Anti-mosque activists exposed.

[salvorhardin]

Yes, I know this is from Little Green Footballs, but give it a read anyway. I promise your head won't explode. Quotes:

This is a good time for some background information on Pamela Geller’s associate David Yerushalmi, who is an advocate for criminalizing Islam itself and imposing 20-year sentences on practicing Muslims. Yes, really.

He’s not simply anti-Muslim, though; Yerushalmi also wrote a now-infamous article titled “On Race: A Tentative Discussion, Part II,” in which he advocated a return to a pre-Bill of Rights Constitution, and the restriction of voting rights to white male land-owners. Again … yes, really.

David Yerushalmi, however, comes off looking almost sane next to another founding board member of Pamela Geller’s American Freedom Defense Initiative, John Joseph Jay. The Southern Poverty Law Center has a blog post about Jay’s almost unbelievable anti-Muslim rants: Prime Islam-Basher Pam Geller Outdone by Colleague.

According to the Daily Kos, AFDI board member John Joseph Jay recently has posted a series of truly vicious anti-Muslim rants — apparently without the benefit of a capital letter function on his computer. “if islam kills non-believers as a matter of religious doctrine, then why should muslims expect to be free of retribution in the name of those islam kills?” he wrote. “why should muslims get a free pass? if it is right for muslims to kill non-believers, then why is it no less right for the rest of us to kill muslims?”

Source: http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/36930_Meet_the_Leaders_of_the_Anti-Mosque_Movement

Now just try and tell me this isn't about racism.

[Posteritatis]

1. LGF had a kind of road-to-Damascus moment during the election campaign

The guy running it went from annoyed at the hysteria going on among the right about, well, everything, to being outright frightened by it, and started actively distancing himself from a lot of the right due to their combination of conspiracy theories and views on climate change. He's not exactly off in Teabaggistan anymore, despite how he was sounding five or six years ago.

The transition there was pretty interesting to watch, actually.

[salvorhardin]

2. Interesting

I hadn't known that. I had given up on LGF long ago. Maybe I'll have to add him back into my feed reader for counterbalance.

[salvorhardin]

3. Oh wow. I guess he did have an epiphany.

I was just looking around his blog and noticed this recent headline:
"Why I Left the Right, Exhibit A for Anti-Science"
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/36992_Why_I_Left_the_Right_Exhibit_A_for_Anti-Science

[Posteritatis]

4. Looks like I was off a bit and it was last fall, but yeah, he still did

Here's his "Why I Parted Ways With The Right," which is, well, just what the title says:

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/35243

He was heading in that direction for a couple months before he made that post - summer '09 he was still a fairly frothing conservative at times, by October he was starting to wash his hands of them.

The "Bad Craziness" tag lets you follow the process.

[salvorhardin]

5. I was just reading that!

Good for him.

[Warpy]

6. Yerushalmi is a real piece of work

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2007/08/24/david-yerushalmi-devout-jewish-fascist/ His incorporated organization (how organized it is beyond himself is moot) is SANE, Society of Americans for National Existence, a pretty paranoid name. A Muslim looks at it: http://www.milligazette.com/dailyupdate/2007/200706182_SANE_Islamophobic_group_banish_Islam_US.htm

Unfortunately, a lot of my search for his stuff turned up "Google has marked this site as unsafe," so research into what the man says about himself is, um, limited.

Much of LGF's/Kos's material on John Joseph Jay was lifted verbatim from http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2010/08/10/prime-islam-basher-pam-geller-outdone-by-colleague/ He's a real piece of work, too.

Offhand, I'd say the guy at LGF is doing his homework.

[Scurrilous]

7. Pamela Geller was a regular poster at LGF for years.

She posted as atlasshrugs and referred to Charles Johnson (owner of LGF) as her 'blog daddy' and credited him for sparking her interest in blogging.




She's since been banned from LGF. Way too crazy, even or that place.

[salvorhardin]

9. Geller whines about Charles Johnson's defection

One of my Facebook friends linked to this New York Times Magazine article from January:

“It’s just so illogical,” Geller told me heatedly not long ago. “I loved him. I respected him. But the way he went after people was like a mental illness. There’s an evil to that, a maliciousness. He’s a traitor, a turncoat, a plant. We may not know for years what actually happened. You think he changed his mind?”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/magazine/24Footballs-t.html?_r=2&ref=magazine&pagewanted=all

[Scurrilous]

10. He wised up.

Kudos to him.

[Douglas Carpenter]

8. kick and recommend!!

[sabrina 1]

11. I remember when he began changing his mind

It was all out war on him by the crazies on the right. He was the second Conservative blogger to start seeing how crazy their party had gone. I think the other was Balloon Juice, but I'm not sure.

People think the crazies represent the entire party, but many Republicans I know think that Palin, Beck et al should be locked up. They really are on the fringes but the media treats them like they are the majority. Good for those like him for speaking out when he finally woke up.

[salvorhardin]

12. Same here

I live in a very red state and city and while we have our fair share of crazy Tea Party types, but most Republicans I know are thoroughly disgusted by their party and pine for the days of Eisenhower.

I didn't know about Balloon Juice either! Man, I've really been out of the poli-blog loop this past year. It got to be too much for me, so I even gave up running the Carnival of the Liberals (blog carnival). I was really dissatisfied with the level of discourse on both sides of the political aisle and CotL was attracting more spam submissions than substantive ones.

ETA: You're right about Balloon Juice. At least as early as August of 2007 he was pissed off at the far right.

I am firmly convinced it is only going to get worse from this administration and the nutjobs at the Weekly Standard. That is, unfortunately, a given, as we know how low they will go- as low as they possibly can. The only interesting question for me is how far will the lunatic fringe 28% crowd in the blogosphere go? How outrageous will the rhetoric have to get before the Malkins, the Hewitts, and all the rest of them say “Wait a minute- that crosses the line?”

I am betting they will never find a line they will not cross- this is not about Iraq or domestic politics anymore. This isn’t about the soldiers and it isn’t about the prospect of Democracy in Iraq. This is about being “right” in the face of evil leftists. This is about “winning.” This is not about what these policies and this vile rhetoric are doing to this nation and our standing- this is about saving face and their own personal stake in what they have attached themselves to in the course of achieving “victory.” My guess is Bush and his speechwriters and Kristol and those mutants at the Weekly Standard and other rags feel comfortable saying this stuff because they know that out there in the blogosphere and the world there are ample knuckledraggers willing and happy to cover for them.

Sadly, they are probably right. It doesn’t matter what type of filth you churn out- The Powerline will have your back. Remember- the Democrats are worse.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=8596

[sabrina 1]

13. Thanks for finding that. I remember when that happened.

I think he really struggled for a while before he realized he was enabling some really crazy people. Balloon Juice I mean.

If rational people on both sides ever got together we could change things. But that's why the PTBs keep the divisions going. It really is up to the people at this point.

I know what you mean about the level of discourse on both sides. But these are good signs I think although both these bloggers were smeared unbelievably after speaking out and the blog wars that resulted were of epic proportions.