Does opposing Islamofascism mean being anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic, anti-gay, and racist?
Yesterday I was reading Pat Buchanan’s latest WND tirade against Giuliani:
Pro-abortion, anti-gun, again and again he strutted up Fifth Avenue in the June Gay Pride parade and turned the Big Apple into a sanctuary city for illegal aliens. While Ward Connerly goes state to state to end reverse discrimination, Rudy is an affirmative-action man.
Gravitating now to Rudy’s camp are those inveterate opportunists, the neocons, who see in Giuliani their last hope of redemption for their cakewalk war and their best hope for a “Long War” against “Islamo-fascism.”
Interesting that he has the word hyphenated and in quotes. Does that mean he thinks Islam is being tarnished by fascism? (As opposed to the other way around?)
I will, Rudy promises, nominate Scalias. Only one more may be needed to overturn Roe. And I will keep Hillary out of the White House.
A Giuliani presidency would represent the return and final triumph of the Republicanism that conservatives went into politics to purge from power. A Giuliani presidency would represent repudiation by the party of the moral, social and cultural content that, with anti-communism, once separated it from liberal Democrats and defined it as an institution.
Rudy offers the right the ultimate Faustian bargain: retention of power at the price of one’s soul.
I wasn’t going to bother with a post, because this is really nothing new for Pat Buchanan. But — now that I’ve seen these characterizations of Little Green Footballs as a “pro-Muslim, left-wing blog”, I think a few words are in order.
It’s not that there’s any one thing standing alone that especially bothers me. I mean, normally, I would have overlooked the Buchanan piece, just as I ignored Ann Coulter’s recent winking at anti-Semitism, because, I figured, she’s an entertainer. (Yeah, she also winked at the use of the word “faggot” and she was fired by the NRO for winking at converting all Muslims to Christianity. Winking at something means never having to really come out and be the thing, I suppose.)
I’ll say this for Ann Coulter. At least she didn’t wink at Holocaust Denial. The MSU YAF Buchananite crackpots who mounted the latest attack on LGF have done more than wink at Holocaust Denial; they’ve sponsored a lecture by a Holocaust Denier.
In the aggregate, there’s now too much to ignore.
Anyway, when LGF complained, the YAF group responded responded by calling LGF “pro-Muslim,” “left-wing,” and more:
The Little Green Footballs blog decided to condemn MSU-YAF for hosting Nick Griffin. In case you do not read Little Green Footballs, the blog is pro-Muslim, left-wing, politically correct, and basically a front for neoconservative foreign policy (instead of defending their culture, they want to build schools in the Anbar province). They are basically a puppet of the multiculturalists and believe that Islam is not the enemy of Western civilization and Christendom. Only Bush-bots read the Little Green Footballs blog.
Instead of writing about threats to Western civilization, the LGF blog has recently attacked organizations who are fighting the culture war by doing more than just posting stuff on a blog that only like-minded people read.
What LGF pointed out is that Nick Griffin is a Holocaust denier, and the Vlaams Belang/Blok organizations are racist. VB “chooses a white Europe” to be precise. (Ayaan Hirsi Ali, BTW, called the party “a racist, anti-Semitic, extremist party that is unkind to women and that should be outlawed.” I might not agree with that, but to suggest it would make her “pro-Muslim” is absurd.)
The YAF blog links Pat Buchanan’s blog as number one, lists four of his books, and I think it’s fair to characterize them as Buchananite and solidly within the Paleoconservative camp. More on the group here.
The LGF post also links the group’s leader Kyle Bristow, who has managed to get himself photographed with nearly every prominent conservative in America. Anyone can get a picture taken with a politician, though, and it does not mean that they all endorse Bristow’s views or tactics. Not only do the latter include the display of signs saying things like “Straight Power” and “End Faggotry,” but Bristow claims he wants to “protect” the public:
Bristow goes on to say, “YAF members find homosexuality and other forms of sexual deviancy to be disgusting. The Boy Scouts, military and the American public need to be protected from these degenerates.”
I don’t buy into the notion of hate speech or any kind of censorship, and I think Bristow has every right to say these things and take these positions.
But there is a sort of “let the buyer beware” principle here. And there are also political realities. For whatever reason, this group is giving the left (which already believes anti-Islamofascism is anti-Muslim bigotry) a lot of ammo to argue that “a critic of Islamofascism is an anti-Muslim bigot is a neocon.” And meanwhile, the isolationist, xenophobic Paleocons promote the argument that “a war supporter is a neocon is a trilateral commission-supporting, One-World-Order, homolovin’ bilderbuggerin’ Bush-lovin’ Jew.”
They may be right wing fringe, but by assisting in an ideological war against those who oppose Islamofascism, they’re providing an incalculable service to the left.
They’re also providing an invaluable service to the Islamofascists, who’d probably love to see a resurgence of American right wing isolationism and xenophobia. (To say nothing of anti-Semitism.)
Strange bedfellows all.
UPDATE: Thank you, Glenn Reynolds — especially for quoting this post.
Welcome all!
Comments
19 responses to “Conflating Islamofascism”
I don’t get it how anyone can refer to Pat Buchanan as a conservative. Or even a Republican for that matter. His points of view seem much closer to the Bush Derangement Syndrome crowd.
The problem with any “movement” that relies too heavily on a single individual (Buchanan, Perot, Nader, etc) is that they cannot see the bigger picture, that is, beyond the ups and downs of “their” man. Also, there is the cult of personality that inevitably develops, which sooner or later brings the sour whiff of failed narcisssism.
Pat Buchanan has always been too in love with Pat Buchanan to be of much use to anyone else. The only thing he is “good” for is a reliably back-stabbing quote for the Left to use against those whom Pat knows are more successful than he. This is the ONLY reason he isn’t known as “Pat Who…?” Even Perot and Nader had the sense to step out of the way when it became clear that they were only hurting the causes they supported.
Sad, really,
What is it about Michigan?
Bush did a real service when he (in essence) ran Pat B. out of the Republican Party in ’00. Who let him back in? And who is letting someone so vehemently anti-free market (to say nothing of racist, etc., etc.) speak for Republicans?? It’s clear why the media love to have him as their “Republican” spokesman, but why do supposedly sincere “Reagan” Republicans (hi, Sean) treat him like he’s a Republican? — very demoralizing, all around.
Who let him back in?
Nobody.
Who let [Buchanan] back in?
For that matter, who let Ron Paul back in?
There is a tendency for people of all stripes to view the political continuity as linear, with DUmmies at the left edge and neo-Nazi’s at the right (Or similar groups – you get the idea), but it isn’t: The political spectrum is circular, with the center at six o’clock, mainstream lefties at nine o’clock, and mainstream righties at three o’clock.
The lunatic fringes of both sides actually meet at the chaos point, which is where high-noon and midnight mingle: Here, sound collides with color and shaddows explode into the pathologies of conspiracy and paranoia.
Buchanan is not a complete nutter but neither is he a conservative or a Republican. He’s a reactionary bordering on Fascist. I liked this comment by Right Wing Nation:
There’s a lot on the dextrosphere about MSU’s YAF inviting Nick Griffin (BNP) to speak (LGF, Hotair), but there’s one striking thing about this travesty that everybody is missing.
Don’t you think it odd, if not downright ironic, that a chapter of an organization started by William F. Buckley, the man who is largely responsible for purging the paleocon and bircher nutjobs from conservatism, is apparently a bunch of paleocon and bircher nutobs?
As one of the hated and feared Jewish neocons myself, I follow Buke’s website “The American Conservative” (amconmag.com) and have always found it amusing that:
A) He’s sure got a lot of Jewish names as contributors. I guess even the paleos need us to give themselves some intellectual heft.
B) Some of the contributors include the likes of James Howard Kunstler, Benjamin Barber, et al. These are CONSERVATIVES???!!?
I guess when all is said and done, the paleo message can be boiled down to the following:
“I am a (white?) blue collar worker. My standard of living must never decline and I am entitled to live better than the rest of the world, and the government must step in to make it so. How dare those [insert preferred racial epithet] make a better product at less cost than me?”
Now how is this any different from the Wellstonian Left?
Eric Scheie,
Thank you for putting the spotlight on Buchanan and his gang. He is a dangerous person and he could end the idea of America as the “melting pot” and the “land of the free and the home of the brave” if his ideas are getting a grip into the soul of the United States of America.
Best Premises,
Martin Lindeskog – American in spirit.
Gothenburg, Sweden.
Sorry, to get off-topic, but your aside about Coulter is annoying. As someone who shares Coulter’s views on religion (if not her rhetorical techniques) I get really annoyed when people accuse her of being anti-Semitic for expressing the most common Christian view of Judaism. Anti-semitic implies hatred of Jews, not merely a religious disagreement with the Jewish religion, and by calling her anti-Semitic, you are deliberately conflating the two. It’s not like you think that just not believing in Judaism is something to criticize her over.
Christianity is anti-Jewish in the same sense that Judaism is anti-Christian, in the same sense that atheism is anti-Christian, in the same sense that Islam is anti-Christian. So unless you are going to suggest that believing these other things implies hatred of Christians, it isn’t consistent for you to suggest that Coulter’s belief in traditional Christianity implies hatred of Jews.
The link to Pajamas Media you provided, Eric, was useful as a survey of how many others suffer from a case of CDS, Coulter Derangement Syndrome.
The first person to comment on PJM’s roundup of CDS sufferers was spot on: “Sounds like hypersensitivity looking for an excuse to me.” I heard the whole clip from which the hysteria-mongers took selected sound-bites and, well, I’m disappointed that so many media-savvy PJM-affiliated people let themselves be snookered by Miss Coulter’s ambushers.
Using the terms “Islamofascism” or “Islamofascists” shows a lack of both knowledge about the overall terrorist threat and that you watch way to much fox news. Buchanan is just plain nuts, and the republican party is very much losing its heart and soul.
That’s right Martin. To affirm one religious opinion is to deny all others. It’s a really good idea if no one chooses to be offended by that.
There is a tendency for people of all stripes to view the political continuity as linear, with DUmmies at the left edge and neo-Nazi’s at the right (Or similar groups – you get the idea), but it isn’t: The political spectrum is circular, with the center at six o’clock, mainstream lefties at nine o’clock, and mainstream righties at three o’clock.
You call that a circle. I call it a broken theory.
A proper political spectrum is indeed a straight line — with tyranny at one end, and freedom (i.e. liberal capitalism) at the other. It does not “bend into a circle” — the latter is a failure mode, a blatant indication that it is your yardstick that is crooked and useless, not the facts in the world.
These convergences aren’t actually “convergences” at all, when measured against a proper standard (the principle of individual rights); those groups logically belong together at the outset. But for those of you trapped in the circular box of conventional politics — whose interior is aptly described thusly:
The lunatic fringes of both sides actually meet at the chaos point, which is where high-noon and midnight mingle: Here, sound collides with color and shaddows explode into the pathologies of conspiracy and paranoia.
… the modern-day equivalents of the Hitler-Stalin pact will continue to shock and dismay.
Interestingly, Pat Buchanan went to my alma mater. Notice I say “went” and not “graduated from.” He was expelled his senior year for getting into a fight with a campus security officer. Class act all around that Buchanan fellow.
The Buchananite comment on LGF, trying to tar it as a “left-wing site” reminds me of nothing more than the factionalism on the radical left, where groups split off from each other all the time and spend as much time attacking each other as being too far to the right as they do engaging their actual ideological enemies.
As for Ann Coulter, I don’t think she’s an anti-Semite. But I also think that, given the choice between selling an additional 50,000 copies of her latest book with a controversal remark that allows the left to paint all conservatives as haters, or having a conservative score a narrow win in the 2008 presidential race, Ms. Coulter will take the higher book sales 11 times out of 10. After all, just think about how many more books Ann can sell in 2009 and beyond if Hillary is in the White House.
I went back and read through what I said, and I did not call Ann Coulter an anti-Semite. Nor do I think she is an anti-Semite, or personally prejudiced against Jews or gays. To wink at something does not mean endorsing it. Articulating the Christian position on Jews is no more an endorsement of Christian anti-Semitism any more than quoting Leviticus is an endorsement of killing gays.
That said, I think that if a Muslim leader stated that Jews should convert to Islam, a lot of people would call that anti-Semitic.
Er. Mulsim leaders say all the time that all non-Muslims should convert to Islam. I’ve never heard anyone accuse them of being anti-Semitic (or anti-Christian, or anti-Hindu) on that basis. I’ve had Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Muslims tell me to my face that I should convert to their religion, and atheists tell me that I should not believe in God. I never accused any of them of hating me, nor thought that they did.
What an odd notion that when someone wants you to join them in understanding what they view as the truth, that anyone would construe this as hatred.