As Gates of Vienna is reporting, Hans Erling Jensen created an excellent business model for selling the prints. He thoroughly understands viral marketing on the internet, and the involvement of prominent Counterjihad blogs in the effort would have provided significant international exposure and guaranteed a large volume of sales. Offering the bloggers a commission while they served a good cause assured their willing participation.

Unfortunately, Hans did not have the final say in how things would be done at the Foundation: that was up to the Board of Directors. Not long after the launch of the initiative, the Board had second thoughts, and shut the viral sales program down.

Europe News has written a brief explanation of what happened:

Goodbye to the Westergaard Foundation

It was with great fanfare that the Westergaard Foundation was announced on May 2nd, 2011. Unfortunately, significant internal trouble developed immediately afterwards. Here is a short roundup of what happened, and why the drawing is no longer available for sale at an international network of blogs, as was the original intention.

The concept was simple and attractive:

• Kurt Westergaard created an original watercolour painting entitled ”Free Speech”.
• Signed prints of the drawing could be purchased for €100 apiece, affordable for most everyone interested in supporting Free Speech.
• An international network of blogs would carry the banner and a PayPal link, so that the readers could easily order the print. A raw list of some 50 blogs was to be the initial network.
• The seller’s blog would receive a €30 commission for promotion of the Foundation.
• The remaining €70 (minus a small handling fee) would go into the Foundation.
• The Foundation, in turn, would use the funds to award prizes to artists in need of support due to what they have expressed, providing both publicity and money for the artist.

The press conference on May 2nd was well attended, with Hans Erling Jensen, Erik Guldager, Kurt Westergaard and Farshad Kholghi presenting the project. The presentation took place at Galleri Draupner in Skanderborg, Denmark, owned by Erik Guldager.

The same evening Erik Guldager and Kurt Westergaard presented the project on Danish national television, in four-minute segment displaying the painting and describing the project in a nutshell. The presentation was recorded and immediately translated into English by volunteers, to promote the Foundation internationally.

As a consequence of the television appearance, public interest soared. Unfortunately the web sites behind the project were not yet operational: The Galleri Draupner web site did not have the PayPal link up, the Westergaard Foundation web site was not online — and at the time of writing still isn’t. As an emergency measure, to accommodate all the incoming orders, a redirect to Eticha, the home page of Hans Erling Jensen, was established. 198 prints were sold between May 2nd and May 5th, after which Hans Erling no longer had access to follow the sales stream.

In the week following the press conference, the following sites featured the banner and the PayPal link selling prints of the Free Speech painting on May 5th 2011:

• Eticha
• Politically Incorrect
• EuropeNews English
• EuropeNews German
• Vlad Tepes Blog
• International Civil Liberties Alliance
• Gates of Vienna
• Sajdet.dk
• Hodjanernes blog

Many other web sites had expressed their interest, but were awaiting further information or PayPal codes. It is worth noting that neither Galleri Draupner or the Westergaard Foundation web sites had the banner up, in spite of Galleri Draupner being the first to receive the necessary PayPal code after the account had been established on April 28th.

At a meeting on Friday, May 6th 2011, the board of the Westergaard Foundation (Erik Guldager, Kurt Westergaard and Peter Andersen) decided to change the strategy of the Foundation. Hans Erling Jensen, whom Erik Guldager had charged with organizing international sales, was not invited to the meeting. In a statement sent to Hans Erling Jensen, Erik Guldager stated that since, ostensibly, only 3-4 sales outlets had been established, that the original premises of the project had thus not been fulfilled, and for that reason a wholly new strategy had to be adopted by the board. Notably, no expectations for the number of sales outlets had been published in advance.

Under the new strategy, only Galleri Draupner is to have the Free Speech drawing up for sale, and all other sales outlets were to terminate immediately, and no later than Monday, May 9th 2011, after which any sales made would not be honoured. However, the sales outlets were not informed by Erik Guldager, who has made no public statement about the change of strategy, even after repeated requests by contributing volunteers that Erik should explain the changes publicly.

As for the sales already made: Due to the Westergaard Foundation and Draupner web sites not being ready at the time of launch, Eticha carried the bulk of the sales immediately after the May 2nd press conference. Hans Erling Jensen, owner of the Eticha web site, expects that the promise of a 30% share of the sales will be honoured by Erik Guldager, and states that all of this money will in turn be applied directly to an international forum promoting and defending Free Speech, in line with the original intention of the Westergaard Foundation.

If you have purchased a Free Speech print, we recommend that you:

1) Verify that it arrives in a timely manner. Orders are currently being honoured, all prints should be in the mail within a week.

2) Make sure the print arrives in good shape, as there have been some reports of suboptimal envelopes for the prints.

3) Follow the Westergaard Foundation web site to stay up to date on how the money generated by the sales is being applied. At the time of writing, at least 200 prints have been sold. Deducting the 30% share for the seller, this leaves € 14,000 in the Foundation. This would enable the Foundation to award decent prizes to relevant artists in the name of Free Speech.

During the preparations for the launch of the Westergaard Foundation, Erik Guldager received support and contributions from many volunteers, above all Hans Erling Jensen, but internal correspondence has made it clear that only Erik Guldager and the other two board members have the right to act on behalf of the Foundation. For this reason, any correspondence, questions and complaints should be directed to Erik Guldager of Galleri Draupner (erik@guldager.net), as he is at the moment the only responsible representative and sales point of the Westergaard Foundation.

In sum, the initially announced international Kurt Westergaard Free Speech campaign is no more, and the banner has been taken down. We expect that Erik Guldager will document the number of sales, in particular those made from May 5th up until today, and pay out the promised 30% bonus to all blogs involved, including Eticha.dk.

(Source: Gates of Vienna)

At “Political Post Publish”, political bloggers debate with each other, and the result is pleasingly different from the usual talk show monotony. Actually, an open slot hasn’t been found yet, but the pilot program that showed in October is available online and stirs up the desire for more:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Under the title “Is Germany really eliminating itself?”, Alexander Rackow of cdu-politik.de, Manfred Kleine-Hartlage (author of the book “The System of Jihad” of korrektheiten.com and Michael Kerzel of the liberal buergerclub-deutschland.de about the German immigration policy. The participants debated very professionally and with arguments that one otherwise aren’t brought up in the mainstream media, and they allowed each other to finish speaking. The attempts by the moderator Clemens Kahlke to lead the discussion down the path of political correction remained only that. (Kahlke: “Isn’t it careless to simply wipe away the … achievements of a successful policy of integration with such a statement as ‘Multiculti is dead’?” – Kleine-Hartlage: “What achievements?”)

A talk show where the blogosphere has it’s say, and in which the well trodden paths of the so-called “public discourse” are left behind: That has a future! We hope that it doesn’t just remain an idea, but that TV Berlin will truly one day broadcast this format.

(Photo above, left to right: Manfred Kleine-Hartlage, Alexander Rackow, Clemens Kahlke and Michael Kerzel / Translation: Anders Denken)

(By the Editrix)

Maybe one of these days Islam will go through this reformation period I’ve been seeing people suggest. I hope so. The way things stand now, the religion as a whole is a breeding ground for fanaticism. Very few redeeming qualities to it, in relative terms, compared to the capacity for intolerance and hate that are etched across so many of its Korans pages. Until it is brought into the civilized world, it will remain a savage anachronism. Unfortunately, the only thing that is going to bring about any kind of systemic change is hardship, tragedy, and failure. Understanding, tolerance, and acceptance ain’t going to cut it with them, because far too many of them, including even among the ones who are not terrorist, nor for that matter even violent, see such things as signs of weakness.

My reply:

TPT, very thoughtful words! I once believed if not in a reformation of Islam (I never gave it a thought) but in assimilation of Muslims. How naive I was. The danger is not just Islam as we perceive it now, the danger is that any nice, assimilated Muslim living in the West is a potential time bomb. The re-Islamisation as well of countries (Turkey is a more recent example, Iran another one) as of individuals is frightening. There are countless examples in your country where formerly peaceful, assimilated Muslims suddenly “freak out” and commit murder. And I do not believe they are deliberately planted “sleepers”, I think they are just behaving to Islam’s intrinsic quality.

You (plural as in “you Americans”) are still pretty relaxed about it because the number of Muslims in your country is, yet and just, relatively small. Estimates range from 2.5 million to 7 million, which includes (I presume) “Black Muslims”. To get a feeling what is going on here in Europe, you’d need at least a (Middle Eastern and Turkish) Muslim population of 15 to 20 million. Think Dearborn, Michigan, but applied to several important large regions of your country.

The problem is that it is the very core of the Free West that lets them become the threat they are. Here I discuss the facts that only a certain small percentage of Muslims is tolerable before they start to damage their host society and that a secular totalitarian system will keep them at bay. That is not a plea for a secular totalitarian system, but a plea for self protection of the, yet and just, Free West.

The three basic facts about Islam every Westerner who cherishes his freedom and liberties ought to know are:

• There is a decisive limit for the size of a Muslim minority in Western societies that is tolerable before it will start to damage the host society. It seems to be not higher than 3%.
• Everything once owned by Muslims, however briefly and however long ago, is considered Muslim property. That applies to territory as well as to a person’s mind.
• Taqquiya is an intrinsic part of Islam. Taqquiya allows Muslims to say whatever furthers the cause of Islam, lies, deception, the breach of treaties are seen as the first line of attack in jihad.

Never (but NEVER!) forget that when dealing with Muslims. Everything else is a self-deceptive lie. Here in Germany with about 4 million Muslims, i.e. 5% of the population, the line between taqquia and open demands for supremacy has already become blurred, as it has in the UK, where the vast majority live in England and Wales: of 1,591,000 Muslims recorded at the 2001 Census form 3% of the population there. Otherwise notoriously up-to-date Wikipedia offers no more recent data. You may extrapolate.

Some examples from this blog here and here and here and here and here and here and here, and here, and here dating from 2006 to 2009.

1. JTF is a legal organization in the United States and Israel. JTF has a popular television program in the U.S., which broadcasts four times a week. JTF has web sites in English and in Hebrew, and JTF has forums in English and in Hebrew. JTF has produced hundreds of videos which have hundreds of thousands of viewers.

2. Niggemeier falsely accuses JTF of being a terrorist group. In fact, JTF is an anti-terrorist organization which exposes the dangers of Islamic terrorism. It is Niggemeier who supports terrorism by attacking anyone who dares to tell the truth about Muslim terror.

3. Niggemeier falsely accuses JTF of racism. JTF is the ultimate anti-racist organization, fighting against the most notorious racism in history, which is anti-Semitism. Isn’t it, on the other hand, Jew-hating racism to support the Muslim Nazis – like Niggemeier does – that seek to exterminate little Israel and commit a holocaust against 5 million Israeli Jews? The Muslim Nazis are the heirs to the legacy of the Third Reich. Anyone who defends the Muslim Nazis is promoting a new holocaust against the Jewish people. The anti-Semitism of the modern Leftists is the ugliest form of racism known to humanity.

4. Niggemeier attacks me personally for leading a campaign to liberate Soviet Jewry. In the 1980s, I damaged Soviet diplomatic property to bring worldwide attention to the fact that Soviet Jews were being held hostage behind the Iron Curtain of oppression and injustice. No one was killed or injured in any of my actions, and there was no intention to kill or injure. I spent five and a half years in prison for damaging Soviet property. Niggemeier calls what I did “terrorism”, but he will not condemn the Muslim PLO and Fatah who brutally murdered thousands of innocent men, women and children, and who continue to commit acts of mass murder to this day. Niggemeier’s hypocrisy and double standard further prove that he is a Jew-hating defender of Muslim terrorism.

But the real issue in the dispute between Niggemeier and PI is Europe’s future:

- If you believe that tens of millions of Muslims should be permitted to flood into Europe, then you should support Niggemeier. But if you recognize that this policy is suicidal, then you should support and
join PI.

- If you are concerned about the fact that the Muslims have the highest birth rate in the world, and that Europeans have the lowest birth rate in the world, then you should support and join PI.

- If you are concerned about the fact that hundreds of thousands of European youth are converting to Islam, then you should support and join PI.

- If you are concerned about the fact that Western nations are sending trillions of dollars to Muslim terrorist regimes because of the West’s addiction to oil, then you should support and join PI.

PI is a weblog that has the courage to say publicly what most Europeans privately think. Every sane European should salute the PI-authors for the vital work that they are doing to save Europe and the world from a catastrophe.

(Statement by Chaim ben Pesach, JTF National Chairman, picture above)