David Horowitz’ website Discover the Networks: A Guide to the Political Left is pretty funny, evoking what Richard Hofstadter called “the paranoid style in American politics.” Its list of un-American “radicals” includes both George Soros and Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman (neither “leftists”), as well as Death Row celebrity Mumia Abu-Jamal and pro-death penalty ex-prez Bill Clinton. What isn’t so funny is that Discover the Networks apparently exchanged links with a truly evil site called Target of Opportunity. The disingenuous “disclaimer” on this site is actually an explicit incitement to violence:
This website is a list and record of enemies that have betrayed and endangered America by their Seditious and Treasonous activities. Operating under the false illusion of “Peaceful” and “Non-Violent” activism, their methods are anything but “Peaceful” and “Non-Violent”. These people present a serious threat to all Americans. Each of them should be considered a:
“TARGET OF OPPORTUNITY”!
Among those listed as “Domestic Terrorists” on the site is our friend John Petrovato, a bookstore owner in Amherst, MA, who has traveled to Palestine with the International Solidarity Movement and is an organizer of the annual Renewing the Anarchist Tradition conference, at which WW4 REPORT editor Bill Weinberg was a featured speaker in 2002. Also listed are former Village Voice columnist Ellen Willis, California redwood crusader Karen Pickett, and Vermont’s Institute for Social Ecology, a school founded by writer Murray Bookchin. All the Institute’s teachers and administrators are named and pictured, with the kicker: “And there you have it. Radical Liberalism, Socialism, Marxism and Anarchism all rolled up into one nice package. Will someone please stop these people!!!”
The site provides street addresses for its “targets” where-ever possible.
NOTE: While Targets of Opportunity still links to Discover the Networks, the reverse does not appear to be true at this point, despite the fact that we were alerted to the link several weeks ago. Perhaps Horowitz thought better of Target’s legal implications.
See our last post on the terrorist-baiting of political protest.
