White power is not.

And  it is on THAT issue VB is totally unacceptable. Mr. Dewinter's absurd attempt to revise his call for a "White Europe" as a 'metaphor' was laughably transparent when he had the chance to obliterate forever that stain, obviously because he could not alienate his followers by 'caving'.

That is the historic fact.

Anything VB supports for better or worse is thus tainted. Such as their support for Israel which now looks at an Israel as an ethnic nationalist live alike Flemish model. Which it is not.

Worse is that some of those supporters of VB have defended theoretically, fascism, as a system in notable blogs, thus perhaps robbing whatever Mr. Fortuyn really felt of temporal accuracy today.

Frankly, it is pointless, petty and less than useless for LGF, BJ, GoV or anyone else to return again and again on points of minor import in order to 'score'.

It's become quite clear that Charles Johnson over at LGF has no intention of backing off his ridiculous assertion that the Vlaams Belang is a front group for racists and neo-Nazis.  It appears he has completed his transformation to Alonso Quixano, and is tilting at imaginary Nazis wherever they may happen to materialize within his deluded field of vision.  As a "recently emancipated" member of LGF, I'd like to provide you all with a clearer context around this issue from my perspective, as well as a clearer context around just who this Sancho Panza is that provided the "incontrovertible truth" of Vlaams Belang's association with Nazi ideology.

Mr. Belien's journalistic credentials are beyond reproach.  He's spent his career as a professional journalist, been published in the Wall Street Journal, and this very blog is a contributing member of the OpinionJournal Federation.  You can't get any more bona fide than that.  Opposite him, we have the LGF poster known as "BabbaZee."  I believe she has mentioned that she suffers from some sort of disability, and is frequently given to impromptu outbursts of "Gramscian Whores of the Caliphate," often leaving me to wonder whether she also suffers from both Tourette's syndrome and occasional bouts of over-medication.  At any rate, relative journalistic credibility issues aside, it would seem that what passes for evidence on this topic within the collective consciousness of LGF is the exclusive us of Google to make "six degrees of separation" type connections.  It would therefore seem that the LGF community has lost whatever critical reasoning skills it once possessed, given that anyone with a search engine, appropriate supplies of medication, and a week to kill could use LGF's own burden of proof to document a "definitive" link between Charles Johnson and Adolf Hitler himself.

However, after much thought, I believe I have ascertained the motive behind Charles' recent offensive.  There can be no doubt that support for the Vlaams Belang is on the rise in America, most notably among social conservatives.  This is not because they are neo-Nazis, or racists, or fascists as their detractors claim, but rather because they support the very same issues most American social conservatives support in their own political candidates:  pro-life, limited government, a European version of our own Second Amendment, opposition to same-sex marriage, and free market economic policies.  Gee, it's really hard to understand why any of us American "racist bigots" would gravitate toward the politics of the Vlaams Belang (sarcasm intended).

Now let's look at Charles Johnson's latest incantation of a cause celebre to prove his recent slander against the Vlaams Belang, Ayaan Hirsi Ali.  Ms. Ali has stated that she "would ban the VB because it hardly differs from the Hofstad [terrorist] group.  Though the VB members have not committed any violent crimes yet, they are just postponing them and waiting until they have an absolute majority.  On many issues they have exactly the same opinions as the Muslim extremists: on the position of women, on the suppression of gays, on abortion.  This way of thinking will lead straight to genocide."

I must admit that I read through that statement a time or two, until it dawned on me that Ms. Ali was not expressing disapproval of the Vlaams Belang as a political party per se, but was rather expressing what we in the United States would consider a "Rosie O'Donnell" style outburst.

It was not so much an attack on a political party but rather an assault on the conservative Christian values many in the United States hold dear.

Read it yourself.  Subjugation of women. Check.  Degradation of homosexuals. Check Check. And opposition to abortion.  Check and Mate.  She should be considered as much a champion of Western Civilization as Rosie O'Donnell and all her associated attacks on the traditional Christian values on which our culture was formed.   The only difference is, Ms. Ali is too intelligent to open her mouth again and insert her foot.  I suppose her current employers would have to publicly distance themselves from her.

And this is Charles Johnson's hero.  His purported evidence of the Vlaams Belang's nefarious intent.  Was Michael Moore absent on the day Charles went looking for corroboration of his "gut feeling?"

Paul, instead of obliging Charles by continuous attempts to defend yourself against his unwarranted slander, why not ask Mr. Johnson to formally disavow Ayaan Hirsi Ali's statement that calls for political groups that espouse traditional Christian social conservative values (such as, say, the Republican party) be banned from the democratic political process?

Unless Charles is willing to do that, by his own standard of proof he has used to convict you, we can only assume that Mr. Johnson can be considered as relevant an opinion as that of Rosie O'Donnell.

Keep doing what you're doing.  You personally have many supporters here in the United States, irrespective of Charles Bananas Foster Johnson's personal crusade against you.

""You can try and wish it away...or rationalize it away...but I repeat..."Americans will not support a movement that can be tied to groups with racist and Nazi pasts.""

Charles as quoted by a poster. Of course both are wrong. In fact there is bipartisan longstanding monetary and military support in the US for a fascist group - the UCK aka KLA (kosovo liberation army). Bonafide nazi credentials...

- historical tie to a genocidal SS division (made up of Albanian Kosovars that killed Serbs by the thousands in WWII and first successfully created a Albanian majority in the province, of course Bosnian muslims also had their SS division, famous for first stabbing pregnant christian woman in the belly to kill the unborn child, then slitting the throat of mother because they believed that way Allah credited them with two infidels killed!) - CHECK
-dreams of an ethnically pure state - CHECK
-beliefs in their own racial superiority vis a vis other groups in region -CHECK
-ongoing murder, rape, ethnic cleansing of Gypsies, Serbs, etc - anyone not Albanian - CHECK!
-drug running,stolen car trafficking, sex slave trafficking to raise funds for more mayhem CHECK!

So please, Vlams Belang or the Swedish Democrats were never associated with anyone remotely like the hard core fascists of the KLA that get the red carpet rolled out for them by State Department anytime they go to the US, and now Uncle Sam wants to give them their very own ethnically pure fascist state. Maybe the Europeans should ostracize anyone belonging to the Democrat or Republican Party for arming a European hard core neo-SS division, no?

But you see, that's allright because the Serbs are fascists, because the US media tells us so.
Plus they are whiter then the albanians, both fairer, and Christian, which is a "white" religion, therefore they are the victimizers regardless of whether they are in fact the victimized. On top of it they are Slav, and unlike the often wronged black people, all westerners know Slavs are in fact subhuman, right?
Poles-dumb
Russians-evil
Serbs-evil
Fortunately we still have an ethnic group which it is downright progressive to hate and kill, right?

Guess who provided air cover in the '90's for the Croatian Army when they were ethnically cleansing 10,000s Serb civilans out of the Krajina region where they lived peacefully for generations -USAF! Air cover apparently doesn't qualify as support, right? cause Charles tells us the US will never support a neo-nazi group with historical ties to WWII fascists (as was the Croation political party of Tudjman that did the ethnic cleansing)?

What Charles meant is US won't support anyone that their media designates as fascists - that is true! But you know what, European civilization thrived for hundreds of years without the US being around to bail them out - they'll be fine....

Fjordman rightly ask, so how long before the US starts bombing Vlams Belang like they did the Serbs for refusing to lie down and die?

Charles should put his own house in order here in the US with respect to funding and arming actual fascist groups in Europe before he starts lecturing Europeans about some imaginary ties to imaginary neo-nazi groups.

@Vasarahammer

Let's try to keep intellectual capacity out of it (though banishing real dissenters seems... put it this way - not right). The point of Mr. Johnson looks clear (the way I understand it):

nobody would want to be bogged down having to justify association with VB or some other group when one wants to speak out against political (radical) Islam instead.

I learned of VB just a year or so ago, got interested after the suppressed Brussels demo September 11 this year, and this is how I see it: this kind of charges would have been brought anyway. If not by Mr. Johnson then by some... - how are they called in US: nutroot? :) So those who find VB version 2007 appealing ought to use an opportunity to learn to stand up to those charges. I mean: as much as possible detach thinking from who the messenger is and concentrate on the message (no matter how galling is).
_________

Mr. Johnson, helped by Mr. Van Der Galiën [who seems to have remarkable ability to ascertain what "every Dutchman knows" :)], has sourced Mr. Fortuyn's 'fascist' remark to May 4th, 2002 issue of De Morgen, - a successor to two socialist party papers that advocates socially liberal positions, as well as counts, according to German Wiki, as one of tree 'quality papers' in Belgium. Thanks, Mr. Johnson, if you happen to read this. Someone even has been so nice as to recently post - I take it from this: "gepubliceerd op zaterdag 03 november 2007 @ 22:15 CET" - an excerpt here.

Regretably, Mr. Johnson has done Jeremy Paxman's thing (see at about 5:45) by failing to quote/rephrase what has been said at BJ accurately, because sentences suggesting "that they’re now saying Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn was a supporter of Vlaams Belang, and never called Filip DeWinter a 'fascist'" are nowhere to be found, - questions "Did he, indeed?" and "was that remark made in the first place? If yes - in what context, based on what?" are.

From the quote one can learn that Mr. Dewinter is a 'fascist' (while Mr. Fortuyn isn't) because of the things he says (would not say). Says... which alone is a highly suspect (not to say - what's the word I'm looking for... - very "liberal"?) criteria. The only allegedly 'fascist' utterance of Mr. Dewinter mentioned is: 'own people first' (presumably, from the same beginning of nineties video). Hmmmm... To make this googling for quotes/pics/vids competition more entertaining, who do you think was that 'fascist', whose vision of future included the following sentence:

"Each state will look after its own people first." :)

As said before: absent convincing factual basis that permitted Mr. Fortuyn to distance himself in such a way, quoting him remains an appeal to authority.

And to recap what I have learned thus far. Mr. Dewinter (and by association his party) is deemed to be fascist/antisemitic/racist:

- because of the past of Flemish nationalist movement;
- because of his past as member of Nationalist Student Union(?);
- because his party put out a 70 point plan to address immigration problem, which some deemed to contravene in part provisions of European Convention of Human Rights, and which was, according to VB, brought in line with it in 1996;
- because illiberal Belgian state has 'convicted' and condemned his party as racist;
- because he has in past exclaimed things like 'own people first!';
- because he has met and shared unknown quantities of unidentified beverage with Mr. Le Pen;
- because he keeps a Celtic (or 'Celtic') cross on his shelf;
- because there is a 2004. documentary by public broadcaster of Valonia(?) depicting all of that and probably more.

Did I forget something?

I dunno... were I Mr. Dewinter and were that cross of no particular value, I'd offer to go on film and destroy it or something. :)

"Well, it is increasingly difficult to read the stuff Mr. Johnson continues to put out and maintain a belief in his good will. It basically has come down to propaganda at its most primitive"

This should teach popular bloggers a lesson. If you don't tolerate dissent in your blog and surround yourself with cheerleaders, this may lead to unrealistic assumptions of your intellectual capacity.

Well, it is increasingly difficult to read the stuff Mr. Johnson continues to put out and maintain a belief in his good will. It basically has come down to propaganda at its most primitive (I have seen plenty of Soviet variety as a teen). Pic of Mr. Dewinter and Mr. Le Pen + outlandish claims and fantasies - the more outlandish the better. "White Nationalist subculture, their international connections... Yes, Filip DeWinter’s in here too." No dates, no caption, no nothing that would permit to put the imagery in any kind of realistic context and to guess what is actually depicted there.

I guess, Nicolas Sarkozy is, to the very least, moving to join in there, too - if not already wholly commited to "White Nationalism": "Sarkozy holds talks with Le Pen"...

I personally disagree with this point of view, but if it's important for a certain nation, like Japan, to be racially homogeneous, is that wrong?

my post on the subject

Throughout this debacle, I've been mailing Charles a few times, trying to tell him that he's making a big mistake.

The last of these letters has now been posted at EuropeNews.

This was written before I read the Lawrence Auster analysis The Method of Charles Johnson.

While my letter is more polite (needs to be), I basically agree with Auster. Further, I think LGF has evolved into a personality cult it's better to stay clear of. 

Mr Pankukas:

I think you made your point with the Latvian Waffen-SS volunteers. There were some volunteers in Finland as well. The difference between Finland and Latvia is the fact that Finns who wanted to fight the Soviets also had an option to join the Finnish Army to do so. Between 1941 and 1944 Finland was allied with Nazi Germany.

If guilt by association worked as it should accoding to Charles Jones, my grandfather who fought against the USSR along with German army, would be a closet Nazi. For me, this is hard to believe, since my grandfather was both a born-again Christian and a lifelong Social Democrat. But then again, we have Charles Johnson to tell us, what is wrong and what is right.

Pamela:

"Lose the racial supremists."

Racial supremacists as they understand this thing in America, don't exist in Europe. White supremacism as it exists in the US, is exclusively an American phenomenon. To compare VB to US White supremacists is therefore unfair, unless you regard all nationalism as evil and racist. If you do so, you are not a conservative but a modern liberal with different stripes the same way as Kos Kidz.

Every sane right wing party does its best to root out Nazis and racial supremcists. If they sometimes do not succeed in this, whose fault is it? Is it the clever closet-Nazis or is it the fact that nobody's perfect and no real Nazi can have any influence without attaching himself to a party closest to his ideals.

Mr. Belien:

Please quote the article written by Lawrence Auster. That pretty much makes your case.

Noticing a post at Daily Kos (sorry, can't recall the link offhand) describing LGF as "neo-fascist and racist", I pondered the first of these terms a bit. I think Daily Kos has a point here. While Charles may not be able to come up with a working definition of 'fascism', his style certainly has some very interesting parallels. The prejudice, the spite, the guilt-by-association (both ingoing and outgoing), the scapegoating, the mob mentality and now the purging of dissidents.

Sound similar? I am suggesting that we may indeed be in bad company - but in a somewhat different way than Charles is postulating...
 

I am severely pressed for time over the next two days trying to wrap up a project. The time necessary to write the response your posts deserve won't be available to me until Tuesday - maybe Wednesday.

Thanks for remarks that are informative and gracious.  Apologies for not being able to address them in a more timely manner.

 Liberales:

Hij heeft zich ook steeds gedistancieerd van uiterst rechts en verfoeide elke vergelijking met Haïder en Filip Dewinter. Voor hem was het Vlaamse Blok 'een stelletje fascisten' waar hij niets mee te maken wou hebben.

De Telegraaf

Bron: Telegraaf.nl, 4 mei 2002)

De twee journalisten van De Morgen beginnen hun interview overigens met de opmerking van "vazallen" van Fortuyn dat deze tijdens het gesprek niet vergeleken wil worden met Filip Dewinter, leider van het extreemrechtse Vlaams Blok, of Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Mr. Belien,

- Ms. Pamela is of course right in this case: the condemnation of assault on Mr. Dewinter doesn't prove or disprove anything. But it is equally true that other Mr. Fortuyn's comments alone don't prove or disprove anything other way too - that VB is extremist, racist, 'fascist group', etc. Absent evidence on which those judgments were based quoting them remains an appeal to authority.

Ms. Pamela,

- but there aren't much facts to dispute. Or let's put it that way: who are the racial (white) supremacists to loose? Interview with Mr. Dewinter was posted at LGF and now it's about the judgments each person makes from what he said. The question is IMO: whether or not one is to believe VB has evolved into a party different than it was, say, around 1991. VB has affirmed its commitment to European Convention of Human Rights and states that its policies are in line with it. Let somebody charging racism bring evidence they aren't - then there is something to discuss.

I think there is nothing much to refute or add to what has already been said, say, at http://www.vigilantfreedom.org/910blog/ except, perhaps, for two things.

1. Whether or not issues like personal views of one of Vlaams Belang leaders - Mr. Dewinter regarding hypothetical partner (lesbian, African, forgot the third) of his daughter has anything to do with policy positions of political party Vlaams Belang: as stated, advocated and practiced today (not 1991 or 197something).

I would say: no, one can make a distinction there, and those views of his are something reasonable people can disagree about. My wife is Asian, I abhor racism, I can not agree with Mr. Dewinter there, but I do not see how anything he said (and how he qualified what he said) in that interview makes him racial supremacist. Much less - what has it got to do with policies of VB.

2. The issue of those people who volunteered or were drafted to fight in German armed forces during WWII. More thoughts on that - in a separate comment.

Rationale of Mr. Johnson is perfectly understandable. Some of the methods he is using to illustrate his point is another matter, however. I mean, what is this: Dewinter went on some radio show that also invites highly controversial speakers - that be bad, nobody would give Mr. Johnson a pass if he did likewise. Did Dewinter say anything racist or otherwise objectionable while on that show? I sat listening through that boring show and say - no!

Or, I can lift quotes straight out of Ann Coulter's last column, appeal to her authority (does she have some? :)) and start trying to outrage him by making a case that he is secretly part of "left wing of the Democratic Party", or a sympathizer thereof - just for linking to ADL. What has not been emphasized enough thus far is that those wanting find organizations in Europe as anti-jihadi allies are likely to be confronted with accusations that those people are racist, antisemitic, Nazi sympathizers anyway. I think this article by Gerard Alexander of AEI illustrates why.

It's hard to play advocate for anybody; VB is no exception and defending themselves is mostly something for VB people to do anyway. And, as usual, it seems that being caught in the middle of similar arguments is THE most uncomfortable place to be, so my sympathies to you :)

Paul, thx for standing up to the liberal bully and secular hedonist C. Johnson.

He is becoming more and more irrelevant as he is increasingly concerned with his popularity only.

Many good people have left his blog or have been banned over time. I'm only one of many.

And here for some Lawrence Auster poetry:

At midnight, Charles Johnson
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do.

In response to info posted on GOV, Johnson said
"Same with the Sweden Democrats bio. No mention of any controversy at all."
[ Charles Johnson ]

Because Charles, the controversy exists only in your mind.

Lawrence Auster has a keen analysis of Johnson's attacks at View From the Right. More evidence that BJ has many more friends across the pond than thought.

The Method of Charles Johnson: http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/009141.html

ha, Johnson quotes wikipedia again!. Perhaps Johnson could stop his pathetic leftist bullshit and actually get on with something useful. While Johnson fiddles, U.S of A is being overrun by Mexicans.

The reason why VB and the like are gaining support is because they are not handcuffed by the political correctness that Charles Johnson subscribes too.

Personally I think that Paul and Fjordman are paying too much attention to some sort of deluded kids running a bit nutty blog. I have read that "lgf" site, got angered for a few minutes and then got bored. I do not think it is a good idea to rely on this sort of "friends" or get involved in their activities.

on this whole matter. I seriously propose that both parties if they can't agree just live next to each other and stop fighting each other. 

Just apply the hudna until the Jihad crisis gets over.

I would not go that far as Spencer who says more or less  "cooperate by any means" but neither I think this needs a fight. Ignore each other when you disagree.

Remember the words of Ben Gurion: "“We must support the British in this war as if there was no White Paper and fight the White Paper as if there was no war.”"

Fortuyn's outrage about the way DeWinter was treated has no bearing on his views of Vlaams Blok.  Charles comment had nothing to say about Fortuyn's position about the assault.

"This is the last comment as well as the last article I will write about LGF."

Seeing as how you haven't been able to successfully dispute any of facts yet, that might be a good idea.

A few days ago, Fjordman asked us what we would have you all do.  There are very few strong anti-jihad places to go in your neck of the woods and Vlaams Belang  is one of the strongest.

Well, it's quite simple, really.

Lose the racial supremists.

Can't you read? Charles wrote: "He [Fortuyn] called them [the VB] a 'fascist' group." This is the last comment as well as the last article I will write about LGF. These people are dishonest, do not correct their mistakes, refuse to read,...

Charles posted that Fortuyn did not like Vlaams Belang (altho I think back then it would have been Vlaams Blok?).  He said nothing about Fortuyn's quite honorable outrage about how the assault against DeWinter was handled - or not.

You've mounted a strawman argument.