Responding To Brooklyn’s GOP Bloggers

Usually, my postings take something of a vacation in December, but whatever hope of that happening this year was

put to rest (unlike me) by the tearful resignation in disgrace of the man Domestic Partner refers to as “Curly Kugel.” 

In addition to making irresistible the urge to correct ignorance and stupidity, the Senate vacancy has raised some issues, one of which was inarticulately (as always) articulated in the Brooklyn GOP HATE BLOG  Their Jism’s Up My Ass.

Last week, in the midst of “The Jig Is Up Atlas’s” standard guilt by association rambles through the campaign contributions of some local Democrat, they attacked the prospective Democratic candidate for the Kruger vacancy, Councilman Lew Fidler, for taking campaign contributions from homosexuals; and I quote:

 

The question begs, Looks like more "Cold-Cash" from another a "Very Gay Friend", I mean "Good" friend of Lew Fidler's…

The question begs, From http://www.queenstribune.com/guides/2007_QueensGayPride/pages/Out%20And%20Proud.htm

"Dirk McCall, an amiable 38-year-old and one of the group’s founders, beamed while discussing its potential. McCall, who moved to Manhattan in 1991 and then to Astoria three years later, even met his boyfriend through OUT Astoria. He enjoys the openness of the forum."

Dirk may be the single most likeable person in NYC politics, and while this admittedly does not seem to be much of an accomplishment, in Dirk’s case, it really is.

Then “The Jig” threw a change up, and attacked Fidler for receiving a contribution from me:

 The question begs, Last but not least.

The question begs, Longtime hate-blogger, who probably spends more time "Hate-blogging" then in front of the mirror or in a bathroom.

The question begs, "Gatemouth"

First of all, one of the many ways in which blogging resembles masturbation is that peak effectiveness is not reached if one is looking in a mirror while you are doing it. 

The contribution itself is actually old news, as Ihttp://www.r8ny.com/blog/gatemouth/post_morteming_the_post_mortems.html

 publicly copped to this contribution a while back, admitting I was a “heavy Fidler contributor.”

And come the first of the year, I intend to give another one.

But, as they say at “The Jig,” the question begs (though not the one proposed by “The Jig”).

How can I cover a race where I’ve contributed to one of the candidates?

Seriously, will someone tell me why this is a problem?

It’s not like I am doing reporting instead of writing opinion pieces.

It’s not like I blogged about a politician without disclosing he’d paid me. It’s not even like I was blogging about a politician who paid me and I did disclose it but still thought it was my right to be treated by candidates as if I wasn’t a paid partisan.

Anyone who reads me knows he I am  not operating as a journalist; I am operating as a COMMENTATOR.

Commentators have certain obligations, disclosure bring the foremost. But they cannot, and should not, pretend to the journalistic convention of neutrality. Commentators, when they are interesting, are interesting not such much in spite of their biases, but precisely because of those biases.

Now, a commentator who's taken money and failed to disclose it is a problem, and even a commentator who has taken money and disclosed it forfeits a few of his privileges. Though a commentator who only gives money rather than taking it is also obligated to disclose, in reality, the opinions he publishes are the real proof of his bias, and the contribution is only proof he’s not a dilettante and puts his money where his mouth is. 

Moreover, once his disclosure is on the table, an emptor can surely choose on his own whether or not to caveat.

But surely, anyone coming to places like Room 8 looking for objectivity deserves whatever they get.

Anyway, I never gave a cent to David Weprin, and it didn’t make me any less unfair to Bob Turner in the eyes of Republicans (although I did call Weprin out for pandering of monumental proportions and subjected him to some harsh and sometimes cruel criticism).

Likewise, I‘ve publicly disagreed with Fidler on issues like congestion pricing, and intend to keep doing so. More importantly, I’ve ridiculed Fidler when he’s earned it, even once giving him an award for “Unintentionally Funny Quote of the Week.”

Anyway, Republican are going to conjure up false accusations of bias even if they have to make it up, as one recently did while puffing likely Republican candidate David Storobin.

hcopped to this contribution a while backGENE BERARDELLI: (And just for fun, here's a recent "hit piece" from that liberal sludge-machine Room Eight trying to get out in front of "KrugerGate" by throwing him under a bus and dubbing Storobin a Russian Rev. Sharpton. Can't call him an anti-Semite like they dubbed me once upon a time, so they call him a plain ol' racist – you seriously can't make this stuff   http://www.r8ny.com/blog/gatemouth/jurassic_park.html

They say there’s no such thing as bad publicity, as long as they spell your name correctly, so maybe I should thank Gene, a partisan of Brooklyn GOP Chair Craig Eaton who runs the Party’s officially sanctioned Brooklyn GOP Radio Blogspot, and who, unlike the Eaton supporters at the unofficially sanctioned but clearly tolerated  (but intolerant)  GOP HATE BLOG “The Jig Is Up Atlas” does not misspell my name or publish the home addresses of people on its Enemies List to disseminate to its deranged and unstable readership.

Let me deal with the substantive allegations here:

I’ve never called Gene Berardelli an anti-Semite. This is what I did say:

“…Mike Bloomberg has taken the trouble to endorse sure loser Gene Barardelli against Bloomberg’s arch-City Council nemesis, Lew Fidler. And though hopeless, Barardelli must be given credit for giving it the old college try, running the same campaign as Halloran, demonizing Fidler for siding with the ascendant and growing Orthodox Jewish community in changing Marine Park, in their demographic battle against the descending and shrinking Irish community. In turn, Barardelli demonizes the Orthodox for seeking to overdevelop the neighborhood (even though Fidler pointedly opposes the zoning change purportedly at the top of the Orthodox agenda).”

‘

This is actually mild compared to the article run about his race in Jewish Week called “Anti-Jew Or Just Anti- Lew” which served as the source of my comments:

A City Council campaign in one of the city’s fastest-growing Jewish neighborhoods has led to charges of anti-Semitism as long-shot Republican Gene Berardelli has attacked incumbent Brooklyn Democrat Lewis Fidler for “advocating one group over another.”

Blasting Fidler for taking contributions from the Marine Park Jewish Political Acton Committee, Berardelli and his supporters, on a nasty Web site, accuse his opponent of taking sides in a debate over zoning changes that would allow some residents to expand their homes.

 “By accepting money from a special interest group, [Fidler] is sending a message that he is taking a position regarding that special interest group,” Berardelli said in an interview.

One doubts Berardelli will be so scrupulous in defining as “special interest groups” those ethnic political action committees which support Storobin, even if they are Orthodox and support zoning changes. However, it is consistent with the Brooklyn GOP tactic, as exemplified by “The Jig,” of guilt by association. 

And there’s more:

But Jeff Leb, a co-founder of the Marine Park Jewish Community Council, said there has been no formal request for the community board to change the zoning law…Leb said the PAC, which is affiliated with the nonprofit JCC, did not donate money to Fidler but that individual members held a fundraiser for him…

So, the problem wasn’t Fidler taking money from an interest group, but from the interest group’s members, who just happened to be Orthodox Jews, the same way Dirk McCall just happened to be gay.

And there’s more:

…But Leb said a second site attacking Fidler, who is Jewish, “reeks of anti-Semitism.” According to the site, supporters of Berardelli created it.

Playing off Fidler’s name, the site features two dancing characters in silhouette reminiscent of Tevye from “Fiddler on the Roof.”

“This isn’t about ethnicity or religion,” the site stresses. “We also know that changing communities mean that people have to become more tolerant of new neighbors, and I think we’re all for promoting community harmony.”

But there is little harmony on the site, which features a “Whack A Lew” game, complete with the theme from the horror film “Psycho,” which allows users to virtually punch, slap or kick the councilman, hit him with a bat or zap him with a Taser…

…The Web site cites a story on Yeshiva World, an Orthodox blog, noting that “Councilman Fidler promised to continue to do everything he could to ensure the growth of the community and spoke of his efforts fifteen years ago to keep shuls in Marine Park from closing.” The anti-Fidler site then adds, “So apparently, community harmony comes with a price. And Lew has apparently chosen his side.”

Fidler says Berardelli’s rhetoric is not indicative of community sentiment. “There is no divide,” he said in an interview.

“I’m on record saying I’m not in favor of changing the zoning law. [The site] is clearly designed to either create controversy that didn’t exist or prey on feelings of anti-Semitism in Marine Park.”

None of this makes Gene an anti-Semite. Anti-Semites don’t know any better. Sadly, Gene probably does know better, but he did it anyway.  

Gene’s second substantive allegations ise that I dubbed Storobin “Russian Rev. Sharpton” and “a plain ol' racist.”

This is not the first time Republicans have taken offense.

The other day, I was called out on a thread for mis-portraying Storobin’s views. In answer, I promised to do a full parsing of Mr. Storobin's voluminous published writing from the blog he founded called Global Politician, where, using the site’s search function, I found dozens of pieces of Mr. Storobin’s writings. There was also an ad from Mr. Storobin’s law firm. 

Though ostensibly a forum for many points of view, Global Politician has a strong right wing and anti-Muslim orientation, and I say this as someone who, in the aftermath of 9/11, strongly supported our Afghan incursion (and supported it for far longer than I probably should have) and the fight against Islamo-Fascism (I even call it by that name). I cheered the death of Bin Laden and then cheered some more. I cheered the fall of Khadafy (anyway you wanna spell it). I’ve little tolerance for left apologies for Jihadists.

But, that being said, “Global Politician” seems the provence of extremists.

For example, Global Politician has published articles from an anonymous right-wing blogger called "Fjordman", an anonymous Norwegian blogger who writes about Islam and Muslim immigration and the danger that he believes it poses to Western civilization. Shortly after the bombing of Oslo in the 2011 Norway attacks, when it still was believed the terrorist was an Islamist), Fjordman asked his regular readers at the Gates of Vienna blog to "remember" that Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg was as much a "pathetic sucker for Islam as it is humanly possible to be". When the shooting at Utøya became known a few hours later, Fjordman described the Workers' Youth League (AUF) under attack as a "gang of anti-Israeli, pro-Palestine youth-socialists". Anders Behring Breivik, the man accused in the 2011 Norway attacks, frequently praised writings of Fjordman, citing him extensively in his manifesto.

Since I indicated my interest in exploring Storobin’s writings, the ad from his law firm seems to have been taken down. Moreover, a search today using  the same search function I used before indicates that Mr. Storobin has published nothing in Global Politician, even though a Google search indicates otherwise. So, I cannot share with you the original postings of  part one and part two of Mr. Storobin’s series spotlighting the leaders of The Afrikaner Independence Movement. 

Sadly, I’ve done only the most glancing survey of these articles before Mr. Storobin’s articles (and seemingly nothing else on the site), were thoroughly scrubbed.

Luckily, many of Mr. Storobin’s pieces were reprinted elsewhere, including more than one  on white supremacist hate sites. It will take longer to do my pieces than I originally thought it would, and it would not disturb me if someone beat me to it, but a few thoughts are in order.

Mr. Storobin’s views on international politics seem a curious mixture, sometimes even including common sense (he points out how Iran benefitted from the Iraq invasion). More typically, they range from paranoia to things even more disturbing, though even the most disturbing elements are usually carefully put forth in the guise of neutral thoughtful observer.

In the typical instance where one can find something which might cause offense or alarm, it is almost always at least arguably explainable in the fuller context, or at least has enough of an escape hatch to allow one to give Storobin the benefit of the doubt. However, when all the pieces are taken together, what emerges is a peculiar pattern of sympathy for certain despots and despotic movements (like Putin or Afrikaner independence). I believe it is not an accident that white supremacists are attracted to the particular site Mr. Storobin founded.

Two final thought on Storobin’s writing. He is very full of himself, and at the same time seemingly insecure, using his Esq. in inappropriate contexts as if he were Linus grasping for his national security blanket—and never failing to let us know about his Master’s degree.

And he does seem to be a bit of a kook. Sort of like a Larouche follower, but with a somewhat different ideology.   

The final substantive point made by Gene is that I am “trying to get out in front of "KrugerGate" by throwing him under a bus.”

Now this is just unfair.

To say I “threw Carl under the bus,” would imply that I was once a friend of Kruger’s and am now behaving like an opportunist. Nothing could be further from the truth.

My issues with Kruger go back over a quarter century. I published my first  anti-Carl Kruger pieces in 2007, when he was still the Brooklyn GOP's favorite (the last year the Republicans ran a candidate for State Senate in the 27^th SD was 2004. The name of the 2004 GOP candidate was Carl Kruger). In 2010, when Craig Eaton and Marty Golden refused to back Avi Rosenberg, the idealistic young man running against their buddy Kruger, leaving him only the Conservative line, Gatemouth endorsed Rosenberg.

So, Gene owes me an apology. If he’s written something even 1/10th as nasty about Kruger as I did BEFORE KRUGER GOT IN TROUBLE, I would like to see it.

 

Recently, Gene even sent me an email, sua sponte.

GENE: Hope this email finds you well.

I see that my name has once again been implicated in a posting on "The Jig Is Up Atlas" – this time, in an article about you.

Please know that I have absolutely nothing to do with this site and that I do not know who is running it.

I normally just shrug off this blog and its comments as idiocy, but when I saw it going after you with my name attached, I wanted to reach out and clear any possible misunderstanding.

GATE:   sorry Gene, but I was not offended by that post  which may be a first for the Jig–I loved it, especially the hackshaw joke.

could have lived without some of the (clearly sock-puppetted) comments though–

GENE: Clearly, you have thicker skin than I do! Can't stand all the childish crap

GATE:  if my skin ever gets that thick, I'm going to visit a cardiologist

It’s always amazing to me that Marty Golden and Craig Eaton’s close associates, like Berardelli, and their consultants, like Gerry O’Brien and Ernie Lendler (both friends of mine), will go the extra mile to deny that Eaton and/or Golden have anything to do with “The Jig,” and then complain that they wish it would go out of business.

But despite   repeated calls upon Golden, Eaton and Party Vice Chair Storobin  to publicly repudiate the “The Jig” and dissociate themselves from it, they have all refused to do so.  

Even Ron Paul has been more forthcoming.

One of yesterday’s Jig posts is a case in point on why they need to do this.

It calls out Councilman Lew Fidler for the sin of associating with evil “Grinches.”

Now, as I’ve said, the Jig is always notable for stretching guilt by association to a breaking point.

But they have finally reached their limits.

For Lew Fidler is being condemned for being in a photo taken at an event sponsored by the well-respected “Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty.” In fact, one of the “Grinches” in the picture is its Executive Director.

Once again, this would seem to be guilt by association, but the guilt seems to be that Lew Fidler is associating with people who want to do something to address poverty among New York City’s Jewish community.

Are they an interest group?

Maybe all Jews are interest groups.

Luckily, most impoverished Jews (unlike similar situated Chinese) don’t give campaign contributions. 

Anyway, New York’s City’s poor Jews are almost all either Orthodox, Russian, elderly, or some combination of those three.

Do Marty Golden, Craig Eaton and David Storobin have a problem with people who associate with people who want to address the problem of poverty among Orthodox, Jews, Russian Jews and the Jewish elderly?

Are they bothered by those who attack people for associating with people who want to address the problems associated with poverty in the Jewish community?  Are they bothered that these attacks are essentially being conducted in their names, by a blog that nearly everyone who cares believes they are behind?

Does this bother Marty Golden?  Does it bother Craig Eaton?

Does this bother David Storobin? 

One would think so.

A recent post on one of my threads called me “Room8's resident king of hyperbole, "exaggeration" and constant whining about perceived slights towards his own tribe,” but I have to admit that David is even more acutely attuned to perceptions of anti-Semitism than I. He’s more attuned to it than Chicken Little is to falling skies.

·         Take a look at this goodie from his Facebook page:

·          

·         David Storobin: Wall Street Occupiers admit that when they say 99% should take money from 1%, at least some of that means confiscating Jewish property. Hitler would be proud of them. Anti-Semitism tainting Occupy Wall Street protests www.ynetnews.com

How sensitive is Storobin to perceived anti-Semitism?

He thinks the Anti-Defamation League  is generally too soft on the left.

·         David Storobin: Even the liberal Anti-Defamation League is condemning the anti-Semitic elements of Occupy Wall Street and calls on organizers to condemn them. "It is still critical for organizers, participants and supporters of these rallies to condemn such bigoted statements clearly and forcefully."

·          

So will David Storobin comment on this attack on Met Council and publicly repudiate “The Jig Is Up Atlas?”

I am not calling Golden, Eaton or Storobin anti-Semitic—that would be stupid.

What I am saying is that they refuse to condemn the slime in their own midst who essentially act in their names.

Storobin is usually so adamant about this that he claims he opposes a Mosque in Sheepshead Bay because its backers will not condemn terrorism.

Though there is no legal requirement (as opposed to a moral one) that they do so, the Mosque’s backers do claim otherwise.

It is clear, however, that their denunciations are mealy-mouthed and non-specific, to avoid offending anyone in their religious catchment area.

I find this similar to the attitudes of Golden, Eaton and Storobin with regard to hate speech among their friends. Golden, Eaton, and Storobin refuse to publicly denounce “The Jig” by name and say it does not speak for them.

The only difference is that the mealy mouthed Muslims only wanted to build a house of worship, Golden holds a public trust, Storobin seeks one, and Storobin and Eaton are both officers of a political Party.

Surely they must be held to a higher standard.