Indignation cafeteria

I no longer find it possible to differentiate the methodology of the catastrophist misandrist fairy tales and hate propaganda of Watson / Greta Christina et al. from that of radical islamists that have a thing about cartoons.

Both do backwards somersaults to tenuously manufacture crises out of irrelevant trivia; hyperbolise the hurt that they suffer (much like Chinese professional mourners); demonise dissenting voices that tell them to stop behaving like spoiled children; and enforce their own fascist brand of faux morality on the world whilst simultaneously demanding the right to spout whatever nonsense they please with absolute impunity.

Similarly, I see no difference between the embarrassing segments of the self labeled “liberal” and “humanist” left that throw around the accusation of islamophobia at any hint of criticism in lieu of rational discourse and the Watsonistas abuse of baseless accusations of misogyny for the same reason – mindless vacuity. As Harlan Ellison eloquently put it –

“Everybody has opinions: I have them, you have them. And we are all told from the moment we open our eyes, that everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. Well, that’s horsepuckey, of course. We are not entitled to our opinions; we are entitled to our informed opinions. Without research, without background, without understanding, it’s nothing. It’s just bibble-babble. It’s like a fart in a wind tunnel, folks.”

This “farting” consists of very straight faced assertions from –

  • the islamists that the act of drawing a doodle of their “prophet” is somehow the equivalent of shitting in the qur’an, then burning it, nuking Mecca and exterminating every muslim on the planet; and
  • the Watsonistas that using sarcasm as a rhetorical tool to make them look stupid is somehow equivalent to a call to arms to cut out the tongues of any of the female godless and chain them up doggy style in veal production pens, ass in the air, for any passing penis to violate as it sees fit.

This is how social catastrophism manifests itself when reality in no way corresponds to delusions fed by phobia, insecurity, self-loathing and lashings of good old fashioned puritanism. If it doesn’t exist, just make it up and yell a lot. You are bound to, sooner or later, get enough of a critical mass of credulous buffoons that believe you to the point that they too will begin replicating your meme. At that point, it becomes viral and mission accomplished. This is how ideological movements and personality cults operate – they have learned well from religion. Of course in the case of Watson, she takes carefully plotted extra steps to ensure meme propagation. Like keeping The Naked Emperor drunk at conferences and prick teasing him that his middle aged carcass may possibly still be worth fucking, or making targeted custom smut as in the case of Gollum. Compliance is assured. Boys are sooooo stoopid1.

It is interesting at this point to put the fembot slave moralist lunatics to one side and have a look at their evil twins, the islamists, and the thoughts that some real life, non-white2 Middle Eastern commentators have shared about them and how, in the west, they have successfully hijacked the voice and the stage from the majority of moderate muslims while they innocently slept. Two excellent articles were posted independently of each in early 2010, one from Arabic history scholar Raymond Ibrahim and the other from Indian born philosopher and jack-of-all-trades Kenan Malik. The articles, respectively –

What Did You Say About Muhammad?! [Pajamas Media]

How to become a real Muslim [Eurozine]

Both articles address the crisis that islamists have been able to create out of simple cartoons and are an excellent read in general. But they are especially enlightening for perspectives on islamism (not islam) devoid of Western Pollyannaism, from folks that are far more sober and intimate with the general muslim demographic than either the Runnymede Trust3 or the UNHRC. And the underlying thesis proposed is the same – that the current state of relations in Western societies between resident muslims and non-muslims are a disaster area and the blame can be layed squarely at the feet of “liberals” and “new humanists”4 for peddling islamophobia accusation and guilt like its a holy mission, paving the path to hell with their good intent5.

That the only rewards for new humanist meddling in the cartoon crisis, with their policies of accommodationism and appeasement (that have now also become the default Western position thanks to them), are ever more ludicrous cries of outrage and demands for exceptionalist treatment from the maniacs – especially demands that erode our very own rights – are completely ignored in the feel good orgy. But the proof is in the pudding – nothing good has come of it.

Ibrahim’s article begins by recalling last year’s South Park fiasco –

Which is more likely to elicit an irate Muslim response: 1) public cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad, or 2) public proclamations that Muhammad was a bisexual, sometime transvestite and necrophile, who enjoyed sucking on the tongues of children, commanded a woman to “breastfeed” an adult man, and advised believers to drink his urine for salutary health?

Based on the recent South Park fiasco — where an animated episode depicting Muhammad in a bear suit sparked outrage among various Muslim groups, culminating with the usual death threats — the answer is clear: cartoons, once again, have proven to be the Muslim world’s premiere provocateur.

The second example is, of course, nothing new to those that don’t shirk from looking at islam’s more abhorrent aspects. The vilest writings on islam, bar none, are those that can be found within the qur’an itself and its approved ancillary texts – the hadith and sunnah and whatnot6. Want to justify anal sex with an infant that’s not a blood relative? It’s all in there somewhere7. This is all, as Ibrahim explains, fodder for Middle Eastern shock jock teevee –

The evangelical Arabic satellite station, al-Haya (Life TV), regularly takes the Muslim prophet to task, especially on two weekly programs: Hiwar al-Haq (Truth Talk), hosted by Coptic priest Fr. Zakaria Botros, and Su’al Jari’ (Daring Question), hosted by ex-Muslim Rashid. Both shows revolve around asking uncomfortable questions about Islam and its founder in an effort to prompt Muslims to reconsider the legitimacy of their faith… These broadcasts are viewed by millions of Arabic-speaking Muslims around the world.

Surprisingly, neither of these gentlemen have been murdered to date. Ibrahim speculates as to why –

Needless to say, Life TV’s hosts — especially the flamboyant Fr. Zakaria — are hated by Muslims around the world. But to the careful observer, the outrage appears to be subsiding, ostensibly replaced by apathy — that is, the default strategy when threats and displays of indignation fail […]

By constantly buckling in to the slightest Muslim displeasure — whether by altering films, removing museum art, or canceling book launches — the West has perpetuated a vicious cycle wherein Muslim sensitivities are ever heightened and outraged at the slightest slight, and Western freedoms of expression are correspondingly diminished and trampled upon. What’s worse, such self-imposed censorship falls right into the hands of homegrown Islamists actively working to subvert Western civilization from within. 

Conversely, by holding fast to onetime Western principles of free speech and open dialogue, Life TV has conditioned its Muslim viewers to accept that exposure and criticism of their prophet is here to stay. As Fr. Zakaria often points out, every religious figure is open to criticism: so why should Muhammad be sacrosanct? […]

Of course, one need not agree with Life TV’s tactics or evangelical mission to appreciate the lesson it imparts: Muslim outrage — as with all human outrage — is predicated on how well it is tolerated. Continuously appeased, it becomes engorged and insistent on more concessions; ignored, it deflates and, ashamed of itself, withers away.

Indonesians express their gratitude to new humanism

Why are the simplest things always the hardest to grasp? Only lazy and stupid parents respond to tantrum throwing children by immediately satisfying every demand. This is the expedient, and short term solution, and only really a solution until the next hissy fit is initiated on a whim. Parents that accept responsibility and actually do real parenting deal with it all rather differently – the solution is not to defer the tantrum for another day, but to teach the child that tantrums are of benefit to no one in the real world, especially not the child. This is precisely the message that Ibrahim is conveying to our collective, new humanist driven failure in the West.

Malik reiterates much of Ibrahim, but is far more penetrating with his overall analysis in that not only has western new humanist accommodationism failed us all, it has also undermined the position of moderate islam itself and created an environment of now open hostility in the process.

Malik firstly points out that the strict prohibition on pictorial depictions of Muhammed, that the islamists drill into is, are a relatively modern innovation –

Even a tradition as seemingly deeply set and unyielding as the one at the heart of the controversy over the Danish cartoons – the prohibition on the pictorial representation of the Prophet Mohammed – is in truth neither deeply set nor unyielding. Far from Islam having always forbidden representations of the Prophet, it was common to portray him until comparatively recently. The prohibition against such depictions only emerged in the 17th century. Even over the past 400 years, a number of Islamic, especially Shiite, traditions have accepted the pictorial representation of Muhammed […]

Even today, few Muslims have a problem in seeing the Prophet’s face. Shortly after Jyllands Posten published the cartoons, the Egyptian newspaper Al Fagr reprinted them. They were accompanied by a critical commentary, but Al Fagr did not think it necessary to blank out Mohammad’s face, and faced no opprobrium for not doing so. Egypt’s religious and political authorities, even as they were demanding an apology from the Danish Prime Minister, raised no objections to Al Fagr’s full frontal photos. 

So, if there is no universal prohibition to the depiction of Mohammad, why were Muslims universally appalled by the caricatures? They weren’t. And those that were, were driven by political zeal rather than theological fervour.

An interesting historical archive of pictorial depictions can be viewed here. Despite the mythology of the events that transpired on the publication of the Jyllands-Posten cartoons, reality painted a much different picture –

The publications of the cartoons in September 2005 caused no immediate reaction, even in Denmark. Only when journalists, disappointed by the lack of controversy, contacted a number of imams for their response, did Islamists begin to recognize the opportunity provided not just by the caricatures themselves but also by the sensitivity of Danish society to their publication.

Among the first contacted was the controversial cleric Ahmed Abu Laban, infamous for his support for Osama bin Laden and the 9/11 attacks. He seized upon the cartoons to transform himself into a spokesman for Denmark’s Muslims. Yet however hard he pushed, he initially found it difficult to provoke major outrage in Denmark or abroad. It took more than four months of often hysterical campaigning, and considerable arm-twisting by Saudi diplomats, to create a major controversy. At the end of January 2006, Saudi Arabia recalled its ambassador from Denmark and launched a consumer boycott of Danish goods. In response a swathe of European newspapers republished the cartoons in “solidarity” with Jyllands-Posten.

It was only now that the issue became more than a minor diplomatic kerfuffle. There were demonstrations and riots in India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Iran, Nigeria, Palestine, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Danish embassies in Damascus, Beirut and Teheran were torched. But, as Jytte Klausen has observed, these protests “were not caused by the cartoons, but were part of conflicts in pre-existing hot spots” such as northern Nigeria, where there exists an effective civil war between Muslim salafists and Christians. The violence surrounding the cartoon conflict, Klausen suggests, has been “misreported” as expressions of spontaneous violence from Muslims “confronted with bad pictures”. That, she insists, “is absolutely not the case”. Rather “these images have been exploited by political groups in the pre-existing conflict over Islam.”

Why did journalists contact Abu Laban in the first place? The Danish press described him as a “spiritual leader”. He was in fact a mechanical engineer by trade, and an Islamist by inclination. His Islamic Society of Denmark was closely linked to the Muslim Brotherhood but had little support among Danish Muslims. Out of a population of 180 000 Danish Muslims, fewer than a thousand attended the Society’s Friday prayers.

This was, in every respect, a manufactured crisis. It should be noted Abu Laban has an extensive resume, including joy at 9/11. And where it all goes horribly wrong is, that with the enthusiastic, eager to please and utterly brainless endorsement of Euro-humanists, Laban was somehow promoted to be the representative voice of European muslims, when he was in fact no such thing and possibly the most unrepresentative fringe maniac out there –

For western liberals have come to see figures like Abu Laban as the true, authentic voice of Islam. The Danish MP Naser Khader tells of a conversation with Tøger Seidenfaden, editor of Politiken, a leftwing newspaper highly critical of the caricatures. “He said to me that the cartoons insulted all Muslims”, Khader recalls. “I said I was not insulted. He said, ‘But you’re not a real Muslim’.”

In liberal eyes, in other words, to be a real Muslim is to find the cartoons offensive. Once Muslim authenticity is so defined, then only a figure such as Abu Laban can be seen as a true Muslim voice. The Danish cartoons, as Jytte Klausen observed, “have become not just a tool for extremism but also created a soap opera in the West about what Muslims ‘do’ with respect to pictures”. Or, as Naser Khader has put it, “What I find really offensive is that journalists and politicians see the fundamentalists as the real Muslims.” The myths about the Danish cartoons – that all Muslims hated the cartoons and that it was a theological conflict – helped turn Abu Laban into an authentic voice of Islam. At the same time, Abu Laban’s views seemed to confirm the myths about the Danish cartoons.

In other words, with the very best of intentions, the pseudo-liberal/humanist Mandarins in the courts of the European Union managed to not only mis- and dis-inform their politicians and citizens, they also legitimised and empowered lunatics like Laban and gave them a carte blanche monopoly to the public stage to spout their toxic derangement, whilst at the same time pulling the rug out from underneath the geniune islamic community representatives who’s views reflected moderation and sanity. Well done guys.

Malik then proceeds to rub our noses in it by reminding us that virtually an identical drama was played out over 20 years ago with Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses – and what did we learn form the experience? Absolutely nothing. Well, that’s not true. We learned that new humanism’s catchcry is populism and expediency – not statecraft or actual liberal democracy. They sold out on our liberties and our principles then, and they have just done it all over again. The learning curve is a flat line. As Malik summarises this attitude of accommodationism and appeasement –

In the post-Rushdie world, liberals have effectively internalized the fatwa.

What we are witnessing is a self-destructive closed feedback loop. The loudest and most deranged islamist voices have been seized on by media organisations – because that’s what they do, feed on spectacle that they think fuels consumer interest. This noise has in turn been mistaken as representative sentiment by well meaning new humanist political courtiers, who proceed to do somersaults in their shoes to appease the islamists. This in turn gives the islamists a bogus legitimacy and a larger stage from which to launch even stupider accusations and demands, and so on, in a downward spiral in a finite ecosystem. The idiocy cannot sustain itself forever – there are limits and sooner or later, something will have to give. There are only 3 possible outcomes here –

  1. Full islamisation of Europe, including sharia (unlikely). And when things reach that point, as it does all over the Middle East, islamist demands do not cease. They merely fragment into sub-islamist fragments and continue the stupidity with each other.
  2. New humanists get a dose of reality and wake up to themselves (even less likely).
  3. Or, most likely, you get backlash which is potentially even nastier.

The last is indeed already happening. Geert Wilders, the new humanist’s new whipping boy, is surging ahead in popularity and political influence on the back of all this. That the new humanists show no inhibitions at publicly hating and denouncing him is no surprise. It is perfectly in keeping with the Nietzschean master/slave dynamic – the perceived “weak” hive mentality of the islamists is accepted as “good” and the “strong” individualist, autonomous defense of Euro-man by Wilders is accepted as intrinsically “evil”. Wilders must be exterminated “for the greater good”.

The old faithful new humanist red-herring

The true perversity of personality cult leaders like Wilders arising is not that they exist, but why they exist. With typical buck passing, new humanists point the finger and lay the blame at apparently pre-existing racist attitudes and residual extreme right white supremacist elements always present just beneath the surface of otherwise civilised and enlightened Europe, and that in fact, it is these elements and their islamophobia that are at the root of all the problems to begin with.

What a pile of bollocks.

This cop out is disingenuous to the point of absurdity. Wilders is Dutch.The Netherlands have historically paved the way for social liberalism and led the world by example in rights for women, gays and sensible drug, sex and censorship policy. To label the entire Dutch people as closet white power Nazis is beyond merely stupid, it’s as vilely insulting as you can get.

Wilders is what you get when you take quiet, tolerant and peaceful people such as the Dutch and repeatedly begin accusing them of being racist and intolerant. And when they begin to express unease at their artists being murdered and see crimes long unseen, such as gay bashing, become serious issues all over again, you proceed to escalate your accusations of bigotry. When you so relentlessly criminalise entire populations of crimes of which they are entirely innocent, and you do it on a world stage and with loudspeakers day in and day out, the question becomes more how could a politician like Wilders not arise?

Wilders is not so much a consequence of islamist idiocy, but of the new humanist policies of appeasement and accommodationism at any cost. He is 110% their baby – an ugly reality new humanists would rather drown kittens than admit.

Hrrrm, does any of the above look familiar Becky? Are there any lessons we can learn from it Becky?

Strip away the context from everything above and leave the skeleton of the methodology and strategy and you have an engineering blueprint for the entire Watsonista campaign8 – a campaign who’s origins predate Elevatorgate by a several years.

The gender feminists Satanic Verses episode began way back ’80s and ’90s with the original date rape crusades – fuel for a mass hysteria that empowered the revenge fantasies of the embittered to get their pound of flesh from an unfair (male) planet with scant regard to conscience or consequence, and without any hurtful requirements for evidence or plausibility.

The collateral damage from the resulting pogroms was justified by an endless stream of literature and women’s studies doctoral theses. That untold numbers young men, many just boys, had their lives destroyed by little more than hearsay was irrelevant, as was the trivialisation of women that had actually been victims of violent assault. Thanks to all of this, having your boobies squeezed at a drunken frat party was now the equivalent on the suffering scale to being a Richard Ramirez victim. Then too, as now, some female voices, such as Katie Roiphe and Christina Hoff Sommers, spoke out against the insanity, and then as now, they too were dismissed as gender traitors and collaborators. It was all largely too little and too late anyway.

This was all labeled as “progressive” in the correct political circles.

This madness eventually subsided much to everyone’s relief, but the learning curve remained a flat line, with nothing really in place to prevent this idiocy from resurrecting itself. As it now has, from it’s beginnings several years ago when Greta Christina / Watson first concocted atheist misogyny and made it their mission in life, to the Skepchick and acolyte blogger campaign to forever poison google with the term which followed, culminating in the recent conference histrionics in Ireland…

Elevatorgate has now become the gender feminist version of the Jyllands-Posten cartoons. It has moved beyond merely theoretical misandrist accusation by directing focus to a semi-tangible, yet strangely uncorroborated, allegedly real life event which through relentless sermonising has now become a quasi-religious icon. Like the J-P cartoons, this iconography provides an excellent focal point for all of the accumulated hatred, and a convenient marshaling point from which to launch an all out assault on the remaining actual Freethinkers within the godless and skeptic communities, regardless of sex or demographic, who refuse to drink the gender feminist Kool-aid.

And the bit player framework is all there, ready and compliant. The Naked Emperor, and his yellow journalism baboon board, are there to propagandise and legitimise the Watsonistas in true tabloid style as the bogus “representative” voice of the community, and confuse the ambivalent into believing it. The Pollyanna new humanists are filled by the CFI, and they subsidise the operation and feed it oxygen by providing the public stage and audience. The Runnymede Trust’s – the endless stream of bloggers hurling accusations of misogynist, sexist, rape apologist, gender traitor or collaborator in lieu of islamophobia (depending on whether you have dangly genitals or not) – prime noise-mongers now also cohabiting with the Baboon King. Women are being told they are “not real feminists” for not disintegrating into indignant hysteria, just like Naser Khader was told he was “not a real muslim” for not being offended by cartoons. And of course there’s the Wilders – Dawkins to begin with, but now increasingly dissidents like myself who refuse to see the lollipop and lipstick fascism as anything less than it is – fascism.

And nowhere in sight are there any actual skeptics – not only, as the Randi forums have pointed out, is there not a drop of evidence to confirm that the elevator guy was even a conference attendee, there is nothing to indicate the whole incident wasn’t simply made up. Just blind faith – it is real. Becky said so. Couldn’t be more cult-like if they tried.

This has become a closed loop feedback system. And as with its islamist / new humanist twin in Europe, it cannot sustain itself for ever – there are no compromises available here. The Watsonistas depend entirely on spectacle and scapegoating to maintain their momentum – and that requires a steady stream of victims for the altar. Should they ever succeed in their lunatic demands and drive the remaining genuine Freethinkers away from the community, they will soon enough turn on each other – just as the islamists have in much of Africa and the various -stans. There is no equilibrium in their world. There will always be new outrage and new hatred.

The only other alternative is to learn from the lessons Ibrahim and Malik have given us – refuse to participate in this idiotic jihad any more. Stop feeding the maniacs*. Starve them of the attention they crave, drive them back to the back-room ideological ghettos where they can rant at each other as much as they please and leave the real world in peace. As Malik concludes in his article –

What we can do is refuse to create a culture that emboldens such people by accepting their voices as somehow legitimate.

All these well-intentioned nitwits that are assisting in maintaining this stupidity need to stop, think and acknowledge that, just as ordinary humble christians are the ones most harmed by the idiot fringes of Dominionist maniacs, so too the women within the godless and skeptick communities are the ones most damaged by the Watsonistas. There are more women leaving these communities now than any genuine misogynist conspiracy could ever hope to drive away. The basic facts are that atheism is misogynistic and racist – exclusively because of white, privileged Watsonistas.

* – Possibly the most depressing development recently is learning that Steven Novella too seems to be thoroughly owned by the Watsonistas. Many folks really did hope he had enough integrity and intellect to see through the bullshit. Evidently not. Whether it’s willful ignorance or active complicity is irrelevant. The result is the same.

 1 – No, not even with Gaddafi’s dick to preempt the inevitable “your jealous” or “you are a loser because you’re not getting any” jibes that always follow from the Myers emulating baboons. Beauty may be skin deep, but Watson style ugly oozes from deep within. Rather step in warm dog shit with bare feet.

2 – This is important to note considering the Watsonista idiocy is specifically between white fembots and white males, a distinction they themselves repeat ad nauseam.

3 – Generally accepted to have created the term “islamophobia”, but if not, certainly are responsible for entrenching it in the Western guilt vocabulary.

4 – Quotation marks are there because these folks are pseudos; they are bastardised versions of both. Prime examples are folks like new humanism’s popstar, Harvard’s “Secular Chaplain” Greg Epstein who lectures us about they evils of draw muhammed day.

5 – I am always bothered by the “nobility” of this kind of idiot activism. Want to show your “humanism”? Go buy a homeless kid a sandwich instead of wasting your time with linguistic nit picking. Do something real. This kind of nonsense always seems more like a perverse form of exhibitionism – pointless displays designed more to alleviate personal guilt and put on a peacock display of “goodness” for others than to actually try and improve the world.

6 – Much like gender feminism with Dworkin, MacKinnon and Solanas.

7 – Though the credibility of the resources vary, the texts are pretty much a convenience store to justify any kind of barbarity, and if you can’t find it yourself, there are plenty of holy men that are experts at both the texts and updating interpretations to suit needs. This is one example of such citation –

http://www.islamreview.com/articles/PEDOPHILIA_IN_ISLAM.shtml

Though a page maintained by christians, it does draw on original text material. It also has to be noted that the christian bible isn’t a whole lot better – just, thankfully, most christians no longer abuse the literalism to extent that some pockets of muslims still do.

8 – Right down to trivial little details too, as at UNI Freethinkers and Inquirers notes. Watson placed an immediate priority post-Elevatorgate on exploiting her public speaking engagements to promote her own hate propaganda and dropped all concerns for the NYC same-sex marriage issues that needed public support at the time like a soiled diaper. Fags don’t really matter to slave morality feminists any more than to islamophobia obsessed new humanists.