At Least 2 Shot Outside Muhammad Cartoon Exhibit
48 hour rule applies here, we don’t have real details on who or why, although we all probably want to speculate.
At least two people were shot Sunday afternoon in the parking lot outside the Curtis Culwell Center, where the American Freedom Defense Initiative was hosting its inaugural Muhammad Cartoon Exhibit and $10,000 Cartoon Contest.
The cartoon exhibit featured “images of Islam’s prophet, both historic and contemporary, and speeches by leading voices of freedom and internationally renowned free speech advocates,” according to an AFDI release
More: At Least 2 Shot Outside Muhammad Cartoon Exhibit
The gunmen or their motives are not yet identified, and I’m still not going to speculate on that. What I will say is that the press is being remiss in their duty to report all of the facts.
So I will detail the history, not because I think the gunmen are somehow justified, (they are not, whatever their motive,) but rather that the public needs to be fully informed before shaping opinions.
In this country you have the right to hate, to be a bigot, and everyone else has the right to point that out.
Pam Geller, Robert Spencer, and their foreign allies have used their Free Speech rights in the US to persistently smear, hate, and defame all Muslims worldwide for over a decade. The history is long, and includes all of the standard theocratic hateful lies & libels traded in tit for tat manner by the six major branches of Abrahamic religions circling the Mid East since the time of Alexander. It also includes newly minted modern conspiracy theories cooked up by Spencer and Geller (creeping sharia anyone?)
You could write a book debunking the insane bigotry of these two and their allies, but I’m not going to - instead I will link the many pages here at this site that detail the long history of bigoted insanity and the alliance with the new Far Right movement in Europe in the hopes that real reporters will delve into this and make sure the U.S. Public at least understands the background.
I will finish by saying this: if you sling shit at a group of people long enough eventually you will find the mean, the crazed, and the extreme among them, and that’s been Geller’s plan all along. There is free speech, and there is provocative free speech designed to make you think, and then further on the edges is free speech designed to provoke, I will let you decide where in this spectrum that Geller lies.
LGF history on Pamela Geller:
littlegreenfootballs.com
LGF history on Robert Spencer:
littlegreenfootballs.com
Southern Poverty Law Center on Pamela Geller:
splcenter.org
Southern Poverty Law Center on Robert Spencer:
splcenter.org
Lindsey Bever at The Washington Post does a good job of painting the full picture:
washingtonpost.com
One of the suspects, his prior terror indictment from the FBI, and his possible motives has been identified in this ABC story:
abcnews.go.com
Simpson was well known to the FBI. Five years ago he was convicted for lying to federal agents about his plans to travel to Africa, but a judge ruled the government did not adequately prove he was going to join a terror group there.
ABC identifies one of the shooters as Elton Simpson, of Arizona. Convicted by FBI previously for lying to them. http://t.co/IWYp50Zpqi
— Niraj Warikoo (@nwarikoo) May 4, 2015