Odd Jobs

Winter Fundraiser 2014, Day One

Dymphna and I have taken a wide assortment of jobs over the decades, but nothing as unusual as this one.

One of the job requirements for this position is that we strap on our hiking boots once every quarter and set off on a Wanderwoche through a single theme while asking our readers to help keep this blog afloat. This week’s theme, as you can see, is “odd jobs”, and my current occupation is the oddest of them all. I didn’t plan on spending my sunset years as an itinerant Islamophobe. I just kind of fell into it.

Tip jarAs I warned you back in December, we’re going to have to push extra hard during this fundraiser, because our new higher profile has made this blog a more costly enterprise than it was a few months ago. We came under DoS attack at least twice, and lengthy outages forced us to move up to a more robust type of hosting. The new service, plus the attendant technical help on tasks that lie outside my range of skills, have added significantly to the cost of running this enterprise.

They say that when you start taking fire, you’re over the target, so we must be doing something right. It’s difficult to pinpoint which of our recent activities has drawn such unwelcome attention, but it almost certainly must be one or more of the following four:

1. The controversy over Diana West and American Betrayal

Standing up for Diana West not something that I would have expected to draw enemy fire. Yet the conclusions she draws in her book — that the Communist penetration of the Roosevelt administration was more extensive than is generally believed, went all the way to the top, and has deformed the American government to this day — have prompted vigorous, vicious, concentrated resistance. The well-funded effort to silence her suggests that Planet X might also be willing to sponsor cyber-attacks against her defenders. For a time Gates of Vienna was the most prominent venue to push back against Planet X, so it may be that some of our expensive difficulties are due to the position we took on Ms. West’s behalf.

2. Original material by Geert Wilders

Back in November and December we had the privilege of hosting two original pieces by Geert Wilders: his redesign of the Saudi flag, and an open letter to Pope Francis. Each piece generated a “Rosetta Stone” translation initiative, and each caused an unprecedented level of traffic for a week or so after the initial post.

It’s well-known that Geert Wilders is one of the top targets for both the European Left and the Muslim Brotherhood, so it’s conceivable that the outages Gates of Vienna went through back then were at least partially brought on by malicious attacks aimed at Mr. Wilders.

3. The New Year’s Day explosion and fire on Cedar Avenue in Minneapolis

The cover-up of the cause of the Cedar-Riverside explosion and fire on January 1 points to official malfeasance at the highest levels of state and federal governments. The mainstream media, foregoing even the semblance of any investigative reporting, dumped the story into the oubliette of history as soon as the building had been knocked down. Gates of Vienna is one of the few sites investigating the incident, and it may be the most prominent one. If you’ve been following the most recent articles about the al-Shabaab connection, you can see which way the signs are pointing. It’s quite possible that whoever is so keen on covering up what happened on Cedar Avenue on New Year’s Day might attempt to muffle any investigation of the real story by bringing down the websites looking into it.

4. Anders Behring Breivik’s letter to the media

Gates of Vienna broke the full text of the “political” portion of the letter that the mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik sent to various media outlets. What should have been a sensational story — that the Butcher of Utøya deliberately misled the media and the Norwegian authorities about his affinity for the Counterjihad — was utterly ignored by every outlet that received the letter, with the exception of the left-wing Swedish think tank Expo.

It’s easy to understand why the Scandinavian media would want to bury the contents of that letter. They have generated billions of bytes of news articles and analysis on how Mr. Breivik was “mentored” by anti-Islamic writers such as Fjordman and Robert Spencer. Publishing companies have invested millions of kroner, euros, and dollars putting out books about the supposed dangers of Counterjihad ideology, all based on the murderous behavior of Anders Behring Breivik. Citing the 22-7 massacre as a wake-up call, legislators and government ministers — not just in Scandinavia, but throughout Western Europe — have been studying policy proposals and designing legislation to curb “racist”, “xenophobic”, and “Islamophobic” speech.

We managed to obtain and publish the full text of Mr. Breivik’s real opinions on the Counterjihad. If the revelations in this text were ever to gain wide currency, it could bring down the entire house of cards. Public officials and the media would be forced to find another murderous “right-wing extremist” to justify their crackdown on people who oppose mass immigration and Islamization.

The government in at least one of in these countries funds a quasi-independent hard-left organization that acts as an unofficial intelligence agency and brown-shirt outfit for the state. Among other things, this organization has employed (or contracted with) hackers and cyber-criminals to obtain personal and financial data on the elites’ political enemies. The same outfit could well have been put to work attempting to suppress an annoying website that scuppered the best-laid plans of the political establishment.

The Breivik letter seems the most likely cause of the unpleasant attention directed at Gates of Vienna over the past couple of months. However, it’s also possible that some combination of these four reasons has been responsible, in a kind of nefarious synergy.

In any case, we have been hit, and we had to pay to put our ship into dry dock and then refloat it. That’s why we urgently need our readers’ help.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

The increased cost of hosting for this blog is only one factor in our current financial crisis. We’re also in hard times for other reasons — the absurdly cold winter, car problems, my travel to D.C. to brief a congressional representative, the cost of my eye treatments, etc. — so the new blogging costs were just the final straw.

Dymphna and I have been able to continue doing this job for more than four years, thanks to quarterly fundraisers and the generosity of our readers. Unfortunately, our efforts don’t quite break even. I supplement what we raise here with whatever contract work I can find as a programmer or an editor, but every quarter gets a little leaner than the one before.

This living hand-to-mouth is actually a familiar situation for us. When I was twenty-two years old I decided that I didn’t want a career track; I wanted to paint pictures. For the next twenty-five years I eked out an existence by taking whatever part-time work I could find in order to keep painting. Dymphna signed on with me knowing full well what I was up to. From then on she did whatever she could to help me keep going.

My eyes went bad from all that, and I can’t paint anymore. Yet here we are, all these years later, living in a similar fashion. It’s still not a career, and it still doesn’t pay for itself.

But it’s a job that’s well worth doing.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Dymphna and I will be endeavoring to entertain you all over the next few days by regaling you with the odd jobs — some of them very odd — that kept us going over the years.

In the meantime, if you could make that tip cup ring with a doubloon or two, we both would be immensely grateful.

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.

10 thoughts on “Odd Jobs

    • Where did you dig up that one?? That’s a 20th century goldmine of conventional communist undermining of religious groups – not to mention his sidetrack into the ways they planned to resegregate and blacks and increase a wider class/cultural resentment.

      When I think of the small Methodist church in our neighborhood and Kornfeder’s references to the Circuit Riders (that was the Methodist preferred way of ‘spreading the Word’ in early times here in the US), I realize how urban Communism really was. It could never have flourished in rural areas in this country.

      That document is a historic artifact. I wonder if Diana West has seen it…

      • Big D. and Nick, good you brought that up. Time to finally take a look at the infiltration and distortion of religion itself.

        THE COMMUNIST BACKGROUND OF THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF CHURCHES
        http://www.autentico.org/oa09426.php

        “Dr. Harry F. Ward, known as the “Red Dean” of the Union Theological Seminary, was a leader in the founding of the Federal Council of Churches, the forerunner to the NCC. In a career spanning 40 years, Ward influenced hundreds of Protestant ministers and leaders to philosophical, if not outright Communism.”

        “Thus far, of the National Council of Churches of Christ in America, we have found over 100 persons in leadership capacity with either Communist-front records or records of service to Communist causes. The aggregate affiliations of the leadership, instead of being in the hundreds as first indicated, is now, according to the latest count, into the thousands, and we have yet to complete our check, which would certainly suggest…that there is infiltration of fellow travelers in churches and educational institutions is a complete understatement.”

        And to anyone who struggles to understand group behavior as a precise conspiracy, the next line could help you:

        ‘The chairman of these hearings, Francis Walter (D-PA) pointed out that: “This is not to say that these persons are necessarily consciously supporting Communist enterprises, but the net result is, for all practical purposes, the same.”‘

      • No, I hadn’t seen it, and very happy to read it now. Thanks, Nick!
        I would note that the Circuit Riders were among the “ultra” anti-Communist groups that were targeted by JFK/Johnson’s IRS in the mid-1960s — uncannily as the Tea Party groups are targeted today.

        • And remember the Roman Catholic hierarchy, their famously anti-Communist stance? While the heathen kids (read “Protestants”) in public schools learned to hide under their desks in practice runs for the atomic blast sure to come, we fish-eaters sat huddled in our desks, waiting for the Commie troops to batter the door down so they could shoot Sister Rose Edward (a sometimes cheery thought) and then haul off us kids to their camps.

          Oh – but there was an out: you could declare your allegiance to Communism and forfeit your faith, thereby saving your family and your own little 8 year-old self.

          The Commies at the door didn’t worry me because I’d worked out a deal with God: it was okay if I lied like a rug since I had only just made my First Communion & everyone knew that God gave little kids all the breaks. As long as I prayed for the poor people in Siberia, and the fleeing North Korean Catholics with the chopsticks shoved in their ears…(Reader’s Digest story, back in the day).

          With the application of enough prayer I was permitted to postpone the moment of reckoning until I was really old – like 21 or so.

          Never told Sister Rose Edward about my Plan B, though.

          Whew.

  1. As for Planet X – perhaps the thing about Diana West’s theory is not just that the reds infiltrated America at all levels – the more you read about it, the more you realise that’s a given. It’s her effort to link that to the current infiltration by groups like the Muslim Brotherhood. But here’s the thing (maybe): It’s the same people who are responsible for allowing it!

    Maybe that’s what did it – certain people who didn’t want light shone in that direction. And so they hold a big carry-on about the extent of Soviet infiltration in WWII and afterwards, so that everyone talks about that, & does not talk about what is actually going on today. Misdirection, disinformation, character assassination – tried and tested techniques, eh?

  2. As to the parallel which Diana West draws:

    Read “Desire To Control Or Destroy Other Organisations” (page 12), “Deception As A Method” (page 13) and “Always On The Offensive” (page 13).

    Here’s the link.”

    Any of that sound familiar?

  3. Have you seen Hillary Clinton’s photo listening to Huma giving her directions as what to do? Have you seen Hillary’s photo sitting beside Ihsanoglu (OIC). Have you seen OBama Hussein listening to Muslim Brotherhood members dictating to him how to plan the future for the prosperity of the Muslim Brotherhood. These are only a few glimpses of what is happening in the WH. They don’t even try to hide what they are doing, because they know Americans are in a coma, opiated. Religion Lenin said was the Opium of the masses. I wonder what is the Opium of the Western countries when they have no religion. Britain the most atheist country is the most opiated. Can we blame the communists and the Jews for that or the terrible TENOR of mind of the western politicians in general. They have become a species unto themselves: Unique in their goal of self-destructiveness and suicidal traits. We need some anthropologists to study the western politicians to see why they are readily servile to Islam and Muslims, just like poor old France and pitiable Britain and miserable very advanced, and very humanistic post-Christian values Norway and Sweden. Two very bad role models for other countries to follow.

    • I know, you used to be able to criticize one group or another by saying they were tories, or socialists, or whatever but nowadays they seem to have become a group dedicated to plain evil, who have absolutely no standards, follow no political doctrines, have no actual beliefs, and who are capable of absolutely anything in order to a) increase their power and b) destroy anything that is now or has ever been thought to be good.

      It’s enough to make one seriously consider the possibility of demonic possession.

Comments are closed.