| By Zach Marks - Oct 10th, 2007 at 6:07 pm EDT |
| Also listed in: Campus Progress Blog |
Tags: anti-Muslims, David Horowitz, GWU, Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, Young America's Foundation
The students who canvassed GW’s campus with anti-Muslim posters Monday sent a letter to the GW Hatchet today admitting their role in the controversy.
We’d all realized that the posters were a satirical shot at Campus Progress’ archenemy, the Young America’s Foundation, which is sponsoring Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week at 140 campuses around the country from October 22-26, including GW where Campus Progress’ other archenemy David Horowitz will be speaking. But at least now we know who the students responsible for the posters were. One was Adam Kokesh, “a graduate student and Iraq War veteran, [who] gained celebrity over the past year because of his vocal opposition to the war.”
Kokesh and six other students wrote in an e-mail to the Hatchet:
"It is to our great dismay that the student body and the media missed the clear, if subtle, message of our flier: the hyperbolic nature of the flier was aimed at exposing Islamophobic racism.
There’s still a great debate raging on Jenny Odegard’s original blog post on this Monday about whether this satire is funny, whether racism is ever funny, and shitting on Paris Hilton.
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Putting other organizations, including GW's logo, on the poster placed the responsibility on other parties, confusing the message and making suggestions about the school's own politics.
In addition, the message they sent was not a clear, concise objection to religious discrimination. Instead, they posted something that was a mixed message of sort-of-jokes and familiar anti-terrorist rhetoric (hatred towards women has been said countless times, and we've all been through an airport security line).
The Muslim student group at GW already made a statement saying that the posters were hurtful, which is reason enough for me to say that the people responsible did more harm than good.
I stand by my statement that there are better ways to have a conversation about anti-Islamic sentiments.
Why is everyone up in arms about the poster but not about the Islamo-fascism week?
Did anyone google that video at the bottom of the poster either? Link
Also stupid is the idea held by some that if, on a given issue, we simply push our side hard enough, that means we win, and thus any given mini-scandal that turns out badly for us just means we didn't push hard enough.
Mr Limbaugh was referring to ACTUAL "Phony Soldiers" and not participating in name calling of liberal solders. Phony soldiers being people who:
- claimed to be a soldier but never served
and
- people who completely lied about the extent of their service
(He was actually referring specifically to Jesse Macbeth in this particular instance. He is the guy who washed out before the end of boot camp, 44 days into his service, while claiming to have been ordered to kill innocent civilians in Iraq, a country he had never been to)
and
-the mayor of Atlantic city who claimied to be a Green Barret and ended up getting $25k in additional salary because of it.
and
-any other person who lies about their (nonexistant) service to our country to further their political cause
He was NOT name-calling democratic soldiers that do not believe in the war. Soldiers, whether conservative or liberal have every right to voice their opinion whether for or against this war, especially since they are the ones that give their lives to make sure we all keep that right. He is very vocal about this point.
"CALLER 2: No, it's not, and what's really funny is, they never talk to real soldiers. They like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media.
LIMBAUGH: The phony soldiers.
CALLER 2: The phony soldiers. If you talk to a real soldier, they are proud to serve."
---- End quote
Caller 2 (line 1) is DIRECTLY speaking about the talking points that Limbaugh spoke about (which are not quoted in the media matters press release) The caller probably should have not used the word "never" in their statement because there are soldiers out there that do not believe in the war, though a huge majority do believe in it seeing as how a large portion signed up during the war. The ones that go overboard like the "soldier" in question have quite often been "phony soldiers" (in the literal sense of the phrase) because that is all that the FAR left can come up with to spew their talking points. The fact is that most Americans including democrats do not believe in what the far left (or right for that matter) are saying.
The phrase "phony soldiers" had already been defined by both Limbaugh and ABC (which is where he stole the phrase from) to mean literally people who claimed to be soldiers but were not. Now how can you state that in this case he means something completely different? Put the clip in context of the show. During the show he brings up this criminal who he labels a phony soldier.
The caller says "they never talk to real soldiers". The "they" that they are referring to is moveon.org, media matters etc, the liberal non profit companies that make advertisements with the phony solders talking or being quoted in them. Per the comment earlier that it was plural "soldiers", you are absolutely correct, it was plural. According to the VA there about a dozen ongoing cases totaling about 1.4 million in fraud due to phony soldiers. This was all being discussed on the show.
I was listening to the show and I knew exactly what he was talking about. I have never heard him say anything but great things about our soldiers, including ones that do not believe in his politics.
EXACTLY MY POINT!. He said nothing of that sort! Rush has been pro troops since long before this war! The only time you will hear him say something defamatory about anyone in the military about their contribution, liberal or conservative, is towards a particular person when that person is doing something hurt the troops. (ie: calling them killers or rapists) I would be completely out of character for Rush to have meant what Media Matters said he meant. Votevets and other EXTREME liberal organizations have the potential of quoting potentially hundreds or thousands of troops that are against the war but that is not good enough for them. Instead they decide to go out and find the biggest nutjob they can to say the most extreme things that are COMPLETELY ANTI-TROOPS and Anti American. They got caught in their lies and Rush decided to let everyone know. He coins the phrase phony soldiers. Again since you did not seem to get it before, he had already spoken of "phony soldiers", it was a literal definition and he was using that phrase to combat those people who were slandering our military and/or stealing from our country. Why would he have felt the need to define it again everyone who listens knew what he was talking about.
Also, Moveon paying the difference was the dumbest thing I have heard in years... Moveon was caught with their pants down regarding the slander of a great American, but it was the NY Times who was caught with their paints down because of this "mistake". Because of that leftist bias, they caused a potentially huge sales problem when everyone and their brother, rightfully so, wanted that rate.
Once a service has been paid for and rendered, the NY Times had no right to even ask for the difference from Moveon or Juliani.
"Check out VoteVets.org and other websites that speak for the anti-war voice of our veterans. Although since you're such an apologist for Rush I doubt you will"
How the hell do you think that I ended up here?? I have been all through them. I am completely fine with them quoting the people that I believe to be heroes in my eyes. And yes I am refering to the ant-war soldiers. Anyone who risks their life for my freedom, whether liberal or conservative is a hero in my book, and in Rush's.
Again, the only issue is that extremists groups lie and while doing so hurt America and our soldiers. I highly doubt you would agree with me on such a simple obvious point since you are obviously an extremist left moveon.org apologist.