Who are the victims? And who are the bigots?

The people at Daily Kos don't much care for Little Green Footballs:

Perhaps one of the most pernicious and evil spots on the Internet these days is Little Green Footballs.

LGF used to be a right-wing political blog, but is now simply a dung heap of racist panic, where anti-Arab and anti-Muslim screeds are not only welcomed in user comments, but trumpeted constantly in main page entries by the site operators.

So, I wandered over there to get my daily dose of angry race rage -- this makes you really sympathize for other victims of the LGF mentality, like African-Americans and gay people -- and found to my surprise that two mainstream companies are advertising on the website:

AOL Time Warner and the Wall St. Journal.

I am one of Charles Johnson's regular readers, and I am wondering how it is I have managed to miss the "racist panic" complained of. Sure, there's plenty of criticism of Islamofascist atrocities like honor killings, abuse of women, murdering of children, but I never saw any of these things attributed to the race of the perpetrators.

What I'd really like to see is the evidence that "African-Americans and gay people" are Charles Johnson's "victims." I doubt there is any. I've never seen a single posting at LGF which victimized blacks or gays. I have seen a number of posts defending gays, though.

While Johnson can no more be held responsible for his innumerable comments than I can, I'll start with these comments, to the above post about the Daily Kos remarks:

Number 97, from "Globular Cluster":

I'm sure Zuniga would hate to visit the Gay Pride parade in Tel Aviv -- home of the Zionazi oppressors -- but would love to visit the soccer stadium the Taliban used to hang homosexuals in Kabul.

Or this (comment 84):

This is a perfect example of how the left tolerates gays only if I accept a quasi-dhimmitude role as their political pet. This idiot does not care what sharia says about homosexuality and has not the slightest idea that a gay considering his options might be interested to fight for the rule of man-made law. If not worse, he knows but thinks I was dumb enough to buy the lie and drink the kool-aid. Better get rid of your oppressed minority zoo keeper mentality before the crowd laughs at you, leftist.
I have complained before about the hesitancy of certain gay activists to condemn Islamic anti-homosexual bigotry as they should. But to see a site which does that called anti-homosexual -- really, this is too much.

I'm not going to spend all day on this (it's almost commenting on the obvious), but I'll link to a few actual LGF reports about victimization of gay people, so readers can see for themselves who's bigoted and who's defending the victims.

  • Aussie Imam: Gays Should be Beheaded (Hint: Charles does not side with the beheaders!)


  • Report of Saudi men beheaded for sodomy (Charles places the word "trial" in quotes, which makes me suspect he actually disapproves of beheading gays!)
  • Throwing gays off buildings, wife-beating, and sexual mutilation of children (Charles makes it clear he's against all three!)
  • Exposé of a shameless attempt at a UPenn Law School seminar to draft Sharia codes including the death penalty for homosexuality. (Again, Charles is against victimizing gays!)
  • The above is not meant to be comprehensive, as I have seen other condemnations of Islamofascist anti-gay bigotry at LGF. Charles Johnson makes it abundantly clear that gays are the victims of Islamofascist bigotry and tyranny, and makes it painfully obvious he's on their side, and against bigotry. The attempt to tar him as doing that which he actually fights is one of the most vicious smears I have yet seen in the blogosphere.

    Makes me wonder whether Kos and Company are merely bigoted against Charles Johnson, or whether they're on the side of the Islamic bigots.

    posted by Eric on 09.21.04 at 09:09 AM





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    Comments

    Daily Kos and Little Green Footballs are at opposite ends or quadrants of a spectrum of the blogosphere. I never read Daily Kos because their kind of garbage is ugly and boring. I seldom read Little Green Footballs because Muslims and their lies and atrocities are ugly and boring, but at least Charles Johnson squarely opposes the IslamoNazis, while Kos and his ilk would have us surrender to them. Kos and his ilk are on the side of the enemy. I dare call them traitors.

    Kos's "logic" is this: If you oppose Muslims murdering homosexuals, then you must be a racist, therefore you must hate homosexuals. It's exactly like saying: If you oppose Nazis murdering Jews, you must be an anti-German bigot, therefore you must be anti-Semitic, a Nazi.

    Today's Left is utterly bankrupt morally and intellectually. It has no _style_. Ironically, while it controls the major universities, the major television networks, the major newspapers and news magazines, most of the Hollywood film industry, etc. -- the "Establishment", if you will -- it is yet pathetically weak, spiritually impotent. The Left is the side of entropy. Its ideology is that of the Suicide of the West.

    Or, to put it another way:

    "A pack of scurvy bilge-rats on the Port side are casting us adrift and sinking our ship. What shall we do, Cap'n?"

    "Tack to Starboard, mate. Hard to Starboard."

    "Aye, Cap'n!"

    Avast ye!

    I agree with your comments, but you do realize you're criticizing a diary entry made by a Daily Kos reader ("bink")? It's not an actual Daily Kos story/post.

    E.g., I don't think my diary entry necessarily speaks for "the people at Daily Kos".

    MDP   ·  September 21, 2004 01:41 PM

    It's not a post? It sure looks like a post to me, and not a comment. Are you saying that anyone can post at Daily Kos without any editorial control?

    Eric Scheie   ·  September 21, 2004 02:09 PM

    Indeed, Eric, believe it or not, Kos permits others to post on his blog, and also permits a variety of opinions, unlike on LGF, where posting something insufficiently anti-Kerry will get you booted. The entry you posted was not posted by Kos. You might want to read more carefully in the future.

    In further evidence that you need to read more carefully, note that the poster does NOT say that LGF is antigay, only that the mentality endorsed by the blog is analogous to that of homophobes and racists. Which you may disagree with, but it is not an accusation of anti-gay biogtry on Charlie's part.

    BN   ·  September 21, 2004 02:17 PM

    Eric:

    Seems like you've posed a question that would be easily enough answered with minimal research.

    Are you willing? Or too lazy to pursue your curiosity?

    slats grobnik   ·  September 21, 2004 02:17 PM

    "Makes me wonder whether Kos and Company are merely bigoted against Charles Johnson, or whether they're on the side of the Islamic bigots."

    Ah - yet another right-wing loon convinced that anyone who neither endorses a new Crusade nor unconditionally supports the actions of George W. Bush automatically wishes to see the US surrender to Osama bin Laden. Or do you just believe that we all think that "talking it over with the terorrists" is the solution? Which straw man do you prefer to knock down?

    Anonymous   ·  September 21, 2004 02:24 PM
    Eric: "It's not a post? It sure looks like a post to me, and not a comment. Are you saying that anyone can post at Daily Kos without any editorial control?"

    Once you register at DK, you can post diary entries. I already linked to my own diary entry to show it looks just like bink's.

    BN: "In further evidence that you need to read more carefully, note that the poster does NOT say that LGF is antigay, only that the mentality endorsed by the blog is analogous to that of homophobes and racists. Which you may disagree with, but it is not an accusation of anti-gay biogtry on Charlie's part."

    In other words, LGF explicitly champions the rights of gays, but the "LGF mentality" victimizes gays. Also, the "LGF mentality" should not be confused with the "mentality" of the guy who runs LGF.

    What a bunch of logic-chopping nonsense.

    MDP   ·  September 21, 2004 02:57 PM

    MDP/Scrutineer, it is only logic-chopping nonsense to those who do not understand logic.

    Bink was accusing the LGFers of having a mentality consistent with those who bash gays and minorities. That LGF does not, themselves, bash gays, is in no way contradictory. Their particular brand of bigotry and demagoguery just happens to find a different target.

    If Bink had meant to say that LGF bashed gays, he/she could have simply said so. Instead, the term "LGF mentality" was used.

    BN   ·  September 21, 2004 03:09 PM

    Ah. Of course.

    And the Kos poster, as well as BN, have the mentality that brands all of LGF as bigots; therefore, the Kos poster and BN have the mentality of the KKK, because branding an entire group with the same characteristic(s) is a very bigoted thing to do.

    Am I getting the logic right?

    Does the fact that LGF pretty much just points to or posts news articles make a difference? Does the fact that most commenters on LGF distinguish between Islamofascists and muslims make any difference?

    Or is the Kos-site logic just that anyone who supports fighting against people who want to throw gays off cliffs (among other things) is automatically prejudiced somehow, somewhere, against someone?

    Why? Do you think that failing to possess one form of bigotry requires one to possess another form? Are the Kos-siters all immune because they are prejudiced against - say, conservatives? and that prejudice is okay?

    I'm lost. I'm searching for the root cause, and all I find are nematodes.

    Persnickety   ·  September 21, 2004 04:47 PM
    BN: "MDP/Scrutineer, it is only logic-chopping nonsense to those who do not understand logic."

    I disagree. Steve already summed it up pretty well:

    "Kos's 'logic' is this: If you oppose Muslims murdering homosexuals, then you must be a racist, therefore you must hate homosexuals. It's exactly like saying: If you oppose Nazis murdering Jews, you must be an anti-German bigot, therefore you must be anti-Semitic, a Nazi."

    Perhaps you would change "therefore you must hate homosexuals" to "therefore your mentality is consistent with those who hate homosexuals," but the distinction is altogether too precious.

    Bink argues that LGF's vehement attacks on the fascistic elements of Arab culture and Islam show that LGF is bigoted. He then wants to argue that LGF's particular form of alleged bigotry makes LGF synonymous with bigotry. Therefore, Bink says, any victim of bigotry is a victim of the "LGF mentality".

    Even if we accept Bink's premise about LGF's anti-Arab bigotry (and I don't), his conclusion is quite a stretch. "X is a bigot on one subject, and therefore all victims of bigotry are victims of the 'X mentality" is ridiculous argument. An example: Rep. James Moran said that "the leaders of the Jewish community" were responsible for the US invasion of Iraq. I think it's fair to say that Moran's statement was bigoted and false. Even so, I do not think it makes any sense to refer all victims of bigotry as "victims of the Moran mentality". Do you disagree?

    BN: "Bink was accusing the LGFers of having a mentality consistent with those who bash gays and minorities. That LGF does not, themselves, bash gays, is in no way contradictory."

    By that logic, I could say that Kos' infamous "screw 'em" remark betrays a mentality that is consistent with those who murder Americans, and therefore every American killed in Iraq is a "victim of the Kos mentality". But that would be demagoguery, and we oppose demagoguery, right?

    MDP   ·  September 21, 2004 05:08 PM

    'And the Kos poster, as well as BN, have the mentality that brands all of LGF as bigots; therefore, the Kos poster and BN have the mentality of the KKK, because branding an entire group with the same characteristic(s) is a very bigoted thing to do.'

    I don't think every poster on LGF is a bigot. I do think that the LGF board's purpose is to represent a particular ideology, and I don't think Charles Johnson or most LGFers would disagree.

    'By that logic, I could say that Kos' infamous "screw 'em" remark betrays a mentality that is consistent with those who murder Americans, and therefore every American killed in Iraq is a "victim of the Kos mentality".'

    Oh, you could, yes. I just don't think it would make for a terribly convincing argument, because I don't think most (if they were being honest) would believe Kos's remark was driven by the same motivation as those who chop off people's heads in Iraq.

    For that matter, I don't happen to agree that LGFers have the same mentality of racists and homophobes; indeed, LGFers' bigotry and demgagoguery is of a somewhat different origin IMHO. My point is simply that the original comment had nothing to do with claiming LGF was anti-gay, and thus this diary entry goes off on a pointless tangent.

    BN   ·  September 21, 2004 07:14 PM


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