How to tell when your political movement has gone off the rails

[Mandark]

When you're so crazy that Charles "Little Green Footballs" Johnson says stop the ride, I wanna get off.

Why I Parted Ways With The Right

Opinion | Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 6:49:45 pm PST

1. Support for fascists, both in America (see: Pat Buchanan, Robert Stacy McCain, etc.) and in Europe (see: Vlaams Belang, BNP, SIOE, Pat Buchanan, etc.)

2. Support for bigotry, hatred, and white supremacism (see: Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, Robert Stacy McCain, Lew Rockwell, etc.)

3. Support for throwing women back into the Dark Ages, and general religious fanaticism (see: Operation Rescue, anti-abortion groups, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Tony Perkins, the entire religious right, etc.)

4. Support for anti-science bad craziness (see: creationism, climate change denialism, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, James Inhofe, etc.)

5. Support for homophobic bigotry (see: Sarah Palin, Dobson, the entire religious right, etc.)

6. Support for anti-government lunacy (see: tea parties, militias, Fox News, Glenn Beck, etc.)

7. Support for conspiracy theories and hate speech (see: Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Birthers, creationists, climate deniers, etc.)

8. A right-wing blogosphere that is almost universally dominated by raging hate speech (see: Hot Air, Free Republic, Ace of Spades, etc.)

9. Anti-Islamic bigotry that goes far beyond simply criticizing radical Islam, into support for fascism, violence, and genocide (see: Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, etc.)

10. Hatred for President Obama that goes far beyond simply criticizing his policies, into racism, hate speech, and bizarre conspiracy theories (see: witch doctor pictures, tea parties, Birthers, Michelle Malkin, Fox News, World Net Daily, Newsmax, and every other right wing source)

And much, much more. The American right wing has gone off the rails, into the bushes, and off the cliff.

I won’t be going over the cliff with them.

I highlighted #9 cause movement conservatism has become too Islamophobic for Charles fucking Johnson.

Anyone who was following political blogs around '02 or '03 knows how nuts this is.

[The Fake Shemp]

THE END OF AN ERA.

[Van Cruncheon]

andrew sullivan hopped off, too, although no surprise there.

[The Fake Shemp]

How come you did not create a topic when I jumped off?

[Phoenix Dark]

Who's Charles Johnson. Be my google for the night Mandark

[brawndolicious]

he started little green footballs.  It was a bicycle forum until 9/11, then the discussion became very political and it basically became a right-wing blog somehow.  It's not that crazy today, relatively speaking, but it was rated the best Israel-advocacy blog by the Jerusalem Post one year.

[Mandark]

Who's Charles Johnson. Be my google for the night Mandark

Pretty much what am nintenho said.  It was one of the most popular blogs back in the pre-Huffpo days, when it was dominated by hobbyists and amateurs (and was all about the music, man!), and had a really busy comment section.

Johnson wasn't a full-spectrum conservative, but he clearly considered the Global Struggle Against Islamofascism to be way more important than everything else put together.  He'd post whatever outrage had happened in a Muslim country, follow it with a sarcastic reference to the "religion of peace", that sort of thing.

The community that developed in the comments was pretty repugnant.  When a liberal mentioned surfing LGF, the implication was they were looking for the worst possible discourse, for whatever reason.  It's like looking through freerepublic threads, except with a higher nasty:stupid ratio.  Someone made a quiz seeing if people could distinguish between the quotes of high-ranking Nazis and LGF commentators.


So he's not a super-important guy, especially now that the blog audiences have migrated.  But for people hanging around certain corners of the internet back in the day, he was one of the major figures and it's kind of nuts that he has to play the voice of reason.  It would be like Calpundit going on a murder spree, or finding out Instapundit has rhythm.

[Phoenix Dark]

Hmm, just looking over some of the headlines on the front page and there are many similarities to more liberal blogs - Palin critisism, Limbaugh Watch, etc. And whoa is that a "Creation Care for Pastors" ad I see?

[Dickie Dee]

It's also the blog that took down Dan Rather, btw.

[Stoney Mason]

It's sort of hard to really be in that place now since its been awhile now but you have to remember for a lot of people 9/11 literally pushed them over the edge for years. Extremism, and jingoism were not only in vogue but if you didn't go in that direction, you were branded some kind of hippy pussy. And people moved to take advantage of that and make money with it by playing to that fear and courting that lets kick ass mentality.

I had conservative normally smart rational friends in that era who were suddenly talking about the "end of days" and walking around with that mindset. Forunately we pulled our heads out of our asses but always remember we are one incident away from being right back in Toby Keith America land.

[Mandark]

Hmm, just looking over some of the headlines on the front page and there are many similarities to more liberal blogs - Palin critisism, Limbaugh Watch, etc. And whoa is that a "Creation Care for Pastors" ad I see?

Oh, it's been a while coming.  Johnson was a vocal critic of the birthers, and got into a pretty inside-baseball spat about certain conservative activists working with fringe nativist groups like the British National Party.  Basically, he was pushed to the right by the terrorists, and pushed back to the left by his new comrades.

John Cole did kind of the same thing at Balloon Juice, but he never fomented the kind of nastiness that Johnson did.  I don't see liberals embracing LGF into the fold now.



Stoney Mason:  Ack, Toby Keith.  I think the arc of American post-9/11 insanity and eventual disillusionment is pretty well encapsulated by his "boot up yer ass" song's popularity, followed by his feud with the Dixie Chicks, and finally him claiming to have been against the Iraq war.

[Human Snorenado]

How come you did not create a topic when I jumped off?

Your leaving isn't surprising- as a Jew the Secret Banker Cabal no doubt told you all about how they were switching support to the Democrats back in 2006.

[Human Snorenado]

It's sort of hard to really be in that place now since its been awhile now but you have to remember for a lot of people 9/11 literally pushed them over the edge for years. Extremism, and jingoism were not only in vogue but if you didn't go in that direction, you were branded some kind of hippy pussy. And people moved to take advantage of that and make money with it by playing to that fear and courting that lets kick ass mentality.

I had conservative normally smart rational friends in that era who were suddenly talking about the "end of days" and walking around with that mindset. Forunately we pulled our heads out of our asses but always remember we are one incident away from being right back in Toby Keith America land.

FREEDOM FRIES, NEVER FORGET

Mandark- you can go back to Cole's early 2005 diaries and start to see the beginning of the end there, specifically with the whole Schiavo boondoggle.  I'm pretty sure that Katrina was the straw that broke the camel's back for him.

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

This entry already hit the political blogs a couple of days ago.

Kind of dumb to burn bridges with the right if he wanted to remain relevant.  Nobody on the left wants him and now nobody on the right wants him.  It'll be a long cold winter until the right readjusts themselves and goes left enough to the Bush days (never thought we'd say that) so he's going to have to sit out for a while.