the Wayback Machine, with no luck. Also, I've just spent the last few minutes trying to locate one website or source where the supporters or founders of the Pacifica Forum tell their side of the story directly, and found none. Not one. For people being accused of the wrong kind of speech, they're either being remarkably shy, or somebody's making sure that their voice cannot be heard at all.

link removed per American Dream's reminder of Jeff's rule.

[AlicetheKurious]

Well, what do you know, 17breezes! Thank you. How did you find it?

[17breezes]

Well, what do you know, 17breezes! Thank you. How did you find it?

typed pacifica forum into yahoo search. You are quite welcome.

[AlicetheKurious]

Hm. I used Google. There was nothing.

[17breezes]

Hm. I used Google. There was nothing.

Yeah, that's why I always do a second search on yahoo.

[American Dream]

AlicetheKurious wrote:

American Dream wrote:

So here you are creating your own straw man.

Well, no, that's not a straw man. It's what I call "a question". In response to which, is that what you call "an answer"?

Your premises are so wrong that the question is essentially unanswerable. I didn't support the shutting down of the Pacifica Forum.