Global, Politics, Religion

Which is the bigger threat to American democracy, CAIR or the Christian Coalition?

Mitchell Langbert of the so-called Democracy Project, chimes in on CAIR’s call for Dennis Prager’s ejection from the US Holocaust Memorial Council:

The Committe on American-Islamic Relations has called for the removal of Dennis Prager from the board of the Holocaust Memorial. CAIR’s presumptuous call came about a week prior to a conference sponsored by an Islamic state, Iran, dedicated to denying the holocaust. Yet, CAIR has not made public their opposition to the Iranian regime. Daniel Pipes writes that:

“CAIR’s goal is to spread Islamic hegemony the world over by hook or by crook.[5] Kamal Nawash, head of Free Muslims Against Terrorism, finds that CAIR and similar groups condemn terrorism on the surface while endorsing an ideology that helps foster extremism, adding that ‘almost all of their members are theocratic Muslims who reject secularism and want to establish Islamic states.’ Tashbih Sayyed of the Council for Democracy and Tolerance calls CAIR ‘the most accomplished fifth column’ in the United States. And Stephen Schwartz of the Center on Islamic Pluralism writes that ‘CAIR should be considered a foreign-based subversive organization, comparable in the Islamist field to the Soviet-controlled Communist Party, USA.'”

Moreover, the question needs to be asked whether CAIR has received funding from sources that also fund holocaust-denial and anti-Semitic publications.
Questions about CAIR’s links to extremists and funding sources do not trouble David Sieradski of the self-styled “progressive” Jewish website Jewschool (I looked the site over and it does not look overtly anti-Semitic, although it does look anti-intellectual and imbecilic). As a “progressive”, Sierdaski opposes Prager’s appointment.
Hmmm, “progressive”. Isn’t that the archaic term that refers to leftists who backed Hitler from 1939 to 1941?

#1. My name is not David, it’s Daniel.
#2. I’m glad you think we’re anti-intellectual and imbecilic. I suppose calling an anti-Muslim hate site “The Democracy Project” and calling progressives Nazi supporters is intellectual and erudite. Yet, I can’t seem to think of more lowbrow political maneuvers. Oh, and you also Godwined yourself.
#3. Daniel Pipes is an idiot. But that fact aside, let me ask you sir — since you don’t allow comments on your own weblog — where is the uproar over the Christian fundamentalist hijacking of American society?
Jerry Fallwell and Pat Robertson have not only stated their intention to turn America into a Christian theocracy, but they’ve already managed to do so in many ways. The Christian Coalition has developed one of the largest voting blocks and lobbies in America and uses that power to pressure politicians into enacting legislation that imposes (a version of) Christian religious beliefs on the rest of American society. These groups help foster extremism, such as abortion clinic bombings.
In fact, there is practically no quantifiable difference between the Christian Coalition and CAIR, if CAIR is indeed seeking to make America a Muslim society. Yet, Christian theocracy, which is hostile to many groups, including gays, women, Muslims, and non-Orthodox Jews, doesn’t seem to bother you.
If Muslims want to take over America, so be it. America is a democratic free market. If CAIR can sell Islam to the American public, convert the masses, and get voted into power, more power too ’em.
That this is an altogether unlikely scenario and a fantasy perpetuated by fear- and hatemongers — who demonize Muslims in the same way they’ve demonized blacks, Communists, civil rights activists, hippies, and sundry Leftists in the past — is not a fact lost on me or my readership.
There is no crime in wanting America to be a Muslim nation, just as there is no crime in wanting America to be a Christian nation, or wanting Jesus to come back and kill all the Jews. Only when the Constitutional protections for religious minorities have been violated has a crime been committed. Though I’m sure, if it’ll put more Muslims behind bars, you’d have no problem with the Constitution being violated.
#4. You are right about one thing: CAIR should condemn the Iranian Holocaust conference. So I sent them the following letter.

***

Hello,
My name is Daniel Sieradski and I am the editor-in-chief of Jewschool.com, the most popular progressive Jewish weblog online.
Recently, I issued a call to my readers asking that they join CAIR’s call for the removal of Dennis Prager from the US Holocaust Memorial Council (USHMC). I believe that CAIR was correct in its assertion that a man who holds such abhorrent views has no place educating Americans about racial and religious intolerance.
However, I am also dismayed that CAIR has yet to issue a statement condemning Iran’s Holocaust conference, which had David Duke, a member of the KKK, as its keynote speaker.
Though I am a supporter of free speech and believe that even Holocaust deniers should be entitled to it, and while I also agree with the premise that the Holocaust is not a land deed to Palestine, I do not believe that this conference was held in good faith, nor do I believe it can have any productive outcome for Muslims in general, nor the Palestinian cause in particular.
As Mahmoud al-Safadi, a Palestinian radical, wrote to Iranian President Ahmadinejad this week: This conference does a “great disservice to popular struggles the world over.”
“Perhaps you see Holocaust denial as an expression of support for the Palestinians,” al-Safadi wrote. “Here, too, you are wrong. We struggle for our existence and our rights, and against the historic injustice that was dealt us in 1948.
“Our success and our independence will not be gained by denying the genocide perpetrated against the Jewish people, even if parts of this people are the very forces that occupy and dispossess us to this day.”
With that in mind, I strongly urge you to condemn the Iranian conference. Failing to do so would be, to say the least, inconsistent with your position on Prager and the USHMC. You cannot condemn Prager’s intolerance and then ignore intolerance in your own community. All forms of intolerance must be opposed equally.
Thank you,
Daniel Sieradski, editor
Jewschool.com

48 thoughts on “Which is the bigger threat to American democracy, CAIR or the Christian Coalition?

  1. says on the dem project website that their post game from a Mitchell Langbert. Not Pipes, no?
    I mean, either way, the guy’s a scatmuncher, to paraphrase Bill Hicks.

  2. Oh my god.
    I may have just earned you the “anti-intellectual and imecilic” crack.
    too damn early in the morning…

  3. Last time I used Godwin’s law on this website I heard it had been revoked. Did someone change the rules again?

  4. “Daniel Pipe is an idiot. But that fact aside…”
    Well, that settles it. No arguments, no reasons. Real intellectual.
    Let’s see how this breezy dismissal of Pipes’ concerns –
    “If Muslims want to take over America, so be it. America is a democratic free market. If CAIR can sell Islam to the American public, convert the masses, and get voted into power, more power too ‘em.”
    -compares with what Pipes actually says-
    http://www.danielpipes.org/article/3437
    -(why wasn’t this linked to the post??)
    I haven’t done the research to back up Pipes’ piece, but clearly it should take more than to say that Pipes is an idiot and to misrepresent Pipes’ allegations against CAIR. Obviously if Pipes is right, CAIR does not play by the rules. If Pipes is wrong, let’s see why.
    And although the “Progressive” mention may violate Godwin’s law, it is funny that we see almost no acknowledgement of this from Leftist sources.

  5. Oh, and regarding the Christian Coalition, exactly which legislation has been pushed by them that violates or would violate the Constitution? (As opposed to violating the ACLU’s version of the Constitution, of course.) Not that I agree with everything the CC does, but I would bet that the vast majority of CC-backed legislation is would not violate the Constitution (whether such legislation would be advisable is a different argument).

  6. I live in the deep South surrounded by phony Christians. They spew verse after verse..that is it. They have no traditions ( excpet the pagan based xmas tree stuff and bunnies) so they spend all their time trying to “testify”. Their only thought every day is how to “save” someone. My pals mother in law, a non religous woman died over the weekend and all my pal could talk about is, how she was saved before she died….( right…)
    I even have some friend who are “1st century church” Christians. They have a shofar, tallis and all…
    We Jews need to testify and try and convert people too.

  7. #3. Daniel Pipe is an idiot.
    Uh, Mobius that statement should read “Daniel PipeS is an idiot. I happen to disagree.
    Yet, Christian theocracy, which is hostile to many groups, including gays, women, Muslims, and non-Orthodox Jews, doesn’t seem to bother you.
    Actually Christian theocracy is much more hostile toward Orthodox Jews than the non-Orthodox. Think where most American Orthodox Jews live-New York City, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Chicago, Boston, Miami, etc.-not exactly bastions of Republicanism.

  8. Daniel Pipes isn’t an idiot; he’s a dangerous, fascistic thug (and, of course, liar). Wish I could post some links, but am having too many computer problems to do so at this moment.
    The US was founded as a democratic REPUBLIC, the antithesis of “free market” British imperialism (which is the ‘freedom’ of the imperialists to put their invisible hands into our pockets and steal whatever they can), whom we fought, in the Revolutionary, 1812, and Civil Wars.
    PS The concept of a republic comes from Torah, when Moishe gave the reigns of leadership to Joshua, not his son(s).

  9. Miri,
    To call Britain LESS imperialist in its heyday than America presently is, is simply false and naive. Revisionist, in fact.
    Furthermore, its wonderful and, downright CUTE when “progressive” Jews sound off using all of the proper buzzwords– “imperialist,” “fascist,” “invisible hand” (which– by the way is a phrase used precisely to describe the healthy functioning of a FREE MARKET–methinks the opposite of the point you were trying to make).
    Despite scary Christian missionarys and (perhaps secretly bisexual) evangelical types, I think it is INCREDIBLY short-sighted, and in fact, dangerous to feed into the third-world Ahmedinajadian, David-Dukian, Maoist rhetoric that used to be cool and hip back in the 1900s, when Democracy was the American Jewish answer to putting on tefillin.
    WAKE UP JEWISH PEOPLE! Iran is conferencing about the holocaust in public– largely as a proxy to gather the troops (like in Lord of the Rings! Only with more F-U-N!!) WTF do you think they’re conferencing about in PRIVATE?
    I’ll take American evangelism over Islam any day of the week. Its not so much the THEOLOGY of Islam that is less offensive or scary to me, its the LEADERSHIP of the Islamic world which seems to be playing a high-stakes, no-holds barred game with VERY cheap human lives which they dont really care about.
    Pretty soon, though, as Amedinajad masters your rhetoric a bit more, I may not have a choice in the matter. Yeah, Pipes is a moron, you’re right…. My bad… Good luck with that Burka Fitting…

  10. Give the wacky, far right, evangelical Christians an inch, they take a mile.
    Hello, remember the crusades, the inquisition anyone? But hey, let’s keep it current….
    so no matter what Dan says above, there’s a male Christian far-right identity crisis and we’re going to have to deal w/ some scary shit coming out of their pipes. The LAX had the article on how wimpy, urr, feminine, church-going is becoming for some believers. so, they’re all more manly now, which just means sharing their feelings behind closed doors.
    anyway, this relates bec. as identity breaks, there’ll be more lashing out like this crap and the only counter is to shine light on its lunny-bin-ness. Then, return to the issue at hand and insist that reactionaries like Prager resign without apology.

  11. So we have yet more name-calling of Pipes, and still no evidence of any kind has been presented showing that Pipes is anything but a reliable scholar.
    Also still waiting for the illegal Christian Coalition legislation.

  12. OK, fine. Pipes isn’t an idiot. He’s undoubtedly an intelligent man.
    He is, however, a complete and total asshole.
    I’ll never forget the op-ed he wrote in the New York Post after Edward Said died (also a reliable scholar, whether or not you dislike his politics), taking an almost sickening pleasure in publicly mocking his funeral, and the eulogies given by his friends and colleagues.

  13. Ah, finally, an actual criticism of Pipes.
    However, considering Said’s activities, including the famous picture of him throwing rocks across the Lebanese border at Israeli soldiers (a laughable pose by a silly academic, true, but still a very graphic endorsement of violence by someone with influence), I’m almost prepared to endorse Pipes’ mockery without even having seen the op-ed you refer to (link?).
    In any case, my earlier post dealt with the true nature of CAIR and Mobius’ dismissal of Pipes’ criticisms of it. What do you think of Pipes’ article?

  14. looks like the letter worked:
    “In a statement, CAIR said:
    ‘No legitimate cause or agenda can ever be advanced by denying or belittling the immense human suffering caused by the murder of millions of Jews and other minority groups by the Nazi regime and its allies during World War II. Cynical attempts to use Holocaust denial as a political tool in the Middle East conflict will only serve to deepen the level of mistrust and hostility already present in that troubled region.’
    CAIR also expressed concern that individuals who have promoted racist views, like former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, were invited to speak at the conference. ‘Islam, through the example of the Prophet Muhammad, has always rejected racism in any form,’ said CAIR’s statement.”
    Full press release at http://cair.com/default.asp?Page=articleView&id=2452&theType=NR

  15. That picture, or his political activism, hardly justifies the denigration of a dead mean being published in a widely circulated New York newspaper, while his wife and children sit mourning in that same city.
    alas, i do not have the time to search out that link, but i will say that at the time i read it, my politics were much less liberal than they are today, and i was still offended by it then.

  16. I’m willing to agree that in many, probably most cases, we should suspend hostilities (though not the underlying disagreement) for a time following a death. (For example, I didn’t celebrate Paul Wellstone’s death, though obviously he’s not my cup of tea politically). However, I think you would agree that this shouldn’t apply to truly vile people. We’re left with the question as to whether Said falls under the “vile” category (and to what degree the article mocked him). I think Said was in fact vile (though obviously not as much as some other people). I don’t think his scholarship was in good faith (rather it was designed to justify a certain political view); I think his influence is malign; he was untruthful about his own childhood (and the untruth furthered his agenda); the rock-throwing incident was not a moment of brain-lock but a reflection of his life’s work; and most of all, I have little doubt that he would have loved to see both of us dead. Whatever the qualities of Said’s wife and children, I believe that he contributed significantly to a great deal of mourning by the wives and children of other, better people.

  17. Just occurred to me – what if a well known right-winger was photographed throwing rocks not at Israeli border guards but rather at the guards at the entrance to an abortion clinic or a gay and lesbian center? Would you feel the same way toward his wife and children? Or would you write the offending article yourself?

  18. If that happened, I’d still suspend my own public hostility against him for a while immediately following his death, out of respect to his family. Regardless of how vile someone is, and I’m not even getting into that discussion, it isn’t appropriate to use his or her death as an opportunity to more publicly attack them.

  19. What if the eulogies were in furtherance of the vile agenda? Would the necessity to set the record straight outweigh the principle of keeping temporarily silent?

  20. 1. I don’t consider ending the horrible situation imposed by the occupation to be a horrible agenda.
    2. I read the eulogy in question. There was nothing vile abou it. Pipes used it to mock Said as a human being, not as a political figure, or an academic.
    3. If you’re going to make an analogy like that, don’t compare apples and oranges. It doesn’t make any sense. I would hardly draw any equivalence between an abortion clinic and the Israeli military. Guards at abortion clinics don’t have a record of shooting back.

  21. 1. It’s naive at best to think that Edward Said’s goal was ending the “occupation” – unless you define the occupation as the entire Israel, and “ending” as in terminating the “occupiers”.
    2. I didn’t read the eulogy. Link? Source? And I would agree with Pipes that Said wasn’t much of a human being (and btw, Said wasn’t too kind to Pipes either).
    3. Said knew very well that he wasn’t going to get shot. Which is a shame. And you didn’t really answer my question, did you?

  22. I have to concede I always regarded Said with fairly intense hostility; “concede,” because he was rumored to have been gracious personally, and to have had truly warm relationships with Jewsih faculty and students. Indeed, a number of people I know claim that applying the term anti-Semite to Said is simply ludicrous. Alas, I wish I’d taken one of his courses in school, just to have seen if he was as insidious and dishonest as I’ve always regarded him since then.
    Nonetheless, he’s never been anyhere close to Pipes’s league. I don’t recall ever reading a word out of Pipes mouth that didn’t reek of crude propaganda, sneering contempt, and a deep personal malevolence. I don’t think there’s any question that Said’s scholarship was, at best, deeply flawed, but there’s also no question that the man was brilliant and that his work was scholarship. Pipes, on the other hand, is a sleazy hack of the lowest kind; there’s not even the vaguest pretense at truth or objectivity. In fact, to the best of my recollection every piece of hateful trash he produced was transparently specious on its face, lacking even the superficial plausibility that would require some kind of statistical refutation.
    Anti-Semitic implications be damned, Pipes, Prager and their ilk are part of a genuinely hateful, slimy cabal. Even reading the single excerpt addressed in this post makes their malicious fanaticism abundantly clear. The simple truth is they represent an immeasurably greater threat to American Jewry – not to mention simple human decency – than CAIR, Said, and their allies could hope to pose in a thousand years.

  23. Mobius: “[Muslim] theocracy, which is hostile to many groups, including gays, women, [progressive] Muslims, and non-Orthodox Jews, doesn’t seem to bother you.”
    The modern European example as a model?
    http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,1244406,00.html
    http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2006/01/16/for_muslim_women_a_deadly_defiance/
    Also, by asking in the title of the post, “Which is the biggest threat?” you are acknowledging that CAIR does indeed represent a threat. Do you fear the Christian Coalition simply because they have the numbers, or is your assertion simply based upon a proclivity to side with Muslim [fundamentalists] over Christian [fundamentalists]?

  24. What I find disconcerting in this whole conversation is the sense in Dan’s quote that there is one “Islam”, one “Iran.”
    I don’t know where Dan bases his reading of Iranian politics. Iran is undergoing serious internal, cultural struggles. There are huge communities of the so-called creative class (people connected to a global network of internet communication who value their lifestyle identity of all else) with especially large numbers in the US, Brazil and Iran. So we cannot paint all of Iranian society with one brush. Such an analysis reveals an inaccurate view of Iranian society. Iran has a huge middle class, particularly upple middle class and they are very wired and extremely alienated now, stuck in a country with ascending fundamentalist trends, realized in their “public” political leaders and supported by the lower and working classes. Combined with the lack of any democratic hope across the middle east, you have a middle class with democratic aspirations who are experiencing a serious malaise and there is no easy solution. Let’s not forget that just a few years ago there were “reformers” as the public face of Iran, who are now cowered by a climate of fear.
    But to overlook this reality and focus on simple binary oppositions and throw out “lord of the Rings” simplifications is sloppy analysis. Ironically, evangelical Christian and Iranian fundamentalists, anti-semetic Holocaust-deniers make good bedfellows and to have to choose between the two is a false choice if ever there was one.
    Progressive Jews need to promote democratic possibilities whereever possible. History is not set and Iran is able to undergo change (as it has in the past), and of course, which direction it goes remains to be seen.

  25. Lewis,
    I absolutely agree with you. The binary choice between fear of the Christian right and elements of the radical Islamic world, both of whom see the place of Jewry in very different contexts, and through very different lenses is a vast oversimplification. As were my generalizations about Iranian society. Iranian society is not homogeneous, and shouldn’t be labeled as such. Also, my apologies for caffeine fueled ranting. It did more harm than good.
    I’ve just gotta say one thing, to get it off my chest, and then I’ll crawl back under my rock. It’s not directed at ANY particular person or posting.
    I’m deeply saddened that we live in a world where Jewish disunity has grown to such an extent that there are those among the Tribe who would rather Err on the Side of Judging (Dan Lekav Zechut) Edward Said, CAIR, etc. more favorably than Dr. Pipes. Even if criticisms of Pipes, Prager, etc. turn out to be entirely valid (which they may be), I can’t help but long for a time when Jews can become more unified and generous, even as they criticize each other in a macloket le’shem shamayim (a holy disagreement).
    I’m sorry. this just saddens me on a visceral level. Does that make me a right wing nut?
    (or does this just make my post one of the ones that gets censored out?)

  26. Dan (NOT Mobius) —
    You need to reread my post. Never would I whitewash British imperialism (any more than I’d whitewash Roman imperialism).
    Adam Smith coined the ‘invisible [pickpocketing] hand’ term.
    ‘Free market’ is never to be confused with ‘fair market.’ ‘Free market’ is Walmart – type globalized looting of raw materials and labor.
    Wish I had Ben Bag Bag’s quote available, on Torah study. There’s always something new to discover in it; it has given us the (before unknown) principles of: conscientious objection, sanctuary, debt moratoria, freeing of slaves, equal rights for citizens/non-citizens, TB diagnosis, antithesis toward ‘bloody’ monarchism, competent agronomy, feeding the orphans, widows, and otherwise hungry; DIALOGUE.
    Now, considering this way predates Mao, Marx, the 60s and 70s, and it shows how Judaism was founded as the anti-pagan religion of social justice, I really cannot grasp how silly names can be tossed in my direction.
    And, I hope that I’m not considered one of the ‘crazies’ whose comments are not being censured (if necessary, I can cite all of my biblical references).

  27. Yet more attacks on Pipes, and absolutely nothing substantive. We get
    “I don’t recall ever reading a word out of Pipes mouth that didn’t reek of crude propaganda, sneering contempt, and a deep personal malevolence.”
    without a single example. How about a critique of the item relevant to this post? –
    http://www.danielpipes.org/article/3437
    Are the items in the article true? False? Partly? Does it even matter, when it’s so obvious that this has nothing to do with Pipes’ accuracy and everything to do with people who absolutely will not accept a negative view of the Arab/Islamic world, no matter how truthful? (And of course the next question is why, if someone is willing to reject reality for a prejudice, the prejudice should run in THIS direction?)
    To anyone reading this thread with an open mind, pay close attention to how Leftists like to pose as sophisticated and open-minded, yet resort to simply dismissing that with which they do not agree without arguments or even reasons. Post-grad pretentions, first-grade name-calling.

  28. Ok, J.
    On July 5, 2006, the Jerusalem Post published a Pipes’ piece, “The Vatican Confronts Islam,” in which Pipes ‘quotes’ a Monsignor Veasio de Paolis, in an attack on Islam, beginning, “Enough now with this turning the other cheek! It’s our duty to protect ourselves.”
    When the piece was sent to me, I spent several hours attempting to research its validity. The only truth I came up with, was that it was, indeed, penned by Pipes, and was also posted on his Italian website.
    Nowhere was I able authenticate the veracity of the Vactican’s mouthpiece, and my time was spent going through Italian websites (one Italian blog alluded to something that de Paolis had said many months before, but when I went to La Stampa, its ‘ricerca’ only went back 30).
    Check back here by Sunday night, and I should be able to provide you with several other links to Pipes’ uh, nastiness.

  29. Interesting how J deflects the conversation toward whether Daniel Pipes, thus taking the focus off the issues of CAIR, Prager, and Christian dominance. But then again, much of the fault lies iwth us for taking J’s bait.

  30. So apparently if Miri is unable to verify something, we must conclude that that something is fabricated.
    Matt seems confused. This post is about CAIR and the Christian Coalition. Which is exactly what I addressed. (Obviously the Pipes piece is an issue in considering CAIR.) I addressed the CC issue in comment 8 above. So I deflected nothing, while NOBODY has responded re my question about the CC in that comment, and I’m still waiting for some substantive criticism of Pipes.
    Sad.

  31. J, your concern for my being “confused” is touching. Really. Silly me, I should have known that you weren’t sidetracking the conversation.
    Your question about the Christian coalition is absurd. Mobius specficially states that “there is no crime in wanting America to be a Christian nation.”
    But if you look at some of their goals, the disregard for the Constitution is clear. The whole concpet of making the US a Christian nation–one regularly espoused by their founder Pat Robertson–subverts the first amendment’s protection against estalishment of state religion. Their push for school prayer is contgrary to the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution. Their push for public money to go to religious groups–a push in which they’ve been successful, I might add–is arguably also a violation of the first amendment’s protection against establishment of state religion. It also violates the fourteenth amendment’s equal protection clause, as religious organizations that receive government money are still exempt from numerous anti-discrimination laws if they base their discrimination in religious rhetoric. If a faith-based group wants to refuse to hire gays, or signle moms, or Jews, that’s allowed if they base it in their religious beliefs.
    So yeah, I agree with Mobius–the CC is dangerous. And if Jews want to be safe, they shouldn’t feel confortable about their ascendancy.

  32. So apparently if Miri is unable to verify something, we must conclude that that something is fabricated.
    If someone makes a claim and doesn’t provide a source, and then reserach is unable to find a source, then yeah, it makes sense to raise some questions about it. Which is what Miri does–I don’t see the word “fabricate” anywhere in her comment. Just yours.

  33. Matt, of course, is quite right; the issue of Pipes’s pedigree is nothing more than a diversion, but an instructive one nonetheless. Specifically, it’s a typical example of conservative’s standard operating procedure in demanding a scholarly, heavily footnoted chemical analysis of every stinking pile of dogshit dotting the landscape. Well, here’s an admittedly quick analysis of this particular pile.
    Pipes’s principal claim to fame is his academic witch hunting organization Campus Watch, which is precisely the McCarthyite enterprise its critics claim it to be, with its profiles on ideologically impure academics. This, of course, represents one of the most titillating wet dreams of Grover Norquist-style extremist deformities: getting their grubby little hands on institutions of higher learning in the United States.
    Along the same lines, we have Pipes’s support for actual legislation intended to bring universities under government control; H.R. 3077, establishing an “advisory board” meant to inform universities if they meet Republicans’ standards of bootlicking servility. Pipes’s only objection to this scheme is that it doesn’t go far enough. “This board is needed for two reasons: Middle East studies are a failed field and the academics who consume these funds also happen to allocate them — a classic case of unaccountability. . . . [U]nlike comparable federal boards, this one has only advisory, not supervisory, powers. It also has limited authority, being specifically prohibited from considering curricula. Professors can teach politically one-sided courses, for example, without funding consequences. . . .Will a new board improve things? Sure. But Congress should consider more drastic solutions.”
    Here, we have an example of how Pipes doesn’t only endorse relatively sophisticated governmental schemes, but can wallow in filth like a grunting bigot, as well. “For years, it has been my position that the threat of radical Islam implies an imperative to focus security measures on Muslims. If searching for rapists, one looks only at the male population. Similarly, if searching for Islamists. . . one looks at the Muslim population. . . either by registering their whereabouts, profiling them, monitoring their mosques or infiltrating their organizations.”
    This preceding suggestion dovetails nicely with Pipes’s wistful nostalgia for Japanese internment camps.
    Finally, we have am=n unusually candid acknowledgment of the Israeli Squatters’ preference for apartheid: “There can be either an Israel or a Palestine, but not both. To think that two states can stably and peacefully coexist in the small territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is to be either naïve or duplicitous.”
    Now, J, how about if you defend these positions of the man you claim was being subjected to baseless, unsubstantiated name-calling. Unless, of course, you claim you don’t share those views, but were only insisting for the chemical proof of what makes dogshit smell bad?

  34. Miriam,
    Thank you. It’s nice to have your opinion acknowledged by someone whose opinion you respect.
    BTW, it also gives me a chance to return the compliment regarding a comment you submitted some time ago that was, without any question whatever, by far and away the funniest thing anyone has ever said on Jewschool. In response to the Election Day post about the objection by some to the display of crosses in churches being used as polling places, you asked, as I recall, “Jesus Christ; what are we, Jews or vampires?” Even if every other comment I’d read here were written by the likes of Ken Mehlman and Basset Hound Lieberman, that one line would have justified the entire (undoubtedly excessive) time I’ve spent on this blog.

  35. “Specifically, it’s a typical example of conservative’s standard operating procedure in demanding a scholarly, heavily footnoted chemical analysis of every stinking pile of dogshit dotting the landscape. ”
    You offer absolutely nothing but name-calling, and then claim that I insist on “a scholarly, heavily footnoted chemical analysis”?
    “Pipes’s principal claim to fame is his academic witch hunting organization Campus Watch, which is precisely the McCarthyite enterprise its critics claim it to be, with its profiles on ideologically impure academics.”
    Name-calling.
    “This, of course, represents one of the most titillating wet dreams of Grover Norquist-style extremist deformities: getting their grubby little hands on institutions of higher learning in the United States.”
    More name-calling, with usual sexual reference and exaggeration.
    “Along the same lines, we have Pipes’s support for actual legislation intended to bring universities under government control; H.R. 3077, establishing an “advisory board” meant to inform universities if they meet Republicans’ standards of bootlicking servility. ”
    Ah, finally a bit of substance. But behing the spin, what exactly is wrong with some oversight of programs that (a) are funded by the government and (b) are needed to train policymakers in a vital policy area?
    “For years, it has been my position that the threat of radical Islam implies an imperative to focus security measures on Muslims. If searching for rapists, one looks only at the male population. Similarly, if searching for Islamists. . . one looks at the Muslim population. . . either by registering their whereabouts, profiling them, monitoring their mosques or infiltrating their organizations.”
    Looks like common sense to me. If this is bigotry, sign me up.
    “This preceding suggestion dovetails nicely with Pipes’s wistful nostalgia for Japanese internment camps.”
    More name-calling and slander. Apparently you can’t tell the difference between monitoring people (with good reason) and locking them up (without good reason); perhaps you aren’t qualified to be spewing venom at your intellectual and moral superiors.
    “There can be either an Israel or a Palestine, but not both. To think that two states can stably and peacefully coexist in the small territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is to be either naïve or duplicitous”
    I agree with that statement. It is hardly confined to “Israeli squatters” or fans of “apartheid”. You either are unaware of that, in which case you know too little about these issues to say anything of substance about them, or you are aware, and are duplicitous.
    “Now, J, how about if you defend these positions of the man you claim was being subjected to baseless, unsubstantiated name-calling”
    Just did.

  36. J,
    Well, though you’ve provided no effective defense of these positions, I certainly have to give you credit for aligning yourself with them. A couple of points though. In supporting the resistration and profiling of Muslims, and the infiltration of their Mosques, your not only “signing up” for bigotry, but for pissing on the Bill of Rights. Also, I never said only the squatters were the only ones who believe the Palestinians aren’t entitled to political self-determination. That doesn’t change the fact that this position is nonetheless a form of apartheid. Oh, yes, and Pipes has explicitly supported the Japanese internment, so apparently I remain entirely capable of distinguishing between spying on people and incarcerating them. But it is good to hear you implicitly akcnowledge that the internment was, indeed, the obscenity the civilized world regards it to be.

  37. david smith-
    The Bill of Rights is not necessarily what you or the ACLU think it is. Profiling and infiltration have been accepted in various forms over the years by both the public and the Supreme Court, and are not at odds with the words of the Bill of Rights. I assumed “registration” means keeping tabs on the whereabouts of certain persons (but not restricting their movements), also accepted. The Bill of Rights has never been interpreted in an absolute sense, as in rendering ineffective reasonable law enforcement.
    “Also, I never said only the squatters were the only ones who believe the Palestinians aren’t entitled to political self-determination.”
    No, but you implied it. Reread.
    “That doesn’t change the fact that this position is nonetheless a form of apartheid. ”
    Absolutely not. It’s simply an observation that given the small size of the area and the behavior of the Palestinians, no two-state solution is possible. If you think the statement equals apartheid, shouldn’t you be compelled to say the same against any defense of Israel’s right to exist? Why should the Jews have gotten a state of their own in the 1940’s rather than being minorities in an Arab super-state?
    “Oh, yes, and Pipes has explicitly supported the Japanese internment, so apparently I remain entirely capable of distinguishing between spying on people and incarcerating them. ”
    You didn’t quote a source for Pipes’ support of internment. If you do, I’ll certainly read it. Funny this should come up – my view for years was that the internment was completely unjustified and instigated by people who were interested in seizing the internee’s assets. Recently I’ve seen this view challenged, and I realized that I might not be aware of all the details necessary in making a determination. So at this point I’ve suspended my view pending further investigation (it all hinges on the degree of good faith – or lack thereof- of the people responsible for the internment). Of course I may end up back with my old view.

  38. Thanks, J. You have reminded me that I need to find a kefiyah, stitch a nice Star on it, and wear it, on a regular basis.
    Maybe later, I’ll let the NSA put a chip under my skin…

  39. I don’t really care what theology the Christian Right has – but they are the strongest American supporters of Israel today. The Democratic Party no longer exists. It has been hijacked by the Radical Left who see the Muslims as no threat to the American way of life. Perhaps you are unaware of the Muslims cab drivers at an airport (can’t remember which one) saying they refuse to take passengers whom they know are carrying alcoholic beverages or seeing-eye dogs with blind people!! It is much worse today in England and in France. But if we are not vigilant against this, it will happen in the U.S. Michigan will be first.

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