Charles Johnson Disowns Geller
Charles Johnson writes:
If you happened to read the Sunday New York Times last weekend, you might have seen Anne Barnard and Alan Feuer's profile of Pamela Geller, the extreme rightwing blogger who's arguably done more than anyone else to incite fear and hatred over the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque". (It was hard to miss, since it was accompanied by a photo spread showing Geller with various rightwing pundits and politicians, on Fox News, and posing in her bikini.)
One thing you'll discover in the article is that Pamela Geller got her start on the internet by commenting at my site, Little Green Footballs. She posted more than 6,000 comments at LGF in our earlier days, when our comment moderation policy was much more laissez faire than it is now.
As I said to the Times, in those days, Geller was often the first one to take the rhetoric over the top, and the target of her rage was usually (but not always) Muslims. And not just militants or terrorists, but all Muslims; Geller was quite clear, and stated often, that she didn't believe in the idea of a "moderate Islam" at all. (Ironically, this is an opinion she shares with the leaders of al-Qaida, who insist that all Muslims must follow their extreme interpretation of Islam.)
Several years ago, I made a very public break with Geller and her allies, such as Robert Spencer, because of their increasing radicalisation and willingness to make alliances with far rightwing anti-Islam parties in Europe, such as Belgium's Vlaams Belang and Britain's English Defence League.
Indeed, when Geller held her anti-Islam rally in Manhattan this year on 11 September, she invited representatives of the English Defence League to attend. This turned into a bit of an embarrassment when one of the EDL leaders was refused entry to the United States because of "entry form irregularities", and the others had their hotel rooms searched by the FBI.
There's a much uglier side to Pamela Geller, however, that was missed by Barnard and Feuer and needs to be pointed out: in addition to her anti-Muslim activities, Geller often supports and glorifies people who can only be described as white supremacists and genocidal war criminals.
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