Putting Our Heads Over The Parapet

Spring Fundraiser 2013, Day One

Alert readers will have noticed that we are overdue for a fundraiser here at Gates of Vienna. We generally hold one every quarter, and although we often slide pretty close to the equinox or the solstice, we have managed to maintain the quarterly regime for the past several years.

This year, however, we skipped the winter 2013 fundraiser, which normally would have occurred at about the end of February. That happened to be the time when the symptoms of my eye ailment (choroidal neovascularization, a.k.a. “wet macular degeneration”) first appeared and threw me off my game. I told Dymphna at the time that I just couldn’t manage a fundraiser; it was too much. Furthermore, before I received my diagnosis and began the treatment, I couldn’t in good conscience ask our readers to donate, since for all I knew incipient blindness might at some point have driven me entirely out of this line of work.

Fortunately, as you all know, the situation has now stabilized. I’ve fallen into a new routine, gotten used to blogging with one eye covered, and can reliably maintain a steady workload, albeit at a somewhat lower level than I was used to a few months ago.

Tip jarSo it’s time for us to hit y’all up again. Better late than never!

Fundraising has not only become possible again, it’s an absolute necessity at this point. The treatments for my condition — an injection in my left eye every month or so — are quite expensive, and they will continue indefinitely. My self-employment insurance policy is of the “catastrophic” type, which means it has a high co-pay and a very high deductible. Economic times here at Schloss Bodissey have become quite a bit leaner as a result.

Nevertheless, I intend to keep this enterprise up as long as I can still see the screen and climb the spiral staircase to my eyrie. Based on what the doctor tells me, my long-term prospects are very good, so the watch here at the Gates will continue.

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The theme of this quarter’s fundraiser is “putting our heads over the parapet”, which is something we’ve been thinking about for a long time, and especially since the Breivik massacre in 2011.

The two takedowns by Blogger during one week in January only added to the feeling of exposure. Even if they were entirely coincidental — which is quite possible — they still intensify that uneasy sense of being watched.

Counterjihad work tends to put you into the crosshairs nowadays, assuming you achieve any meaningful results. The OIC, hard left “anti-racists”, progressive NGOs, or the security services of Western governments — any or all of these now make a habit of keeping prominent anti-sharia activists under intense scrutiny.

The first time we appeared in one of the “Islamophobia” reports, it was kind of freaky — “Wow, they’ve got us under surveillance! What happens next?” But after awhile we got used to being covered by the OIC, or Hope not Hate, or EXPO, or even Nick Griffin. The most recent “academic” report featuring Gates of Vienna — which was covered here at length — was the ICSR’s set-up of the English Defence League and the European Counterjihad.

I’ve learned to see these hit pieces as an opportunity. They are generally poorly researched and sloppily written, often by people who are not the sharpest knives in the drawer. As a result, they are easy to pick apart and critique, especially for those of us who have been tempered by many years of experience in the blogosphere. Taking apart the work of these well-funded hothouse lefty “scholars” is a cakewalk compared to doing real battle with competent bloggers.

As I pointed out a couple of weeks ago, fisking these potshots at us is crucial if we are to prevent these supposedly academic studies from being used to justify a crackdown on free speech by our dhimmi governments. When they lob one of their grenades over the parapet into your dugout, you need to pick it up and lob it back. And, to see where you’re throwing it, you have to stand up and peek over the sandbags.

To engage those who are trying to stop us doing what we do, we have to put our heads up over the parapet. There’s no way around it.

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The photo at the top of this post shows a soldier in the trenches at Gallipoli in 1915 using a periscope to look over the parapet at enemy lines. The photo below shows a Lee-Enfield .303 bolt-action carbine rigged with a periscope, a frame holding the rifle, and a string to pull the trigger. The arrangement allowed a sniper to target enemy soldiers without showing himself over the parapet:

The periscope gun was invented by the Australians, and was widely used by ANZAC troops in the Gallipoli campaign. It had no impact on the outcome — which was a debacle for the Allies — but it was an ingenious bit of jury-rigging by those resourceful colonials from Down Under.

If only a virtual periscope gun could be developed for this line of work! Then I could perch here in comfort in my eyrie, pulling the string to take potshots at dhimmi progressives on the other side of No-Man’s Land whilst remaining safely out of sight…

Ah, well — I can dream, can’t I?

A reminder: this is Fundraising Week, which is how we cover our (recently escalated) operating costs for this blog.

The tip jar in the text above is just for decoration. To donate, click the tin cup on our sidebar, or the donate button, on the main page. If you prefer a monthly subscription, click the “subscribe” button.

5 thoughts on “Putting Our Heads Over The Parapet

  1. In my youth, I used to shoot with a lee-enfield not unlike this one, now, of course, that would be deemed politically incorrect. Curiously enough, we were not allowed the bayonet which was considered much more dangerous in the hands of a 16 year old, this persisted through into officer training at Dartmouth, and I have a scar to proove that this is correct.

    Although the rifle is the obviously visual weapon, it was not the great killer; that was the artillery, but the bayonet was the most feared. But to go in with a bayonet charge one was ‘over the top’ and totally exposed.

    I suppose that we must face the facts and understand that at some stage it will come to a bayonet charge, or its literary equivalent at least.

    But one survives if one works as a team, a bit like the Greek Phalanx, we present to the enemy a line of sharp points, one does not mess with a porcupine, one finds something a bit less painful.

    In Galipoli, the victory was thrown away by the timidity of the navy minesweepers and the unwillingness of the admiral to put his capital ships under fire (at one point the Turks had about five rounds left) had the navy continued they could have had 15 inch guns over Constaninople whin a few hours.

    This would have opened the supply line to Russia and Brusilov’s campaign would not have stalled in the Carpathians.

    The key here being teamwork, the enemy are lying to the people, our bayonet is the sharp point of TRUTH.

  2. keeping on traveling is some sort useful …… especially with a knowledge who can destruct “machteritis” (german for: Being sick by might! … which means that having to much might implies a tendency to become REALLY SICK in the mind)

    baron – “they” DO “LOVE” their sickness machteritis !

    instead of HELPING AND REALLY LOVING they “SURVEILLE US” even from the CIA or other institution, THEY DO GO WHERE THE MONEY “GOES” … they side with the enemies of humanity …….. they do not wish to see, they do not wish to learn from history, they do not wish to study the facts of the whole quoranic “feelings” development which leads such into even more distorting their souls …. and true, the majority of muslims is less distorted as the souls of the Eagle Cult in our “homelands” which have been and are gradually given away to Islam ….

    those traitors in “Comitees” about “Risk research”, the CIA and constitutional services – if they go on in their evil matters – will awake to the moment when the larger “Eagle Cult” wings of Islam start to shade their souls ……

    ? by the way baron, about your inner shades, why do you think that I lie about the creation of Islam above the Matthewsgospel …..

    duke

  3. and to come to the theme again ……. this would be a change for the good, if agents and gov surveillers START TO SPONSOR YOU !

    ……and “by the way”, me too ……. it seems to be a sort of almost occult stadium at present, that the most willing to find solutions, the most willing to warn, the most outstanding to true humanity ……. have intense money problems …..

    this can also be taken as a sign … how far and easy “agents being machteritis sick” do not even think and not even speculate about theses chances that human efforts will win ………. their own “re-ligere” brought such into bands which are per se AGAINST HUMANITY ….

    ….. still such “prosper” by developments which have been laid into structures by souls whose senseing was and is for humanity

    they are as parasites on a love which they did not founded, which they even did not compared to the evil structures of Islam – which only seem to be reasonable – but brought in practise show whats going on

    anyone of our surveillors tending to live in the Jemen, in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan,….?

    so use your income money which you “earn” under lieful auspices to spend on baron, Fjordman …….. and me ……

    we are no bomb builders ……. we do free minds and souls for true loving !

    ps: to some might be this as if their brains “getting bombed” 🙂 …… when there is only darkness in there ….

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