Monday, July 25, 2011

X-Post: Donald Douglas, Along W/ Other Anti-Muslim Bloggers, Go Into Full Denial Mode

In a long post denying that Anders Behring Breivik, the killer from Norway, was in any way associated with anything Dr. Douglas and his fellow anti-Muslim bloggers and spokesmen have been preaching and teaching--in spite of a whole lot of evidence to the contrary, including links to and quotes in his 1,500-page manifesto and elsewhere from Donald Douglas "friends" Pamela Geller, Geert Wilders, Robert Spencer, JihadWatch, ...--Donald makes reference to the following:
"And now here's progressive Leah McElrath on Twitter, cheering a New York Times report that links to a video manifesto credited to Anders Behring Breivik, which as later uploaded to ‪YouTube. And notice McElrath's good night tweet:
Well, that actually wasn't McElrath's last tweet. She took time to block JoannaOC in Minneapolis, who called her out for distributing progressive propaganda. McElrath gets angry for being called out, and claims she's saving lives. JoannaOC is trying to focus on the miracle of life and God's grace of survival. Leah McElrath is spreading left-wing propaganda and hate."

Sorry, but no, Donald...

JoannaOC's argument is that by posting the killer's video, Leah McElrath is distributing the killer's bigoted anti-muslim views. (It's the same argument folks made about posting or showing one of bin Laden's videos, back when he was still a going concern.) Like McElrath, I happen to believe in sunshine, but I can certainly see the argument JoannaOC is making... Anders Behring Breivik WANTED folks to see his creepy video; JoannaOC (who is almost certainly also a progressive, btw) is saying Leah McElrath and the rest of the media shouldn't grant the guy his last wish.
@JoannaOC:@acarvin @alphaleah @thelede I've watched the video. Do you really want to keep sending this link around? Was this not his intention?
Elsewhere in the twitter conversation a journalist she's talking to (local MN Public Radio, if that's any clue as to where she stands) mentions that "this is somewhat the same dilemma journos faced with the manifesto of the guy who flew a plane into a Texas IRS office," and she responds by talking about "the Zodiac Killer blackmailing the press into printing his stuff."

Like I said, I lean toward Leah's argument about exposing bad ideas and ideology to the light of day, but I also agree that when you do that, there will be people who read/watch these manifestos and whatnot, receive the exact opposite message from them than the one journalists/advocates of sunshine intend, take up the killer's crazy ideology, and perhaps become the next mass murderer. (Rachel Maddow often shows the lines and links between murderous anti-abortion extremists, for example... The risk is real...)

JoannaOC is certainly right about one thing; the teenagers--those who survived, as well as those who did not--deserve at least as much coverage as this extreme right wing terrorist. This is one survivor's story: Utøya survivor's story (translated to English)
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An American Henchmen (Nihilist) X-post

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