Innocents Abroad or Fool's Paradise

There is a major brouhaha going on among "Islam critics" because Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer have announced that they may attend the Anti-Islamization Congress of the German Pro-Köln movement in May. Invectives are bandied about liberally and there is little room left between "Poster Girl for Eurofascists" resp. "publisher of the anti-Islam Internet hate site "Jihad Watch"" on one side, and "dynamo of energy and a paragon of courage and fearlessness" resp. "the leading voice of scholarship and reason in a world gone mad" on the other.

Whatever they are, neither Geller nor Spencer are doing themselves a favour by posting inane statements like the one claiming that one of the leading members of Pro-Köln isn't a Nazi because . . . he says so.

Manfred Rouhs, a Pro-Köln member of the city council, is not a neo-Nazi. Here is a statement from Rouhs:
"blah blah yabber yack yack..."

Unbelievable!

I have blogged about Pro-Köln and other branches of the "Pro"-movement before. They are not "Eurofascists" (what sort of hollow epithet is that anyway) and, as I said before, they are attracting quite a few wellmeaning, decent citizens who are just desperate because the mainstream parties are exposing them helplessly to the Islamic threat. But they are not, by no stretch of the imagination, either, the clear-cut democrats, freedom lovers and defenders of Western values as which American conservatives doggedly insist to see them.

I am committing a major transgression now. I am quoting -- horribile dictu -- from LGF, the blog of Charles Johnson, ring leader in the open season on Geller and Spencer. And appreciatively to boot, which makes me now a liberal pinko commie leftist and ally of Evil Charles. But whatever. In a comment, the German blogger Gegenkritik states:

Hey all. Something more about pro Köln: their "pro-Israel"-stance is relatively new, it's mainly PI-news-founder Stefan Herre, who appears at their demonstrations with israeli-flags. He was also the one to interview former CDU deputy mayor of district Cologne-Ehrenfeld (where the mosque will be built), Jörg Uckermann, who is now one of the leading figures of pro-Köln, and it was Herre who convinced him to to take a "pro-Israel"-stance.

Some years ago, pro-Köln was openly hostile towards Israel: here's a leaflet (Google translated) that was handed out by pro-Köln's student-organization, entitled "Solidarity with Palestine!". You'll find the typical anti-zionism in it: Israel is waging war against the Palestinians, Ariel Sharon is seeking for cruel vengeance, the German Goverment should not deliver weapons but put pressure on Israel.
Two years ago, pro-Köln defended the stance of the German Bishops, who compared the situation of the Palestinians with the Jews in the Warsaw-Ghetto (Here is a LGF-post about this).

To be fair, all this is still not a real Nazi-position, and it is the common stance of 90% of Germans. But there is more: their agitation against the planned Jewish museum in Cologne. The background: after the destruction of most Jewish buildings in Cologne in the Nazi-era, a private foundation was fundraising for a museum about the Jewish history in Cologne. The foundation got the building permission, but suddenly, nearly all media as well as the city council were against the museum.

The only newspapers that were still in favor of the planned museum, were those of the Axel Springer AG, who are often attacked by leftists, muslims and Neonazis alike because of their Corporate principles ("To promote reconciliation of Jews and Germans and support the vital rights of the State of Israel"). Neonazis and other Anti-semites often take this point to lament about the "jewish controlled media" ("Verjudete Presse" was the original slogan in the Nazi-era) and it's very clear that pro-Köln is referring to this.

All this shows, that pro-Köln's pro-Israel-attitude is essentially a fake.

The only thing that is wrong with this is that it was published at LGF and will so inadvertently support Charles Johnson's unconsidered, uncalled-for and crude smearing of everybody and his pet ferret of whom he doesn't approve as a "fascist". Had Gegenkritik sent this statement to some conservative bloggers it might have triggered off some second thoughts.

Might. But I doubt it.

Anyway, now, as it appeared at the dreaded LGF, it CAN NOT BE RIGHT in the eyes of those who know everything already. Wanna bet? Not facts count, but where they appear and whether one likes them.

My blog has a fair ranking at Technorati, specifically for a one-woman-effort, at one time it used to be in the fortythousands, but I am not complaining. My SiteMeter count varies greatly, depending on how much blogging I do. My best result ever was well over 400 page views a day. That was, interestingly, for this entry. So I know I am at least read. I am decrying for years now the grotesque, hysterical (but strategic) exaggeration of the "rightwing danger" in Germany. In fact, it is one of the main topics at this blog. I decry as well the fact that people who stand for politically non-correct ideas are denounced as "right wing populists" (ever met a "left wing populist", by the way?) or "right wing extremists". Believe me (but you won't) I know a Nazi when I see one and if Charles Johnson says so too, he is STILL right, although his may be the factuality of a broken clock.

I believe I have established over the years the reputation of an intellectually honest blogger and a diligent researcher, and, as the Gegenkritik-blogger proves, I am not the only one who dares to question the wishful thinking of only too many conservative Americans who seriously think that Germany, that little country from which went out so much good and so much evil, Germany, with its almost twothousand years of history, Germany, with its multitude of age-old people, cultures and traditions within such a limited territory, Germany, which therefore never achieved true national unity, Germany, shaken in its foundations by the Reformation, something from which it is still suffering, Germany, that, historically, always took a different path from other West European nations, is just as easily comprehensible as their own relatively recently colonialised empty slab between two oceans. They seriously think that, because they know yodelling and Panzerlied, that they have a grasp of the German culture and mind and that they know better than educated, thoughtful, native Germans. There is, after all, Babelfish or Google to deliver quality translations of German copy from which one can then cherrypick what one would like to believe. THIS ARROGANCE MAKES ME SICK!

Not that the LGF-blogger is any more hot on fact-finding. The other day he informed us that Politically Incorrect, the major Islam-critic among the German blogs is a "pro-fascist German website". How he can know that without any knowledge of German is beyond me, but it would be presumptuous to presume presumptuousness only in the conservative camp. PI is blog number one among ALL political blogs in Germany, which shows how dearly in need we are of that sort of information. As I am contributing to its English section, I will now carry the title "Euro Fascist" awarded by one of the biggest jerks in all of the Internet with pride.

While I was writing this, one of the people at PI sent me an email with the link to an entry, reporting that Geller and Spencer have cancelled their participation in the Pro-Köln event. Egads! I wish Geller and Spencer (and a host of other American conservative Islam-critics) were able to read what the scummy rabble followers of Pro-Köln in PI's comment section, freedom-loving clear-cut democrats and defenders of Western values all of them, are saying about those two innocents and life in general.

But lucky for them, they can't. As it is, dream on!