I noticed in my 20’s the approach an acquaintance of mine used when he was asked a question by a pair of young women that he didn’t really want to answer. He emitted a torrent of words like a squid squirts ink and kept talking until they heartily repented of questioning him and had vowed in their hearts never to do it again. It was not a form of persuasion. It was a form of domination to achieve compliance.
It appears to me that this is the favorite tactic of twenty-three-year-old Kejda Gjermani, whom I found today commenting in a thread at The Other McCain to his post, “As predicted, LGF attacks Malkin.” I took the suggestion of another commenter to Google her screen name, “Medaura.” (Her profile at “PeekYou” comes up — another commenter in that thread at The Other McCain says that her husband founded “PeekYou.”)
I was reading The Other McCain because Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs wrote a post yesterday doubling down on his campaign to tar prominent conservative and libertarian bloggers as racists. I was preparing to write a post in support of Stacy — he is not a racist and he is not a white supremacist.
Johnson, in his post yesterday, is using the “waving the paper” technique that trial lawyers employ. To wit, wave a random piece of paper and claim it is damning evidence. If the witness does not demand to see it — and discover it is no such thing — a guilty one will then confirm the existence of the damning evidence by reacting to it. So Charles put up a bunch of links purporting to prove Stacy McCain is a racist — Stacy already explained they do no such thing on account of the fact that he is not, and never has been, a racist — so the trick didn’t produce a confession. However, the effect of the post on Stacy is to waste his time forcing him to reply. Plus, I suspect what Charles was really playing to is the court of public opinion, which will NOT investigate the truth of Charles’s “evidence” or read Stacy’s defense but will say, “Why, Charles lists so many links that he must be right.” (Charles is wrong.)
Ironically, I think Charles, who rightly opposes Creationism and Intelligent Design (which originated from a deliberately deceitful distortion of my father’s work), is employing a technique that proponents of Intelligent Design use: keep a constant stream of specious objections to Darwin’s theory of evolution going to wear out the real scientists and force them to throw away any hope of using their careers to advance science because they must fight the modern equivalent of the belief that our planet Earth is flat.
Likewise, Charles Johnson– and his minions, including Kejda Gjermani — are, (1) forcing legitimate anti-jihadists to defend themselves non-stop so they can’t do any work against the Islamic jihad against the West, AND (2), put such a fog of complicated accusations on them that it is almost impossible for their prospective supporters and allies to recognize them as allies.
Another technique that Kejda Gjermani seems to be using is the pose of the “concern troll.”
I learned about “concern trolls” in the fall of 2008 from HillBuzz, which was a regular target of the Obama campaign’s paid trolls (see comment #25). They operate by feigning agreement and support, but then express fears and concerns with the objective of demoralizing the blogger and his or her readers. This is consistent with the persuasion model employed by sociopaths: say one thing, do another. Kejda Gjermani may say she opposes Islamic jihad against the West and just wants to purify the European and North American anti-jihad movement of people she claims oppose jihad for the wrong reasons — racism, fascism, whatever. Never mind the reality that she — and Charles Johnson– are destroying the reputations of jihad’s legitimate opponents like Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer and thwarting their efforts against the Islamic jihad against the West.
For Charles and Kejda, it is supremely important to oppose the requirement of Islam to kill or convert all non-believers ONLY for the right reasons. If you oppose being killed for not practicing the right kind of Islam — or, if you are a woman, even for practicing the right kind of Islam but not up to the standards of the gang of rapists and murderers who have appointed themselves as your judges and executioners — well, you pretty much have it coming, if I understand Charles Johnson and Kejda Gjermani correctly. Oh, and you’re a RAAAAACIST, too!
Now Charles Johnson and his ink-squirting minion, Kejda Gjermani, have targeted Robert Stacy McCain of The Other McCain with the intention of destroying him with false accusations of racism and white supremacy for no other reasons than that he has been pouring copious amounts of sunshine on the corrupt Obama administration AND the corrupt anti-Palin, pro-Obama blogosphere — oh, and he opposes the Islamic jihad against the West AND supports Israel, too, the bastard.
My friend Robert Stacy McCain is NOT a racist.
My friend Robert Stacy McCain is NOT a white supremacist.
In The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer writes, “You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.” So I have to ask: what inner demons of hatred and prejudice are Charles Johnson and Kejda Gjermani expiating by falsely accusing others of racism and fascism?
Update, 9/23/09:
Stacy is wondering, “Who is Kejda Gjermani? Is she actually LGF ‘Medaura’?” Kejda gloats about destroying Robert Spencer and threatens to do the same to Stacy. Since “PeekYou” identifies Kejda Gjermani as “Medaura” and a commenter at The Other McCain says “PeekYou” was founded by Medaura’s husband, Michael Hussey, it seems reasonable that Gjermani is, indeed, Medaura.
Update, 9/24/09:
Via Free Republic comments on Victor Davis Hanson’s defense of LGF, which was based on having gone bike-riding with Charles Johnson once and glancing at LGF recently to see what all the fuss is about, I found a post by Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch, addressing the smear campaign Kejda and Charles have waged against him, which has resulted in empowering Islamic jihad — “Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs — tool of Hamas-backed CAIR“:
Back in October 2007, libelblogger Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs first began tarring several European political parties as racists and neo-Nazis, and accordingly smearing the Counterjihad conference in Brussels as some kind of neofascist gathering, despite the fact that Andrew Bostom spoke there about Islamic antisemitism, and Israeli Knesset member Aryeh Eldad spoke as well, along with the great historian Bat Ye’or and others, including me.
Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs, who was also there, wrote of Charles’s reaction that it was “wrong to dismiss this incredible effort by so many brave fighters and truth tellers so casually and so out of hand.” The next day it got even more wrong when the Council on American-Islamic Relations — unindicted co-conspirators in a Hamas jihad terror funding case — used Johnson’s material to defame me in a press release; I responded to CAIR’s libels here, and Pamela wrote a post entitled “LGF and CAIR,” saying, “It is most unfortunate when a group of Islamic thugs get inspiration from LGF. I never thought I would see the day that CAIR and Charles over at Little Green Footballs would be aligned against a counter jihad movement, but perhaps pigs do fly.”
Victor, now hear this: Charles Johnson and Kejda Gjermani are working together to discredit the handful of bloggers like Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller who are fighting Muslim jihad against the West, educating the public about it and fighting for Israel. What better way to support Islamic jihad and terrorism than to discredit this brave handful of anti-Jihad bloggers falsely?
I find the locations to be very interesting. Not so much the first two, but two Nebraska towns, and one in Alabama. Struck me as being…unlikely. So I google mapped the two in Nebraska, which exist. Populations of about 400 and 2600, respectively.
Then I looked for Tirana, AL. I live in Florida, and have travelled many times across ‘bama, and was unfamiliar with Tirana. Google maps pulls up a map of Tirana, Albania, the capitol.
Huh. A concern troll pushing radical Islamicism, with ties to a heavily Islamic Albania? whodda thunk it?
Kejda Gjermani says a whole lot without saying much at her site..
.-= Dave C´s last blog ..Rachel Maddow Biased? I’m Shocked! =-.
Bravo Cynthia. I just wrote the following and sent to Stacy:
A number of months back, when I was checking out Commentary’s blog Contentions several times a day, I stopped reading anything by her because there was a strange smell to them–I couldn’t tell you why, but something felt wrong. I visited her website several times and felt the same thing, but even stronger. Now, Cynthia has hit the switch and the light-bulb is on. I think CY’s right.
How confident am I that you’re right: if I were a DA, I’d be willing to take this before a grand jury.
.-= Bob Belvedere´s last blog ..A LITTLE HUMP DAY RULE 5 =-.
Kedja is a friend of mine, I mean f2f. She’s also a friend of Michael Totten, also f2f. She’s about as far from an Islamicist as it’s possible to be. She’s a pro-Zionist atheist of Jewish heritage. Is that enough for you? She’s a good person and on our side.
Sheesh, the blogosphere gets weird sometimes. Ladies, there are much better targets, REAL ones. go after them.
Yehudit,
Kejda has worked tirelessly to destroy the lives and reputations of real anti-jihadists like Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller and gloats about it. She was quoted at Stacy’s site boasting that she had destroyed Robert Spencer and that her next victim will be Robert Stacy McCain. She has cast her lot with Charles Johnson, who, in his infinite gullibility, has published her calumnies and innuendoes and who now is tarring the reputations of respected conservatives such as Michelle Malkin, Roger Simon and the libertarian Prof. Glenn Reynolds. She makes Jayson Blair look like a shining example of ethics in journalism. I hear he’s a life coach now — they have so much in common, she really should see him for guidance on getting into another line of work.
Tell me, what is taqiyya like, f2f?
Cynthia
I am often glad I’m not an intellectual. I don’t really care why C. Johnson is attacking my friends, I only care that he is. Attack my friend? I reach for the (metaphorical) shotgun, drape the ammo belt ‘cross the other shoulder, strap on my gunbelt and stand with my friends.
It doesn’t matter if I disagree with my friends on minor details, we’re in this fight together. So I disagree with Stacy on this, or with you with that. That’s not what is important, what is important is that I stand with my “family” when they’re under attack. Perhaps that family is by blood or marriage. Perhaps that family is political., someone I may never meet in person. Doesn’t matter. I defend my “family” because that’s what we do. It’s why my (metaphorical) brothers and sisters lined up for blocks outside the recruiting stations on Dec. 8, 1941. It’s why we lined up at the blood banks on 9/11/01.
So, F@#%$ Charles Johnson and his pal Kejda. And the horse they rode in on. And the dog that ran ahead. and the turtle that followed behind.
I have seen Michael Hussey posting guilt-by-association innuendo at two different sites when the topic was Stacy McCain. In one the thread had closed to further commenting, in the other I blasted him good. His arguments were really weak — e.g. if Stacy writes for so-and-so, that proves he’s a racist and nothing you can say will disprove it. I read all of Stacy’s articles at so-and-so and none of them had anything to do with racism. Looks like Mike Hussey is a cheap-shot artist in the fine art of character assassination.
I didn’t realize Kejda Gjermani was his wife, but it certainly makes sense; they both are self-righteous sages who alone can discern the workings of the human heart and are therefore fit to destroy reputations, careers and lives with smears, innuendo and falsehood.
In Kejda’s rant yesterday about the uber-racism of Stacy McCain, she ostensibly quotes Stacy saying that he is opposed to interracial marriage, but as I pointed out last week, that quote was misattributed to Stacy by a leftist writer named Michaelangelo Signorile and who refused to retract or correct the statement at Stacy’s request. The quote was then picked up by bloggers and repeated as fact many times over. It’s just what Mark Twain meant when he said “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.”
I debunk a lot of these vicious lies about Stacy in my post at this link:
http://saberpoint.blogspot.com/2009/09/robert-stacy-mccain-i-know-him-better.html
.-= Stogie´s last blog ..Bill Maher on American Exceptionalism – a Must Read =-.
She is medura. She linked to one of her comments at LGF under the name medura from her own cite, and claimed ownership of it.
>>”She’s a pro-Zionist atheist of Jewish heritage. Is that enough for you? She’s a good person and on our side.”
I’m afaid that the pro-Zionists are only on the Zionists side, and regard most of Europe and America as being riddled with neo-Nazis. The enemy for them is always and will always be white Europeans on whatever continent.
Pretty weak tea to just say “Stacy is not a racist” and not address any of the many, many links Charles Johnson is providing that show just the opposite and which Stacy is not addressing. This seems to be the reverse of the white paper waving. Just say over and over that something isn’t true, despite all the evidence, and somehow that will make it so…?
Seriously, there are some questions which need to be answered and Stacy hasn’t addressed them.
E.D. Kain,
Since I know Stacy and follow his blog, saying I know he is not a racist is indeed a perfectable respectable argument.
You have been fooled by Kejda’s technique of overwhelming in order to force people to agree with her or shut up.
Stacy HAS addressed the questions. The purpose of continuing to raise them indicates that Kejda and Charles want to snarl him up in clarifications so he never gets any other kind of work done.
Your problem is not understanding how shell games and three-card monte are played. The pea is not under any of the shells, so the con artist is never under any danger that you will choose the shell with the pea because it is in her hand. The card you must pick to win is not one of the three being switched around. Likewise, it is in the con artist’s hand or sleeve. What I have done with this post is the equivalent of lifting two of the shells/cards at the same time so the third MUST be the shell with the pea/right card. Only there there’s no pea/right card because there were really two games going on: the one the con artist SAID was being played to get the mark to play, and the real game of the con.
So, no matter how much the LGF con artists misdirect my attention to how fast they are moving those shells around, I know they are running a con.
You have fallen for the con.
Cynthia
Pretty weak tea to just say “Stacy is not a racist” and not address any of the many, many links Charles Johnson is providing that show just the opposite and which Stacy is not addressing.
You know these links that the Lizard King provides are factual, honest and true, how? it isn’t the job of the defendant to show them to be false, it is the job of the attacker to show them to be true.
Cynthia,
Thanks for the reference to “Taqiyya”……the Wikipedia read was most enlightening!
I lost interest in LGF years ago so I’d never heard of this kejda person until a few days ago. I think her site said she majored in economics or finance. She may be okay at those subjects. As a writer, well, she may be okay at economics or finance…
Hey, thanks, Cynthia, for addressing what is going on. I’ve been on this current conservative blogging stint for like 5 months, so I am new to the scene- and it’s disturbing, this whole slinging accusations.
Yes, I agree that Victor Davis Handsome (sorry, I have the biggest crush) doesn’t know enough about what’s going on to weigh in. The point is not whether he went on a bike ride with Johnson, and thought Johnson was a good guy. The point is that Johnson is accusing McCain of being a white supremacist. Is there evidence that McCain is a white supremacist? That’s the only question.
This “racism” distraction. It’s being ratcheted up to a crazy level. I mean, every white person who disagrees with the government is being accused of being a racist at this point.
.-= Rosita the Prole´s last blog ..Van Jones Was Right. =-.
I just visited Johnson’s site, and it looks like he’s got a couple of quotes from McCain that don’t look like a big deal to me. They don’t look like a big deal to me because I have been listening to quotes from Van Jones (white polluters, white kids shooting up schools etc.), Henry Louis Gates (Mama hated white people, etc.), the new FCC “Diversity Czar” (white people should step down, etc.), the First Lady’s college thesis, etc., the newest Supreme Court Justice (Latina woman wiser than white man, etc.), and the President (white men’s greed runs a world in need, etc.), so you’ll have to excuse me if McCain’s remarks, although I have to say some of them seem obtuse and myopic, don’t really give me the sense that he’s a white supremacist- any more than the president is a black supremacist, you dig?
The other evidence Johnson has that McCain is a racist is that McCain has written for publications that Johnson calls racist, that McCain is a member of an organization that Johnson calls racist, and that McCain is friends with someone Johnson calls racist.
So to buy Johnson’s story, if you’re not bowled over by McCain’s remarks, and I wasn’t- but then maybe I’m a racist too, and maybe you are, Cynthia, and maybe every white person in this country is- but, to buy Johnson’s story, you have to take a lot of his accusations on faith, unless you’re going to do some sort of a research project on your own time.
Johnson also plays this radio show with Alan Colmes interrogating McCain in a way I found reminiscent of the Spanish Inquisition, “If you do not want to do a transaction with a black bank clerk, are you a racist? You don’t know? You don’t know if that’s racism?”
McCain answers, “I don’t know, it might be. What is racism?”
And Alan Colmes says, “You’re answering a question with a question.”
Yeah, well, so is he.
.-= Rosita the Prole´s last blog ..Van Jones Was Right. =-.
Actually I should have said that McCain is LESS of a white supremacist than the president is a black supremacist. According to Johnson’s evidence, McCain never said anything near to what Obama has said, e.g. “White man’s greed runs a world in need.”
.-= Rosita the Prole´s last blog ..Van Jones Was Right. =-.
Also: the first remark of McCain’s he quoted could very well have been taken out of context, the second was nothing, and the third, that a white person may be comfortable with African-Americans, but not comfortable if, for example, their sister married an African-American- that’s how a lot of people of different ethnicities- and religions- feel about people of other ethnicities and religions- including some Jews, some Catholics, some Indians, some Asians- and some African-Americans. All of New York City seems to run like that. That’s completely normal, and a cultural thing: It’s one thing accepting someone from a different cultural background as a bank teller, it’s another thing accepting someone from a different cultural background as a family member.
I hate this witch-hunt strategy.
.-= Rosita the Prole´s last blog ..Of Course, Dear Leader’s Address to the Nation’s Schoolchildren was “Anodyne.” It’s His *Followers* Who Supply the Hate Rants. Oh, and Did You Know Stimulus Funds Are Going to A National Electronic Database Where Information On Each Schoolchild Will Be Stored? =-.
A racist is somebody who disagrees with a liberal and who must provide liberal-approved exculpatory evidence to demonstrate his we are the world/one-love bona fides. Thus, racism is not completely about power anymore; it is about sanction and blessing: who is sanctioned to make genuinely racist comments and put them in our mouths (liberals), and who shall be blessed for making genuinely racist comments (liberals) because none shall revile them for they are merely saying what they tell you you are thinking, even though you don’t think that way but they say you think that way; so they export the thoughts of their minds and hearts and cast them upon you, like so much bread upon the waters.
The power and control aspect of racism rests in this: after they say what they are thinking and cast it upon you, they get to expostulate and condemn (never themselves, of course). So they control the debate by seizing hold of the minds of the unwary and unthinking.
The problem for Charles and Kejda Gjermani is that true conservatives are both wary and thinking.
VDH’s defense of Charles Johnson is indeed a head-shaker, especially because of the thin evidence. As you note, Cynthia, it consists of a shared bike-ride and a single visit to LGF. Presumably, VDH did not look at the comments, where he might have seen any number of deletions, bannings, ham-fistings by a roving host, and a vibe that those who remain are walking on eggs. Never mind the content; Charles’s behavior speaks worlds. Seriously, who else in the right-thinking blogosphere arms himself with a ban-stick and roams the internets in search of his own members!?
Miss Orange,
Speaking of walking on eggshells at LGF, Dr. Helen recently interviewed Randi Kreger, the author of Stop Walking on Eggshells, which is about coping with people with borderline (psychotic) personality disorder. Dr. Helen links the interview at PJTV from her Sept. 12 blog post. In her book, the Ms. Kreger explains that borderlines pursue scorched earth tactics against those who have set boundaries they don’t like, or whom they perceive to have humiliated or abandoned them. Dr. Helen also blogged about Randi Kreger and her book on Sept. 2.
When the LGF lizards first swarmed over here to check out the post, I was expecting to be attacked. There were a couple of comments that I thought were not worthy of publication, but overall, I got the impression that they had the vibe of people who have been badly abused — if they had the courage to speak their minds, they didn’t do it here (and I did not go check LGF).
Cynthia
I just searched myself on PeekYou.
Very interesting.
I had no idea I was a successful trial lawyer who won a lawsuit against a major pharmaceutical company. I had no idea, that I ever lived in all of those states or that my middle name starts with an “S” (do I get to chose what’s after the “S”? ). I had better get on this research of myself, I bet I’m a much more awesome person that I knew.
.-= Mnut´s last blog ..FoxNews got it Right. (but not correct) =-.
Mnut,
I’m not feeling the pwnage. PeekYou is set up by Gjermani’s husband. If she didn’t enter her information herself, then he did, or they supplied it to the service they had enter it. That is why it can be considered a rock-solid source of information about her. I didn’t position it as an authority on anyone else.
Cynthia