Lenin’s Tomb
I don't see this polarisation in America you talk about; perhaps I'm missing it. For my part, I see a polarisation between people who think the war is a folly and those who think it's a grand imperial adventure, and I don't anywhere see really significant numbers of people identifying with Iraqis or Palestinians. Those who do are Arabs or anti-imperialists who already did so before, it seems to me, with perhaps a mild increase. Even American friends of mine on the far left who certainly do know about the suffering of Iraqis and Palestinians don't really identify with them, and are more concerned with the American domestic scene.
(otherwise, a find post)
(I mean fine)
Good post as usual, but what doesn't seem to get discussed and factored into all of this is the intensity (loudness, so as to impact a greater audience), of one's speech, independent of the logic or morality of what is being said.
It is in reality FEE speech, independent of content (much more important than free speech), that should be analyzed. Audience is simply purchased at cost per thousands rates, consequently those with more money have a much louder voice and are heard by more people.
Your blog is a drop of integrity in an ocean of corporate gangster, bullshit media lies. It is a drop pitted against an ocean. But there are other drops added to yours and they are now forming an aggregate ever louder voice -- let's hope for a sunami! This ever growing aggregate voice is facilitated by the internet.
There is evidence of this internet influence when you say;
"Clearly, American reactions have polarised along these lines, with a large number of people sympathising with the suffering of Iraqis and, in increasing numbers, Palestinians, and another group of people preferring to revel in a religious and nationalistic reflux whose guiding principle is death-dealing aggression toward the Others whom 'we' had been simply too soft on in the past."
This is true, and I would suggest that this large number of people that sympathise with the Iraqis and Palestinians did not form their opinions from the mainstream (corporate owned, trans-national gangster media), but rather from the internet or those with access to the internet.
The internet is kicking elitist corruption's ass!
That fact needs to be discussed more, celebrated and amplified by; making more articles available in an economical print ready format, printing out and distributing more of these articles, working for more computers in libraries and public spaces, solidarity linking of best articles, rewrites for all audiences (yes Doris, we are all on different parts of the evolutionary trail), more graphics, etc.
Hurricane Hugo Strikes back.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ameri...cas/
4695482.stm
I had made the decision not to bother you so much, but one can't read such a muddled and other-worldly piece without having something to say about it.
You seem to be having great trouble distinguishing between racism and incitement to murder, racism and mildly caricaturing a religious figure, supporting terrorism and not supporting terrorism. They are all quite different things.
Abu Hamza was convicted for incitement to murder. Nick Griffin was charged with the much lesser offense of making racist remarks that were rather ambiguous. If one were to go seeking an hypocrisy that has occurred in the last few weeks, it would obviously be the hypocrisy of Islamists marching in London clearly inciting murder and preaching race hate, according to MPAC - guilty of much greater offences than the BNP leader was charged with - but no one has been arrested yet. Or: if Nick Griffin had been doing the sort of speeches Abu Hamza has been making over the years, claiming 'Brits have a right to kill muslims anyway we can', and people passed through his training centre became some of the world's biggest terrorists who killed thousands of people around the world, we all know he would have rightly gone down for life many years ago - a statement of the obvious.
You can play the talking points game of saying: 'well there was Abu Hamza who gets convicted on one hand, but then Nick Griffin gets off', but it's pretty pants stuff for anyone who's paying attention.
Similarly, if someone illegally supports terrorism against civilians abroad, going against the Palestinian government and the international community at a time when we have our own home grown terrorist problem, then that's clearly very different again to what Nick Griffin was charged with, the article that Kilroy Silk wrote, and the very mild cartoons of the prophet guy. It doesn't compare.
On subhuman Iraqis, you support the terrorism that the vast majority of Iraqis don't support - some 97% - so you're on very weak ground if you're going to start asking where the compassion is for the unpeople Iraqis. Before the war, one can obviously and very easily ask where your humanity was when the Kurds and the Shiites were calling on you to support the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, to which you steadfastly refused to support; your ideology came a long way before the unpeople I'm afraid. Think of the hundreds of thousands that would have been killed in Afghanistan, and what kind of terribly harsh rule the Taliban would be imposing in Afghanistan today if you had your way and this regime was not removed and the full blown civil war, cutting the country in two, was allowed to continue. It seems Iraqis and Afghans are no longer normal human beings when they threaten your geopolitical interests.
Lastly, Ray Nagin specifically said New Orleans was best with a black majority - clearly a racist statement. As Dr Luther King taught, you don't fight racism with racism; that's wholly wrong. If a
If an elected white politician had said it, it would have been the end of his political career - no doubt about it.
Oh and yes, you deliberately withheld the second sentence of Bill Bennett's remarks that said to the effect 'that would be a totally irrational immoral and wrong thing to say'.....Christ, lenin.
Well, I gotta hand it to you, I was provoked.
"remarks that were rather ambiguous"
Not strong enough for you Baz?
Mark Steel: It's no joke if you're on the receiving end:
http://topatientlyexplain.blogsp...f-youre-
on.html
... the cartoon issue is a U.S. sponsored psy-op. I think that an attack on American soil is a less safe bet for the republicans than say an attack on a U.S. embassy or military base abroad. Those are much harder to protect and Bush won't be held as accountable, but it will still give him the excuse he needs to attack.
As no doubts Goebbels would have explained, its not about the offence it caused the Jews, its about the hate it generates in one group towards another. We know it worked back then, and from the anti-Islmic slogans and revenge for 9/11 messages on the bombs dropped on Iraq, we know how it works now. Neither the Iraqis nor Islam was responsible for 9/11, any more than the Jews were responsible for Germans loss in WWI.
A guy claims he wanted pictures of the prophet Mohammed (forbidden according to islamic teaching) for a childrens book. Yeah right, how many times has that happened in the last 670 years. Something else for the coincidence theorists.
Israel is building 'museum of tolerance' on Muslim graves.
the cemetery was in use for 15 centuries and that friends of the Prophet Mohamed were buried there
Under Israel's "absentee property" law the cemetery was taken over by the Custodian of Absentee Property after the 1948 war.
***
"absentee property" law? absentee!!!
Anonymous-
A guy claims he wanted pictures of the prophet Mohammed (forbidden according to islamic teaching) for a childrens book
You mean, forbidden according to some Islamic teaching.
Other Islamic traditions are more tolerant. It's not the images as such that some people find offensive, but that some think they intentionally satirise the prophet.
"but that some think they intentionally satirise the prophet."
Oh fucking hell! They don't merely "intentionally satirise the prophet", they fucking demonise Muslims! How is this not obvious? How do so many intelligent miss this?
"intelligent miss this" = "intelligent life forms miss this"
How do so many intelligent miss this?
Probably because some intelligent people think that the subject of Islamic terrorism can be satirised without demonising Muslims in general.
"Oh fucking hell! They don't merely "intentionally satirise the prophet", they fucking demonise Muslims! How is this not obvious? How do so many intelligent miss this?"
how come you don't care when muslims do the same to jews?
why did nobody care when the cartoons were published in an egyptian newspaper in october of last year?
http://egyptiansandmonkey.blogsp...cott-
egypt.html
Probably because some intelligent people think that the subject of Islamic terrorism can be satirised without demonising Muslims in general.
Well, those intelligent people obviously aren't looking at the fucking cartoons properly, you scabby little runt.
why did nobody care when the cartoons were published in an egyptian newspaper in october of last year?
Of course people cared, you pillock. The pictures were published in September by a right-wing Danish newspaper that had previously refused to publish satirical pictures of Christ on account of the potential upset caused, and were subsequently reproduced in approximately thirty newspapers across the world. That is why over that period of four months there were repeated protests and diplomatic entreaties.
Why didn't you mention the Jordanian newspaper al-Shihan? Or the Malaysian Sarawak Tribune? Or Al Hurreya in Yemen?
Tell you what, here's a resource so you can know what you're talking about before mouthing off:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Lis...hammad_cartoons
One possible reason why no protests occurred in Egypt is because people there, even the Islamist groups, are readying themselves to overthrow the pro-US dictatorship they have there. If you're saying you would rather Muslims concentrated on defeating US imperialism and its network of client states, of course, then I'll give you half a point. If you are saying that the absence of a protest in Egypt means that there shouldn't have been any at all, then you remain a perfect moron.
how come you don't care when muslims do the same to jews?
How come you dont care that you're such an ignorant retard?
why did nobody care when the cartoons were published in an egyptian newspaper in october of last year?
Did nobody care?
***
You mean, forbidden according to some Islamic teaching.
Nope.
Other Islamic traditions are more tolerant.
So?
It's not the images as such that some people find offensive, but that some think they intentionally satirise the prophet.
Yeah, so what? Some people are ignorant retards. Now what?
***
Incase you missed it earlier -
As no doubt Goebbels would have explained, its not about the offence it caused the Jews (or anyone, or any protests anyone made), its about the hate it generates in one group towards another. We know it worked back then, and from the anti-Islmic slogans and revenge for 9/11 messages on the bombs dropped on Iraq, we know how it works now. Neither the Iraqis nor Islam was responsible for 9/11, any more than the Jews were responsible for Germans loss in WWI.
Hate laws are not made to protect the feelings of some group or other, rather they are there to prevent propaganda having the effect on people as it did in Nazi Germany.
Perhaps the next complaint from a jewish lobby over something will bring the offending article to the front pages of European newspapers.
In case anyone wonders what has happened to the story above, the filth have not got to me. I have been asked to temporarily remove it. More is on its way.
Hamza case.... stop press!
"Why didn't you mention the Jordanian newspaper al-Shihan? Or the Malaysian Sarawak Tribune? Or Al Hurreya in Yemen?"
because those happened recently, after the issue became a big deal. the egyptian newspaper published it months ago. i thought that was pretty obvious.
"If you are saying that the absence of a protest in Egypt means that there shouldn't have been any at all, then you remain a perfect moron."
if that's what you understood from my quesion, you're the perfect moron.
what happened now that caused all the protests? that's the question. people can protest whenever they like. they could have protested in september. they didn't. they're protesting now. what changed?
i hope that was worded in an unambiguous enough way for you not to be able to try and twist my words to fit your preconceptions about people who don't agree with you.
i noticed you did not address the fact that the same sort of cartoons (only against jews) are published in the muslim media on a daily basis.
come on, tell us what you think. an anti-racist such as yourself doesn't have an opinion on such an issue?
I have been asked to temporarily remove it.
Was that because of the errors in language and grammar?
Nope, something a wee bit more urgent than that - but not involving the law. All will become clear on Sunday...
pretty sure this kind of thing isn't going to help things
http://www.spreadshirt.net/shop....p.php?
sid=72982
what happened now that caused all the protests? that's the question.
When? You mean now, or ten minutes ago? Or now, orrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr now ... now ... now ... then?
people can protest whenever they like. they could have protested in september. they didn't. they're protesting now. what changed?
Err, the weather?
i noticed you did not address the fact that the same sort of cartoons (only against jews) are published in the muslim media on a daily basis.
No, i think you'll find they would be best compared to a cartoon about Osama bin laden and the twin towers or something. As they are invariably about Sharon and the ongoing murderous Israeli occupation.
Its the same old shite regarding the Palestinians, if only they would stop resistance then the Israelis would stop taking their land, story.
Like Hamas has to promise to be good or something, renounce violence or else.
It used to be: if only they were democratic like us.
"what happened now that caused all the protests?"
A White House client called attention to the cartoons. Negligible reaction from the public, Muslim and non Muslim. But the mainstream media got pictures of a small group of people expressing their disgust and anger at these cartoons and started running a sensational television news programme that said "Look These Mad Muslims Are Attacking Our Civilized Values Again! Medieval Intolerance, Backward Madmen Threatening Our Freedoms! They're Coming To Kill Us Like The Cartoon Says!" And to this, a greater reaction was provoked. Pictures were taken of these larger protests, these expressions of opinion. They were edited, set to voice over explaining how Muslims are again showing their medieval backward intolerance and violence and antienlightenment, etc., and broadcast. A slightly greater reaction to this libel, and grotesque hypocrisy, occurred. And this is how it escalated into an 'issue.' People didn't protest against the cartoons initially because a) not many people saw them and b) despite the fact that they are offensive and vilely obviously flagrantly racist, most people respect free speech and free expression even when it disgusts and frightens them. But when demonizing and libelling Muslims en masse as intolerant bestial head chopping lunatic horde became the headline story all over the world, and the cartoons were republished just to flaunt the power of the western media to do this and justify it with a ludicrously hypocritcal mendacious pose as defenders of all expression even that which they find odious, while they happily deplored the expression of displeasure from the audience as a form of violence, in the context of ongoing crimes against humanity targeting Muslim populations particularly, people clearly felt the need to reply publicly to this very persistent baiting and insult and taunting and slander by the Masters Of Humanity.
So now there are people protesting against the grand racist slander of Muslims that the whole news programme and cartoon 'question' has become, an issue which is now the centerpiece of a far larger question involving the aggression against the people and property in the Middle East and Iran, who would have ignored the cartoons, or never heard about them, because the scale of the thing is very different, and far more severe, and at this point it can't be denied it is very much menacing yet more very real harm to hundreds of millions of people.
Incidentally, Bill Bennett's been spotted hanging out with John Derbyshire & Co at NRO's Corner. Here's what he has to say:
----------------------------------------
MOVIE BLEG [Bill Bennett]:
Has anyone seen, does anyone know of, a movie depicting the war we are in now, the fight against the barbarians? We've had movies about the first Gulf war, and a morally ambiguous fiction about something or somewhere called Syriana -- but anything about our over-four- year- old fight for civilization against the Islamist barbarians, based on fact? Anything? Anyone?
"No, i think you'll find they would be best compared to a cartoon about Osama bin laden and the twin towers or something. As they are invariably about Sharon and the ongoing murderous Israeli occupation."
bzzzzt. wrong. they picture the usual hook-nosed, bent over, devious jew with hands dripping blood. same old racist crap you're supposed to be against.
please try again.
nice of you to use the same excuses people who are justifying the cartoons about muhammad are, though. "it's not all muslims, it's just the terrorists" and "they're right, some muslims do blow stuff up".
i suspect this is why lenin will not address this point. he doesn't mind those cartoons and the reasons are exactly the same as those who don't mind the muhammad cartoons.
can someone say "hypocrite"?
bzzzzt. wrong. they picture the usual hook-nosed, bent over, devious jew with hands dripping blood. same old racist crap you're supposed to be against.
please try again.
.
Wrong about what?
Your ignorance is clear. A picture of Osama or Zarqawi would be the comparison you are looking for. The reference is invariably about Sharon and the ongoing murderous occupation. And it has not been reprinted on the front page of European news papers, demonizing minority Jewish populations. Whereas, as i believe you pointed out, both sets of cartoons appeared in Arab newspapers.
Again, its not about the offence it causes so much as its about bombs being dropped on Iraq with anti-islamic slogans and messages of revenge for 9/11. When neither Iraqis nor Islam was responsible for 9/11.
nice of you to use the same excuses people who are justifying the cartoons about muhammad are, though. "it's not all muslims, it's just the terrorists" and "they're right, some muslims do blow stuff up"
Again, you're simply being ignorant. A cartoon depicting Osama and or Zarqawi etc is comparable.
The day such depictions appear on the front pages of European newspapers, come and tell me.
Otherwise its simply hypocritical.
Any there are no Jewish minorities in any Arab or North African countries right Anonymous?
i suspect this is why lenin will not address this point. he doesn't mind those cartoons and the reasons are exactly the same as those who don't mind the muhammad cartoons.
can someone say "hypocrite"?
I think you're slightly falling into the trap of the far left extremists who have being trying to whip up a racial angle to this.
The cartoons of Mohammed, a 5th century Muslim, were not racist at all and cannot be compared to the Arab media cartoons of Jews that always either glorify or deny a genocide. The Danish cartoons of Mohammed are just like the cartoons of orthodox Jews that are not racist in any way; orthodox Jews have always been satirised in comedies, etc, and there has never been any riots or murders.
http://www.cartoonstock.com/news...wres/
bhon2l.jpg
Also, although the cartoons may refer to Sharon and the occupation they employ classical anti-semitic sterotypes and Jewish iconography which infers *all* jews are bloodthirsty murderers. This is surely exactly the same sort of vilification you are accusing the Danish cartoons of.
Once again Baz/pete/twat etc pays remarkable attention to historical accuracy with this statement:
"Mohammed, a 5th century Muslim"
islam wasn't founded until the 7th century.
With knowledge like this, one can clearly see why he thinks he is qualified to discuss religion
"In the desert of Arabia was Mohammad born, according to Muslim historians, on April 20, 571."
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/
fund...eofprophet.html
http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowr...es/
hsc3077l.jpg
i on the ball patriot: so what is wrong with elistism anyway?
Lenin: forbidden according to Islamic teaching So are pork sausages and gay marriage, but you don't see us listening to complaints about those, do you? And I'm still not seeing the racial angle to the cartoons: the ones I saw just had cultural / religous references - and, my goodness, we aren't too shy about criticising ideas we think silly, are we?
Your citation of Slavoi Zizek writing after the WTC attacks of 11 September 2001 made me look at the article. Like you he writes as if the US Government account of those events is true. If you believe that 9/11 was "blowback" from Osama and the Muslims then you've let the imperialists put a black hood over your head. It makes the likes of you and your readers so much more easy to control. Those angry puppet "Muslims" you care about so much would benefit more from a little truth in these parts than all the sympathy. British workers might know more with some "exposures" of the truth about their rulers, too.
I disagree with The Frog, yesterday, that this site lacks humour. There is always a lot of the “supercilious British undergraduate” variety to be enjoyed. Lenin’s Tomb is a little community which hates US imperialism but believes its version of 9/11 and sees Israel as the biggest threat to peace but passionately defends its foundation myth, the "holocaust". No surprises there from a revolutionary Marxist who got into bed with bearded religious zealots to promote a Pretend-to-Stop-the War “movement” which is obviously run to the entire satisfaction of H.M.G. I bet you also believe H.M.G., and the Guardian, of course, about the 7/7 bombings, Hamza's official protection, Dr David Kelly's "suicide", the IRA/Sinn Fein war and ceasefire charade, Princess Diana's timely "accident" and the (bedrock) “People’s War” against fascism. (One could go on.) Lacking any clarity about history, “the only science”, and too timid to even think about something of which the proper authorities might disapprove, this blog is often perfectly hilarious. There are honourable exceptions but this is generally a new comedy landmark, “The Marxism Brothers”. It isn't enough that your heart is in the right place: your brain needs to be.
(Anyone here noticed how close the next war, against Iran, is?)
Oh and Baz: this is nitpicking really, according to the facts that you posted, you are wrong about the foundation date for Islam: the year 571 actually falls in the 6th century (remember, 1900 started the twentieth century, not the nineteenth). Since Mohammed didn't start seeing things till he was 40 (AD 610), that places Islam's beginning firmly in the 7th century.
Anyhow, what is two hundred years between friends? No, seriously - enough with the "ad hominem" bit. Blood sports might be fun, but they aren't very nice.
Yeah, I realised that then was going to wait till someone corrected to me and say: Same difference...whatever, etc.
RE: Bill Bennett and Enunciating/Legitimating Obscene Racist Fantasies via The Lie of Disavowal
Lying in the guise of the truth: Recall what William Bennett, the neo-con compulsive gambler and author of The Book of Virtues, said on September 28, 2005 on his call-in program "Morning in America": "But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossibly ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down." The White House spokesman immediately reacted: "The president believes the comments were not appropriate." Two days later, Bennett qualified his statement: "I was putting a hypothetical proposition ... and then said about it, it was morally reprehensible to recommend abortion of an entire group of people. But this is what happens when you argue that ends can justify the means."
THIS is what Freud meant when he wrote that the Unconscious knows no negation: the official (Christian, democratic...) discourse is accompanied and sustained by a whole nest of obscene brutal racist, sexist, etc., fantasies, which can only be admitted in a censored form.===Zizek
Bennet's disavowal (aborting black babies "a morally reprehensible thing to do" etc) of his racist sentiments make them even more dangerous and disturbing, because it enables him to publicly articulate such obscene options in a "ligitimate" and "reasonable" way [by pretending to disavow such genocidal fantasies] ...
Solidarity with racist scum, y'mean??
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk...?
article_id=809
Why do you refuse to say whether you condemn the swp cheering jew-hatred??
Lenin: forbidden according to Islamic teaching
My complaint about these pictures is that they are racist. It has nothing to do with the sanctity of Muhammad.
ok, i think i get it now. a classical anti-semitic representation of a jew, with black clothes, a beard, hooked nose, bent back, star of david on his hat, hands dripping blood while trying to take control of the world, which looks nothing at all like sharon is in fact a depction of sharon and therefor legitimate political commentary and anyhow it wasn't in a european newspaper.
lovely.
you're a hypocrite, buddy. you're making the same exact excuses that you call other people racist for making.
some anti-racists you bunch are.
The swp is a racist party. See what filth gets spouted at its events
http://www.gilad.co.uk/html%
20fi...ziobritain.html
w.b. kelso is David Icke and I claim my five pounds!
Gilad Atzmon seems to make the same mistake about westerners that others make about people from the middle east - that they have no agency themselves.
"you're a hypocrite, buddy"
No he isn't.
The context of the Sharon cartoons is completely different. What binary-thinking right-wingers seem to be unable to grasp is that you can't take any situation, reverse the actors and claim it'd be "just the same" the other way round.
Cartoons of Jewish stereotypes in Islamic countries are playing to the gallery - everyone there is Muslim, and the Jews are a foreign Other out there somewhere (a bit like the grotesque charicatures one sees of English people in Scotland, or of French people in England). In the UK, or Denmark, Muslims are not some foreign other, but a real, existing, largely powerless, intimidated minority within the society.
Mark Steel puts it much better than me. He says:
But a debate about free speech is meaningless unless it relates to the society in which things are being spoken. When Goebbels commissioned cartoons of grotesque paedophile Jews, he was exercising free speech. So if you approach the matter as an abstract debating point, we should defend his right to do so. But that's obviously mad. Similarly, it wouldn't have helped much to advise Jews to draw their own cartoons of grotesque paedophile Nazis, saying "Then we'll all be laughing at each other, so isn't that lovely."
But you get the impression that if the academics discussing the matter now had been around back then, there'd have been an edition of The Moral Maze which began "Our first witness is a Miss Ann Frank. Now you've been complaining about some of the images that have appeared recently, but surely if you're not prepared to accept other people's viewpoints you've no right to be in the country."
Atzmons 'mistake' is to be a jew-baiter. Little things like that don't rule him out of speaking at the swp tho.
Thanks for the Mark Steel quote, McGazz. That hits the nail very firmly on the head.
i heard a prog on radio 4 today http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/r...4/
cartoon_storm
Apparently, there's an imman in Denmark who went over to the middle east to ask govts to complain about the notorious cartoons. Thing is, he brought a few more along which were quite a lot worse than the oiginals ("prof" thingybob as a paedo etc).
He has also been seen giving inteviews on Al Jaz in which he claims that the people of the west are about to start burning down mosques.
Presumably anon, you thinks that he is secretly an agent of the neo-cons.
Isn't it more likley that there are two separate groups of arseholes each itching to start world war three.
So was I hallucinating, McGazz, when I visited a Synagogue in Cairo or got shown round Marrakech by a Moroccan Jew?
Fake Lenin, you are pissing in your own pockets.
I was tricked. I saw the cartoon about Mohammed raped by a dog while praying. And the other: Mohammed has a pig face. These are clearly racist, filthy cartoons. This has nothing to do with satire, I agree. But, er, weren't these cartoons fabricated by an imam and added to the 12 original cartoons? ;)
You talk about generalisations? Aren't you generalising? Apparently, you do know the muslim people do not like these cartoons. Why? Because you have seen the rioters (some hundreds), clearly the islamo-fascists? Are you implying that these reactionary rioters represent all the muslim people? Are you implying that we should care about these imbeciles? :P I could not care less about these wankers.
Stalinists of the World, Unite!
Lenin: I'm still not seeing where the race angle comes from, and I think you need to show that pretty convincingly - otherwise, all you have is a lot of fairly convincing argument that people are being nasty about a different culture - which might be rude, but is hardly immoral.
Phibius, I am starting to think that maybe Fake Lenin did see the 3 cartoons I was talking about ;)
He is correct about "free speech" though. There are many hypocrites. Say "my boss is a cunt", if you dare. You will probably be a victim of the "economic terrorism" :P
"remember, 1900 started the twentieth century, not the nineteenth"
< nitpick > Actually, no - the twentieth century started in 1901. There was no year 0, so modern Western counting starts with AD 1. At the end of AD 10, one decade had been completed. At the end of AD 100, one century had been completed, AD 101 was the beginning of the 2nd century. (Obviously they weren't counted as such back then). And so on and so forth.
Of course you could then throw in the loss of days in the shift from the Julian to Gregorian calendar, but that would probably be a little too much detail.
"i on the ball patriot: so what is wrong with elistism anyway?"
Nothing. My little brother speaks with an elistism when he has had a lot of beers and hot tacos.
here's some Freudian verneinung (stating what's on your mind then withdrawing it) about where the free speech secular values argument ends up:
"the most depressing thing I have seen or heard this past week (which is saying something) was from someone who suggested that there was a fundamental incompatibility between Islam "and our democratic secular values." If that's a view that, as I have more than hinted here, I am close to sharing, why was it so depressing? Because the speaker was a leader of the brutal white-supremacist British National Party.
Leave aside the impudent hypocrisy of a bigot and racist invoking secular democracy, something has gone badly wrong when fascists speak for bemused skeptics. Recently, it has been quite easy to think that many Muslims are fanatics who don't understand our values. Looking back over the past week, it's hard to believe that this is entirely the fault of the liberal west."
http://www.slate.com/id/2135820/
shorter version: those black flag flying Muslims hate our freedom. The BNP were right! Rauss!... Crap... you made me realize I'm in sympathy with the fascists. You muslim bastards! It's all your fault!
"Bennet's disavowal (aborting black babies "a morally reprehensible thing to do" etc) of his racist sentiments make them even more dangerous and disturbing, because it enables him to publicly articulate such obscene options in a "ligitimate" and "reasonable" way [by pretending to disavow such genocidal fantasies] ..."
Also, more importantly, neither he nor his friend the "prez" clarified that what he said was UNTRUE.
Really, saying "should" is already taking the edge of propaganda. The meat of propaganda are trhe statements and assumptions about "is," the deformed and false pictures of the world. So for example the "race exists" element of the statement "the other race should be jailed" is the most dangerous part, because nobody feels compelled to obey what someone else openly recommends as an opinion (except a few damaged people who post here). The dangerous part of this cartoon brouhaha is the falsehood that is being repeatedly assumed and stated over and over about the "Muslim reaction" and the existence of a disagreement about 'free speech' which puts 'Muslims' against vs. 'Europeans' for.
There is an org called the ADL. All it does it seek out antisemitism, mainly in the media, and protest against and try to silence it or failing that expose it as such. (It kills a lot of antiZionist dolphins in its anitisemitism tuna net of course). It does this pretty successfully. There is no furore over the threat the ADL poses to 'free speech.' Speech is what they do, basically, too. Their speech got a small revision made to The Passion of the Christ, and at this point nobody would publish a cartoon in the US which Foxman would single out as antisemitic unless they deliberately wanted to start something.
The Arabic media which publishes antisemitic cartoons is controlled by the despotic governments. Nobody likes those governments but what you going to do? They don't represent anybody but themselves and the US public alre
dy hates them plenty. When - during Operation Defensive Shield - an Italian paper published an antizionist cartoon that was also antisemitic, implicating all Jews in the crimes of the Israqeli state and also in the crucifixion, people complained, and there was an apology;, and nobody reprinted the cartoon or dared to say "Jews Threaten Our European Values And Freedoms!"
You can't say this furore is about the racist cartoons, which a majority of people who have seen them, both Muslims and non Muslims, recognize are insensitive, inflammatory, insulting, racist and also deem them legal. It isn't about this. It's about other inflammatory, insensitive lines on paper which people here, and Western Governments, want to portray as violence rather than speech and therefore illegal and want to suppress, and how this is being used to create a) a reality tv show with a villain and a victim which correspond in no way to reality but cleverly disguise it and b) a pretext for further violence 'abroad' and repression and violence at 'home'.
taken from kurt nimmo's site
Flemming Rose and the Straussian Art of Provocation
Tuesday February 07th 2006, 3:24 pm
As suspected, and claimed on this blog over the weekend, the inflammatory anti-Muslim cartoons published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten were a deliberate provocation designed to outrage and incite Muslims and thus engender support in Europe and America for the manufactured “clash of civilizations” engineered by the Straussian neocons. As Christopher Bollyn writes for the American Free Press, the neocon operative behind the cartoon scheme is Flemming Rose, cultural editor of Jyllands-Posten, who has “has clear ties to the Zionist Neo-Cons.” Rose “traveled to Philadelphia in October 2004 to visit Daniel Pipes, the Neo-Con ideologue who says the only path to Middle East peace will come through a total Israeli military victory. Rose then penned a positive article about Pipes, who compares ‘militant Islam’ with fascism and communism,” Bollyn reveals.
Daniel Pipes is one of the more virulent and hateful of the Straussian neocons, famous for his racist and xenophobic statement that Muslim immigrants are “brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and not exactly maintaining Germanic standards of hygiene,” an attitude straight out of the Nazi school of racial hyperbole (a philosophy embraced by no small number of Jabotinsky Likudites and their fellow travelers among the traitorous Straussian neocons).
Bollyn continues:
“Agents of certain persuasion” are behind the egregious affront to Islam in order to provoke Muslims, Professor Mikael Rothstein of the University of Copenhagen told the BBC. The key “agent” is Flemming Rose, the cultural editor of JP, who commissioned cartoonists to produce the blasphemous images and then published them in Denmark’s leading morning paper last September….
Rose told the international paper owned by The New York Times that “he would not publish a cartoon of Israel’s Ariel Sharon strangling a Palestinian baby, since that could be construed as ‘racist.’”
As Daniel Pipes and his ilk have repeatedly demonstrated, it is not racist to characterize Arabs and Muslims as “brown-skinned peoples” suffering from bad hygiene, although it is a crime to take the apartheid state of Israel to task for murdering Palestinian children. But then, as Lenni Brenner has documented, the followers of Ze’ev Jabotinsky—and his political creation, the reactionary Likud Party in Israel—are not only well versed in fascism, but murderous racism as well.
As for the unapologetic stance of the Danes in regard to publishing the cartoons, Bollyn comments:
There is clearly a more sinister reason why the Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen refuses to issue a formal apology as demanded by Arab and Muslim governments. The hard-line position taken
Also see justin raimondo at antiwar.com "rotten in denmark"
rc
http://xymphora.blogspot.com/
200...nspiracies.html
Xmphora makes the important point.
The cartoons got only ADL style reaction in Denmark initially, despite rude, hypocritical response from Danish gov. So, the publishers were UNHAPPY about this and had to draw attention to the cartoons, and publish elsewhere, and republish and republish until they got something to film and fabricate a tv show about. They kept on publishing until they got enough of a *vocal* reaction to fabricate the illusion on television they had gotten the *violent* reaction they wanted but didn't get. And Murdoch and posse will keep trying forever with this expensive and laborious effort to *incite* a *violent* reaction. But this clear programme to *incite violence* on the part of the corporate media is just the apodictically responsible speech inalienable right of capitalists.
that was I
Early night tonight Lenin.
Tomorrow you have to write a post defending the Hizb line on Jlibabs rather than Muslim Parents at Denbigh High School.
Not on topic exactly but here is a side line from and american journalist and it shows the spread of racist reaction. (I'm the one who completely disagrees with your analysis:
http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish...02/
fortuyn.html
I see the Alliance for White Liberty (copyright Meaders) have called a demo.
http://www.workersliberty.org/no.../node/view/
5624
The desert religions united.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middl...ast/
4694328.stm
atlas, the only government in the region to send the attacker to prison rather than give him a medal and then finish the job themselves.
Anyhow it turns out the stoppers were wrong to support Saddam Hussein after all.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world...ast/
4696038.stm
Very much by the by but for all those who mindlessly churn out comments on "mediaeval" Islamic states - which are manifestly thoroughly modern - last week's TLS had an interesting review of a book on "Mediaevalism and Orientalism".
"If the past is another country then the Middle Ages are the Orient. The founding gesture of the modern Western tradition in the fifteenth century was to invent both a period called "the Middle Ages" and a region called "the Orient" from which it could set itself apart and thus become, precisely, modern and Western.The medieval and Oriental do not just fulfil parallel roles but are also often linked... for example when medieval art, architecture literature and civilisation are claimed to have Oriental origins, or when the Orient is characterised by backward medieval values as well as petty medieval bazaars".
Enlightenment values my bum. Think Renaissance power politics.
Dolge
Great to see a moderate Muslim on the This week programme really passionately repeating everything I've been saying about this, almost verbatim; even pointing out how if the BNP were caught doing what the demonstrators in London were doing it would never have been tolerated in a million years, plus adding a bit saying the government is too scared to crack down harder because of Labour's Muslim vote.
Who is this wonderful woman?
Any there are no Jewish minorities in any Arab or North African countries right Anonymous?
There are, so what? Were you hoping to convey some understanding with that, make a point perhaps? I said that arabs ran both cartoons.
Also, although the cartoons may refer to Sharon and the occupation they employ classical anti-semitic sterotypes and Jewish iconography which infers *all* jews are bloodthirsty murderers. This is surely exactly the same sort of vilification you are accusing the Danish cartoons of.
As i said, compare that with depictions of Osama and Zarqawi etc. So no, its not the same sort, its not even the same sort of situatation.
***
Anyone remember the Gaza pullout?
More consideration, care and money was spent on those few thousand jews than all of the millions of Palestinians since 1948. And what happened because of that pullout was terrorist attacks by jews on arabs. Nothing to do directly with the pullout, but jews killed arabs because of it. What happened next, were the few thousand from gaza put in a camp in the desert, for their own safety. Were the threats to Palestinians played over and over again by western newspapers? Were the villages of those jewish terrorists surrounded, cut off, and bombed by hightech weapons supplied by Europe in response? Did comando raids happpen and house demolishions take place? No. If they had have, then more attacks would have taken place, and the cycle of violence continue.
No, what happened was that the media explained how traumatic it was for the jews to be giving up their land.
Anyway, its the Europeans that were guilty of genocide. And its Europeans that are now the target of the hate campaign, whipping them up for further attacks.
I wonder how many European papers will put the Holocaust cartoons on the front page, in support of the imprisoned David Irving say.
Well, those intelligent people obviously aren't looking at the fucking cartoons properly, you scabby little runt.
What is it to look at the cartoons "properly"? Lenin begins an earlier post by incorrectly employing the term "logocentric" to refer to the distinction between speech and writing (or drawing). In fact, the term as used by Derrida refers instead to the idea that words, signs, marks, etc. carry the kind of inherent meaning that lenin is arguing for. Of course, lenin's argument is undermined by the fact that he has to reach back into the history of orientalism, quote Edward Said, discuss the political situation in Denmark, etc, etc. So much for the "obviousness" of it all.
I don't know why I bother since lenin's rebuttal will almost certainly be along the lines of "you scum sucking racist cunt asswipe..." Whatever.
You've really lost me anonymous. If you admit that Jewish minority communities exist in Arab countries then how does your distinction between anti-semitic cartoons published in the European press (which would be deemed racist by the European Jewish minority) and those published in the Arab press (which would also be deemed racist by Jewish minorities in Islamic countries) have any force?
Also, you seemed to have missed the point that "a" made above - that anti-semitic cartoons in the arab world depict Sharon as the **archetypal** Jew - with his physical features morphed to fit into classical anti-semitic sterotypes. This is surely analogous to the portrayal of the Islamic terrorist as the **archetypal** Muslim, with all the classical orientalist trappings.
Lenin: Might we get something on the elections in Haiti and future prospects given that appears Preval will win.
Or would be happy to be directed someplace else.
ive lost you mahagonny? What distinction are refering to?
Look, depictions of Osama, Zarqawi or any other number of Muslims as global Jihadis didnt cause the protests, ok!!!
get a grip man, for goodness sake.
Your article is poignant, and largely to the point. We can all observe broadcast media's fawning attempts to keep things "fair and balanced," meaning, counter criticisms of government misdeeds with an opposing voice, no matter how racist, ignorant, void of facts or just plain repugnant it is. The example of CNN is a great one. Broadcast journalism in this America has abdicated its constitutional responsibility to criticize those in power, no matter who they are. They have failed to be the watchdog.
Speech doesn't need to be even handed, nor does the press. They do, however, need to scrutinize the men and women who run the government. The Fourth Estate has squandered its First Amendment priveledges. I have a longer rant posted to this effect.
cartoon news! Thirteen people have lost their lives over these cartoons, all protestors.
The reports are written along the lines of - people were killed as Muslim anger over cartoons swept across the country.
You know how it is.
And the message to Muslims is: Violence is not the answer.
I kid you not, you couldnt make it up.
What's happened to Lenin's Craig Murray piece?
So much for Western "freedom of speech".
the excuse that they're depicting sharon is obviously false.
where do you see sharon in the following cartoons?
http://www.jcpa.org/phas/
world_c...rld_cartoon.gif
(note: jews as apes and pigs is a muslim motif, not a european one)
http://www.jcpa.org/phas/
octopus...pus_cartoon.gif
(this one is a european motif)
http://www.adl.org/
Anti_semitism...tar_report3.gif
(wasn't the hooked nose, unkempt beard and wild eyes something lenin was complaining about?)
you should work on your apologetics, mr. anti-racist. this one just doesn't fly.
a,
Aren't you concerned about the racist demonisation of Muslims at all?
Or is the escalation of racist tensions something you welcome?
I mean, these seem to be reasonable questions to ask you since your only input into this debate has been to counterpose what you consider to be anti-semitic cartoons and our 'failure' to condemn those as well.
You are simply assuming, or, rather you are trying to give the impression, that somehow we don't care about anti-semitism - though you can't show any evidence for this, I'm sure.
So will you please condemn the publication of Islamophobic cartoons to be just as even handed as you demand us to be?
Morning Lenin.
Its Jilbab day.
Next to May Day the biggest day in the SWP calendar.
After all, if you can show yourself to be against all racism, including Islamophobia, as we are, then your 'points' would have more value.
odd that odd sounds just like the liar tim. Why would the liar tim want to hide his identity?
odd.
worraller,
Could you cite apost of yours condemning anti semitism in the Middle East press please.
To give your points more value.
Here you go. I completely and utterly condemn all anti-semitism wherever it comes from.
Is that the first post?
Why do you find that statement ambiguous or lacking in clarity?
We're not all fucking liars, tim. You shouldn't measure others by your own low, low standards.
Just seems a bit after the fact.
I suppose if your lies are challenged the only thing left for someone as dishonest as you is innuendo.
Not really.
To help you with your research you may find that the Governments most busy in fermenting cartoon anger are thos most likely to pander to anti semitism.
Just thought I'd help you on your way.
Governments which you support, you mean?
No.
But please go on from there.
Good grief...
So you smear me as an anti-semite and then expect me to come up with evidence that I'm not.
The balance of proof is on you. Present your evidence or shut up you libellous bastard.
Didn't say you were an anti semite.
Just said you'd never expressed any concern about it on this forum.
Point me in the right direction if I'm wrong.
Show me a post.
As you nearly said above
"After all, if you can show yourself to be against all racism, including anti semitism, as we are, then your 'points' would have more value."
Just show us.
worraller,
"You are simply assuming, or, rather you are trying to give the impression, that somehow we don't care about anti-semitism - though you can't show any evidence for this, I'm sure."
well, lets see. i asked you here
http://www.haloscan.com/comments...7492363/
#186517
what you thought about the anti-semitic cartoons published in the muslim media, and you ignored my question. read it in context and you'll see that i didn't just jump up with this question, it's pertinent to the dicussion and the way you present your argument.
you are now saying these are cartoons that *i* consider anti-semitic, which seems to imply that you don't consider them as such.
so yes, i'm getting the impression that you don't really care about similar cartoons, at least if they are anti-semitic and published in the muslim media.
i asked lenin the same questions several times, and like you, he ignored them.
i'm not the one presenting himself as the champion of everything anti-racist, like you are. so lets hear it, what do you think about those cartoons i just posted?
i'll gladly answer your questions when you do me the courtesy of answering mine which were asked first.
I'm sure worraller has posted on anti semitism many times.
Just show us worraller.
the excuse that they're depicting sharon is obviously false.
where do you see sharon in the following cartoons?
Wow, i thought you thinking of the depictions of sharon eating a bowl of palestinain children. Representing the orders given to the IDF to shoot children (82 killed, often with shots to the head before the first israeli child was killed in response, often with US weapons)
i though the first one was about the chimp boy mr president. the second is the israeli octopus grappling with Hamas etc. the third is that the US army works for Israel in attacking iraq.
I dont see how that helps you make any point you may think you were making.
Maybe if the things the ADL complained about were to appear on the front pages of European newspapers ...
"After all, if you can show yourself to be against all racism, including anti semitism, as we are, then your 'points' would have more value."
Worrallers gone?
Gone looking?
Show us Worraller.
... appear on the front pages of European newspapers with a mocking tone towards the ADL for whinging and whining and being anti free speech or whatever. with references to all the other things connected, like the 82 palestinian children shot dead the IDF ...
a, if you can't read:
'I completely and utterly condemn all anti-semitism wherever it comes from.'
Your turn.
tim is a paedophile, I'm afraid. I've got no evidence for this, of course, but one can see from his lack of denial and his lack of previous posts condemning paedophilia that he certainly is a kiddie botherer.
present your paedo attacking posts, tim. Come on the silence is worrying....
You notice he won't even deny his paedophilia even after he's been challenged?
Very worrying...
:-)
"After all, if you can show yourself to be against all racism, including anti semitism, as we are, then your 'points' would have more value."
Any comments before this?
No Nothing.
poor worraller.
gone,long gone.
I've heard that paedophiles always have to have the last word, so will tim prove me wrong on that point?
Thats odd, if this is the first mention-
worraller:"After all, if you can show yourself to be against all racism, including anti semitism, as we are, then your 'points' would have more value."
Then worraller is indeed the first to declare to be against all racism, including anti semitism.
Unless i missed something.
Whereas coming from the other side, you have people expressing a clear double standard. they introduce antisemitic cartoons demanding people condemn them, when they havnt themselves condemned the anti-muslim ones which are part of the subject at hand.
Which is of course the point worraller was making.
Do'h!
After all, if you can show yourself to be against all racism, including Islamophobia, as we are, then your 'points' would have more value.
Worraller can't have been thick enough to write that can he?
Unless of course he'd posted against ,for instance anti semitism in the past.
I feel like I'm being groomed on the internet.
Nah,
exposed.
That's two last words.
Anyway, where's a gone with his condemnation of all racism?
a:
'i'll gladly answer your questions when you do me the courtesy of answering mine which were asked first.'
worraller:
'I completely and utterly condemn all anti-semitism wherever it comes from.'
I'm waiting....
....quick name change, something imaginative, like 'b' or 'blah' or 'tim', and back with the same smears and innuendo...
What paragons of 'free speech' we have here! What advocates for honest discussion and reason!
The enlightenment can have no fears with such defenders!
worraller,
i'm sorry, but i don't check this site every 5 minutes. maybe you have that kind of spare time, but i don't.
also, 'a' is the only name i've been using on this site. feel free to confirm with lenin.
as for your question,
I completely and utterly condemn all racism, including anti-muslim, wherever it comes from.
did you notice how "anonymous" was explaining that the archetypical jew pictured in those cartoons actually represents israel? if i said that muhammad with a bomb in his turban actually represnts al-qaeda, do you think he'd accept that?
what do you think about those cartoons i posted?
Anonymous,
I have condemned both sets of cartoons. It is yourself and a number of others on this thread that have been claiming that anti-Israeli cartoons in the arab media are not really racist because what they are really refering to is Sharon and the occupation?
a,
I don't think those cartoons are 'anti-semitic'. They are anti-Israeli.
I think they are attacking Israel's aggression and links with the United States.
However, I can see that some people would disagree and could be offended about the characterisation of the fundamentalist in the last cartoon. But these are the sort of people who accuse socialists of anti-semitism because of our oppositon to the occupation and disposession of the Palestinian people, so I don't really trust the honesty of their 'offense'.
What would be helpful from supporters of Israel is a description of what criticism they don't find offensive: it seems to be their objective to tar anyone who disagrees with Israeli policy as an anti-semite. So what are valid grounds for criticising Israel?
In fact, a, what would be good is if you could describe exactly what IS anti-semitic about those cartoons, in your view.
That would provide a reasonable basis for debate - at the moment you are trying to get us to condemn something but not really telling us why we should.
I'm surprised that with you're impeccable "anti racist" credentials worraller,and your large number of posts on anti semitism (could you please show us those please, I can only find one from today) that you would've already reached a conclusion.
There is nothing anti-semitic about robust criticism of Israeli war crimes. Using imagery which makes such crimes out to be a problem not with the Israeli state but with the Jew **is** anti-semitic. As has been said before, cartoons in the arab media often depict not individual actors but the archetypal jew and do so in a manner which is demonising. (There are some other examples at http://modies.blogspot.com/2006/
...rofanities.html with some intelligent comment)
They also often play upon classical european anti-semitic fantasies about a shady network of Jews contolling the world - which are widely believed across the Middle East in the guise of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
i though the first one was about the chimp boy mr president. the second is the israeli octopus grappling with Hamas etc. the third is that the US army works for Israel in attacking iraq.
did you notice how "anonymous" was explaining that the archetypical jew pictured in those cartoons actually represents israel? if i said that muhammad with a bomb in his turban actually represnts al-qaeda, do you think he'd accept that?
Yes i'd accept it.
The others were about Israel, i took the third to be also. But yes, it was a Jew whipping the US army to do the attack. The US military works for the Jews is the representation, is it not?
You seem to think its important to the debate, as if you have made a point about the Mohammed cartoons. I fail to see it, perhaps you could explain it to me, if you get time.
You have the archetypical jew representing Israel on the one hand, and the archetypical Mohammed representing Al qeada on the other.
The point i have been making is not about the offence caused to those protesting, but the hate and fear it builds in the minds of others. The Jews didnt die in their millions from being offended at cartoons.
Now if you'd gotten that cartoon from the front page of European newspaper, and not from the ADL website, i might have a clue to what you're on about.
Anonymous,
I have condemned both sets of cartoons. It is yourself and a number of others on this thread that have been claiming that anti-Israeli cartoons in the arab media are not really racist because what they are really refering to is Sharon and the occupation?
No, i'd only be claiming the ones refering to Sharon are about Israel etc. I dont get to see much of the antisemitic cartoons printed in Arab newspapers cuz they are not reprinted on the front pages in Europe. The only cartoons i was previously aware of were the ones where sharon was shown eating a bowl of palestinian children. I saw three others on CNN the other day, and they all had clear references to Israel as i remember them.
Perhaps i ought to check in with the ADL website for the clearly antisemitic stuff. Cuz it sure isnt gong to be put on the front pages over here, eh.
Maybe they should, maybe every image that appears at the ADL website should be widely reprinted all over Europe, along with the Sharon eating Palestinian children ones, is that what you're getting at?
"The US military works for the Jews is the representation, is it not?"
Are you saying this is an acceptible sentiment to hold?
"The Jews didnt die in their millions from being offended at cartoons."
Nobody has ever been killed by a cartoon - Muslim or Jew. They do contibute towards demonisation of peoples.
As for re-printing cartoons in the European press - the baby-eating cartoon was from the Independent (as far as I remember) and I believe that the Danes are planning to publish the results of Ahmadinejad's hilarious "satirise the holocaust" cartoon competition.
I had no idea what the ADL was until today - so I'm not sure what you are trying to allude to there.
Are you saying this is an acceptible sentiment to hold?
No, do you think i am? *frown*
You appear to have a bit trouble in that regard. Look here, you said -
It is yourself and a number of others on this thread that have been claiming that anti-Israeli cartoons in the arab media are not really racist because what they are really refering to is Sharon and the occupation?
What i said was - No, i think you'll find they would be best compared to a cartoon about Osama bin laden and the twin towers or something. As they are invariably about Sharon and the ongoing murderous Israeli occupation.
i then said - Wrong about what?
Your ignorance is clear. A picture of Osama or Zarqawi would be the comparison you are looking for. The reference is invariably about Sharon and the ongoing murderous occupation
And - As i said, compare that with depictions of Osama and Zarqawi etc. So no, its not the same sort, its not even the same sort of situatation.
So you accuse me of something thats not true.
There was no mention of whether they were really racist or not. There was no cartoon to look at. But i took it that the cartoons would be best compared to Osama cartoons as the they were about Israel/Palestine etc.
Clear?
mahagonny, why dont you just accuse me of being anti-jew because i am pro Arab/Muslim/Palestinian or whatever, and get on with it? You victim you!
;-)
Why am I a victim? - I'm white, gentile, male and middle class.
a good post:
http://alertandalarmed.blogspot....nd-
context.html
Simple: all the Islamists protests say he cartoons are blasphempous. No requirement for the "left" to line up with that; then, someone says "no, it isn't (just) blasphemy: they're also racist"; that concerns the "left". So waht do we do? Well, the obvious answer is to look at the damned cartoons, and decide. Except that the SWP says they should be banned...so we can't. Make up your own minds, by looking at the cartoons, on the Alliance for Workers Liberty website.
Lenin (the *real* Lenin, not the SWP twat) once said: "Anyone who takes someone else's word for anything is a hopeless idiot"...the early Trots (James P. Cannon & Co) took that quote so seriously that they put it on the masthead of their paper, the "Militant" in 1928, as a jibe against the Stalinists... how Cannon & Co would despise today's SWP!
Excellent post len, thx.
Ekk
Jim Burnham - Is there any record of Cannon's Militant paper publishing racist cartoons against black people in the US?
I doubt it somehow - so quite what the early Trotskyists would have made of the AWL publishing the racist Danish cartoons against Muslims I hate to think...
Answer to "Snowball": no, of course Cannon and co didn't publish racist material: but they were rational, and in favour of people seeing stuff for themselves before making a judgement. You, apparently *know* that the danish cartoons are "racist" - how? Thanks to the AWL website I've seen them and can make a judgement (they're *not* racist)...on what do you base your judgment?
Hate Speech, Free Speech: Europe Needs To Learn The Difference........
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