Various sites are carrying photos from yesterday’s anti-mosque rally in New York; organiser Pamela Geller had promised to “confiscate” signs, which was always an impractical proposition, and as expected a number of messages were on display.
Geller’s Atlas Shrugs site presents the rally as she should like it to be portrayed, with US flags and caps predominating. The third picture suggests that the crowd was not particularly deep, although it’s difficult to judge how many were there. Geller boasts 40,000, while other media estimate “around 1,000”. Geller also complains that “The media pretends these people don’t exist. It’s criminal.” Actually, here in the UK it was the top story on the BBC rolling news channel and the World Service after coverage of the official 9/11 commemoration.
Urban Infidel has more pictures of individual participants, and Talking Points Memo has an extensive gallery. Posters include: the word “Sharia” written as if with dripping blood (also seen that the previous rally on the issue); “What God do You Kill For?”; a wounded arm having salt sprinkled on it; “Cordoba = Conquer, Not Here!”; “‘Sharia’ Pelosi – Implant a Tongue Depressor – Wire her Jaw” (held by a middle-aged woman wearing a “Waterboarding Instructor” t-shirt); “Those Who Waith on the Lord Shall Renew their Strength. They Shall Mount Up with Wings Like Eagles!! Isaiah 40:31”; “Muhummad was the First Radical Muslim: Osama bin Laden is Following Directions”; “Insult to Ground Zero = Purposeless Symbolism Causing Pain to Millions = Insult to Holy Koran. If You Love Peace, Move the Mosque”; and “Transform Islam, Not America”. Little Green Footballs, meanwhile, draws attention to a picture of a man holding a Koran taped to a piece of cardboard bearing the words “Toilet Paper”. Particularly in evidence in a number of photos is a a small flyer declaring “No Obama’s Mosque”.
A few specific groups and individuals could be identified; LGF shows a picture of several English Defence League members, and TPM picture 11 shows EDL activist Kevin Carroll (I previously blogged on Carroll here) [UPDATE: Apparently Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who heads the EDL as “Tommy Robinson“, was refused entry at JFK Airport]. Picture 15 shows a glimpse of a banner representing the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Propery, a well-known right-wing Roman Catholic organisation (I blogged on this group here). Geller’s site shows banners from AMAC, the Association of Mature American Citizens (their founder was one of the speakers), while Urban Infidel has shots of Jose Morales and George “Tako” Maniatakos of “USAHeard” – both men, bedecked in US flag clothing, have been carrying a large cross around various cities to commemorate 9/11 victims: the cross is decorated with the sentences “In God We Trust” and “We the People”, and there is a wheel at the base to make carrying it easier (USAHeard is an anti-Obama organisation, “devoted to restoring our country to what our founding fathers had envisioned”).
Also present close by was a van carrying a number of anti-gay and anti-abortion messages, and declaring that 9/11 was the wrath of God. This van is Ronald Brock’s “Truth Truck“, which appears at various events. Brock was profiled in the Denver Post in 2008.
Some interest appears to have settled on a South Asian man named Kemal, who appears in the same picture as Carroll. He had a lengthy self-painted banner declaring that
Mohamed was No Prophet and Koran is No Holy Book: The Enire World was Deceived by Mohamed and His Stooges. I am Self Taught Spiritual Scientist. My Mission is [unclear]… This Present Human Race this Stinking Lie! I am a Real Muslim not a Half-Baked Degenerate Coward.
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Hello. I was there, as your link to my story shows. You are certainly entitled to your views on things, but speaking to the size of the crowd at the demonstration, I don’t know the exact number, it may be unknowable, but it was pretty huge. It stretched a couple of blocks on both sides of the street. The Associated Press is very much undercutting that number strangely because those photos do show an impressive crowd. Heck, the press itself in attendance was crushing. I was in the press box, I know.
it may be unknowable
Was it a “god-like” crowd?
There were police barricades forming fenced-in areas that went back two blocks. The first area filled up and the police stopped letting people in that one. The second area was nearly full when I left shortly after the event started. Each fenced area was the width of the street.
Two friends of mine were there, and they said the turnout was EASILY in the tens of thousands.
It is precisely because of those large crowds that the mainstream media refuses to cover the rally.
I mean, the primary role of these media outlets on issues like this is now the manufacture of news, and not the actual reporting of facts and events.
A mere glance at just two or three overview shots of the day clearly show the 1,000 figure to be utterly absurd.
Imagine, tens of thousands of people will come away from that rally knowing that no one in the MSM was willing to report on it, and those tens of thousands will tell their friends and relatives, bewildered by that silence, just what took place and what was said, and that in turn will serve to further stimulate this wonderful and thriving culture of american “Samizdata”.
I am happy.
Two of my friends were there, they said the turnout was a bit over one thousand, as well as a group of rollerskating die mills and a chinchilla performing the works of Gilbert and Sullivan.
Interesting that the pro-mosque folks had lots of printed placards. The folks against it had handmade signs.
Institutional support? CAIR aka the Muslim Brotherhood? or?
So what?
Posters include: the word “Sharia” written as if with dripping blood
And to you that constitues a scandal?
There is a women in Iran awaiting death by stoning.
Perhaps someone could video the execution and then send you a copy.
Afterall, seeing is believing, right?
Another example of sharia’s ‘fragrance’. Nope, no blood here!
http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_display.cfm/blog_id/29619
When Carmelite nuns built a convent near to Auschwitz many Jews were offended. The nuns closed the convent leaving only a cross. Many Jews were still offended by this cross. Pope John Paul II asked the nuns to remove that remaining cross and they eventually did.
Note: all this time there was no threat of violence by Jews. The Carmelite convent commemorated all the victims of Nazism, including Edith Stein a non-religious Jew who became a Carmelite. But the cross (as a reminder of antisemitism by Christians) was seen as offensive by many Jews at the largest Jewish cemetery.
Those who want to build the 9/11 Mosque have a Constitutional Right to do so – even if it offends many Americans (including those who are not as mad as Geller).
Those who want to burn Qurans have a Constitutional Right to do so – even if it offends many Muslims (including those who are not as mad as the many thousands who threatened to rampage and kill innocent Christians in Muslim countries).
An interesting insight called “When Irresponsibility Meets Irrationality” from http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/katz/cancel_quran_burning.html
Why can’t Muslims respond to provocation like these Catholics did to Islamists demanding the death of the Pope outside Westminster Cathedral http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ya9xypqB5eo
People burn mock Jesus and burn Bibles as protest and even art without risking death (http://patterico.com/2007/08/08/a-picture-of-two-holy-books-in-toilets-says-a-thousand-words/)
Why is it just one religion which everyone has to pussyfoot around – or face death?
Pastor Jones’ full but undocumented qualms about the Quran displayed here.
Thank You
An angry anti-mosque protestor was allegedly ready to clock one of the young students before cops swooped in and separated the two groups.I’m very intolerant of injustice when it’s physical and in front of my face,” Thank you for your comments.
przeprowadzki warszawa
If you look at pictures of the pro-mosque protesters you can easily see that there were a large number of signs mass produced by the ANSWER coalition, a front-group for the Workers World Party, a tiny Stalinist group. This Associated Press article has a nice sampling: http://tinyurl.com/3ye2t2r
ANSWER signs are always easy to spot at any left-leaning demo. But the question remains: so what? Does this mean that all the people at those demos support Sam Marcy’s idiosyncratic version of Marxism-Leninism — or any other version of Marxism-Leninism, for that matter? Obviously not.
Two of my friends were there, they said the turnout was a bit over one thousand,
Your friends are no doubt leftists, and so cannot count.
There were tens of thousands, and so you’ll just have to suck it back
Actually, the chinchilla was a leftist. A secret, muslim, fascist, socialist, abortionist, PETA supporting, Kenyan/Venezuelan, gay chinchilla who pals around with terrorists and watches Rachel Maddow.
I was in attendance, I was 1 block from the grandstand, and I held up my camcorder and stood on my toes and swept back and could not see the end of the crowd on just the street I was on. There was a media copter in the sky the entire time. There was a very impressive media presence. The coverage we have recieved does not at all represent the media attention at the rally. The numbers being quoted do not in ANY way accurately represent the actual crowd size. It matters not, because those of us in attendance KNOW the TRUTH, we dont need the media to TELL us their version of the truth
Sorry, but capital letters don’t alter reality.
How many Muslims died in the 11th of September tragedy in 2001?
Sorry, but capital letters don’t alter reality.
Nor do denials.
Go on…
How many Muslims died in the 11th of September tragedy in 2001?
Far fewer than those killed in a tit-for-tat mosque bombing in Quetta last week.
What is important to remember is the number of Muslims killed at the hands of other Muslims since 911.
What about Muslims (innocent Muslims) killed at the hands of the United States? Are you going to blame the Muslims for U.S. actions in the Middle East over the last 60 years?
Fuck all the muslims who wants to build their fucken mosoque at Ground Zero. Those assholes destroyed Twin Towers to build some fucken mosoque. Fuck this I would kill all of muslims which was at Ground Zero if I would be there >:L
“What is important to remember is the number of Muslims killed at the hands of other Muslims since 911.”
Is it also important enough to remember all the innocent Muslims killed and maimed by the USA and its coalition since 9-11?
What about Muslims (innocent Muslims) killed at the hands of the United States? Are you going to blame the Muslims for U.S. actions in the Middle East over the last 60 years?
Whataboutery isn’t an argument.
It is a fact that most Muslims being murdered these days are killed at the hands of other Muslims.
In Iraq it’s Sunni against Shia, Kurds against Arabs. Tens of thousands of Muslims killed by their co-religionists.
And i won’t even mention what’s being done to Christians there.
It is an absolute outrage that a monument to the ideology that killed 3,000 Americans nine years ago will be built in proximity to the site where that slaguhteer occured.
Yeah, they have every legal right to build it, but morally the whole idea is disgusting.
Rauf claims to be ‘building Bridges’, but his insensitivity and lack of concern for the wishes of the vast majority of Americans is creating grave divisions. Rauf doesn’t care, though. All that matters to him, especially in light of his refusal to be bought out by Trump, is that this supremacist obscenity be built near ground zero so that the islamists can crow on about their “victory”.
At last count some 71% of Americans were against the project, and every time a poll is taken on the subject that number rises.
Rauf, though, is so pig-headed, he just doesn’t give a shit what they think.
Ooops, I forgot. The U.S.A doesn’t have to take responsibilty for its actions, it just blames
commiesmuslims.At last count some 71% of Americans were against the project, and every time a poll is taken on the subject that number rises.
Do you know what the phrase “tyranny of the majority” means? Or that America’s system of government was set up to protect against it?
“Whataboutery isn’t an argument.
It is a fact that most Muslims being murdered these days are killed at the hands of other Muslims.”
lulz …. And you make this assumption based upon what emiprical evidence??
lol…. Kurds against Arab? Are these religious groups now in minds like yours?
Shi’ite against Sunni? Now there has been sectarian strife in the past, but nowhere on the scale the USA and its coalition instigated in Iraq.
What has 9-11 to with the Shi’ites… What if this Muslim ‘centre’ (not a mosque) was a Shi’ite construction?
Pray tell!
Wunderbar, it’s a fact that most Muslims being murdered these days are killed at the hands of their co-religionists.
In some cultures life is cheap.
Get over it.
It’s a fact that most of the places where Muslims are killing each other have first enjoyed the blessings of a US invasion.
It’s a fact that most of the places where Muslims are killing each other have first enjoyed the blessings of a US invasion
Yes it was that american invasion of the arabian peninsula back in the 7th century that kicked started the Sunni/Shia rift that has killed untold millions.
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