The noted blogger Fjordman is filing this report via Gates of Vienna.
For a complete Fjordman blogography, see The Fjordman Files. There is also a multi-index listing here.
A note from Baron Bodissey: Fjordman attended the Counterjihad summit in Brussels last month. Although he did not speak himself, he was held in the same high esteem as Bat Ye’or, David Littman, Robert Spencer, Andrew Bostom, and all the other accomplished people who did speak.
Fjordman is one of the finest minds of the Counterjihad, and possibly the single best synthesizer of jihad-related information that we have. It has been a great honor to be able to present his writings here, and we will continue to post whatever he sends us.
One of the reasons the Counterjihad will be victorious is that we have Fjordman on our team.
I recently announced my intention to take a long break from posting at the website Little Green Footballs due to the ongoing controversy regarding the participants in the counter-Jihad in Europe. Shortly after, Charles Johnson announced that Fjordman was “taking a permanent break. After the misrepresentations he’s posted about me and my views, despite being corrected many times, he’s not welcome at LGF.” Just out of curiosity, and with no intention of posting anything, I tried to log in to my account at LGF and discovered that it was blocked. I’ve now been officially banned from LGF, after having posted comments there at irregular intervals for several years.
I have a few unofficial rules I try to stick to when I write essays. The first one is that I should cooperate with as many different people as possible, religious or non-religious, right-wingers or left-wingers (yes, a few sensible left-wingers do exist, even if you have to dig for them) provided I think they have a sensible approach and contribute to combating the global Jihad. The other one is that since I write under the pseudonym Fjordman and not my real name, I try as much as possible to refrain from criticizing those who make significant contributions while using their real names. I will have to deviate somewhat from these rules here because, frankly, I feel that I don’t have much of a choice in this particular case. I cannot pretend that what has happened during the last few weeks didn’t happen, and I have to write some kind of response since the rift between me and LGF now has become permanent. So here goes.
Whenever a previously good relationship breaks down, it can be difficult to remember why it used to be good in the first place. I initially signed up to Little Green Footballs because it was, and still is, one of the best sites on the web to dig up news about the global Jihad. Charles Johnson has done an excellent job at this, and many people have gained more insight from stories posted at his website. One should give credit where credit is due. Johnson has also linked to some of my essays in the past, and I have no doubt gained readers via the network connected to LGF, for which I am grateful. Although the comments section there can be a noisy place and frequently more entertaining than actually enlightening, there are a number of individual posters there that I still respect. So far so good. Now comes the bad part.
I am deeply disappointed by how Charles Johnson has handled this situation. It was dishonest when he presented the Vlaams Belang in Belgium as refusing to denounce the Holocaust. The truth is that the European Union is directly responsible for much of the resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe, both by importing Muslims and by appeasing Jihad at home and abroad. The EU hardly cares about live Jews, certainly not about dead ones. The Holocaust is shamelessly exploited as an excuse for creating an artificial superstate and above all for imposing restrictions on free speech for everybody who wants to oppose this project. That’s what the VB objected to in this case.
Believing what the Eurabian establishment says is like taking the Chinese Communist Party at face value when they denounce political dissidents in China. In fact, it’s worse. Even the CCP doesn’t import millions of Muslims who attack the native population. The European Union does, in a coordinated attempt to destroy the national cultures from Italy via Belgium to Britain. The EU’s policy of deliberately Islamizing the European continent represents one of the greatest betrayals in the history of Western civilization. There is no other continent on the planet today where the indigenous peoples are being systematically deprived of their heritage, displaced in their own cities and subject to violence and abuse with the active involvement of their own authorities, yet where this is celebrated as a good thing in the media.
Members of the Vlaams Belang were harassed by the police on behalf of the Eurabian establishment during a peaceful demonstration against the Islamization of Europe in Brussels on September 11th this year. If I recall correctly — and I will correct this if I don’t — LGF did not link to this incident, despite the fact that most other anti-Jihad websites deemed it to be important. Why not? Has Charles Johnson held antipathies against the VB for some time?
- - - - - - - - -
James Lewis speculates whether Eurabian authorities are planting disinformation in this case: “I would guess that Paul Belien and the writers for Brussels Journal are really decent people. They are constantly smeared by the Belgian Left, which is practically a proof of their personal probity. But they have some unfinished business.” He also states that the “Vlaams Belang should clean up its public image, and explicitly denounce suspicious characters. The political benefits of doing that are clear. It is also the right and proper thing to do.”
Splitting Belgium, the ideological and geographical heart of the EU, is the policy of the Vlaams Belang. This would contribute significantly to undermining the EU and, by extension, Eurabia. However, out of all the information published by LGF, a lot of which is nonsense or outdated or both, the one piece of information that I disliked the most was VB’s connection to Jean-Marie Le Pen from the FN in France through the Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty group at the European Parliament. I don’t like Le Pen at all and consider it to be poor judgment by the VB to have even a formal link to that party. They should seriously consider cutting that link in the future. It’s not helpful.
That being said, I’m not impressed by the lopsided coverage Little Green Footballs has displayed regarding the political situation on my continent. LGF linked to a post by the blog Islam in Europe which claimed that right-wing extremists and neo-Nazis were not just as dangerous as Muslims, but in fact a greater threat.
I don’t see how anybody can possibly claim this. Non-Muslims in Europe who want to fight against Islamization are up against the cultural, political and media elites in their own countries, as well as the European Union, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which is the largest voting block at the United Nations, and finally the entire Islamic world backed up by Saudi petrodollars. If you seriously believe that a few scattered and generally disliked groups of neo-Nazis represent a greater threat to freedom than the Alliance of Evil I just described then your understanding is fundamentally out of tune with reality. The only theoretical reason why more people would embrace extreme right-wing groups is if they feel cornered and have nobody else to turn to. That’s exactly what we’re trying to avoid.
The post by Islam in Europe, which was linked to approvingly by LGF, mentioned a brutal attack against peaceful anti-Jihadists in Denmark and referred to them as “right-wing extremists.” I was genuinely appalled by this and wrote a comment protesting against it: “This wasn’t a ‘clash between right wing and left wing extremists,’ it was a brutal, totally unprovoked and in fact near-fatal assault by left-wing thugs on peaceful protesters.”
After receiving a negative comment from one of the regulars at LGF, I stated: “I just pointed out that LGF links approvingly to a post which contains a twisted version of one of the most brutal attacks against anti-Jihadists I have seen in a long time. Frankly, I think it undermines the credibility of this website.” I meant that and I still do. It’s quite significant that Jihad Watch linked to this story whereas LGF refused to do so. I suspect this is because it demonstrated that besides Muslims, the most openly violent groups are currently extreme Leftists who frequently enjoy at least tacit approval for their actions by the political and media elites. Since this would discredit LGF’s campaign against the supposed threat posed by neo-Nazis, Johnson didn’t link to the story.
However, he did link to a story about how Muslims in Britain now claim that the UK is persecuting them and is becoming similar to Nazi Germany. As Johnson commented, “Britain should continue surrendering [to Islam], or risk becoming Nazi Germany. It’s such insanely overblown rhetoric that it’s hard to believe anyone takes it seriously.” I agree, it’s ridiculous. But the fact that even the British, who led the fight against Nazism, can be accused of becoming “Nazis” indicates that the word now is simply used to slime any person of European origins who wants to limit mass immigration. Has Charles Johnson reflected upon that fact, in light of the accusations of Nazi connections he himself is issuing so frequently these days?
Diana West, who has consistently been one of the most sensible American observers of the global Jihad, calls the Vlaams Belang “freedom fighters” and wonders whether some people have got Nazis on their brains, despite the fact that WW2 ended decades ago and the threats to freedom are of a very different nature today.
Bat Ye’or attended this CounterJihad Conference, together with Israeli politician Aryeh Eldad and others. Dr. Andrew G. Bostom held an excellent lecture based on his forthcoming book The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism. It is frankly absurd to talk about neo-Nazi connections among this philo-Semitic crowd. What I saw were many good, but concerned Europeans, and a few Americans, dedicated to preserving their freedom and heritage against Muslim colonization. I don’t see what’s so “racist” about that, and the label is starting to become rather annoying to Europeans who wonder why they are denied the right to fight for the lands and nations when everybody else is allowed to do so. There is a certain anti-European bias present at LGF sometimes.
After pushing Charles Johnson on the issue of whether it was OK for native Europeans to limit immigration in order to remain a majority in their own lands, he finally replied that yes, we do. That’s great. But then I suppose that Europeans who want to limit the greatest population movements in human history, which are destabilizing the entire continent as we speak, are not “white supremacists.” They are merely exercising their right to self-determination and self-preservation just like everybody else. I am, and will continue to be, a passionate supporter of Israel’s right to exist and to defend its people. I am also a supporter of the right of native Europeans to do the same thing. Why do so many among the LGF crowd think am I a good guy if I do the former and a bad guy if I do the latter?
The blogger Conservative Swede, one of the European attendees at the Counterjihad summit, commented: “Charles needs to block himself off from reality completely, to be able to uphold two contradicting things: his photo of Oriana Fallaci on the sidebar of his blog, while doing all in his power to bring down our conference (a conference so bad to him that he considers it a no-brainer that Oriana wouldn’t have attended, and considers it arrogance off-the-scale to even suggest the idea). Who will tell him about how the memorial fund started by Oriana’s friends handed out the Oriana Award at the conference? To Bat Ye’or.”
Regarding the Sweden Democrats, I questioned CJ’s use of the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia as a source. I use Wikipedia, too, but not in cases involving sensitive political matters because I don’t trust its credibility. What LGF has done here is a textbook case of how not to use it. Moreover, if Wikipedia “sucks” and is a “tool for moonbat character assassins” when others criticize Charles Johnson, how come it’s suddenly a reliable and credible source when CJ wants to criticize others? Johnson’s response to this criticism, which I consider to be legitimate and relevant, was to state that “I’ve lost all respect for the person posting as ‘Fjordman’.” Fine. He didn’t answer my question, though, probably because he couldn’t.
Still, Wikipedia is the least of the problems concerning this post. The other source regarding the Sweden Democrats was Expo, a notorious state-sponsored hard-Leftist organization specifically designed to muzzle any real debate about the country’s immigration policies. It has to be one of the least reliable sources in the entire country. It was founded and led by writer Stieg Larsson until his death in 2004, during which time it was sponsored by the Social Democratic government. Larsson was a Communist, rabidly anti-Christian, anti-Israeli and anti-American and met his wife during a support meeting for the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam. Moreover, the “racism” Expo has been exposing includes “Islamophobic bloggers,” which means websites similar to LGF.
The translator used for the Swedish Expo material is a poster calling himself (?) Truumax, who seems to think that the SD is a “racist” party. I asked Truumax whether it should be considered “racism” if native Swedes resist being turned into a minority in their own country, which they will become in a few decades if current the level of immigration continues. He said yes, that should “very much to be considered racism.” According to that definition, I suspect most people on the planet are racists. Truumax also claimed that ”it was the Ottoman empire that preserved the antique Greek philosophical works,” which indicates that he has absolutely no knowledge of history whatsoever and has accepted the pro-Islamic, Multicultural propaganda he has been presented without question. This person was treated by Charles Johnson as a credible source regarding Swedish politics. Meanwhile, CJ ignored me when I posted information about the political climate in Sweden.
I have for several years posted material at Little Green Footballs regarding Sweden, especially the enormous increase in the number of rapes, which is intimately linked to mass immigration in general and Muslim immigration in particular, but also about the city of Malmö, which is increasingly ruled by Muslim gangs. Charles Johnson has linked to some of my essays about this in the past. He thus knows that the full effects of Muslim immigration are being deliberately censored by Swedish media and covered up by Swedish authorities, the same authorities which sponsor the source he links to regarding the Sweden Democrats.
To his credit, Johnson did publish documents provided by party member Ted Ekeroth in defense of the Sweden Democrats. However, he has largely failed to link to information posted at the Gates of Vienna blog and the Center for Vigilant Freedom about the Vlaams Belang and the SD. Imagine if I wrote something about a controversial political party in the USA, didn’t know too much about the country, didn’t speak the language and yet linked to a Communist website sponsored by their enemies as my main source of information. That’s what Little Green Footballs has done in this case. It’s grossly dishonest and has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with a sensible debate about racism and anti-Semitism. Regardless of what you think of the SD, this use of sources, which would be unworthy even of a C-rated blogger far less one with an international reputation, is something I would otherwise have expected from a hard-Left website like Daily Kos. LGF’s credibility as a critic of dishonest journalism by the mainstream media has in my view suffered a severe blow from this.
Nobody, myself included, has ever denied that there were people involved in the Sweden Democrats in the early years who did have a shady background. The question is to what extent they have cleaned up the party later. I have been debating how to relate to them with others, including Bruce Bawer, in the past. My conclusion as of right now, which I have reached after considering the issue for several years, is that they are genuine in their efforts to become a legitimate party. The real extremists have their own party because they are not welcome in the Sweden Democrats. It is difficult to find a single decent party to vote for in that country, and if the Sweden Democrats are serious about their efforts to rout out anti-Semites, I think they should get a hearing. I don’t see why I cannot even talk to representatives of a peaceful, democratic party in a nation that is in the process of being overrun by Muslim colonization while Western governments not only talk to, but fund Islamic terrorist organizations.
When Charles Johnson says that “there are other alternatives to talk to” he is flat-out wrong. There are no viable alternatives to the Sweden Democrats for natives who want to protest against the disintegration of their country. There are a number of parties represented in parliament, and their political views range from being slightly to the left of Hillary Clinton — that would be the “conservatives” — to slightly to the left of Karl Marx. And no, that isn’t much of an exaggeration.
According to Jonathan Friedman, an American Jew living in Sweden, “no debate about immigration policies is possible, the subject is simply avoided. Sweden has such a close connection between the various powerful groups, politicians, journalists, etc. The political class is closed, isolated.” The elites are worried to see their power slip away and therefore want to silence critics, for instance the Sweden Democrats, a small party opposed to immigration: “It is a completely legal party, they just aren’t allowed to speak. (…) In reality, the basis of democracy has been completely turned on its head. It is said: ‘Democracy is a certain way of thinking, a specific set of opinions, and if you do not share them, then you aren’t democratic, and then we condemn you and you ought to be eliminated. The People? That is not democratic. We the Elite, we are democracy.’ It is grotesque and it certainly has nothing to do with democracy, more like a kind of moral dictatorship.”
Before the national elections in 2006, the established parties cooperated in boycotting the Sweden Democrats. In one of many similar incidents, around 30 members of the SD were attacked during a peaceful, private party. Brave “anti-Fascists” threw tear gas into the building, forcing people outside where they were beaten with iron bars and axes. Aggressive and sometimes violent harassment of critics of the country’s immigration policies has been going on for years while the authorities have largely turned a blind eye to the problem.
The girlfriend of a politician from the SD was attacked in 2007 at her home outside Stockholm. The woman was found bound with duct tape in the apartment block where she lives with Martin Kinnunen, chairman of the youth wing of the SD. Three men forced their way into the apartment and held the 19-year-old at knife point. Kinnunen blames the media for systematically portraying the SD as monsters and thus for legitimizing aggression against them.
The extreme Leftist organization Antifascistisk Aktion (AFA) openly brag about numerous attacks against persons who get their full name and address published on their website. According to them, this is done in order to fight against capitalist exploitation. Their logic goes something like this: If you protest against Muslim immigration, you suffer from Islamophobia, which is almost the same as xenophobia, which is almost the same as racism. And racists are almost Fascists and Nazis, as we all know, and they shouldn’t be allowed to voice their opinions in public. Hence, if you protest against being assaulted or raped by Muslims, you are evil and need to be silenced.
If a Swede is really lucky, he will first get battered by Muslims, and then beaten up a second time by his own Leftists for objecting to being beaten the first time. The state does next to nothing to prevent either. Native Swedes who resist a mass immigration that will render them a minority in their own country within a couple of generations have been classified as “racists,” and racists are for all practical purposes outside of the protection of the law.
AFA members demonstrated alongside the Swedish police, the Swedish government and the Swedish media establishment during Pride Week in Stockholm in August 2007. At the very end of the Pride Parade marched a group of black-clothed and masked representatives of AFA. Adjacent to them marched a number of policemen, including members of the Swedish Gay Police organization. AFA proudly announced on their website that they had beaten up and hospitalized a couple of individuals deemed to be insufficiently tolerant.
Meanwhile, the Social Democrats, the largest political party in Sweden and the dominant political force in the country for most of the previous century, have decided that the road to power lies in importing voters, a strategy adopted by many of their sister parties in Western Europe. In 2007 they created a formal alliance with representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood, for the mutual benefit of both. The MB has spawned several Islamic terrorist organizations and is sponsored by Saudi Arabia in their attempts to impose sharia worldwide.
The Swedish Social Democrats were pro-Fascist and pro-Nazi during the 1930s and 40s and appeased the Communists during the Cold War. They have consistently supported some of the worst ideologies in human history. Yet they are the good guys, the poster boys of the political Left throughout the world. Now they forge an alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood, another organization with close ideological ties to the Fascist and Nazi movements. At a time when native Swedes are being raped, stabbed and killed by Muslim gangs, the Social Democrats agree to continue allowing Muslims to colonize the country in exchange for their votes. In the old days this would be called treason. Now it’s called tolerance. It’s remarkable how similar the two concepts have become.
As Christine writes at the Center for Vigilant Freedom, “Johnson is an idealist- more, a utopian — in his goals for political parties in Europe. It’s worth noting again that the Vlaams Belang and Sweden Democrats are both the most pro-Israel parties in their countries, that both have taken strong stands against anti-semitism and racism, that extremists have left or been kicked out of both parties because of these policies, and that each is the primary voice (the sole voice in the case of SD) arguing for controls on immigration, standards for assimilation and a stop to Islamisation. If Johnson’s recommended policies were to be applied, not just to the SD but to all political parties opposing Islamisation, all members and previous leaders would be banned — presumably indefinitely, since the evidence of association goes back a long way and seems to contaminate forever.”
It’s interesting to notice that this seemingly applies only to European political parties, not to American ones. Western governments are pushing for independence for a group of Jihadist thugs who recently wanted to create the Osama bin Laden mosque in Kosovo. This name was eventually changed for public relations reasons since the Albanians know they need American support. In June 2007 the visiting US President George W. Bush was hailed as a hero by a group of Albanians who also stole his watch. “Sooner rather than later you’ve got to say ‘Enough’s enough — Kosovo is independent,’” Bush told cheering Albanians.
In Kosovo, dozens of churches and monasteries have been destroyed following ethnic cleansing of Christian Serbs by the predominantly Muslim Albanians, all under the auspices of NATO soldiers, and the Muslims are not ungrateful. Kosovo Albanians plan to honor their “savior,” former US President Bill Clinton, by erecting a statue of him. During the American-led bombing of Serbia on behalf of Muslim Albanians in 1999, Saudi Prince Khaled Bin Sultan called on the US to do the same against Israel on behalf of Palestinians.
The writer Julia Gorin has warned that “An independent Kosovo will serve as a nod to secessionists worldwide,” and that “history will show what no one cares to understand: the current world war began officially in Yugoslavia.” It will also serve as a launching pad for Jihad activities against Europe and the West. Terrorist organization Al-Qaeda gained a strong foothold in the Balkans already in the 1990s. A video of Osama bin Laden meeting with two 9/11 hijackers revealed that the mass murderers were motivated by a desire to avenge Muslims... in Bosnia, where the USA went to war on behalf of Muslims.
Serge Trifkovic in his book The Sword of the Prophet documents how Yasser Arafat’s uncle Mohammad Amin al-Husayni cooperated closely with Nazi Germany in recruiting Bosnian and Albanian Muslims for Waffen SS units in the Balkans. Christian Serbs had to wear blue armbands, Jews yellow armbands. For Muslims, this was a Jihad against disobedient dhimmis, and thus a continuation of the Turkish genocide against Armenians a few years earlier, which was one of the inspirations for the Holocaust. More than a quarter of a million Serbs, Jews and Romani people (Gypsies) were killed by Muslim troops in Nazi service.
These Albanians are the very same people who US President George W. Bush, whose re-election was passionately supported by the LGF crowd, wants to grant independence. Shouldn’t the involvement by the Republican Bush Administration with anti-democratic, anti-Semitic thugs with strong ideological and historical Nazi connections be a cause for concern? Have the LGF crowd reflected over the fact that the only ethnic cleansing by Nazi-friendly groups that is going on in Europe right now is by Muslims against non-Muslim Europeans, and that this has received active American support? By Johnson’s own logic, shouldn’t that put both the Democratic and the Republican parties beyond the pale in the USA?
I also dislike how LGF uses the late Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn to justify their views. As Bruce Bawer has demonstrated in his book While Europe Slept, Fortuyn was virtually executed by the left-wing media and the Eurabian political establishment for being a “racist, Fascist and Nazi.” Dutch MP Geert Wilders, who lives with constant death threats from Muslims, claims that a climate of “hate and aggression” has been created in which someone might think that “illegal means are justified to stop me and my people.” Left-wing columnists dismiss him as “someone outside of the law, as the leader of a Fascist party, that is anti-democratic and similar in some respects to the Nazi’s,” he said.
Frankly, the treatment the lizards of Little Green Footballs has recently given to several people, Paul Belien of The Brussels Journal in particular, vaguely reminds me of the demonization Pim Fortuyn was subject to before he was attacked. It gives me a bad feeling to see that this now comes from a so-called “conservative” website, which in this case is acting in a manner virtually indistinguishable from the hard-Leftists and the Jihad-appeasing political elites they always like to condemn.
The author Richard Miniter disagrees with Johnson’s assessment of the VB and their alleged Nazi links: “I suspect that Charles Johnson has not met any of the Vlaams Belang leadership or even interviewed them. He is simply following a left-wing link. He does not offer evidence, based not on his own experience, reporting or careful deliberation, but simply links to web sites of virulent critics—virtually all of whom have not interviewed party leaders or spent any time understanding the nuances of Belgian politics. The blind leading the blind. These sites simply repeat a left-wing prejudice against the Vlaams Belang, which no matter how imperfect is not a bunch of neo-nazis.”
In response to this article, LGF reader marwan’s daughter commented that “It looks like the majority of the conservative blogosphere actually supports the side defending Vlaams Belang. I hope Charles isn’t the one booted off the anti-jihad wagon.” Charles Johnson then replied that “They can’t boot me off something I never jumped on.”
Now I’m confused. Is Johnson indicating that the supposed anti-Jihad website Little Green Footballs is not a part of the anti-Jihad struggle? That would be very interesting information for many of his readers, and it sure would explain a lot of his behavior over the past weeks.
Charles Johnson in a comment compared me to Charles Lindbergh, one of the most famous Nazi apologists in the United States. Since I have been among the most pro-Israeli bloggers on the European continent for some time and have repeatedly warned against rising anti-Semitism, I find this comparison grossly unfair, and I suspect some of Johnson’s former readers do so, too. After having witnessed the guilt-by-association tactics employed by Johnson against his opponents, it becomes almost comical to read his statement that “It’s very weird to see conservatives using the same tactics as leftists.”
As I said in the beginning, for several years Little Green Footballs has been one of the best websites on the Internet to find articles about the global Jihad. The one major problem I have had with the blog, long before this unfortunate public quarrel began, is that too many readers are still stuck with the illusion of a moderate Islam. I have said quite consistently that Islam isn’t reformable and that it is a dangerous waste of time and money to pursue such a policy. If you really believe that exporting democracy to Iraq could have worked out then you don’t understand the enemy. Saying this hasn’t always been popular, but I’m convinced it’s true.
Many LGF readers base their world view on the existence of a moderate Islam, which doesn’t exist, and on the existence of a large and rabid network of neo-Nazis in Europe, which also doesn’t exist. Neo-Nazi groups are generally quite marginal for the very simple reason that people don’t like them. I agree that they should be watched, but they are far down the list of enemies of freedom right now, behind Muslims, Leftists and the EU.
Since Charles Johnson, an American blogger, appears to believe that he is in a position to decide what Europeans should or shouldn’t be allowed to do in order to save their own continent from the ongoing Islamic conquest, I believe Europeans are also entitled to hear what kind of alternatives Mr. Johnson envisions if we are not allowed to cooperate with the likes of the Vlaams Belang and the Sweden Democrats.
Johnson has posted stories about aggression and Jihad support from Muslims across the world. Does he still believe that Islam is reformable? And if not, what does he suggest we do about it? I’ve made my position on this quite clear: No, Islam isn’t reformable. The only possible solution then, apart from a global war to the death which nobody wants, is to separate ourselves from the Islamic world as much as possible. And by “we” I mean non-Muslims in general, not just Westerners. This entails completely and permanently stopping Muslim immigration in any form. However, in the USA, Canada and Australia, and certainly in Europe, simply stopping Muslim immigration is no longer enough. Some of the Muslims who are already here need to be expelled. There is no way around this. No, I have never suggested expelling all of them, but the most hardcore ones who push for implementing sharia laws here need to be deported, yes.
If Charles Johnson thinks this is unacceptable, he is in essence saying that much of Europe is already lost. I want to resolve this dilemma as peacefully and civilized as humanly possible. Contrary to the Jihadists, I value human life, even that of my enemies. But I am here first and foremost to win, or simply to survive. Survival trumps ideological purity.
If the readers of Little Green Footballs have any good suggestions on to how I can roll back the Islamization of the West, I’m all ears. And I’m not being sarcastic, I really want to hear it. If Charles Johnson comes up with some good solutions, I’ll be happy to name my next son Charles. Hell, I’ll even name my next daughter Charles. But if he believes that not cooperating with the Vlaams Belang is more important than preventing Europe from falling to Islam, then, with respect, I think he is missing the bigger picture. And don’t give us the lecture about how there are “other alternatives.” No, there aren’t, so do us all a favor and stop pretending that there are.
143 comments:
I don't understand this huge backlash of resentment towards Charles and LGF for his opinion on that conference. Even if you think it's good to cooperate with some not-so-good people in order to achieve some success, I still think you'd have to accept a lot of the facts that Charles has presented. There are legitimate reasons to question that conference, and that's all that I've seen Charles say.
Darren, I assume you actually read the entire article? Most of the evidence charles presented was, to put it mildly, a steaming pile. The rest was dubious at best.
What I have seen Charles say isn't merely that there were reasons to question the conference, but that the conference made itself illegitimate by allowing these "racists" to attend. He has repudiated the first attempt to organise against the islamist threat and continues to repudiate that attempt with reference to the spectres and ghosts of nazis that only seem visible from a long, long way away.
Try reading the entire thing before mouthing off. Fjordmann deserves that much respect, if nothing else.
Now, to other matters. In a previous thread I posted, regarding Epaminodas's accusation of Paul Belin talking about "ethnic euros", that it was not, in fact, Paul Belien who said that but another writer entirely. I would like Epaminodas to acknowledge this and apologise to Mr Belien, just as I am going to apologise for being so rude to him in that thread. It was out of line and I'm sorry. I stand by what I said, I could simply have framed it better.
Darren, did you attend the conference?
I did. It was fine. Much better than LGF, too.
You can question the conference all you want. Or you can do something useful and go bonk some real enemy skulls :)
BTW, one of the gripes from Charles was the ITS group in the European Parliament, which he took as evidence that Vlaams Belang have some sort of sinister hidden agenda.
That group just collapsed. Doesn't exist anymore.
A good article Fjordman! Thank you for posting.
The problems you describe are to be seen also in the Netherlands.
I don't want the islamisation of this country too, but almost each month a new halal item is introduced.
This affair has demonstrated what is so dangerous about "neo-conservatives". I will define that term as I mean it: individuals with a left background (which is the default in you have been educated in the USA in the last 20 years) and nominal conservative beliefs. As paelo-conservatives have been pointing out since the inception of the Iraq War - the neo-conservative conception is essentially utopian.
Arab-Islamic countries can be converted to free market democracies if only given the chance. Obviously, we all know a lot better now.
But the utopian instincts remain.
Whether it is nominal Republican Governor Arnold signing on to billions of new spending "for the children" or squishy pundits like Charles at LGF losing their way in both cases, I think, the cause is the same.
Being a real conservative requires some study and clear thinking. It requires challenging easy assumptions and perhaps even making people uncomfortable.
The only group, finally, that Charles would ever willingly make uncomfortable is "liberals".
In that respect his is an analog of the many "conservative talkers" like Rush, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly.
Their long monologs are often amusing, as they typically pick on the most absurd over-reach of the cultural left. Or perhaps pound out support for the Republican political leadership in the USA.
In other words they are neo-conservatives as I have defined them.
They are easily confused about first things because they lacki background and depth in their thinking. They retain liberal reflexes, they retain habits of mind installed in them by the leftist society they have been and remain a part of.
When they are ultimately confronted with people who are more thoughtful and consistent they use the tools of the left, which they remain comfortable with.
Bullying, banning, ridicule, name calling.
The end result of this affair had beeen, for me, and many other fair minded readers a grave disapointment with Charles.
Still, I've never taken him that seriously. It would be impossible to 'follow' him as a political leader. It would be like trying to follow Bill O'Reilly. He has no plan, no concrete suggestions.
He is a freestyle blogger, that is all.
My suggestion is that with Fjordman's excellent post we all move on to another topic. This one is over. Charles is not a useful ally.
LGF is about amusing readers, providing one upmanship for water cooler chit-chat, and as we have clearly seen about boosting Charle's ego. It's a odd little cult of "lizards".
We really don't have time or space for such personality driven diversions in the important work we are about. Better to find out now who the confused seekers are and who are the trustworthy partners now.
Charles has made his choices. Given his obviosly limited abilities and goals I suppose they will serve him well.
As for myself, I've deleted LGF from my list of frequently read blogs, and really have no further interest in his opinion on anything.
Let's renew our commitment to doing what we know is right and focus on our long term goals, such as saving western civilization.
The fact that so many on the supposedly conservative side remain as brainwashed as Charles, and as open to blatent manipulation by leftists, means we will lose many more faux allies before the struggle is over.
Still, we remain. Let's move on!
Let's admit it: there is a lot of anti-european hatred in America. As well as there is a lot of anti-american hatred in Europe. Therefor we should support the attempts to bring both continent together, like what the anti-jihad conference was supposed to do. Johnson, is his silly self-righteousness actually disseminates old hatred. In this respect (only in that, don't misinterpret me) he strangely resembles LePen and the same people he is criticizing.
To underline the point Fjordman was making, I repost a recent comment left by Killgore Trout (one of CJ's finer henchmen) that typifies the lameness of their claims:
"Nothing about the current VB leadership marching the lay flowers on SS gaves, etc....
The list goes on and on."
The list of stupid infantile charges that is.
Paul Belien recently stated on the Atlas interview with Pamela Geller, about that wreath laying cerimony. For an example, Stefan Laureys, one of those SS soldiers buried there, originally went to Finland to fight on the Finnish front against the Soviets, when Finland was fighting for its life. At the time, Germany and the Soviets had a treaty.
Laurey's parents hid Jews from the Nazis, and their son, no anti-Semite, refused to fight on the western front against the Allied forces. He was later shot.
This man deserved a wreath. without proper knowledge about the history of the coutnry in question, all kinds of wrong headed assumptions can be made. Killgore Trout is just one of the many in the "echo chamber" at LGF
Charles Johnson is as important as a gnat on an elephant's ass in the struggle of Europe. Ignore lgf and Charles Johnson. If you do, he will dry up and blow away
Small correction - President Bush's watch wasn't stolen. Video showing he removed it himself is online:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_l12e5Oixk
Relieved and glad to see Fjordman's resolve remains intact. (Phew!)
Consider me firmly in the Hugh Fitzgerald camp - looking to revisit the Benes decree for separation of incompatible societies. Sharia mongers have no place in western democracies. This view clearly clashes with many at LGF. I have yet to see proof of 'moderation' in any way, and until then, I stand firm. As Mr. Hugh Fitzgerald stated recently -
Is it illegitimate for inhabitants of the Western or larger non-Muslim world to study these matters, and to raise these issues? Why? Is it illegitimate to discuss the proposition that one has a perfect right to defend the legal and political institutions that one's own society has received as a legacy, that others before one helped to create, over time, and that in every respect are flatly contradicted by what Islam inculcates? Is the individualism of the West, are our individual rights, those enshrined in the Bill of Rights, and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to be simply swept away, or to be subject to incessant attack by the adherents of a collectivist faith who do not believe in free speech, or in freedom of conscience, including the freedom to leave one faith for another, or to have no faith at all? Are these illegitimate questions?
And is it illegitimate to point out how frequently in history states and peoples have felt it necessary to expel others in their midst, and that it is a bit hasty to denounce all such efforts (though many certainly should be denounced), especially when one considers the reasons, the historical context, of the Benes Decree, which was adduced not as a model to follow, but as a case to study and ponder?
We in the West have an obligation to defend a civilizational legacy, even if many of us, individually, have not exactly proved ourselves worthy of it. And that includes considering measures that others have undertaken, to see if they provide lessons, any lessons at all, for us at this point in our endangered history. -posted by Hugh
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/017800.php#c438611
As for the fued . . .I felt dirty wading throught the threads at LGF recently. CJ's uncharacteristic assault on Fjordman was so unexpected and clearly unwarranted. When I saw CJ linking to Wiki - I thought I mistakenly wandered over to the Onion or perhaps I fell asleep and was dreaming. Good heavens, I prayed I was dreaming. deep sigh
The entire kerfluffle hasn't affected my opinion of the conference one iota. The Hurculean effort undertaken to pull this event off - especially against the current political climate - is not lost on us.
Congratulations to all involved. Perhaps, CJ will re-focus and address any further issues with questionable 'individuals' and not taint entire groups by association unnecessarily. No need to be counter-productive by undermining the singular best effort, to date, at addressing this nightmare.
Killgore Trout is just one of the many in the "echo chamber" at LGF
From a post above.
Many of the LGF camp have infected HotAir as well, including that one. I've noticed that none of these conservative sites have a plan, perhaps because to think of actual solutions to the problems faced by the West requires non-PC thinking.
One of the good things about this whole LGF Kerfuffle is that I have learned much more about European politics than I knew before...but at what price. Oh, how the mighty has fallen.
Thanks, Fjordman. Very good info that I think is good for Americans to know.
On the new-cons: "free market democracies"
They still retain the utopian communist belief in a single unified humanity. They have exchanged the planned economy for the style of economy that triumphed at the end of the cold war, the free market democracy. They think it's all things to all people, a kind of Fisher King. The new-cons are a perversion of western traditions and ideas, a perversion that is then projected in the form of "Islamofascism".
A question. You wrote:
> It was dishonest when he presented the Vlaams Belang in Belgium as
> refusing to denounce the Holocaust. The truth is that the European
> Union is directly responsible for much of the resurgence of
> anti-Semitism in Europe, both by importing Muslims and by appeasing
> Jihad at home and abroad."
While I agree with the second sentence, that the EU my have helped in importing Jihad and appeasing it abroad, what does that have to do with Vlaams Belang refusing to denounce the Holocaust or distance themselves from the regime that caused it?
If VB won't denounce and distance, that says something about them. If the EU continues its' import and appease policies, that says something about the EU - but nothing about VB. Just because one behaves badly isn't a license for the other to do so as well.
I am thinking of leaving LGF, as well. I don't think that it is racist for a country to want to retain it's National identity. I warned my relatives in Oslo, Norway of this very thing happening 15-20 years ago. They were smug in their condescending reply.
*I doubt they are smug today*
America is a multi-cultural country for the most part and has no problems with aliens changing its culture, customs and ways. The reason is that the changes come sloooooowly due to America's large population.
It's not this way, in Scandinavia. The population is much smaller and changes can/will/are happening quickly~!
Norway is Norway because it is filled with Norwegian people. Same for Denmark and same for Sweden. When a country is invaded by another group of people (by what means that invasion happens is not important), the people of that country have the right to resist. While I have NO TRUCK with fascists, I think it may be unfair to paint the whole group with one brush when it comes to the SD. I was on the fence for a while over this issue...then on Charles' side...but after seeing/hearing/reading more and more about what is happening in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, I'm beginning to see my fellow countryman's point of view. Perhaps Charles should learn to speak Norwegian or Swedish and hear it from the horse's mouth before he casts any more stones?
/just sayin', is all....
~Norsk Troll
I've noticed that none of these conservative sites have a plan, perhaps because to think of actual solutions to the problems faced by the West requires non-PC thinking.
Actually I think you'll find a lot of them are like me. Big on bombast and bravado but lacking something in the action department. I, at least, recognise my failings in this particular realm and I'm trying to correct them.
To all, I'm not sure it's a good idea to start talking about "neo-cons" as I see some people are doing. The definition of that word is vague and malleable, and you'll find people who self-identify as neo-conservative when they're actually classic liberal or old conservative, and who cannot be expected to react well to being treated as a lump.
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the - Web Reconnaissance for 11/140/2007 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...
Fjordman,
You quoted the article by James Lewis at the American Thinker...
political_black_ops_in_belgium
The very last paragraph has the solution to this entire arguement:
James Lewis: "So it may be sensible to ask conservatives elsewhere to prove their good intentions, just as we need to demand that the Democrats throw out their totalitarians. Maybe Paul Belien should clarify his position on these issues. Vlaams Belang should clean up its public image, and explicitly denounce suspicious characters. The political benefits of doing that are clear. It is also the right and proper thing to do.
So, just do it! Instead of railing on LGF and other sites that point out the problem -- VB and the SD should make a webpage denouncing "White Power", the Nazis, and all the trappings. Then you could just point to that page and it would take wind out of the sails of all the critics.
I'm sure folks such as Charles Johnson and Babazee would be more than happy to help you guys create such a page.
I've seen Islamists interviewed on TV. They come off spouting "Religion of Peace" claptrap. But if the interviewer specifically asks them to denounce terrorist organizations such as Hamas or Hezbullah -- the mask comes off. They can't do it.
If you specifically denounce them the arguements will be over. Then we can all go join together and get back to fighting the Islamofascists instead of each other.
For those of you who chose not to read the comments on the LGF thread addressing Fjordman's article, here's some representative remarks:
1) Fjordman FOADman
fixed
(FOAD = Fu<& Off and Die)
2) ....The problem is how to fight islamofascism, not how to create the FOURTH REICH OF THE SNOWWHITES.
3) Not that I give a flip about the Kos Kidz' affirmation, but has anybody waded in there to see what their reaction has been to Charles' principled stand against the Euro counter-jihadis allying themselves with white supremacists?
4) He (Fjordman) doesn't really want to deport just a few trouble making Muslims. He wants a White Europe. That means Asian, black and Jewish populations must be controlled. His population control has nothing to do with assimilation or ideology. It's based on skin color and genetics.
5) Charles doesn't believe it appropriate to associate the the "War On Terror" with Vlaams Blok, the Swedish Democrats, or other neo-fascist European parties.
Charles has backed up his belief with considerable evidence too. Fjordman won't (or more likely can't) refute any of it.
There's really nothing more to discuss and Fjordman needs to stop making a fool of himself.
6) Use of the Swastika is legally banned in most of Europe hence the contemporary use of the Odin's Cross and the various Teutonic runes by white power terrorists in it's stead.
7) Fjordman - what is wrong with you? they're nazis, you fool!
So, just do it! Instead of railing on LGF and other sites that point out the problem -- VB and the SD should make a webpage denouncing "White Power", the Nazis, and all the trappings. Then you could just point to that page and it would take wind out of the sails of all the critics.
They've done exactly that through the various refutations and answers they've left to Charles' slanders for the past month. They've condemned Nazism repeatedly. They've pointed out their philo-semitism and their support for Israel. What more can you possibly want?
LGF used to be one of my dailies, and I'd comment every now and then, but recently it's been losing its luster.
I realized that it's basically a cult of personality, which made posting comments there a pretty annoying venture if I happened to not agree with Charles 100%. If you post something there that makes it seem like you're not agreeing with Charles, then one of the regulars will say something like, "Hey, don't you come to Charles' place and spit on him!"
I don't really understand the fascination, because what does Charles do? Really. At least at places like Hot Air, bloggers like AllahPundit and Bryan sound off and write commentary which is usually very thought-provoking and makes for much more a much better comments section that's filled with more than "OTs" and echo-chambering. The setup of LGF is basically Drudge, but with comments. Post a link, and the massive community talks about it. Fair enough. I just don't understand the strong feelings so many people have. (And I've been checking out LGF since 2003, and I always go to Drudge just out of habit)
My point is, there's obviously a place for LGF, and it's still an all right site since I'm sometimes too lazy to go find those news stories on my own, but what's with the cult of personality? It's weird.
About Europe, I think that it'd be great for the individual countries to have their identities. As long as there's not widespread violence, what's so wrong with that? I wish the USA would just make English the national language at least, for crying out loud. Other than that, I'm not going pretend to know too much about all this, since I'm not from Europe and can't feel the prevailing moods there. I'm the type that calls "radical" Muslims fundamentalist Muslims (something even Charles and most of his Lizards don't even do) and think that the only solution is a massive reformation of Islam. But even then, who knows, really.
(Sorry about the rant. Just had to get it off my chest. It's 5.20 here in Oz, and I've been up all night reading all this stuff, so I'm sorry if my post seems nonsensical...)
Fritz, it's a nice idea in theory but it has one flaw. Denunciation and denial are always taken as evidence that the comments that prompted said denunciation were true.
They've done it, as prcaldude pointed out, and yet Charles has not given up. It's actually encouraged him!
Why, why, why should people be forced in to saying "I am not, nor was I ever...". The onus of proof is on the people making the accusation, and the accused should be considered innocent until proven guilty. That's the basis of the civlisation we're supposed to be fighting for yet it seems that people are willing to throw that very basic and absolutely foundational right away when the word "nazi" is even whispered. Charles has not provided evidence that proves guilt beyond reasonable doubt (or even in the balance of probability if we're taking a civil rather than criminal-court view of things), he has in fact provided a large amount of hearsay and circumstance that amounts to a series of "Look, he said she said he said they're nazis, and here's some pictures of nazis, so it must be true!"
Where to begin:
The European Union does [import Muslims], in a coordinated attempt to destroy the national cultures from Italy via Belgium to Britain.
There is no evidence that the various and sundry reasons why Muslims and other non-European immigrants have ended up in the EU is a "coordinated attempt." The only "coordinated attempt" is an attempt to replace national cultures with a pan-European culture. While this is obviously debatable, it's quite a stretch to make this into "Eurabia."
But then I suppose that Europeans who want to limit the greatest population movements in human history, which are destabilizing the entire continent as we speak, are not “white supremacists.”
The greatest population movements in human history have been to the New World (of Europeans). Non-europeans remain a very small percentage of all European societies. In fact, the bigger population movement in Europe today is among the different EU nations, as Eastern Europeans flood across the newly open borders. This will, of course, lessen as national incomes equalize, but is it an inherently bad thing for Poles to live in Ireland?
I asked Truumax whether it should be considered “racism” if native Swedes resist being turned into a minority in their own country, which they will become in a few decades if current the level of immigration continues.
According to this site: http://www.qran.org/a/a-perc.htm , 1.5 percent of Sweden's population is Muslim. Even with higher birthrates and additional immigration, Fjordman's claim is ridiculous.
about the city of Malmö, which is increasingly ruled by Muslim gangs.
A look at the source material indicates that it is a sensationalized piece interviewing a few young Muslim criminals. Additionally, the article itself talks about the discrimination white Swedes have against ALL Muslims that they deal with.
Meanwhile, the Social Democrats, the largest political party in Sweden and the dominant political force in the country for most of the previous century, have decided that the road to power lies in importing voters, a strategy adopted by many of their sister parties in Western Europe.
Fjordman's link to justify this claim is to Robert Spencer's Dhimmiwatch, which links back to Fjordman's own unsubstantiated claims! The funniest thing about this is that the Muslims, who are supposedly a force for conservative reaction, are supposedly being imported by left-wing parties opposed to conservatism. I don't doubt that some left-wingers think of Muslims as an oppressed minority. But to claim that this is all a continent-wide conspiracy is pathetic.
The Swedish Social Democrats were pro-Fascist and pro-Nazi during the 1930s and 40s and appeased the Communists during the Cold War.
Sweden was a NEUTRAL country during this entire period. Given that a neighboring countries like Norway was conquered by the Nazis, and Finland invaded and neutralized by the Soviets, this has a strong whiff of national preservation. If they hadn't been doing this, perhaps Fjordman wouldn't be alive now to accuse them of these "crimes."
Now they forge an alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood, another organization with close ideological ties to the Fascist and Nazi movements. At a time when native Swedes are being raped, stabbed and killed by Muslim gangs, the Social Democrats agree to continue allowing Muslims to colonize the country in exchange for their votes. In the old days this would be called treason. Now it’s called tolerance.
No links for these claims (surprise, surprise).
Western governments are pushing for independence for a group of Jihadist thugs who recently wanted to create the Osama bin Laden mosque in Kosovo.
Ah, the true test of rancid Islamophobia - even Slobodan Milosevic becomes a crusader in the fight against Islam! If Slobodan can be so lionized, why not some disreputable politicians with pro-Nazi antecedents, or the BNP? And Fjordman follows up the quotation above with several paragraphs of rancid re-writing of history, which even Robert Spencer quails at doing, because to do so means aligning oneself with among the most vicious political thugs of the 1990's.
Some of the Muslims who are already here need to be expelled. There is no way around this. No, I have never suggested expelling all of them, but the most hardcore ones who push for implementing sharia laws here need to be deported, yes.
This is dangerous stuff - those that ignore history are condemned to repeat it. And that's what Charles Johnson sees about Fjordman's views that Gates of Vienna doesn't perhaps because Gates of Vienna shares these views.
Even if true, so fkkin what? We waste a lot of time refighting World War 2. You want to fight islamn in the name of Adolph? Fine. You want to fight islam in the name of Voltaire? Fine. You want to fight islam in the name of gay rights, nudity or pork soup? Fine. Fine. Fine. Just FIGHT, Goddammit!
It's called turning the page.
LGF should be left to do what LGF does best, and that's posting up-to-date news on Islamifascism, Middle East news and other news breaking items.
We at the counter-jihad should do what we need to do, which is networking, building aliences and influencing those who might help to reverse the flood of Islam into Europe.
When the focus begins to shift away from the single minded blogs to those that take it upon themselves to do something about the important issues of the day, which demands the art of problem solving as well as the taking of personal risks, perhaps we will be looked at in a new light.
Well, where would you rather be?
There is no evidence that the various and sundry reasons why Muslims and other non-European immigrants have ended up in the EU is a "coordinated attempt." The only "coordinated attempt" is an attempt to replace national cultures with a pan-European culture. While this is obviously debatable, it's quite a stretch to make this into "Eurabia."
You're disagreeing with Bat Ye'or then.
According to this site: http://www.qran.org/a/a-perc.htm , 1.5 percent of Sweden's population is Muslim. Even with higher birthrates and additional immigration, Fjordman's claim is ridiculous.
Even if you were to believe the official government line on that, it's the demographics that are the issue. Who're having the babies. I think Mark Steyn's thesis is that there is a pretty severe crisis in that regard. Do you disagree with him?
this has a strong whiff of national preservation. If they hadn't been doing this, perhaps Fjordman wouldn't be alive now to accuse them of these "crimes."
So you're ok with the Swedes collaborating with the Nazis to maintain their neutrality in WWII, but now supposedly the SD is collaborating with Nazis and you're not ok with that?
Ah, the true test of rancid Islamophobia - even Slobodan Milosevic becomes a crusader in the fight against Islam!
No one at Jihad Watch believes the official US government line about our involvement in the Balkans. Say what you want about Milosivec, but we came to the aid of Islamic terrorists in Kosovo and Yugoslavia, as Robert Spencer has stated on numerous occasions and is explained numerous other places.
A look at the source material indicates that it is a sensationalized piece interviewing a few young Muslim criminals. Additionally, the article itself talks about the discrimination white Swedes have against ALL Muslims that they deal with.
Who do you want to believe, someone who lives there and has witnessed this with his own lying eyes, or leftist news publications you read from across the Atlantic?
Lysander wrote:
"what does that have to do with Vlaams Belang refusing to denounce the Holocaust or distance themselves from the regime that caused it?"
OK, two questions are embedded here:
1) The reason VB abstained for voting on that particular EP resolution was that it was poison-pilled to curb freedom of speech. That's a serious matter, and an abuse of the Holocaust. VB was one of the few parties to see through this and stand agains it.
2) Vlaams Belang completely and unconditionally distances itself from the Nazi regime. Suspecting them of anything else is unfounded bordering on paranoid. They're one of the most pro-Israel and pro-Jewish parties in Europe, in a time where anti-semitism is becoming a problem again.
Christine posted an article with many references at CVF, and a detailed statement from VB about that Holocaust resolution can be found at the European Parliament Web.
Scroll down a bit, and you'll see a statement by VB MEP Philip Claeys that nails both of these, in terms that should be to everyone's full satisfaction. I'll quote it in full below.
One of the problems is that Charles of LGF has thrown around so many slurs and accusations that there'll always be someone somewhere who picks up something he can't find the proper answer to. Christine has done a huge job of posting rebuttals to every slur brougth up by Charles (this is one I helped her on), but Charles doesn't seem to get it.
I understand that many feel buried by the sheer volume of stuff here. We can relax, it's just an American blogger who has trouble understanding Europe :)
Statement by MEP Philip Claeys on the Holocaust resolution:
We are discussing a resolution on the commemoration of the Holocaust, anti-Semitism and racism. We could have expected a text that pays tribute to the victims of the Holocaust with, in all serenity, an appeal never to forget this gruesome chapter in European history so that this can never be repeated. My party, the Vlaams Belang, could obviously have agreed to a resolution to that effect, together with 99% of the MEPs, but the resolution that is here before us for discussion has not been conceived in that spirit. The horrors of the Second World War have all been disgracefully piled onto one heap along with, and I quote, the rise of extremist and xenophobic parties and growing public acceptance of their views. Paragraph 5 of the resolution literally calls for the current fight against racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism to be set against the background of the Shoah in education.
My party, the Vlaams Belang, is neither extremist nor xenophobic, but the standard politically correct terminology is very much against the current democratic political parties that make a stand for maintaining national identity. The traditional political groups simply want to demonise a number of successful and growing competitors at the expense of the Holocaust victims. This is not only an insult to millions of voters in Europe but, what is worse, these cheap political games trivialise the horrors of totalitarian regimes, including National Socialism. Another worrying aspect is the appeal for, and I quote, a ban on incitement to racial and religious hatred throughout the EU whilst guaranteeing legitimate free speech. According to the traditional groups, there is apparently such a thing as illegitimate free speech which must be stopped at all costs. They seem to forget that freedom of speech only exists if it also applies to political opponents. Aberrations of this kind come as no surprise, given the fact that this resolution was submitted by the Communist group.
fritz katz:
Is Charles Johnson prepared to denounce his own followers for wearing neo-Nazi insignia? Yes or no?
Is Charles Johnson prepared to be judged according to the same standard he judges others? Yes or no?
Who appointed Charles Johnson to be the keeper of the seals for those who seek to defeat Islamofascism? Am I supposed to imagine Charles Johnson has become the supreme ayatollah for conservative thought?
As a long-time Fjordman and LGF fan, I am very much on your side in this contretemps. I have followed a bunch of the links that Charles thinks are damning and never see what he thinks he sees. I think he has lost his mind on this.
One disagreement with the present post however. You are correct that there is no moderate Islam, but that does not mean there are no moderate Muslims. The Iraq war is not a failure, but is a tremendous success, precisely because it has given Iraqis the chance to grow as democrats, and discover for themselves that they hate the jihadists.
The same thing happened in Iran, where the people have been trying to throw off the mullahs democratically for 15 years, but don't have the democratic institutions to do it. The Iraq war accelerated the process in Iraq. It only took the Iraqis a couple of years to come to hate the jihadists with a white hot passion. It took the Iranians 15 or 20. Being murdered en masse concentrates the mind.
The Iraqis have the democratic institutions that will allow them to express this more mature democratic consciousness. This precedent could transform the Islamic world. Iran will kick over with a flick. The people there are ALREADY desperate to throw off the mullahs. The Afghans could wake up, then we take the war to the next target, which the way things are going will probably be Pakistan. Clean out that rats' nest and we are really getting somewhere.
None of that directly helps your problems in Europe, where you have the worst of the worst--coddled jihadists, enabled by a self-destructive left--but it is important, and it all starts with Iraq.
"Remember the dark ages of Europe, when a successive rein of 80 popes perfected the art of sadism, cruelty, torture, and authoritarian repression."
Hey - that's unfair. We were not a huge, pope-run empire.
What you're presumably referring to is the Spanish Inquisition and related matter. That was a pretty nasty regime, and worked with the pope. But that argument is flawed for one fairly important reason:
That the Spanish Inquisitino was founded after the so-called "Dark Ages".
There were no "Dark Ages". For some interesting reading, get a copy of Rodney Stark's little book "The Victory of Reason". That'll adjust the perception of European history significantly, with profound implications for the understanding of European culture and values.
Fjordman, you ask at the end of your essay "how I can roll back the Islamization of the West" without allying with SD and VB. The answer is plain: someone (whether it be you, or someone else) needs to start a political party, or political parties in each country, that have no past associations that can drag them down, and which state from the beginning that they are explicitly anti-Nazi and anti-racist -- and still maintain the anti-immigration stance that is required to save Europe. I know that founding a new political party is an immense undertaking, but it is the only possible route. Furthermore, VB has a very unique agenda specific to Belgian politics -- seceding from Belgium and essentially ending it as a country -- that makes VB irrelevant to the overall European struggle. One needs parties that don't have historical association with Nazis or racists, and which are not focused on other issues. If such parties can be founded, they would be supported by Americans. But you can't expect Americans to embrace these two parties, SD and VB, which in American terms would be considered politically unacceptable, just for the sake of helping Europe -- but meanwhile it would ruin the Americans' credibility back home. Surely you can understand that.
It's sad that the argument has taken on a personal, ad hominem character, because both sides are admirable and both sides have valid points. It could just be that, as Europeans, if you insist on keeping these existing parties, you will have to "go it alone" without the help of American bloggers. But I do think a new party can be foudned. If Pym Foruyn can do it in the Netherlands -- create a new political party from scratch -- then why can't it be done in other countries?
A second answer to your query would be to support center-right candidates such as Sarkozy and Merkel who seem to understand the crisis facing Europe more than do other EU bureaucrats. If you can influence existing parties to face the immigration issue, you may not need to found new parties in every country.
Please see my comments on Provocateur
qqq, again, I think this argument has been rehearsed already. The problem is that the European establishment will automatically smear any new party that fights against islamism or the union as "racist" without cause or evidence, simply because it's the fastest way to silence these parties. New parties have been started, and have been decried as racist. UKIP is called racist. The Referendum party were called racist. The English Democrats, the libertarian party and the English Republican party were all called racist simply for being against the established order of the EU, let alone having any views on islamic terrorism.
Your characterisation of VB as irrelevant on the european stage misses a point too, in that VB, fighting for the secession of Flanders, challenge the very central idea of the EU. They're a nationalist party. They fight for national representation. The EU is transnational and fights to destroy the very idea of national representation. VB stands directly opposed to the project and its achievements in Belgium will have a profound impact on the EU as a whole.
This was linked today at Instapundit. Perhaps it gives some partial insight as to where many of the shallow and self-righteous comments at LGF are coming from ( either consciously or subconsciously):
Academia's Pervasive PC Rot
http://nationaljournal.com/taylor.htm
Does standing up to such absurdity make someone a racist xenophobe? Apparently it does in some circles.
I too come down on the side of Fjordman, GoV, and Brussels Journal and will continue to support these people who are actually doing something about the problem .
This American stands with the Europeans who will stand up for themselves.
qqq:
"someone (whether it be you, or someone else) needs to start a political party, or political parties in each country, that have no past associations that can drag them down, and which state from the beginning that they are explicitly anti-Nazi and anti-racist -- and still maintain the anti-immigration stance that is required to save Europe."
qqq,
I'm sure you know yourself that this is not a very original idea. So yes: It's been done! Everything you asked for has been done. I invite you to read in my blog about what happened. Read it and you will never see the world in the same way again.
It's a series of 7 parts, but in this case I recommend you to go directly for parts 6 & 7. If you find the time also read parts 1-5 which provide a more solid background:
Part 6: Brief history of anti-establishment parties in Sweden
Part 7: The New Party and how it was crushed
"how I can roll back the Islamization of the West" without allying with SD and VB?"
Let me turn the tables on this one, with this statement:
If you try that, you are bound to fail.
Really. Starting new political parties is a huge undertaking. We don't have the time to get big enough to do anything useful - it takes years to get something big and influental running.
Fortunately there's no need. Yes, there's an US blogger and his choir of fans all riled up about some imaginary European neo-Nazi movement. He didn't attend the CounterJihad conference, and he does not know the Vlaams Belang personally, but instead chooses to follow the CAIR propaganda to depict VB as evil.
This uproar has very little to do with Vlaams Belang, which is a large and well-established party in Flanders. To compare, it's 3X the size of my party Dansk Folkeparti, which has suffered - and still suffers - similar derogatory assaults from political opponents.
I know the Vlaams Belang and have friends there. These are good people. They have no trace of Nazi tendencies or WP connections. If you are afraid of working with people like this, where will you turn to?
As Christine does, we need to turn this whole thing around and help the VB get rid of those annoying falsehoods. That's 'solidarity' and builds friendships. It's good. Don't worry about smears, it happens all over the place in politics.
One point, though, about digging through old quotes and videos: If you find something bad that has not been regretted or explained, it can be useful. Many Islamists were saying things 10 or 15 years ago that they cannot go public with today, but which is still their opinion. Getting this out can be very useful, because they won't be willing or able to mount a plausible or reasonable denial of their attitudes.
VB, on the other hand, offers detailed explanations of everything I've seen so far, and strong statements to the opposite, as the EU Parliament bits I quoted above. The latter leads me to trust that if any real mistakes from their past can be brought up, I have genuine confidence that they will make a clear statement regretting that. We're not flawless, and most everyone, including myself, have made mistakes somewhere in our past.
Charles has purge most everyone, including Fjordman, with integrity and independence to talk against him on LGF. This gives him unconditional applause for what he's doing, but it doesn't promote worthwhile discussion. Actually, what Charles is doing looks like he's reinventing some of the fascist methods used by the Soviet Union and others. LGF is not a good place to be these days.
It's time to move on and concentrate on our real challenges.
LGF was not much of fighter in this fight. Charles knows next to nothing about islam, he is not a pundit, and is really just a Bush-style neo-conservative who believes that moderate islam exists and that specifically anti-islam bloggers like Fjordman are racists. And nothing is worse than that, right? Wrong. There is plenty worse than that. And Fjordman realizes that and Johnson doesn't.
The fact is that most people, and by that I mean 99.9999% of the western world, has never heard of Little Green Footballs. Or Fjordman. So Fjordman need not be offended that some blogger in cyberspace turns out to be a squishy liberal neo-con in the end when push comes to shove on these issues. Remember, in the politically correct world, charges of racism are deadly. So he would rather cut and run than take the chance of someone accusing him of such. Thus his ivory tower pontificating about Nazis and racists. When in doubt, always take refuge in those cliches. So, he performs a sacrificial offering to the Left to assure a plentiful harvest next season.
Fjordman continues his message in Europe, where it applies most of all, that is all what matters.
The Charles Johnson thing is STUPID, it is PERSONAL at this point and, as I described to someone, this becomes like watching a movie about the thirties, in which there's a scene in the USA where the Stalinists and Trotskyites have a fight over the proper dialectic.
Charles Johnson is not the issue. His commenters are not the issue. Who has the time to read 997 comments? r u kidding?
I advise all to abjure from Johnson's accusations, and the responses to same. It is personal both ways at this point.
James Lewis is saying PRECISELY what I have argued elsewhere.
The Holocaust no longer matters in this except as an iconic argument, and unless one denies it (like Abbas et al)
The essential point is if ethnic nationalism is a precursor to ethnic cleansing because finally and primarily race becomes the issue. Another 'race' is too 'other' to become part of the body will go that argument.
To answer this these organizations' heritage are at serious question. DeWinter admits Flanders (white) nationalism was at the root of much nazi collboration for which he seeks amnesty. At the present time, there is NO WAY they are getting out from under that kind of thing, for this struggle against the Qutb's and Maududi's and Khomeini's. I conclude this not from Johnson, but from Belien's own words, and from Dewinter's Shire net interview.
Belien's Hara Kiri post blew my mind. I don't care about the other claims at this point. This and Dewinter who THREE times failed to deal with reality in his interview on Shire, and simply said efforts to call him an extremist were a way to end all discussion, and his call for WHITE FLANDERS AND EUROPE was a metaphor, form the center of my disquiet with this.
His continuous excuses about left leaning papers, and Ayaan Ali being mislead would NEVER EVER be accepted if some critical progressive like John Kerry had such utterly lame baloney to lay out
Better to know if in his heart he wants mass deportations. He claims his call for that was a metaphor as well.
There is NO GETTING AWAY from this.
It is based on their own words, not the claims of Charles Johnson.
Unfortunately this is now a goop melange of issues.
The EU is a good trade idea and one of the most stupid nationality ideas in history. I never for one second thought the national heritage of England would or could be subsumed into some kind of european vanilla pudding whose definition of cheese make Camembert NOT CHEESE. If the Flemish and Dutch are resisting this (as they should, IMHO) FORGET IT.
But this is all a different issue from destroying salafi and khomeinist inheritors of Sayd Qutb's hideous, racist intolerance, and the re-re-conquista efforts as Qaradawi, Bakri et al explain it.
In the 1970's as Bat Yeor shows, FREELY ELECTED INDEPENDENT GOVTS, agreed to adopt the arab position and also to admit arabs en masse to fill the gap the lack of reproduction was going to cause.
Now there is no easy answer.
There is no quick answer which will not involve bloodshed, or large ships filled with people heading the other way.
Thus the question for Europe is, if the muslims assimilated would they have a seat at the party? Could any muslim become the equal of any other european man's son? If yes, then follwing the SPLC's example if there are such laws as we have, in Europe will DESTROY mosques whose teaching of hate results in violence.
In the meantime, jail every stupid bastard that sets fires to cars, hold up signs about killing cartoonists as an incitement to violence, and pushes around the kids with yarmulkes, just because they have one on.
If there is to be no acceptance if muslims COULD assimilate then Europe is screwed, and I submit to you that the vast majority of americans, children of refugees, probably from Europe will simply look on with heads shaking.
Some of us have long held LGF to be nothing more than a glorified lynch mob, and his research methods are very questionable. As is his difficulty admitting when he is wrong about anything.
As a UK blogger if I read his page the most powering thought that used to come to mind was the old 'With friends like this who needs enemies?' I'd always believed that we were all in this together, and that it is together we can overcome it as in the past e.g. WW2.
I was reading an entry on TBJ, and a little something was said that actually reveals more than anything else:
"...Charles Johnson (who knows nothing about Europe)"
"...Baron Bodissey (who knows Europe well)"
I know who I'd rather put my faith in when I need someone watching my back.
Belien's Hara Kiri post blew my mind.
Belien did not post that post.
It is interesting that Johnson replied affirmatively to your question about the European peoples having a right to resist the ethnic recomposure of their ancestral lands. Because just a couple of days earlier, answering more or less the same question by this guy Truumax, he said the exact opposite. Take a look at comments number 823 and 827 on this LGF thread: http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=27653_When_Friends_Attack
Charles Johnson is the typical representative of contemporary mainstream US conservativism, the one based on the very liberal and universalist idea of a "global democracy". When the proponents of such "conservativism" speak of defending the west they mean the defense of "democracy" as they see it, not as a defense of a land, culture or a people. Their thesis is that if a modern society stops being "democratic" it's basically the same as it's islamist enemy.
And the personality cult at LGF is now so blatant that they might as well attach the phrase "peace be upon him" every time they write Charles Johnosn's name.
This is the post Epaminados has been referring to. It was written by a man named Takuan Seiyo, a naturalised American who grew up in Europe and was born in Japan. An american. A conservative american of Japanese descent.
Kind of blows the whole racism thing out of the water, IMO...
Epaminados rightly diagnoses the EU angle, the actions of our governments over the last 30 years and the correct actions that need to be taken as part of a concerted effort to deal with this problem. However, in addition to the solutions he's mentioned, deportations will be necessary for certain individuals who consistently breach our laws, and large voluntary deportation will also become necessary in order to ensure the survival of our culture in the face of what is essentially an attempt to overwhelm and destroy that culture. Islam as it is practised by the majority of muslims - people I know personally in some instances - is incompatible with western values and will remain so until it is reformed.
Quite right Archonix...apologies.
Tekuan Seiyo, indeed
Fjordman, people like Charles Johnson, or Allahpundit at Hotair who also went on a purge of similar ideological slant, are not conservatives in the traditional way, in the way you would think. There is nothing Right about them. They are what you call - Libertarians.
You, as a European, may not be familiar with these creatures because it is very much an American social phenomenon. So it should come to no surprise that a libertarian has the slanted political view of this situation as CJ has.
As a Libertarian, one only opposes Islam on the grounds of it being a threat to "personal liberties", not on the ground that it undermines the cultural make-up of the society in a negative way. About that, they couldn't care less. That is where a guy like Johnson or Allahpundit part company with conservatives.
So be not surprised, then, Fjordman, at the reaction you received. Many libertarians are mistaken these days for conservatives. They are not. This confusion arises from the fact that, as libertarians, they often find themselves opposed to the big government policies of the Democratic Party in America. This therefore, caused the confusion on your part and for many others. Just because someone attacks Hillary or the Democrats, that does not mean they are conservative. Not at all. It may simply mean, as it does with respect to Hotair and LGF, that they are libertarians. So a lesson has been learned.
But don't feel stupid. A lot of people have been fooled by their blogs, thinking that these guys are right of center. Nothing could be more wrong. And this issue reveals that. The hilarity of it is that most of their posters, who are right of center, keep posting simply because they haven't caught on yet, either.
When confronted with people in Europe who want Europe to remain European, a liberal, or a libertarian, shouts out = "racist!" or "nazi!" and shows you the door. That is what happened at both blogs. Both are moderated by libertarians who are nothing more than small-government social liberals. One is an avowed atheist, the other with a shady liberal background. Needless to say, the origin of that word libertarian is "liberal" for a reason. And liberal today means Left. As such, respect for counter, or even differing political views, does not apply at such blogs. You tow the line, or you are out. That is what Allahpundit warned at Hotair. Anyone showing support for VB will be banned.
A lesson learned. Beware the libertarian. They are no friend of yours and are half-hearted allies on the war on sharia at best.
"large voluntary deportation"..if such civil suits as have destroyed the Aryan Nation here, can be brought in Europe, religion, race, all of that will have NOTHING to do with it. However, the institutions which allow the teaching of hate, which result in violence, will be financially responsible. Here the members of the board are responsible as well.
In the event, say 50 cars are burnt and the culprits all attended one or two institutions, where they were incited, then just like Aryan Nation, every executive member (let alone the institution) would not only have to make restitution, but also would be responsible for the result of the suit.
Who would want to be around for that?
If people want to be free to teach hate, people have to be held to account for that lack of censorship, and the right of such freedom.
Note that NO PARTIES are required. Just smart lawyers, and determination.
if such civil suits as have destroyed the Aryan Nation here, can be brought in Europe
They can't. That's what we try to tell you lot; our political and legal systems are so stiched up as to make any sort of suits like that against "favoured minorities" completely impossible. In fact if you brought such a suit against, say, Finsbury Park Mosque for its part in the London bombings you'd be arrested for race hatred and quite probably convicted and imprisoned on the charge. Vilified, with a criminal record, just for filing a civil suit? I don't think so mate.
We need these parties because we need to change the law. We need to change the law because it is completely skewed against, yes, the indigenous population, which just happens to be "white", but also against anyone of any race that points out this problem. Saying that this would happen makes me a racist in the eyes of the law. I am breaking the law by simply saying these things, even in relatively liberal Great Britain. Do you understand now?
"DeWinter admits Flanders (white) nationalism was at the root of much nazi collaboration for which he seeks amnesty."
Just how long can this stupid argument remain afloat?
First, consider what'd be the age of your typical Nazi collaborator? 60? Nope, not born in '45. 70? A child in '45. 80? Now we're talking. That'd be the minimum age for anyone who's done any meaningful Nazi collaboration. We are talking very old people, and quite few, too. DeWinther is certainly not among them.
Why would an amnesty be needed at this point in history, anyway? In Denmark, we took the court trials in the years immediately after the war. We reintroduced capital punishment for the worst offenders, while medium-level collaborators were sentenced to prison. Then we closed the matter.
That was Denmark. Case closed.
Now, here we're talking Belgium, which is worse. Old people had their pensions revoked, were evicted from their housing etc. due to collaboration that took place 60+ years ago. That's just being mean to people who have long since put any and all Nazi ideas behind them. The idea of this amnesty is to end this meaningless harassment and move on. It does not constitute endorsement of any kind of Nazi ideology.
Interestingly it also goes a bit against their Flemish-first agenda, as the Walloons had a much higher frequency of Nazi collaboration than did the Flemings. VB argues for this amnesty because they believe it to be the Right Thing to do.
As I mentioned above, Vlaams Belang unconditionally rejects any and all Nazi ideology. They also have the integrity to stand up for minorities (Jews, too), which is kindof cool in these mob-mentality times. I like that.
Libertarianism...
I actually used to be one in my youth, it's not an unknown idea in Denmark. The new Naser Khader party can also be said to be associated with it, as is the small Internet-based newspaper 180Grader.
I moved away from it when I found it simplistic, bordering on nihilistic. When you start to consider what kind of tings people identify with, it's severely lacking. Libertarians can see that what violent Jihadists are doing is wrong, but can rarely connect the dots and figure out the dynamics of what's happening.
But Libertarians who don't get aggressive and myopic like Charles Johnson frequently have a very logical line of thinking and can be a joy to argue with. I've also successfully tipped off 180Grader on relevant stories.
Degenerating into anger is a mistake. Looking how deep Charles & LGF have dug themselves in, I doubt that they'll ever recover.
F writes: "I believe Europeans are also entitled to hear what kind of alternatives Mr. Johnson envisions if we are not allowed to cooperate with the likes of the Vlaams Belang and the Sweden Democrats."
I do not think this will happen. LGF is more a link site. From what I can tell, CJ does not really discuss much in depth, apart from a few comments here and there. LGF is not a site one goes to for intellectual discussion.
It is his site, and he can do as he wishes. It appears clear, however, that he is no friend of open discussion. And the comments are typically self congratulatory and rather sycophantic in tone. One suspects that there is more going on over there than meets the eye. But who can say?
Libertarianism is a lot older than America. The Libertarians played a large part in the early days of the English civil wars until they were overruled by Cromwell *spit* and pushed aside. They had good ideas, and I think if some of them had been incorporated into constitutional system after the glorious revolution we might have a more robust government in place today. Certainly they harked back to the pre-norman days of Anglo-nordic individual liberty, a lesson that our so-called leaders would do well to learn.
The problem with the libertarians I've had to argue with in the past are simply that they seem unwilling to comprehend that not everyone is motivated as they are. The majority of our "enemies", for want of a better word, are motivated by tribal loyalty rather than the pursuit of personal liberty. In the face of a tribe or nation acting in concert, a libertarian ideal that has no defined borders and no control over those entering its sphere of influence cannot stand and will quickly be overwhelmed by the incoming, tribally oriented society. Libertarianism will only function effectively if it is working within the bounds of a well defined and protected border. Classic libertarian thought is little different to classic liberal thought in that the government that exists is primarily concerned with foreign affairs, keeping the border well guarded, and has little control over the individuals within its borders.
I think it's worth repeating epaminodas's admonition to get off the talk about LGF. It's counterproductive now. Everyone has been over the arguments ad nauseum and they're getting silly.
I think it's also worth pointing out that my crack about voluntary deportation would include a lot of east european immigrants and more than a few french people too. Right now anyone can enter as long as they hold an EU member state passport. This is not an ideal situation. In my dream world they'd have to leave once the national borders were re-established. They could aply to come back again if they liked, but they would have to prove that they were going to contribute something worthwhile to the nation and not just suck on the government tit.
Fjordman, I would like to express my thanks to you for your writings, which, ironically, I first became aware of by reading LGF. I look forward to your future contributions, wherever I may find them. Please keep on fighting the good fight.
The wisest libertarianism is territorial psychology; it depends on having a territory within which you are free to act on your own criteria. Socialism is opposed to centralised psychology, or to what one might call individualism. Ultimately the aim of socialism is to deprive the individual of any area within which he is free to know his own mind. That's why they call it "universalism". They want to control the world.
Okay, we can separate this issue a little I think. Let's take Vlaams Belang as an example, but it could apply to Sweden Democrats too, I guess. Take this a post from someone uninformed as to the details of these parties, which it is.
I take the main issue for Vlaams Belang to be Flemish self-determination, no different from other national self-determinations like Jewish self-determination in Israel, etc. This is not to deny that there are other parts of Vlaams Belang.
But what does Charles Johnson disagree with? The main part, Flemish nationalism, or just some other part of Vlaams Belang, or both?
Has he said whether he fundamentally opposes Flemish nationalism and other European peoples' nationalisms or not?
I think he would save himself a lot of moaning and groaning coming his way if he would clarify his position. Like if he disagrees with Vlaams Belang but doesn't deny the right of Flemings to form their own nation, then why doesn't he say so? People who are interested in Flemish nationalism would probably like him a lot more. And if he doesn't support this right, then why does he support the same right but only in the case of others?
How does this sound? I don't want to take a position because I'm uninformed on these issues. And this is the best I think up in limited time.
I have been trying to post on this site all day. Here is the last try.
We should not anathamasize each other. We are in a worldwide fight for existence, whether most people know it or not. Bin Laden and the Islamists would be smart to lie low for a few years, let the rot proceed, and not pull off any "spectacular" terrorist acts like 9-11 that run the risk of awakening the slumbering and trusting people.
Once the Muslim population approaches 30 percent, it will be electoral madness to be anything other than an appeaser, currying favor with the new overlords. At that point, one-third of the remaining population will be willing to convert for purely economic reasons.
That is what happened in the Balkans. It was easier for many to convert than to live as dhimmis.
It is nonsense to charge that "neo-Nazis" were present at the conference that was attended by Jewish bloggers (for example, the beautiful Pamela Geller of "Atlas Shrugs," a New York Jew and proud of it, who is by the way perhaps the best looking Mom in the country) and at which a Jew (Bat Ye'or) was honored. Are we looking for Nazia under the bed? I have sensed no "racism" among those concerned over "creeping Sharia" and Islamization.
Just what race are Muslims? Aren't we just a concerned about blue-eyed, white Muslims from the Balkans who want to impose Sharia?
Without tolerating antisemitism (the Palestinians have that market cornered), we should adopt a broad, "popular front" approach.
"Little Green Footballs" and Charles Johnston are wrong in this case -- wothout obvious and current proof -- but the site is a valuable aggregator of items about Islam that are ignored or minimized by the dhimmified media. "Gates of Vienna" does more deep thinking about the problem.
Both are needed. Find some way to patch over the differences for the sake of the West.
This entire episode has seemed like leftist disinformation, hoping that you would both do as you did, claw at each other when you are really both on the same side.
The elites who are indifferent to our Islamization -- the elites hope to become the NEW Muslim elite and would have no difficulty with converting if they remained in control -- are happy to see us thorwing around charges of "Nazism," since they want to brand resistance to Islamization as "racist" anyway for political purposes.
Fjordman, always been a fan, glad to see that you're actively involved in the battle against Islamic fascism and have a splendid group of like-minded people to work with.
I wouldn't worry much about the slander from those whose actions are pretty much limited to pissing and moaning.
jfmcnulty,
Agreed that lgf:
"is a valuable aggregator of items about Islam that are ignored or minimized by the dhimmified media. "Gates of Vienna" does more deep thinking about the problem."
However, your statement:
"The elites who are indifferent to our Islamization --..."
Exactly my point. Are you aware of America's complicity with and support of German aggression and Nazism? Are you familiar with the roles of IBM, FORD, GM, and other companies that profited from WWI?
Do you know what fascism is? Please research and read some of my links above. The elites include American corporations which control our educational system, media and economy. They would prefer any authoritarian religion...Islam or Catholicism. For crying out loud don't you get it? Please think.
LGF represents the adolescent psyche of our time, and should be treated as such. Having a teenager kid, you know that you have to tolerate a lot of misbehavior. I am glad that the public at Gates of Vienna is so tolerant and wise, whereas my first impulse was to slap the foolish boy Johnson in the face for his unprovoked agression.
Epaminondas, I repeat: I delete comments containing F-bombs when they appear.
Please restrain yourself next time. Here’s your comment, suitably edited:
Epaminondas said...
Henrik ...I give you exactly what Dewinter said about amnesty.
Blanket for everyone.
WHY BOTHER INDEED? Not my idea, but of course then we should excuse HIM AS WELL, EH?
Why would DeWinter bother?
Put it on the disquieting pile?
Why did Ayaan Ali call for them to be outlawed? YEAH YEAH, mislead.
Can you imagine if we heard this kind, and list of excuses analogously from Ted Kennedy, or George Soros?
What would you be thinking?
'We liberals collaborated with the commies because they promised us candy.'
'Barry Goldwater was mislead by the Washington Times and Fox News, that's why he said what he did'
RUKIDDING?
If archonix is correct, you people totally f***ed yourselves in the 70's.
How did such govts get freely elected?
Thank god for the 2nd amendment. Either the govt is in fear of the people or the reverse.
Man am I sick of this.
Epa,
Your bellicosity is getting to be a bit much, and you're criticism of racists is selective at best.
After searching your site last night, I only found one instance of you condemning "La Raza" out of all the posts on there. You seem to have it out for white racists, which are not any of the European political groups currently in discussion, as has been proven over and over again, but not for anti-white racists. Why the double standard? If you're going to condemn racism, at least be consistent and condemn wherever you find it. If you'd spent as much time condemning groups like "National Council of La Raza", perhaps you'd have more credibility on this issue. As it stands, you come across as a thoughtpoliceman.
HERE'S WHAT I POSTED ON MY BLO9G:
http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/2007/11/why-charles-johnson-of-little-green.html
WHY CHARLES JOHNSON OF LITTLE GREEN FOOTBALLS IS WRONG ABOUT VLAAMS BELANG AND THE BRUSSELS JOURNAL
Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs argues that Paul Belien of the Brussels Journal should not associate himself with the Belgium's Vlaams Belang (Flemish Bloc) because it has racist roots and overtones and that therefore they should be completely shunned. (He's obsessed with it, almost!)
This is wrong-headed of Charles.
HERE'S WHY:
The USA under FDR was allied to Stalin to defeat Hitler. This was a practical and a wise strategy.
The mistake was in handing Stalin eastern Europe (a "mistake" designed by Stalin's master spy in the US State Department - Alger Hiss, who ran the Yalta Conference at which FDR "erred"). And another mistake was in not going after Stalin as soon as Hitler fell; as Patton argued: we should have toppled Stalin, too.
That being said, it was still right to use Stalin to defeat Hitler.
If that was okay, then it is okay for Belien and other pro-Western libertarians in Europe (who are fighting to keep Europe EUROPEAN and WESTERN!) to align themselves with parties like the Vlaams Belang.
Charles is also wrong to argue that we should all shun Vlaam's Belang because it has racist roots. So does the Demo0crat Party. SHOULD WE SHUN THEM, TOO?! It's ludicrous. Every Democrat is not a KKK racist - like Senator Byrd was once, and I'd guess that every Vlaams Belang is not a racist, either.
But even if they were, I'd argue that as long as WW4 is raging we have to fight alongside them - and not against them. Once WW4 is over, then we can fight them. FIRST THINGS FIRST.
AND ANOTHER THING: If folks like Pat Robertson can support Rudy because of WW4, then Charles can support Belien despite the fact that Belien won't shun the Vlaams Belang.
We should not demand uniformity; we should be a BIG TENT. We should NOT demand party purity and punish deviations from the PARTY-LINE. That's for Stalinists.
You know, I accept and respect and give gratitude for the alliance of many folks who are hawks on WW4, but with whom I deeply disagree with on issues other than WW4. For example, I support and read LGF and Pajamas Media and Instapundit despite the fact that Charles Johnson and Roger Simon and Glenn Reynolds are all pro-Choice, and I am pro-Life.
And in a real scale of real horrors, the somewhat racialistic policies which some people in Vlaams Belang may have at times supported PALES in comparison to the real horrors which have resulted from the policies the pro-Choice people support:
Vlaams Belang has killed no one since 9/11/2001;
Abortions in the USA have killed MILLIONS since 9/11/2001. It's genocide.
And don't give me any of that "It's the mother's body - keep the state out of it" CRAP!
From the moment of fertilization a new and unique human is CONCEIVED, with new and unique DNA. It is not a part of the mother; it is a new and unique human being. One with innate rights. With as many inalienable rights as you and me. And among these are the pursuit of happiness, liberty and LIFE. Life must come first. Of course.
But I don't mean to get sidetracked into an abortion debate.
I mean only to illustrate that there are very VERY big and important differences between hawks. Differences we can and should bridge until we defeat the real enemy.
OKAY!?
Permalink - Posted by Reliapundit @ 9:39 PM - 19 Comments;
HERE'S WHAT A CO-BLOGGER PSOTED:
HAS LGF GONE COMMERCIAL?
Charles Johnson's LGF is one of the most widely-read conservative blogs. I have often read and linked to it. Its coverage of the Muslim menace is particularly good. For some reason, however, Charles has been running an extensive campaign of attack on two European political parties -- in Sweden and in Belgium -- that are also energetically publicizing the Muslim menace. There seem to be two elements in his attacks: Attacks on the past of some members of the parties concerned and a very loose and quite Leftist definition of racism.
I know very little about either of the political parties concerned except that their proclaimed policies are clearly not racist. So I will simply make the general observation that large political parties -- which the Belgian one certainly is -- invariably have a considerable mix of members with all sorts of backgrounds and views.
I would not remotely be surprised or alarmed to hear that some of the members had said hostile things in their time which they now regret and which they no longer believe. I would have thought that I did not have to draw attention to the fact that a former Kleagle of the KKK still sits in the U.S. Senate as a representative of the Democrats. His change of views is accepted as sincere and his past views are seen as no detriment to him so why cannot others be accepted for their present rather than their past views?
Perhaps more surprising is that Charles appears to accept the Leftist definition of "racism". I have not been able to find any formal definition of the term from him but he appears to subscribe to the view that any mention of group differences is "racist". Given that definition, some of Charles' own comments on Muslims are racist and so is the New York Times. Rather strange.
The Leftist view is clearly brain-dead. Racism is hostile behaviour towards someone solely because of his race. Noting interracial differences is simply free speech. As I have often noted before, the erstwhile British Empire is an excellent case in point. Right up to and including Winston Churchill, almost all Brits believed that the English were obviously a superior race. In the addled minds of the Left, that makes it crystal clear that all the Brits concerned were racist.
Yet the British Empire was undoubtedly the world's most humane polity of the time. At the height of the Empire it had brown-skinned men sitting in its Parliament and had a much-loved Jew as its Prime Minister. And I hope I don't need to remind anybody that Britain abolished slavery long before the USA did. Some racism!
So why does Charles seem to be influenced by the silly Leftist definition of racism? He is obviously a smart and realistic man in most ways so I can only assume that he wishes to broaden his audience to those who subscribe to such a definition. I understand that he derives considerable income from his blog so it is probably a purely commercial decision.
(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)
Permalink - Posted by JR @ 9:30 PM - 6 Comments;
http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/2007/11/has-lgf-gone-commercial.html
Little Green Footballs? I didn't even know they still existed. I had them on my favorites list for a couple of months 5 years ago and quit going there shortly after I discovered the much more on point and hard nosed GOV. GOV, Chronicles Magazine, Brussels Journal, View from the Right and Diana West's columns are where I go for information unadulterated by PC.
PC of ANY stripe is an anathema and LGF was rife with it. When we cripple our cause with any scintilla of PC we eventually end up consuming ourselves. LGF is a case in point.
When terms such as Nazi, racist or fascist begin to be bandied about at any site with any regularity I take my leave for to grant credence to these sentiments is a sop to PC and the left.
I personally will have none of it. God bless Fjordman and GOV for their inestimable contributions. Were Fjordman, Dymphna, or the Barron to be any less than they are insofar as their willingness to call a spade a spade they would loose all credibility.
Apologies Baron,
PRCALDUDE...nice attempt at a smear, but you have cherry picked to fit a prejudicial view.
A search on racism yields ~60+ posts, not counting the 2 on this subject, the VAST majority of which concern arab and persian racism, and the Quran as a racist document
The Border Security category has 10 posts, most mentioning reverse discrimination some as a direct point.
So what, one can only wonder, was you MOTIVE?
Who cares? Nice try though.
Arguing beneath the walls of Byzantium
I'd further add, Epa, that given your previous statement ("I don't give a _ about ethnic Euros"), and given your persistence in attempting to tar people as racists who are not for sticking up for themselves and their homeland, I see several possibilities for your true motivation: a)like Charles and the rest of the lizards, you are simply an anti-European bigot b) you're projecting your own racism onto others c) your just attempting to make yourself look better to the PC crowd by terrorizing your European and American peers with charges of 'racism'. Really, all three together are a possibility for you.
Given the nature of your blog posts and posts here, it's not that you're opposed to racism per se, it's that you're opposed to white racism, which is hardly to be found nowadays, or you're simply a coward who doesn't have the stomach for action, and would rather take the easy way out by condemning those actually involved in the increasingly dangerous counterjihad. The latter is probably less likely because you didn't have to say anything at all in order to distance yourself from the movement.
I'm going to place my money on a) and c). Those seem most likely to me.
I don't feel the need to defend myself against charges of racism when I state that all Muslim immigration must stop. I, however, believe, as opposed to Fjordman, that the time will come where we will expel all of them. Islam cannot and will never be reconciled with Western ideals. To shrink from drawing inevitable conclusion based on a factual analysis is to acquiesce in the deceits of PC.
Gordon wrote:
"According to this site: http://www.qran.org/a/a-perc.htm , 1.5 percent of Sweden's population is Muslim. "
Ridiculous figure, just absurd. This must be a completely disreputable source.
It's funny to see Americans lecturing Europeans on the need to start all new parties without even the faintest hint of Nazi collaboration in their past.
Last I checked one of (the only) two major American parties was the party of Jim Crow, the KKK and institutionalized white racism 40 years ago.
Why is some tangential association of VB more consequential than, say, the fact that the longest serving Democrat in the Senate is a former leader of the KKK? I would respect Charles a lot more if he were applying his over-developed revisionist sense of outrage to the current leftwingers at home.
It is they, after all, not VB that are working overtime to provide a safe haven for Islamic Radicals as well as every day illegal immigrant criminals.
As I said before, I hope this thread is the last one to deal with his sorry little corner of cyberspace.
prcaldude: "I'd further add, Epa, that given your previous statement ("I don't give a _ about ethnic Euros")..."
Oh, yeah, that was a precious comment. And this person is lecturing us about racism. He must be blind to the irony.
Charled Martel: "I, however, believe, as opposed to Fjordman, that the time will come where we will expel all of them. Islam cannot and will never be reconciled with Western ideals."
I see it the same way. Muslims just have to go. Outlaw islam - and they'll go by themselves. No need for economic incentives.
Maybe you can't read, PRCALDUDE
As for C, I am anathema to every liberal I know.
For a)- I see LGF about once every two weeks so I can't comment at all as to what you mean.
But you did manage to avoid fact in your litany of smears quite adroitly, especially considering my response to your first smear, something you seem to feel Mr Johnson has done.
As far as distancing myself from the movement ... I don't accept the BNP or their like, as part of anything except the KKK wannbees, and I have expressed unending disquiet about defending what Dewinter called for as white flanders as ultimately, EIN VOLK.
Calling for something like this, is NOT defending freedom of religion, or speech. I won't try to deny them the right to so this, but I will try to deny that this represents anti jihadi anything. It's just that what they seem to want must include anti jihad to be successful in the primary goal. White Flanders. Homogenous.
Their business, but it's not fighting the same war. Sometimes it may look like the same battle.
AS far as distancing, as before, you are breathtakingly assumptive, and stereotyping.
Finally w rgd to ethnic europeans .. my comment is CLEARLY in context, meant to say...the counter jihad movement is not about ethno anything ... but then in here, it appears, it must be.
Anyone wonder why?
This is almost as bad as being in the arab and salafi forums at this point.
CYA
Epa,
I have to say old, chap, that once you filter out your condemnations of antisemitism (of the David Duke type) and Muslim Arabist racism, you're left with 16 posts further condemning racism. Of these, the majority condemn white racism. Like I said, I found one instance of you condemning the National Council of La Raza (a Mexican Lebensraum movement), but that's about it, though as Fjordman and others have pointed out, instances of anti-white racism are Legion. This, combined with your entire post displaying your lack of compassion for "ethnic Euros", leave you without much credibility, I'm afraid.
I occasionally post on LGF and lately have been attempting to make the point, ad nauseum, that if the major political parties in Europe don't address the fears of average Europeans about Islamization then the growth of "far right" parties is guaranteed regardless of their past or their associations with Nazis. It is simply inevitable. When the average European has his back against the wall and his only ally is the VB, BNP, SD, et al he will take what allies are offered to him.
I wish I had some recommendations regarding fighting back that do not risk imprisonment.
I still believe that our Muslim enemy is extremely patient and will for the most part suppress their penchant for violence and their calls for dominance over Europe until such time as they have the numbers of young males required to defeat native Europeans throughout Western Europe. This guarantees that no country can come to the aid of another. Muslims have waited for hundreds of years for the opportunity being handed to them on a silver platter by EU bureaucrats, they can wait a decade longer.
The only way in my opinion to turn the tide in Europe's favor is to foment Islamic violence now. Make the Muslims act before they are ready in numbers and with the law at their backs to take over and expose them and their agenda to the blind masses.
Many people resist considering committing a violent act against a mosque, Islamic school, or even a known jihadist radical because unprovoked violence is repellent these days to the Western mind, however, would such an act really be unprovoked? I would say such an act would be preemptive; strike before being struck.
I recently read that the population of France under the age of 5 (or 10?) years of age is 45% Muslim. That means in less than 20 years time France will have as many or more young males of fighting age that are Muslim than are native French. A dangerous future is guaranteed.
I say it is better to cause a fight now when the chances of success are high then to wait and possibly become part of the ummah.
I have said for years, even before the Internet took off, that Europe for the most part should be reserved for Europeans. All countries have the right of self-determination, cultural continuation, and even the right to pursue ethnic homogeneity if they so desire. No one would dare deny this right to Japan, South Korea, and many many other nations that hold it dear. At the very least if immigration is allowed, the would be immigrants should come from cultures compatible with Western culture such as India and some parts of South America for example.
As an American of European descent (Irish, Dutch, Lithuanian, German) I am proud of my origins and want Europe preserved for my progeny as the home of Western civilization. I myself would happily get on a plane tomorrow if needed to join the fight. Get on with it!
And in agreement with Charles Martel if you feel the need to call me a racist a) you misunderstand me and b) I am not and so won't feel compelled to defend myself against such a charge.
It ought to be remembered that there is a sizable gulf in understanding between Europe and America in regards to race. There are parts of America where the Civil War (War Between The States, War Of Northern Aggression, The Late Unpleasantness etc.)is a topic of greater interest than any of Europe's conflicts.
We are also, given the after shocks of that war much more sensitive to any charge of "racism".
The Neo Nazi, White Power, Skin Head idiots that stink up the fringes of American society are an embarrassment to all of us who believe in "liberty and justice for all".
When Europeans flaunt the symbols used by such odious groups in America and hobnob with the likes of David Duke they cannot expect Americans to ignore it.
I believe that there has been over-reaction on both sides of this issue.
There needs to be a Fjordman/Johnson summit meeting. Perhaps Robert Spenser would moderate.
I don't think Fjordman should ( or will ) waste time meting with Johnson. What's done is done, as me Ma used to say
During the "youths" rioting in and around Paris last Summer, there were more than a few "Nuke Paris" posts at LGF, and none of them were pulled
I tried to argue against writing off 60 milion souls, but got the Usual Responses from the Usual Suspects. The anti-Europe bias of that place always did put me off.
It was more of a Chat Room for alcoholics than anything else, and almost everyone preached to the choir.
As for all the bickering here, those of us who want to prevent Europe from being absorbed into the Ummah had better do as the American Hero & Former Ponce Rodney King advised......
Is Europe really lost? If this article is correct http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/nov/06110903.html
then Europe is already lost. As the Borg say on Star Trek, 'resistance is futile'.
I weep for Europe's, and the world's, future. The birthplace of Western culture will be gone forever.
I'm sure Europe could find plenty of young Conservative Americans to immigrate to Europe. All that would be asked for in return is Constitutional freedoms like we have in the US.
Charles Johnson is obsessed with some perfect resistance to Islam. It doesn't exist and never will.
Charles rants about a symbol of racism', of evil. Big head syndrome, perfect example.
I think Lawrence Auster at View from the Right has the best analysis of Charles. Truly disappointing bahavior. Funny he doesn't seem to catch the irony that his behavior is what the liberals he supposedly criticizes do to those who speak the truth.
'Islam can be reformed, and we should encourage the efforts of Muslims who want such reforms.'
OK, that was just a paraphrase of a statement by Bat Ye'or in her interview with Pamela/Atlas Shrugs.
Apparently the schisms are deep all around.
This Monday, Charles Johnson of LGF was interviewed at Shire Network and I think it was a great interview and very revealing. I have begun my fisking of it. And here is the first post:
Looks like damage control to me, Charles
>>If we assume that Charles' account of what happened is true, here's the strange thing: even if one didn't read the guest list of these emails at all, but only payed attention to the story, Vlaams Belang is all over the story. [...] So if we are going to believe Charles, we will have to disbelieve his claim that he had been "paying attention to the story". And by now it becomes rather complex even for the most benevolent believer in Charles' claims, since it becomes apparent that not everything he said in the opening of the Shire interview could be fully true. And either way you twist it, Charles turns out as looking like anything but a serious anti-Jihadist. The most benevolent way to interpret Charles is that he read virtually nothing of the emails sent by Gates of Vienna. And how serious does that look? A "leading" anti-Jihadist falling asleep at the keyboard (three times!) when he gets emails about the most important anti-Jihad conference ever. The less benevolent interpretation is that Charles read it all, which means that he's a backstabber and a liar. Which does not only cast doubts about him being serious, but about him being an anti-Jihadist at all.>>
Read it all here.
We need to make a distinction between racism and race-realism. This is what is confusing a lot of people. Let's start defining all the big words people are arguing over. Also, for those people who believe the big lie that America is one big happy multicultural family, and America is just an idea, and anyone can be American . . . I disagree. I'm American, I live in California, and I and my neighbors do not like the Mexican invasion. Our situation in America is very much like that of Europe. Charles Johnson and the cheerleaders at LGF are in denial. Maybe their neighborhoods aren't being destroyed by foreign invaders, or they're too polite to notice.
Lex,
Why do you keep coming on here? You've already denounced us as genocidal maniacs and racists, so why are you trying to reason with us? Are you just stalking Dymphna?
Oh, and before complaining about racism, you might want to clean up your own. It's always PC for Latinos to complain about WASPs, isn't it?
Alex:
Fjorman writes some articles here (I found this site only some hours ago, but it seems to have ...good quality and stuff!):
europenews.dk/en/rss.xml
If archonix is correct, you people totally f***ed yourselves in the 70's.
How did such govts get freely elected?
I could ask you the same question regarding your congress. How did such people as Pelosi, Kennedy and Clinton get elected?
Conservative Swede said...
This Monday, Charles Johnson of LGF was interviewed at Shire Network and I think it was a great interview and very revealing.
CJ needs to consider what he wants. If LGF is meant simply as a site linking to stories that is fine. However, once he begins to editorialize he ought to do more than just post a few comments here and there.
It would be better for him to present a coherent and well argued statement of what he believes, and, even more, what plans should and could be taken to achieve his stated goals. As it is, he appears content to let his links speak for him, and then requires others to try and understand his views depending upon what the links say.
It seems odd that something as important as the Counterjihad Summit could be overlooked simply because he receives 500 emails a day. And then, once he realized what was going down, he decided to criticize the event "after the fact". Again, it makes one wonder what his intent is in all of this.
I'm sorry to see Charles basically turn his site into an echo chamber, where he increasingly is stifling even the slightest dissent in his blog comments.
I can see banning Kossacks, but banning Fjordman?
The thing with Charles Johnson appears to me to be personal at this point.
I haven't read his commenting but perhaps the Shire interview will explain.
To me this mess seems without an anchor.
VB MAY be one thing, but how does this group feel about Nick Griffin and the BNP?
Where are they in this spectrum?
Prcaldude, I wonder if you have the slightest idea how ridiculous that criticism is...since you are fixated on me being an anti-white racist (and you think Johnson is absurd?)
Of the 1700 posts, the 60+ which you have 'analyzed' when 'filtered' for racism by (as you insist on viewing it), by - Orientals, Arabs, Persians, and the Dukes of the world, you object that there is only one anti-latino? Thus proving after this 'filtering' I am anti white?
No doubt you would do well on the Board of the University of Michigan, where the form of racism known as quotas is rigidly enforced.
Maybe I haven't covered Darfur enough for you?
I apologize on my knees to you if I take as a given that people like Al Sharpton (a criminal buffoon in my mind) don't figure much as they are beneath mention, and are generally uninteresting except as humor. I shall change my blog entirely to satisfy your quota system. Each day I will by rotation criticize a different race.
This has actually provoked laughter round the table over early coffee at this end. Your 'get lost' to another poster says all is needed. BYE BYE
Archonix, of course that criticism is valid, but I must tell you I live in none of those places, and taken at ground level:
Nancy Pelosi (SF) is reactionary in her district, which just outlawed ROTC, and military recruiting yesterday from ALL EDUCATIONAL institutions in San Fran. She will face opposition from Cindy Sheehan to HER left, if you can imagine. Kennedy is popular because Masschusetts probably is another nation entirely. New York is liable to do anything at anytime. Thus Clinton and Giuliani, or D'Amato, and Schumer.
I live in Maine. Eastern Maine. We have two republican senators, and a democratic congressman in this district.
Far more worrying is that the incompetence of the Bush Admin will result in 8 years of democratic rule of the presidency, house and senate. Especially IF Hillary is crashing and burning. And she absolutely IS in Iowa. I can only hope that Obama has no shot to beat any repub. But the democratic party as currently organized is in the thrall of the money and power of Moveon, and George Soros. A hideous transition from men like Harry Truman.
Speaking for myself, I see Nick Griffin trying to reform the BNP but he's failing on a few key areas. The party is authoritarian, socialist, isolationist, basically a nationalist version of the labour party without the charm. They want to nationalise industry and put up huge trade tarrifs to prevent foreign businesses from importing cheap goods. Unlike VB (liberal capitalists) they have the potential to return to the old ways because they're authoritarian and socialist.
The BNP's oficial policy is support for Israel and resisting islamic terrorism but they're a genuine racial party who haven't dealt with the Natinoal Front that still dominate the rank and file, so that support might only last as long as the current leadership.
Unless I'm mistaken, the BNP had no representation at the conference and I doubt they would do if they were invited, since it has a European perspective, and they don't like euros... sounds familiar. Anyway if the BNP had been there then the criticism of the event might have been warranted. I certainly wouldn't have been comfortable with their
... presence.
Twitchy enter key. :)
The biggest distinction I see between sites like LGF, GoV, TBJ, Atlas Shrugs, and Jihad Watch is that LGF doesn't do much beyond link and comment, while other sights have rolled up their sleeves .
GoV, TBJ, Atlas Shrugs, Jihad Watch, etc are actually involved and doing something. LGF just links to others people's original thinking, and then pontificates from the sidelines (most recently making perfection the enemy of good.) So, in the end LGF does provide a valuable service in an 'Intro to Jihad 101' , 'Intro to Media Bias 101' capacity, but beyond that, it's pretty thin gruel.
My hat is off to the 'do-ers'. Your efforts are appreciated!
sights = sites.
Hate it when that happens! :-)
It seems that Charles Johnson complained like a baby to Spencer when a few commentators on Jihadwatch dissed him on a thread yesterday. Now, Spencer, going the way of censorship started a thread this morning to announce that he fully supports Charles in this matter, and he has removed all comments on the thread that were critical of Charles Johnson.
What a shame.
No, lets not start doing that. Robert Spencer is a smart man who is not yet in posession of all the facts. Once all the facts are presented he'll make the decision he thinks is best and all will be well.
They're friends! Would you abandon a friend just because they said something you disagreed with? Just because they made a mistake? This is not the time to start throwing around wild accusations of censorship and heresy. Spencer, unlike Charles (and me, I should add) was at the conference and met these people for himself. Further, he's open to reasonable debate and I am sure will reach the correct conclusions once all of the evidence is presented. So reason with him!
"VB MAY be one thing, but how does this group feel about Nick Griffin and the BNP?"
Actually, I don't know. Vlaams Belang I know quite well from the inside, and they're fine.
BNP I have to make a pass on. Perhaps our friends from UKIP may have a few comments? They must have their reasons to form their own party.
It is wise of Robert Spencer to keep the focus on the real issue. LGF is at best a sideshow in the big picture. There's no point in letting this food fight dilute his mission. And there's no harm is disavowing the ghosts of Nazis defeated long ago.
Well archonix, I'm glad I asked, maybe we have an astonishing difference in perception across the atlantic. Or maybe we don't and the realities are starkly different between what most americans can accept and what most europeans can and will.
Don't know.
-----------------------------
From the BBC:
GRIFFIN (1998): "I am well aware that the orthodox opinion is that 6 million Jews were gassed and cremated and
turned into lampshades. Orthodox opinion also once held that the Earth was flat. I have reached the
conclusion that the extermination tale is a mixture of allied wartime propaganda, extremely profitable lie
and latter witch-hysteria."
CORBIN: What is your position on the holocaust? Do you believe that six million Jews were killed by the
Nazis.
GRIFFIN: I have no doubt that very large numbers were killed. No one specifically says six million. It's
described as a symbolic figure. But fundamentally I regard it as quite irrelevant and wrong that at a time
when the British people are going to be a minority in our own homeland in 60 years, in other words we're
going to be genocided, because that's what it is, at that time along come the liberal media with this big club
marked holocaust and bash me over the head with it.
CORBIN: But you're not prepared to say how many you believe did die.
GRIFFIN: Because I don't know.
--------------------------------
This is the kind of wording used by Ernst Zundel, David Irving at times, and others whose bona fides as deniers brands them permanently. Abbas' doctoral dissertation is a masterpiece of pseudo science claiming 750,000 jews.
Today they (and Vlaams) support Israel, but my sense is that this is so because they believe Israel's refusal to be a single state solution, and refusing the right of return is in fact, their fight. (that's incorrect, IMHO, but another subject)
What does this say? Is the BNP merely anti immigration? As an american I'd have to say they are gonzo, and any way to obfuscate that today would merely be paint over stain. But yet while you feel they are past 3 sd's from the center, I don't sense outrage. I'm not saying that's 'bad', just giving you my observation.
Perhaps that same skew (again an observation) is what lies between us w rgd to Vlaams.
When I see the Stormfront.org website, and then I see a Celtic Cross w/Dewinter, I worry. But of course, it's DRUID. Yet things pile up. I am concerned, disquieted, suspicious, and in general .. especially after hearing Dewinter (who is smooth), pulling back.
So, I think, is Spencer. If you look at an earlier post he had, he clearly qualified himself. Paraphrase ..'of course if some of these people turn out to be supremacists, or neo nazis, I abhor such things, yadda...'
We cannot compare this to FDR and Churchill and Stalin. This is a war of ideas, as Mr. Phares puts it, and if white supremacy is a building block of one side, it cannot be won. Our opponent is said to be the revealed word of god (whose main weakness, among others is that it is a racist document, and God, of course, is no racist)
Time will tell w/rgd to Vlaams. I cannot know what is in their hearts.
They're friends! Would you abandon a friend just because they said something you disagreed with? Just because they made a mistake?
____________________________________
That is not a mistake. Charles and Robert have gone out of their way now to make a point of announcing which side they take on this issue. They view "racism" and "neo-nazism" as being something so abhorrent, that they can not possible make allies with anyone so terrible, and they want the whole world to know it. They put ideological purity above all else. Why? Because this fight is an intellectual exercise for these men. As such, they still have the luxury of maintaining a PC view of the world where "racism" and "neo-nazism" are dreadful things, so dreadful in fact, that the islam they so fear, is actually not as bad.
There is where I and many others in this fight part company with these ivory tower intellectuals. Well, actually, Charles Johnson is no intellectual. He's a bike enthusiast geek who started a blog. Can the pedigree be any less "illustrious"?
Obviously I'm being too subtle. I shall use small words.
VB are Ca-pi-tal-ists. They are lib-er-al. Their policies work against any of the sort of ultimate aims you seem so willing to apply to them.
The BNP are socialists. They are authoritarian. Their policies can very easily work toward the goals you want to ascribe to VB.
I said that Griffen was trying to reform the party. I didn't say he was succeeding.
I do not support the BNP. I will not vote for them in any election. Were I Flemish I would support VB and I would vote for them.
Satisfied now?
Thank you, Archnonix. Next time I will have second cup of coffee, and some B-12 before reading your responses.
And you as well, Henrik. You can't imagine how much I hope that is correct.
Any demand for ideological purity is doomed to failure in the political arena that casts its net in a democratic state. Those of us who recognize the threat posed by Islam and by uncontrolled immigration will end up making alliances and "deals" with others whose intentions we may not identify to be as "pure" as our own.
Frankly, I don't give a damn. The hour is late and all this thumb sucking hand wringing navel gazing ANGST is just too much nonsense. People are playing their violins while our civilization burns.
Some guy standing shoulder to shoulder with me in this fight may not be my cup of tea but buy god he manning the ramparts and that's nearly all that counts. When they're coming for my wife and kids (and make no mistake they are) I'm not going to be too picky about who defends them.
Do I agree with all of the objectives of the BNP? Of course not! His socialist tripe is nonsense. But he does understand the battle to the death that we are engaged in. And so I will make "common cause."
Do I agree with everything the Baron says? Fjordman? Diana West? Robert Spencer (who I consider to be a milquetoast)? NO!! And frankly I don't give a damn. I want them on my side in this titanic struggle. The only reason I could care less about the Charles Johnson's in the world is in the final analysis they do more harm than good to our cause.
I'm not sure if I should thank Charles too, for pointing out that Stormfront exists and showing me their web site. I was merrily oblivious of those guys before - here in Denmark they're dissolved entirely. Actually, I think they deserver oblivion more than they deserve the attention Charles is giving them. Even their web site is ugly...
I suggest to look at it at slightly different angle. Charles Johnson is a Sand Francisco blogger. He is really concerned with the gay rights< and it is seen from his comments. Muslims are no good for gays, kinda hanging them e.t.c. But Brussels Journal is also not kind to gays. So what a poor gay, excuse me, blogger, can do in this situation? What would he prefer? Die proudly as a victim of muslims, or live freely but as a pariah in the society rooled by alikes of Paul Bellien from Brusselsjournal? It seems to me that proud and hawkish people, like they are at LGF, would rather prefer the former.
Students of the Russian Revolution will remember the endless bickerings and squabbles among would-be revolutionaries, meeting and anathematizing one another in seedy cafes across Europe. Who'd have thought the vagabonds would win?
Of course, it helped that the regime in place elected to commit suicide by persisting in WW1, which might be analogous to certain unpopular immigration policies being carried out by another autocratic and imbecile regime in Brussels.
Now all we need is our Lenin. But this time a good one!
Archonix --
The BNP were not invited. Their "whites" only policies, plust their statist political philosophy, made them unsuitable for what we were trying to do.
The British leadership of CVF helped make sure that no one from the UK with BNP leanings was invited.
Ahh, good. That alone makes it fairly obvious that this whole crypto-nazi accusation is so much hot air...
2 eatyourbeans
The one problem with Lenin is that he actually lost. The country he created existed only 70 years. Whereas his enemies, soft and sneaky traitors- socialists, are almost controlling the Western world. So the lesson to us is that we should not be hard-liners, but rather adapt to the situation. I am glad to see that most of the commenters here are not extremists - they are ready to tolerate the Johnson's betrayal and even make some concessions with him.
For the persons who doubt watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZidk64aHMo
I have blogged about the Johnson strangeness here:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com/2007/11/has-lgf-gone-commercial-charles.html
Fjordman posted: Some of the Muslims who are already here need to be expelled. There is no way around this. No, I have never suggested expelling all of them, but the most hardcore ones who push for implementing sharia laws here need to be deported, yes.
And how is one to assess who are hardcore and who are not, given "Taqqiya" is operative. It will need the equivalent of an Inquisition to determine the truth.
Now let us consider the situation that a significant number of Muslims at present living in the West, under pressure of expulsion, accepted the call to clean their communities of extremism, and disavowed Jihad. They even went further and made changes in their teachings of the Koran and the Jihad. Such an outcome would no doubt come as a relief to all. But I counter, that all such changes were being made merely to protect the ummah while it grows at ever increasing pace in the West. Once a near majority is achieved, a future generation of Muslims will simply revoke any changes and return to the traditions of the Koran. They will even praise this generation of Muslims for having done what was necessary to protect islam.
A clear break is thus the only option that preserves civilisation, and leaves hope for the future for all. A clear peaceful separation is the most humane and least harmful in terms of lives, but if that does not happen as it is not politically feasible, then the clear break brought about by a civil war becomes the only option left.
The trouble in all this is that we have nothing but distasteful options left, and they get ever more distasteful with the passage of time.
Baron Bodissey from a previous thread: He who cannot win an election, cannot expect such daydreams to come to pass. If you can win the election, then do so, and spare us the trauma of war. If you cannot win it now, then have patience, and settle down for a long campaign of educating the public.
A nice and thoughtful article requiring cool heads to get to grips with the existential problem that we face. I quite agree that a civil war must be avoided, but not at all costs. We have already seen the angry debates (arguments) that have arisen in the anti-Jihad movement as a consequence that VB and SD may not be of the right sort of parties to vote for. OTH, with such a contentious issue such as the removal of Islam as a significant threat to civilisation, any party that espoused such an aim will be immediately labelled as racist, Fascist or even Nazi, and will not be voted for. Meanwhile mainstream parties and the EU will continue with their immigration policies till such time that Europe is Islamified. It will then be too late for any actions, political or otherwise.
Since blogger will show my real name, I will not post my old lgf nic.
I banned myself from lgf, almost two years ago. I applaud Fjordman for leaving there, and that he was banned in absentia, speaks to the pettiness of the blog owner.
I have always been an admirer of Fjordman's well researched, informative, and thoughtful essays. The audience of lgf, years ago, was much different than it is now, as many of the earlier members have left, while a considerable portion of them have been banned, often for no more than challenging or questioning the blog owner.
As an American, I can say there have at times been anti-Euro sentiments expressed at lgf, as well as the reverse, but only in a tiny percentage of them would I say it was directed as complete disdain. Generally, it was an admonition for our Euro friends to take action, only now, when action is actually taken, it is impugned and questioned by the same people who demanded it. Perhaps with the delicate ego of the lgf blog owner, he believed he deserved a bigger role in the conference.
Regardless, lgf still has it's devotees, a large hit count, and perhaps some good threads, though I wouldn't know personally. There are many excellent blogs, such as this, where info can be found, and lgf is not on that list of sources.
Fjordman leaving lgf is an indication of good judgement, to me, and I look forward to his excellent writing.
Wow. I guess I really have been sleepwalking through the blogosphere to have missed this one. I myself quit going to LGF after CJ opened fire on intelligent design, but this turn of events surprises me. Is LGF becoming like O'Reilly -- that is to say -- drunk on its own self-importance? It sure seems so. All I know is that the longer we all wait to act, the fewer and the more extreme are the options that remain.
Russet,
I agree with your statement about the need to act now rather than later. That is one thing I must admit drives me nutty is the Western habit of talking and then talking some more. In my opinion, which I will admit is probably a minority position, is that the Muslims must be provoked. With the EU passing more and more laws against "hate speech" and any expression of European self-determination including opposition to massive Muslim immigration time is running out. The EU may even start openly planning for the day when Europe is dominated by Islam if Europeans don't act soon. Are there no patriots left in Europe willing to risk life and limb to preserve their countries and culture? Are there no radical Muslims preaching hate and domination that would present themselves as perfect targets for igniting the Muslim faithful to show their hand and their goal for finally winning the Battle of Vienna but across all Europe?
I read and posted an article yesterday that Germany's population collapse is unstoppable and that by 2050 fully one-third of ALL births in Europe will be to Muslims. By then Muslims will make up a majority of the population under 50. The point of no return IS near.
What does an Islamic Europe mean for the US? IMO it would be an extremely dangerous situation. Emboldened by their conquest of their old enemy, the Crusader states, the greatly expanded, and nuclear armed, Islamic world will set their sights on what will remain of the West, the US.
An Islamic Europe is a threat to the entire world and I believe US intervention is necessary to prevent it. The West, Left and Right, need to drop the crippling PC platitudes and put a stop to Muslim immigration and state firmly that Islam and Western democracy are incompatible. Maybe I'm being too apocalyptic and paranoid but I honestly fear a fallen West as a world wide catastrophe.
Here's another population source: http://www.islamicpopulation.com/europe_islam.html, that gives the Swedish Muslim population as 3% of the total, not 1.5% as my other link showed.
Charles Johnson of "Little Green Footballs" is not taking into account the ESSENTIAL nature of Islam. Islam brooks no competitors. There is nothing about "live and let live" and "let God sort out who is right and who is wrong" in Islam. That is what the whole concept of the "infidel" is about. We have only three choices: (1) conversion to Islam; (2) dhimmitude for "people of the book" in which Jews and Christians can pay a special tax and be second-class citizens, provided that they "feel themselves subdued" and have no authority over Muslims; or (3) death.
Islam is implacable and the "moderate Muslim" is a fantasy or results from a Muslim who does not know what the Qu'ran commands (which is possible since many Muslims do not speak the Arabic of the Qu'ran, and close study of the text is NOT encouraged) or do not take it very seriously or perhaps are practicing taqiyya (lying to the "infidel" for the good of Islam).
The charge of neo-Nazism is so poisonous, so vile -- putting the person objected to beyond the pale -- that it should not be made without ironclad proof, not 20-year-old videos or Druid symbols on someone's bookcase. If Pamela Geller feels welcome at a conference, how can anyone make a charge of neo-Nazism? How can a party that FAVORS israel be neo-Nazi? Just what does the charge MEAN when we know that Jew-hating is woven into the fabic of Islam (one of Mohammed's first acts was the beheading of a tribe of Jews).
How can any Western intelligence agency depand upon a Muslim when Mohammed himself said that "War is deceit" and blessed the doctrine of taqiyya, which the Qu'ran described as "smiling in (the infidel's) face while despising in the heart"? We are asking to be penetrated. Does the public know that Hillary's chief of staff is a Muslim woman (beautiful and reportedly her girlfriend), a Pakistani who grew up in Saudi Arabia and purchased $680,000.00 house on a $28,000.00 per year salary? Why is this not a news story? Where is she getting her money for her designer clothes and her townhouse? Someday, she may be in the White House with Hillary. Do you want to conduct a War on Terror without knowing the answers to these questions?
In the final analysis, I suspect that the West will NOT deport Muslims, both because of our illusions about "freedom of religion" and "freedom of conscience" or because most Muslims will practice taqiyya and lyingly pledge their loyalty to the West to stay here, while giving their REAL loyalty (as the Qu'ran commands) to fellow Muslims and the umma.
I do not "hate" Muslims. After all, one does not have to "hate" rattlesnakes to realize that one does not want to live among them. You just have to recognize their essential nature, the danger they present. One does not have to blame them for the fact that they are dangerous to you.
I suspect that we will be assured that there is "no need to do anything" (after all, Mark Steyn is a dunce and not a university-trained demographer) until we are told that "it is too late to resist."
My favorite quote from the European Union is that of a French official who commented when the public rejected the pending EU Constitution, "Well, the people have said 'no.' So we will just have to get a new 'people.'" So sadly true.
john
Very good observation. It has changed noticeably in the last two years. It's expected that even if you agree in part any attempt that doesn't exactly follow "Charles said" will be shouted down. Even if I agree fully on some subject I dislike discussing it with zealots.
My opinion of Johnson has degraded during this recent fuss. Perhaps he is standing on principal but he's also playing to his fan base in the comments section. I've also noticed his stance is subtly evolving versus the feedback, whether he'll admit it or not. This is already generating some hints of outrage by the self appointed opinion monitors in the comments area.
Since this is my first posting here let me be up front. I'm not a great fan of Europe. My exposure to European society, as a soldier stationed in Germany for two tours of duty during the 70's and 80's (as a "Grenz Soldaten" along the Bavarian side of the border that once existed), was mostly negative. Perhaps I was simply exposed too often to the more radical, or for lack of a better term, the elites. I have met a few there I considered friends. This was in both Germany and rural France. Still though I have far more Asian friends than European.
I have to be pragmatic though. Even if I was totally anti-European it's in my best interest for Europe to be free, prosperous and stable. I don't believe the situation is quite as bad as some here do but there's the potential. I've done some time lining of my own and a few of my private scenarios are pretty appalling.
I have neither the free time or resources to impact events. I would be willing to support those that do. Two generations of my family ended up fighting there and some never returned. I look at my current and future grandchildren and worry.
I invite anyone who has been banned from LGF to go to a page on my blog especially created to track those banned and some facts surrounding the ban.
http://www.usorthemonline.com/wordpress/?page_id=79
PRCAL--and miss out on all of these gems? As for the stalking, I think it's rather the other way 'round. Besides, I look forward to your latest hateful comments. BTW PRCAL< why is it OK for me to pick on the statements of mad mullahs and the Aussie "Meat Sheik", but any digs at WASPs are off limits? Come on, my WASP relatives and I dig at each other all the time. Nice try though. Now off to read the blog of a fellow commenter of yours here.
JFMcNULTY` said... Charles Johnson of "Little Green Footballs" is not taking into account the ESSENTIAL nature of Islam. Islam brooks no competitors.
Islam poses a far greater threat to western civilisation then Fascism, communism or even Nazism. The last three, though totalitarian, are to some degree rational in their purpose. Islam OTH, a 7th century blood thirsty desert cult, is motivated by world domination. Its texts are immutable and are not amenable to change or even rational analysis.
Fascism, though bad, would not be totally alien to our culture, as in many matters, it would not infringe on many aspects of Western civilisation, that it itself takes for granted. Islam OTH would be totally alien. It would ban the education of women, reducing them to the role of baby producers. Islam would be against all forms of music, and any literature that did not give prime importance to the Koran. Islam is so alien to Western civilisation that it can be regarded as virtually out of this planet as far as we are concerned.
I understand the need to use Fascism and equate it to Islam for illustrative purposes, but one must bear in mind that Islam poses a civilisational threat, and if it ever came into dominance in the West, there will be no turning back. Fascism or even communism OTH, poses no such gravest of grave threats. It is for this reason, that measures that would be deemed unacceptable in dealing with totalitarian threats such communism or fascism, must be considered as options against Islam. Many people in the West have no idea what Islam will do once it is dominant in the world, and has no reasons to care for its reputation anymore. However there was a time when such was the case. Ask Zoroastrians or knowledgable Hindus, what measures they would take to prevent the Islamisation of the West.
What is the position of Gates of Vienna, or Fjordman, regarding Vlaams Belang's demands for unconditional and universal amnesty for Flemings convicted of Nazi collaboration?
Congratulations. By associating yourself with VB, and not facing the basic facts, you had give high-caliber ammunition for your enemies from islamists and PC-left.
I always admired Fjordman, his writings are exellent diagnosis of current situation in Europe.
I am not trying to say thast Charkles is in everything OK, but let face facts: Belaang has ties to white suprematism.
Associations with unsavory groups is nothing new, and I fail to see why it should be so alarming, unless VB is actually in favor of racial supremacy or fascism.
If that's the case, then the U.S. Democrat Party should have been dissolved long ago, instead of being in a position of power.
So the lfg blog owner is so ideologically pure, he won't attend an important conference unless his questions are addressed? I think a more adult approach would have been to go, and ask those questions directly from the people involved.
But, based on the behavior of the lfg blog owner I observed change shortly after the PJ Media began, I believe his ego has outgrown his bike helmet.
Baron Bodissey on:
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2007/11/my-farewell-to-little-green-footballs.html#readfurther
“..No, Islam isn’t reformable. The only possible solution then, apart from a global war to the death which nobody wants, is to separate ourselves from the Islamic world as much as possible…” “…No, I have never suggested expelling all of them, but the most hardcore ones who push for implementing sharia laws here need to be deported, yes…”
He is not thinking entire logically to the end on the consequences: Even if we stopped immigration to Denmark or to Sweden tomorrow mathematics simply implies that the Muslims would become a majority just 7-8 years later than would be the fact, if it just continued as last year, because there is absolutely no adjustment of fertility towards anything like the Westeners’ fertility – on the contrary - dispite of what we are told by politically correct media. And it would be stricktly against both the intentions and the intensions of the Elite not to secure an increasing number inhabitants/ subjects by immigration of immigrants who add to the average fertility, especially to do the trick.
kgs
"Paul Belien recently stated on the Atlas interview with Pamela Geller, about that wreath laying cerimony. For an example, Stefan Laureys, one of those SS soldiers buried there, originally went to Finland to fight on the Finnish front against the Soviets, when Finland was fighting for its life. At the time, Germany and the Soviets had a treaty.
Laurey's parents hid Jews from the Nazis, and their son, no anti-Semite, refused to fight on the western front against the Allied forces. He was later shot.
This man deserved a wreath. without proper knowledge about the history of the coutnry in question, all kinds of wrong headed assumptions can be made. Killgore Trout is just one of the many in the "echo chamber" at LGF"
Don't you think it unfortunate to honour Stefan Laureys simultaneously with the Waffen SS, who is otherwise associated with episodes such as the Ouradour sur Glane massacre, Jochen Peiper's slaughtering of American POWs? Wouldn't you say they could have chosen (and perhaps even should have chosen) a less ambiguous moment to honour Stefan Laureys? Or what was really honoured? Correct me if I'm wrong.
Funny how you lot waited until this post was well down the page before pouncing. If I didn't know better...
Well, anyway, to answer your question, the memorial that's at the centre of this controversy honours all Flemish war dead from the second world war. Many of them were SS officers who joined up because they believed Hitler's promises that he'd free Flanders from its yoke to the Belgian state, and again many of them acted in a similar way to the man being honoured, by refusing to take part in the fight on the western front.
But the point is, it honours Flemish casualties in the war. The Germans are allowed to honour their own fallen soldiers despite the fact that they were fighting on the wrong side, because they deserve to be mourned for being destroyed by a war that consumed so many. In the UK we still honour the dead who fell in the Boer war despite the fact that particular war does not reflect particularly well on the national character. The argentinians honour their dead who fell in the Faklands war despite the fact that they were the aggressors. The French honour their dead who fell on both sides of World War 2.
Why should Flanders be any different?
And since that memorial names this man, why should they not lay a wreath there to honour him?
archonix:
I "waited" because I saw the post only recently.
Indeed, why not? I can understand the urge to want to remember fallen relatives and countrymen, to a certain extent. But I find this all-inclusive, morally gray let's-invite-all-including-SS-veterans-memorial-fest repulsive. Who cares if these guys were fooled by the Nazis? As I have written earlier:
"Anyone collaborating with the Nazis had to evade on a massive scale to rationalize that working with the Nazis would serve their interest, or anyone's interest. The Nazis broke every treaty entered, their rhetoric was wildly nationalistic and irrational, they spouted far-out racial theories that they obviously put much faith in, they made militaristic, expansionist demands on their neighbours, promising it to be their last only to return with new demands, they invaded nations all over the board, they made Orwellian about-faces with regards to their alliance with Soviet Russia ... . The nature of the Nazis was not in question at the time Belgium was invaded."
You'd actually have to be a moron or a sympathizer on some level to join the Waffen SS. Or do you have an alternative explanation?
I'm sorry? Belgium surrendered in 1940, a year after the war started. At that point the industrial slaughter of jews and other "undesirables" was still a year and a half in the future and the pressure placed on the jews in germany was still - just about - bearable. Of course part of Hitler's magic was in convincing foreign nationals to sign up to the German army with promises of relief from various national problems and conflicts. As an example he got a large contingent of British soldiers on his side, large enough to form their own unit in fact, because they believed he was helping to bring about the socialist revolution they craved.
I'm sorry? The treaties were broken during the 30s, I didn't mention the Jews, don't bring up the Jews, you don't need the Hebrews to ascertain the nefariousness of the Nazis, you have a point though that the war had not begun in earnest, although the Nazis had started it, which surely is an indication of their appetites. Nevertheless, the points enumerated above is sufficient to state with certainty that the Nazis could not be trusted at any level. Yes, there is at any time in history a large number of morons or individuals of questionable morals, but that is nothing new, is it?
Now, do you think there is an alternative explanation to why anyone in their right mind would want to collaborate with the Nazis, based on what they did from 1933 till say Dec 1939, other than being an unthinking moron or a sympathizer?
... well and the fact that if many of the fallen Flemings were officers of the Waffen SS means that they had to pass the SS Junkerschule Officer Training School, which means they were exposed to serious indoctrination on the Nazi racial world view, and that they didn't recoil from the stench of that, is an indicator of were their sympathies lay? It must be considered that the SS and the Waffen SS was the Nazi elite and were rigorously trained and selected to match the Nazi ideals.
You don't have a problem with them being honoured? You don't have a problem with someone honouring them? If so, why?
To really hammer the point home:
Ziel dieses Unterrichts war die Identifikation mit den Grundsätzen der SS-Ideologie, z.B. mit den geopolitischen Herrschaftsansprüchen („Volk ohne Raum“), mit dem Sozialdarwinismus, der mit dem „Lebenskampf der arischen Herrenrasse“ begründet wurde, mit Antikommunismus und Antisemitismus. ...
Im Lehrfach „Weltanschauliche Erziehung“ wurden „germanische Geschichte“, „arische Rassenkunde“ und die Grundzüge der sogenannten „großdeutschen Lebensraum-Philosophie“ gelehrt.(Ausbildung in den Junkerschulen)
Here's my so-so translation:
The goal of this education was to identify the principles of the SS ideology, for example of the claims to domination ("people without space"), of Social Darwinism, which was grounded in "the life-and-death struggle of the Aryan master race, of anti-communism and anti-semitism ...
Under the subject "world view education" were "Germanic history", "Aryan race theory" and the general outlines of the so-called "lebensraum philosophy of Greater Germany" taught. (education in the Junkerschulen)
Now, can anyone with a straight face say that the newly baked SS cadet, his head pumped full with such murderous drivel, behaved in a way remotely similar to that of a red coat officer during the Boer war? An Argentinian officer commanding his demoralized conscripts? In fact, it sounds a whole lot like leftist moral relativism to me, are you a crypto leftist, Archonix?
Give me one good reason why we should ignore Vlaams Belang's leadership laying wreaths honouring people like these? I don't know what Charles Johnson of LGF knows about the Nazis. Maybe he knows more than you think. But about this one I think he's right. Shame on VB for not discriminating against the SS veterans.
Polemicist--
People honor their dead, especially their military dead. In the South, Confederate graves are still tended. Confederate battles are still discussed -- even re-enacted.
What have you proven besides the fact that you abysmally fail to understand human nature, symbols, and the rituals which bind a people into a more cohesive culture. That includes living with dead mistakes.
Get over it.
I am a son of a Confederate Veteran, and proudly so. My ancestors were not slave owners, and didn't agree with it, they fought for liberty, and states rights. So by one persons logic, I should be ashamed or feel guilt from their participation in the War Between the States, because the victors of that war wrought the history books, and they say the war was over slavery.
That an individual was honored by the VB doesn't seem that horrific to me. Honoring one man that had a SS connection, doesn't mean the Nazi history is being honored. If that were indeed the case, then I would certainly think differently.
Back to Fjordman's adios to lfg, I reiterate my statement, that I believe he showed excellent judgement, in doing so. If I had any question of Fjordman's decision, it would be "why did it take you so long?"
dymphna
I thought you were moralists, yet I only find stinkin' relativism. Right or wrong, my tribe, eh? For the record, I wouldn't object to honouring the Southern dead if they were anything like the individuals portrayed in the movie Gettysburg, though. Of course that's just a movie.
Are the civil war South and WWII fascists the same? Are a youngster committing a misdemeanor and a hardened felon the same? Is a shoplifter and a gang-rapist the same? Do you honour the gang-rapist because he carries your family name? It is you who abysmally fail to see the nature of the "mistake" committed by anyone who ran with the Nazis.
You don't have to get over it, but you should perhaps reconsider, your position, Madam.
Since my blog was mentioned and disparaged in this article, a few remarks:
1. My original article did not claim that neo-Nazis TODAY were more dangerous than leftists. My claim is that people in general have a brain and that they won't stand to the way the Left bows down to the Islamists and rejects their national heritage for long. When THAT happens, the victims will be all minorities. Even today, there is less understanding towards religious Jews, despite the fact that they have lived in Europe for centuries and have achieved their rights together with their obligations through years of development.
2. I did not like Vlaams Belang's hypocrisy. When LGF called them Nazis they attacked him for doing so, but they themselves had done the same to a fellow Jihadi WHEN IT SUITED THEM. So do they think its ok to hang around with people who think the Mossad organized the French riots? Or is it only bad when those same people leave them in the lurch? I did not see anybody answer back on this issue.
3. The extreme leftist anarchists attack right wing protests. This is not new. All over Europe there have been such attacks, which are usually very violent. My point was that the attackers obviously see SIAD as an extreme right wing group. My point was also that the anti-Jihadi blogs generally ignore the Left when they attack the police and when they brutally attack other protesters. That's ok, as its not their subject matter. What I found difficult to understand was why when those same leftists attacked "our people" it was suddenly the end of the democratic world order as we know it. If anarchists have been rioting in Copenhagen for weeks, then one brutal attack is not what is going to topple democracy.
To sum things up:
None of the blog-owners here, nor the elusive Fjordman, have considered themselves worthy to give an answer to the question about universal and unconditional amnesty for all Flemings convicted of collaboration with the enemy during a state of war. The universality and "uncondionality" of the amnesty is surely an injustice, because along with those innocently convicted there would surely also be true collaborators. Treason in times of war means death in my book, but that's another matter. Since no answer is also an answer, we'll just have to draw our own conclusions.
There have also been all kinds of ham-fisted attempts to justify honouring war dead including those serving in the murderous Waffen SS. It is remarkable to find arguments similar to those used by the left on a supposedly right-leaning site: the British honour their war dead and the Flemings honour their. (Only the Flemings served a cause equal if not surpassing Islam in ferocious bloodthirstiness: Moral relativism: out!) The line that honouring your dead serves to increase social cohesion could be true, but I would think that by remembering these dead you actually increase frictions in Belgian society. If social cohesion is your goal and overlooking "mistakes" is your method, shouldn't you overlook the excesses of those poor Muslims as they rampage through our streets?
Anxious and eager as always to engage you in debate.
Polemicist, I saw the issue of collaborator amnesty addressed somewhere in the CVF pile of documents collected by Christine.
A brief summary:
The amnesty is intended to stop harassment by Belgian (read: Walloon) authorities who revoke pensions, evict from housing etc. some of the few remaining low-level collaborators from WWII.
These are 80+ years old by now, and given an age of only max 20 years during WWII, none of them can have held any position of significance back then. The amnesty is just meant to stop harassment of old people on thin excuses, people who have led full lives after the war without starting any Nazi activities in those 60+ years. If you feel that this harassment of the old and weak is fine, please speak up now.
The condemnation of all Nazi heritage has been so unconditional from VB that I see no reason to repeat it here. But if you're interested, ask away.
BTW, the Walloons had over twice the frequency of Nazi collaboration as did the Flemmings, as measured by how many individuals put their lives on the line in the battle field.
Oh, the real neo-Nazis (fringe group) in Belgium detest the Vlaams Belang for their friendly attitudes towards Jews & Israel...
As someone not without a position on this, I am going to make a suggestion which is probably going to fall on deaf ears...
STOP
NOW
Toutes le monde. Maintenant.
This now has a life of it's own.
We have the 'VB is just a conservative party, and we need all the help we can get, and if you're not down with that you're mushy headed and stupid PC' folks against the 'VB is the KKK or Waffen wannabees, and the folks who want them as allies are now suspect in their beliefs' people.
Duhhhh, this means we are not going to convince anyone of anything. Any 'fact' will have an explanation. Any explanation will be perceptively different depending on the 'ears'.
Why don't we just see what VB does?
All we are accomplishing right now is to create hard feelings and suspicion.
There are other fish to fry.
9:5
9:29
The Stone and The Tree.
How to beat your woman.
Natanz.
HAMAS
While VB becomes what will be obvious one way or the other, MAKE LEMONADE.
STOP. NOW.
That's the best post in this thread I've seen all day.
epamimondas
"STOP
NOW"
You are excused.
"Why don't we just see what VB does?"
I thought we were doing just that.
henrik:
"Polemicist, I saw the issue of collaborator amnesty addressed somewhere in the CVF pile of documents collected by Christine."
Yes, I've seen those. Here's my reply:
"In the real world real actions have real consequences. I have no sympathy, feel no pity, shed no tears for those old geriatrics who actually collaborated with the Nazis [at whatever level, I may add]. They chose and now they live with the consequences, and they should live with the consequences. Anyone unjustly convicted could have his case re-tried, but this is obviously not the same as universal and unconditional amnesty for all Flemings convicted of Nazi collaboration."
Would you agree with this?
henrik
"The condemnation of all Nazi heritage has been so unconditional from VB that I see no reason to repeat it here. But if you're interested, ask away."
I will not argue the point any further. Some have come to the conclusion that it is necessary and good to co-operate with VB. I am not convinced.
From Filip de "Metaphor" Winter's own mouth (17 mins in). By "choos[ing] a white Europe" he meant (metaphorically) the cultural values of old Europe, which by the way was white, which is why I referred to the cultural values as "white", but I am not an ethnical nationalist, I just happened to choose the word "white" and no other word because I meant .... "white" ...? (he is actually quite funny)
The quote was from '91 but the "explanation" was fresh. I would have given him much more credit if he had said. "Yes, at that time I was a firm believer in racial nationalism, not anymore."
And the quote from this year about lesbians, negroes and Muslims, which he didn't deny but never addressed.
And does this item end up on your pro or con list for the Vlaams Belang? (page 12)
I'm sure their anti-Islamist credentials are impeccable, but it's not good enough, ladies and gentlemen.
I don't know anything about story reported about Finland, but
Waffen SS should never be honoured for anything what so ever.
For
J. E. Vig, Denmark
http://danmark.wordpress.com
Sonia
PS: Your bloddy google-reply-facilities does not work satisfactory from my netserver - as usual
Post a Comment