Please go to Pamella Geller's site for continuing coverage of yesterdays rally.
America Speaks! Historic 911 Rally Draws 40,000
Photo: El Marco
Tens 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, 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 and from 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 qu'ran has to be understood in the context of Dutch law, which does ban books. Wilders said if Mein Kamf is banned, the qu'ran should be too. It was a call for a consistent application of existing Dutch law.
UPDATE: Thanks to Tom
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