February 12, 2009: New addendum added below. Charles Johnson is libeling me outrageously, ultimately because of a couple of weblinks. The whole absurd and tedious story of his descent into madness follows.
NOTE, November 10, 2008: The controversy between Charles Johnson and me began when I linked to Brussels Journal and Gates of Vienna, although he has never shown similar anger toward others he counts as allies who also link to those sites. He assumes that to link to these sites implies agreement with everything they say, which it doesn’t. He and his followers insist that to link to these sites means one endorses the Belgian party Vlaams Belang. He says they’re fascists, although they support Israel; they say they’re not, which for him makes them crypto-fascists. I say I don’t endorse them (or any party); he says I do, which I guess for him makes me a crypto-crypto-fascist. He says I’m encouraging genocide (because of a comment someone unknown to me left at his site), I say I’m not, and he says that my defending myself constitutes a “vicious attack” against him.
These serpentine and Orwellian absurdities unfolded over the course of several days, beginning on Halloween. I have now written two posts about Charles Johnson, entitled “Excommunicated” (October 31) and “Charles Johnson hits bottom, digs (part 2)” (November 6). It has been brought to my attention this morning that the second of these has mysteriously disappeared from Google’s Search tool, although it still appears on this site.
I have written to Google about this. But meanwhile, for the ease of readers who may be searching, and for anyone offended by juvenile thuggery, I decided to create this new post and place it in the archives. It contains the content of both posts about Charles Johnson. And if this one also disappears from the Google Search, I will create another, because there should be a place where people of good will can hear the truth amid the increasingly shrill libels that Charles Johnson and his followers are directing my way.
EXCOMMUNICATED
October 31, 2008
Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs has denounced me and he and his followers are slinging wild accusations against me because I have linked — under a disclaimer saying that I don’t necessarily agree with everything at every linked site — to two sites he doesn’t like.
To read the whole story of his unprovoked attack, and this petty and needless conflict, read on.
I’m sorry to say that my old friend Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs has written this:
I’m done with Robert Spencer. And very, very disappointed in him.
And:
Jihad Watch and Dhimmi Watch are out of our RSS feeds. I’m not going to support people who link to vile sites like Gates of Vienna and Brussels Journal.
He also wrote me, asking me to take down the “Designed by Little Green Footballs” logo that had been up on this site.
What heinous crime have I committed? Last month I restored the links here to Gates of Vienna and Brussels Journal, after speaking with Baron Bodissey, Paul Belien, and Geert Wilders in Washington, and wrote that I doubted that Fjordman was a neofascist or race supremacist.
Of course, for many, many months my list of links has carried this disclaimer: “Note: Listing here does not imply endorsement of every view expressed at every linked site.” One might have thought that my linking to both LGF and Gates of Vienna was indicative of an openness to perspectives even from people who disagreed with one another and also with whom I might disagree, and not a blanket endorsement of either one or any other site. That, however, was too subtle for some LGF commenters, who dressed me up in jackboots right away, accusing me of an “apparent embrace of the neo-Nazi movement” and claiming that I support genocide.
So apparently my doubting that Fjordman et al are racist neofascists who support genocide makes me a racist neofascist who supports genocide. Linking to groups that are accused of being neofascist, although they deny it, makes me one who embraces neo-Nazis. Unfortunately Charles himself has endorsed this loopy leap of logic in the past. Richard Miniter and Diana West both disagreed with him that several European parties, especially Vlaams Belang, were fascist. In response Charles wrote this:
I’ve learned recently that neo-fascists are much more prominent in conservative circles than I had previously realized. There are other well-known pundits who are sympathetic to the fascists, too — I’ve drastically revised my opinion of more than a few people, e.g. Diane West, Richard Miniter, and several others.
Whatever one thinks of Vlaams Belang, that just makes no sense. West and Miniter don’t think Vlaams Belang is fascist, and Charles is representing that as meaning that they are “sympathetic to the fascists.”
In speaking the way he did about Miniter, Charles seems to have been assuming that anyone speaking favorably about European individuals or groups who are accused of being neofascist, or accepting their denials that they are neofascist, must himself be a fascist sympathizer, or one who believes we should ally with white nationalists. Roger Kimball, meanwhile, had commented favorably on a Diana West piece on people in Europe who are accused of being neofascist, and that National Review Online had also linked to the piece. He called upon Charles to be consistent and label NRO and Kimball as neofascists also. There are others also, besides Kimball and NRO. At LGF I put it this way:
The statement that I have “embraced the neo-Nazi movement” is false, and libelous. Charles, you and your friends here are now in the position of saying that everyone who doesn’t believe these people (Fjordman, Belien, etc.) are neo-Nazis must themselves be neo-Nazis. Well, Ian Buruma recently published an article in the LA Times saying that the European anti-immigration parties were not neo-Nazis. Diana West has written the same thing in articles that have been picked up at the National Review and quoted favorably by Roger Kimball at Pajamas Media.
Unless you all are prepared to say that Buruma, the LA Times, West, Kimball, and National Review have “embraced the neo-Nazi movement,” you can’t logically say it about me.
I forgot to mention John Rosenthal, who also wrote a piece doubting that some of the European parties accused of being neo-Nazi are actually neo-Nazi.
Also, when we start playing guilt by association games, how much guilt do you incur for how much association? If one who links to the Brussels Journal has thereby become someone who “apparently embraces the neo-Nazi movement,” or at least someone who has done something so “disappointing” as to warrant being removed from RSS feeds, etc., then why does Charles still link to Pajamas Media? For on PJM’s blogroll you will find…Brussels Journal. Has Charles, by linking to PJM and appearing on PJTV, become one with whom we should be “very, very disappointed”? Has he become one who is “sympathetic to the fascists”? Why is PJM’s link to Brussels Journal not something that makes him “very, very disappointed,” but mine is?
Is that not absurd? I have gone on record many, many times explaining why I reject race-based approaches to the jihad threat — most recently in connection with the Cologne conference. Hugh and I have been clear here in our rejection of LePen, the BNP, and all those who traffic in such approaches. We have been consistent in maintaining that anyone who advocates genocide in comments here will be banned and find his comment deleted. The controversy here is over whether or not some other individuals and groups belong in that category, not over whether one should support race supremacism and genocide or not. Charles has done a grave disservice by acting as if those who reject his judgments about these groups and individuals, or who even — like me — are willing to entertain differing points of view on these matters, are ipso facto neo-Nazi or white supremacist sympathizers. He is in this behaving much like the Islamic supremacist bullies of East Tennessee, who are convinced that anyone who says something they don’t like must be a liar, a bigot, a racist hater.
I’m done with Charles Johnson. And very, very disappointed in him.
UPDATE: The links to LGF above no longer work; click on them and you’ll get a “Forbidden” notice. Well, Charles, old friend, you stay classy — this only confirms the impression that what we are dealing with here is the bully’s fear of actually having to answer for what he said. But his comments are still at LGF; you can go there and see them, or copy the link location from here and paste it into the address bar — it will become visible that way.
Meanwhile, I note also with sorrow that the mendacious Kejda Gjermani (“medaura”) is spreading her libelous attacks on me at LGF yet again, as she has been allowed to do for months. It is telling.
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.
CHARLES JOHNSON HITS BOTTOM, DIGS (PART 2)
November 6, 2008
I had not intended to write about Charles Johnson anymore, but tonight he has posted a video of two antisemitic idiots singing a song making fun of Holocaust victims. One of them turns out to have been a member of the Belgian Vlaams Belang party, although apparently he has been expelled from it due to this video. Anyway, this has become the occasion for Charles and his sycophants to renew their libels — and since one person encouraged people to contact me, as if I have something to do with these people, I thought this occasioned another statement.
Anyway, whatever the relationship of these people is or was with the VB, as I said here: “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.” It was occasioned not by my linking to Vlaams Belang, as someone at LGF falsely claimed, but because I restored links to Gates of Vienna and Brussels Journal. I did this not because I agree with everything written there, any more than I agree with everything written at any site to which I link. In fact, Dymphna of Gates of Vienna has been sharply critical of me in the past. But there are some noteworthy things being written there. In fact, yesterday I was told that Gateway Pundit and Michelle Malkin linked to a Gates of Vienna post. Will Charles Johnson denounce them as neofascist sympathizers?
Charles Johnson says of me in this LGF thread, “I won’t have anything to do with him. He’s behaving despicably.” You can see that here — he has classily blocked links from this site, so you can’t just click and go, but you can paste this link into your address bar and see it: http://littlegreenfootballs.com/showc/287/6184151. He has also fabricated out of whole cloth the claim that “if you believe what Spencer has written, Geert Wilders has apparently softened his opposition to groups like the Vlaams Belang too.” That one is here: http://littlegreenfootballs.com/showc/555/6184555. In reality, I have never written a single thing about what Geert Wilders thinks of Vlaams Belang, and I have no idea what Geert Wilders thinks about Vlaams Belang.
In fact, it is Charles who is behaving despicably, and not only because he is lying and being completely inconsistent in his denunciations. In the first place, I have a disclaimer above my links — he has completely ignored that. In the second place, he blamed me for a genocidal comment left at LGF, with no evidence that I had anything to do with it — and I didn’t. This is the sort of thing that is outstandingly despicable, as I can remember times when his opponents blamed him for unmoderated comments at his site, and he rightfully took exception. And in this case, mind you, he blamed me not for a comment left here, but for a comment left at his site.
Third, he is again inconsistent, linking to others who link to Brussels Journal, and not denouncing others who don’t share his views of the situation in Europe. Even the Wall Street Journal links to Brussels Journal. Is the Wall Street Journal a genocide-encouraging, fascist-sympathizing rag, Charles?
Charles Johnson continues to defame me without just cause or provocation. He is encouraging in his followers the idea that my work is worthless and I am evil, and providing a platform for their Orwellian Two-Minutes’ Hate, because of a couple of weblinks. He ostensibly champions liberty and free speech, but in reality LGF has little to do with either and everything to do with its owner’s singular narrative, featuring his moves to quash all dissent and demonize all dissenters. This is ironic at best and fatuously and pathetically hypocritical at worst. Charles Johnson is, therefore, hardly the kind of ally one needs in the struggle that looms before us, the defense of free speech.
ADDENDUM, November 9: Family Values’ comment below, at November 9, 2008 12:55 AM, makes reference to this LGF comment:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/showc/73/6197660
I was sent the text of this comment. In it, the man who wrote me, Walter L. Newton, claims that I am monitoring LGF closely. In fact, I only see what people send me from there. This was sent to me, and I went over there to check it out — the first time I had been there in awhile, and the last time I hope to go there.
Anyway, for the record: Walter L. Newton asked me about my intention to “investigate” the groups that Charles Johnson says are neofascist. I wrote this:
Actually, I am fighting jihad, and have no interest in or intention to investigate these groups. Insofar as they are fighting jihad, I applaud them. Insofar as they are doing anything else, my endorsement is not implied.
Walter L. Newton, perhaps unsurprisingly, takes this to mean that I don’t care if they are Nazis, as long as they are fighting jihad. In fact, as I have said many times, I will not make common cause with neofascists, white supremacists, or neo-Nazis. Just weeks before Charles Johnson and his frenzied hordes decided I was “embracing the neo-Nazi movement” and encouraging genocide, I wrote here that I could not endorse the Cologne anti-jihad meeting because of the involvement of LePen and Jorg Haider. I retract nothing in that post, which you can find here.
What is at issue here is whether Vlaams Belang is indeed a neofascist, white supremacist, neo-Nazi party. That is indeed a matter that requires investigation, since they are not openly or obviously any of those things. Charles Johnson believes he has marshaled a great deal of evidence that shows that they are. Sensible and well-informed people (in fact, much better informed about Europe than is Johnson himself) believe Johnson has not made his case. As I have remarked several times, Johnson himself has become so manichaean and paranoid that he appears to believe that those who doubt that he has made his case are white supremacist neofascists themselves. He has defamed Andrew Bostom, Diana West, Richard Miniter and others on this basis – which in itself doesn’t say much for Charles’ credibility. He has now even defamed Ilana Mercer, the daughter of an anti-apartheid crusader, as a white nationalist – apparently basing his case on false statements from Wikipedia linking her to a white nationalist organization with which she has no connection. Ilana Mercer wrote to him, asking him to take down the defamatory post, and he actually complied — the first time I know of that he has shown any compunction for his erratic leaps of logic and rushes to judgment. Meanwhile, Charles Johnson’s paranoia increases, and credibility decreases, with every new denunciation.
Anyway, if determining VB’s true nature requires investigation, why did I tell this Walter L. Newton that I wasn’t going to investigate? Actually, I had just told him in a previous email that I was still looking into this matter – which the LGF commenters, true to form, took as a contradiction. It was only a statement of priority. I am going to keep fighting jihad. I will never make common cause with neofascists. I am going to continue examining the situation in Europe in general, and VB, and sifting the evidence. But I am not going to turn Jihad Watch, as Charles Johnson has turned LGF, into a site devoted almost entirely to this question – and certainly not into the witch-hunting hatefest that LGF has become.
But yes, I am going to continue to monitor the situation in Europe. In fact, as far as Vlaams Belang goes, I asked a Dutch speaker to examine the video Charles Johnson posted, of VB leader Filip Dewinter supposedly visiting a neofascist book fair. This is the information he sent me:
In fact, it does seem to be some book fair of student organizations. The title of the video says:
Livres sur le nazisme et le Voorpost (milice nazi du Vlaams Belang) en vente pendant les conférences du Vlaams Belang – Vlaams Choc de Peter Boeckx (2005) 2/8
(Books about Nazism and Voorpost (the Nazi militia of Vlaams Belang) for sale during conferences of Vlaams Belang — Vlaams Choc of Peter Boeckx (2005) 2/8)
“Vlaams Choc” was an anti-Flemish television program on Walloon (=Belgian French-language) television. This apparently is from the program shown on August 2, 2005.
Belgium is dominated by the French-speaking Walloons. VB wants the independence of Flanders and wants to free the Flemings from Walloon domination.The book fair is definitely NOT from 2005. Mark the orange logo of Vlaams Blok, visible on the background during the video (on the ribbon against the wall: you see the Flemish lion flag (yellow with black lion) and the Vlaams Blok logo). The Vlaams Blok was officially disbanded in 2004. The logo was no longer in use afterwards. Hence, this video is NOT from 2005 and has to be older. Vlaams Belang was founded in November 2004. It has an entirely different logo.
Here is what the video shows:
0:1 VB members with poster saying “Geen stemrecht voor vreemdelingen” (“no voting rights for foreigners”) and the Vlaams Blok logo
0:2 a student of KVHV putting out posters and books for display on a table.
KVHV = Katholiek Vlaams Hoogstudenten Verbond (Catholic Flemish University-Student Association)
KVHV is a conservative Catholic organisation. Good guys, anti-Socialist, very Catholic (support the Pope). Their enemies call them “fascists”, which they are not, just traditional Catholics.
0:9 Display of “Ons Verbond” (Our Association), the magazine of KVHV. There is also a poster with a stop sign over a communist hammer and sickle.
0:12 Dewinter entering and asking “Where is the president?” (= the KVHV president?)
He shakes hands with a man. Not a student, hence not KVHV.
0:19 Mark the Vlaams BLOK logo on the ribbon against the wall.
0:23 display of booklets, magazines about Flemish volunteers on the Eastern Front during WWII.
0:28 book about Joris van Severen (see below. JvS was a Belgian fascist, pro-Belgium, anti-Flemish independence in the 1930s. He was an admirer of Mussolini, but an opponent of Hitler. JvS was murdered in May 1940 by French soldiers.) There is also a booklet marked “Voorpost”. Voorpost is a small right-wing Flemish organization. They are very anti-American. Voorpost is independent from VB, but many of its members vote VB. They often speak aggressive language and seek confrontation with enemies such as leftists and Walloons. I think they are infiltrated by the Belgian state security and deliberately provoke incidents in order to give VB bad press.
0:30 book display of Hitler: une fatalite allemande by Ernst Niekisch, a Communist opponent of Hitler. http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Ernst-Niekisch Niekisch was imprisoned by Nazis from 1937 to 1945. Also there is the anti-immigration novel Camp des Saints of Raspail, and “The Fenian Movement” (the Fenians were 19th century Irish nationalists fighting the British domination of Ireland).It is not clear whether this is the KVHV bookstand (I doubt it since the books are in French). It is not clear either whether these are the books that Dewinter is looking at.
0:36 an open book with a picture of Joris van Severen.
0:40 picture of German soldiers.
0:42 Dewinter at a book stand (PS Not clear whether it is the book stand shown before).
0:50 Dewinter grabs a book. I cannot see which one. He says “Vu de Droite” (The Right-wing View). Vu de Droite is a book by French philosopher Alain de Benoist. De Benoist is anti-American, anti-Christian, and calls himself a “neo-Pagan.” (Btw: Benoist opposes Le Pen and called on his followers to vote Communist. He also admires Muslims for their fighting spirit. For Benoist and his followers Christianity has caused the weakness of the Europeans. They Europeans have to rediscover their pagan fighting spirit.)
1:00 Dewinter asks a KVHV member (recognisable by his red-brown student cap and the ribbon with the KVHV arms) whether he has already read this book. The student says he has not read it because he is “illiterate”. (If the book is. indeed, Benoist’s book, the Catholic student does not seem very impressed with it. It is possible that Dewinter is joking: showing the anti-Catholic book to the Catholic student).
1:08 Dewinter asks whether the magazine (on the table) is the KVHV magazine. The students say he is allowed to take some copies.
1:18 Dewinter at another book stand. Apparently with literature from the independence movement in Brittany (a Celtic-speaking region in the West of France).
He asks the man: “You are a Breton?”
1:20 The man says he is indeed a Breton and tells Dewinter “You are an example for us. Your party is a model for us.”
1:32 Dewinter says: “If we can help you we will do so.”
PS Dewinter is no longer carrying the Benoist book, but has a glass in his hand, the other hand is free (as we can see when he is shaking hands with the Breton).Here is what Charles Johnson says about Dewinter’s conversation with Andries, the Catholic student:
Filip deWinter: “Have you read this, Andries?” (asks as he points to book)
Bookseller : “No I am illiterate.” (Sarcasm… meaning he actually read it)
Filip deWinter: “Is this a good book?” (asks about another Nazi book on display)
Bookseller: “It served my beliefs.”
In reality Dewinter showed the anti-Catholic book to Andries, who answered he had not read it because he is “illiterate.” I do not hear Andries and Dewinter talk about another book that “served his beliefs.” Andries says he is illiterate. Then Dewinter asks whether the magazine on display is their (KVHV) magazine. They say it is, and tell him he can take some copies. I do not hear Dewinter asking “Is this a good book?” Nor do I hear anyone saying “It served my beliefs.”
I do not know where Charles Johnson gets this from.
On the table there are a lot of books on Flemish volunteers to the Eastern Front and the Verdinaso movement of the Belgian fascist Joris van Severen. Van Severen began his political career as an MP for the Flemish nationalists (and a democrat) in the 1920s, but later became pro-Belgian and founded a Belgian-nationalist fascist party ‘Verdinaso,’ modeled on Mussolini’s party.
He admired Mussolini, but loathed Hitler, and called on his followers to fight the Nazis in the event of an invasion of Belgium. Nevertheless, he was arrested by the Belgians in the beginning of the war and murdered by French soldiers on May 20, 1940, together with a group of Belgian communists and Hungarian and Czech Jews, who had also been arrested by the Belgian authorities.
After his assassination his party fell apart. Some of his followers joined the resistance, others collaborated with the Germans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joris_Van_Severen says this:
Joris Van Severen ideological thinking was also influenced by Charles Maurras and Maurice Barrès, whilst failing to come to any accommodation with the Rexists or the Flemish National Union. Van Severen was equally opposed to Adolf Hitler and on the outbreak of World War II he banned his followers from producing any material in support of Nazism.
Execution
When Germany began executing Fall Gelb (the invasion of the Low Countries by Germany) in 1940 the Belgian government arrested him, together with many other Flemish-nationalist en communist politicians, and thousands of foreigners, and transported him to France for lack of space in Belgium. Van Severen belonged to a group of prisoners who was imprisoned in Abbeville, where, during havy German air attacks at May 20, he was shot with 20 other prisoners by French soldiers who thought they were dangerous spies.
The death of its leader left the Verdinaso without a leader and it soon began falling apart. Some Verdinaso-members joined forces with the Germans, others joined the (now almost completely unknown) resistance group Dietse Eenheid and others just stopped involving themselves in politics.
But aren’t the book fair operators wearing neo-Nazi uniform caps? No: “the caps are student caps. Flemish student organisations have caps (cfr German student organizations). You can recognize the organization by the cap’s colour. The KVHV color is brown-red with a black and yellow (colors of Flanders) ribbon beneath it.”
So we have a book fair selling one book by a fascist, another by a Communist, and an anti-Catholic book. This is a neo-Nazi book fair? Dewinter is a neo-Nazi for going in and glad-handing people there?
Even if Vlaams Belang were everything Charles Johnson says it is (and it clearly isn’t), nothing about it is established from this video. Nor is anything established by the activities of people who were expelled from the party for those very activities. Charles Johnson will no doubt keep witch-hunting, and I will keep approaching all the groups in Europe, without exception, with open-eyed reserve. But no one should be under the impression that Charles Johnson is fairly or dispassionately presenting evidence about them.
SECOND ADDENDUM, 7PM PST, November 9:
Charles Johnson is a liar, and even the Lizards — some of them — are beginning to wake up to it. I was just sent this comment from someone who is braving the stench and reading LGF:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/showc/608/6201404
In this one Johnson brushes aside the fact that he had posted a tissue of fabrications regarding this book fair jaunt by Dewinter:
608 Charles 11/09/2008 5:33:00 pm PST
re: #601 brotherofchronos
I’m not defending that. I’m simply saying that the video was badly translated, which could be used to cast doubt on your other evidence. I don’t understand why you would want to take that risk.
At this point, it’s far beyond any nitpicking that comes from those people. Let them go ahead and “cast doubt” all they like – it’s all they have left.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/showc/616/6201420
Then the commenter “BrotherofChronos” dares to respond to The Master by reminding him that truth and integrity are, well, important:
Nevertheless, the translation was wrong. It’s not right, charles. I realise it’s your site and you can do what you like with it but I can’t see any moral justification in using what is effectively manufactured evidence to prove this. The video says one thing. The translation you were provided with says something completely different. If you’re not careful it could bounce back at you.
Oh, it’s bouncing! Bouncing just like a…little green football…
And so honest readers are bouncing right out of the defamation and lie factory that is Little Green Footballs.
UPDATE November 12: I have been informed that Charles Johnson has completely revised his presentation of this book fair, removing without explanation (in the main post, anyway) the false translation he earlier posted. Now, apparently, the big problem is the book Dewinter picks up, Vu de droite by Alain de Benoist.
I’m not sure how Johnson and his Little Green Moonbats can rationalize the idea that picking up a book means that one endorses it, but of course rationality has nothing to do with this. The book that Charles Johnson called a “Nazi book,” and that his sycophants at LGF are apparently calling a “fascist book,” actually received the Grand Prix de l’Essai from the Académie Française in 1978. The Académie Française did not in 1978 and does not now award prizes to “Nazi books.” The neofascist rag known as the New York Review of Books reviewed the book in 1980 and said that de Benoist condemns “fascism of the left and right.” His book Vu de droite, in Charles’s world so unforgivably handled by the demonic Dewinter, according to this actually won praise from that noted fascist…François Mitterrand.
Little Green Moonbats now devotes a considerable amount of time wringing its hands over the horrors of Bobby Jindal, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Human Events, and the Conservative Book Club. I would rather fight Osama bin Laden, Omar Bakri, Anjem Choudary, Abu Bakar Bashir, and people who share their ideology — people who are much less of a concern at LGF than they used to be.
I fall victim to an Internet prank, and Charles Johnson, desperate, tries to defame me with it
February 12, 2009
The decline of Little Green Footballs into shrill irrelevancy has been unpleasant to watch. I have just learned that Charles Johnson has put up a post entitled “Robert Spencer Joins Genocidal Facebook Group” (no link because Johnson some time ago, in a display of immaturity, barred links from this site). Tonight’s attack revolves around a Facebook group called “Campaign for the Reconquest in Anatolia,” which I joined while sitting in an airport today around 2:30PM. I joined Facebook altogether a few months ago and haven’t spent much time with it, and accept friends and join groups as a matter of course, since the whole idea seems to be to expand one’s reach and get the word out about what one is doing — in my case warning about the global jihad.
But in this case I have fallen victim to an Internet prank. Johnson’s response to my joining this group was so swift that I suspect that the group itself, and its invitation that I join it, was a hoax and a setup, but in any case I freely acknowledge my mistake: I was working through a number of such requests hurriedly, and joined the group without looking further at what it was all about. I didn’t read any of the material the group had posted, which Johnson says advocates genocide and ethnic cleansing and even links to the Aryan Nations.
This whole thing is absurd: Johnson has made it his business to ferret out those who secretly, according to him, support such things, but back on Planet Earth I have repeatedly, and unequivocally, gone on record many times decrying genocide, ethnic supremacism, white nationalism, fascism, Nazism, racism, and, yes, the Aryan Nations. Search this site and you’ll see.
Once one starts dealing with secret allegiances and associations based on a social networking site, you might as well say that I secretly support a military coup that will install Bozo the Clown, or his intellectual peer Charles Johnson, as President-for-Life of the United States. But there is more serious business to attend to.
UPDATE: I’ve been informed that this use of Facebook material for defamation and libel by Facebook user “Cato the Elder” is in violation of Facebook rules. I’ve accordingly written to Facebook asking that his account there be revoked.
SECOND UPDATE: I’d also like to remind Charles Johnson publicly that accusing someone of supporting genocide who doesn’t support genocide is actionable libel. I don’t have the time to waste suing this noxious individual, but anyone who continues to take him seriously as a public figure with something to contribute to public discussion should be advised that his attachment to the truth is tenuous at best.