NYC Mosque Foe Pam Geller On Egypt: Bad for Freedom

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The news of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s resignation today has barely made a ripple here at CPAC, the three-day gathering of conservative activists, politicians, and other luminaries. But around midday I caught up with Pamela Geller, who made a name for herself as the driving force behind the battle against the Park 51 Muslim community center in lower Manhattan, which critics dubbed the “Ground Zero mosque.” I asked Geller what she thought about Mubarak’s resignation and the fate of Egypt’s leadership. Her take was nothing short of apocalyptic, predicting “the rise of Islamic supremacism and the imposition of the Sharia” throughout the Middle East.

“We are witnessing a complete seismic shift in the direction of the world away from freedom,” Geller said. When I asked her about Glenn Beck’s theory that “uber-leftists” and Islamic extremists could be plotting to from a new Islamic caliphate, she told me that those “are justifiable fears. An earthquake has occurred in the Middle East.” She added, “These are catastrophic events over which we have no control.”

Geller said she was “thoroughly embarrassed and disgusted” that the US “would abandon an ally,” a reference to the Obama administration’s recent statements calling for a peaceful change in leadership in Egypt, which had been under Mubarak’s autocratic rule for nearly 30 years. Asked about who she thought would step up to lead in Egypt, Geller said, “We do know that evil loves a vacuum, and the only organization that is poised to seize control in a vacuum would be the Muslim Brotherhood.” She went on, “They will be the ones that seize power.”

Middle East experts don’t view the Brotherhood as the virulent force of evil that Geller and the far right do. As Bob Dreyfuss noted in his Mother Jones story today, the Brotherhood would win only around 10 or 20 percent of the vote in a open Egyptian election. That’s not to the say the Brotherhood should be dismissed, but experts say they’re not quite the pillar of evil Geller, Beck, and others have made them about to be.

Geller ended our conversation about the future of Egypt on a typically ominous note. I mentioned the far right’s fear that Islamic radicalism could spread to other Middle Eastern countries after Mubarak’s departure, and Geller agreed. “It is spreading. It’s already spreading,” she said. “And it’s very dangerous.”

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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