The blog wars covered (sort of) in the Times

There is a big article in the New York Times Magazine on Charles Johnson and his war with his once-fellow conservatives over their support for European conservatives, neo-nazis, neo-fascists, neo-fascist sympathizers, people who failed to dissociate from neo-fascist sympathizers, people who were once published in the same magazine that also once published people who failed to dissociate from fascist sympathizers, people who have Celtic cross bookends on their bookshelf, and people who have posted comments at blogs of which Johnson does not approve.

I’ve only glanced through the piece, by Jonathan Dee, but while it echoes Johnson’s bigoted characterization of the Belgian anti-Islamization party Vlaams Belang, it is, surprisingly, not pro-Johnson either. Dee writes:

Still, if you read L.G.F. today, you will find it hard to miss the paradox that a site whose origins, and whose greatest crisis, were rooted in opposition to totalitarianism now reads at times like a blog version of “Animal Farm.” … Even longtime commenters have been disappeared for one wrong remark, or one too many, and when it comes to wondering where they went or why, a kind of fearful self-censorship obtains. He has banned readers because he has seen them commenting on other sites of which he does not approve. He is, as he reminds them, always watching. L.G.F. still has more than 34,000 registered users, but the comment threads are dominated by the same two dozen or so names. And a handful of those have been empowered by Johnson sub rosa to watch as well—to delete critical comments and, if necessary, to recommend the offenders for banishment. It is a cult of personality—not that there’s any compelling reason, really, that it or any blog should be presumed to be anything else.

Diana West responds with a defense of Filip Dewinter, head of the Vlaams Belang, whom she calls “one of the true heroes of our times.”

My own writings on Johnson can be found in “The Method of Charles Johnson—a collection.”

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 23, 2010 02:13 PM | Send