The Cultural Left: Islam’s Ally
This report correlates certain thoughts of George Orwell (elaborated in his World War II letters and essays), and the recently published book by Dinesh D’Souza, The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11.
During World War II, American-born William Joyce, known as Lord Haw-Haw, became a Nazi propaganda broadcaster to England. His job was to undermine English morale. Joyce had allies among England’s leftwing intellectuals, who hated Churchill, just like their American counterparts hate George W. Bush. The British eventually captured Haw-Haw and executed him for treason.
More recently, an American convert to Islam, Adam Gadahn, became an English-language propagandist for al-Qaeda. Known as “Azzam the American,” his videotapes claim to be messages from al-Qaeda to the United States. Last year he was placed on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list and indicted in absentia by a federal grand jury for treason.
In 2004, a leading critic of the Bush administration, published a stinging criticism of the U.S. government’s war on terrorism. He found Bush’s conduct abhorrent from the time the president was informed about the 9/11 attacks. He impugned Bush’s motives for the war on terror and for the invasion of Iraq. He said Bush knew Iraq posed no security threat, so that Bush’s decision to invade Iraq was made because of “oil and more business for his private companies.” “Black gold blinded him and he put his own private interests ahead of the American public interest.” “Bush’s hands,” said his critic, “are covered with blood, and Iraq has become a quagmire.” Moreover, while Bush pretends to promote liberty abroad, “he has brought tyranny and the suppression of liberties to his own country” through “the Patriot Act, implemented under the pretext of fighting terrorism.”
The name of the critic is not Michael Moore or Nancy Pelosi. He is none other than Osama bin Laden! Bin Laden simply cited and even commended the writings of the American Left. In his 2004 missive to America, bin Laden said his message would be better understood if Americans read westerners like author William Blum, a former State Department employee, who calls on America to withdraw from the Middle East and “give an apology to all the widows and orphans and those that were tortured” by American troops. Bin Laden even proposed a “truce” between al-Qaeda and the United States.
We see here the old tactic of divide and conquer—and America is already divided: witness the anti-war movement. To understand what underlies this anti-war movement it will be helpful study the journalism of George Orwell.
Although Orwell was a socialist, he deplored England’s leftwing intelligentsia—especially its academics. He scorned the “emotional shallowness” of intellectuals who live in the world of ideas and have little contact with physical reality. He saw that many leftwing intellectuals were severed from the common culture of their country. “England,” said Orwell, “is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality”—precisely the feeling of many leftwing American intellectuals.
Dinesh D’Souza cites numerous examples of this attitude among American academics and entertainers. One political scientist, Robert Jensen, said on the day after 9/11: “We must say goodbye to patriotism because the world cannot survive indefinitely the patriotism of Americans.” Another political scientist, Richard Berthold, went so far as to say, “anyone who can blow up the Pentagon would get my vote.”
More revealing of the Cultural Left is comedian Janeane Garofalo, who recently said, “When I see the American flag I go: Oh my God, you’re insulting me. When I see a gay parade … in New York, with naked men and women on a float cheering, ‘We’re here, we’re queer!’ that’s what makes my heart swell. Not the flag, but a gay naked man or woman burning the flag. I get choked up with pride.”
Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton‘s attack on the family is less naked: she would have all nations legalize prostitution—presumably to elevate the dignity of the fairer sex. Perhaps she believe this would also promote universal love, especially among the young.
Returning to England: during the 1920s and 30s, the main object of the Left was to break down the feeling of patriotism. This encouraged self-indulgence and hedonism, which prompted Nazi Germany to regard England as soft and decadent—hence safe for Germany to plunge into war.
The American Cultural Left is no less hedonistic; indeed, it wallows in neo-paganism. This paganism, disseminated throughout the world by the commercial, entertainment establishment, threatens tradition-based cultures and cannot but incite Jihad against the United States.
The Cultural Left, which exalts peace at any price, cannot compete with Islam, which exalts war at any price. This pacifism or defeatism is conspicuous among the Cultural Left in Israel.
Orwell saw that pacifism and defeatism were rampant among the English intelligentsia, especially the very young intelligentsia. He notes that people who started by renouncing violence often ended up supporting Hitler. The opponents of war simply lacked the intellectual courage to think through the practical consequences of their anti-war position: their opposition to the war made them objectively pro-Fascist. (One may say the same of today’s Cultural Left in America, whose opposition to the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq is objectively pro-terrorist, despite any antipathy they may feel toward terrorism.)
Now let us probe a little deeper.
The war against terrorism has obscured a cultural war in America. President Bush is the key to understanding this war. Bush is a devout Christian as well as a Conservative Republican. I know of no president who has been so vilified. He has been denigrated by the Cultural Left as a Mussolini, as worse than Goering, and as “the biggest terrorist in the world.”
Bush unabashedly represents family values; he opposes precisely what the Cultural Left defends: homosexuality, gay marriages, pornography, moral depravity. Prominent members of the Cultural Left condone revolting descriptions and displays of the human body. This not only embarrasses decent Americans; it prompts Muslims to call America shameless—“the worst civilization in history.”
The Cultural Left is waging a war against the Christian Right. Cultural leftists fear Christian fundamentalists more than Islamic fundamentalists. They see in religion a threat to unfettered personal freedom. For the Cultural Left, freedom means the absence of any external moral constraint; it means complete moral autonomy, which logically includes moral depravity.
This is what the cultural war in America is all about. A new or rather old morality is gaining ascendancy—the paganism abhorred in the Bible of Israel. This paganism, disseminated by the Cultural Left via international organizations with chapters in Muslim countries, threatens Islam and prompts Muslim leaders to call for a world without America.
But how has this paganism become so powerful? After all, a large majority of Americans are Christians and support family values. Why aren’t laws of the United States protecting these values? The answer is this: As in Israel, the Cultural Left has gained control of the judicial branch of government. It’s the judiciary that has decriminalized pornography, sanctioned homosexuality, and is legalizing same-sex marriages. Under the mantra of human rights, a child no longer has a right to two parents.
It’s the judiciary—thanks to its secular education or indoctrination—that has made a mockery of the First Amendment by removing virtually all symbols of religion from the public domain. In his “Farewell Address,” George Washington said that national morality cannot survive without religion. What decent person does not see in the entertainment media the decline of morality in America?
No wonder Muslims regard America as the Great Satan. But wait! Perhaps Osama bin Laden now sees that the Great Satan is manifested primarily by the moral depravity of America’s Cultural Left. If so, he might also see that this moral depravity flourishes only because of the liberalism and timidity of American Conservatives. In other words, while the Cultural Left is in the forefront of spreading homosexuality, same-sex marriage, and pornography throughout the world, Conservatives facilitate this depravity out of a desire to appear au courant or “politically correct.”
One last word: From bin Laden we learn that Islam sees in the Cultural Left not only an enemy but a political ally. As an enemy, the Cultural Left is diametrically opposed to Islam. But since the Left is also opposed to George Bush and the war on terrorism, it is Islam’s secret ally.
