AMERICA SPEAKS! HISTORIC 911 RALLY DRAWS 40,000
There was no end. You could not see the horizon. The media pretends these tens of thousands people don't exist. It's criminal.
Photo: El Marco
ens of thousands descended upon Ground Zero today to remember those we lost nine years ago, and to save the American principles of freedom that the sharia tramples.
Crickets are chirping in taqiya media newsrooms nationwide (although they were all there). There has been no coverage.
We organized a rally of remembrance that dwarfed the opposition. If the America haters had 4,000, we had ten times more. The media is playing the dueling rallies; it was no such thing.
Free people came from all over the country and all over the world to stand in solidarity with the 911 families and to declare our iron determination that no victory mosque will be built on their graves. The crowd was young and old, black and white ........ politics of all stripes. The crowd was beautiful. The crowd was proud and good and decent America. All the speakers were excellent. Rousing.
But the highlights included Geert Wilders, who was greeted as the great hero that he is, and spoke about how a sharia mosque at Ground Zero would be the death New York's proud tradition of Dutch tolerance.
Ambassador John Bolton spoke bluntly and unequivocally via video link about the affront to American values that this mosque would constitute.
Other powerful voices included Joseph Nassralla, who was the unwilling media darling of our June 6th rally, when a misunderstanding was blown out of proportion by the mainstream media as a racist incident. Joseph Nassralla was the Arab who was supposedly in a confrontation at that rally. At this rally we were proud to feature him, and he was so passionate and rousing in his love for America and fierce denunciation of the thousand-year-old Islamic oppression of the Coptic Christians in Egypt that the crowd went wild as Joseph led them in cheers of Gd Bless America!
But his warning was clear. The Ground Zero mosque would be the beginning of the end, and Egypt shows where the presence of Islam leads in a free nation.
Steve Malzberg and Mike Gallagher were greeted by huge cheers. It was an historic day in American history. Here is the first of El Marco's peerless coverage. More pictures and video will be going up continuously. So check back. And El Marco and Pamela Hall will have the definitive post tomorrow (hopefully).
UPDATE: I will be on FOX news tonight, Geraldo at Large, tonight at 10 pm Eastern, FOX news.
UPDATE: Here are some of El Marco's pics:
“Did New York deserve this? Did America deserve this? Did the West deserve this? What, my friends, would you say to people who argue that New York, that America, that the West had itself to blame for those horrible sounds?
There are people in this city who argue this. And they are angry because we are gathered here today to commemorate, to make a stand, to draw the line. My friends, I have come from the other side of the Atlantic to share your grief for those who died here nine years ago. I have not forgotten how I felt that day.”
Other speakers included 9/11 family members, first responders, and refugees from Islamic regimes.
There were also video addresses by former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton and media-man Andrew Breitbart.
Pamela Geller, author and blogger at Atlas Shrugs, organized the rally together with Robert Spencer begin_of_the_skype_highlighting end_of_the_skype_highlighting, author and blogger at Jihad Watch.
In the crowd there were families of those murdered at 9/11, military veterans, New Yorkers, and people who had travelled from around the country andfrom abroad to be here today. Three Marine Corps veterans listen intently to war hero Ilario Pantano, candidate for U.S. Congress.
Come back soon for full reports and links to the speeches.
UPDATE: Urban Infidel has great coverage here. Video and pics of the anemic counter protest. Go, see for yourself.
UPDATE: A comment that shows how the tide has turned, from Bruce Godfrey:
I campaigned for Obama in 2008 in DC and VA, so I am not Pamela Geller's natural audience, to say the least. And I actually supported this mosque - loudly - when I first heard about it. But the more I learned, the more I have read, the more I realized I was simply wrong.
To have planned its opening for 9/11/2011, even as an initial draft, shocks the conscience. While some have characterized Abdul-Rauf as pro-American, if he blames the U.S. in part as an accessory for 9/11 and has not repudiated the comment, it's for shame. It would be nice if Islam were like the Bahai faith that it persecutes - non-proselytizing, pro-equality, pro-peace, pro-science. But it's the opposite of these things. And naming it after an Islamic conquest in Christian Europe - well in poker we call that a tell. Reading selections of ibn Warraq's Why I Am Not a Muslim was also instructive.
I don't know if I agree with all of Geert Wilders' agenda - banning books and taxing burkas seems a bit silly and bizarre. But his basic point - that Islam has a predatory character and seeks conquest or at least jurisdiction over the planet, and is a hazard to Enlightenment values - would get him my vote. Even 8 weeks ago, I'd have dismissed Pamela Geller as a nut. Now I want to buy her book. If this means I don't get invited to any cocktail parties on the Upper West Side for the rest of my life, fine; beer and a shot in East Baltimore work for me.
For the record, Wilders' call to ban the qur'an has to be understood in the context of Dutch law, which does ban books. Wilders said if Mein Kamf is banned, the qur'an should be, too. It was a call for a consistent application of existing Dutch law.
UPDATE: Thanks to Tom
UPDATE: Ilario Pantano was fierce. The old guard is done. It is politicians with political courage who will speak for the people. And they are few.Pantano is one of them. If you don't know him, go here. If you want to contribute to his campaign (and you should), go here. If you live in North Carolina, volunteer. Do it.
In the crowd there were families of those murdered on 9/11, military veterans, New Yorkers, and people who had travelled from around thecountry and from abroad to be here today. Above, three U.S. Marine Corps veterans listened intently to Ilario Pantano, candidate for U.S. Congress.
“… Why On 9/11 it wasn’t New York that was attacked, it was America that was attacked. It was freedom that was attacked. And we can’t forget not only what happened, not only the murderous intent that killed 3,000 Americans. We can’t forget for a moment that that they wanted to kill 50,000 Americans, or maybe 100,000 Americans. … We can’t forget that since those attacks, hundreds of thousands of men and women around the world have been killed by jihadists, in the name of radical Islam. From Egypt to Bali, from Baghdad to Kabul, no one can forget there was a car bomb here in Times Square six months ago. Folks, if you think this is over, it’s just beginning.
… So what’s my opinion about a mosque at ground zero? NO MOSQUE HERE. …”
Pantano tied in Iran’s actions against Israel with the Gaza Flotilla, and pointed out Imam Rauf’s involvement with the Gaza Flotilla, and questioned where the money from the mosque is coming from.
Police lied about numbers at rally…Press too…well we expect it from them, but the police? They must have been given orders to knock down the numbers. Check the photos and ask BettyJean who was in the staging area before it started!
I was there and they were chasing us away – I was moved 7 times! I was moved so far away I had to go around the block and could not get back never heard all the speakers at all they closed access. The truth is they finally refused access to thousands.
I was there at 1:30 before the rally started, I was with several of the speakers in the staging area and had a few words with Pamela Geller before her detail men put me and many of the speakers out of the tent for security reasons and because the staging area was too small to hold us all.
Once placed just outside the staging area the police arrived demanding we leave that area immediately. First they allowed us to step across the road and stand on the curb but another set of police forced us behind the barricades even though we explained we were with the speakers. By that time what seemed like thousands coming in from the ground zero ceremony arrived and the Police went crazy and closed down the sidewalk entirely. They kept shoving us backwards until I, along with many in my group were forced right out of the block. Not being a speaker I just went the way of the crowd but many of the speakers were scattered about.
I tried to re- enter by walking up each block as far back as the eye can see but the streets were full and the crowd was thick. I kept backing out and going another block further away and trying again. The camera cannot show you around corners where I was forced to go only to be out of range of both the camera’s and earshot.
I went from standing next to Pam Geller to not even being in the picture. Don’t let anyone tell you there were 1500! And shame on Geraldo and others for inviting Pamela Geller as a guest draw an audience then not allowing her to have her voice or voice ours!
UPDATE: More on the street reportage from Zhanna (hat tip Pamela Hall):
Dear friends, I had experience today, I never expected to get. It takes less than an hour and half to get to the Park place and West Broadway from my door.
It took almost 3 hours today. Today, on 9/11, they canceled Q train!
After I got to Manhattan, I walked from the Subway station Wall Street. I was shocked. There were pro-Masque speakers on every corner and between. I could not find our meeting from the beginning and policemen sent me in wrong directions.
I walked like shuttle back and forward.
I passed by pro-masque meeting. That was the small, but very loud crowd. Nobody shout them down and everybody could approach them from any side. In order to get to our meeting, people had to go around and around.
Everything was very strange today. BUT, I was so delighted to see our people. The very friendly people. People who care about our country, about our future, and who make difference today.
UPDATE: Photo and video report from the September 11, 2010 FDI/SIOA rally in Manhattan
UPDATE: The People's Cube wants to know, Are you an islamophobe?
UPDATE: A really great piece over at Modern Conservative, solid reporting: The Great Media Blackout - Props to Jennifer Booth
I’m disturbed, but not surprised at the media blackout for the protest held at the proposed site for the mosque at Ground Zero. I was there, and I stood right behind the platform where the media personnel gathered. Several of them took my picture, while wearing my Infidel shirt. I even said to a few of them, “Give us a good story, please.” They answered me and said they would. They knew my meaning- please don’t skew us, don’t portray us as haters. Be honest. And with the coverage, the amount of people there, the sheer diversity of the crowd: people from England, Australia, Egypt, Iran, Uganda, etc. were in attendance or speaking, I am just dumbfounded that not only did we receive a complete blackout, but in the media reports I have been able to find, they covered a different rally, and called those people us. That’s right, you did not misread. A completely different rally filled with Christian themes and anti-abortion agendas were portrayed as the people who attended the rally which Pamela Geller organized. Just lies.
Therefore, if it’s up to the attendees to document it, to be fair and give ANY kind of accuracy and decent coverage, then so be it. It certainly won’t be the first time it was left up to bloggers to be citizen journalists. Ask those who got Dan Rather fired, or ask Matt Drudge. Below is my account, which I started writing yesterday, September 11, 2010.
UPDATE: Heard this from Judy. Same experience as Zhanna. So this was a pattern ........
I came to the rally and was directed by POLICE to the pro-mosque rally instead. I was not the only one. I knew who our crowd was. I was with a group from TX, a couple from FL (who had an Allen West for congress tshirt, a couple from PA and Coretta).
I also met a group of Russians. We were told that your rally should start soon and to just stay there. It was already after 3. We turned around and found you.
At your rally there were plenty of pro mosque agitators. They were arguing and screaming. One had to be dragged away. it was difficult to hear the speakers. I always arrive early and like to listen to what is being said. I was dressed in my army medical corps gear as I work on a base once a month. That uniform did not garner any respect from the other side. But plenty from the great Americans at your rally NY1 claims the pro-mosque rally had 1500. Yours had 2000. Maybe they should go back to school and learn math.
UPDATE: Comment section remark on the "dueling rallies" fiction:
The NY Post article claims pro-mosque protesters numbered 3000, Anti-mosque protesters 500, but in the NYPost video covering the event the reporter states that anti-mosque protesters vastly outnumbered mosque supporters. Let's call it "Dueling NY Post Mosque Reportage".
UPDATE: Much thanks to Brandy for sending these snaps in:
Nelly, 911 mom who lost her son
Introducing Wilders
Pantano, the very definition of political courage
Steve Malzberg, radio personality
The scenes from one of the cross blocks ........
Monday, September 13, 2010
OFFICIAL RALLY VIDEOS: THE 911 FDI/SIOA RALLY OF REMEMBRANCE
911 FAMILIES, WILDERS, BOLTON, BREITBART, GELLER, SPENCER, PANTANO, MALZBERG, GALLAGHER, SEKULOW, ET AL
Here is the video of the speakers from our FDI/SIOA Rally of Remembrance on September 11th which drew tens of thousands of patriots and freedom lovers. Thanks to Pamela Hall here.
Invocations: Fr. Christopher Manuele is a Melkite Greek Catholic priest. He serves a congregation including many Christian Arabs—one of the religious groups most subject to Islamic persecution throughout the world. Rabbi Steven Axelman is a trained psychotherapist and a Talmudic scholar. Dr. Jim Garlow, a pastor, was appointed by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich to be the Chairman of ReAL (Renewing American Leadership), based in DC. He founded and led the California Pastors Rapid Response Team, a group of pastors committed to religious, personal and economic freedoms.
Our keynote speaker , Geert Wilders, personifies moral courage in an age when such courage is an extremely rare commodity the possession of which can threaten one's life. He is one of the few who truly deserve the label of hero,he is my personal hero, -- and yet it must be said that all he has done to become heroic is something that we all can do, should do, and must do: he has spoken the truth. We live in so cheap and tawdry an age that all one must do to be a hero is speak the truth -- and yet there are so few heroes. Geert Wilders is that hero. He has done this at immense personal cost, such that he now must be accompanied by armed guards at all times. One would think that the constant threats made against Geert Wilders would wake people up to the true nature and lethal character of the enemy we face, when they are so threatened by the telling of the truth that they're willing to commit murder in response. Yet even as Geert Wilders is defamed, vilified, and marginalized, he is being proven right by the events of every day -- and the light of the truth he tells shines more brightly all the time.
Our next speaker could not be with us in person today, but he believes so strongly in the cause of freedom that he comes to us via video link. Here is a man who is unafraid to stand for principles that the political and media elites would prefer to sweep under the rug. Here is a man who went into the world's foremost hotbed of anti-American, anti-freedom sentiment, the United Nations, and stood fearlessly and unflinchingly for justice and human dignity. Here is a man who faced down accomplished practitioners of violent intimidation, enemies of freedom, apologists for authoritarianism and totalitarianism, and stealth jihadists. Here is that rarest of things in the public square today: a genuine, sincere, articulate and accomplished lover of America: an American who is proud to be an American, knows why America is the greatest country on earth, and is unafraid to say so even in the most virulent nest of America-haters on the planet. My fellow Americans, and all those who appreciate and admire the freedom that America has helped bring to the world, please give your attention to this message from the former United States Ambassador to the United Nations and hopefully the next president of the United States, John R. Bolton!...he's on the list.
Mike Gallagher is an American radio host and conservative political commentator. He is the host of The Mike Gallagher Show, a nationally-syndicated radio program that airs throughout the United States on Salem Radio Network. According to Talkers magazine, Gallagher is the eighth most-listened-to radio talk show host in the United States.
Ilario Pantano is running for Congress in North Carolina. a respected combat veteran, and bestselling author who has worked in both global markets and small business. One of the highlights of our 9/11 Rally of Remembrance was the fiercely righteous, fearless truth teller Ilario Pantano. His courage and willingness to tell the truth about issues the mainstream media dubs "controversial" shows that the old guard is done. It is politicians with political courage like Ilario Pantano who actually speak for the people. And they are few. Pantano is one of them. If you don't know him, you should. Contribute to his campaign, volunteer, get out the vote. Our nation depends on it.
We have much more video to post....stay tuned and watch this space.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
"BY NOW RAUF'S PROFESSED IGNORANCE OF THE DAMAGE HE IS DOING TO THE FABRIC OF OUR SOCIETY IS UNDENIABLY WILLFUL"
You could not see the horizon
Photo: looking at the Left. Pictures don't lie.
The NYPD was adamant yesterday that our 9/11 Rally of Remembrance must not run over the allotted time for even one minute, and so unfortunately a couple of speakers who had been slated toward the end of the program were unable to speak. I'm pleased therefore to be able to bring you here the prepared remarks of one of them, Richard Connerney, an author and professor of philosophy at Pace University.Richard is the author of The Upside-down Tree: India's Changing Culture (Algora Press, 2009), which is partly about the Ayodhya crisis in India -- Mughals built a large mosque on a Hindu holy site in the Middle Ages, and in 1992 Hindu protesters tore that mosque down by hand, 600 years after it was built. He is also the editor of Vera Lex: The Journal of the International Natural Law Society, which is published by Pace University Press. The Natural Law Society is an organization dedicated to the study of the history and contemporary application of natural law theory, which is a school of legal philosophy holding, in opposition to legal positivism, that law and ethics cannot be severed from one another. (Thanks to Robert.)
For myself and I think for most people here, today is a sad occasion, not only for the obvious reason that on this day we remember the deaths of thousands of innocent Americans on 9/11, but this occasion is sad for what has happened in the aftermath of that event, and especially for what has happened here, so close to the site of that tragedy, over the last three months.Over the last one hundred days we have watched a local conflict over a building proposal grow into a city-wide debate and then an issue in the state of New York's gubernatorial campaign, a national scandal and finally an international incident with global implications. Sometimes in all this confusion I think that the real meaning of this debate is lost. For me, behind all the headlines is a fundamental disagreement about what makes a good neighbor and a good citizen.
Imam Rauf interprets his constitutional right to freedom of worship as the right to promote his views on religion in a place and in a way that is distasteful to the majority of Americans. What will it take to convince Mr. Rauf that his hope that a mosque in this place will act as a catalyst for interfaith understanding is out of touch with reality? His obstinacy has not aided tolerance or understanding but rather created division and confusion. By now his professed ignorance of the damage he is doing to the fabric of our society is undeniably willful.
I have known many Muslims in my life and liked most of them as individuals and I have lived among Muslims in Asia. Most Muslims I know understand the importance of symbols and the importance of history and they understand that good fences make good neighbors. One of the great ironies of this conflict is that anecdotal evidence suggests that American Muslims themselves are unenthusiastic about this Mosque and many Muslims think that Imam Rauf has thrown them into the middle of a fight that they did not ask for and do not want.
But Imam Rauf is only the proximate cause of this controversy. The inflation of this problem from a local one to a national one happened in part due to a failure of leadership on the part of Michael Bloomberg. The mayor put his weight behind the Cordoba Initiative project before the public was even aware it existed. From the beginning he has acted as if public debate is little more than a nuisance and has suggested that the opposition is irrational, bigoted or uninformed. He went so far as to suggest that anyone with questions about this project's financing "should be ashamed of themselves," as if asking questions was the source of our troubles.
Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, the mainstream media in New York City and beyond bears some responsibility for the deep divisions over the Cordoba Initiative mosque. Publications such as the New York Times and Newsweek often provide monophonic coverage that characterizes the 2/3rds of the American public who oppose this mosque as bigots, while television pundits too numerous to name promote an extreme philosophy of multiculturalism as moral absolute and a brand of legal positivism whereby citizenship is little more than a laundry list of civic rights and good government nothing more than the mechanical administration of public policy.
To the public's credit, Americans aren't buying it. Like me, many understand that citizenship is more than exercising your rights; it is understanding when not to exercise those rights when decency requires it. And when individual citizens are incapable of this level of sensitivity and they cause widespread offense, as Imam Rauf and Sharif El Gamal have done, then a just government must act. Effective leadership does more than stand aside as a disinterested referee while citizens commit acts of deliberate outrage against one another; leaders must also protect the common good and promote mutual respect.
Some people are discouraged and ask how we can we stop the construction of this building when the Landmark Commission denied 45 Park Place landmark status and the Community Board has already approved the plan. In answer I would note that today we stand only a few blocks south of the African Burial Ground National Monument on the corner of Duane and Broadway--for those of you from out of town, if you haven't seen it yet, it's worth a look--the African Burial Ground is an 18th century cemetery discovered accidentally during the construction of the Weiss Federal Building. The memorial that stands there today is one that people fought long and hard for and that was ultimately created by an act of Congress.
I mention it because, in essence, we are asking for nothing more than this. If the government acted to create the African Burial Ground memorial so that some of the first African American New Yorkers could rest in peace and their descendants could remember their lives, then surely we have every right to expect similar accommodation for the place where so many Americans lost their lives nine years ago today. In a similar way, we are asking for a dignified environment in which to remember the fallen without a perversely positioned shrine to the creed that inspired their murder.
To make ourselves heard on this, we have to turn out for the election this November. I hope that all of you will note who in the city, state and federal governments stood on which side of the issue. I hope voters will send an unmistakable message to our leaders by denying election or reelection to any politician, Republican or Democrat, who has failed to speak out against this mosque. In future elections, I hope that local voters will pay particular attention to the members of the Community Board and the borough president who rubber-stamped this building project, walking in lockstep with Mayor Bloomberg.
And when I see the enthusiasm and determination of the people gathered here today I feel confident that we will attain our goal. The collective feeling of outrage over the planned construction of this building is over-whelming, the numbers are in and we represent the true will of the people, a fact that no true democracy can ignore. By this point the only people in New York who like the idea of the Ground Zero Mosque as far as I can tell are the Imam, his wife, Mayor Bloomberg and the editorial staff of the New York Times. While the legal barriers to stopping the construction of this mosque are considerable they are not insurmountable and in the end, if we steer the course, we have every reason to expect that we will prevail. Thank you for your support. God Bless America.
Posts
