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Joseph Farah, columnist, editor and founder of the online news and opinion site WorldNetDaily, is scheduled to speak at the* Stanford Review’s* reunion on January 30. A staunch Christian, Farah inveighs against statism and moral relativism. In describing himself, he says, “Like the old town crier, I’m hoping to wake up Americans and give them the news.”
Farah has strongly criticized entities that are popular among Stanford students: Barack Obama, Google, and Wikipedia. In addition to his criticism of Obama’s “statist” policies, Farah is an outspoken “birther,” one who challenges Obama’s claim to being a natural-born U.S. citizen, and thus his eligibility to be President. In Farah’s January 9, 2010 column headlined “Hawaiian? Or lyin’?”, he offered a $15,000 charitable gift to the hospital found on Obama’s “long-form birth certificate,” and a $10,000 reward to anyone providing proof he or she was present at Obama’s birth.
In his 2006 book “Stop the Presses!” Farah turned Google’s motto, “Don’t be evil,” back on itself, suggesting Google itself is “evil.” He indicts the world’s largest Internet search engine for allegedly: censoring searches on democracy in China while providing information on dissidents to its repressive regime, retaining American users’ Internet searches for two years and seeking ever-increasing amounts of personal information, and “blocking ads attacking Bill and Hilary Clinton but welcoming ads attacking Bush and other Republican leaders.” Farah also notes with irony that, “The company, one of the great free enterprise success stories of the decade, gives nearly all of its political donations to those who seek to rein in and regulate capitalism,” such as Democratic Party organizations and MoveOn.org.
Last week, Google finally threatened to leave China or allow uncensored search results, after uncovering what it called a “highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China aimed at accessing the gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.”
Farah has a long-standing feud with Wikipedia. A recent column in WorldNetDaily is titled “Still awaiting an apology from Wikipedia.” In it, Farah observes hypocrisy in Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales’ December 29, 2009 Wall Street Journal column “lecturing the cyberworld on the need for ‘civility’ in Internet communications,” despite its publication of, in Farah’s words, “blatantly libelous statements” about him.
In his Wikipedia “biography,” Farah, who is of Lebanese and Syrian lineage, has been called, “a Zionist Twit and Jew-loving Pig,” a “homophobe,” a “homosexual,” a “white supremacist,” “member of the Ku Klux Klan,” one who “enjoys chowing down on babies” and who allegedly had an affair with a prominent female columnist.
Farah claims, “some people actually believe what they read at Wikipedia,” causing real-world consequences. “Relationships have been hurt. Revenues have been lost,” he states. He adds that dozen of others have experienced a similar “pattern of abuse.” His WorldNetDaily legal defense fund is currently pursuing action against Wikipedia.
Farah not only lambastes liberals and Democrats. His book *Taking Back America *was published in 2003, during the Bush administration. In it, he said Americans faced an unresponsive “one-party” political system, an establishment propaganda machine posing as a free press, and cultural institutions—educational, entertainment, and others—which affirm materialism and an all-powerful secular state.
In 2008, Farah wrote a book titled None of the Above in which he recommended a protest vote rather than endorsing either McCain or Obama. He considered both to be hopelessly compromised products of a broken political system. His solution? He urges Americans to revolt, reject business as usual, and reclaim the rights guaranteed in the Constitution. He proposes abolishing the income tax, withdrawing from international institutions, repealing gun laws, and ending federal funding for housing, education, and the arts.
Last week, Farah was announced as a speaker at the first National Tea Party Convention, to be held February 4-6 in Nashville, at which Sarah Palin is slated to give the keynote speech. Perhaps those who attend Farah’s talk at *The Stanford Review *reunion on January 30 will get a preview of his Tea Party Convention speech. Whatever Farah chooses to speak about at Stanford, chances are he will be anything but boring.
