This past weekend, a mosque in Quebec, Canada, was the place that white supremacist Alexandre Bissonnette chose to carry out a massacre that left six people dead and many others wounded.
In social media Bissonnette followed several far-right personalities as well as outspoken atheists that have dared to criticize Islam, such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens.
Of course, the arch-vulture Glenn Greenwald could not miss the opportunity to exploit the death of six Muslims and pin it on atheists:
Bisonnette’s Facebook page – now taken down but still archived — lists among its “likes” the far right French nationalist Marine Le Pen, Islam critics Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, the Israeli Defense Forces, and Donald J. Trump (he also “likes” the liberal Canadian Party NDP along with more neutral “likes” such as Tom Hanks, the Sopranos and Katy Perry).
For some years now, Greenwald has had an unhealthy obsession with New Atheists —and he particularly hates Sam Harris— because the poor guy seems anatomically incapable of understanding there’s a difference between people and ideas, so when we attack ideas and say something demonstrably true, like the Koran calls for violence, Greenwald deliberately misinterprets to say we’re attacking Muslims (?).
What Greenwald conveniently left out, lest it downplays his anti-atheist hate speech, is that Bissonnette also liked unpleasant characters such as Peter Hitchens (Hitch‘s dumb brother) and William Lane Craig, individuals more than likely to make really inflammatory claims about Muslims (the group of people, not ideas). The only thing that’s apparently clear is that it is quite easy to be “liked” by Bissonnette: you only need to say something against Islam or Muslims, no matter your tone, context, or even if what you said it’s true or false.
For Greenwald, none of it matters. Never mind that you can not derive behaviors from non-belief, that instead of a race Islam is set of ideas, or that Christopher Hitchens devoted a good share of his life to fighting racism, even risking his life once in Germany when he challenged a neo-Nazi graffiti. Or that Dawkins has condemned the massacre — Greenwald was not going to let those annoying pesky facts get in the way of his agenda.
Although no one is to blame for a mentally unbalanced person liking your Facebook page, incompetent Glenn took the opportunity to make a guilt by association fallacy and keep on his smearing campaign, which seeks to tarnish new atheists with white supremacism… for demanding public policies that respect secularism and treat everybody equally is exactly the same as promoting the idea that there are insurmountable biological differences between people with different skin colors. Go figure! But I digress; back to the guilt by association fallacy.
I know fascists can’t possibly understand this, but you are only responsible for your own actions, not for those of others. And exploiting a terrorist attack to boost your agenda is low… even by Putin‘s pawns standards.
(image: Gage Skidmore)
