I didn’t make a post yesterday, but I did re-organize the Anvil a bit more; hopefully for the better. And the day before that I worked almost all day and created a mirror site of the Anvil at Foehammer.com for safe-keeping of future articles that I post here, and also to accommodate those readers on slow connections. It’s also Digg-able, unlike Foehammer.net itself. You can just call it Foehammer, or how I affectionately like to refer to it, Foehammer Lite.
I wonder if I should put a countdown ticker on that mirror to measure how long it takes for it to be banned by Digg?
Right now I feel as if my head is going to pop. I’m running this show by myself and I’ve barely had a day off from the anti-jihad burn since January. It’s taking its toll, I have to admit. I’ve been thinking about it a lot the past few days, so I wanted to articulate it here in a brief entry.
This fight takes a lot. It takes sacrifice. It causes division. It worries your friends and family and neighbors. Let me tell you something — those symptoms right there are all evidence that Islam isn’t any “religion of peace.” And if that’s not enough, the trickle of traffic to this site, despite the fact that I’ve tripled my efforts to find ways to draw traffic here, has left me with no doubt that the Western world is living in a state of dangerous denial.
I hardly blame most people for not wanting to visit sites like the Anvil though. There are many days I don’t want to visit it either.
I haven’t quite reached anti-jihad-blogging-burnout yet, but I’m feeling the pain and the fatigue.
This is a job for coffee, man…
Podcasts Archive
FH,
I know what you mean by burnout. I suffer from it as well. Part of my fatigue is the fact that much of the time I’m preaching to the choir.
I think that I’ve been flagged as a hate site by Blogger, because I’m not getting the Google referrals that I used to get. Still, from time to time, somebody I’ve been unaware of emails me with words of encouragement. Also, I have homeschool parents and students who regularly read my blog and the various links there. Furthermore, when I teach world studies, I find a way to show the film Obsession.
The West will remain in denial until “the bad thing” happens. Far leftists will never come to their senses, but “the bad thing” will bring liberals to an awake state.
It is important for us counter-jihadists to remain strong. Yes, take a break now and then, and afterwards come back even stronger. Muslims are patient. We must be too!
If you want to pick up some more readership try posting some comments at my site, at Infidel Bloggers Alliance, and Maverick News Media. I can’t guarantee results, but I’m willing to bet that you’ll pick ups some additional readership. Friday’s radio show may also help with readership of your excellent blog.
Of course you’re tired. Your upholding a battle against darkness.
Good job!!!! It will get harder, but we need you. This subject tires me too and I don’t do *anything* beyond read and occasionally try to enlighten a few people. How dare I feel tired.
Imagine the rewards, though - the feeling, many years from now, when your alarm helped to turn people to the light of preserving their society and all that it includes. The most thankless (but important) jobs yield the most priceless rewards.
So be of good cheer!
And take good vacations where you thoroughly chill out with great people.
Silent Majority and anyone doing his/her part in getting people to wake up:
The main hurdle, as all of you know, is to persuade people to start caring about the problem with Islam because they don’t think it affects them. I suggest that you get them to listen to the interview with Ramond Ibrahim on the Dennis Prager Show. It lays out in a short time (34 minutes) the main points on why Infidels should be concerned about Islam. The things Raymond said are not new for those of us who are already aware, but are great for opening the eyes of folks who are still ignorant of the dangers.
Brief note on the subject of email marketing the anti-jihad message:
I’d like to point out that two sections of the Anvil provide copy/paste html code that works in most email clients — Boycott Islam and Links.
You can also post other code variants that I provide on message board forums. An easy and consistent way is to simply add a link graphic you enjoy into your signature files, both for email and forums.
This was one of the biggest motivations behind me creating “cute” graphics like the Boycott smilies — they aren’t overtly offensive in nature and were created with a sense of humor, and that helps get people to click on them, as well as making them slightly more acceptable to the mainstream.
I hope more people will make use of them in their own private information wars.
Just adding another word of support Foehammer and letting you know your efforts are appreciated. Keep up the good work.
Silent Majority - I can tell you that the email tactics you talk about do work. Many people read, some argue, some agree and some adjust their views based on the simple fact that you’ve sent them things, stand by them and gently continue to send them more proof. I don’t get upset; I just back it up with references and send more. It works since we’re on the ‘good’ side. We have proof and facts on our side. People realize this, some not at first, but some do come around eventually. It’s worth it.
Glad to have you around.
I am a “recently enlightened one” to the threat of Islam, and for the past 3 months have done nothing else but read books and blogs (including your one which is one of my favorites)about it. (I am fortunate in that I don’t have to have a paying job at this point in time, so I am immersed in this subject pretty much full time)
Blogs are a great way of getting the message out, mainly for those who already have a spark of awareness, interest and some spare time. I spend the vast majority of my time using the internet, but prior to my enlightenment, did not know any of the great anti islam blogs existed. Nobody had told me and I didn’t have an inkling about the subject so I never went looking.
I have spent alot of time thinking about how to get the word out to all of my friends and acquaintances. I do sometimes email them links, but I feel as though I am “pushing an unpopular barrow” and they are just being polite in not telling me to stop. I only ever email those who I think may be receptive.
But there is another way to use email. I am sure everyone reading this has a vast network of email contacts. I do, and email jokes and emails on specific subjects abound. I have lost count, for example, of the no. of times I have received the email about the “woman walking around the world for breast cancer” or the sad story of a child who needs my help in a far off land. Or the emails headed “Send this to everyone you know, it is important!” And these emails, if compelling enough, travel around the world very quickly. We need to start doing this about Islam and they need to be either very funny (jokes) or very compelling. At the bottom we put links to blogs.
I am in the process of writing one now, but I am not a writer so I need help. I am trying to source that help now, sadly all of my friends that are writers are left wing journalists, so I daren’t ask them!
I know this idea will only be a tiny drop in the ocean, but it will get to many who are in the state of unenlightenment I was in until recently.
What do you think?
Hey FoeHammer. We appreciate the hard work and effort. This has been the first and sometimes only site I check each night before catching some shuteye. People are starting to wake up slowly. Even after 9-11. Even with Iraq and Afghanistan. Even after the repeated terrorist acts with ties to Islam (Gasp!). Still it’s slow. If it weren’t for the blogs and such, it would be even worse.
I’ll be visiting England, Scotland and Ireland at the end of the month and I just know that I’m going to be looking everywhere for signs of mosques going up. I keep joking with people that I want to see Great Britain before it becomes an Islamic state. (Sad thing is that there is more than a grain in truth in that.)
Anyway, fight the good fight and don’t forget to take time for yourself. Only way to sustain yourself for the long haul.
I raise Jihad awareness by regularly mass e-mailing reports of creeping implementation of Sharia and egregious Muslim offences around the world to acquaintances who still rely on the MSM for their news. It’s the regularity of the reports that makes people see what Islam in action is really like. This is a simple way to spread awareness that everyone can do.
@Emperor Palpatine: If you look at the bottom of the sidebar, that Quantcast traffic is a fairly accurate monthly average. It is in a steady slow decline ever since Digg banned the Anvil, but StumbleUpon is showing me a good referral rate, followed by Google and, not surprisingly, Jihad Watch. It seems that my comments history there still follows me here…
My avg daily rates (unique hits) according to Sitemeter for the past 5 weeks :
July 7: 980 (Digg spike)
July 14: 374
July 21: 898 (StumbleUpon spike)
Aug 4: 328
Aug 11: 274
As you can see, the decline has been sharp. Now, just imagine if Digg had never banned the Anvil. My traffic would have topped 1,000 per day the week of July 21 easily, and my daily average would be up 100 or more. There is no doubt in my mind that I’m being censored at many points on the Net.
I am not exaggerating when I say I’ve tripled my efforts since the Digg ban to market the Anvil. I even bought Google Ads for an entire month following the ban and it helped to some degree. I pull out every stop I can find in order to further the spread of this site and to refine it so that its workings will not deter traffic.
I will continue to do more. I have no choice. Traffic is everything and without it I simply will not only not be able to continue independently (meaning I will be forced to accept a job offer soon and cut down dramatically on the time I can devote to the Anvil), nor will all of what this site is dedicated to reach nearly enough people. And I’m not alone in that either. I do everything I can to help promote dozens of other sites in my links and through cross-posting. If I was simply able to get into a respected network (and I’ve been trying to nurse that idea in my spare time), it would do wonders for the Anvil.
All that aside, I have to keep focused on a bigger goal beyond the blog now, and that is actually completing a related book of my own. If I actually write something worth publishing, the force of that single work could further all my other efforts tenfold.
Anyway, I’m going on and on here. I hope this reply is of some benefit to a few of the statistically curious…
“the trickle of traffic to this site”
What’s your average daily readership? Is it increasing? Is this site still blocked by commercial filtering services (and is there a way to find out whether or not you’re on the blacklists)?
“cable salesman… with… a vast knowledge of history”
An average Joe who is a life-long learner. I hope you recommended some books on Islam for him to read.
Please keep fighting the good fight, Foehammer. I may not comment every day, but I certainly do check in regularly and read everything you post here at the Anvil.
One mind at a time, like dominoes…
That’s exactly right. I recently loaned my copy of ‘America Alone’ (Mark Steyn) to a friend. He was so affected by it that he is going to buy a copy for himself so that he can loan it to his friends too. As I don’t have time to maintain a blog of my own, this is how I contribute (albeit in a small way) to Jihad ‘awareness raising’! Although I live in a large Australian capital city, it is impossible to find ‘America Alone’ in any bookshops here (I bought it on-line). The local library has several copies, but they’re always out on loan and when I enquired about placing a hold, I was told I would be 11th on the list. Never have I been so pleased to be on the end of a very long waiting list!
I was going to share that our buddy Rev. Sutter is at it again, but someone has mentioned it already. It’s so hard to wade through all his nonsense, but just the fact that he names someone like you, who I am familiar with, shows me he’s a liar.
Anyway, I’m sure it gets exhausting. I do barely a fraction of what you do, just talking about these issues on my journal. It really is like beating your head against a wall.
But it’s people like yourself and so many others, who keep me going. There does come a time when you have to step back, for sanity’s sake. I understand and respect that. But just know that there are many people standing besides you, and that sooner or later, people will wake up.
They have to, because this is one enemy that will never, ever rest.
All the best to you!
Tremendous strides have been made in the fight against the global jihad. If we look back at the time when Islam was not allowed to be connected to the “terror” foisted upon the non-Islamic world, we can see that we have battered and dented the image of a “Religion of Peace hijacked by a few bad apples.”
Keep hammering them. Every blow sends them reeling.