Fishwrapper - Some free speech is cheap lies

Emory should expose David Horowitz, not fear him

Emory University philosophy student Jeff Jackson got a lesson in free speech last week. When he tried asking a pointed question of a controversial speaker who claims to stand for academic freedom, Jackson found himself facing one of the speaker’s acolytes, a goon who was ready to get physical rather than to allow open discussion.

Along with about 400 members of the Emory community, Jackson showed up at a lecture (if an exercise in cynical prevarication can be so called) by right-wing demagogue David Horowitz.

Emory’s student Republicans brought Horowitz to campus after he bleated that the university had attempted to ban him — his recollection was one of his first deceits of the evening. The truth: Emory’s College Council, a student group that funds events, had refused earlier this year to ante $5,000 because, during a previous visit to the school, Horowitz had enraged black students with race-baiting remarks. Many speakers come to Emory; many don’t get council funding. Since Horowitz keeps popping up on Emory’s campus like a malevolent Jack-in-the-box, he clearly isn’t banned.

Nor should he be. It’s always better to flip over the rock and let the sun shine on the vermin hiding underneath.

There’s little doubt that Horowitz knows how to spin — and lie. I’d expected to hear a coiled and potent intellect. Instead, I witnessed flabby and disingenuous agitprop whose linchpin was the Orwellian theme that free speech is no speech.

A sample mendacity: Horowitz asserted that when George Bush said British intelligence had shown Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium from Niger, it was an “absolutely true” statement. Oh, please. The only part of the statement that’s true is that the information came from the British. The broader assertion turned out to be a Big Lie. But Horowitz craftily worded his claim to give the impression that Saddam, indeed, had attempted to acquire nuclear material from the African nation.

Horowitz is prominent today only because of what he did 35 years ago, when he was a leftist journalist, the son of Communist parents. Critics have speculated that his political transgendering is rooted in pathological shame or anger at his parents. I disagree. I think it’s just money.

Horowitz told the Emory audience that his epiphany came in the 1970s, when the Black Panther Party whacked a friend of his. The worshipful students, aspiring GOP empire satraps, weren’t likely to think that line through. Even if true, if people switched politics based on the violent actions of fringe groups, then the rich history of right-wing terrorism in America (racist, anti-Semitic, anti-labor, anti-abortion, for a start) long ago should have sent Horowitz scurrying back toward the gauche side of the political field.

The more likely reason Horowitz switched colors: It’s the cash from books that rely on his Zell Miller-style zig-zagging from left to right to generate buzz. Then there’s the moolah squeezed from campuses where Horowitz rants about left-wing dominance as he extorts speaking fees from timid administrators who don’t want controversy over free speech.Jeff Jackson posed a serious question for the evening’s star. Horowitz had invoked Martin Luther King Jr.’s name, claiming that he and the great civil rights leader sang in harmony on race. MLK’s spirit is probably still retching at that one.

Horowitz did his gig at Emory’s Glenn Memorial Auditorium, and those asking questions lined up at microphones along the aisles. A squad of scrubbed and very Aryan-looking campus Republicans sat in a front row pew.

Jackson, who had patiently waited in line to speak, started to voice his question, politely and cogently. He challenged Horowitz both on his King comment and the Iraq war. Jackson noted that Horowitz had admitted a major reason for opposition to the war. The conflict wasn’t to eliminate WMDs or even to oust Saddam Hussein. Rather Horowitz had inadvertently conceded we were there to establish a major military and intelligence base to dominate the Arab states.

Underscoring Jackson’s observation, Horowitz earlier had gurgled: “As wars go, it’s a wonderful war. What’s not to like about this war?” I’m sure the parents, spouses and children of the almost 700 slain GIs, not to mention the families of thousands of dead Iraqi non-combatants, will applaud Horowitz’s jocular comments.

Midway through Jackson’s question, a little drama unfolded. One of the youthful conservatives — a kid who should trade in his natty white shirt for a brown one — erupted from his seat and attempted to physically intimidate Jackson into silence. The strutting thug did the chest-to-chest, glaring-eyes, chin-jutted-out routine. “Sit down and be quiet,” he hissed at Jackson, who stood his ground but otherwise ignored the young Republican.

Hallelujah, said I from my vantage point in the next row. I’d been pondering how to cast this column. I felt like patting the nascent goose-stepper on the head. Attaboy, you’ve just made the point that for you — and other right-wingers — “free speech” is a relative term. Horowitz wants the right to screech at maximum decibels in defense of, say, George Bush. But for those who criticize Bush, well, they should be shouted down on campus and on the national political stage.

The cudgel the young Republican used was physical menace. Horowitz’s club, possibly more despicable, is the really tired old GOP canard of challenging opponents’ patriotism. Horowitz, who like almost all the hyper-bellicose neo-conservatives dodged his country’s call to military service, accused none other than Jimmy Carter — Navy officer, governor and president — of “treason” and “sabotage.”

I learned something about Jackson as we chatted after the Horowitz show. He has earned his right to speak more than any of the righteously right kiddies. Jackson serves in the Army Reserve. After graduation, he may find his life at risk in Iraq or whatever new imperial conquest is on the George Bush/Dick Cheney hit list. Jackson doesn’t recall any of the Bush Youth troopers at Emory rushing to the Army enlistment booth. No surprise there.

“I wasn’t surprised when the Republicans tried to silence me. It’s indicative of the way they operate on campus,” Jackson told me, adding that he’s not particularly right or left, just “reasonable.”

Horowitz leads a campaign euphemistically dubbed Students for Academic Freedom. It’s one of several prongs aimed right at the heart of the independent American academy.

The mantra goes like this: Universities are overrun by leftists who persecute conservative students. The bases for the claim are almost always anecdotal, virtually impossible to disprove and — to anyone willing to take the time — usually specious.

There are indeed liberal campuses — Brown University, Antioch College. There are also decidedly conservative ones — Bob Jones University, The Citadel.

On most campuses Republicans are a minority — a Pew survey showed only 24 percent of students identify with the GOP, behind both Democrats and independents. That might have something to do with intellectual honesty.

After all, the Bush regime has been caught repeatedly tampering with scientific findings for political reasons — from distorting information on the effectiveness of condoms, to misstating findings on global warming, to falsely implying there is a link between breast cancer and abortion, to an order by the Education Department to purge materials that are not “consistent with the administration’s philosophy.”

And, of course, it’s conservatives who foster the myth that “creationism” is science.

But, whatever the beliefs of students and faculty, it’s only an issue if they try to impose their politics on others. That seldom, seldom happens on campus. What Horowitz really wants to trample is the right of members of the university community to speak openly about political views (unless, of course, they’re right-wing opinions). Horowitz groused that Spanish professors shouldn’t be calling Bush a moron. (No dispute. They should be saying: Bush es un moron.)

At universities with Horowitz as the de facto political commissar, students would be encouraged to rat out teachers, especially those who, as Horowitz repeatedly claims, “hate America.” Interpreted from neo-conese, that means they’re independent thinkers. Smear, fear and intimidation are what Horowitz lusts for on campus.

No student should be academically penalized for political views. Even the macho twit who threatened Jackson should be able to argue in an academic paper that Bush isn’t a moron. Similarly, no professor should be intimidated about stating opinions.

The Horowitz plan is to ensure a “balance” of conservative and liberal opinion on campus, as if that isn’t already the case. By that standard, “conservative” opinion in Georgia would have universities teaching creationism and the Bible as literal truth.

But that’s not really the issue. The left hasn’t had the power to establish a reign of terror on campus. The right has, and it aspires to repeat the silencing of dissent once again.

Horowitz spoke wistfully of his college days in the 1950s, when dons were consciously non-political. Maybe he thought the Emory audience was stupid, and would believe that was some sort of academic golden age. The McCarthyite repression — which included purges of liberal, gay, leftist and civil-rights-supporting professors at universities across the nation — insured docility of those left on campus.

That sort of quiescence is what the Bushies want on America’s campuses today.

Senior Editor John Sugg will continue to look at other attacks on academic freedom in upcoming columns. Sugg — who says, “Yes, the Republicans believe in free speech. They want you to be free to say exactly what they want you to say” — can be reached at 404-614-1241 or at john.sugg@creativeloafing.com.