Thursday, November 22, 2012

Giving Thanks

Blasted Tree

Today is Thanksgiving Day, and Dymphna and I have family visiting, so posting may be light for most of the day.

There is plenty to be thankful for here at Gates of Vienna. Over the past six years we have been through a lot of trials and tribulations, from the Great LGF Wars through our ejection from Pajamas Media to the ghastly publicity that descended on us after Breivik’s massacre. Yet every crisis has strengthened and extended the community we find ourselves in — a local subset of the larger distributed network that makes up the Counterjihad.

On past Thanksgivings I have sometimes listed the contributors, translators, and tipsters who are crucial to our site, so that all of them might receive a public acknowledgement. However, this has become an all but impossible task — the community is now so large that collecting and formatting the names and URLs would be more than could be attempted in a single day. Our gratitude must go out to them collectively.

Thinking back to where we were five years or so ago, there were so many goals that remained wishful thinking. Yet not only have we accomplished many of them, but some of them are now routine. Examples include:

  • Rapid translation and subtitling of significant videos
  • Publicizing important texts by translating them into a dozen or more languages
  • Communicating and coordinating in real time with multiple Counterjihad groups on both sides of the Atlantic and in Australia
  • Raising awareness of Islamization through prominent public events
  • Establishing new political parties which share our goals, or enhancing existing ones

All of this was made possible only through the tireless efforts of hundreds of volunteers who send tips, report, write, translate, make videos, appear in the media, and put their careers (and physical safety) on the line by attending public anti-sharia events.

Not to mention the donors who give repeatedly from their abundance to help keep this site going.

Our deepest thanks to everyone in the wider Gates of Vienna community, and to the good Lord who has inspired you to make these sacrifices for the sake of a worthy cause.

While posting is light here, readers may want to visit other sites in exotic locales that are not celebrating a holiday today.

Highly recommended:

5 comments:

Papa Whiskey said...

I wish you and Dymphna joy of the day, sir.

Henrik R Clausen said...

I believe that the OSCE efforts deserve a mention on the list, too.

Baron Bodissey said...

Ah, but Henrik -- the OSCE project wasn't even a WISH five years ago.

My list was of things I wished we could do back when the 910 Group first got started. The OSCE wasn't even on the horizon at that point.

Nevertheless, our success at OSCE is a signal accomplishment, one of the most important ones of all.

Perhaps we should celebrate with a list of things we have managed to do that we hadn't even thought about in 2007.

Anyone want to add to that list?

Anonymous said...

English Defence League (EDL).
Paul Weston and The British Freedom Party.
I hope that by next thanksgiving they will have some exposure in the MSM, which sadly, is deliberately lacking at the moment.
Tommy Robinson's incarceration has not been mentioned anywhere.

Ben

K. from Germany said...

Happy Thanksgiving, America! And special thanks to you, Dymphna and Baron, for the awesome work you are doing.