In an exclusive interview, David Horowitz,
editor-in-chief of Frontpagemag.com, discusses his new book, Indoctrination U, and his take on the key
developments in the terror war.
Jamie Glazov: Hello, David. We are both guests of
The American Spectator today. As the interviewer I will
welcome you to the Spectator.
David Horowitz: Thank you, Jamie.
Glazov: We’re going to touch on your new book
today but first I would like to discuss some of the dire
developments in our terror war. What do you make of the recent
political developments here at home in terms of the pressure on our
troops to withdraw from Iraq?
David Horowitz: The Democratic Party is the
party now of appeasement and retreat and absolute political
disgrace. In pressing the President to surrender Iraq, the
congressional leaders of the Democratic Party have betrayed our
troops, our Muslim allies, our country and the cause of peace, in
that order.
Glazov: What are the consequences if we fail in
Iraq?
David Horowitz: If we fail in Iraq, there will
be a bloodbath, and an even larger war in the Middle East. The idea
that we can “end the war in Iraq,” as Nancy Pelosi and the
Democrats put it, is insane. It is based on the assumption that the
only reason there is fighting going on in Iraq is because we’re
there. This is the Chomsky view of the world and it seems to be the
conventional wisdom of the Democratic Party these days — which is
drunk on its dreams of re-taking the White House whatever the human
cost in dead Iraqis and Americans. Sorry to be so blunt.
Glazov: What are your thoughts on Hamas taking
over Gaza and the international reaction? What must Israeli and
U.S. policy be? What do you think of the Left’s disposition to the
events?
David Horowitz: Gaza is now a terrorist state
as completely and irrevocably as the Taliban regime we overthrew in
Afghanistan. They are allied with Hezbollah and armed by Iran.
Hamas was spawned by the Muslim Brotherhood and is an army of the
enemy in the so-called war on terror as surely as al-Qaeda. Its
agendas are genocidal — the extermination of the Jewish state —
and its adherents have been accurately called Nazis by Mahmoud
Abbas, himself the leader of a terrorist state in the West Bank,
that is also corrupt and a current client of the United States and
the appeasers in the West. Hamas of course is being defended by the
Left in this country and elsewhere, whose moral integrity is even
lower these days than it was in the era of Stalin and Mao. Gaza
should be isolated and at an appropriate moment occupied and
subdued.
Glazov: Your thoughts on Iran?
David Horowitz: We are at war with Iran, or
rather Iran is at war with us — in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in
Lebanon and in Gaza. The war in Iraq now is about this Crescent of
Evil stretching across the Middle East.
Glazov: What do you see as the policy options
the U.S. and Israel have with Iran?
David Horowitz: We are at war with Iran — or,
rather, as I have said, Iran is at war with us. We have all the
policy options available to a country at war — provided we have
the will to use them.
Glazov: Where do you stand on the immigration
battle confronting the nation now?
David Horowitz: The issue is first the
integrity and security of the nation, which is threatened by the
open borders we now have, and second the credibility of government
when it says it is going to protect the American people by securing
our borders. Nobody who cares about the security of our borders
believes that the government of George Bush or possible future
governments headed by any Democrat is going to protect our borders.
Personally, I have lost all confidence that America’s political
leaders on either side of the aisle will rise to the challenge
posed by the Islamic jihad or by our porous borders until there is
another, more terrible, 9/11 type attack.
Glazov: OK, let’s turn to your new book now,
Indoctrination U: The Left’s War Against
Academic Freedom. Tell us what it is about and the journey
that led to it.
David Horowitz: First it’s about how our
universities are being turned into training camps for the
anti-American, anti-capitalist left, and what can be done about it.
Second, it’s about what happens to someone who attempts to get
professors to present more than one side of a controversial
argument which they consider important to their political agendas.
Such a person is turned into a demon who needs to be tarred and
feathered, driven from decent society and just plain eliminated
from any discussion. This is a book that demonstrates that people
whom conservatives insist on calling “liberals” are actually
totalitarians who cannot abide a dissenting voice in the room.
Glazov: Why are the totalitarians on campus and
within the Left in general able to label themselves as
“progressives” with such success? And what are the seeds of
totalitarianism when it comes to the leftist vision — and to the
monstrosities of its earthly incarnations?
David Horowitz: The Left controls the labeling
machines in our culture — universities, virtually the entire
press, network broadcasting, the schools. Conservatives —
anti-totalitarians — are not only out-gunned they are delusionally
tolerant and well-meaning. I want to scream every time one of my
conservative friends uses the term “liberal” or “progressive” to
describe totalitarian reactionaries who would send them all to
gulags if they had chance. An Alan Colmes is struggling to be a
liberal. A Noam Chomsky, a Howard Zinn, an Ibrahim Hooper — these
are Nazis, or fellow-travelers of Nazis. (I would call them
“Communists” but that would make me a McCarthyite, right?)
Glazov: Tell us about the Academic Bill of
Rights that you devised.
David Horowitz: It’s a liberal bill that asks
liberals (and there are actually liberals around) to stand up for
simple liberal principles such as that there should be two sides at
least to any controversial issue, teachers should teach and not
indoctrinate. Unfortunately real liberals — at least the ones out
there today — are with few exceptions spineless and will not stand
up to the progressive totalitarians of the reactionary left. Among
the gutsy liberals who will stand up for liberal principles I would
count Alan Dershowitz and Joe Lieberman, and my oldest daughter,
Sarah.
Glazov: How much personal abuse have you
suffered for your efforts? Why does the Left always attack the
opponent as a human being, rather than simply just debate the
opponent with dehumanizing and demonizing him?
David Horowitz: Because the Left is based on a
fantasy of redemption — which requires that its opponents are
damned. It is also a reactionary force that has learned nothing
from its crimes, and therefore cannot handle a debate on the issues
or over the facts. Therefore it really has only one weapon, which
is slander, defamation, which it will resort to at the least
provocation. I have been buried under a mountain of progressive
sludge for defending the civil rights principles of Martin Luther
King (“racist”) and for supporting equity, fairness and
intellectual diversity on college campuses (“McCarthyite”
“witch-hunter” “loose with the facts”). My literary career has been
destroyed by these gutter tactics. I once was reviewed on the front
pages of the Sunday New York Times Book Review. Today, my
books, including Indoctrination U, are no longer reviewed
in the Times or anywhere in the mainstream press.
The End of Time, which is one of the best books I have
written, and which is not political, and was praised in blurbs by
decent liberals (Stanley Fish and Walter Isaacson) as “a poignant
and powerful rumination on the meaning of life” was sunk with
barely a trace. Not a single review of it appeared in the print
media (with the exception of World Magazine) and it was
viciously attacked in the Jerusalem Post because I had the
temerity to write that the ambition to save the world was the
source of the greatest catastrophes and atrocities of our time (I
guess this was a bit political). I can’t really complain however
because there are hundreds of thousands of conservatives who in
larger or smaller ways are targets of the same hydrophobic hate —
which is the only way progressives know how to relate to those who
disagree with them — and who support me in my efforts.
Glazov: So what have you achieved with your
efforts? What are your short-term and long-term goals?
David Horowitz: Well, in a few short years, we
have put the issue of the destruction of our schools and the abuse
of students by academic progressives on the national radar. We have
achieved overt changes at major universities like Penn State and
Temple and a lot of behind-the-scenes adjustments shall we say in
the direction of greater fairness and tolerance on our
campuses.
Glazov: You refer to a “purification ritual”
that academic radicals engage in. What exactly is it and what does
it signify?
David Horowitz: It’s not just academic
radicals. The Left is a religious movement. It is not about
improving institutions or society. It’s about a fantasy of an
earthly redemption. Allow me the indulgence of quoting myself. The
religious character of the left is determined by the fact that its
adherents conceive their projects as revolutionary or
“transformative,” secular terms for what in effect would be a
religious “redemption,” albeit an earthly one. Looked at from this
vantage, the radical goal is a secular redemption of society from
its vale of “oppression.” The redemption is accomplished by
creating a world without “racism,” “sexism,” or “classism,” the
current term of art for which is “social justice” — a secular
version of heaven on earth. The extravagant goal of redeeming
humanity justifies uncompromising means. Social redeemers regard
themselves as an “army of the saints,” and their opponents as
belonging to the party of Satan. They do not view their
conservative opponents as supporters of alternative means for
improving the lot of women, minorities and the poor, but as enemies
of women, minorities and the poor.
Progressive agendas cannot be opposed, therefore, on grounds
that are principled or practical or compassionate. Opponents of
“progressives” are defined as “reactionaries” — advocates of
racism and sexism, practitioners of “McCarthyism,” and other
incarnations of social evil. To be demonized by progressives, then,
is not a personal matter, but is an ineluctable consequence of
opposing their agendas. These agendas are of necessity
uncompromising. Since theirs is always a battle between good and
evil they have to be constantly on guard against contamination by
the reality they are seeking to overcome. Consequently they are
always on the hunt for the impure among them, for witches and
others who have danced with the devil.
Glazov: You have also started the Terrorism
Awareness Project. What is this all about and how does it fit with
your efforts to liberate the American campus from the Left’s
chokehold on it?
David Horowitz: This October 22-26 I am
declaring Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week (information at terrorismawareness.org). I will hold demonstrations and
protests, teach-ins and sit-ins on more than 100 college campuses.
Our theme will be the Oppression of Women in Islam and the threat
posed by the Islamic crusade against the West.
Glazov: David, thank you for joining The
American Spectator.
David Horowitz: Thank you Jamie — and also
thank you, Bob Tyrrell, for this opportunity.
