Anders Breivik’s manifesto reveals a subculture of nationalistic and Islamophobic websites that link the European and American far right in a paranoid alliance against Islam and is also rooted in some democratically elected parties.
The Guardian has analysed the webpages he links to, and the pages that these in turn link to, in order to expose a spider web of hatred based around three “counter-jihad” sites, two run by American rightwingers, and one by an eccentric Norwegian. All of these draw some of their inspiration from the Egyptian Jewish exile Gisele Littman, who writes under the name of Bat Ye’or, and who believes that the European elites have conspired against their people to hand the continent over to Muslims.
As well as his very long manifesto, Breivik also laid out some of his thoughts on the Norwegian nationalist site Document.no. In his postings there, Breivik referred to something he called “the Vienna school of thought”, which consists of the people who had worked out the ideology that inspired him to commit mass murder. He named three people in particular: Littman; the Norwegian Peder Jensen who wrote under the pseudonym of Fjordman; and the American Robert Spencer, who maintains a site called Jihad Watch, and agitates against “the Islamisation of America”.
But the name also alludes to a blog called Gates of Vienna, run by an American named Edward “Ned” May, on which Fjordman posted regularly and which claims that Europe is now as much under threat from a Muslim invasion as it was in 1683, when a Turkish army besieged Vienna.
All of these paranoid fantasists share a vision articulated by the Danish far-right activist Anders Gravers, who has links with the EDL in Britain and with Spencer and his co-conspiracist Pamela Geller in the US. Gravers told a conference in Washington last year:
“The European Union acts secretly, with the European people being deceived about its development. Democracy is being deliberately removed, and the latest example being the Lisbon Treaty. However the plan goes much further with an ultimate goal of being a Eurabian superstate, incorporating Muslim countries of north Africa and the Middle East in the European Union. This was already initiated with the signing of the Barcelona treaty in 1995 by the EU and nine north African states and Israel, which became effective on the 1st of January, 2010. It is also known as the Euro-Mediterranean co-operation. In return for some European control of oil resources, Muslim countries will have unfettered access to technology and movement of people into Europe. The price Europeans will have to pay is the introduction of sharia law and removal of democracy.”
Spencer’s jihadwatch.org is linked to 116 times from Breivik’s manifesto; May’s Gates of Vienna 86 times; and Fjordman 114 times.
Spencer and Geller were the organisers of the protest against the so-called 9/11 mosque in New York City. They also took over Stop Islamisation of America, a movement with links to the EDL and to a variety of far-right movements across Europe. Of the two, Spencer is less of a fringe figure. He has been fulsomely interviewed by the Catholic Herald in this country and praised by Douglas Murray of the Centre for Social Cohesion, who called him “a profound and subtle thinker”. Damian Thompson, a leader writer on the Telegraph, once urged his readers to buy Spencer’s works, especially if they believed that Islam was “a religion of peace”. Last week, Spencer’s blog re-ran a piece from Geller’s Atlas Shrugged website claiming that Governor Rick Perry, the creationist rightwinger from Texas, is actually linked to Islamists via Grover Norquist, the far-right tax cutter whom Geller claims is “a front for the Muslim Brotherhood”. Geller also once republished a blogpost speculating that President Obama is the love child of Malcolm X.
As well as the “counter-jihad” websites such as Spencer’s and May’s, analysis of Breivik’s web reveals a dense network of 104 European nationalist sites and political parties. Some of these are represented in parliaments: Geert Wilders’s Dutch Freedom party; the French National Front; the Danish People’s party, the Norwegian Progress party (of which Breivik was briefly a member before he left, disgusted with its moderation); the Sweden Democrats. Others, like the EDL, are fringe groupings. Then there are those in between, such as the Hungarian far-right party Jobbik. But they range all across Europe. They are united by hostility to Muslims and to the EU.
One place where these strands intertwine is the Brussels Journal, a website run by the Belgian Catholic MEP Paul Belien, a member of the far-right Vlaams Belang party. The British Europhobic Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan appeared for three years on the Brussels Journal’s masthead. Hannan has since denounced the European neo-fascist parties as not really rightwing at all.
To appear on this list is not to be complicit in Breivik’s crime. Peder “Fjordman” Jensen was so shocked by it that he gave himself up to the police and gave an interview to a Norwegian paper in which he appeared genuinely bewildered that his predictions of a European civil war should have led anyone to such violence.
It is still more unfair to blame Melanie Phillips. Although she was cited by Breivik at length for an article claiming that the British elite had deliberately encouraged immigration in order to break down traditional society and she has written that “Bat Ye’or’s scholarship is awesome and her analysis is as persuasive as it is terrifying“, she has also argued, with nearly equal ferocity, against the “counter-jihad” belief that there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim.
The world view of the counter-jihadis echoes that of the jihadis they feel threatened by. The psychological world of the jihadis has been described by the British psychiatrist Russell Razzaque, who rejected recruitment by Hizb ut-Tahrir when he was a medical student. It is not just a matter of a black-and-white world view, he says, though that is part of it. “It’s a very warm embrace. You felt a sense of self-esteem, a sense of real embrace. Then it gives you a sense of purpose, which is also something you’ve never had so much. The purpose is a huge one. Part of a cosmic struggle when you’re on the right side: you’re another generation in the huge fight that goes back to the crusades.”
This clearly mirrors Breivik’s self-image. What makes him particularly frightening is that he seems to have radicalised himself, just as jihadis do, before he went looking for advice and guidance on the internet. But he was able to take the last few steps into mass murder all alone, so far as we know. Jihadi groups also withdraw from the world into a cramped and paranoid universe of their own. Suicide bombers such as the 9/11 and 7/7 groups spent months psyching each other up before the crime, talking obsessively for hours every day. But Breivik, though he withdrew from society to his farm, seems to have spent his time alone with the internet. It allowed him to hear his own choir of imaginary friends, and hear inside his head their voices cheering him on to murder and martyrdom. Here they are, mapped.
Separated at Stone Age: Holocaust-denier R J
Rushdoony…
…and Holocaust-dreamer
al-Zawahiri?
On Tuesday May 3, a lawyer for the rightwing Rutherford
Institute sent a threatening letter to The
eXiled to punish and intimidate us because we reminded our readers about
the dark, extremist homophobic ideology behind the early years of the Rutherford
Institute and its co-founder, John Whitehead. The Rutherford Institute has waged
a 15-year public relations campaign to recast itself as a “civil liberties”
outfit similar to the ACLU, yet this same “defender of civil liberties” wants to
crush The eXiled’s First Amendment rights to free speech over the crime of
reminding readers that the outfit was co-founded by one of the most extreme
anti-Semitic, homophobic monsters of our time, a Holocaust denier and eugenicist
named R. J. Rushdoony.
1) Characterizing Rutherford Institute president
John Whitehead as “a one-time Christian Reconstructionist,” which is true;
2) That his “outfit once advocated the death
penalty for homosexuals,” which is true.
Rutherford’s lawyer, Tom Neuberger, wrote, “Neither
The Rutherford Institute nor Mr. Whitehead, its president, have ever subscribed
to Christian ‘reconstructionist’ ideologies. … And the outrageous assertion that
the Institute ‘once advocated the death penalty for homosexuals” is clearly a
complete fabrication.”
This is an outrageous, baseless and disgusting
attack on independent journalism. An outfit that claims to be for civil
liberties yet threatens journalists who print the truth, simply because the
Rutherford Institute is trying to whitewash its past, is the height of hypocrisy
and reveals that the Rutherford Institute has not changed one bit from its
beginnings as an attack dog for far-right Holocaust deniers, anti-Semites and
neo-Confederate fascists whose one goal was to intimidate and crush any
opposition to their plan to turn America into a fundamentalist Christian nation
along the lines of the Taliban.
We will report more about the Rutherford
Institute’s threats to The eXiled and to others–one reader pointed us to a story
in Delaware which resulted in a kind of pogrom against two Jewish families
fighting a lawsuit against rabid Christian fundamentalists represented by the
Rutherford Institute– and we’ll get into the dark, sordid history of the
Institute’s founders and their beliefs, which make our factual statements that
they object to seem as though, if anything, we were going far too light on
Rutherford.
And to survive this assault, we will be asking for
our readers’ support. Gary Brecher has agreed to return to the field of action,
but only on condition that you support our effort to resist a 30-year-old
rightwing outfit’s efforts to crush independent journalism.
God Hates Fags…So did Rutherford Institute
co-founders
But first, there are so many credible sources
backing our statement in our article characterizing John Whitehead as “a onetime
Christian ‘reconstructionist’… whose outfit once advocated the death penalty for
homosexuals” that they are too numerous to list. Here we provide a small sample
of sources which repeat, expand on, and/or support this:
* From American University Professor Alan
Lichtman’s book White Protestant Nation, a
finalist for the 2008 National Book Critic’s Award for Non-Fiction:
“A movement known as Christian Reconstruction or
Dominion Theology, led by Rousas John Rushdoony of the Chalcedon Foundation,
Gary North of the Institute for Christian Economics, and John Whitehead of the
Rutherford Institute, extended Schaffer’s absolutist thinking. Dominion leaders
aimed to make America a Christian nation. They desired to ‘take back government
from the state and put it in the hands of Christians.’ This meant replacing
secular ‘self-law’ with ‘God’s law,’ which meted out harsh punishments,
including death penalty for adulterers and homosexuals.” [pp 349, Atlantic
Monthly Press, hardcover edition]
* David Brock’s bestselling book from 2002, Blinded By The Right:
“When various settlement offers were rejected by
[Paula] Jones [the woman who sued President Bill Clinton for sexual harassment],
Davis and Cammarata quit the case and were replaced by lawyers working with the
right-wing Rutherford Institute, which had been founded with the support of
Christian Right reconstructionist R. J. Rushdoony, who was an early board
member.* …The Reverend R. J. Rushdoony believed that civil law should be
replaced by Biblical law ‘to suppress, control, and/or eliminate the ungodly.’
He advocated the death penalty for abortion, adultery, sodomy, and incest as
well as for blasphemers and ‘propagators of false doctrines.’ Rushdoony was also
a Holocaust denier.” [pp 201. Three Rivers Press. 2002 paperback
edition.]
* Jeff Sharlet’s book The Family, a 2008 New York Times bestseller:
“John W. Whitehead, a constitutional lawyer who
counts Rushdoony as one of his greatest influences [pp. 349]…Rushdoony is best
known as the founder of Christian Reconstructionism, a politically defunct but
subtly influential school of thought that drifted so far to the right that it
dropped off the edge of the world, disavowed as ‘scary’ even by Jerry Falwell.
Most notably, Rushdoony proposed the death penalty for an ever-expanding subset
of sinners, starting with gay men and growing to include blasphemers and badly
behaved children.” [pp.347. Harper Perennial. 2008 paperback.]
* Mark Crispin Miller’s 2004 book, published by
W.W. Norton, Cruel and Unusual: Bush/Cheney’s New
World Order:
“John Whitehead, an ex-student of Rushdoony’s, and
introduced by him once at the council as a man ‘chosen by God,’ directs the
Rutherford Foundation, a legal arm of the Chalcedon Foundation (which until his
death was run by Rushdoony and funded by Howard Ahmanson). Rutherford’s
important mission is to fight the legal battles on behalf of Reconstructionism.”
[pp. 263]
* Frederick Clarkson, journalist, author and
activist, in a chapter from the 1999 book Eyes
Right: Challenging The Rightwing Backlash edited by Chip Berlet:
“The Rutherford Institute’s John Whitehead was a
student of both Schaeffer and Rushdoony, and credits them as the two major
influences on his thought. … [I]t is not surprising that Whitehead goes to great
lengths to deny that he is a Reconstructionist. Rushdoony, introducing Whitehead
at a Reconstructionist conference, called him a man ‘chosen by God.’ Rushdoony
then spoke of ‘our plans, through Rutherford,
to fight the battle against statism and the freedom of Christ’s Kingdom.’” …
“The Rutherford Institute was founded as a legal project of R. J. Rushdoony’s
Chalcedon Foundation, with Rushdoony and fellow Chalcedon director Howard
Ahmanson on its original board of directors. Whitehead credits Rushdoony with
providing the outline for his first book, which he researched in Rushdoony’s
library. ” [p.69]
* Chris Hedges, writing about Whitehead’s mentor
and partner in the Rutherford Institute in his 2006 book, American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On
America:
“The racist and brutal intolerance of the
intellectual godfathers of today’s Christian Reconstructionism is a chilling
reminder of the movement’s lust for repression. The Institutes of Biblical Law
by R. J. Rushdoony, written in 1973, is the most important book for the
dominionist movement. Rushdoony calls for a Christian society that is harsh,
unforgiving and violent. The death penalty is to be imposed not only for
offenses such as rape, kidnapping and murder, but also for adultery, blasphemy,
homosexuality, astrology, incest, striking a parent, incorrigible juvenile
delinquency, and, in the case of women, ‘un-chastity before marriage.’ The world
is to be subdued and ruled by a Christian United States. Rushdoony dismissed
the widely accepted estimate of 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust as an
inflated figure, and his theories on race often echo those found in Nazi
eugenics, in which there are higher and lower forms of human beings. Those
considered by the Christian state to be immoral and incapable of reform are to
be exterminated.” [pp.12-13]
* The Southern Poverty Law Center’s magazine Intelligence
Report called Rushdoony “a racist and a holocaust denier.” The SPLC describes the Rushdoony-founded Chalcedon
Foundation, for which the Rutherford Institute was set up to act as its
legal arm: “Rushdoony supported the death penalty for homosexuals, among other
‘abominators.’ He also opposed what he called ‘unequal yoking’ — interracial
marriage — and ‘enforced integration,’ insisting that “[a]ll men are NOT created
equal before God” (the Bible, he explained, ‘recognizes that some people are by
nature slaves’). Rushdoony also denied the Holocaust, saying the murder of 6
million Jews was ‘false witness.’”
* Another co-founder of the Rutherford Institute,
Rushdoony’s son-in-law, Gary North, has been described as a “bloodthirsty
theologian” who “may actually be a psychopath” by Jeff Sharlet in his 2008 book The Family: “North […] may actually be a psychopath—he favors stoning as a method of
execution because it would double as a ‘community project.’” [pp.348].
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Gary North advocates hiding the
true agenda of the Christian Reconstructionist movement for obvious reasons:
“Theonomists, and especially Reconstructionists, know their views are an
anathema to most Americans. Reconstructionist ideologue Gary North, in fact, has
written that Reconstructionists need ‘the noise of contemporary events’ to hide
their goals. ‘If [non-believers] fully understood the long-term threat to their
civilization that our ideas pose, they … would be wise to take steps to crush
us.’” (“Confederates on the Pulpit” SPLC Intelligence Report.
Spring 2001).
“Whitehead believes, according to an article by
Martin Mawyer published in the May 1983 issue of the Moral Majority Report, ‘That courts must place
themselves under the authority of God’s law.’ Mawyer’s article explains, ‘The
Institute states that ‘all of civil affairs and government, including law,
should be based upon principles found in the Bible.’ That statement is a
simplified definition of Christian Reconstruction, an important movement within
evangelical Christianity.”
* Bill Moyers, interviewing R J Rushdoony in 1988, (six years after the founding
of Rutherford Institute):
Moyers:
You’ve written that the Bible calls for the death penalty, and I’m just running
down a variety of things as you can see. You’ve written that the Bible calls for
the death penalty of some 15 crimes: rape, sodomy, adultery. Rushdoony: Adultery because in the Bible the basic institution is the family.
There’s no law of treason against the state. The Bible doesn’t even imagine
anything remotely like that. But the basic institution is the family. And so,
several of the death penalties are associated with the family and its life. Moyers: So
adultery was considered a theft of the family. Rushdoony:
It was, yes, it was treason to the family. Moyers: Homosexuality. Rushdoony: Yes, it was treason to the family. Moyers: Worthy of the death sentence? Rushdoony:
What? Moyers: Worthy of the death sentence?. Rushdoony:
Yes. Moyers: Deserving of the death sentence? Rushdoony: Yes, that’s what [Apostle] Paul says.
…
Moyers: But you would re-instate the death penalty for some of these or all of
these Biblical crimes? Rushdoony: I wouldn’t— Moyers: But
the reconstructive society– Rushdoony: I’m saying that this is what God
requires. I’m not saying that everything in the Bible, I like. Some of it rubs
me the wrong way. But I’m simply saying, this is what God requires. This is what
God says is justice. Therefore, I don’t feel I have a choice. Moyers: And
the agents of God would carry out the laws. Rushdoony: The civil government would, on
these things. Moyers: So you would have a civil government,
based upon– Rushdoony: Oh yes. I’m not an anarchist. I’m
close to being a libertarian. But– Moyers: But the civil law would be based on
the biblical law. And so you’d have a civil government carrying out a religious
mandate. Rushdoony: Oh yes.
* Rushdoony and North were not only co-founders of
the Rutherford Institute, but they were also regularly featured members of the
“Rutherford Institute Seminars” speakers bureau. In other words, they were
intimately tied to, part of, and speaking on behalf of the Rutherford Institute.
Here is from a 1994 Anti-Defamation League report:
In the fall of 1986, the Traditional Values
Coalition and Citizens for Excellence in Education advertised “Rutherford
Institute Seminars” in which Rushdoony was a featured speaker — along with
Rutherford Institute founder John Whitehead. Rushdoony was described in the
advertisement as a ”theologian…who presents scriptural framework for building
orderly structures in society [sic].”
Whitehead, one of the country’s leading
conservative evangelical attorneys, has called Rushdoony one of the two major
influences on his thought. Rushdoony wrote the introduction for Whitehead’s The
Separation Illusion, and the reconstructionist patriarch is the most frequently
cited author in the bibliography for Whitehead’s The Second American
Revolution – a favored text among evangelical activists (The Institutes for
Biblical Law is among the works cited).
Rushdoony reportedly helped Whitehead found the
Rutherford Institute, and has been a director of the Institute and a participant
in its speakers bureau.
[Source: The
Religious Right: The Assault on Tolerance & Pluralism in America. A
publication of the Anti-Defamation League. (1994). pp 111]
Finally, we are not surprised that the Rutherford
Institute—which claims to defend civil liberties, but seemingly behaves more
like a right-wing attack dog outfit trying to intimidate critics of its
far-right Christian agenda— sends a letter from a lawyer to suppress journalists
from exercising their first amendment rights. From its very beginning in the
early Reagan years, as Whitehead explained in a 1983 interview, “We need to be
very aggressive, not passive. Take the initiative. Sue rather than waiting to be
sued. That’s where we’ve [the Christian far-right] been weak. We’ve always been
on the defensive. We need to frame the issue and pick the court. The
[Rutherford] institute, if necessary, will charge that government is violating
religious freedoms rather than the church waiting for the government to charge
it with violating the law.” [Institute for First Amendment Studies.]
We’ve answered the Rutherford’s outrageous,
anti-Constitutional threats and attempts to crush our civil liberties. Now we
would like the Rutherford Institute to explain to us and to readers of The
eXiled why it failed to successfully challenge the statements made by the
authors in passages cited above, and how it claims to be a “civil liberties”
outfit that has distanced itself from its extremist hateful past when it
threatens to crush anyone who dares to report the truthful past.
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is endorsing the Palestinians’ demand for their future state to be based on the borders that existed before the 1967 Middle East war, in a move that will likely infuriate Israel. Israel says the borders of a Palestinian state have to be determined through negotiations.
In a speech outlining U.S. policy in the Middle East and North Africa, Obama on Thursday sided with the Palestinians’ opening position a day ahead of a visit to Washington by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu is vehemently opposed to referring to the 1967 borders.
Until Thursday, the U.S. position had been that the Palestinian goal of a state based on the 1967 borders, with agreed land swaps, should be reconciled with Israel’s desire for a secure Jewish state through negotiations.
Wow. Rarely have I seen such blatant distortion in a mainstream news release. Here’s the exact quote from Obama’s speech:
The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states.
Note: he didn’t say “1967 borders,” he didn’t “side with the Palestinians,” and he absolutely did still insist on mutually agreed swaps and secure borders for both countries. It’s nothing but a re-wording of the same position the US has taken for many years.
Based on this distorted and very misleading AP article, Fox News instantly put together a screaming fake outrage headline, currently leading on their front page:
Drudge Report also jumped on it, running a huge headline: “OBAMA SIDES WITH PALESTINIANS!”
And of course, it’s already all over the right wing blogosphere that President Obama “told Israel to move back to the pre-1967 borders.”
No. He didn’t.
All this fake outrage spread throughout the Internet within minutes after the President’s speech, like a virtual wingnut flash mob.
I guess it’s too much to ask these people to report what the President actually said.
Count me among those who have covered spats between the U.S. and Israel in some detail, and are a bit perplexed why sources from the New York Times to Benjamin Netanyahu are acting as though a Rubicon has been crossed by Obama’s restating universal assumptions and U.S. policy, and meanwhile slapping down the key Palestinian diplomatic drive.
I’m amazed at the amount of insta-commentary out there suggesting that the President has proposed something radical and new by declaring that Israel’s 1967 borders should define — with land-swaps — the borders of a Palestinian state. I’m feeling a certain Groundhog Day effect here. This has been the basic idea for at least 12 years. This is what Bill Clinton, Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat were talking about at Camp David, and later, at Taba. This is what George W. Bush was talking about with Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert. So what’s the huge deal here? Is there any non-delusional Israeli who doesn’t think that the 1967 border won’t serve as the rough outline of the new Palestinian state?
UPDATE at 5/19/11 5:00:44 pm
This section of Obama’s speech is certainly not “siding with the Palestinians” — in fact, he’s clearly saying that Palestinians will never have a state while they reject Israel’s right to exist:
For the Palestinians, efforts to delegitimize Israel will end in failure. Symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September won’t create an independent state. Palestinian leaders will not achieve peace or prosperity if Hamas insists on a path of terror and rejection. And Palestinians will never realize their independence by denying the right of Israel to exist.
Understanding that mind makes reality, one must then understand why belief
is the enemy. Belief systems have often been created to shape the mind into
narrow reality-tunnels that exclude other modes of perception. If you can
control what people believe – as Hitler, Stalin, and other dictators realized –
you have a method of coercion better than a thousand tanks or the death penalty.
– Steve Mizrach (aka Seeker1)
Listed below are links to information we have researched about Religious Right groups in Australia. On the detailed information pages, we include links to these groups’ own websites in order to encourage thinking Australians to visit these sites and critically examine the ideas they are promoting. Many of these groups have close links with each other, and spokespersons for one group often publicly represent another.
These groups all have a common agenda – political lobbying under the banner of “biblical family values”. They oppose abortion, pre-marital sex, homosexuality, prostitution, adult shops, pornography, Islam, embryonic stem cell research and even Harry Potter. They campaign strongly for censorship of material that offends them and they generally believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible, including Genesis.
Above Rubies
A virulently anti-feminist group which actively encourages women to ‘submit’ to their menfolk.
Australian Christian Lobby
Formerly the Australian Christian Coalition founded in 1995, this group is based in Canberra and headed by former SAS chief, Brigadier Jim Wallace. Its aims are “to reclaim our society and our government for God and to have the Christian voice heard”. It advocates rules of conduct prescribed by the Bible, as contained in the Ten Commandments and the first five books of the Old Testament.
Australian Family Association
An off-shoot of the Catholic-based National Civic Council founded by Bob Santamaria. Bill Muehlenberg is the main national Spokesperson, but the group also has spokespersons in various States.
Australian Federation for the Family
A relatively low-key group run by Jack and Margaret Sonnemann who came to Australia from the USA in the early 1980s. Maintains close links with US groups.
Australian Festival of Light
A moral reform organisation formed in 1973 by evangelical Protestants who drew their inspiration from Mary Whitehouse’s British FOL. Principal personnel are Fred and Elaine Nile in NSW, and David and Roslyn Phillips in SA.
Catch The Fire Ministries
A small Victorian church associated with the Assemblies of God. Its pastor Danny Nalliah has obtained great notoriety through the publicity about a religious vilification case brought against them by the Islamic Council of Victoria.
Christian Democratic Party
A political party originally formed in 1981 (then named the Call to Australia Party) by Rev. Fred Nile from the Festival of Light. The group has had two members of the NSW Legislative Council for a number of years by exploiting the upper house quota election system at alternate elections.
Creation Ministries International (Australia)
Formerly called Answers in Genesis Ministries, and prior to that the Creation Science Foundation, this group originated in Australia but spread to several other countries including the USA. Its mission is “to bring reformation by restoring the foundations of our faith which are contained in the book of Genesis.”
Democratic Labor Party
The DLP was originally founded in Victoria in 1955 as a conservative Catholic breakaway from the Australian Labor Party. A national political party with close ties to the National Civic Council (NCC).
Endeavour Forum
A small but relatively influential group run by Babette Francis. It was formerly known as “Women Who Want To be Women”. Its objectives are “to counter feminism, defend the unborn and the traditional family.”
Exclusive Brethren
An operating church with political goals which include the election of socially conservative governments and the implementation of policies such as the restriction of abortion and the curtailment of homosexual rights.
Exodus Asia Pacific
A Christian group whose proclaimed purpose is “to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ by proclaiming His desire and incredible power to release people from homosexuality.”
Family Councils
These groups exists in several states, the largest and oldest group being in Victoria. They are umbrella organisations, with membership from the usual Religious Right groups but also include some unexpected members such as the Moonies and the Mormons.
Family First Party
A political party which ‘wants to make sure every piece of legislation helps every Australian family reach their potential’. In practice, the FFP promotes a strong Religious Right agenda, including opposition to school sex education, euthanasia and prostitution, and outspoken support for censorship.
Fatherhood Foundation
A recently formed organisation (2002) whose public activities indicate strong Christian fundamentalist tendencies in all matters relating to the family.
Focus on the Family Australia
A group headed by Colin Bunnett that claims to have the objective ‘to reconnect families with the ageless wisdom of Judaeo-Christian values’. It is believed to receive financial support from the much more powerful Focus on the Family (US) headed by Dr James Dobson.
Life Ministries
A small, strongly American-influenced group which cooperates effectively with like-minded organisations, and which has flown the Religious Right’s flag in Western Australia for many years.
Light Educational Ministries
A Canberra-based group which provides materials and promotes a Christian Reconstructionist version of education throughout Australia.
Media Standards Australia
A small WA-based group, formerly called the National Viewers and Listeners Association of Australia. It focuses its attention on attempting to influence the broadcast and other public media to adopt more conservative policies, particularly in relation to sex and violence.
National Alliance of Christian Leaders
A loosely organised grouping of leaders of conservative Christian organisations which aims ‘to facilitate the coming together of Christian organisational leaders, to work together towards shared objectives’.
Right To Life Australia
A large, militant and once powerful organisation whose influence has faded somewhat. Its platform is largely concerned with opposition to abortion and euthanasia.
Salt Shakers
Founded by Peter and Jenny Stokes and located in Melbourne. Peter Stokes also represented the Festival of Light before the Senate Committee inquiring into superannuation entitlements for same sex couples in March 2000.
Robert Spencer Goes Bonkers for Austrian Fascist Ewald Stadler
Birds of a feather flock together and in Robert Spencer’s case it seems that he has latched onto a fellow Catholic in Austria by the name of Ewald Stadler.
The only problem is that Stadler is a politician with the BZO, a group that he found along with Jorg Haider, a neo-fascist. Stadler has also made some controversial statements on Nazism.
Here is the video Spencer posted on his site and his comments, it has been reposted by the BNP since,
Austrian MP Ewald Stadler, addressing the Turkish ambassador to Austria, here dares to tell the truth about Islam in Turkey and in Europe. It’s breathtaking. Ewald Stadler surely deserves to be nominated for Anti-Dhimmi Internationale of 2010.
(Video thanks to Pamela Geller.)
Here is Stadler’s bio translated from the German (hat tip: Leonora),
Ewald Stadler is an Austrian politician and was a member of the Austrian Freedom party until 2007. He was counted among the so-called “German National” wing of the FPÖ (Austrian Freedom Party/ freedom party Austria) but was also a proponent of the (previously less known) conservative catholic views in his party. Stadler constantly attracted attention with his controversial statements on the Nazi era. He asserted that the end of the National Socialist(nazi) command in Austria would not give any relief/liberation. In the European elections in Austria in 2009 he was the top candidate of the BZÖ .
Is it any surprise that Spencer is so awe struck by Stadler? A fascist whose party is classified as right-wing (right-populist), and who has made borderline Nazi favorable comments? In reality it once again peels away at the facade that Spencer has created as a defender of the West when in reality he is nothing more than an anti-Freedom fascist.
It also adds to the list of Fascists that Spencer has supported and spoken with:
-EDL (English Defense League), SIOE (Stop the Islamization of Europe), Geert Wilders, Bürgerbewegung Pax Europa, Ewald Stadler, BZO, Sergei Trefkovic (Serbian Nationalist, genocide denier), etc.
In the Independent in Britain, Robert Verkaik writes, Jewish? Gay? Join us, white Rightist extremists say:
A white extremist organisation is forging links with Jewish, Sikh and gay communities to fuel prejudice and fear and hatred of the Muslim community, it was claimed today. The English Defence League (EDL), which was formed last year in protest at Islamic extremist activity, has also reached out across the Atlantic to build close ties with the American right-wing group, the Tea Party.
Hundreds of EDL members are planning demonstrations in Nuneaton and Preston today to protest at the building of mosques and what they claim is the growing influence in the UK of Sharia law. But a new report, written by Professor Nigel Copsey of Teesside University, warns that the growth of EDL membership will spread Islamophobia in communities sharing a perceived “historical angst” against Muslims. … As well as aggravating religious tensions, the EDL has established a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Division to “defend” gay people from Sharia law.
There are also specialist divisions for women, soldiers and disabled people. The report warns these communities to be vigilant against “selective racism” and the EDL’s attempts at manipulation. … Founder and director of Faith Matters, Fiyaz Mughal, said: “The EDL’s main aim is to increase tensions, raise hate and divide communities. Their attempts to portray themselves as a legitimate and open movement cannot disguise their violent, anti-Muslim agenda. This hate can easily mutate against another community.”
The Age of Blasphemy 