Just in time for Halloween, it’s “Islamo-Fascism Awereness Week!” Haven’t heard of Islamo-Fascism? Don’t worry. It’s made up by the boo-scaries of the New Right.

In what I guess could be described as the heir apparent to — or rather the mutant offspring of — traveling Elmer Gantry style faith healers and caravans of circus geeks, bearded ladies, Siamese twins, skeleton boys and monkey girls, something calling itself the “Terrorism Awareness Project,” is promoting an “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” tour with all the bravado and twice the pandering as P.T. Barnum.

Taking the stage (allegedly at campuses across the Homeland), in what one supposes is a lineup meant to draw converts to the rabid-right instead of a few odd looks and a couple of snickers before a quick dismissal are:

So, easy targets for first-year college debate team members looking for some warm-up stretching, but what’s the big? After all, Carrot Top does college tours.

Well, the notion these people are peddling is that Middle East studies must be wiped out of academia since any rigorous analysis would include a critical look at the US and Israel roles in the problems there as well. That’s way off message for this crowd.

I know, this act musters about as much interest as a Blue Öyster Cult reunion tour. Let’s take a quick gander at the acts that Creepypalooza is offering:

Ann Coulter needs no introduction. Really. You don’t need to meet her. I get weary of the many Ann critics who use some sort of “clever” wordplay or make allusion regarding Ann’s looks, hair, etc. I don’t care that Ann is blond, leggy or looks like Ross’ lesbian exwife in Friends. Old news, and I’m talking like George Magazine-era old news. No one cares. We don’t want your “Blonde Banshee” references and “Skinny Blonde Idiot” combo moves. So, if she came in at 400 pounds, I suppose it would be that her morbid obesity was making her stupid instead? And what if she had the same-sized audience, still spouted racist crap and had cerebral palsy? Would you segue into lamentations about her message with potshots regarding her deteriorating motor skills and inability to use scissors? Actually I guess probably so thinking back about everyone’s attention to Bob Dole’s grip on pencils instead of his lack of a grip on reality.

So let’s rest this here. Easy shots, people. Put whatever Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS fetish she may trigger in you on hold for a minute. You can all do better. Look at it this way, Ann is a batshit crazy lunatic who illustrates that a fragile grasp of reality can yield book deals. Ann can make out with Democrats and still call for the U.S. to make Christianity mandatory at home as well as abroad. Let’s all recite that old “invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity” quote together. Ann has also said that America would be better as a “Christian nation” and that Jews would be better off, or rather, “perfected” if they became Christian as well. She’s not got such a problem with fascism so much as what comes prefixed to it. Still, she’s just one in a number of yapping yappers, far from the realm of actual policymaking. So all in all, I don’t care so much what Ann says. I’m more worried that the sort of crap that tumbles from her mouth is what a sitting U.S. president may actually believe in. Far more scary.

Speaking of tolerant people, let’s move on to Robert Spencer, then, who considers Islam “the world’s most intolerant religion.” Let’s look at the title of his book. “Religion of Peace?: Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn’t.” Let’s giggle now. Finished? OK, let’s be sad at the fact that there are freaks who launch Crusades, blow up federal buildings, shoot doctors who carry out abortions, burn people at the stake for alleged witchery, believe that some end time is going to come during which they will go to heaven and laugh at billions of unsaved people burning in hell, support slave trades, ethnic cleansing, child abuse and so much more under the banner of the religion of Jesus.

Let’s consider the following quote by Randall Terry, founder of the Christian pro-life organization, Operation Rescue:

“I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good … if a Christian voted for Clinton, he sinned against God. It’s that simple. Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a biblical duty, we are called by God to conquer this country…”

You may be tempted at this point so comment that you are yourself a Christian and don’t go in for all this stuff. Don’t bother. I know you don’t. Just don’t tell me that there aren’t people who commit the above mentioned and still wear crucifixes and pray to a being that goes by the same name as yours. And don’t tell me they “aren’t really Christians.” Who’s to say? They’re quoting from the same book you are, and your book says “don’t judge.” I have no such constraints.

Let’s leave his religion alone and go after his logic, which is really the big opening, anyway. I don’t have to tirade about people going on about Robert’s looks because, well, no one does.

I would go on a lot more about Rick Santorum, but this site has done a much better job than I could, and has a keen design as well. Really, Santorum Exposed makes me embarrassed of Baird Watch’s meager blogspot blog. Then there’s this one. Funny, but Eeew (Wikidpedia tells me this one is a Dan Savage creation. Go Dan!). There’s a bunch of site out there that show there’s not a whole lot of love for the former senator who went by “R-PA” and once lumped homosexuality, adultery, incest and bigamy into one big quote than angered gays and adulterers and likely messed up some Google porn searches for a while. There’s no word about whether bigamists were also offended.

It’s interesting to see some Republicans get really obsessive over other people’s sex lives. You’re wondering, why does he spend so much time thinking and talking about all this. Why is he so obsessed with what consenting adults are doing with themselves? He must have this on his mind an awful lot. you know, disgraced Sen. Larry Craig used to spend a lot of time bashing gays as well. Will we some day hear of Rick’s wide stance? Time will tell.

But Rick lost re-election last year because he was a nutter, so time for the tour bus, I guess. Isn’t that what the Brady Bunch did when it went off the air?

So, we have the crazy, the zealot and the out-of-a-job ex-pol. What could complete this one-hit wonder of a pop group? What we need is a charismatic front man. A lead singer who can really make this rock group gel. Steve Perry said No? Ok screw it then, let’s have David Horowitz take the lead.

If you’d like to take a break from reading this tirade and see a fairly decent (read: foreign) documentary about how CreepyCons like Horowitz and his buddy Danial Pipes are trying to stifle study, discourse and academic research on the Middle East, particularly the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, check out Campus Conflict - USA. It should offer ample reasons why I’m planning to send my kid to a university overseas unless American Academia somehow in the next 18 years evolves into a creature that possesses a backbone and the survival trait to stand up to these people and out them for the dolts that they are.

Once a raging Marxist and now a provocateur for a branch so far out there on the right twig that most other Republicans tend to shy away from it, Dave’s one consistency is that he’s had no problem with authoritarianism, an erosion of the constitution, fearmongering and hate speech. One site never being enough to get his message out, Dave has several vanity blogs going, including his own David Horowitz Freedom Center, FrontPage Magazine, Discover the Network, Students for Academic Freedom (no, he’s not a student), and Fox News. Wait, scratch that last one, it just sometimes seems like it. The Terrorism Awareness Project is his as well. Google all these if you want. I don’t want the taint that comes with a ping at any of his websites.

Dave claims to be an agnostic who hates to see discrimination against homosexuals and says he thinks the Republicans need to shed the social issues. That would be fine if he were running a free-markets, ra-ra capitalism and limited government speaking tour, but he’s not. He’s trotting out three socially conservative bigots and using their various wiles, dubious though they may be, to try and scare people into fearing an entire people. And possibly bash gays if they can work it in.

Dave is great at doublespeak. He may have a group with the words “academic freedom” in the name, but he’s not a big proponent of the idea. Dave was a big fan of costing Norman Finkelstein his tenure at DePaul University over his book Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, and his drones have dogged South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, trying to get his speaking engagements banned at universities simply because he dared compare Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians with South Africa’s apartheid past.

So Dave: not such a fan of the academic freedom, which is why he has so many non-academics on his little tour. He does offer a great source of material, though, regarding decent professors. The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America is his strange, McCarthyist attempt to blacklist professors who actually study Middle East issues and US policy regarding them. I can’t recommend that you actually buy this book. Aside from spelling names correctly and telling you which universities these people teach at, there’s not much in the way of information. However, if you’re shopping for a university or college and looking for some solid Middle East programs to check out, this may be a place to start. Look for it in one of the discount bins at your nearby chain bookstore. Bring a notebook to jot down info about anyone who might interest you and look them up online when you get home.

But so what? What’s to be done? Nothing? Anything? Unlike the ghouls in the boo-scary crowd, I certainly wouldn’t urge you to try anything like a ban of these people from a campus. That wouldn’t be right. I would suggest — if they come to your campus — that you actually attend. I’m not the only one.

Bragster.com offers the following dare:

We’ll give you $1000 if you send us a video of you pelting Ann Coulter with bagels. You’ve got 1 week. Get moving people. Obviously, be gentle and do not hurt her. This is simply a little bit of fun…not malicious.

Sign up here (http://www.bragster.com/signup) and click disagree in order to join the bet. To win the prize you need to be over 18 and have to post your video in the comment section below.

And we’re not paying you to do it, we’re paying for the video. It’s not our responsibility if you get arrested, sued, stalked by right-wing fanatics or if Coulter lights you on fire.

I like this idea. It makes me giggle, and if I had the chance, well, an extra $1,000 could come in handy. But I would urge you to hit them with some well-researched questions, in cat-call manner if you like, that you came up with via the help of those Middle East professors these people seem so determined to get kicked off campuses. These are violent people. They no how to take a few flying bagels. What they can’t take is reason.

There’s also a Jewish Voice For Peace Campaign aimed at this tour. I now, in a closing advert, turn it over to them:

No to intolerance and Islamophobia!

On October 22-26 the so-called Terrorism Awareness Project, will send extremist speakers to campuses across the country to spread a message of intolerance and Islamophobia, in a campaign billed as “the biggest conservative campus protest ever.”

The list of speakers includes:

• Ann Coulter, who recently made quite a splash with her unabashed Jew-hatred;
• Robert Spencer, who calls Islam, “the world’s most intolerant religion;”
• Rick Santorum, who compared homosexuality to incest and bestiality;
• And of course, David Horowitz whose long history of racism has included attacks on affirmative action and the statement that ‘guns don’t kill black people, other blacks do.’

These and other hate-mongers will be demonizing Islam and portraying a one-sided and bigoted view of a faith held by billions of people around the world. Sign the JVP statement denouncing the so-called “Islamo-Fascism Week” and let them know that while our campuses must remain a place for the free exchange of all ideas, such promotion of hatred will not go unchallenged.

Join Jewish Voice for Peace in our condemnation of this campaign of racism and bigotry! Click here to sign our statement.

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