Jummy’s Take on Charles Johnson (July 2011)

Not sure how we missed this gem from someone named “Jummy” but he posted an excellent analysis of Charles Johnson’s persona and actions (post Oslo Massacre) on a blog forum 30 July 2011. Here it is in its unedited entirety. -Briareus

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Charles Johnson: Unrepentant Bigot Hides from Oslo Culpability Behind a Pointed Finger

it may be that geller and spenser and fjordman and the rest are corrosive people trading on bigotry. there are many people who knew that at first glance. perhaps the ability to see these people for who they are at first sight is a better benchmark for clearsightedness than the ability to hate them in suspiciously lugubrious terms only after plucking them from obscurity, establishing their blogging careers, and supporting them for nearly a decade.

it’s not absolutely clear that johnson “came to his senses”. rather, it appears more likely that johnson was offended that geller and spenser had challenged his authority. there was no disagreement on any of the themes which would later comprise breivik’s manifesto, only on who geller and spenser should disinvite to the brussels conference vlamms belang was to participate in.

a fair reading of the the back and forth bears that johnson pursued his hatred of geller more doggedly than he did spenser or the others, and more doggedly than geller or spenser ever reciprocated. johnson’s geller obsession had the appearance of a jilted lover’s vendetta. the corrupt and personal nature of johnson’s vendetta against his former comrades was evident in the way charles posted the false meme that anders breivik and the blogger fjordman were one and the same and left it on his front page for 72 hours without commentary. johnson, who had been commenting about fjordman’s blogging of the aftermath of the oslo bombing, knew it was a lie. johnson’s source for the claim was the norwegian nazi party. johnson, however, had a deeper itch to scratch: the meme he was constructing was that the bomber was a fan of fjordman, and geller had invited fjordman to guestblog at her site. without mention of the fact that charles had been a fan of fjordman and reproduced volumes of his writings, charles was able to construct a headline which put the primary object of his obsession, geller, in his headline.

for a long time before the oslo bombing, johnson’s attacks on geller were mainly limited to her deranged conspiracy theories about the circumstances of president obama’s birth. johnson’s outrage about the thematic content and rhetoric of the anti-jihad movement and it’s bloggers didn’t manifest itself until geller and spenser organized their protests against the “ground zero mosque”, as they called it. it was at that point that johnson began saying things about islamophobia which were in jarring conflict with what he had been saying just weeks prior. for instance, johnson had just previously described the lead clerical consultant for the project an “islamic supremacist” who sought to institute sharia law in the west. in preparation for his new line of attack against his former comrades, he deleted that line, along with several paranoid posts about the “epidemic” of muslim inbreeding and the proposed flight 93 memorial, which he had said was being covertly designed to act as an “islamic victory shrine”, and dozens of his posts which hosted, praised, congratulated, thanked and otherwise supported geller, spenser and fjordman.

when this revisionism was discovered by third parties, he undertook the additional measures of having google and archive.org delete and cease to cache his website and permanently hid user site content behind a registration wall. it’s because of this last measure that no one can see for themselves whether anders breivik had a posting account at johnson’s site.

the one measure johnson skipped prior to becoming a strident and vocal opponent of islamophobic bigotry happens to be the only one which is required of a morally serious person. charles johnson has never said anything similar to “i was a racist and the ideas i advocated were wrong.” instead, he would rather we believe that the anti-jihad movement became racist at some point while he remained heroically unmoved, moored to the the rock of reason and decency; that geller was just some pest from his comments section he hadn’t the administrative tools to block from his site; that spenser was a mephistopheles who made charles do what he could not know was wrong; that fjordman somehow forced himself through the door and onto the pages of johnson’s site and wasn’t in any case obviously noxious at the time; that johnson himself never said any of the things he can be demonstrated to have said and that those with the temerity to remember lie with their screenshots and direct quotations. to imagine it from the perspective of the narrative johnson presents, the walls peel away to reveal a dark and foreboding wilderness. everyone else changed into monsters while johnson, pure as a child standing barefoot in his pajamas and clutching his teddy, looks on in horror at what had been his bedroom.

not quite so, i’m afraid.

littlegreenfootballs was the hub of the “counter-jihadist” movement. pamela geller herself was a protege johnson plucked from his own commenting community. this was also the case of fjordman, who initially began as “norwegian kafir” at littlegreenfootballs. when he changed his name to “fjordman” and opened his own blog, johnson featured fjordman’s essays as headline items more than two dozen times on his blog, giving fjordman de facto “guest-blogger”credit by prefixing his authorship to the headlines. these posts (i.e.; “Fjordman – Scandinavian Rape Epidemic”) were not less racist or extreme than what fjordman writes contemporaneously, and johnson’s own lead-ins to these pieces, as it was with his own rhetoric, often surpassed fjordman’s and geller’s with luridly racist vitriol (i.e.; “If you’re a Western material girl thinking of marrying that exotic Muslim guy who’s been treating you like a princess, you may want to read the fine print.”).

with that in mind, there is some confusion as to whom breivik does and does not apparently admire in his manifesto, as the bulk of it’s 1500 pages is comprised of reproductions of others’ works. breivik mentions geller in his own pen only once. he also mentions chalres johnson only once in a neutral citation. at no point does breivik “attack” or “condemn” charles johnson. these passages, as well as all of the rest of the citations, are second-hand from essays written by fjordman. in this collection, one can easily find breivik quoting fjordman praising johnson, and even breivik quoting fjordman quoting johnson’s own hate-speech directly and admiringly.

by this method, johnson and his website are supportively referenced in the breivik manifesto more than twenty times, more than geller in fact. the bulk of these are because when breivik reproduced a fjordman essay, he referenced the essay as hosted by johnson, because johnson’s site is apparently where breivik read them. this should surprise no one. breivik, geller, flordman, spencer (who’s blog, “jihad watch” was coded pro-bono by johnson himself) are the crowd which johnson cultivated.

it’s sickening to see johnson is being allowed to exculpate himself with a couple of convenient denunciations. johnson has never chosen to have an “i was a racist, and now i regret it” moment. only a sustained “those people over there are racists and i’m going to make them regret it” moment with his finger pointed at the figures of a movement he created from the ground up and has only recently parted company with.

absolution comes after reconciliation.

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[Source: Jummy, 30 July 2011
http://forums.bloggingheads.tv/showthread.php?t=6927
Reposted verbatim. h/t Dudebro ]

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