If they don't... well, then I think linking to Little Green Footballs from DowneastBlog is history. There was a time when Charles Johnson's brainchild was THE beacon of the Internet Counterjihad, and we rightwing bloggers all looked up to him. Those were the days when Mark Steyn heaped praise on LGF for online providing a "fascinating" array of bigger and lesser facts demonstrating the evil nature of the worldwide jihad and the less obvious, but actually greater dangers of dhimmitude in the face of "moderate" islam.
Those days are long gone. To me, it all started with Johnson's outburst against, to my huge surprise, my own party, the Vlaams Belang, a small party, tiny really on the international political scene, that suddenly found itself in the crosshairs of Johnson's other counterjihad, the one against "Fascism" and "Racism". He did this since the VB had profiled itself as an important contributor in the fight against Europes islamization, and at one point even sent delegates to likeminded conservative organizations in the States, notably in Washington.
I have explained here a gazillion times that the VB's origins were murky, and many times I have made it clear that I wouldn't have joined them back in the streetfighting days. But the thing is, when I joined the VB in 2004 - after a Belgian leftist government insanely granted voting rights in municipal elections to immigrants who did not even WANT to become Belgian citizens - the party had come clear with its past - it was clean. Or at least clean enough for me. Those who know me know that I set the standard high. The VB IS clean. That is to say, one cannot exclude the possibility that deep in the bowels of the party there are still some malign spirits lingering. Fine. If that is ground enough to demonize a representative, democratic party, then demonize ALL parties in the world. But by and large, in its outward appearance, in its inner workings, in the publications it produces, in the behaviour and working methods of its members, in its parliamentary work... there is absolutely nothing that should earn the VB hateful monikers as "nazis", "fascists", "racists" or these other epithets which always come in handy when leftists lose a rational argument.
But Johnson's hatred for the VB was not the only reason for my decision. We have all witnessed, over the past few years, how the former exposer of islamic jihadism shifted more and more to the left. To be sure, pre 9/11 Johnson WAS a leftist. But post factum he curiously understood for some time what was at stake and who was the real enemy. That period lasted from, say, fall 2001 to fall 2005. From then on Johnson gradually seemed to discern a far greater danger than islamic extremism in creationism, Intelligent Design, Europes so-called "extreme rightwing" parties, Rush Limbaugh, and each and everyone still, and primarily, focusing on the dangers emanating from the entire muslim world. In the process, he alienated one fellow blogger after another: Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, Richard Miniter.... while in the same breath denouncing sites of which he should have been a steadfast ally: The Brussels Journal, Gates of Vienna, Diana West etc.
Anno 2009 Johnson seems to have totally lost it, or rather, he has almost completely "moved to the dark side". His sympathy for the current Administration is obvious, the few references he still makes to the dangers of militant islam are largely symbolic, and his willful dismissal of the catastrophic impact of Europes islamization on our western heritage, including foremost our democratic rights and values for which millions have died, hints at either dangerous ignorance or else darker motives.
To cut a long story short: I'm done with Charles Johnson. We have drifted too far apart. There is no common ground anymore, and I no longer see a reason to link to him, at least not in the high profile way it was done here, with a separate mention and linking tool instead of merely a place in the blogroll.
It has long been utterly annoying and degrading to me to hear Johnson depict my party and by extension me as fascists. You will forgive me then a little gloating when I find myself able to say a final goodbye by means of a fitting farewell movie which I found over at Tundra Tabloids:
Charles Johnson and LGF, over and out. At least for me.
MFBB.
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