Horowitz not really right about anything

Poor old David Horowitz. He really isn’t right about anything. Not even when he claims he has “changed.” He’s the same loudmouthed provocateur that he always was, except that nowadays he chooses safer targets ? instead of the U.S. government, critics of the government.

Horowitz’s claim that the U.S. peace movement prolonged the Vietnam War succeeds in delivering a shock (like most of his screeds), but it fails to make any sense. As we all know, the peace movement aimed to withdraw U. S. troops out of Vietnam. After the withdrawal, which could have been ordered by Johnson or Nixon any time they’d had the will to do it, the bloodshed which Horowitz laments would have stopped, earlier rather than later if the peace movement had had its way. It takes either a great demagogue or a great fool ? probably a mixture of both ? to ignore the aim of the U. S. peace movement. Or to ignore the aims of the U.S. government, which locked in Cold-War rationality, intended to pursue the war to victory without much concern for the human cost. That the Vietnam War lasted as long as it did is due to the power of the U. S. government to pursue its aims despite popular domestic opposition, not due to the power of the opposition.

Than in his last paragraph, Horowitz commits his biggest blunder: “If I have one regret from my radical years,” he writes, “it is that this country was too tolerant towards the treason of its enemies within.” Notice that Horowitz regrets here not his own actions, then or now; instead, he blames the government for not censoring him while he was a college student. And now he claims to be a defender of free speech? Whose speech, then? Only his own? And only including what he has said after switching his identity from a left-wing to a right-wing provocateur?

Horowitz is no better a defender of free speech than Larry Flynt is a defender of free artistic expression. Just hold your nose and be glad that where the freedom of speech is protected, occasionally the person who speaks actually has something to say that is worthy of our hearing.

Eric Paul Jacobsen

UW Graduate Student

Gruetzmacher worse than Horowitz

David Horowitz’s ad equated protesting with treason, while Mike Gruetzmacher equated protesting with terrorism. As terrorism and treason are both capital crimes, this is equivalent to saying that protesters deserve death. Incomprehensibly, the editor condemns Horowitz while portraying Gruetzmacher as having a rational point of view.

To any who share this point of view: you are ushering in a wave of fascism that will soon overtake this country. This may not disturb you, but just think for a moment: when we can’t protest anymore, when we are in jail (or worse) for stating our opinions, you better start watching your back also. Because when they come to get you, we won’t be out here anymore to protect your civil liberties.

To anyone who’s not so far gone: stand up now and stand up strong for civil liberties. Whatever your opinion on war and peace, the greatest danger to us all right now is the idea that we must shut up or be equated with traitors and terrorists.

Virginia Ravenscroft-Scott

W Student