Navigating the left

David Horowitz, a radical turned conservative author and activist, has created a Web site, DiscoverTheNetwork.org, which he describes as “a navigation tool for identifying, mapping and defining the left and its elaborate and extensive political network.”

In a telephone interview from his Los Angeles home, Mr. Horowitz discussed the idea for the site:

Question: You distinguish between liberalism and “the left.” Why is that distinction important?

Answer: Historically, it’s very important. … In the early ‘70s, Norman Podhoretz, who really qualifies as a liberal, was upset at the way his party under [1972 presidential candidate Sen. George] McGovern was opting out of the Cold War — much as the Democratic Party today has opted out of the war for freedom in Iraq.

When Podhoretz began saying that Democrats had betrayed the tradition of John Kennedy and Harry Truman, a Marxist named Michael Harrington labeled Podhoretz and those who supported him “neoconservatives” — that’s the origin of the term. The New York Times, The Washington Post and the network news followed suit.

Soon, pro-communist leftists like Angela Davis and Tom Hayden were being referred to as “liberals” by the media, and liberals like Norman Podhoretz and Jeane Kirkpatrick were being referred to as “neoconservatives.” … So, to understand our present situation, I felt you have to try to restore accurate political labels. And that’s partly what my new Web site, DiscoverTheNetwork.org, is about.

You can’t really call people who are for redistribution of income, who are AWOL in the war for freedom, who are for racial preferences and unlimited government, liberals. But that’s what too many people do.

Q: What made you feel that there was a need for a site like this?

A: I was first inspired by these leftist sites, because every one of them has smeared me, along with other conservatives, one way or another. I was aware of how frequently these left-wing Web sites, for instance People for the American Way’s “Right Wing Watch,” are the sources for the attacks on anybody on the conservative side.

For 20 years, I dreamed of writing a book about the left, based on the reality I carry around in my head, as somebody who spent decades on the left or studying it. … The Web provides a wonderful format, because you can put up hundreds of tables of contents, indexes and links, and you can even provide visual maps, which will show you the network on one screen. …

What I’ve shown is that there are only a couple of degrees of separation between anybody on the left and the terrorists — and that includes people in the Democratic Party, even those who are anti-terrorist.

For example, the coalition of civil liberties groups that attacked the USA Patriot Act are thoroughly penetrated by pro-terrorist radicals based in organizations like the National Lawyers Guild and the Center for Constitutional Rights. This doesn’t mean that every Democrat or every Republican who opposes the USA Patriot Act is a “useful idiot.” … But it does mean that they need to be more mindful of the arguments they are being presented with and supporting.

Q: You have documented the Marxist backgrounds of several leading anti-war groups and individuals. Why do you think the media have routinely ignored these connections?

A: This is the beauty of the site: On one page, you get a list of every major anti-war organization and each listing is a link to a profile of the individual group, and each group is connected to a map icon, which, if you click on it, opens up a diagram that shows all the other groups with radical agendas … that they are connected to.

The fact that the two major peace organizations, International ANSWER and the Coalition for Peace and Justice, are headed by easily identifiable communists, was known to the mainstream media, specifically the New York Times. Because the New York Times is essentially a fellow-traveling institution of the left, it chose not to mention this fact. …

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