Little Green Footballs or Little German Fascists?
One of the most popular conservative web sites is Little Green Footballs. Unfortunately, it seems to be especially popular for those who want to kill Arabs. As a matter of fact, the rhetoric used by many there mirrors that used by Nazis when talking about the Jews. This is a very interesting parallel that deserves some attention.
Dr. Menlo offers a quiz where you can choose between statements culled from Little Green Footballs talking about Palestinians, Arabs, Iraqis, or Muslims and those culled from Nazi fascists talking and writing about Jews:
"Nature is cruel; therefore we are also entitled to be cruel... Should I not also have the right to eliminate millions of an inferior race that multiplies like vermin?"
"I am obeying the highest law by doing my duty. Man must defend himself against bedbugs and rats -- against vermin."
"Our superiority, militarily and morally, to these vermin is so overwhelming that it would go without saying, were it not for the daily shrieking of the... press."
"I've been fond of transfer of these subhuman for a while. Perhaps something more like targeted genocide... will become necessary."
"They don't need statehood; they need sterilization."
There are many other quotes in the quiz, but these should give a good indication of what it's like.
Jeff Sharlet comments on this:
It's hard to read more than a few hundred words without coming across an equation of Islam with terrorism, or a reference to all Muslims as "barbaric," or worse. The comments are, indeed, much worse, a nearly uninterrupted stream of ignorant invective: "These asshats portray themselves in a negative light. They emit negative light. They are the religion of darkness and death"; "they are animals"; "such was the deranged mind of Muhammed!!"
Also:
This strikes me as a big religion story. All the moreso because LGF won The Washington Post's contest for best international blog. Had a site which frequently referred to Jews as "vermin" (LGF has done so with regard to Muslims hundreds of times, according to one counter), I suspect the rest of the press would have paid attention. But the press ignores LGF. LGF readers, unfortunately, don't ignore me -- today my email box has been jammed with messages along the lines of "Die, arab-loving fag." There've also been accusations of anti-Semitism -- despite the fact that I'm Jewish, used to edit a Jewish magazine, continue to write for Jewish papers, and grew up being put in the position of having to fight, literally, for my right to walk down the street and be Jewish at the same time.
Not everyone who participates at Little Green Footballs is a bigot, but enough of them are to make one wonder what is going on. Is the bigotry feeding on itself, encouraging further extremism that wouldn't exist otherwise? Are people just expressing bigotry because of the anonymity — or perhaps because they have found a place where it is safe to be a bigot and explore their hateful attitudes?
