We seem to live in a age of indignant self-aggrandizement (manufactured rage seems to be one of its common forms). We see it far more on the far right than other groups. But no group seems immune.
I’m always in favor of free speech. That includes the pressure of gentle speech to remind people like Pam Geller that words, cartoons and actions designed to provoke can have ugly consequences.
I’m also disgusted that Pam Geller gives cover to people like Donald Trump and Fox News, who are among many conservatives who use free speech to distort facts (pardon the understatement and the failure to list the 10,000 Republican lies since 2002 and their role in the endless campaigns to promote war).
P.S. Geller is NOT a “Christian” in any sense. Her religion is unimportant, what is important is to identify her as a fevered bigot who has not a snip of self-awareness. She is full of bile and hatred, and hopefully that will lead her to an early death. At very least, stop giving her a platform to spew her hatred and ignorance. Return her to the depths of obscurity from which she arose.
Be sure to have plenty of soap and hot water at hand, because you are going to want to take a good shower after you finish researching her. (By the way, there was a “5 points” article on this site just a day or two ago describing this woman and the others who are behind this cartoon contest of hers.)
And one book I recommend in that pursuit is Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, which delves into the violence that frequently crops up in fundamentalist Mormon sects (and which was rife in the early history of Mormonism). I read it just in the last week or so, and I had no idea prior to that how truly scary and downright creepy Warren Jeffs and his ilk really are. But the same sorts of extreme sentiments that you hear the FLDS people expressing in this account are echoed in much of what passes as conservative discourse these days. And that is the truly scary part.
Why give this insane monster the publicity she craves? She should be forgotten, along with people that what’shisname who crashed the Germanwings flight … Remember, she corresponded with an encouraged Anders Breivik in his fantatical hatred of Muslims–he went on to massacre some 80 men, women and children for his beliefts.
That is some weapons-grade delusion right there. She thinks that she is somehow standing up for freedom by pouring gasoline onto a fire. What a dipshit.
I think Murdoch hides behind the 1st Amendment freedom of the press to dig up dirt on any and every politician, especially leftish ones, so that he can blackmail them in the same way J.Edgar did with his file cabinet full of naughty pics. He can’t become US president because he’s not a native born citizen; this is the closest he can get, picking and choosing which ones get the smear and which ones get the kid glove treatment.
