Saturday, October 09, 2010

The Grauniad on the EDL and the Tea Parties

I’m not going to examine the latest from The Guardian in any detail, since it’s really just more of the same. I’m just posting this article to point out the extent to which the leftist press are using the websites of ICLA and 4Freedoms — not to mention American Counterjihad sites — as sources for their reporting.

As you read through this, see if you come to the same conclusion I did: The Gnudaria doesn’t have a clue about what’s going on. They read our blogs and our forums, and they quote our words, but it’s like a deaf person reading a musical score — they have no real sense of what it all means. This is especially true of their account of what is going on here in the USA, for which they have a thoroughly tin ear:

English Defence League forges links with America’s Tea Party

As the far-right group marches in Leicester, details are emerging of growing contacts with extremist US groups in a ‘war on Islamification”


The English Defence League, a far-right grouping aimed at combating the “Islamification” of British cities, has developed strong links with the American Tea Party movement.

An Observer investigation has established that the EDL has made contact with anti-jihad groups within the Tea Party organisation and has invited a senior US rabbi and Tea Party activist to London this month. Rabbi Nachum Shifren, a regular speaker at Tea Party conventions, will speak about Sharia law and also discuss funding issues.

The league has also developed links with Pamela Geller, who was influential in the protests against plans to build an Islamic cultural centre near Ground Zero. Geller, darling of the Tea Party’s growing anti-Islamic wing, is advocating an alliance with the EDL. The executive director of the Stop Islamisation of America organisation, she recently met EDL leaders in New York and has defended the group’s actions, despite a recent violent march in Bradford.

Geller, who denies being anti-Muslim, said in one of her blogs: “I share the EDL’s goals… We need to encourage rational, reasonable groups that oppose the Islamisation of the west.”

Devin Burghart, vice-president of the Kansas-based Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights, said: “Geller is acting as the bridge between the EDL and the Tea Party. She plays an important role in bringing Islamophobia into the Tea Party. Her stature has increased substantially inside the Tea Party ranks after the Ground Zero mosque controversy. She has gained a lot of credibility with that stuff.”

Details of the EDL’s broadening aspirations came as about 1,000 supporters yesterday gathered to demonstrate in Leicester, which has a significant Muslim population. Home secretary Theresa May banned marches in the city last week but the EDL said its protest would proceed, raising fears of violence. Parts of Leicester were cordoned off to separate a counter-protest from Unite Against Fascism. Officers from 13 forces were on hand to maintain order.

The Tea Party is expected to be an influential force in America’s mid-term elections. Last month their candidate Christine O’Donnell romped to the Republican nomination in Delaware, following a stream of populist rightwing candidates who carry the movement’s endorsement. Burghart says anti-Islamic tendencies have become far more marked in the grassroots organisation: “As we move farther and farther away from the Tea Party origins, that were ostensibly around debt and bail-outs, social issues like Islamophobia are replacing that anger, that vigour. The idea that there is a war between Islam and the west is becoming commonplace.”

Another Tea Party-associated grouping, the International Civil Liberties Alliance, which campaigns against Sharia law, confirmed that EDL leaders have made “contacts with members of important organisations within the American counter-jihad movement”. A statement said: “It seems now that America and Europe are acting as one, and united we can never fail.”

With the Tea Party said to benefit from millions of dollars of funding from conservative foundations, experts warn an alliance between the EDL and extremist elements within the US movement could allow the English group to invest in wider recruitment and activism.

Shifren, a Californian senate candidate, said Britain’s Jewish community should rally behind the EDL: “The Jewish community is paralysed with fear, exactly what most radical Muslim agitators want. The people of England are in the forefront of this war – and it is a war. One of the purposes of this visit is to put the kibosh on the notion in the Jewish community that they cannot co-operate with the EDL, which is rubbish.”

The EDL’s website relaunched briefly last week with new US links. Currently shut down for “maintenance”, the site featured prominent links to a site called Atlas Shrugs, which is run by Geller, and another US-based site, Jihad Watch, which compiles negative news coverage of Islamic militancy.

In addition, two members of the EDL leadership, a British businessman called Alan Lake who is believed to fund the group and a man known by the alias Kinana, are regular contributors to web forum 4Freedoms. The forum claims to be “organising US activities” and has links to the anti-jihad group, American Congress for Truth, which in turn has supporters within the Tea Party.

Lake is also believed to have been in touch with a number of anti-Islamic Christian evangelical groups in the US. One posting by Lake on 4Freedoms warns that the UK of the future will start to fragment into Islamic enclaves. Lake, believed to be a principal bankroller of the EDL, which claims to be a peaceful, non-racist organisation, is understood to be keen on the possibility of setting up the UK equivalent of the Tea Party. At an event organised by the Taxpayers’ Allliance last month, US Tea Party organisers outlined how the movement emerged last year, partly in protest at the US bank bail-out.

Those present included Freedom Works and the Cato Institute, one of the Tea Party’s main backers. However, Simon Richards, director of the Gloucestershire-based Freedom Association, which is looking at developing a pseudo-Tea Party movement in the UK, said he was concerned the project could be hijacked by elements such as the EDL. Nick Lowles of anti-fascist organisation Searchlight said: “The EDL is an integral part of an international campaign against Islam. While some are fighting in a cultural and political arena, the EDL are taking it to the streets. The images of the EDL allegedly taking on Muslim fundamentalists on the streets of Britain is also delighting right wing religious organisations in US.”



Hat tip: 1683.

20 comments:

Van Grungy said...

http://www.thelocal.se/29458/20101006/

I had to share this because you understand the significance...

Jack said...

E E EDL E E EDL !!!!

ZZMike said...

"... plans to build an Islamic cultural centre near Ground Zero ..."

That's an odd euphemism for "mosque".

The question Muslims seem to be asking is, "Why cannot we destroy your city and then build a mosque there? After all, we did it with the Dome of the Rock (on the site of old Solomon's Temple), the Hagia Sophia (a church before it was a mosque), a 9th-Century Hindu temple in Yogyakarta (Indonesia), ...".

Ray Boyd said...

What's needed is a Political wing of the EDL fronted by well spoken people who will be able to appeal to the middle classes.

In 1990 I was part of the English anti-poll tax movement and although the MSM only ever highlighted the left wing thugs rioting in the streets there was a significant number of centre/right/conservative middle class people on the peaceful side of the movement.

We need these people now to assist the EDL on the perceived as "moderate" front because the MSM will always portray those EDL people who are brave enough to go on the streets as troublemakers.

Juniper in the Desert said...

Excellent post, the bit about how they are like deaf people is perfect.

My parents are examples of this.

Logic, truth, reality will never impinge on these graun-bots until the rusty blade is at their throats.

@Ray, there are a number and we are growing. but this is a true grassroots movement and that is how it will grow, steady and strong.

Juniper in the Desert said...

Quote from above article:"The EDL’s website relaunched briefly last week with new US links. Currently shut down for “maintenance”, the site featured prominent links to a site called Atlas Shrugs, which is run by Geller, and another US-based site, Jihad Watch, which compiles negative news coverage of Islamic militancy."

That is typical. They are (also) totally blind to the garbage they write: go on morons, show us some POSITIVE news coverage of islamic militancy! They are the same as the muslims, putting out lies and taqqiya!

A Conservative Teacher said...

The far-left (communists, socialists, and dictators) ARE the modern-day Democractic Party. They're no longer 'aligned'- they own and control it. Wake up Democrats- it isn't the same party as your youth!

Nick said...

Oh dear, someone is running negative news coverage of Islamic militancy. Tsk, tsk, we can't have that now, can we?

Michael Servetus said...

".....another US-based site, Jihad Watch, which compiles negative news coverage of Islamic militancy."

As opposed to the positive suff they do I suppose. These people are out of their minds.

The negative in the coverage is the negative that the militants are doing not the coverage. This just shows how unclear the thinking is of the so called left.

AmPowerBlog said...

American Power tracked-back with, "Cartoonist Ted Rall Calls for Communist Revolution: 'I Would Like to See a Completely Leftist Proletariat Dictatorship'".

Zenster said...

Michael Servetus: The negative in the coverage is the negative that the militants are doing not the coverage. This just shows how unclear the thinking is of the so called left.

Yes and no. There actually is a negative component that exists outside the deleterious aspects of "Islamic militancy" (a redundancy if ever there was one).

Another significantly negative element in Jihad Watch's coverage of Islam involves how that site's unblinking scrutiny of Islam deconstructs numerous favored narratives of the Left.

Islam's claim of being the Religion of Peace™ is among the first casualties that limp out of the arena.

Moral Relativism follows soon thereafter along with its conjoined twin, Cultural Relativism.

Stripped of her fawning retinue, Multiculturalism, the Grande Dame of Liberalism, begins to totter and stumble.

Finally, Political Correctness, the crooked referee in this rigged little folderol starts to look a bit queasy and backs off of the sidelines as well.

With these structural underpinnings yanked out from beneath the Left's Big Lie™ about Islam, Muslims and Liberals alike begin to get a little squirrely. Can you blame them? They've been left outside in a hurricane wearing little more than a Kleenex™ raincoat.

As Juniper in the Desert so succinctly notes:

… go on morons, show us some POSITIVE news coverage of islamic militancy!

There is no other-side-of-the-coin in the Left's con game of "heads I win, tails you lose". When challenged to a battle of wits they suddenly find themselves to be unarmed and tend to get more than a trifle resentful about it.

TOUGH NOOGIES!

Vlad Z. said...

I wonder if the dam will ever break on their control of all of the institutions of our society. They have lost the monopoly on information, but we're still a voice crying in the wilderness.

They still control all the offical organs of media: daily newspapers, TV, lots of radio, and the cultural organs like movies and celebrity culture.

They appear willing to use the power of the state to enforce their multicultural nightmare. Imagine a major political party leader being put on trail for his parties platform at the height of his electoral success.

Soap box - closed to us.
Ballot box - being taken away, systematicall.
Where's that third box I put away for just this day?

EscapeVelocity said...

Long Live the American Revolution!

Tea Party 2010!

EscapeVelocity said...

Wake up Democrats- it isn't the same party as your youth! --- Conservative Teacher

It hasnt been since 68-72. That is where the Reagan Democrats came from....they figured it out long ago.

EscapeVelocity said...

That is it Zenster.

Islam and Muslims are going to pull the rug out from under the entire house of Leftist cards.

Zenster said...

EscapeVelocity: Islam and Muslims are going to pull the rug out from under the entire house of Leftist cards.

I'm not sure that you have read my meaning correctly.

By the time Islam single-handedly deconstructs Liberalism, it may well be too late for all of us.

If you are suggesting that Leftist support for Islam can be used to deconstruct Liberalism, then that is another matter entirely.

The total hypocrisy of Liberal support for puritanical Islam is the ultimate invalidation of its ability to tolerate the intolerable. This brain dead sort of liberality must be caught out and branded for the incredibly dangerous tomfoolery that it is.

EscapeVelocity said...

If you are suggesting that Leftist support for Islam can be used to deconstruct Liberalism, then that is another matter entirely. --- Zenster

This.

This is why many on the Left hesitate in criticizing Islam and Muslims. They can see that, that legitimizes criticism of the core of their enforced dogma/doctrine, all of it. Multiculturalism, PC, Moral and Cultural Equivalence, the supression of the majority culture in European countries, subordinating it to all "Others."

It pulls the rug out of the zeitgeist and leaves the field wide open for the re-establishment of a revitalized and confident Western Euro Christian Civilization (and its many ethnic nationalist subgroups)....in a positive patriotic invigorated manner.

In this, Islam may be doing us a favor. No other groups are sufficiently obnoxious with rigid dogma of supremacy and domination (and the power to back it in 57 nations, 1/6th of the world population and territory).

Islamic immigration may in the end be a huge net positive, after all the ugliness is out of the way, as the key to shattering the Western Left's guilt tripping stranglehold on Euro peoples.

That is what I mean.

1389 said...

Everyone who has taken a strong stand against the Islamization of any modern western nation has been libeled, vilified, and demonized.

Some have had to pay with their lives.

1389 said...

@Zeke,

The next box is "jury" ... do a google for "jury nullification".

The final box is "ammo" - and there are always efforts to close off that one. The survivalists on the intertoobz suggest stocking up whenever possible. But that takes more money than most people have these days.

Unknown said...

I would love to forge a link between the EDL and the Tea Party. I am the president of the Brooklyn Tea Party. And we have been taking on local mosques.

Please see this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-tGZXybJ00

And if you know folks interested in forging an alliance, please connect them with me. My contact info is at the bottom right of my website,
www.culturism.us

Thanks, John Press, Ph.D