“Martyrs” — That was one of the many signs on display during an NAACP and SEIU-sponsored rally that took place this weekend  in opposition to David and Charles Koch, CEO and Executive Vice-President, respectively, of Koch Industries and universal left wing hobgoblins. The ostensible reason for the demonstration was the brothers’ contributions to the American Legislative Exchange Council, a coalition of conservative state legislators which has become an object of antipathy for liberal political activists at publications like The Nation and groups like Common Cause, People for the American Way, NAACP, and dozens of others-many of which were present at this anti-Koch rally on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

For full coverage and many more pictures, read more after the jump.

This press conference/march intended to draw an analogy between the explicitly discriminatory laws in place in the American South during the Jim Crow era and what the left views as “racist” laws intended to verify the eligibility of voters casting ballots in national and local elections. Hence, the employment of symbolism hoping to evoke thoughts of the worst civil rights abuses of this nation’s past, including the murders of Congress of Racial Equality workers Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney. One of the signs crafted with this purpose in mind used a photograph that came to symbolize the Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike.

One of the main themes the organizers of this demonstration emphasized was the alleged oppressiveness of voting ID requirements, which they repeatedly attempted to compare to discriminatory poll taxes levied against black citizens in large swathes of the American South prior to the enactment of the 24th Amendment to the Constitution.

Leaving aside the hyperbolic nature of this campaign, it’s not an especially convincing argument, especially since none of the voter identification laws-either proposed or enacted-would require voters to pay anything in order to obtain a proper ID, should they not already have one. Jay Nordlinger dissected some of the more spurious arguments posited in opposition to these laws in a National Review article published several years ago. Honestly, the opinions of skeptics in this regard don’t seem to be especially important to the organizations behind the anti-voter ID crusade, because the aim is to energize Democratic, left wing voters who view any such laws with absolute derision. So it shouldn’t have surprised anyone that local Democratic officeholders, such as ethics paragons John Liu  and Charles Rangel, were in attendance.

Also present was the current president of the New York State NAACP, Hazel Dukes. An opponent of charter schools and friend of the United Federation of Teachers-another enthusiastic backer of this event-Dukes is probably best remembered for her troubled tenure at the head of New York City’s Off-Track Betting, which was marked by corruption, racism and incompetence.

Apparently, none of that was enough to dissuade John Liu from giving Ms. Dukes a hearty embrace. I’m not sure if she used her pet name for Comptroller Liu, although the two share a troubling laxity with regard to overseeing their employees and abiding by seemingly prosaic ethical standards so they doubtless found many ripe topics for conversation.

Harlem Congressman Charlie Rangel was also there, completing the sound stewardship of public funds by NY Democrats trifecta.

One of the chief sponsors of this rally was Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, which sent one of its representatives to the rally. No one seemed to note the irony of a rally against “racist laws” being endorsed by an organization largely responsible for instigating the climate that led to the massacre at Freddy’s Fashion Mart. Apparently, the political power Sharpton wields within the Democratic Party today outweighs any concerns about his dubious past.

One of the fliers distributed at the press conference that preceded the march highlighted the states which had enacted some form of voter identification and verification. The speaker below tried to emphasize the purported threat to voting rights these laws presented to putatively disenfranchised minorities.

Anthony Romero, the Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, tried to emphasize that this was not a “partisan” event, but in reality…

The impression of an Obama reelection pep rally was palpable.

Bob Edgar, the CEO of Common Cause-a left wing 501(c)3 which lobbies for unconstitutional things like McCain-Feingold-was another one of the featured speakers at Saturday’s press conference. The absurdity of an organization that opposes the First Amendment denouncing constitutionally protected things like lobbying for more rigorous voter ID laws was lost on most of the crowd.

Although there were very few Muslims that came to the anti-Koch rally, our old friend Talib Abdur-Rashid was given a prime speaking slot to denounce what perceives to be attacks on minority voting rights.

One of the largest contingents at the event-which attracted several hundred people-was formed by the United Federation of Teachers. The president of the UFT, Michael Mulgrew, gave a speech attempting to draw a parallel between the Occupy Wall Street Movement and events like this anti-Koch rally. Both share common goals-and until recently, lockers.

Although the signs are new:

The demonstration included an unwieldy grab bag of leftist special interest groups, including the National Organization of Woman. NOW president Terry O’Neill  attempted to link new voters laws to attempts by pro-life legislatures to restrict access to abortion.

There were also representatives of Hispanic advocacy groups, which shouldn’t be surprising considering the continued national discussion over how-or, if you’re the Obama administration, whether-to enforce immigration law.

The open borders lobby, although considerably smaller than the group of union activists and NAACP workers, was an eager participant in the subsequent march to the United Nations.

Our good friends from the Minkwon Center:

Something tells me that the sign below isn’t entirely accurate.

But perhaps the most ubiquitous presence at this rally was supporters of the NAACP. President and CEO Benjamin Jealous gave the standard speech, not markedly different from any of his colleagues.

For what it’s worth, the organization did do a competent job of organizing local affiliates of the national organization:

There was one seemingly valid argument to be found at this event, notwithstanding the reservations expressed above. The question of whether convicted felons should be stripped of the franchise in perpetuity-and what classes of felonies should be subject to this penalty-is a necessary debate, especially with the increasing growth of federal criminal penalties that attach themselves to crimes that were never before within the purview of the federal government. While most people would find the thought of Charles Manson or Mumia Abu-Jamal casting a ballot deeply troubling, to say the least, I doubt that there would be many objections to restoring the rights of individuals who have been rejoined society after committing a nonviolent offense many years before. However, that is a far cry from demanding that convicted criminals be reenfranchised en masse.

One of the main motifs of this march, and the movement in general, harkens back to the height of the Civil Rights Era in the 1960s. Because there are very few actual victims of laws intended to thwart voting by illegal aliens and felons-and the cause of allowing people prohibited from voting back into the electoral process is not nationally popular-using vivid images of iconic victims of civil rights violations is necessary. And although well-designed, they’re probably not persuasive to the extent hoped for by their creators. Then again, these signs are not necessarily aimed at convincing undecided voters but rather energizing those who already subscribe to this very dubious analogy.

Several of the demonstrators did appear to be old enough to have participated in actual civil rights struggles…

Although those who were not at least had some knowledge of the aims of the civil rights movement and its leaders, such as Chief Counsel to the NAACP and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.

However, there was still a sizable number of people there simply to voice their anger at the Koch brothers, attempting-with limited success-to tie this demonstration into the Occupy Wall Street movement.

As well as local struggles between organized labor and municipalities in other parts of the country:

Apparently this quip wasn’t self-evident. At least, to the person holding aloft a sign spelling out the Koch family name phonetically.

Tomorrow, more pictures from the Two Minutes Hate.

Update: New photos, and full video coverage, at  The Silent Majority.
 

Today I decided to return to my old stomping grounds at Brooklyn College in order to witness a lecture delivered by acclaimed polemicist, writer, political and human rights activist, and former leader of the new left, David Horowitz. Invited to speak by student leader Yosef Sobel, and sponsored by Professor  Langbert-both of whom can be seen below-Mr. Horowitz delivered an impassioned, but unerringly rational, defense of freedom of speech, pluralism, and diversity, all values under attack in the Middle East and on American campuses-the primary theme of the evening. 

He began by noting the extreme impediments he-and the people who attended his lecture-had to overcome in order to simply be in attendance. A particularly sarcastic Muslim student interrupted his introductory remarks-something that would recur approximately a dozen times during his hour long speech-to ask him why such security measures were necessary. His cogent response that these steps were “what checkpoints are about, making people feel safer,” brought a thunderous round of applause from the audience. I can attest to the thoroughness of the examination each person had to undergo before being admitted to the event. If only the federal government were as efficacious and watchful as the people providing security for David Horowitz, we wouldn’t even have to worry about potential domestic terror attacks. 

Mr. Horowitz noted the planned-but ultimately abandoned-attempt by the International Socialist Organization to thwart his speech, making the point that college campuses have now become “the political base of the fascist left in this country,” and asserting that they were imperiling the foundation of our freedoms, which is the “ability to disagree in a civil manner.” This fact was reinforced by the spectacle of repeated disruptions to his speech by Muslim students, possibly members of  a campus chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood offshoot known as the Muslim Students Association. The man seen below, who refused to condemn Hamas when confronted by Horowitz during the concluding part of his post-speech Q&A, is a perfect illustration of the intolerance pro-Israel, pro-American students face on a daily basis. 

He was assisted in his failed effort at sabotaging Brooklyn College’s guest speaker by several female Muslims seated at the back of the audience. 

Despite the adversarial nature of this segment of the audience, David Horowitz was able to continue with his presentation, the second part of which gave those willing to listen a brief history lesson in the contemporary Middle East, which he correctly pointed out was a colonial creation resulting from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, a fact that most pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli radicals refuse to admit, even as they deny the historic ties of Jews to the Holy Land. 

Refuting the libelous accusation that Israel, a land where Arab-Muslims enjoy more rights and freedoms than anywhere else on the planet, is somehow an “apartheid state,” he proclaimed that the opposite is the case, and that “the whole Arab Middle East is apartheid,” bolstering his assertion by recounting the eviction of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip by Hamas, which destroyed their agricultural equipment-equipment that was responsible for providing Gaza with 10 percent of its Gross National Product. 

He linked the two strands of his argument together by describing the enormous obstacles he encountered when attempting to place an ad exploring the true nature of the Islamic Middle East in the UC Daily Bruin-the official campus newspaper of UCLA-whose editors labeled the proposed ad defamatory. He then questioned the Daily Bruin representative as to how delineating the actual stance of Hezbollah, Hamas, and  Palestinian and Egyptian clerics was beyond the pale, while the regular vituperation directed against Israel and Jews was halal. Of course, he never received a satisfactory answer to his question. However, you can visit the Palestinian Wall of Lies and judge for yourself the validity of the accusations routinely lodged by  ”Israeli apartheid” campaigners during their week of denunciation and vitriol. 

One of the chief laments of David Horowitz throughout his speech was the lack of support he receives from mainstream, institutionalized Judaism within the United States. He cited as a glaring example of this problem campus Hillels, which should be a defensive bulwark against pro-Islamic, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic propaganda, yet routinely refuse to engage in the war that’s being waged against them by radical leftists and organizations such as the Muslim Students Association. He also broadened his attack to include the “interfaith” organizations that attempt to reach out to radical Muslim organizations, notwithstanding their checkered history. 

The overall impression I had of the event, despite the repeated disruptions by anti-Horowitz, anti-Israel and anti-American agitators planted liberally throughout the auditorium, and a very pessimistic message delivered by the keynote speaker, was one of perseverance. David Horowitz reiterated the necessity of fighting for your beliefs, in spite of the long odds and remote chance of success, and standing up for classical liberalism and the ideals upon which our nation’s founding fathers established this country. I went away from the evening undeterred and hopeful that there remained a cadre of young students willing to engage in intellectual combat in order to see what they believe is right prevails, both on their own college campus and within the country as a whole. 

One of the biggest misconceptions in the debate over our nation’s immigration policy is the notion that in order to be a good Christian or a decent Jew you need to support a policy of open borders in perpetuity. Although the link between a partisan political agenda and belief in the scriptural teachings of a given religion might be hard to discern for most neutral observers, the vast majority of the religious establishment in this country has nevertheless made this connection a focal point of their vocations.

Whether it’s a United Methodist Church in Chicago sheltering the noxious illegal alien Elvira Arellano,  the Roman Catholic Church’s seemingly implacable quest to foist amnesty upon a resistant American public, despite its utterly discredited leadership, or the Progress by Pesach campaign launched by liberal rabbinical leaders in this country, there would appear to be unanimity among America’s clerical and rabbinical hierarchy on the topic of immigration. 

I broach this subject now because of a fascinating discussion I recently had on Facebook with Professor Carol M. Swain, the brilliant conservative immigration enforcement activist and political science professor from Vanderbilt University. She obliquely alluded to some comments made by Richard D. Land, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission-whose logo is reproduced above-with which she vehemently disagreed. I could only assume that these comments were related to Mr. Land’s vocal support for amnesty legislation. 

Although the discrepancy between the views of religious leaders and their congregants, re: immigration, has been empirically demonstrated by respected pollsters, there is still a tendency among the public to defer to men and women of the cloth when they begin to expound upon our obligation to the “pilgrim” or “refugee.” This is an egregious error in judgment, in my opinion.

Despite the fact that the Lutheran Church is now often associated with liberal causes-such as the sanctuary movement revived by open borders advocates masquerading as pastors-this reverend makes one of the more compelling, persuasive Christian arguments in opposition to the movement aiding illegal aliens living in this country. And as hard as it may be to conceive of, there are other voices that dissent from the current orthodoxy, as this essay by Mark Tooley, President of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, demonstrates.

The notion that Judaism or Christianity are synonymous with a specific immigration policy advocated by liberal political figures with religious facades is simply false. The more people expose the fallacies in this way of thinking the closer we’ll be to having a real examination of the problems that porous borders and weak interior immigration enforcement pose to our country. The leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops are on the wrong track, and they need to be told so by their flock. Unfettered immigration and indifference to criminal behavior are not Christian values, and no one should be deceived into believing they are.