The Demons of David Horowitz

During the week of October 21, far-right wing operative and former communist agitator David Horowitz deployed his allies to college campuses America to spout crude anti-Muslim invective. He called this event "Islamofascism Awareness Week." Among Horowitz's stable of campus speakers were noted Islam experts Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity.

"Islamofascism Awareness Week" was, from the beginning, little more than a marathon fashion show for the paranoid style. But it was not until Horowitz muscled his way onto the campus of his alma mater, Columbia University, on October 26 that his event attained the commanding heights of reactionary hysteria.

Pacing the stage like a drunken circus clown impersonating some bygone demagogue, and standing beneath a massive image of a woman being shot in the head, Horowitz launched into a long, frenetic rant about his own persecution at the hands of a shadowy liberal conspiracy.

Though Horowitz devoted portions of his tirade to attacks on the Muslim Students Association, which he sought to paint as a front for virtually every Islamist group that strikes fear in the heart of his culturally deprived conservative peanut gallery, he seemed more comfortable lashing out at his perceived oppressors -- liberal professors, leftists, and the Democratic party -- than he did at any so-called "Islamofascists."

When I asked Horowitz about his weird comparison of his own father to 9/11 mastermind Mohammed Atta in his book, "The End of Time," his hysteria peaked. My question provoked him to link Jerry Falwell, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and "Jerry Springer and all his guests" together in a plot to bring social justice to the world "at the point of a gun."

Listening to Horowitz was like being trapped in a subway car with a raving derelict for an hour and a half. But unlike in the subway, where the transit police usually arrive to remove the derelict, the police came to Columbia to protect Horowitz from the non-existent security threat he had invoked in fundraising appeals for days leading up to his speech.

Horowitz's performance had to be seen to be believed. Luckily, despite being forbidden to film by the president of the Columbia College Republicans, my co-producer, Thomas Shomaker, and I managed to smuggle a camera into Horowitz's speech and record it all.

Take a look at our latest video, "The Demons of David Horowitz":

Comments

[realpolitic]

After the collapse of the former Soviet Union, Horowitz had no one to hate for awhile. Fortunately for him, 9-11 happened and he could exercise his atavistic impulses again. Now he can again sell whatever it is he is selling.

[StillAmused]

When the history of this dark chapter in American history is written, the Nobel will go to the historian who can offer a plausible explanation for the proliferation of psychotics like Horowitz who were actually indulged by the mainstream press.

Ordinarily, a drooling imbecile ranting on a streetcorner would be politely ignored by passersby as they go about their business.

[littlehorn24]

"Intellectually lazy simply cannot get their minds around the concept that while Bush is an imbecile, Jihadists are the Wests' bitterest enemies right now."

Bush is not as stupid as one might think. It is convenient to appear as a stupid guy who believes in God.
Jihadists are the West's bitterest enemies, sure, but they've been for a long time already. Long before 9/11. Why is it now a matter of life and death, fascism and democracy, i wonder.

[MagisterLudi]

"What we deny is that they actually have the capacity to realize their insane goals."

Perhaps they are too weak to bring about the World Caliphate or whatever idiotic scheme each of the groups lust for.

Meanwhile Jihadists are a pretty good job of murdering and pillaging all across the globe.
Thats a fact.
And day by day Jihadist get stronger and stronger. Especially those who get trained in the unforgivable Iraqi war.

Now the choice is one of appeasement or confrontation.

Those who don't like your hands dirty, chose appeasement.
Or equally abysmal attitude,"It's our fault,
Or even more appalling:" Hey, boys will be boys, we're not that good either."
Many posters also chose Jihadists side for a totally unforgivable attitude that can be best described as the "enemy of my enemy is my friend." Bush is an ididot, Jihadists hate Bush, therefore Jihadists are freedom fighters.

Intellectually lazy simply cannot get their minds around the concept that while Bush is an an imbecile, Jihadists are the Wests' bitterest enemies right now.
Anyone who choses to be sympathetic with their cause by action should be arrested, and those who chose to appease them by word must be censured.

It seems that the subtlety of talking to moderates and killing extremists is beyond understanding for some?

[larryo]

Let me just add . . .

not only were you right on target, Max, but this prose:

"Pacing the stage like a drunken circus clown impersonating some bygone demagogue, . . . "

brings the good doctor himself to mind.

Great work!

[bassface49]

In the picture above Horowtz's head, the conservative is the one with the gun.
That ideology is the problem, our authoritative conservatives against their authoritative conservatives.
Sick!

[whizkid]

So David has his past to rail about.
A self circle jerk.
It would appear he was always a tory stooge.

Too bad he is so deluded.

Great war ya got for us Buddy.

Keep us posted with your theories
so we steer clear.

[aintnogod]

The saddest fact in the video is the sudden realization that Horowitz's entire political angst is based in his unresolved issues with his father. Politics is always personal. I don't know what demons haunt Anne or Beck or Hannity but people who attack others as savagely as they attack others are pretty sad and angry people. I know"because wasn't I one like them too (only on their lefts) until I did a little hard emotional work on my own issues. I still believe in the Constitution and social justice and fairness on the economic front, but I'm usually (not always) very much aware when I go too far in my fear of others that I need to pull myself back together and not take it personally. Horowitz just needs to tell himself that he's a grownup now and that he can take care of his own little self and that he doesn't need to be quite so fearful of people whose ideas are different from his. They aren't out to ruin like his father was.

[Grit]

BTW Max is a screaming idiot. Just like all the other right wing idiots who to the bidding of the biggest money. Its the money, thats all just the money.

[Skwee]

If you ever hear the "Mahmoud Ahmedinejad was allowed to speak at Columbia but conservatives aren't" bovine feces, please show whoever parroted it this.

[fantagor]

I"ve never witnessed a person publicly coming apart at the seams before.

Breathtaking!

Be that nervous breakdown as it may, following Horowitz"s cat"s cradle logic I am in league with the terrorists and attempting to codify Islamic principles into US law because I believe discrimination is bad and think people ought to have healthcare and that we ought to withdraw from Iraq before it further bankrupts the country.

So in Horowitz"s mind, two entirely unrelated things or lists of things are entirely related because he says they are related, take his word for it, he"s all knowing and all seeing, and all of this is consistent because his father was a communist like Mohammed Atta, an Islamic terrorist, and liberals hate America because we won"t support a fabricated conflict and agree that siphoning endless resources toward an endless war is a capital plan.

Breathtaking!

Randy

[knerd]

"It was granted to me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and how good. In the intoxication of youthful successes I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was therefore cruel. In the surfeit of power I was a murderer and an oppressor. In my most evil moments I was convinced that I was doing good, and I was well supplied with systematic arguments. It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhlemed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil."

--Alexander Solzhenitsyn

http://www.uuprinceton.org/worship/sermons/sermon_2005-06-19.html

[huffblow]

Wow, "far-right wing operative and former communist agitator" all in one sentence. And this line from a moderate?
Do you or do you not believe there is a large group of Muslims who would just as soon slice your neck as sit and talk?

[longnow]

David Horrowshow was crazy when he joined
the Black Panthers and he is crazy now.
The extreme left and right meet in shared
delusion and paranoia. What is portrayed by RUSH Limpaw as far left is actually center left.

Do I think that most Muslims are peace loving
and pro American? No. Beyond the fact that it
is a contradiction I believe that a large
majority hate America, and a large minority believe in Sharia Law and honor killing. They
should be condemned for it...by competent
people like Bruce Bawer who wrote the
book "While Europe Slept".

[NABNYC]

David Horowitz. What an interesting guy. I would love someone to do an in-depth study of his finances over the years.

I figure this: either he was FBI/CIA all along, all during the years he claimed to be left-wing, or he had an "awakening" in his 40s not due to a change in perspective, but instead because he got tired of being among the lower-class left-wing intellectuals, and was offered a tremendous amount of money by the right to begin schilling for them.

He claims his parents were CP and he was a red-diaper baby. Okay, that can go either way. But when he was active in the anti-Vietnam-war movement, with Ramparts, with the black panthers, he would already have been in his 30s, not a kid, not a young student. A grown up. With his views fairly well-developed.

And when he supposedly had a radical change in his politics, in the late 1980s, he was already in his 40s. He's a very smart guy. How likely is it that he didn't figure out what his own views of life were until he was almost 50 years old? I don't buy it.

I suspect that either he never was left-wing but instead was undercover working for the government, or that his conversion to right-wing politics was not motivated by any belief system, but was instead due to somebody paying him a lot of money.

The 1980s is when Reagan got in, when the right-wing in this country began their 30-years-to-fascism plan, funneling large amounts of money into the churches to take them over, and into think tanks and other groups to radically change the country.

I don't buy the story that he's just nuts. I'll bet he's making millions spewing this garbage. Just like televangelists who make millions talking about Jesus. Jesus didn't promote theft from the poor. Although in Horowitz' case, if he is doing it for the money, at least that's consistent with the right-wing theology that greed is good.