Smash Growing Fascism On Campus!

Shut down "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week"

Are you ready to be drafted? Ready to die in the Middle East so some oil boss can keep on living in the lap of luxury? No? Then you must come out to oppose and protest the racist events of "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week" (starting 10/22) on our campus. This appalling act represents a deliberate effort to incite hatred against our Muslim and Arab sisters here and brothers across the globe, while shoring up support for the enormously unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Under the guise of "fighting terror," these hatemongers want to win students and workers to anti-Arab racism to justify more imperialist profit wars in the Middle East.
The racists sponsoring this "Awareness Week" are the same College Republicans that brought the anti-immigrant Minutemen fascists to campus last year. The man behind the week is David Horowitz, a well-known right-wing ideologue and racist. A report published by the Southern Poverty Law Center points out that Horowitz blamed slavery on Africans and Arabs, and "attacked minority 'demands for special treatment' as 'only necessary because some blacks can't seem to locate the ladder of opportunity within reach of others.’”
Now Horowitz & Co. want to use the magic of smoke and mirrors to convince you the "war on terror" is about some bogus “clash of civilizations” between the “civilized West” and the “barbarian Muslim hordes.” That hides the reality that the “war on terror” is just another war of terror against the whole working class. Of course the oil companies behind the Iraq war have performed an even greater trick: turning working-class blood into record-breaking profits.
This is the prime motivation behind the war: tightening the U.S.’s control over its rivals’ access to Mid-East oil reserves. But since “oil profits” doesn’t exactly sell a war, the section of the ruling class Horowitz serves uses anti-Arab and anti-immigrant racism to provide a simpler “justification.” "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week" is the same old anti-Arab racism repackaged to make you believe these profit wars are in your interest, when they really only benefit a handful of fat, greedy millionaires who couldn’t care less about you.
Horowitz’s masters aren’t stupid. These racist scumbags are on tour here because they know the public support left for their bloodbath in Iraq is quickly eroding. The rulers have always been able to use racism to split the working class. Aside from the profits it generates by paying one section of the working class less than another, it also ensures we’re too busy fighting each other to fight our common oppressor.
Which is more dangerous: a wolf, or a wolf in sheep’s clothing? There’s no question Horowitz and his neo-con capitalist handlers are dangerous. In fact, part of what makes him so dangerous is the way his open campaign for an American Thousand Year Reich obscures a much deadlier threat: the one posed by the liberal wing of the ruling class, who know they’ve got to do something to get military recruitment back up. This is the only way to get more boots on the ground in Iraq to “stabilize” it. They know the Bush regime is trying to build fascism and empire on the cheap at the expense of the long-term interests of a huge section of the ruling class.
By contrast, liberal rulers hope they can avoid re-instating the draft, but know the only way to do this is to replace the naked fascism of Horowitz and the right with a more seductive, disguised fascism dressed in “melting pot” patriotism and commitment to “national service.” The liberals’ proposed “DREAM Act” would offer immigrants citizenship if they served two years in the military--or deportation. But, at a time when the liberals are trying to win workers and students to this deadlier nationalism and patriotism, Horowitz and the Bush gang are ruining it by reminding everyone that this country is just as racist as ever!
The same racist logic of capitalism is being used to justify Columbia’s expansion in Harlem; mass murder in Iraq; the CIA-run torture chambers of Guantanamo; the secretive mass-roundup and deportation of thousands of Muslim workers; the open mass-deportations of Hispanic workers; a sweeping government surveillance network that spies on us for “our own safety”--all aspects not of “Islamo-fascism,” but actual fascism.
But there is an alternative to capitalist oppression and its rotten culture of racist, sexist violence: a society that produces for need, not profit; a society where the working class of all “races” can determine their own destiny; where we can stamp out capitalism with its selfishness, racism, sexism, killer cops, “workfare,” profit wars, prisons, deportations and national borders; where people like Horowitz will be ground into the dust under the feet of millions of united workers and students. That society is communism, and Progressive Labor Party is serious about organizing to make that world a reality--but we need your help!
Remember: the real enemies aren’t Arabs, Muslims, or any other part of the international working class--it’s the filthy-rich ruling class, both liberal and conservative. It’s them, not Muslims, who want to march you off to fight and die in Iraq for their oil profits without a second thought. Stand together and shut down Horowtiz’s racist attack--but when it’s over, join the bigger fight against capitalism, the system at the root of racism and war. We can’t end it without you! Join us and help smash the anti-worker terror, poverty, and racist oppression of the capitalist system once and for all! Same enemy, same fight--workers of the world unite!

Contact plpcolumbia@gmail.com for more information.