How a Lunatic, Racist Blogger Is Fanning Hate Against Muslims -- With the Help of Our Dumb Media

[Douglas Carpenter]

Anti-Islam groups created by extremists like Pamela Geller are on a crusade against U.S. Muslims.


AlterNet / By Joshua Holland

August 22, 2010


Pamela Geller, the once-obscure right-wing blogger known for peddling hateful, wildly over-the-top rhetoric (she once claimed that Barack Obama was the bastard stepchild of Malcom X) and for pulling stunts like taping a harangue against Muslims while clad in a bikini, has parlayed the anti-mosque hysteria sweeping across America into mainstream media attention just in time to promote her new book, The Post-American Presidency.

Geller and co-author Robert Spencer have been relentlessly promoting the “nontroversy” over the Park 51 project. According to a profile in the Guardian, the pair have “been at the forefront of drumming up opposition to the center, two blocks from Ground Zero, through an array” of organizations like the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) and Stop Islamisation of America (SIOA). The groups “have become increasingly influential as conservative politicians exploit anti-Muslim sentiment before November's congressional and state elections.”

The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg calls Geller a “lunatic racist,” and laments the “very depressing” fact that despite being “a marginal nutbag… it seems as if she's setting the national agenda now on matters related to Islam and religious freedom.” Spencer previously penned several books advancing dark conspiracy theories about Islam, including Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam is Subverting America without Guns or Bombs. He’s also the proprietor of Jihad Watch, a wingnut Web site that helped raise thousands of dollars to pay for a controversial ad campaign smearing the Park 51 project on New York City buses.

According to the Guardian, Geller’s blog, Atlas Shrugs, “lays bare her sympathies with extremist groups across the globe.” Geller “vigorously defended Slobodan Milosevic” when he was convicted of war crimes at the Hague, denying that the Serbs committed atrocities during the 1990s. She has “allied herself with racist extremists in South Africa in promoting a claim that the black population is carrying out a ‘genocide’ of whites,” and says that she “shares the goals” of the far-right English Defense League (EDL). "We need to encourage rational, reasonable groups that oppose the Islamisation of the West,” she wrote. Geller has also embraced Geert Wilders, the far-right Dutch politician who advocates banning the Qu'ran.

http://www.alternet.org/story/147927/how_a_lunatic%2C_racist_blogger_is_fanning_hate_against_muslims_--_with_the_help_of_our_dumb_media

How the "ground zero mosque" fear mongering began

By Justin Elliott

To a remarkable extent, a Salon review of the origins of the story found, the controversy was kicked up and driven by Pamela Geller, a right-wing, viciously anti-Muslim, conspiracy-mongering blogger, whose sinister portrayal of the project was embraced by Rupert Murdoch's New York Post.

A group of progressive Muslim-Americans plans to build an Islamic community center two and a half blocks from ground zero in lower Manhattan. They have had a mosque in the same neighborhood for many years. There's another mosque two blocks away from the site. City officials support the project. Muslims have been praying at the Pentagon, the other building hit on Sept. 11, for many years.

In short, there is no good reason that the Cordoba House project should have been a major national news story, let alone controversy. And yet it has become just that, dominating the political conversation for weeks and prompting such a backlash that, according to a new poll, nearly 7 in 10 Americans now say they oppose the project. How did the Cordoba House become so toxic, so fast?



Here's a timeline of how it all happened:


•Dec. 8, 2009: The Times publishes a lengthy front-page look at the Cordoba project. "We want to push back against the extremists," Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the lead organizer, is quoted as saying. Two Jewish leaders and two city officials, including the mayor's office, say they support the idea, as does the mother of a man killed on 9/11. An FBI spokesman says the imam has worked with the bureau. Besides a few third-tier right-wing blogs, including Pamela Geller's Atlas Shrugs site, no one much notices the Times story.

Dec. 21, 2009: Conservative media personality Laura Ingraham interviews Abdul Rauf's wife, Daisy Khan, while guest-hosting "The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox. In hindsight, the segment is remarkable for its cordiality. "I can't find many people who really have a problem with it," Ingraham says of the Cordoba project, adding at the end of the interview, "I like what you're trying to do."

read more: http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/08/16/ground_zero_mosque_origins

[bluestateguy]

1. I now believe they are openly trying to egg people on into violently attacking Muslims

They are trying to gin up the teabagger fringe into committing some kind of a violent act against Muslim Americans and/or their places of worship.

[Douglas Carpenter]

2. they came pretty close in Temecula Valley, California

"In Southern California, the question is whether the Islamic Center of Temecula Valley should be granted a permit to build a mosque on land it owns next to two established churches. The Islamic Center presently holds prayer services in a warehouse next to a pipeline company, down the street from a smog-test station and masonry supply yard. And during Friday prayers on July 30, around 25 local conservative activists stood outside shouting slogans of hate through a bullhorn, carrying signs with messages such as "No More Mosques in America", and brought along several dogs, hoping to offend Muslim sensibilities.

"We've never had a problem with anybody before this," said Iman Mahmoud Harmoush, the Center's spiritual leader and a lecturer at California State University, San Bernardino. "It is common sense that you don't disrupt a religious service by creating noise and bringing dogs."

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2012134,00.html#ixzz0xKO9Dx00

And then we have the wisdom of Pat Robertson speculating on national T.V. in response to an anti-Muslim campaign in Murfreesboro, Tennessee " Evangelist Pat Robertson weighed in Thursday, wondering on his television program whether a Muslim takeover of America was imminent and whether local officials could be bribed. (The mayor of the county where the Islamic Center is proposed called that idea "ridiculous.")

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/22/AR2010082202895_3.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2010082202944

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What's next, kristallnacht?

.

.

[dkf]

3. Anti-Islam hate was created by this Government.

We have gone to war twice over it. Now Muslims think they can fix it by building a Mosque over a 9/11 building. Its all so f-ed up it isn't funny.

[Bullet1987]

4. You're right. The government, media, all have had a role in labeling & depicting Muslims as terroris

[IndianaGreen]

8. The truth is that the vast majority of Al-Qaeda's victims have been Muslims

[uppityperson]

9. Amazing how the press has convinced you that it is built "over a 9/11 building"

Incredible how the press has convinced so many and they have fed into the Islamaphobia. Incredible how some think those making this mosque and community center are "Now Muslims think they can fix it by building a Mosque over a 9/11 building."

Incredible. You know, you could use that energy to inform people rather than continuing to post this type stuff. It would be incredibly helpful to promote peace and tolerance rather than moaning over "muslims trying to fix it by building a mosqeu over a 9/11 building". Seriously, you COULD help instead.

[BrklynLiberal]

5. Pogo had it right all along...

[LatteLibertine]

6. Ron Paul is right

besides this being a justice issue it's one of liberty. Most importantly fanning hatred of Islam harvests public support for endless wars. That's essentially the root of it. They want to keep the military industrial complex chugging along for war profiteering.

[IndianaGreen]

7. Rachel Maddow is having a great show on Geller's group

They are not just Islamophobes, they are also racists!