Islamophobes Spencer & Geller are confused about who are the “brownshirts”

by Sheila Musaji


Robert Spencer has been invited to speak at a Northern California Catholic home school conference, and is listed as a confirmed speaker on their Facebook page.

Nathan Lean heard about this and wrote a letter to the school saying:

It has come to my attention that Mr. Robert Spencer, a prominent anti-Muslim blogger and activist, will appear at the Northern California Catholic Family Home School Conference in Sacramento, California on July 26/27, 2013. Spencer is listed on the website and Facebook page as a confirmed speaker.

The Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League list Spencer as a “hate group leader.” The U.S. Government has rejected the trademark application for his group, Stop the Islamization of America, on the grounds that it disparages Muslims. Spencer regularly appears in public with members of the neo-Nazi street gang, the English Defence League, a group whose leaders have been arrested for assault, passport fraud, and other infractions. More alarmingly, Spencer was cited by the Norway terrorist Anders Breivik 162 in his manifesto; Breivik noted that Spencer inspired his views on Islam, which led him to slaughter 77 youth in the summer of 2010.

Why Kolbe Academy would knowingly host a man with these associations is unclear.

I have alerted several major civil rights organizations and watch groups about this and they have informed me that they are investigating the invitation and will respond. I have also contacted major national interfaith organizations. Additionally, I have spoken with news media outlets, both in the state of California and nationally, who regularly cover religion, politics, and civil rights issues. They were unaware of this speaking engagement and many are interested in pursuing stories about it.

While the work that Kolbe Academy does may impact young learners in a positive way, the invitation of a designated hate group leader to appear as part of a distinguished group of speakers is unacceptable.

Please contact me for further details or questions. The following five weeks will be devoted to shining a bright light on this important issue.

Robert Spencer is furious about this and writes Aslan Media chief Nathan Lean threatens California Catholic school to drop Robert Spencer from conference—or else.

In his article, Spencer stoops to what he constantly decries in others - ad hominem attacks and calls Nathan Lean “thuggish”, “creepy”, a “jihad enabler”, a “stalker”, a “goon”, etc.  He accuses Lean of lying about Spencer’s record, engaging in defamation, making libelous claims, and says this letter is a “threat” and “Consistent with the ongoing Leftist/Islamic supremacist war against the freedom of speech, and desperate fear that anyone will hear the truth about Islam and jihad.”  Spencer also refers to Nathan Lean as “aka Garibaldi” referring to Spencer’s unsupported claim that Lean is actually Garibaldi of Loonwatch. 

Spencer’s attempt to make this a free speech issue is laughable.  Robert Spencer and his partner in hate, Pamela Geller do not understand freedom of speech or that freedom of speech does not include freedom from condemnation of that speech and they are quick to call for censorship and repression of speech they don’t like.

Spencer counters the fact that the SPLC & ADL have classified him as a hate group leader by questioning the SPLC’s authority, and saying nothing about the ADL.  He says that SIOA is appealing the rejection of their trademark application.  None of this counters the facts that Lean has stated.  Is Robert Spencer, as Lean claims “a prominent anti-Muslim blogger”?  Although Spencer claims that he is not anti-Muslim, his record says otherwise.  See Spencer and Geller’s “Defense”: Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing and Islamophobes Attack CAP Fear Inc. Report - More Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing for information on Spencer including direct quotes.  As noted in the TAM Resources for dealing with Islamophobes and Islamophobia Spencer, Geller, and their associates in AFDI/SIOA/SION/SIOE/EDL feature in just about every major report on Islamophobia from multiple organizations. 

Spencer says that Lean “claims falsely that I “regularly” team up with the English Defense League; in reality, I have done so twice – but I do not reject the association.” He then goes on to attempt to defend the EDL.  Actually, this is a ridiculous argument as Tommy Robinson and Kevin Carroll of the EDL are part of the SION (a spinoff of SIOA which is a spinoff of AFDI) President’s Council along with Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller.  Spencer and Geller announced the formation of this council saying: “the President’s Council is a steering committee. It functions as a mobile, proactive, reactive on-the-ground team developing and executing confidential action plans that strike at the heart of the global anti-freedom agenda.” Sounds like regularly teaming up by any standards.  See AFDI/SION’s Leadership: Arrests & Scandals for lots of details.  Update:  Spencer and Geller were both recently banned from entering Great Britain to participate in an EDL event.  They attempted to deny the charges against them that had led to this ban, but failed miserably as their own words and actions proved those charges. 

Spencer sees Lean’s statement that he has alerted “several major civil rights organizations and watch groups,” as well as “news media outlets, both in the state of California and nationally” to this appearance by Spencer at this event as “threatening”.  It’s curious that Spencer assumes that if civil rights groups, interfaith groups, or media outlets were aware of this event that what they would print would be “defamation and lies about me”, and create an “avalanche of negative publicity”.  If he is such a defender of all that is good, why would that be?

Spencer closes with “This letter shows yet again how authoritarian and thuggish the Left and their Islamic supremacist allies have become. In the early years of the Third Reich, National Socialist brownshirts would show up at events where anti-Nazis were speaking, shouting down the speakers and physically menacing the people in the audience. Nathan Lean, his boss Reza Aslan, and their allies are the true sons and heirs of those brownshirts.”  As Colm O’Broin has pointed out, there are striking parallels between statements made by Robert Spencer about Muslims, and statements made by Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher an actual “brownshirt”. 

Spencer’s partner in hate, Pamela Geller adds her own two cents worth, saying: “Look how the machine has grown. Look at this coalition of destroyers. Once they were on the margins of society, where they belong. But now, because of the Obama administration and media sanction, they have risen to a power like that of the SS and SA in prewar Nazi Germany. I urge freedom lovers (Atlas readers) to support Kolbe Academy in standing strong against this neo-fascism. Nathan Lean is a goon, and we will not be bullied or intimidated by thugs and goons. We know where that leads.”

These comments are not only wrong, but incredibly hypocritical coming from the two individuals who are fresh from organizing a reprehensible protest in Tennessee at a Muslim community event to which representatives of the DOJ were invited to discuss hate speech.  See Freedom of speech under attack by Islamophobes in Tennessee for a complete outline (and link to full video) of this event and the behavior of Spencer, Geller, and the mob they incited.  They shouted down the speakers,  menaced people, and made hateful comments in a display that truly mirrored the behavior of the Nazi brownshirts that Spencer describes.  Here is a brief passage from an article in The Tullahoma News on this event:

...  Organized and sponsored by the American Muslim Advisory Council, headquartered in Murfreesboro, the event, called “Public Disclosure in a Diverse Society,” was billed as an educational opportunity for the public to learn about American Muslims, as well as how the civil rights of all citizens are protected under the United States Constitution.

It was the result of a recent Facebook reposting by Coffee County Commissioner Barry West in which a man is pictured pointing a gun at a camera with words that read, “How to wink at a Muslim.” West has since apologized for the post and removed it, but not before the story about his posting went viral.

...  Wrapped in American flags and waving Bibles, the protesters shouted, “speak English” at a Muslim man who has been in the United States for three decades. They cheered and clapped at photos of a burned mosque in Columbia, Tenn. They booed at photos of American Muslim soldiers killed while serving their country in the United States military. They accused all Muslims of being terrorists and yelled at them to “go home.”  Those who couldn’t get inside for the presentation due to overcrowded conditions called law enforcement officers “communists.” One man, who donned a confederate soldier’s cap, shouted, “Mohammed was a pedophile!”

There is no doubt that the majority of the people in Coffee County are embarrassed and ashamed by the actions of the people gathered at this assembly, and that many, if not the majority, of those in attendance, were from out of town. ...

UPDATE 6/26/2013

Spencer and Geller have cross posted Hate Stalker on the loose .... again.  This installment of their diatribe includes this “defense” by Spencer of a few other points raised by Nathan Lean in an article titled Kolbe should rescind invitation to controversial speaker:

... Lean claims that a board member of our organization once “recommended burning all mosques and sending Muslim immigrants ‘back to their countries,’” trying to give the impression that these are positions of our organization. They are not, and no board member has advocated such positions.

Does the name John Joseph Jay ring a bell Mr. Spencer?

  As Richard Bartholomew has reported, Jay was a co-founder of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), and according to Spencer (in a statement he has since retracted) he was also a board member of Stop Islamization of America (SIOA).  Further:

...  Jay is referring to the controversy which has followed a recent post on his blog in which he called for the killing of “talking head media”, of “every self avowed socialist and communist in congress”, and of “the faculty senates at harvard, yale, columbia, nyu and university of california at santa barbara”. This was of wider interest due his formal association with Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer: he was a co-founder of their American Freedom Defense Initiative, and according to Spencer (in a statement he has since retracted) he was also a board member of Stop Islamization of America.

Geller and Spencer have known about Jay’s sanguinary views for some time: in 2008, Jay left a comment on Geller’s blog on the need for “old fashion war with wholesale slaughter including indiscriminate death of innocents and babes. down to the last muslim, if necessary.” In 2010, a statement about the need to kill liberals and Muslims came to general attention thanks to the Daily Kos - Spencer’s response was to claim that Jay had been misrepresented in some unspecified way by “Hamas-linked CAIR and dhimmi Leftist jihad-enablers”.

That, though, was before the Anders Brevik massacre; Geller and Spencer are today rather more circumspect about being linked to someone who fantasises publicly about mass killings. Think Progress has a new quote from Geller:

Jay helped me out so I could get the incorporation papers filed, but was never a Board member or a part of the organizational structure in any way. He was gone almost as soon as he was there, and is not a member of AFDI.

This contrasts with a 2010 reference made by Geller to “my associate, the attorney John Jay”.

Spencer, meanwhile, has backtracked from the claim that Jay was ever a SIOA board member:

“He was never a board member. I don’t recall saying he was, but if I did, it was in error.” That was “was a mistake on my part,” Spencer wrote in another email after ThinkProgress provided a link to his post.

This belated cutting of ties following bad publicity fits a pattern – Spencer and Geller formerly worked with the Christian Action Network, and broke with the group only when its anti-gay rhetoric caused political embarrassment to Gert Wilders. ...

Alex Seitz-Wald also reported on the connections between AFDI and John Jay (with lots of links to documentation)  Pam Geller Linked Anti-Muslim Activist Calls For Mass Murder Of Congressmen, Muslims, Liberals And Journalists

The anti-Muslim activist John Joseph Jay has issued a call for the mass murder of the leadership of both parties in Congress, the governors of seven states, and prominent academics, along with a demand to “burn all mosques. period.”

Jay helped in the founding of anti-Muslim activist Pam Geller’s group American Freedom Defense Initiative. AFDI is the umbrella organization of the prominent Stop the Islamization Of America (SOIA). Jay’s signature can be seen below those of Geller and fellow arch anti-Muslim activist Robert Spencer on AFDI’s incorporation document (PDF), as Charles Johnson at LGF pointed out. The P.O. Box listed for Jay is also the same as Geller’s.

But while those organizations have stopped short of calls for violence, Jay crossed way over that line in a rambling post on his blog called “start the revolution,” which fantasizes about the painful medieval deaths of perceived enemies (screenshot here, cached version here):

1.)take out t

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