Don't Circle the Wagons Now, Jimmy

In terms of online stupidity, Jim Parrot is the gift that just keeps on giving.

Apparently, Jymn has become so obsessed with the Occupation movement, that he renamed his blog Occupy Let Freedom Rain. (The detail that he already occupies it seems entirely lost on him.)

But in one of the most recent bouts between Jymn and unintentional hilarity, he's apparently taken deep umbrage with the efforts of a few conservative bloggers to draw attention to some anti-semitic behaviour among participants in the Occupation movement.

Some of that behaviour was captured on film by National Review Online.



If such undeniable evidence didn't exist, one could certainly assume that Jymn would simply claim there was no anti-semitism and move on. After all, he seems to be perfectly content to cling to his claims that "no violence was had" at the Dick Cheney protest in Vancouver, despite an assault on an employee of the venue at which Cheney was hosted.

Yet in a long and rambling post trying to explain the anti-Semitism away, Jymn simply recycles old discredited claims about the Tea Party, and even recycles the Tea Party's explanation for any racist behaviour at their rallies: that the racism came from a marginal minority. (Although he does indulge himself in pretending that the proportion of Tea Partiers indulging themselves in racism was much, much larger than it actually was.)

Midway through his incoherent ramblings, he seems to sense that he cannot actually explain the anti-semitism away, so he seems to decide to not even try:

"Should we be worried that anti-Semitism has popped up its ugly head amongst our message? Of course. It's deeply worrisome. That it would happen is not the problem - individual wackos turn up at every gathering, whether it is right or left.

The problem is that, and we don't know this, if we have not argued these exceptions to take down the signs, to take their hatred elsewhere. Perhaps that is what happened - we don't know. We just have right-wing publications - not the hallmark of honesty and fair play - to tell us their version. The bigger problem is that the media will sense blood and come prowling. This is going to get ugly."

Did the rest of the Occupy Wall Street movement ask the anti-Semites to leave, as Tea Partiers have with racists who turned up at their rallies? He admits he doesn't actually know. But apparently that isn't even a salient concern for Jim Parrot, as he seems to think the bigger concern is that the media might actually pay closer attention to the anti-Semitism at many of these Occupy rallies.

That is rather remarkable, when one considers this previous bit of sanctimonious tripe from pre-Occupy Let Freedom Rain:

"I will not circle the wagons to protect my own when they are wrong. I am a blogger. I am not a journalist."

Jim Parrot has very clearly taken the Occupation movement as his own. He's so enthralled with it that he's renamed his blog after it. (It's actually quite natural that someone with a tendency to repeat whatever he's told to say would take so keenly to a movement founded on repeating what other people say.)

Yet when other adherents to the Occupation movement are caught publicly voicing their anti-Semitism, what does Jim Parrot do? Precisely what he claimed he would not: he circled the wagons.

No one should be particularly surprised: it's precisely what Jim Parrot and his cohorts have always done. There's no reason to expect that they would have done any differently, or that they ever will.