Andrew Sullivan spotted Dan Savage’s post, and I’ll share it with you too: “Dan Savage notices a poster that just went up in a very liberal neighborhood. I think the American right and left can and should unite over this – and defend freedom against intimidation,” writes Andrew from his new digs blogging his “Daily Dish” now for Time magazine (hope he’s getting the big bucks too!). Yeah, he’s a conservative, but a true one — his views on human rights and torture are awesome!
You know Dan Savage, don’t you? He’s the very good, rather shocking writer for Seattle’s weekly, The Stranger (where our Geov Parrish used to write). He became most infamous for licking a doorknob during the 2000 GOP primary campaigns when he had the flu, and he hoped he’d give the flu to Gary Bauer. Today, Dan Savage photographed this poster he spotted.
Since I used to live in Seattle, I can tell you that when Dan Savage says it’s a liberal Seattle neighborhood, believe him. It’s fucking wild! The whole neighborhood of Capitol Hill is a TRIP! Adds Dan:
“Okay, it’s on Seattle’s light poles, and not in any of Seattle’s newspapers—yet—but I was pleased to find this flyer tacked up on Capitol Hill this morning.
“I’m not sure where the quote is from, or if the person or persons behind the poster wrote it. Either way, I love it. I couldn’t agree more. Bravo. If the folks who did this are reading this blog, keep putting ‘em up!
“And the appearance of this poster on Capitol Hill—the most liberal neighborhood in one of the West Coast’s most liberal cities—gives the lie to this right-wing talking point: The left doesn’t care about this issue, and is willing to cede free speech to mollify Islamic haters. It’s not true, and this poster is evidence that it’s not true.”
I’m with Dan. I consider this poster an objective example of real free speech. I.e, whoever posted it has the right to post it publicly. And we liberals should not — NOT! — self-censor ourselves if we object to some Muslims’ over-reactions to these cartoons.
By the way, I found screenshots of the original cartoons via Wikipedia. As for the humor? To each his own. But they’re nothing worth dying for.
P.S. I’ve got a rotten case of viral flu. Called my doc’s office, it’s all over town, and they said it lasts 3-5 days. That explains my goofy posts last night. I hope. The nurse said it’s accompanied by high fever, and lots of fluids are recommended. FedEx me some good BEVERAGES! NOW!
Another P.S. below:
Get your “special” valentine cards here: At the “Special Valentine Unit,” by a very funny guy named Brandon Bird. (Just check them out for yourself, will ya?!) Brandon was, um, inspired by Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. I’m sure that that program’s high quality and logical plots inspire you as well. (Oh right.)
Several of the alternative weeklies carry his “Savage Love” sex advice column (I think the San Francisco Bay Guardian still does). The letters used to all start, “Hey Faggot!”, but I think PC did that in…a shame in a way. (Many of the questions and answers are universal — meaning they can apply to both homo and hetero relationships/sexuality.)
Recommendation for beverage: orange juice and 7up, mixed and poured over ice. Very refreshing — my favorite beverage when I’ve got the achy flu. (I’m achy now, but from working out after a long hiatus…gotta get back in the swing of things…)
alternative weeklies carry his “Savage Love” sex advice
Thoroughly abusive language. Is it funny? At first–the shock of it and all.
Wears very thin, very quickly.
After a while you just have to take a shower after.
Quit reading him before they quit publishing him.
Oh no, is that the original Mohammad cartoon? Eeeek. Now I’ll have to wash my eyes out.
Susan, include green tea in your beverages if you can. That stuff can do everything but fix a flat. Feel better.
post failed, subject too long… arg! I hate when that happens.
and dramamine if you are throwing up.
I am SO sick of fundamentalists of all sorts…I’m with Dan Savage on this one…
This is a huge issue. The reaction to this cartoon is insanity of stupifying proportions. Apparently radical Islam agrees with George W. that free speech sucks.
Please wake up. This is a right-wing propaganda ploy. More fear of “terra-ists.”
Using a provocative racial stereotype.
If you really value free speech, don’t go anywhere near this.
In Germany in the late 1920’s and 1930’s right-wing hate-groups liked to put up posters caricaturizing jews. It was not innocent, nor “free speech,” as we all well know.
This isn’t either.
Using caricatures of muslims instead of jews does not make it all better.
For a liberal, free speech does not mean the right to cheer on a right-wing mob. It just doesn’t. That is not the concept at all.
Long ago, I learned that the best thing to do with hate-posters on public property is tear them down and throw them away. This is simple self-defense, and it works.
P.S. I am not muslim. You should not have to be muslim to notice the poison being promulgated.
“right-wing propaganda ploy”? Do you think the Republicans had the cartoon planted in a Danish newspaper in September so the Muslim world would go nuts four months later?
.
Extreme right to serve the masses.
In the land of Hans Christian Andersen — Ms Pia Kjaersgaard of Denmark.
“But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
It was a right-wing Danish paper. No conspiracy need be postulated: The circle of media ownership is small and the circle of those who set policy (including media policy) is even smaller. Right-wing minds think alike. Remember the Repugs are a tool of corporate interest, not the other way around.
Yes, the real story is not the original publication, but the way it got revived so conveniently–in time for the run-up to Iran. Several other right-wing publications were involved, in several other European countries. Someone put some thought to reviving what could easily have just disappeared as insignificant.
The US is desperate to get the Europeans on board for a new Middle East war–against Iran–and here it is, right on schedule. Soj has told part of the story, but only part. It is not just the Saudis who have a hand in this, and the timeline involves more than the Saudis using it to distract attention from their own public-safety lapses in Mecca.
Details are interesting, but not key. The key thing is the overall shape, the strategic shape of this episode. Who benefits?
Both the US and Europe really are racist, even the liberals, except that the liberals don’t realize it, and this is how they get snookered. Liberals fall for the “free speech” line and don’t realize that this is really about demonizing the Islamic world in preparation for renewed war.
For liberals, the value of free speech is real. But for the Rethugs, it is just a tool to sucker them into working against their own interest, snookering them into supporting racism.
What does it mean that the US and Europe are racist? It does not mean we value our way of life, though we do. It means we refuse to accept that others have another way of life and that they value that. Now, why shouldn’t they value their own way of life? Of course they do. It is not their job to conform to our expectations for them.
Americans act out of a huge and horrible ignorance of the world outside their borders. They think of others as miniature, inferior, copies of themselves. They do not understand that others really are different, and not inferior at all.
But if others are different, it does not mean they must be annihilated. This is a free choice. It is the difference between seeking points of agreement and seeking points of disagreement, between seeking peace and war.
Bush seeks war. Always. Every American who has died in Iraq in the last three years, and every American who has been injured, has died or been injured because Bush seeks war rather than peace. Every death was needless, and freely chosen.
The total information war–launched by the US against the rest of the world–is real. We’re in it, and these cartoons are part of it.
I’m a bit torn on this. YES we need free speech and sometimes that means listening to some very uncomfortable rhetoric by some very stupid people. I agree totally with the written text of that Tee but I agree that if I were Muslim I would feel picked upon because of that picture they placed on there.
So.. I suggest a compromise here. I would say to the bearer of that shirt (and the producer of that shirt) KUDOS on that quote…… now, are you friggin’ kidding me about that picture? Don’t Muslims have the same right? Then you don’t mind it if someone were to wear a shirt with that quote with a bit of drool hanging out of the side of a red neck idiot’s mouth (with the American flag draped around him)?
Are you a moron?
In other words reward them for what they say right.. and then go right ahead and backhand them with the same hand you petted them with and tell them what they did wrong. Note – they have the RIGHT to display the shirt. Others have the right to tell them where they cocked up. Right ? 😉
oops i meant to say poster..not tee
Whether it’s Iranian gold for “best” Holocaust cartoons or the Danish cartoons referred to here, it’s bullshit to call for censorship of others’ presses.
I noticed a dearth of condemnation of Paul Bremer when he shut down Moqtada Sadr’s newspaper and provoked the Shi’a revolt just before he scampered out of Baghdad. Too often have I noted condemnation of Moqtada Sadr as a madman for defending His Free Press rights.
it’s bullshit to call for censorship of others’ presses
The Danish paper–and the other papers that republished–should not be censored, and I do not call for censorship. They should be publicly chastized.
The Danish government could have offered apologies, and should have. Instead they refused to receive a delegation of ambassadors, compounding the offense.
In the case of the Danish paper, it is in violation of Danish law. That paper should be prosecuted.
And we progressives most certainly should not fall for a Repub pro-Iran-war psyops campaign instigated out of PNAC.
Here’s the cure, for the flu that is, comin’ at cha
Massive quantities…don’t eat the worm(s)…and add limes-vitamin C dont’cha know.
Get well, and be sure and vote for Norah O’Donnells “new name”…kinda like “Noron” myself.
Peace
when Free Speech wasn’t even a question. My, how times change.
Get Well Soon Susan..My cures for what ails you, all involve booze, and illegals…They won’t do a thing for ya, but you’ll feel better
You obviously didn’t look at the cartoons closely. Many of them are not free speech, they are hate speech. They are direct equivalents of the type of propoganda “statirical cartoons” that abounded under the Nazis about Jews – like this one
One of the danish cartoons shows the prophet holding a baby with the word ‘paedophile’ under it. Does that strike you as an appropriate use of ‘free speech’?
What the Danish paper and the procurer of the cartoons did pure and simple was deliberately set out to provoke and demonise a religious minority – just as the Nazis did. The fact that certain fundamentalist elements within certain Islamic countries are now trying to exploit it doesn’t change this. This isn’t free speech, it’s hate speech, and is utterly hateful.
I’m so sick and tired of people who think that free speech doesn’t come with responsibility – well it does. I’m equally as sick and tired of people pointing to examples of Islamic countries that have engaged in similar promotion of hate speech against Jews and Christians – what the fuck is that, is “two wrongs make a right” a new liberal mantra?
Shame on you for supporting it. Shame on the many who seem to think that free speech means the right of a dominant majority to provoke, demonise and taunt a minority we already oppress, suppress and discriminate against – not to mention bomb and kill.
hope I get this right:
There is no cartoon you could draw – about me, about my religion, about my country, about anything – that would cause me to go burn down somebody’s house.
Is any portrayal of Muslims in political cartoons now taboo? If not, who gets to make that call?
there is a strong sense of myopia on this issue.
A people can get sick and tired of it and not take it any more…only, just what are they really sick of. Just what are the issues?
Certainly there is repressed anger over Iraq, and now threats to Iran.
This issue is a vent of sorts for a great build up of helpless anger; actually benefits the governments of those countries because it redirects anger.
There is a lot going on here, and it would be wise not to jump in the fray and contribute to the negative energy.
The West (US and Europe) have been abusing the Middle East culturally and exploiting them economically for over eight decades now.
Folk there are angry for cause.
Our lies wear thin.
As a progressive, I say that we should not let “free speech” become a cover for abusive behavior. This does not promote free speech at all; rather, it opens us to the charge of hypocrisy and tarnishes our own reputation, and undermines or poisons the idea of free speech in those lands.
any portrayal of Muslims in political cartoons now taboo
I am really getting to hate willful ignorance. Whatever happened to using good judgement? If you are actually trying to provoke people to anger–if war and bloodshed is your true goal–well and good, but then stop pretending otherwise. You win no points with me.
willfully or otherwise. People who commit murder and arson because they are offended by a cartoon are out of their fucking minds and get zero sympathy from me.
Cause and effect is the point.
By generalizing muslims as those who commit murder and arson, you feed the cause of bigotry. By refusing to put a problem in its context, you make judgements that are empty display.
No one has proposed here that the arson that occurred was right.
What is questioned is whether the cartoons were wise, and should be excused as “free speech.”
Really, it is not the job of the world to conform to American preconceptions.
been a result of puppet police in the client states murdering demonstrators, and one guy who foolishly jumped from the third floor of a building.
Could you post links to all the murders of Danes that have occurred so far?
I admit I have not seen every single article on this subject.
I am not ignorant, willfully or otherwise.
In as much as you’re viewing this as simply a reaction to some cartoons because Andrew Sullivan, the ‘free’ US press and that slimy little jerk in the WH says so you most certainly are. It’s a widespread perception that the western world is escalating yet another Crusade. This view has, to my mind, a great deal more credibility than the idiot propaganda that we’ve invaded Iraq to set the people there free and bring them the benefits of Democracy and unrestrained capitalism, a goal which is contradictory, btw.
Andrew Sullivan, oh my goodness.
Erm…apparently some fundie Islamic clerics took these cartoons to the Middle East along with others that were NOT published in the Danish paper – the other cartoons were some sick, nasty, perverted shit. The clerics passed the whole package around. They made no distinction between the cartoons that were published and these other much nastier drawings. So this isn’t just about an oppressed peoples’ righteous anger looking for an outlet. This is also about extreme Islamists deliberately inciting anger by distorting what was actually published.
Now, is the Right in the US and elsewhere using this incident to their advantage? Hell, yes. Shocking, that.
But no matter what horrible, wretched things my country has done, please do not ask me to sympathize over-much with religious extremists who oppress women and stifle debate in the name of their God. I don’t care what religion they are spouting. All of them can, well, go to hell as far as I’m concerned. Fundamentalist Christians, Muslims, Jews, I’m sick of all of them. This is the fucking 21st century.
Is there someplace I can go that is not dominated by religious whack-jobs?
And what if the people that are fanning the flames happen to be on our payroll, or the payroll of the Egyptian, Saudi, or Pakistanti (CIA/DIA trained) intelligence agencies?
And what if this escalation is calibrated to the Iran issue coming up at the UN Security Council, and the object is to incite anti-European rioting to gain sympathy for a hard-line from NATO and to beat back our flanking manuever on the NSA?
“What if?” indeed. I sort of take that as a given. But I still am not going to sympathize with religious extremists of any stripe. I’m just not.
I’m a woman, and every single extremist religious faction oppresses women. Every single fucking one of them. I have never gotten over the fact that the US has been in bed with the Saudis all these years, that these were “our allies” during the first Gulf War, and they treat women like garbage and like property. What’s my beef with Islam? Islamic law as interpreted by states that have instituted Sharia oppresses women.
Don’t ask me to support it.
I’m not. Just don’t fall into the trap they are setting for you and everyone else. Actually, you can if you want. It’s an unstoppable force.
I am not “falling into a trap.” You think I’m going to suddenly support a Bush-led invasion of Iran or Syria? Huh-uh. Ain’t gonna happen.
But I have been furious about the way women’s rights in the Mideast have been sold out to political expediency for a very long time. And I think that religious fundamentalism is a force for evil in the world. If there is such a thing as evil, the sort of medieval worldview that religious extremists expouse is a manifestation of evil.
Right. They arouse a feeling of contempt in you for their medievalness, and then they ask you whether these medieval people should be allowed to bomb Tel Aviv.
I know you are aware of the tactics, but your blood pressure is up, and it should be level.
I know it is pointless. They will ask the Democratic Senators if they want medieval people to nuke Tel Aviv and they will all say no. But I hope some people can keep a level head and realize this is an American led psy-op.
LIsten, the Likkudniks are in the same boat with the mullahs and with the pat robertsons of the world, as far as I’m concerned.
And that goes double for Cheney and his gang.
And another thing…from your post here, it sounds like you don’t think I can have two thoughts in my head at the same time – e.g., I think extremist religions – and I’ll say it again, I mean ALL of them, Islam, Christianity and Judaism – foster a medieval world-view and are based on oppression of women.
Thought #2, that these sorts of incidents are used by BushCo to advance their agenda.
Thought #1 does not automatically take me to “bomb Tehran.” Thought #1 was one of the main reasons I opposed the first Gulf War, and a huge reason that I thought Bush’s invasion of Iraq was a really horrible idea, because of the religious forces it was likely to unleash.
As for Thought #2, Bush Co LOVES Islamic fundamentalism. The same forces in the American power structure supported the Taliban, the same forces supported the Saudi regime.
I feel the same way about this that I have for many years. I wish we’d develop alternate energy sources and get the hell out of the Middle East. Let them figure out for themselves what kind of societies they are going to have. It’s nothing that I can control. I just don’t want to support it.
I am a secular humanist and proud of it. I am utterly sick of living in a country dominated by religious extremists.
What’s my beef with Islam? Islamic law as interpreted by states that have instituted Sharia oppresses women.
Don’t ask me to support it.
Look, immediately after 9/11 the men in my neighborhood took to patroling our semi-rural neighborhood with guns. My reaction to this was to befriend the Muslim men who work in the neighborhood at convenience stores. I established my house as a safe area, I asked how they were doing every day, I wanted to know if there had been trouble.
As a consequence and as unlikely as it sounds we’ve become friends. These men aren’t Wahabbi Islamists, they’re guys who have come here from Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq, there is one fellow who is a Kurd. I like them; our relationships are mutually respectful and we have great conversations. One difference I particularly notice is that I’m not expected to agree with them because they’re men and that when I do disagree I’m not greeted with anger and offended masculinity but, rather, interesting conversations, which all of us clearly enjoy and which have contributed greatly to the development of friendship, ensue.
Another thing I’ve done is join a Islamic feminist listserve entirely for the purpose of discovering how women (and men) concerned with just these areas deal with the problems that concern both you and I. Finally, may I recommend any books by Karen Armstrong and particularly the ones dealing with Islam?
I guess my point is that we cannot judge and condemn the Islamic world by concentrating on the excesses of the Taliban, Sharia law and honour killings anymore than we can accurately judge the Western world by looking at the excesses of Ann Coulter, the Catholic or Mormon or SBC heirarchy or Andrew (bah!) Sullivan. It’s really quite unfair.
I said “Islamic regimes that institute Sharia law oppress women.”
Extremists, in other words.
And quite frankly, I am suspicious of ANY state religion. For example, any time somebody goes on about how America is a “Christian nation,” I just want to throw up.
There is a bigger picture here. Like I said over at kos, if New York Times printed the Pope sodomizing a 10 year old boy or a nasty cartoon accusing Jews of making up the Holocaust to take over the war….you might see an uproar, specially if Italy or Israel had just been invaded on false information.
That’s because you aren’t a minority, aren’t powerless, aren’t poor, and aren’t sitting watching literally thousands of weekly imags of your people being demonised, generalised, subject to bigotted and ignorant attacks, and bombed and killed.
As a member of the most powerful western nation, you’re going to have to try a hell of a lot harder to understand what it’s like to be trodden into the dirt, to constantly have your self-worth questioned, and quite possibly only have your religion as your only source of feeling of self-worth and pride. Everything else has been stripped away or opportunities have never arisen. All that is left is a feeling of solidarity with other muslims, and rage at the colective powerlessness of muslims to do something about their ongoing demonisation and massacre by the west.
Your post reeks of a total lack of empathy.
In a satire of the issue, Jon Stewart tonight claimed that cartoonists were responsible for the rise of Adolph Hitler and WW II.
Absurd? Yes. That’s the point of the satire.
IN the Muslim world might set a few Christians to acts of hate here.
The point is…that the people who “win” in this situation are those who comprise the ruling elite, and control most of the resources of the world. They run the global economy. They oppress the people through low wages and lack of health care and a rotten environment.
We go along with it as we are saturated with entertainment.
Pissing off large numbers of people in the Muslim world over hate filled cartoons does much to deter from the real issues: that governments the world over are corporate controlled and run and managed for corporate interests. And that includes Saudi Arabia, where the protests originated.
This is akin to our culture wars here at home. We have a poverty class growing by the millions here each year, but by God we are a Christian nation.
is that free speech or demonizing a specific ethnic group? A broad brush lumping of all Muslims with terrorism?
Is there a difference between free speech, terror speech, hate speech, speech intended to incite, bully and insult?
Does anyone think the ADL would accept a similiar depiction of Jews? Religions are beliefs that are to be respected.
We need to show respect for ethno-cultural symbols, beliefs and lifestyles or we fall quickly to racism, anti-Semitism, anti-Islam, Homophobia. Humanity demands that. We need to protect against discrimination and against insults based religions, a person’s origin or lifestyle. Freedom of speech or expression will come up againsts these limits. And freedom ain’t free.
That said, I fear that the printing of these cartoons demonizes and the resulting revolts worldwide will be seized upon to rally Europeans to be allies for an attack on Iran. First we demonize the enemy as part of the prep for war.
First we were demonized and it became very easy to gas or nuke us. Doomed to have history repeat.
I have had to endure constant jokes about my “type” all my life.
I have had to listen to hundreds of blonde jokes.
I have had to listen to thousands of jokes about women.
Did they bother me?
You bet they did.
The blonde jokes hurt because the point of all of them is to show how stupid blondes are.
What do I do about it? Burn down Hugh Hefner’s mansion?
Object vehemently and loudly? That’ll just make me look like someone who can’t take the heat…. over the years, I found the best way was to smile and let my smile fade into a smirk. I showed them they couldn’t put me down.
Was my pain and embarrassment at listening to these thousands of jokes any LESS important than the Muslims’ pain?
HELL NO. Any joke on another group can hurt.
But I hear Sarah Silverman tell the nastiest jokes about Jews all the time! She’s hysterically funny. And she’s Jewish.
She’s lightened up. So have I. So can the Muslims.
Thanks for dropping by. I look forward to enjoying your contributions here at BooTrib.
“So can the Muslims”? I take it you’re suggesting the Muslims should lighten up. Aka, Jon Stewart, Imus, David Letterman shows. You write, “Any joke on another group can hurt” So let me ask a silly, why do it?
Gotta admit, I’m a bit surprised at your equating a “blonde joke” with the wholesale demonizing of a religion and its adherent(s).
I suggest “blondes” do have options not available to some ethnic groups. Some choose to be ‘blondes.’ And Jews, to a certain extent – they do change or shorten surnames. Curious, why is that?
I’m female, black and a Jewess by birth, of Portuguese decent. So pardon the pun, my take maybe ‘colored’. (Btw, while the topic touches free speech – the words jew, jewess are sometimes taken to be offensive. Black too, as in blackmail). Lots to go around. So we weigh our choice of words and freedom of expression against these limits-what is clearly intended to be injurious.
I can understand why writers, reporters in particular, will want to defend to the death free speech. In as much as we’d like to think otherwise, here and elsewhere, freedom of speech isn’t free.
It’s a widely accepted concept that religions are beliefs constructed on certain percepts and commandments that ought to be respected. After all, respect for religions – religious freedoms is one of the founding principles of the United States.
Islam was founded by the Prophet Muhammad over 1400 years ago. Abraham is the father of the Jews and the Arabs. I’m suggesting that the current Islamophobia now rampant in the west, is the other side of the semitic coin. First they came for us, the Jews, now they come for the Muslims.
Robert Fisk, reporter for The Independent (UK) and author, “The Conquest of the Middle East”, recently wrote an exceptional piece. It’s worth a read.
link to full article here
http://www.counterpunch.org/fisk02062006.html
I’m saying we are in a sorry state. Humanity is still under assault. Can we let go of our need to inflict pain, and death? We escape by calling it a joke. So a war, prepped by demonizing is sold as a ‘let’s party’ event to be enjoyed.
I screwed up. That was I who posted that — not Geov.
I am posting his first stories here but he has the instructions — it’s very tricky at first, especially if one hasn’t posted diaries before — and he will be doing it himself.
Again, I blame the flu … I didn’t even realize I hadn’t logged out as Geov when I posted earlier.
My APOLOGIES to Geov and to all of you.
.
Interfaith group slams caricatures
A group of religious Zionist rabbis has said that Israeli media reprinting of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad oversteps the bounds of journalistic freedom.
Reprinting the caricatures hurts Israeli Arabs’ feelings, said Rabbi David Stav, one of the heads of the Petah Tikva hesder yeshiva and a Tzohar rabbi.
“Freedom of speech does not include the right to hurt the feelings of another,” said Stav, who represents a group of 14 Orthodox rabbis who belong to Kedem, an interfaith group that includes Muslim and Christian clerics. Other members are Baruch Gigi, one of the heads of Har Etzion Yeshiva in Alon Shvut, and Rabbi Shmuel Reiner of the Religious Kibbutz Movement.
Xenophobia and Racism in Europe or Freedom of Speech?
Is it just by accident the Danish cartoons happened in Copenhagen, or is the RW government and Danish support of U.S. in Iraq War a concern for Islamists in the Middle East? The US and UK coalition have killed journalists and bombed TV stations in Iraq and Afghanistan, in the name of democracy and freedom of speech.
translation of the Ekstra Bladet article:
Showed Pedophile Mohammed
Imams toured the Middle East with far more provoking images than Jyllands-Posten‘s drawings.
See the documentation here …
By Allan Larsen and Kåre Quist – 9:55 – 12. jan, 2006
When a group of Danish imams recently toured all around the Middle East to gather support for their criticism of the much debated Mohamed-illustrations in Jyllands-Posten and of prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the drawings was apparently not provoking enough for the purpose.
Ekstra Bladet can now document, that the delegation also brought pictures and drawings, that among other things show the prophet Mohamed depicted as both pedophile and equipped with a pigs snout – and there is also one controversial picture of a praying Muslim, who is being raped analy by a dog …
by BobFunk (bobfunk@clanwhiskey.net)
on Sun Feb 5th, 2006 at 05:15:36 AM PDT
The date of publication, January 12, is most important, as this is also the impulse for protest by ME governments, by chance the date of the Hajj in Saudi Arabia.
Muslim pilgrims walk across the Jamarat bridge in Mina.● Muslim Group Asks Los Angeles Radio Host to Apologize
The group quoted Handel as saying: “This is Mahmoud Nolan. Hajj in the Sky. There is an accident. … Ali lost his sandal on the on-ramp to the Martin Luther King Jr. freeway.”
In March 2004, KFI issued an on-air apology after the group filed a complaint with the FCC following a skit that claimed Muslims have sex with animals, don’t bathe and hate Jews.
≈ Cross-posted from Soj’s diary —
Muslim Cartoon Controversy: What the Media Isn’t Telling You ≈
Caricatures Roil Muslim World Beirut Embassy Torched
Iraq Demonstrations, Threats against Danish Troops
● Dutch F-16’s Used To Disperse Angry Crowds in Afghanistan
“But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
http://mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=508448
I’m sad to see this here. And the one above it, although I have no clue who that person is so they don’t matter as much.
I’ve been shaking my head at the reaction of some liberal blogs (not all, thank goodness), which basically seems to be “F muslims and the prophet they rode in on”. It puzzles me why so many seem to just be accepting the ‘frame’ given, with few (or no) deeper seeking of answers. Or, apparent idea that there are even further questions. Am not really sure when we decided to throw critical thinking overboard and jump feet first into right wing reactionary posturing?
Mind you, I probably have the liberal disease of thinking too much, or trying to dissect things to the point where there is nothing left but a toe, but to just accept the surface “muslims are rioting because they hate our freedoms (of speech, plurality and whatever else)” just seems way too simplistic. That, while it may be true of some, does not explain everything.
I deplore and condemn the violence (as well as threats, and whatever else)… that should go without saying (but when we are operating in right wing hysteria mode, one can’t assume), but… who is instigating the violence? I don’t watch TV much, but of the reports I have seen, there are lots of boom and bang and flash shots of surging mobs, burning buildings and yelling people… and on all of them, at the end in a few seconds segment is someone saying something to the effect of “I don’t know what happened.. it was supposed to be a peaceful rally. Who were those people? This is not what we came here for.”
You also have police states where nothing much can go on without permission… where most of the violence seems to be occuring, but who proclaim themselves appalled and shocked, and just unable to control it.
There are any number of levels to this… there is the very real, but not violent or extremist, distress of many muslims at what they consider an insult to their religion and to their beings. There is the free speech/freedom of the press issue, which allows for the printing of these images which not only insult the religion (I don’t have much of a problem with insulting religions myself, but I usually refrain from doing so) but which are also racist and inflammatory.
There is the right wing, which is salivating at the thought of inspiring a world wide anti muslim backlash – which sadly seems to be working, even among the left, as people get caught up into the hysteria of trying to prove their free speech or whatever credentials.
And that’s just scratching a tiny bit beneath the surface with my puny brain. Just think what a talented and skilled person could do. What, when, where, how and who benefits might be just a few questions to start asking.
I have issues with Sullivan as well (who I don’t consider a “true” anything, but will save those for another day 😉
Want to bomb the Shi’a dominated country of Iran but your European allies don’t trust you as far as they can throw you?
Want to bomb the Shi’a dominated Iran before they get a nuclear bomb?
Just fucked up Iraq and failed to turn it over to either a secular Sunni Ba’athist (the CIA/State Plan) or to the INC/Chalabi (the OVP/Pentagon plan_ but instead to a religious Shi’a government?
No problem.
You can solve all problems by getting your Sunni Puppets in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Pakistan to whip up anti-European hatred all across the Muslim world. We can even supply the flags and lighter fluid.
Before you know it, the Europeans will be dying to bomb a Muslim country. Boycotts of their products will persuade the undecided.
Look folks. This is a psy-op campaign, and a good one. Don’t fall for it.
I was beginning to fear my tin foil hat needed adjusting.
See? That’s exactly what is needed… that sort of context. Me, I can never keep all the players straight, but once the backdrop is provided, events that made no sense at all (in the current ‘frame’) suddenly begin to fall into place.
(Maybe it’s Ten Ideas now?)
and the cherry on top is that you can blame it all on Syria!
The best money can buy!
We are seeing the demonization of a people and a culture.
This whole controversy makes me feel like we in “the West” need to go back to kindergarten. Why didn’t we learn that in order to get along you don’t do stuff that hurts the other guy’s feelings?
If you have a real beef, deal with the beef. But don’t needle someone just to get a reaction — that is for juvenile bullies. Danish newspapers are juvenile bullies? All of Christendom is made of juvenile bullies? Grow up.
Oh, Susan, no. I think you’re feverish from the flu, sweetie. You don’t seriously want those posters going up all over your home town, do you? Imagine if you were an innocent Muslim family. Imagine how this will frighten them.
When I see that poster with its dreadful stereotypical portrayal of a Muslim man, all I can think of is those posters in Germany that were meant to inflame hatred of Jews.
No, no, no, no. It’s not a free speech issue. It’s a fomenting war issue. As BooMan says elsewhere in this thread we need to keep our blood pressure down. And our fevers from rising.
Be well. I’m sorry you’re sick.
for people who would like to reproduce and post up the cartoons.
Would they have the same urge to do that with those old Nazi posters? There are copies available, that can easily reproduced on one’s home printer, if the local Kinko’s should balk.
Will they wish to do the same with the Holocaust cartoons that the paper in Iran has said they will be publishing?
such an offensive caricature on the front page of BooMan Tribune, I have been very pleased to see that no one has posted any Nazi cartoons in response.
Or if they have, I have mercifully missed them, sadly, no one can miss the front page.
It is likely that the author is unaware of the kind of shock and hurt such images cause, not only to the groups represented, but to all men and women of good will, and especially those old enough to remember the purpose of this kind of thing and where it leads.
I just want to say how much I agree with what you just said, Ductape.
Thank you Susan for shunning all the red herrings here.
Never mind the armies of PC-mongering nitwits. You have shown that, unlike them, you deserve to call yourself a ‘liberal’ – one of the most beautiful words in the English or any language.
You rock. Get well soon!