RUTHFULLY YOURS

The Rally of Remembrance, which was organized by Pamela Geller and me as an effort of our Freedom Defense Initiative/Stop Islamization of America organization, featured a great deal that any truly objective reporter might have considered newsworthy. The foremost human interest story of the afternoon was the rousing speech given by Coptic Christian activist Joseph Nassralla. Nassralla garnered national attention last June at the first rally Geller and I hosted against the Ground Zero mosque, when Keith Olbermann and other hard-Left pseudo-journalists trumpeted and misrepresented a misunderstanding between Nassralla and some others in the crowd as a racial incident. Olbermann, Reason magazine’s Cathy Young, and other blinkered ideologues used this incident as proof that those who opposed the mosque were all racist, “Islamophobic” bigots. Indeed, many news outlets ignored the rally altogether except to note the alleged mistreatment of Nassralla.

But when Nassralla appeared at Saturday’s demonstration, declaring in impassioned terms his opposition to the mega-mosque, his love for America, and his grief at the persecution of Christians in Egypt, Olbermann and the others who had so earnestly publicized his alleged mistreatment at the June rally remained silent. Objective journalists, of course, would almost certainly have been interested in telling their audiences that Nassralla did not come away from the June incident believing that all mosque opponents were racists, and that he also was a featured speaker at Saturday’s rally against the mosque. But none of those mainstream media outlets that took note of the rally at all mentioned Nassralla’s presence.

There was more that was noteworthy about the Rally of Remembrance, also. Dutch freedom fighter Geert Wilders gave a ringing defense of New York’s tradition of “Dutch tolerance,” and explained why the Ground Zero mega-mosque would work against that tradition. The crowd enthusiastically received video messages from the great defender of America, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, and journalistic innovator Andrew Breitbart. Other highlights of the afternoon included inspiring addresses by talk radio luminaries Mike Gallagher and Steve Malzberg and Marine Corps veteran and North Carolina Congressional candidate Ilario Pantano.

But as far as the mainstream media is concerned, none of it happened at all. The media elites have lined up solidly behind the mosque, and are telling the uninformed and unwary that anyone who opposes the mosque is an enemy of religious freedom, a bigot, a racist, unwelcome in the company of decent people.

The only problem with this scenario is that the American people refuse to accept it – as illustrated by the thousands who attended the September 11 Rally of Remembrance against the Ground Zero mosque. The very fact of the Rally itself that the mainstream media seems so determined to ignore or minimize itself shows that the media’s propaganda line is failing. There is an ever-widening gap between the goals and agenda of the political elites, and those of ordinary Americans. And Americans are becoming more aware of that widening gap. Left without a voice in the mainstream, their voices silenced and their positions misrepresented, these Americans are increasingly seeing that “objective” journalists are anything but. The smearing of the seventy percent of Americans who oppose the mega-mosque as racists and bigots reflects the increasing estrangement between the goals of the elites and those of American citizens who are being increasingly shunted aside, ridiculed and scorned.

And so it is up to us. In the Age of Obama that we cannot depend upon our government to defend American principles and values, and we can’t depend on the media to depict incidents fairly. So we have to do it ourselves. We must take matters into our own hands – not in terms of vigilantism, but in regard to speaking out for those principles and values, and not resting until our voice is indeed heard. The rally and the ongoing controversy over the Ground Zero mosque show the weakness of the mainstream “politically correct” position. The mainstream media endlessly beats Americans over the head about the “moderate” Ground Zero mosque, and yet fewer people believe it than ever.

That means that the truth is getting out. Despite the media’s best efforts, the truth will not be successfully snuffed out. Americans will be heard.