When Bob Glass sent me his photos from the 9/11 rallies in New York, I was surprised to see such a strong Marxist presence at the rally supporting the Islamic center near Ground Zero.
Was it not Marx who called religion the opiate of the masses?
The Marxists also rallied in Washington, D.C. A couple of signs there indicate the nature of the Marxist alliance with Islam. One young man showing off his T-shirt illustrating Marx’s face holds a sign stating, “End the wars now!” Another sign from Socialist Worker says, “Stop the racist hate: Muslims are welcome here.” So the Marxist left is upset by the wars in the Middle East, and they tar the Tea Parties as racist.
Daniel Hannan points out that the Marxists refuse to believe Tea Partiers act independently. Instead, the Marxists (and indeed the entire left) hold, the Tea Parties must be the result of grand conspiracies by the moneyed few. I think this goes far in explaining why the Marxists embrace the Islamic center: many Tea Partiers oppose it, so it must be a good thing.
Fortunately, because Glass sent me numerous leftist publications he picked up at the 9/11 rally, we don’t have to speculate about the socialists’ motives. They explain them clearly.
The September 2010 Internationalist alleges, “The hysteria [against the Islamic center] is part of the violent racist campaign targeting Muslims and immigrants for attack ever since 9/11.”
The publication smears opponents of the Islamic center as violent racists who oppose immigration and “would no doubt like to get rid of the 13th Amendment… and bring back slavery.” (I have criticized the Islamic center while affirming the legal right to build it. I advocate the free movement of non-violent and non-contagious people. The baseless smear about slavery deserves no further retort.)
Unsurprisingly, The Internationalist calls not merely for free migration but for “full citizenship rights for all immigrants” — which entail voting rights — a proposal I would strongly oppose. Citizenship should involve something more substantial than simply walking across a border.
The publication condemns “the war that is slaughtering Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq.” Reasonable people can dispute the wisdom of the war in Iraq, but Afghanistan, home of the Taliban?
Unsurprisingly, the socialists have no qualms about Feisal Rauf’s comments blaming the U.S. for the 9/11 terrorist attacks; his “statements are undeniable facts,” The Internationalist claims.
Here is the heart of the Marxist argument for supporting the Islamic Center:
Politically, we are no friends of Imam Rauf, who is a supporter of U.S. imperialist and Zionist war and occupation which communists seek to defeat. As Marxists and atheists, we are ideologically opposed to all religions… which throughout history have served to justify the rule of exploiting ruling classes and blind the exploited population to a real solution to their misery. … To finally overcome religion, it is necessary to abolish the oppressive conditions that produce it, through internationalist socialist revolution, and lay the basis for the masses to achieve a scientific [sic] understanding of the world. From Afghanistan and Iraq to Egypt and Algeria, we oppose Islamism as a political movement while fighting to mobilize the working class and the oppressed to defeat the imperialist occupiers and “secular” dictatorships. …
Thus the fight against the Muslim-bashing hysteria over the New York mosque must be part of a struggle to build a revolutionary workers party that champions the cause of all the oppressed. Communists vigorously defend bourgeois democratic rights including freedom of assembly and the separation of church and state… While expropriating the holdings and breaking the secular power of the church and its control of education… the Russian Bolsheviks under Lenin and Trotsky upheld the freedom of religious belief and worship. As Leninists and Trotskyists, the Internationalist Group defends the building of an Islamic cultural center and place of worship (mosque) near the World Trade Center and anywhere else… [W]e defend democratic rights through mobilizing worker, oppressed minorities and immigrants against the entire ruling class and its racist capitalist system.
Okay, then. Nevermind that it is the Tea Party movement that is the true “working class” movement in America.
However, just because Lenin and Trosky would have supported the Islamic center, doesn’t mean forcibly blocking it is a good idea. While the Marxists might think that the enemy of their enemy is their friend (and how long would those idiot Marxists survive in Iran, Saudi Arabia, or Afghanistan), in reality that is very often not the case.
***
Comments
Anonymous October 29, 2010 at 5:25 PM
Ari, when you point out, “Marxists refuse to believe Tea Partiers act independently. Instead, the Marxists (and indeed the entire left) hold, the Tea Parties must be the result of grand conspiracies by the moneyed few”, you need to remember that one reason that they do this is because that is what they know is the truth about their own movement: from 1848 on, they have taken orders from an elite, and have been supported by various (interlinked) conspiracies of the moneyed few – right up to 2010 and George Soros and his ilk. They cannot imagine that people can have an independent political though in their heads.
Samuel November 6, 2010 at 10:49 AM
Ari,
I have a quick question for you:
Currently, United States citizenship involves absolutely nothing substantial, at all. Could you please explain why you would require something substantial from those who did not have the privileged luck of being born here?
Certainly, neither you nor I have done anything that could be labeled as ‘earning’ citizenship; it was automatically given at birth, and while that’s absolutely superb for you and I, it does not make a great starting point for you or I to demand of others what was never expected of us. Please reconcile if you can.
Ari November 6, 2010 at 1:59 PM
Currently, and quite obviously, becoming a citizen of the United States, for those not born here, is a long and arduous process — and quite properly so.
While I am all for the free movement of people, that is quite a distinct issue from citizenship — which entails the right to vote. Should I be able to vote in Mexican or Canadian elections just by walking across the border? That’s ridiculous. Should Democrats be able to bus Mexicans or Canadians into the U.S., give them a day-long citizenship pass, and let them vote?
There’s nothing to reconcile here; the notion that citizenship should automatically and instantly be granted to anyone who walks in from another country is absurd on its face.