It is not lost on me that in Johnson's final suicidal death blows - we have come full circle. Poetic justice (or redemption perhaps) that the Atlas post - the proverbial shot across the bow considered by all as "too extreme" (LGF and CAIR 10/22/07)- would be echoed by Spencer (unknowingly I am sure) as the curtain closes on this chapter of the johnson's mental illness.
Redmption aside, the johnson's unceasing attempts to destroy one of our greatest Islamic scholars is criminal. Deadly. Spencer is a national treasure.
What I find morbidly amusing is that at the end of the day, the post that called him out and started it all, was no exaggeration.
I feel sorry for Charles. While my taking a stand at the time not to paint all European parties with one brush did hurt Atlas initially - my readership was cut and none of the big boys would ever link to me again (not Instapundit, Malkin, Hot Air - or little boys like Pajama Media) - it didn't matter. Atlas did it on her own. My readership has skyrocketed on its merit ..... and LGF has gone nowhere (and rightly so.)
The meltdown is painful to watch ... like the train wreck in slo-mo. Fo-sho.
This is the update to my earlier post: The New Fascism ....on the right.
Robert has it here, click below for more at Jihadwatch.
SECOND UPDATE: The comments over at LGF are getting really vile -- accusing me of actually posting pro-genocidal material there, or sending someone to do so, or inspiring someone to do so apparently by what I post here. As well as all the accusations of race supremacism, fascism, etc., that he has for months allowed to become standard over there when my name comes up.
Bear in mind that all of these attacks are based on guilt by association. None of them are based on anything I have actually ever said or written. And the case against those whose association so taints me is, contrary to Charles's repeated and strident assumption, unproven.
Charles ought to be ashamed of himself, both for his bullying and inconsistency, and for his allowing this to go on. In any case, he has rendered himself irrelevant (at best) in the struggle to defend the principles of freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, the equality of rights of all people before the law, and Constitutional pluralism against the jihad and Islamic supremacism. His demand of an absolute ideological lockstep is ultimately at variance with those principles of freedom anyway.
THIRD UPDATE: As you can see from my comment here, Charles himself has now begun defaming me with hints that I support genocide -- because of a comment that some idiot who has nothing to do with me put up at LGF. Probably he will block the link again, but you can paste it into a new window and it will work.
1023 Charles 10/31/2008 7:28:22 pm PDT
Unbelievable.
If I were you, Robert, I'd ask myself some serious questions about what I was doing to encourage the open support for genocide expressed by jdow.
Good luck indeed.
The background of this is that this "jdow" character posted a pro-genocide comment there, and this is supposed to be my fault. The evidence? Well, apparently "jdow" has commented here too.
Do I know who "jdow" is? No, I do not. Is he any different from anyone else who posts here whom I don't know? Is he any different from Abdullah Mackay, who posts here often, and sharply disagrees with everything I write, or from any other commenter here?
The only possible way that I could be responsible for someone promoting genocide is if I promote it myself. So: can Charles Johnson or anyone else produce a scrap of evidence from my writings to show that I have encouraged open support, covert support, or any support for genocide? Charles should either produce evidence that I do, which he cannot do, or he should retract his libelous insinuation. That he will almost certainly do neither is evidence that he has become a deeply dishonest and untrustworthy man.
But that he would stoop to this defamation shows what he really is, and what he is about. It makes me sorry that I ever counted him as a friend or ally.
FOURTH UPDATE: Paste in this link:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/showc/25/6143272
It reads thusly:
25 Charles 11/01/2008 10:18:32 am PDT
Note: please use the report button if you see anyone posting ugly comments related to Robert Spencer's vicious attack on me this morning. I expect some meltdowns.
And Charles knows meltdowns! Note well: falsely accusing me of encouraging genocide -- that's not a "vicious attack." Asking for supporting evidence for the charge or a retraction, and doubting I will get either (and I won't) -- that's a "vicious attack."
Charles seems to be working from the playbook of the jihad enablers who have nothing to say about jihad attacks but are quick to label the reporting of jihad attacks as "Islamophobia."
Charles, have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?
FIFTH UPDATE: I want to emphasize that I have not endorsed the Vlaams Belang. This whole controversy is not about the Vlaams Belang, but about whether or not one can disagree with Charles Johnson and not be defamed as a result. I have merely recognized that people of good will, who are not "seriously deluded" (as someone calls them below) and are not racists or neofascists, have mounted a case opposing Charles Johnson's assessment of the Vlaams Belang. In other words, the question is not whether or not we should support neofascists, but whether or not Vlaams Belang is neofascist. That question is hotly disputed, and those who think that Johnson has not made his case are not evil just for thinking that.
If Vlaams Belang were openly neo-Nazi, it would be an open-and-shut case, and no one should support them. But this is a search for crypto-fascists, and people assess the evidence differently. It is an issue warranting further study. And until Charles demanded that his link be removed from here, I had both sides represented in my links.
All this has eluded them, however, such that over in his LGF echo chamber they say -- and even Charles suggests -- that I have embraced the neo-Nazis and encourage genocide. He ought to be monumentally ashamed of himself for this defamation.
SIXTH UPDATE: Heartfelt thanks to all those who have expressed their support and appreciation of my work. I am grateful to each one of you.
As far as the ongoing discussion of the BNP goes, it is their race-based membership requirement and race-based emphasis that makes me unable to support them. I have explained why elsewhere, more than once.
The libels and misrepresentations of my positions at LGF, and the fascist/Stalinist snap-to of instantly excoriating someone who had been a valued friend as an evil and dangerous foe, should be illuminating to anyone who wonders what is going on. And remember, this all happened not because of anything I said or did, but because of a couple of blog links under a disclaimer.
The LGF commenters, however, have begun -- here again in true Stalinist fashion -- searching for previous signs of my ideological deviation.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/showc/1145/6142955
In that comment someone quotes something from my 2003 book Onward Muslim Soldiers: "Begin to regard Muslim immigration as a national security issue, and take steps to limit it and end it if possible. (And of course all illegal aliens should be made to leave immediately.)" This is evidence of my secret wickedness.
So apparently Muslim immigration is not a national security issue: the stealth jihad, the sleeper cells, the jihad plots are all chimeras. And illegal aliens should make themselves at home.
Then there is this:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/showc/1146/6144662
This links to a Gates of Vienna post about the honor killing of the Said sisters in Texas. I am not sure what the point is here -- perhaps it is that it is terrible and neo-Nazi to suggest that there could have been an honor killing in Texas. Unfortunately, the facts demonstrate otherwise.
With comments like these going unchallenged, it is hard to argue against the proposition that LGF has ceased to be concerned about the spread of Islamic supremacism in the U.S.
Those who exhort both Charles Johnson and I to cut the crap should recall that Charles Johnson is entirely, wholly, and solely responsible for provoking this rift, and for the overheated rhetoric of support for genocide, fascism, etc.
I see also that Charles Johnson is also charging me with personally betraying him by "embracing" people who have attacked him.
It is odd that he would make this charge after allowing his comments fields to become the arenas for repeated libels of me and my work by Kejda Gjermani ("medaura"), Michael Hussey ("mph"), "Killgore Trout" and others.
And even if he had not done that, his charge would only make sense if I had dropped the link to LGF while restoring the link to Brussels Journal etc. In fact, I had links to all sides here, which I had hoped would become the foundation for a gradual reconciliation of people who, let us not forget, had once been friends. That Charles would get so angry about a couple of blog links is reminiscent of a second-grade lunchtable where one kid gets angry with another kid for inviting other kids to sit at the table also.
It was Charles who chose to see these links as a repudiation and betrayal, when there was no necessary reason for him to have done so. Gates of Vienna has criticized me in the past, so I could have followed Charles' path and considered that anyone who even suggested they were not evil was no longer my friend. I have links to other people I don't always agree with and have had public disputes with -- such as "Allahpundit" at Hot Air. Yet no one at LGF is insisting that I must share all of Allahpundit's views because I link to Hot Air. They only insist that I share all of GoV's views because of the link here to them. Why is that? Because insisting on the latter is consistent with the picture of me as a neofascist that they want to paint.
In any case, LGF commenters are now saying I have restored "VB" to my links, when Vlaams Belang was never there, and I have stated above that I have not endorsed VB. And they're saying that soon I will be bringing white supremacists to speak at anti-jihad conferences in the U.S. This is arrant, libelous nonsense, and it illustrates that the commenters there simply aren't interested in the truth, but are here again falling into Stalinist lockstep.
Charles also has stated that he did thousands of dollars of work for this site, for which I never paid him. In reality, he did a great deal of work for which he was duly paid. Then he did some work here and there for which I repeatedly asked him to bill me. (I just found half a dozen requests from me, asking him to bill me, in a moment's search of one email box.) He never did. Ultimately, it seemed clear at the time that he considered the unbilled items minor tweaks, but to imply that I ripped him off his, to put it mildly, untrue. That he would attempt to use against me something over which I had no control and that was against my repeatedly expressed wishes is a measure of the man. He is essentially saying, "Hey, I tried to buy Robert Spencer's friendship, and he betrayed me by not being for sale."
And finally, Charles has referred repeatedly to my "vicious attack" upon him, yet he has never answered the points I made in the "vicious attack," which could only refer to the above post. For instance, why is it OK for LGF to link to Pajamas Media, which links to Brussels Journal, and Pajamas Media is not fascist, but if I link to Brussels Journal, LGF must delink from me and call me a fascist? Charles Johnson doesn't answer that question, and he can't answer it, because in fact when it comes to a "vicious attack" and a "stab in the back" he has been the perpetrator, not the victim.
Charles Johnson, let us remember, initiated this whole thing and wrote he was "done" with me, etc.
I responded, defending myself, and have added updates responding to his increasingly shrill attacks, most notably that I am encouraging genocide.
This is what constitutes in his eyes a "vicious attack."
Apparently the only way I could have avoided "viciously attacking" Charles Johnson would have been to roll over and allow him to defame me without response.
Call this one "Charles Johnson Hits Bottom, Digs."
SEVENTH UPDATE: Charles Johnson is going CAIR one better by blaming me not for unmoderated comments made here at Jihad Watch, but for comments left at LGF and emails he has received that oppose the lunatic course he has taken. So for the record I am stating here now that I have never asked anyone to write to Charles Johnson or to comment at LGF in my defense, and have no responsibility for anything anyone says while doing so. And I ask those who support me not to write to this man, or to comment at his site. Thank you. [red emphasis mine]
If you are interested in ancient history, go here: Counter Jihad Conference 2007
