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    • Volume I: My Life and Times
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    • Take No Prisoners
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    • Dark Agenda
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  • Horowitz Memoirs
    • Mortality and Faith
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    • Radical Son
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    •  A Cracking of the Heart
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    • Radical Son: 2nd Edition
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    • Volume VI: Progressive Racism
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    • Hating Whitey and Other Radical Pursuits
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    • I Can’t Breathe
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David Horowitz

Review –  Left Illusions; an Intellectual Odyssey

by David Horowitz

Spence, 2003.

Like Whittaker Chambers before him, David Horowitz must have thought he was abandoning the winning side for the losing side, when he embraced conservatism. Chambers left Communism for Christianity, at a time when, in the eyes of many, it was not expedient to do so.  So too, Horowitz, a leading leftwing intellectual of the 60s and 70s, had second thoughts. For both men, the change in thinking was costly, with severe reactions to their defections.

This book, a collection of articles, most of which were published before, gives us an intellectual history of Horowitz’s rise in the Left, and his eventual disaffection with it. Thus it includes some of his earlier leftist pieces, including some published in the radical Ramparts, which he formerly edited. But the bulk of the articles here come from his new found conservatism, and feature some of his best writings from the late 70s to 2003.

Horowitz has already covered his second thoughts in book form, especially in Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties (co-written with Peter Collier in 1989), and Radical Son (1997). Here he covers a wide range of issues, with all of the conservative battlegrounds given a run. Thus some three decades worth of controversy are covered, with articles on Solzhenitsyn, Nicaragua, racism, political correctness on campus, AIDS, free speech, multiculturalism, the Middle East crisis, terrorism, and the Clinton years all given judicious treatment.

Unlike Chambers, it was not a religious conversion that prompted this change of heart. It was a growing awareness that the Left was simply hypocritical, constantly denouncing supposed atrocities of capitalism and American foreign policy, while ignoring or condoning the barbarism of socialism and leftist dictatorships. An enormous amount of human blood had been shed on the altars of leftist utopianism, Horowitz discovered.

Thus as someone who has been there and done that, his criticisms of the left deserve to be heard. Not many have renounced their leftwing past. I happen to have been one to do so, but there are not that many around. Irving Kristol once said that a neoconservative is a liberal who has been mugged by reality. It seems that many leftists prefer to live with their illusions than take a stand for reality.

Horowitz chronicles the extreme reaction of fellow leftists to his realignment. He was hoping that others would see the light, but instead he received vitriol, censure and abuse. He had hoped that other radicals would make this acknowledgment: “We greatly exaggerated the sins of America and underestimated its decencies and virtues, and we’re sorry”. But such confessions were few and far between. Most leftists clung to their utopianism, to the “god that failed”.

Like Chambers, his new found conservatism is still a minority position. There exists a left-liberalism hegemony in the US and the West that makes it hard for countering views to be heard. Horowitz documents the uphill battle in promoting a conservative voice in such a climate.

For example, on US college campuses there is a new McCarthyism, but a McCarthyism of the left. Having visited 200 such campuses in the past decade, Horowitz knows that most have repudiated their liberal arts origins (which saw freedom speech and genuine intellectual inquiry as virtues)  and have embraced political radicalism instead. Now a fog of censorship, political correctness and leftwing ideology covers these campuses. Thus for a conservative, and a former leftist at that, to speak at such an institution, one takes very real risks indeed.

Radical socialists, feminists, gay rights activists, and detractors of America and democracy can all freely speak their minds at American campuses, but conservatives do so at their own peril, if they do manage to get a speaking engagement. Horowitz has received more hatred and abuse when speaking as a conservative than he ever did as a Communist or socialist.

Indeed, the university has become a hotbed of leftism, As an example, at the University of Wisconsin (a school which I once attended) Horowitz notes that while a $500 grant was given to a conservative student group, a million dollars in grants was given to various leftist extremist groups.

Discriminatory funding policies is just part of the injustice conservative students and staff face. Horowitz documents the very real difficulties conservatives face on campus, and the overwhelming leftist slant arrayed against them. As another example, Horowitz examines the faculty of a number of leading universities, and shows that on average only around five per cent of faculty identify as Republicans. No wonder why it is so difficult for conservative students on campus. They are up against a stacked deck.

The media of course is no better, with a left/liberal domination that routinely censors out conservative voices. The prejudices of a leftist media are well-documented in this volume as well. Of course this leftwing domination of the institutions of power and influence is not just accidental. Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci in the 1930s urged fellow communists to do this very thing. And they have succeeded very well in achieving these goals.

Thus one has to ask why anyone would want to surrender a seemingly winning position for what appears to be a lost cause. Horowitz has asked himself this question many times, as had Chambers. His last lines in this book address the question again, as he asks whether the truth will continue to remain in the shadows. He hopes that it won’t.

And for those like myself who have followed a similar road, and have taken similar U-turns, one’s hopes are buoyed by knowing that one is not alone, and that others have made similar journeys. Horowitz retains his Jewish faith. Chambers, and I, embraced Christianity. But all three of us know that truth is powerful, and truth will prevail. This volume provides solid meat for those who have made the change, and for those who have not yet done so. May it result in many more second thoughts.

Filed Under: Left Illusions, Reviews

I Can’t Breathe

by David Horowitz

New!

“Horowitz blows the lid off Black Lives
Matter lies and exposes the damage the
movement has done to the black community.”
—LARRY ELDER, bestselling author and host of
The Larry Elder Show

“In his new book, I Can’t Breathe: How a Racial Hoax Is Killing America, Horowitz exposes the sickness at the heart of our national nightmare. This book is essential, don’t miss it.”
—MARK LEVIN, nationally syndicated TV and radio host and
    author of Unfreedom of the Press.

I Can’t Breathe

The Truth about the Black Lives Matter Martyrs

In his latest salvo in the battle for America’s survival, David Horowitz exposes the racial hoax that is spawning riots and dividing the nation. Examining the twenty-six most notorious cases of police “racism”—from Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown to George Floyd and Breonna Taylor—Horowitz demonstrates that Black Lives Matter has lied about every one of them in its quest to break down law and order, fuel race hatred, and destroy America.

In case after case, the lies and mythmaking break down under Horowitz’s scrutiny. Even the chief prosecutor in the George Floyd case was forced to admit that he had no evidence of racial bias, while Breonna Taylor, the longtime accomplice of a major drug dealer, was killed when she and her boyfriend resisted arrest and fired a weapon at the police.

The unchallenged myths about racist murders by the police have brought mayhem and crime to our cities, where the victims are predominantly black. They are also a slander against the United States, the least racist country in history, and against black Americans, the vast majority of whom are successful and law-abiding citizens.

Now the Biden administration has embraced the false narrative of “systemic racism” and “white supremacy,” which supposedly infect every aspect of American life, using it to justify a witch hunt for “domestic terrorists.” Most Americans, black and white, know in their bones that this portrayal of their country is a lie. An unflinching and courageous accounting, I Can’t Breathe is the urgently needed proof that they are right.


Overview
Introduction
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Filed Under: Book, New, Race

Overview to Radical Son: Second Edition

by David Horowitz

“David Horowitz’s political pilgrimage from a Sixties radical to a Reagan conservative—and the friends and enemies he has made along the way—makes for a very interesting, very compelling story. Speaking as a conservative: it’s much better to have David Horowitz with you than against you. Radical Son demonstrates why.” — William J. Bennett, Author of “The Moral Compass”

“Watch out all of you statist shills and racialist hucksters out there who think you have gotten away with murder and mayhem over the last five decades, with alibis and applause from the media and the academy: David Horowitz has got your number and your jugular. In the first great American autobiography of his generation, this ardent writer on the ramparts remorselessly tracks them all down, going deep into the lairs of the professional liars of the left—the guilty and the gulled, the sadistic and the philanderous, the vain and the vicious—and strips away their tawdry veneer of glamour and idealism to reveal the vile truth—about the Black Panthers and the rest of the revolutionary felons and felines, and finally, in gut-wrenching candor, himself.”  — George Gilder

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Overview to I Can’t Breathe

by David Horowitz

The Truth about the Black Lives Matter Martyrs

In his latest salvo in the battle for America’s survival, David Horowitz exposes the racial hoax that is spawning riots and dividing the nation. Examining the twenty-six most notorious cases of police “racism”—from Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown to George Floyd and Breonna Taylor—Horowitz demonstrates that Black Lives Matter has lied about every one of them in its quest to break down law and order, fuel race hatred, and destroy America.

In case after case, the lies and mythmaking break down under Horowitz’s scrutiny. Even the chief prosecutor in the George Floyd case was forced to admit that he had no evidence of racial bias, while Breonna Taylor, the longtime accomplice of a major drug dealer, was killed when she and her boyfriend resisted arrest and fired a weapon at the police.

The unchallenged myths about racist murders by the police have brought mayhem and crime to our cities, where the victims are predominantly black. They are also a slander against the United States, the least racist country in history, and against black Americans, the vast majority of whom are successful and law-abiding citizens.

Now the Biden administration has embraced the false narrative of “systemic racism” and “white supremacy,” which supposedly infect every aspect of American life, using it to justify a witch hunt for “domestic terrorists.” Most Americans, black and white, know in their bones that this portrayal of their country is a lie. An unflinching and courageous accounting, I Can’t Breathe is the urgently needed proof that they are right.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Radical Son: Second Edition

by David Horowitz

Overview

Radical Son is one of the best political memoirs I’ve read. Though it is really a love story—one man becomes passionately enamored with freedom, responsibility, and reason. Or maybe it’s a book about faith healing, a true account of how belief in human dignity and individual rights cures blindness, folly, and hatred. Anyway, everyone who was ever involved with or influenced by the New Left should read David Horowitz’s words, and then eat their own. I think the last political book that affected me this strongly was Hayek’s Road to Serfdom.” — P.J. O’Rourke, Author of “Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut”

“David Horowitz’s political pilgrimage from a Sixties radical to a Reagan conservative—and the friends and enemies he has made along the way—makes for a very interesting, very compelling story. Speaking as a conservative: it’s much better to have David Horowitz with you than against you. Radical Son demonstrates why.” — William J. Bennett, Author of “The Moral Compass”

“Watch out all of you statist shills and racialist hucksters out there who think you have gotten away with murder and mayhem over the last five decades, with alibis and applause from the media and the academy:

Radical Son: Second Edition

David Horowitz has got your number and your jugular. In the first great American autobiography of his generation, this ardent writer on the ramparts remorselessly tracks them all down, going deep into the lairs of the professional liars of the left—the guilty and the gulled, the sadistic and the philanderous, the vain and the vicious—and strips away their tawdry veneer of glamour and idealism to reveal the vile truth—about the Black Panthers and the rest of the revolutionary felons and felines, and finally, in gut-wrenching candor, himself.”  — George Gilder


Overview
Introduction
Reviews
Buy Now

Filed Under: Book, Horowitz Memoirs, New

Mortality and Faith

by David Horowitz

Overview

Mortality and Faith is the second half of an autobiography of David Horowitz whose first installment, Radical Son, was published more than twenty years ago. It completes the account of his life from where the first book left off to his seventy-eighth year.

In contrast to Radical Son whose focus was his political odyssey, Mortality and Faith was conceived as a meditation on age, and on our common progress towards an end which is both final and opaque. These primal facts affect all we see and do, and force us to answer the questions as to why we are here and where we are going with conjectures that can only be taken on faith. Consequently, an equally important theme of this work is its exploration of the beliefs we embrace to answer these questions, and how the answers impact our lives.  

Mortality and Faith

Overview
Introduction
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Filed Under: Book, Horowitz Memoirs, New

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