United in Hate<\/em>\u00a0tells it particularly well. Glazov, managing editor of FrontPage, holds a Ph.D. in U.S., Russian, and Canadian foreign policy. He also is an immigrant from the Soviet Union, where his parents were active in the dissident movement. Both intellectually and personally, he\u2019s well qualified to document and expose the Left\u2019s destructive behavior.<\/p>\nUnited in Hate<\/em>\u00a0begins with a brief survey of the many leftists who since 9\/11 have rationalized jihadist terrorism and blamed the United States for the attacks: \u201cFrom Noam Chomsky to Norman Mailer,\u201d Glazov writes, \u201cfrom Eric Foner to Susan Sontag, the Left used 9\/11 to castigate America,\u201d seeing the 3,000 dead in Manhattan as \u201cmerely collateral victims of the world\u2019s well-founded rebellion against the evil American empire.\u201d But similar attitudes are also found in the Democratic Party itself. From Jimmy Carter\u2019s courtship of Hamas to the Democratic congressional leadership\u2019s eagerness to declare the Iraq War a failure \u2014 even as millions of Iraqis voted in free elections \u2014 the presumably \u201cmoderate\u201d Democratic leadership has regularly created obstacles to defeating a murderous jihadist ideology that opposes every ideal the liberal Left supposedly embraces.<\/p>\nBefore returning to the subject of Islam and the Left in greater detail, Glazov surveys the long history of the Left\u2019s \u201cuseful idiocy.\u201d Western political pilgrims to post-revolutionary Russia gushed like schoolgirls over Lenin and Stalin, even as torture, terror, and famine were inflicted on the Russian people.\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0reporter Walter Duranty stands as perhaps the quintessential fellow-traveler, killing news reports of famine and writing that Ukrainians were \u201chealthier and more cheerful\u201d than he had expected, and that markets were overflowing with food \u2014 this at the height of Stalin\u2019s slaughter of the kulaks. Today\u2019s\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0continues to list Duranty among the paper\u2019s Pulitzer Prize winners. Other abettors of terror and famine, both famous and obscure, make their appearance in Glazov\u2019s hall of dishonor. They include George Bernard Shaw and Bertholt Brecht, who, he writes, \u201cexcused and promoted Stalin\u2019s crimes at every turn,\u201d and American sociologist Jerome Davis, who said of Stalin, \u201ceverything he does reflects the desires and hopes of the masses.\u201d The same delusions clouded the vision of Western fans of China\u2019s Mao Tse-tung, whose butcher\u2019s bill of dead, tortured, starved, and imprisoned eclipses Hitler\u2019s and Stalin\u2019s combined.<\/p>\nThe next generation of leftists in America, the so-called \u201cNew Left,\u201d may have become disillusioned with the Soviet Union after Khrushchev validated every anti-Communist charge, but they still clung to the ideology that had justified and driven Communism\u2019s crimes. They simply shopped around for new autocrats to worship. Castro\u2019s Cuba became, and to some extent has remained, the Shangri-La for starry-eyed American leftists, despite its half-million political prisoners \u2014 \u201cthe highest incarceration rate per capita in the world,\u201d Glazov points out \u2014 and its execution of 15,000 enemies of the state. Vietnam for a time inspired pilgrimages as well, lauded by intellectuals like Susan Sontag and Mary McCarthy despite the Viet Cong\u2019s bloody record of torture, forced depopulation, and murder. The bloody d\u00e9nouement of Saigon\u2019s fall \u2014 the purges, executions, refugees, and a holocaust in neighboring Cambodia \u2014 soon diverted the Left\u2019s adulation to the next revolution de jour, in Nicaragua. Fans of the thuggish Sandinistas, or the \u201csandalistas,\u201d as critics dubbed these \u201cpolitical tourists,\u201d did not seem to mind the regime\u2019s 8,000 political executions, 20,000 political prisoners, forced population relocations, or regular use of torture on state enemies. Indeed, about 250,000 Americans went to Nicaragua to work for the Sandinista government.<\/p>\n
In 1990, the Sandinistas faced a reasonably fair election and were voted out of power. When China began easing toward greater economic freedom, the only full-blown Communist regime left besides Cuba\u2019s was that of North Korea\u2019s lunatic Kim Jong Il, whose mad dictatorship even American leftists struggled to idealize. However, some found in the resurgent Islamic jihad the next supposed victim of American imperialism and capitalism that, Glazov writes, \u201cwould fill the void left by communism\u2019s collapse.\u201d The first stirrings of this unholy alliance between leftists and jihadists were visible after the Iranian revolution of 1979. Again displaying a remarkable myopia about their new heroes\u2019 crimes \u2014 the mullahs in Iran killed more people just in the span of two weeks in 1979 (about 20,000) than the hated Shah had in 38 years \u2014 Western radicals like French philosopher Michel Foucault indulged both their noble-savage idealization of the non-Western \u201cother\u201d and their usual adolescent worship of \u201crevolution.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Left\u2019s flirtation with Islamists is particularly bizarre. Unlike Communist tyrannies, which at least paid lip service to the ideals of social justice and equality, the jihadists in word and deed continually displayed their contempt for feminism, human rights, cosmopolitan tolerance, and democratic freedom \u2014 everything the Left claims to stand for. Yet American feminists, who can become enraged over a single masculine pronoun, find all sorts of rationalizations for gender apartheid, honor killings, genital mutilations, wife-beating, polygamy, and other medieval sexist abuses sanctioned by Islam, Glazov shows. Duke professor Miriam Cooke, for example, asserts, \u201cWhat is driving Islamist men is globalization,\u201d and she praises female suicide bombers for manifesting \u201cagency\u201d against colonial powers. In response to the high incidence of Muslims raping Norwegian women, Professor Unni Wikan of the University of Oslo recommends that Norwegian women wear a veil. AndNation<\/em>\u00a0columnist Naomi Klein calls on leftists to join in solidarity with Muqtada al-Sadr, the Iraqi Shiite who has fomented violence against the American military and fellow Iraqis. The only villain in the leftist melodrama remains the capitalist, colonialist, imperialist, Christian West. Hence the surreal sight of American feminists marching against the Iraq War and George W. Bush, though the hated president had freed more women than all the activists and women\u2019s studies professors combined.<\/p>\nGlazov\u2019s repeated exposure of such irrational hypocrisy is his book\u2019s most valuable achievement. Less useful, to my mind, are his psychological explanations. Some leftist \u201ctrue believers\u201d might hold their convictions because they fuel \u201cthe rage and fury that is already at the root of [their] psychological makeup.\u201d But this can\u2019t be true of all of them. I\u2019ve known plenty of sweet, mellow leftists. Glazov is on firmer ground when he focuses on larger cultural trends such as noble-savage multiculturalism, the transformation of Communism into a \u201cpolitical religion\u201d that compensates for the decline of faith, and the adulation of the violent, \u201cauthentic\u201d revolutionary inspired by Romanticism. This broader, less personal analysis of pathology also helps explain the jihadists\u2019 motives. \u201cMisogyny and the fear and hatred of women\u2019s sexuality\u201d perhaps might explain the actions of individual terrorists, but the doctrines and traditions of Islam, as Glazov correctly points out, are ultimately explanation enough.<\/p>\n
United in Hate<\/em>\u00a0is a valuable aid for those wishing to understand one of the strangest spectacles in history: a large number of a society\u2019s most privileged people, who enjoy unprecedented freedom, education, material well-being, and leisure, relentlessly attacking the institutions and ideals that make such benefits possible \u2014 and extolling enemies who seek to destroy all of these goods. Americans should closely heed the warnings of\u00a0United in Hate<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n
\u00a92009 Bruce S. Thornton<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jamie Glazov exposes the Left’s long history of cozying up to political murderers. by Bruce S. Thornton City Journal United in Hate: The Left\u2019s Romance with Tyranny and Terror\u00a0by Jamie Glazov (WND Books, 264 pp.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[87,22,517,715],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s466Sb-dupes","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2456,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ibrahim-fighting-for-free-speech\/","url_meta":{"origin":2654,"position":0},"title":"Ibrahim, Fighting for Free Speech","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 12, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Raymond Ibrahim 1, CAIR o (by KO) by Jamie Glazov FrontPage Magazine Frontpage Interview\u2019s guest is\u00a0Raymond Ibrahim, associate director of the Middle East Forum, author of\u00a0The Al Qaeda Reader, and editor of FPM\u2019s new section on\u00a0Muslim Persecution of Christians. Introduction:\u00a0On May 5, Mr. Ibrahim gave a talk on Islam at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Jamie Glazov"","block_context":{"text":"Jamie Glazov","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/jamie-glazov\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1918,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-tortured-rendezvous-with-reality-interview-with-vdh\/","url_meta":{"origin":2654,"position":1},"title":"Obama’s Tortured Rendezvous with Reality: Interview with VDH","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 4, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jamie Glazov FrontPage Magazine FP:\u00a0Victor Davis Hanson, welcome to Frontpage Interview. First things first, let me ask you this. If our government was serious about fighting Islamic terrorism and saving lives, wouldn\u2019t Abdul Mutallab be getting water-boarded just about now? We know that the use of \u201cenhanced techniques\u201d of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Jamie Glazov"","block_context":{"text":"Jamie Glazov","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/jamie-glazov\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2154,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-bush-did-it-narrative-an-interview-with-vdh\/","url_meta":{"origin":2654,"position":2},"title":"Obama’s “Bush Did It” Narrative: An Interview with VDH","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 14, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Janie Glazov FrontPage Magazine FP:\u00a0Victor Davis Hanson, welcome to Frontpage Interview. I\u2019d like to talk to you today about radical Islam and the Obama administration\u2019s ability and inclination, or lack thereof, to confront it. What\u2019s the best way to begin this discussion? Hanson:\u00a0Thanks Jamie. The paradigm of discussing radical\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Jamie Glazov"","block_context":{"text":"Jamie Glazov","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/jamie-glazov\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2792,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-foreign-policy-disasters\/","url_meta":{"origin":2654,"position":3},"title":"Obama’s Foreign Policy Disasters","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 13, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jamie Glazov FrontPageMagazine.com FP:\u00a0Victor Davis Hanson, welcome to Frontpage Interview. What report card would you give the Obama administration in terms of foreign policy right now? Why? Hanson:\u00a0An Incomplete that at the present rate will turn into a D\/F if he is not careful. Obama has confused a number\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Jamie Glazov"","block_context":{"text":"Jamie Glazov","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/jamie-glazov\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1279,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-teachable-mosque-moment\/","url_meta":{"origin":2654,"position":4},"title":"Obama’s Teachable Mosque Moment","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 5, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Interview by Jamie Glazov FrontPage Magazine Frontpage Interview\u2019s guest today is Victor Davis Hanson, a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of\u00a0The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern. FP:\u00a0Victor Davis Hanson, welcome to Frontpage Interview. 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