Posted on 11/14/2006 3:09:34 PM PST by Pyro7480
Today, I attended a lecture at the headquarters of the Heritage Foundation by Robert Spencer, author of various books on the threat of radical Islam. His lecture lasted for about 40 minutes. As I've noticed on his website, Jihad Watch, in his columns, and in a recent interview with Brian Lamb on CSPAN, Mr. Spencer is very knowledgeable on Islamic theology, history, and radical groups. I truly enjoyed his discussion. (If you want to watch it, go to The Truth About Muhammad. It is available in streaming video, streaming mp3, and downloadable mp3.)
The lecture itself went on without incident. It was during the Q&A period that things started to unravel. The first few questions were on various topics, and Spencer gave insightful answers and commentary. It was one of the last questions that exposed the "infiltrators" amongst the audience.
A young woman wearing a hat, named Megan ("from Boston"), brought up the subject of child marriage, which Spencer had mentioned when talking about the bad example Muhammad has given to his followers to this day. She asked him if "Republican Congressman Mark Foley was perhaps under the influence of the evil teachings of Muhammad." Spencer laughed at the question, and bluntly said "No." Members of the audience also laughed at her question, most likely because of its sheer absurdity. Spencer expanded on his answer, and said, "I never said that child molestation or pedophilia or anything of the kind was exclusively the province of Muslims.... I disapprove of it [this kind of conduct] from Mark Foley or anyone else" (If you want to hear this complete exhange, watch the streaming video on the link above, and using the scroll at the bottom of Windows Media Player, forward the time index to 58:01, and it follows from about 58:10 on.)
Spencer answered one more question about whether Islam could under go a reform movement like the Protestant Reformation (and made a slightly-veiled jab at Unitarian and Episcopalian "Christianity" and in the process - Spencer himself is a Catholic of the Melkite rite). After he finished his answer, the moderator for the lecture, the director of lectures and seminars for the Heritage Foundation, announced that the time for Q&A was up. As he was closing out the lecture, a young man who had has hand up for the entire latter half of the Q&A period stood up and whined loudly about how he hadn't been called on. The lecture director, in response, stated that he was welcome to talk to Spencer afterwards, and then thanked Mr. Spencer for his presentation, which started a round of applause.
Following the applause, people started to file out of the large auditorium at the Heritage Foundation. The man who had been complaining continued to shout, and as I made my way out to the lobby outside the auditorium to get my copies of Spencer's books signed, I started to hear singing. It sounded like some kind of protest song/jingle. I didn't really know what they were singing about at the time, but upon the reviewing the streaming video at the link above (starting at the 1:02:00 mark), the words were something like "Mr. Cheney, something something World War Three, one hundred thousand something die, that's like Nazi genocide." The song, of course, continued.) Between the Foley question and the jingle singers, it became pretty obvious that there were a handful of leftists that were bent on causing some kind of disruption at the lecture.
The disruption continued out in the lobby. A line formed in front of a table so Mr. Spencer could sign books. The man who hadn't been called on (and I have a feeling that lecture organizers had been warned in advance about this guy) came up to the side of the table, and started to rant about how Spencer supposedly supported the mass killing of Muslims, and how he couldn't see why so many people came out to hear him speak.
I was near the head of the line for the book signing, and in close proximity to the whiner, and I quickly got fed up with his rantings. I said to him that he basing his whole rant on a false premise, and that I was offended that he thought so poorly of the people who attended the lecture. The whiner, of course, came back with a lame retort (I can't remember the whole exchange word-for-word). Soon afterwards, Mr. Spencer signed my books. He asked him to personalize one book, and when he got to the other, I said he didn't have to personalize that one. He asked if I was sure, and I said I just didn't want to burden him and the people waiting in the line. He went ahead and personalized the second book as well. He was very friendly.
As I left the line, I noticed that the lecture director was escorting "Megan from Boston" from out of the auditorium. She left without incident. However, the young whiner continued his rant, and finally, he too was asked to leave. Some of the Heritage staff and the people who attended the event tried to get him to leave, and with some difficulty, he moved towards the hallway where the elevators were.
I wasn't paying complete attention to the whiner and his "escorts" as they moved towards the elevators, since I wanted to get some of the food and drinks that Heritage had on hand. Suddenly, I heard shouting from the hallway. I went over to see what was going on. I saw the whiner from before trying to hang on to a corner in the hallway as a Heritage staffer escorted him out. He kept on shouting that he was being hurt.
A few minutes later, the U.S. Capitol Police showed up (the Heritage Foundation is only a block and a half away from one of the Senate office buildings). They interviewed the whiner, the staffers involved, and probably some of the witnesses who saw the whole thing go down. After some time, he was finally escorted out of the building by the police.
According Robert Spencer's own post on Jihad Watch about his lecture, the infiltrators "turned out to be followers of cult leader Lyndon LaRouche. They also showed up at an event in Boston at which I spoke several weeks ago, so I wouldn't be surprised if I see them again soon. The song seems to have been a variant of the one they used to disrupt a debate between Lamont, Lieberman, and the Republican guy in Connecticut a few weeks ago, although I doubt they sang about me in front of Lieberman."
Robert Spencer ping!
What's the link between LaRouche and pro-islam sentiment?
Robert Spencer was on Laura Ingraham early am.
Always very informative.
When idiots like the LaRouche cult try to disrupt Spencer, you know he is speaking the truth.
I know a La Rouche follower. Looney.
It seems LaRouche thinks
Spencer's spreading "fascism"
and LaRouche has his
LaRouche "youth movement" [!]
out there fighting back. This stuff
really should be filmed
for some TV show.
They just need to get some girls
to take their shirts off . . .
Anything that detracts from the truth the Queen of England runs the world will be challenged...
Thanks for posting this. I never knew that LaRouche people supported the jihadists; good to know!
I don't know, but from looking at the Wikipedia entry on the LaRouche movement, the "LaRouchans" hate Cheney (and I know this from prior experience as well), and call for "US/Philippine withdrawal from Iraq."
It seems LaRouche thinks
the anti-Islam people
really are just pawns
of Dick Cheney and
Cheney's attempt to promote
"total war" thinking.
(LaRouche also thinks
the Ayn Rand Institute is
part of Cheney's mob!)
Wow, nice find on the link you posted. Where/how did you find that?
I overheard someone at the reception in the lobby spouting out something like that. I think there were more LaRouchans in there than I thought!
I went to law school with a guy who dropped out to join La Rouche. Looney in spades.
LaRouche is not shy!
He has three websites (at least!)
that are all indexed
and all can be searched.
If you've got enough tin foil,
put it on and look:
Main LaRouche site/EIR News
21st Century Science and Technology
Schiller Institute
DC area ping!
That makes sense. Laura's studio is in the Heritage Foundation building.
I believe the line was that the queen of England controls the world drug trade.
Lyndon LaRouche may be a fringe lunatic. But many of his ideas have passed from the fringes to the core of the Democratic Party.
I haven't seen these loons since we freeped Murtha when he appeared with Moran.
Hilarious image! Reminds me of my next-door neighbor when we were kids, whenever her parents tried to take her to the orthodontist.
Thanks for the ping and the informative Spencer links, Pyro!
The Lyndon LaRouchies popped up when the Dems took the tack against Rumsfeld's formation of the "office of special plans" to which they credited all manner of conspiracies and power; one LaRouchie in particular was Karen Kwiatkowski, an Air Force lt colonel who became Ted Kennedy's main "source" against the administration. Nevermind that she was utterly clueless about what the office did or what was going on in it- she could spin some great tales. But she got names wrong, and a whole lot else wrong, and her mistakes gave her away. She wrote a few Michael Moore type articles for LaRouche's magazine and for others of a similar bent. Plug her name into the keywords and take a look.
There was also a weird murder incident in Europe involving the LaRouchies- who are apparently much more acceptable overseas than they used to be here.
Looking back at the Niger/Plame affair it seemed there were a number of LaRouche connections there- the LaRouchies seem to have infiltrated defense and CIA to a fair degree. The far left part of the Democrat Party has been totally snowed under with these boobs.
Ramsey Clarke is in with the LaRouche bunch.
There seem to be a number of muslims associated with the group.
"They back up my account of the story here and here."
You don't need backup. The LaRouchies showed up at another Heritage lecture about a year ago, one which was broadcast live on C-SPAN from start to finish.
IIRC the speaker was Newt Gingrich.
Anyway, I'd guess there were about 5 to 10 LaRouchies in the audience and it quickly became apparent. Their "questions" weren't really questions but rather ridiculous non-sequiters, illogically formed quips, just plain stupid questions and statements, etc. It quickly became obvious that this was a cabal of disruptors, and Newt being an experienced speaker and former college teacher (these were all college-aged kids) started taking them down pretty neatly. He was polite but effective. But there were too many and they sucked-up valuable time during the Q&A.
From your story it seems that Heritage now knows who they are and makes an effort to keep them away from the microphone.
See my #26 above.
See my #26 above.
For years LaRouche cultists would set up shop outside of the DMV office. Going to the DMV is bad enough without running a gauntlet of LaRouche-bats.
But when I picked up a book on history to scan through, not only did I see the well-known (now) belief that the Queen of England is the head of the international drug trade (which was after all based on the Opium Wars of 1839-1840), but then he went on to claim that rather than being persecuted and being nearly annihilated by the Sovet tyranny, the Russian Orthodox Church was itself the secret power behind the Soviet dictatorship. Since the Communists had massacred tens of millions of Orthodox Chistians and destroyed tens of thousands of Orthodox churches, this was as absurd as claiming that, by analogy, the Jews were the secret power behind the Nazis.
So when I objected to LaRouche's distortions of history and said one sentence: "they need to do something about this guy" (meaning that people need to know what a nutcase he is and refute his arguments instead of assuming he is some sort of ally in the cultural wars), the people started shouting about how I was threatening to kill him, and one of them ran off to find a police to arrest me. So I just laughed at their sheer stupidity, and the other people gathered around made it clear they thought the LaRouchies were crazy too.
I am sorry to see that they are still around causing problems.
I don't remember
who I heard say it, but some
Clinton official [!]
once said on CSPAN
that the Schiller Institute
gets Vatican funds.
The "deep" tin foil view
is that England is at war
with the Vatican
and "world politics"
(as us normal folks see it)
is only "cut outs"
of this larger war.
Conspiracy Nation posts
sometimes bring this out--
"Why is LaRouche so locked-in with Clinton, ignoring all evidence against him? One guess is that LaRouche is a stooge for the Vatican and that because Clinton has defied (supposedly) the "special arrangement" between Great Britain and the United States, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" may apply. In other words, some say that Vatican and British Empire are engaged in a final battle for control of the world. So if Clinton defies the British, that somehow makes him okay with Vatican stooge LaRouche."
LOL! Nevermind the fact that the Pope chastised Clinton for his stance on abortion.
Nice work.
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