Geller and Spencer denounce the English Defense League

Daniel S. writes:

Subject: Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer throw the EDL under the bus

Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer have decided to wash their hands of the English Defense League, accusing it of becoming neo-fascist, but they offer absolutely no proof to substantiate the charge.

LA replies:

What Daniel S. says is true. Geller in her statement, which Spencer posts and fully endorses, offers not a single piece of evidence to substantiate the charge of neo-fascism. Her only “evidence” is that a couple of people have resigned from the EDL, calling it neo-fascist.

I have not followed the EDL closely and have no knowledge of this issue. But if you were withdrawing your support from an organization you had previously publicly supported and defended from critics, and if you withdrawing your support on the basis that the organization had been “infiltrated by neo-fascists,” wouldn’t you feel obliged to offer some evidence for the charge? Geller and Spencer evidently feel no such obligation. Ironically, Geller weirdly says in her article that “the EDL has done a Charles Johnson”—apparently meaning, not that they have become like Charles Johnson, but that they have become in reality the kind of organization that Johnson falsely accused various organizations and individuals of being. But at this moment, in the absence of EVIDENCE that the EDL is “neo-fascist,” it is Geller and Spencer who are doing the Charles Johnson, by calling an organization “neo-fascist” without evidence. (See VFR’s collection on The Method of Charles Johnson.)

And let us remember in this connection that Spencer remained loyal to Charles Johnson for an entire year, even calling Johnson “illustrious,” after Johnson had smeared numerous Islam critics as fascists, neo-Nazis, and so on. In fact, Spencer never did break with Johnson. It was Johnson who, in November 2008, a full year after Johnson began calling Islam critics neo-fascists, broke with Spencer, by calling him a neo-fascist sympathizer and telling him not to darken his door again. Only after Johnson had denounced Spencer himself, did Spencer denounce Johnson.

LA continues:

Also, several of the Jihad Watch commenters point out that Geller has offered no evidence for her charge.

We know that Geller is not very well wired intellectually; she is a person of emotion, not of reason. But that Spencer would post her statement, giving it his 100 percent endorsement, and not realize that it was a problem that she had provided no evidence, is surprising.

Or is it?

- end of initial entry -

Mark Jaws writes:

There is one word to describe Pam Geller—mercurial. A few years ago I had a few email exchanges with that dame, and within the course of two days she lavished me with both praise and condemnation. I would guess that any man thinking of courting her ought to see “red flags” within 30 minutes.

Daniel S. writes:

I found Geller’s comparing the EDL to Charles Johnson to be most ironic, considering she is the one acting in a manner similar to the libel-blogger Johnson in throwing around the epithet fascism without presenting even the slightest amount of evidence. That Geller and Robert Spencer would resort to the same tactics is disturbing, but not altogether unsurprising. Spencer is uses every chance he gets to remind everyone that he is a good egalitarian, and not a racist or a fascist and that he is committed to the egalitarian aims of the Open Society (one of his mains problems with Islam is that it is anti-egalitarian). Geller has never shown any understanding of the policies need to reverse and end Islamization, and Spencer only touches upon them in passing and often with much ambiguity. Both are essentially liberals, or right-liberals are you and others have dubbed them. Then there is the weird personality cult that the two of them have built around themselves, as if they are the anti-jihad movement.

LA replies:

It’s beyond weird. Taken literally, Geller’s words, “the EDL is doing a Charles Johnson,” would mean that the EDL is making unfounded charges of neo-fascism against anti-jihadists, when in reality it is Geller—“wholeheartedly” backed by her admirer and partner, Spencer—who is making unfounded charges of neo-fascism against anti-jihadists. One can only conclude that Geller, in her hyped-up, incoherent mind, was unconsciously projecting her own Johnsonesque behavior onto the EDL.

I get no pleasure from saying this. Geller has talents and passion. But when she denounces an important anti-jihad organization as “neo-fascist” without presenting the slightest evidence to back up the charge, or when, as she did last summer, she instantly denounced an anti-Ground Zero mosque rally because some lying liberal said a “racist” incident occurred there, she deserves to be condemned.

As I’ve said before, the basic problem is that Geller and Spencer have, mixed with some conservative elements in their thinking, deeply liberal instincts, and so over the years they keep instinctively reverting to classic knee-jerk liberal behavior. The situation is further exacerbated by the fact that Spencer, who is far more intelligent than Geller, uncritically embraces everything she says, and so discredits himself. Look at the comments at the Jihad Watch thread again, at the number of commenters who, in reasonable, polite language, state their bemusement, or worse, at Geller’s fact-free attack on the EDL which Spencer has posted and endorsed. One can’t help but wonder, what is the hold that Geller has over Spencer, that he keeps damaging himself by his partnership with her? Psychologically speaking, it’s the anti-jihad version of Mean Streets.

Stogie at Saberpoint writes:

I have found some good links and posted them.

It appears that Roberta Moore, whom Pamela Geller cites as her authority on the supposed neo-fascism of the EDL, was kicked out of the EDL for her ties to violent Jewish extremists, and made up the “Nazi” BS for revenge and to provide her with a false excuse for leaving the EDL.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 30, 2011 09:39 AM | Send