Saturday, February 13, 2010

What They Aren’t Telling You

FDI poster

Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer have teamed up to launch the Freedom Defense Initiative, which aims to publicize the penetration of the United States government at all levels by the Muslim Brotherhood as well as the ongoing Islamization of the West.

Pamela and Robert will be launching FDI next Friday, February 19th, with an inaugural event at 10 a.m. in the Virginia Ballroom of the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel at 2600 Woodley Road NW in Washington D.C. If you’re going to be in the D.C. area next Friday, I strongly recommend that you put on your mukluks and snowshoes and make your way to Woodley Road. Attendees are required to register by emailing FDInitiative@aol.com.

As the FDI website says:

Jihad: The Political Third Rail — What They Are Not Telling You is a conference featuring some of the premier American and international voices of resistance to the global jihad and Islamic supremacism. This inaugural event of the Freedom Defense Initiative (FDI), a new activist organization founded by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, will be held at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, the site of CPAC, on February 19 from 10AM to Noon, in the Virginia Ballroom.

The conference is designed to educate Americans about the Muslim Brotherhood’s infiltration at the highest levels of the U.S. government, as well as its war on free speech: its attempt to silence and discredit those who speak up against the jihad and Sharia encroachment in the West. Emphasis will be on the international character of the jihad against the West and on how the Islamic war on free speech (and the media’s self-imposed blackout on this issue, as in the Fort Hood massacre) is part and parcel of the same jihad against the West that terrorists are pursuing by violent means.

The principal speakers are Steve Coughlin and Wafa Sultan.

Steve Coughlin is a former Pentagon Islamic law specialist who is making his first public appearance since he was fired after pressure from Islamic infiltrators. He has startling information about Islamic infiltration in our government.

Wafa Sultan stood up for human rights against Sharia on Al-Jazeera in a debate with an Islamic cleric on a famous viral video. She is the author of a blistering indictment of Islam’s denial of rights to women and non-Muslims, A God Who Hates.

Other speakers include Simon Deng, Anders Gravers of SIAD, Lt. Colonel Allen West, and…

Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, who is well-known to readers of this blog as the Austrian anti-jihad activist who faces hate speech charges in her own country for speaking the truth about Islam. Elisabeth is the first person of my personal acquaintance who has faced actual criminal charges for exercising the right to free speech in a supposedly enlightened Western country.

Pamela has posted an informative background piece on Elisabeth and the case against her. The Austrian government has done a disservice to its own citizens and the rest of West by persecuting her:

Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, MA in Diplomatic and Strategic Studies, is the daughter of a retired Austrian diplomat. She received her education in Iran, Austria and the United States, and has since served in several government and diplomatic positions. She now teaches at an English language institute in Vienna, Austria,

She is a board member of Wiener Akademikerbund, General and International Secretary of Mission Europa, and the OSCE Representative for Pax Europa.

Over recent years, Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff has developed a keen interest in the challenges to Western civilization, democracy and freedom of expression, including the troubling developments in the European Union. An avid reader, she studied the subjects in depth through books — in both German and English — by the foremost authors in the field, including Robert Spencer, Andrew Bostom, Bat Ye’or, Wafa Sultan, Booker & North and more.

Elisabeth is a skillful speaker and conference organizer who took part in setting up several interesting events, drawing upon her network from the diplomatic world. One example is a panel meeting with the unofficial representative of the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe, Tariq Ramadan, as reported at JihadWatch. However, only hours before his appearance Tariq Ramadan canceled without apology or explanation.
- - - - - - - - -
At a more formal level, Elisabeth is an NGO representative for Pax Europa to OSCE, where she participates in conferences and submits papers regarding freedom of expression, women’s rights and the challenges from Islam [pdf]. These activities get noticed and have triggered some vocal responses, in the OSCE plenary as well as in statements by COJEP and others.

Her extensive knowledge about Islam and the political implications of Islamic doctrine earned her an invitation to teach the Austrian political party FPÖ about the nature, structure and strategies the West faces from Islam.

An unprepared reporter from the Austrian magazine “News” attended the seminar, and was so frightened by what she heard that she wrote a major reportage about ‘political hate speech’ at the seminar, and reported Elisabeth to the Austrian authorities for the crime of ‘hate speech’, quoting statements from the seminar.

While Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff documentably spoke the truth at her seminars, speaking the truth is not necessarily legal in Austria, the Netherlands and other European countries. There exists in Europe a propensity to shy away from confronting beliefs of others, under the pretext of ‘cultural sensitivity’, an idea promoted mainly by academia and high-level government institutions, including the European Union.

On the other hand, there is widespread public support for the ‘right to insult’, as it may be called, that no proper religion would deserve nor even need legal protection from mockery and ridicule.

While the case against the Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders is of higher profile, the case of Elisabeth is of the same fundamental nature, a battle between on one hand fear and superstition, on the other hand rationality and open debate between free citizens.

FDI provides further evidence that there is a large cohort of concerned and well-informed citizens of Western countries who are not willing to simply roll over and submit to the Islamization of their countries and their traditional cultures.

By launching the Freedom Defense Initiative, Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer have performed a valuable public service for the Counterjihad.

15 comments:

Papa Whiskey said...

Stephen Coughlin's paper on the ideological underpinnings of the current international jihad is a must-read. It may be accessed here. Print it out, peruse it and pass it on.

Anonymous said...

Somewhat off-topic, yet related to Spencer, Geller and stories untold: Does Baron Bodissey know the reason for the apparent removal of the link to Gates of Vienna on the blogrolls of both JihadWatch and Atlas Shrugs?

Homophobic Horse said...

"the apparent removal of the link to Gates of Vienna on the blogrolls"

Haven't you been reading some of the comments posted on GoV lately? They wouldn't look out of place on Stormfront.

Just for the record I'd like to affirm that Robert Spencer is a dangerous Greek irredentist and an anathema to all decent people.

Homophobic Horse said...

I expect Fjordman will be chopped next.

X said...

Stormfront? I can't say I've visited the place but I doubt that we sink anywhere near their level. Besides, motivation is the factor to consider: they're motivated by hate of the other. We, or at least the people I know here, are motivated by love for our own.

I can't particularly understand why they'd de-link in any case. Looking at the remaining blogs on their lists, GoV is not unique in its stance. Compared to some there it's actually very tame.

Homophobic Horse said...

Whatever happens we have been unceremoniously removed from the ranks of the respectable.

I swear this will repeated in the future and on a bigger scale. Will the Americans stand by Geert Wilders when he sparks a fearsome social tumult?

X said...

Any social tumult sparked by Wilders will probably take place against the wider backdrop of a collapsing or turmoil-ridden European Union. I have a terrible fear that the US government of that day will act to try and keep the EU "united", whatever the cost.

Homophobic Horse said...

" I have a terrible fear that the US government of that day will act to try and keep the EU "united", whatever the cost."

Well that's the wild card really? Even with viewing the past as prologue it isn't clear what America will do. Remember in the collapse of Yugoslavia Milosevic apparently incited the Serbs by repeating the multiculturalist Brotherhood and Unity platitudes, with (it is alleged) the hidden message being: "The Croats are Nazis and are coming to kill you, the Muslims will kidnap your children. We must GET them before they GET us." You know what that most resembles to me? The demonising of third world immigration and Eurabia opponents as "Neo-Nazis" with the tacit collusion of groups such as "Antifa" working as agents of the state i.e. playing a roll similar to Serb paramilitary formations, albeit not yet murderous.

Which brings me to my next point.

You know who I think our case most resembles? Croatia. Because the Croats to wanted to leave and break up an ostensibly successful, yet deeply sick multiethnic state called Yugoslavia. We also seek to break up and leave an ostensibly successful, yet deeply sick multiethnic state called the European Union. Like the Croats the intelligentsia of our unhappy state can make an internally coherent and convincing case (if not a correct one) that we are dangerous Nazis motivated by nothing more than racial bigotry. Like the Croats we can suffer our masters bringing down hell on us. However the Croats were given the consistent support and backing of the U.S. when it would have been most congruent to have supported Yugoslavia.

Today Croatia is a normal capitalist welfare state and democracy. Notwithstanding that Tudjman sang Ustasi songs with the mob in the late 90's, which to the Serbs is the smoking gun they were looking for, yet in overall terms means nothing because Croatia is not the Third Reich reborn it is, as I said above, a normal capitalist welfare state and democracy.

You know what I think our future is like? We wont get the Serbia treatment at all, it will more resemble Croatia without U.S. support - a political dead letter.

Baron Bodissey said...

Anonymous --

My policy is not to fight with anyone who is at least mostly on the same team as me. Charles Johnson forced a fight upon me -- and besides, it became obvious that he was no longer on the team, if he ever was. In all other cases I have managed to duck open confrontations, which is my preference.

As a result of my policy, I will air no dirty laundry here. You will have to ask Atlas Shrugs and Jihad Watch the rationale for their actions. Pamela and Robert have their reasons that the reason knows not.

Henrik R Clausen said...

HH, I really take issue with that Stormfront commment... While you have every right on the Earth to take that small group of nutheads seriously, I think even mentioning them is too much credit to grant them. In fact, I don't think I even heard of them before Charles Johnson started ranting about them. As if they're any force to be reckoned with...

Interesting comments about Croatia. Now, I've read up quite a bit of WWII history, and the role of Croatia was anything but pretty. Reviving the Ustasha was a vaguely disguised threat against Serbians living in what Croatia considered their territory (due to arbitrary administrary boundaries inside Yugoslavia), and a Serbian reaction to protect their kin was logical and predictable.

Demonizing the Serbs constitutes one of the major betrayals done by our so-called 'Elite'. They were staunch defenders of Europe for centuries, and really deserved better.

Henrik R Clausen said...

'They' as in 'Serbs', not useless modern 'Elite' :)

Anonymous said...

Pamela and Robert have their reasons that the reason knows not.

I am having problem parsing this sentence, could the Baron please tell me what he is trying to say?

Baron Bodissey said...

Anonymous --

I am saying that Pamela and Robert have reasons for their actions, and, although it's possible that those reasons wouldn't make sense to you or me, they make sense to the two of them.

Each has his own blog and is free to make such choices, just as we do at Gates of Vienna.

We are still in the early phases of a crucial information war here in the West, and any calculation of strategy and tactics keeps in mind the larger goals of that war, which I expect to last at least a generation.

It may well be that my strategic calculations differ from those of Pamela and Robert.

In Hoc Signo Vinces† said...

Definitely! the U.K. & Euorpe are going to be very different by the time this political conflict has been settled. There maybe a future Europe that some Americans will find difficult to comprehend.

Hope the FDI is not going to launder the counterjihad and become a corporate th(s)ink tank with a celebrity victim of jihad every month, that is the last thing counterjihad movement needs.

Zenster said...

While Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff documentably spoke the truth at her seminars, speaking the truth is not necessarily legal in Austria, the Netherlands and other European countries. [Emphasis added]

Alarming as the predatory nature of Islam may well be, far more disturbing is Western Europe’s current assault upon the truth and its legal role as a last and best defense. The ever eloquent Pat Condell addressed this trend quite competently in his video: "The Crooked Judges of Amsterdam".

[~00:46] Because according to the prosecution, it doesn’t even matter that what he [Wilders] says is true what matters is that it’s illegal. Well, when the truth is against the law then there’s something seriously wrong with the law.

Because when the truth is no defense then there is no defense and the law has no anchor so it will drift wherever the wind of political expedience blows and this week it blew straight into a crooked courtroom in Amsterdam where justice will now be made to fight for its life, starved of the oxygen of truth that gives it life
.

Reality must always be the basis of truth. The level of semantic obfuscation required for distorting reality and truth is just that; A distortion of reality itself that is often typified by a willingness to ignore fact in favor of either fabricated constructs or the adoption of external frameworks which demand a near, if not, total rejection of truth.

This is the case with Europe’s current acceptance of Islam as a supposedly coherent doctrine, which it most clearly is not. The assignment of validity to Islam has taken place in a sub rosa perversion of legal proceedings that have all but excluded Europe’s indigenous population from that decision making process.

There exists in Europe a propensity to shy away from confronting beliefs of others, under the pretext of ‘cultural sensitivity’, an idea promoted mainly by academia and high-level government institutions, including the European Union.

Whether this is a “judge not lest ye be judged” mentality taken to its illogical extreme or a remnant of post-World War II reticence to thoroughly examine wartime collaboration remains to be seen. However that may be, Europe’s governing elite are certainly capitalizing upon this reluctance in order to enshrine Islam as one of the “Great Religions” in its smoke-and-mirrors attempt to give credibility where absolutely none is warranted.

While the case against the Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders is of higher profile, the case of Elisabeth is of the same fundamental nature, a battle between on one hand fear and superstition, on the other hand rationality and open debate between free citizens.

This entire confrontation of the truth by Islam has little, if anything, to do with “fear and superstition”. While Islam is, indeed, a tissue of superstitious and apprehensive dogma, its defiance of Western standards regarding truth is based solely on its need to undermine common law. Shari’a law and secular government are diametrical opposites with a less than zero chance of any compatibility. Islam knows this and acts accordingly.