It's déjà vu all over again

Bruce Bawer via LGF, today:

The other day, in the wake of my City Journal piece “Heirs to Fortuyn?”, a couple of anti-jihad writers who had not yet rebuked me for my stance on Vlaams Belang finally got around to doing so. Not only did they send me e-mails taking me to task for criticizing VB in that article; one of them also took it upon himself to chew me out for, in his view, admiring Pim Fortuyn too much and Geert Wilders too little. (Never mind that I’ve defended Wilders frequently and that Wilders has blurbed my new book, Surrender.) Wilders, this individual felt compelled to lecture me, is a far greater figure than Fortuyn ever was. Why? Because, he explained, Wilders stands for “Western values,” while Fortuyn stood only for – get ready for this – “Dutch libertinism.”

Yes, “Dutch libertinism.” The words took my breath away. During the last few days (while, as it happened, I was visiting Amsterdam) I haven’t been able to get them out of my mind. For a self-styled anti-jihadist – who, by the way, I first met three years ago at the Pim Fortuyn Memorial Conference in The Hague – to refer in this way to a man who sacrificed his life for human liberty is, in my view, not only incomprehensible but profoundly despicable. This is, after all, precisely the sort of language that Dutch Muslim leaders hurled at Fortuyn during his lifetime. And in the present case the words were plainly aimed not only at Fortuyn but at me – a writer who, like Fortuyn, that great martyr for freedom, is gay.

What the hell, one is entitled to wonder, is going on here? Why has Vlaams Belang, of all things, become a veritable sacred cow for so many anti-jihadist writers? And why does at least one of them now take such a staggeringly contemptuous view of Pim Fortuyn? I can’t honestly say that I understand any of it. But I do know this: when writers who represent themselves as champions of liberty start cozying up to distinctly illiberal parties like Vlaams Belang – and when one of those supposed champions of liberty starts to sound uncomfortably like the Islamist enemies of freedom whom he purports to despise – then there’s something terribly wrong, and genuinely evil, afoot.

LGF Watch, more than three years ago:

Shorter Paul Belien

"The only possible alternative to Islamo-fascism is Christo-fascism."

This piece of lunatic drivel scores extra-high on the Irony-Meter thanks to this bit in its last paragraph:

We have seen the assassinations of Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh

Pim Fortuyn was a proud, promiscuous homosexual.

Theo van Gogh despised all religions, and was an ardent admirer of Fortuyn.

But according to Bible-bashers like Belien and his fascist friends, secularism, abortion and "hedonism" (a code word for sexual tolerance) are destroying Europe and paving the way for an Islamist takeover.

I don't think either van Gogh or Fortuyn would agree.

(note: Paul Belien is the publisher of the Brussels Journal, and has close ties to Vlaams Belang.)

More (from us, of course) on Vlaams Belang

Et tu, Orson?

Longime LGF fave Orson Scott Card has proudly joined up with a Mormon-backed group called the National Organization for Marriage in its jihad against same-sex marriage in the U.S.

As recently as last November, Charles was praising Card for his anti-Obama and -MSM screeds, for example:

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/31631_Card-_Would_the_Last_Honest_Reporter_Please_Turn_On_the_Lights

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/31800_Card-_Obamas_Cruel_Tax_on_the_Poor

He seems to have either overlooked or forgotten that Card is also a fervent defender of intelligent design.

And now Card, who has previously issued statements like:

Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down

is not only a supporter, but an executive director, of an organization that does very little to hide its theocratic bent. In other words, Card is a Card-carrying member of the loony right -- the very same folks against whom Charles now spends a good deal of his time railing.

EDIT: P.S. This.

Et tu, Zombie?

Charles Johnson, Tuesday:

This turn toward the extreme right on the part of Fox News is troubling, and will achieve nothing in the long run except further marginalization of the GOP—unless people start behaving like adults instead of angry kids throwing tantrums and ranting about conspiracies and revolution.

Charles' faithful doppelgänger Zombie, yesterday:

The goal of the “gay agenda,” or whatever you want to call it, is (according to the queer theorists themselves) to recast all of culture, and I mean all of culture, from a queer perspective. It is to forever bring an end to “heteronormativity,” which means the presumptive interpretation of reality through a straight lens. This is to be replaced with the presumptive interpretation of reality through a gay lens. Hence all of history, all of contemporary society, all of literature, all of social sciences, all of politics, all social norms are to reinterpreted from a queer perspective — or at least what the activists have defined as a queer perspective.

This goal has absolutely nothing to do with “equal rights” or “gay marriage” or anything like that. The goal is to forge yet another form of “identity politics,” to contrive a new significant minority group. And the reason for that is to create yet one more stress fracture through society, to accelerate its splintering into a million warring factions, so that there is a general breakdown of society, as a necessary prerequisite for revolution. Complete fundamental revolution — not just a political revolution.

Any feeling of unity among people, of trans-divisional solidarity, of contentment, needs to be wiped away. Because a contented society will never consent to revolution. This is the whole purpose of identity politics, or race-baiters, of “queer studies,” of the whole seemingly incomprehensible obsession with “race, class and gender,” of any movement which intentionally causes rifts in the cohesion of American society: the ultimate goal is the eradication of all pre-existing social norms, so that we can “start afresh” with an entirely new moral code and social structure after a fundamental revolution.

Some queer theorists are aware of this ultimate goal, but some are not. They go through the motions, not even cognizant of why they’re doing it, content to go with the flow. But if you read the foundational documents, the deep theorists, then the overarching goal is laid out plain to see.

I’m all for equal rights for everyone, just as you are — but you are dreadfully naive if you think this has anything to do with equal rights or even with sexuality per se, bi- or otherwise. This is about the push for revolution.

And I’m not calling it a “communist” revolution for a reason, because it goes way beyond mere “communism,” way beyond just economics. I think even Marx himself would be shocked and mortified at what he has unleashed, or at least what he has inspired. But actually it’s not his fault: there have been attempts at Total Revolution in the past, some successful, some not: the Christianization of the Roman Empire; the Islamic conquest of the Middle East; the French Revolution; the Great Leap Forward/Cultural Revolution in China; the Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia; etc. In most cases, successful or not, the end result was wholesale slaughter, and the subsequent new social order and moral code was no better than the one it replaced.

Evidently Charles' post was directed at the "teabagging" movement, not at fellow-travelers conjuring up evidence of a sinister homosexual conspiracy to press Little Pink Books into the hands of all Americans and force everyone into same-sex marriages. Nonetheless, Zombie's rant has more than a whiff of lunatic paranoia about it.

To this day, we still don't know where Charles stands on the issue of same-sex marriage, and we suspect that won't change anytime soon; but as the desperate opponents of equal rights -- many of whom are allied, blogospherically and otherwise, with Charles' most fervent enemies -- frantically ramp up their mendacious attacks on gay and lesbian Americans, the issue will become more and more difficult for him to ignore.

OMG CREEPING SHARIA THREAT WATCH ALERT!!1!

An organization that was recently formed for the purpose of perpetuating second-class citizenship for gay Americans has a Board of Advisors that includes a lady called Amatullah Sharif, whose affiliation is listed as "The Mosque Cares - Ministry of Imam W. Deen Mohammed."

According to what I presume to be an impeccable wingnut news source (and one that has been favorably cited at LGF on at least one occasion):

"The Mosque Cares" is an organization founded by Warith Deen Mohammed, a former leader of the Nation of Islam. "The Mosque Cares" often works together with other Islamist groups in the United States such as the Muslim Alliance in North America [MANA] and the Islamic Society of North America [ISNA, also an unindicted co-conspirator in the HLF prosecution].

MANA recently gave W.D. Mohammed "its first 'Lifetime Achievement Award.' The fact is that historically, he led the largest "mass conversion" of Muslims in the United States, when he sheparded his followers from the Nation of Islam doctrine to following the Quran and Sunnah specifically." [see, http://www.mana-net.org/pages.php?ID=&NUM=164]

The amir of MANA, is Siraj Wahhaj [see, http://www.mana-net.org/pages.php?ID=&NUM=164], a party named by U.S. prosecutor Mary Jo White as an unindicted co conspirator in the 1993 WTC bombings.

This would be a perfect opportunity for Charles Johnson to demonstrate, once and for all, which side he's on in the battle over same-sex marriage. The presence of Ms. Sharif -- not to mention dozens of other religious extremists, most of whom are, presumably, believers in creationism and other icky things -- on the Board of Advisors of a vehemently anti-gay organization gives him a perfect excuse to "come out" in favor of equal rights for all. Of course he'd rather commit seppuku with a rusty butter knife than give us a "hat tip," but if anyone is so inclined, please feel free to bring this to his attention by other means.

If history is any indication, though, Charles will simply ignore the issue and hope it goes away. He's already lost the creationists; can he afford to lose the homophobes too?

Don't mention the war

As everyone in Charles Johnson's home state of California knows, last week a slim majority of voters voted Yes on Proposition 8, which imposes a ban on same-sex marriages.

Since then, tens of thousands of protesters have poured into the streets of Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, and other cities. Some of the protests have been violent; most have resulted in street closures and other unpleasantness.

Usually, when protests of this magnitude occur -- especially when the overwhelming majority of the protesters happen to be liberal Obama-lovers -- Charles and his loyal doppelgänger Zombie are at their keyboards 24/7 breathlessly reporting every single questionably-worded sign and rude chant.

But now -- not a word. From either of them.

Either Charles and Zombie don't think the furore over Proposition 8 is newsworthy, an attitude that is easily dispelled by the quickest glance at the front page of any California newspaper, or they lack the cojones to admit to their rabidly conservative readership donor base that they actually agree with the protesters' contention that religious biases have no place in the state Constitution.

Little Green Homophobes

Well, well scratch the surface of any bigot and all manner of new prejudices come to light. Check out some of the comments that accompany Chuckles' post entitled ' PFLP Leader: Arafat Died of AIDS'.

"Now the liberals will love him even more..."

"I thought AIDS started with monkey's and not goats?"

"So on top of a murderous, rebellious, ugly d*ck head, he was a homosexual too?"

"Can we raise the Andrew Sullivan Feelings Threat Warning to "Heartache" level?"

"MO This isn't the break we are looking for. We need a former lover, with graphic pictures to move the Arab Street. ... Also it is not all great that Arafat was homosexual. This could very easily lead to a lot of gay bashing, both in the streets of Gaza, and in these forums..." [No shit? --ed]

"Hey, maybe Allah is gay and will welcome him with open arms."

"Hillary better get herself checked."

"Maybe from a toilet seat?"

"Zombie - we are due for more Cana type pics of AIDS suffering palis. Keep your photoshop open."

....and so on and so on. In one stream of comments the resident bigots at LGF manage to spew out almost every prejudice, lie, urban legend and slur associated with HIV/Aids. Well done Charles, you must be so proud.

Source: Instaputz

Glass house

Before Charles bleats on about nasty comments posted on the WaPo website, perhaps he'd like to spend some time scrutinizing his own blog:

#77 Lizard by the Bay 4/16/2007 10:13:19 am PDT

Blog Posting from Rosie: “Don’t fear the terrorists. They’re mothers and fathers.”

She stands by that statement. In the meantime, Bush gets cut no slack for being the father of twin girls. According to Rosie, you all still need to fear him more than any genocidal Muslim with a nuke. Evidently, parenthood doesn't let you off the hook if you're Republican, only if you're Muslim.

In the meantime, just how many babies have come crawling out of Rosie's fat oozing crack? Zero by my last count. "Hey Rosie, you need a dick for that!"

And while I've got your attention, click on that link and just try to read that blog "posting". Most 13 year olds display better writing skills on their MySpace pages. To the list of Rosie attributes, which include deeply stupid, loud, obnoxious, fat, ugly, dangerous, and sex pervert, we can now officially add profoundly illiterate. [our emphases]

Charming, Charles.