Join the discussion about Charlie Hebdo - closed

6079_Smith_W wrote:

And you just said that you thought that if that second picture was published it would generate fury. Well it seems to be making the rounds,as have a number of other unflattering things. I haven't heard any public outcry.

If it were printed alone, without the accompanying picture of the Koran being shot through, by the MSM not a blog. That has not happened.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

The Danish paper which originally ran pictures of Mohammed has declined to reprint this time. In their case the editor said directly it was because of fear, and that militants have control over their newsroom decisions.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/13/the-newspaper-that-firs...

Does the editor have a jihadi aqaintance that vets all newsroom decisions? I don't blame them for feeling intimidated and not re-printing it for that reason which is their choice. It has not led to a general shortage of reprints so free speech is still safe in the western world. It's the point of terrorism to intimidate but I think the planners of this attack knew it would result in plenty of advertising and reprints of the offending material so the motive was not to actually stifle the material.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

Yes, thinking that the right to free speech and security of the person  should be trumped by a "religious right", as is the case here, and is done in a lot of other ways by other fundamentalists, is trying to give religions the same status as people.It is a dangerous precedent. 

We are not at risk of granting religion the privileges of personhood nor of losing our freedom of speech from external forces. One publication that was already hit being cautious is not a threat to our freedom of speech.

Religious rights didn't trump anything. Terrorism did and it cannot be fought directly and it is impossible to have sufficient security against it to protect the general public. Our only hope to reduce random target terrorism lies in understanding the seed elements that create it. If Islam didn't exist this terrorism would still be happening it would just be hung on a different imperialist-created scaffold with different targets because terrorism is the weapon of the dispossessed.

The root of all jihadi hell, fundamentally, is medieval Wahhabism – and its primitive, intolerant interpretation of Islam. Yet this phenomenon cannot even begin to be discussed by Western corporate media. No “freedom of speech” there. The House of Saud and assorted Persian Gulf plutocrats are “our” bastards. They are even helping the Empire of Chaos-led coalition to fight Daesh!

Victims

Even French intellectuals who used to make some sense of jihadism, like Olivier Roy, are asking themselves about the “link between Islam and violence”. Wrong question; it’s not about Islam but about Saudi-exported religious ideology/proselytism.

Internally, French society is not “threatened” by a Muslim presence – although it is indeed threatened by exacerbated Islamophobia. The key problem is that France does not know how to integrate its Muslim population, something that allows what sociologist Farhad Khosrokhavar describes as “terroristes maison”. These made in France terrorists start as petty thieves, are de-Islamicized and then re-Islamicized by neighborhood imams and most of all by the devastation wreaked by the Empire of Chaos and NATO over the lands of Islam.

NATO, which includes France, has been doing everything from bombing civilians (Libya) to financing/weaponizing/”supporting” the so-called “moderate rebels” in Syria. And it doesn’t get much better in the freedom of speech front. According to the BRussells tribunal, at least 404 journalists have been killed since the 2003 US invasion/occupation of Iraq; 374 of them were Iraqis. They were not exactly mourned by the freedom-loving Atlanticist gang. Neither were over 1,000,000 Iraqi civilians decimated by the Empire of Chaos in over three decades of imperial rage. Not to mention the 200,000 Syrians victims of the “Assad must go” war.  

Pasted from <http://sputniknews.com/columnists/20150112/1016795879.html>

Young men in their prime chock full of energy and pumped up to become adults are facing a 40 to 50% unemployment rate and racism permeating their daily lives. They are not accepted as full French citizens but they don't belong in the home countries of their parents either. I wouldn't be surprised to see the return of riots.

Terrorism is a war tactic like bombing or economic destabilization or targeted assasinations. Charlie Hebdo is collateral damage from a war we started in which we have continued complicity.

The cartoons have been published within the Canadian state, in Québec. There is a huge national/cultural divide over this.

I read and watched the crap at Fox about the "no-go zones"; with a map showing such "zones" within Paris proper, some in neighbourhoods where I have stayed for some months, wearing western dress, drinking wine in cafés etc. It is a bunch of crap.

Are there tough housing estates where gangs (more than radical Muslims) hold sway in France? Of course, as in most other countries.

this applies to some posts above, I found:

https://ricochet.media/en/292/lost-in-translation-charlie-hebdo-free-speech-and-the-unilingual-left

6079_Smith_W wrote:

Pondering wrote:

Religious rights didn't trump anything.

Really?

What do you call states refusing gay people the right to marry? What do you call a doctor refusing medical treatment to someone who is gay? What do you call blasphemy laws? What do you call the criminalization and persecution of abortion access?

I'm talking about the reason for that satire of fucked up thinking in the first place. Thing is, reasonable religious people tend to understand that satire is directed at those who use that way of thinking to push their beliefs on the rest of us. In fact, many of them engage in that satire themselves.

Or do you think we should start giving the same powers to fundamentalists here to remake the law to fit them, and tell us what we can and cannot publish or do?

And you think doing something because of a threat of death is a valid choice? I'm not even going to point out examples to test that one.

Okay, I get it, you think I am saying:

Of course the killing of journalists is a bad thing, so the argument goes, but come on, Charlie Hebdo is “a racist publication.” So what do you expect? is the implicit, victim-blaming conclusion.

I'm not saying that and I don't think anyone here is saying that and I don't think Canadian press is saying that. Nor is anyone saying that everything they ever printed was racist in the sense of all individual cartoons being racist or even that Charlie was being deliberately racist. So, showing a whole bunch of non-racist cartoons is immaterial.

They had a circulation of 60,000. That tells me a whole lot of people didn't value their work enough to buy the paper despite it being a cherished tradition of the French. The narrative in Quebec is that the French are more free but that isn't true because Quebec was deeply offended by the bonhomme cartoon and strenuously objected to the use of a cherished Quebec symbol in combination with accusations of corruption.People have a right to be offended. They don't have a right to kill for it.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

And you think doing something because of a threat of death is a valid choice?

It's absolutely a valid choice. I don't think anyone has an obligation to put themselves at risk for principle. It is a valid choice to do so but it is also a valid choice not to.

Leftists must make a distinction between blasphemy and racism. The two are not the same thing. No one has the right not to be offended. This is not an arcane point. After decades of legal abeyance, blasphemy and “religious insult” laws are making a comeback.

Blasphemy is legal in the western world as far as I know. It's certainly legal in Canada. We can have a torah/bible/koran burning bonfire followed by a disco party if we so desire. I feel no need to do it just to prove that I can.

Where are blasphemy and religious insult laws making a comeback? In France it would seem the only danger is in printing work that can be construed as anti-jewish so if we are striking a blow for freedom we should be focused on satirizing Israel's crimes. Oh wait, someone in Canada tried that with the armchair cartoon. Satirists could have a field day with Israel's perpetual crimes of war. Charlie Hebdo must have done tons of cartoons representing Israel's settlements and chopping down of trees etc. What is the balance in number between satire involving Islam and satire involving Judaism? 50/50? 5 to 1? 10 to 1? 0 to1?

I've read quite abit about satire being a cherished tradition of the French so we don't "understand" yet we don't need to "understand" cherished Muslim traditions.

I am free to have a bible burning party based on the enormous evil it unleashed on the world it has generated and no one has a right to kill me for it.

If someone does kill me over it I see no reason why people should have bible burning parties in my support if bible burning was not something they would have done prior to my death or will continue doing.

You lament that Charlie Hebdo's work is being misunderstood but whose fault is that? Have I not said their best work should have been reprinted to honour them rather than what has the greatest shock value?

Did Quebec reprint the holy trinity practicing sodomy? (I don't know the answer)

You quoted me out of context which changed the meaning of my sentence. This is what I was responding to:

6079_Smith_W wrote:

Yes, thinking that the right to free speech and security of the person  should be trumped by a "religious right", as is the case here, and is done in a lot of other ways by other fundamentalists, is trying to give religions the same status as people.It is a dangerous precedent.

Religious rights did not trump freedom of speech unless you are suggesting that fundamentalists have achieved the right to kill for blasphemy in the western world.

Religious rights did not prevent the Danes from reprinting the cartoons. They were not arrested. They were responding to terrorist death threats.This is akin to some runners choosing not to do the Boston Marathon anymore.

Terrorists choose targets based on accessibility, fire power, and message power in the form of what is most likely to give them the most bang for their buck. The shooters were in themselves pawns, weapons, although the market shooter might have been an accidental discharge. All three were pawns like Charlie Manson followers.

NDPP wrote:

About Gatestone Institute:

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/about/

The Institute and The Great One seem to be on the same wavelength:

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5005/muslim-persecution-of-christians-...

The severity of the plight of Christians in the Middle East was further underscored by Dr. Alexander Yakovenko, Russian Ambassador to the United Kingdom, who wrote:

Russia is currently considering the possibility of initiating a draft decision of the UN Human Rights Council on the protection of Christians in the Middle East and North Africa. Russian experts are now working on this document.[…]

The scale of the problems demands the coordination of international efforts to protect Christians in the Middle East.

Further initiatives, new measures and relevant discussions aimed at finding durable solutions in this regard are strongly needed. Of course, we believe that Europe, including the UK, should make its contribution to these efforts, taking into account the Christian roots of the European civilization, which are now often forgotten for the sake of political correctness.[…]

The fate of the region's religious minorities is of the greatest concern. The mass exodus of Christians, who have been an integral part of the Middle Eastern mosaic for centuries, is particularly troubling.

DaveW wrote:

this applies to some posts above, I found:

https://ricochet.media/en/292/lost-in-translation-charlie-hebdo-free-speech-and-the-unilingual-left

Lets take this example from the article:

Another would be the cartoon of pregnant Boko Haram sex slaves under the slogan “Hands off our benefits!” which many English leftists held to be a self-evidently racist commentary on the Muslim “demographic threat,” when the cartoon is actually a clunky “first-world problems” commentary on complaints over the French government restricting child benefits for top earners, suggesting that rich French people really have nothing to complain about compared to people’s travails in northeast Nigeria.

Do you think the image of pregnant Boko Haram sex slaves enhanced the status of women or increased concern for them and sympathy for their plight or was the primary effect to skewer the rich? Was it respectful to ridicule the suffering and agony of the kidnapped women to make a point about the wealthy and privileged French elite being whiners?

Could the wealth of French elites not be compared to the suffering of their own masses? Could they not have been compared to Marie Antoinette?

If you are not consciously being racist, does that mean what you are doing isn't racist?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/14/charlie-hebdo-attack_n_6468498....

   AL QAEDA IN YEMEN CLAIMS RESPONSIBILITY FOR PARIS ATTACK

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theworldpost/

No Pondering, I meant exactly what I said.

I was speaking about blasphemy laws around the globe; though the fact is there is still one on the books in Canada, and laws against profanity and blasphemy are increasing in some jurisdictions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law

As for the validity of decisions based on fear or the threat of violence, you might think there is nothing wrong with making a decision based on the threat of someone killing you, but I'd say there are a good number of people, ethicists among them, who say otherwise.

In fact, there are many cases in which duress is recognized under the law from contract law to cases of sexual assault and abuse of positions of authority. Freedom from fear is also recognized as a fundamental human right

6079_Smith_W wrote:

I was speaking about blasphemy laws around the globe; though the fact is there is still one on the books in Canada, and laws against profanity and blasphemy are increasing in some jurisdictions.

Then you shouldn't have quoted me because it isn't what I was referring to. I'm fully aware that there are blasphemy laws around the world.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

As for the validity of decisions based on fear or the threat of violence, you might think there is nothing wrong with making a decision based on the threat of someone killing you, but I'd say there are a good number of people, ethicists among them, who say otherwise.

In fact, there are many cases in which duress is recognized under the law from contract law to cases of sexual assault and abuse of positions of authority. Freedom from fear is also recognized as a fundamental human right

I didn't say duress was valid. The Danish publication pointed out that the world didn't stand in solidary with them reprinting their work when they were attacked. It is valid for a victim to choose not to expose themselves to further violence and allow someone else to take up the flag of whatever motivated the attack against them.

There is no duty to volunteer oneself as a sacrificial lamb so the west can strut about declaring our bravery in the fact of terror.

?????

What do you call blasphemy laws if not setting religion as something that has rights greater than human rights?

And the editor quite clearly said they made the decision based on fear, and that militants control newsroom decisions. I'll let others here form their own opinion of our respective assessments of that statement.

And very good piece by Claude Denis, which covers a lot more ground than the snippets reprinted here. Two loose ends though: any recognition of the fact that, as much as some did not like CH's style of humour, far more of it was anti-racist and anti-Imperialist.

Not sure I like the tone of where some of this is going. It is being spun as if those pictures and criticisms of Mohammed were done solely to attack that culture, when in fact it is largely in response to serious abuses. When the suggestion is made to not run pictures so as not to offend (and in fact that is not an opinion shared by all Muslims) what does that really mean? Again, where is the line? As I posteed above, an Algerian author is facing death threats for suggesting that religion is nonsense. Where do we stand on that?

I don't want to make too much of the snowman fatwa, except to say that when I first read it I thougth it was a joke. But without resorting to ridicule or xenophobia it bears noting that some people take it that seriously.

NDPP]</p> <p>Just arrested for supporting terrorism. I guess he's not Charlie...</p> <p>[quote=6079_Smith_W wrote:

Actually, a follow-up to #451.

Here's a cover they did of him at the time of the previous scandal:

 

Famous Comedian Dieudonne replies to Minister of the Interior Bernard Cazeneuve

http://quenelplus.com/a-la-une/liberte-dexpression-dieudonne-repond-a-be...

"Yesterday we were all Charlie. We all walked and stood for freedom to be allowed to laugh at everything. All the Government's officials - you included - were walking together in the same direction. Yet when I came back home I felt all alone.

The Government has been targeting me for a year now and is still looking to eliminate me by any means, searches, indictments...More than eighty judicial procedures have struck down my kinfolk and me. And the Government keeps on ruining my life. Eighty judicial procedures.

Since the beginning of last year, I have been treated as public enemy number one, when all I try to do is make people laugh about death, because death laughs at us all, as Charlie knows now, unfortunately...

Whenever I express myself some people will not even try to understand me, they will not listen. They try to find some kind of pretext to suppress me.

I am looked upon as if I were Amedy Coulibaly, when I am no different from Charlie..."

As has been made so outrageously obvious, only power and those close to it  enjoy meaningful 'freedom of expression'. This holds true for Canada no less than France. When the world's warcriminals march under the banner Je suis Charlie, we must not.  They march not for more freedom but for more racism, more imperialism, more fascism, more zionism.  Je ne suis pas Charlie.

Extremists Incorporated (and vid)

http://rt.com/shows/crosstalk/222303-paris-terror-extremists-france/

Dieudonne Held Over Charlie Hedbo Facebook Post (above)

http://news.sky.com/story/1407536/dieudonne-held-over-charlie-hebdo-face...

"French comedian Dieudonne has been arrested for allegedly defending terrorism in a Facebook comment referencing last week's attack in Paris. Playing on the slogan 'Je suis Charlie' the comedian wrote: 'Tonight, as far as I'm concerned, I feel like Coulibaly.'

However, his lawyer, Jacques Verdier has protested his innocence:

'The prime minister said that under exceptional circumstances there should be exceptional measures and the first thing they did was to arrest Dieudonne,' he said. 'He feels like he is Coulibaly because he is being treated like a terrorist in his own country. And the proof is that he was arrested as an apologist for terrorism. Now there is total confusion over something that was completely innocent."

This whole thing was an action designed to divide, provoke and incite. Clearly it's working...

6079_Smith_W wrote:

?????

What do you call blasphemy laws if not setting religion as something that has rights greater than human rights?

And the editor quite clearly said they made the decision based on fear, and that militants control newsroom decisions. I'll let others here form their own opinion of our respective assessments of that statement.

They did not refrain from publishing because there is a law against blasphemy. They refrained in reaction to the threat of violence. Religious condemnation of blasphemy will exist as long as religion does and will be replaced by other forms of blasphemy. Open racism in Canada is blasphemy toward established Canadian values.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

It is being spun as if those pictures and criticisms of Mohammed were done solely to attack that culture, when in fact it is largely in response to serious abuses. 

Intent and outcome don't always match up. Maybe Charlie didn't think they were contributing to the denigration of dispossessed Muslim youth but that doesn't mean they don't experience it as denigration. They can't be expected to understand the subtleties of satire and French tradition that excuse adding ridicule to injury.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

When the suggestion is made to not run pictures so as not to offend (and in fact that is not an opinion shared by all Muslims) what does that really mean? 

No one is making that suggestion. The suggestion being made is that material should be judged based on its value and fat jokes don't serve any higher purpose so reputable news organizations don't print fat jokes. I have no doubt there are alternative papers that do print fat jokes and no one should shoot anyone over it.

Charlie Hebdo's cartoons are not the equivalent of fat jokes but some Muslims experience them as far worse in particular those who are severely disenfranchised. Free speech in Canada is not under threat so we have nothing to prove. We have no reason to go out of our way to print them.

Which Muslims are saying that the images are not offensive to them or clamouring to have them reprinted?

6079_Smith_W wrote:

Again, where is the line? As I posteed above, an Algerian author is facing death threats for suggesting that religion is nonsense. Where do we stand on that? 

I'd say we are against it. No one here supports the murders of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists. No one is suggesting that everyone should refuse to publish based on it being offensive to Muslims. No one is defending censorship.

What I am refusing to do is analyze this in isolation from the context in which it is occurring.

TRNN: Paris: Little & Big Monsters (and vid)

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&I...

"Glen Ford and Paul Jay discuss the march against terrorism in Paris."

Paris Attacks: Rage of the Dispossessed (and vid)

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&I...

Chris Hedges says the mass self-exaltation of European leaders is dangerous because with it comes a blindness towards our own culpability.

French Militarist History Cannot Be Delinked From Attacks in Paris (and vid)

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&I...

Professor Sabah Alnasseri from York U reminds us that French history and foreign policy include massacring, criminalizing and dehumanizing Algerian fight for independence

Heh? Who said either of those things? I'll draw your attention to what I said about the CBCs position for a start. And no one has said anyone should not be able to voice their opinion. 

Are we just going to keep leapfrogging from claim to claim here? I'm afraid it's an exercise I don't have interest in.

No objection. Just disagreeing with the claim that no one has suggested media not print images of Mohammed in order to not offend Muslims. Plenty have, in posts and links.

Just wanted to add, after reading this thread from the beginning, that Carlos Latuff -- a brilliant, honest to goodness satirist, clearly has more in common with the old French school (a la Honore Daumier) than this silly rag; he makes Charlie and Co. look like a bunch of drunken frat boys.  

Air France has decided to handout Charlie mags/hate speech to everyone on their planes.  How quaint, given that France is now providing Air Craft Carriers for the new war against Iraq.  

Meanwhile, hundreds of Muslims are being rounded up due to "terror speech."  

"Free speech"?  Yeah, not quite.  

 BAR: Charlie Hebdo: 'Je Suis White People'  -  by Margaret Kimberley

http://www.blackagendareport.com/node/14622

"Don't kill white people. After all said and done, the Charlie Hebdo outrage, the hashtags and the million person marches amount to that simple but very powerful dictum.

The corporate media determines who is and who isn't a worthy victim and people with dark skin rarely make the cut..."

The Charlie Hebdo White Power Rally in Paris  -  by Ajamu Baraka

http://www.blackagendareport.com/node/14619

"...The attacks could have sparked an honest conversation about how many Muslims experience life in contemporary France and viewed French policies in various Western and Arab nations. It could have examined the relationship between the rise of radical Islam and the connection of that rise to the activities of various branches of the French intelligence services.

An open discussion might have framed it as a tool of Western power from the late 1970s to its current assignment in Syria. But those ideas were not allowed a forum on that massive stage.

What it means for many of us in the Black community is that Je Suis Charlie has become a sound bite to justify the erasure of non-Europeans, and for ignoring the sentiments, values and views of the rational 'other'. In short, Je Suis Charlie has become an arrogant rallying cry for white supremacy that was echoed at the white power march on Sunday in Paris and in the popularity of the new issue of Charlie Hebdol.

A shared ethical framework under the system of capitalist/colonial white supremacy is impossible..."

Durrutix wrote:

Some of you may be interested in my documentary "Counter-Intelligence," in which I discuss these issues in depth (it's 5 hours long, but each part can be viewed in isolation).   I also released a short film (the end of Part III) titled "The Politics of Conspiracy Theory."  

Counter-Intelligence: 

http://metanoia-films.org/counter-intelligence/

The Politics of Conspiracy theory: 

http://vimeo.com/67967592

I gave it a quick glance and I will watch it over the week.

Durrutix wrote:

Amidst all the arguments about motivation and free speech it's worth keeping in mind that there is as yet no compelling evidence that the two individuals fingered for the attacks were even involved (claims of responsibility by "Al-Qaeda in Yemen," which may well be a pseudo operation, don't count).

Good point. I didn't think of that. It is a bit odd that it was so easy for them to escape.

I have a lot of trouble believing a false flag type scenario even though it has happened in the past because it seems so brutal, cold, to order something like this. It seems only a psychopath could live with that. The violence of war is less direct, less personal. You aren't ordering the deaths of specific people sitting at work. I find it difficult to wrap my head around extreme violence and how humans can butcher other people then act like nothing happened. It's chilling that Coulibaly made himself a sandwich and told the hostages to do the same after shooting four people dead.

Durrutix wrote:

Paul Craig Roberts wrote an article today alleging a "false flag" type scenario w/respect the Paris attacks, which I consider plausible, though I also don't think we should automatically assume that every terrorist attack is an act of state; PCR may be going too far in the other direction absent compelling evidence. I also take issue with the term "Muslim terrorists."

I agree. I think it's usually not so direct. People react quite predictably. There is a 40 to 50% unemployment rate amongst young men in the area these men came from. It's not difficult to figure out that will generate tons of crime and violence and free flowing hostility.  Politicians act as though they have no control and having these desperately improvished areas is an unpredictable and unintended consequence of unavoidable market forces.

Israel needs Islamic extremism, for two reasons – one ideological and one substantive. One cannot over-emphasize: Israel is existentially dependent on Islamic extremism.

Ideologically, Israel’s grotesque violent perpetuation of the Occupation has to be masked by the manufactured universal evil of Islamic extremism. (As we speak, settlers, with military cover, have destroyed yet hundreds more olive trees while the world is focused on Paris.) One needs not merely the propagandizing of the outside world; one needs the self-propagandizing of the Israeli leadership itself and its population and its supporters as to the ‘justice’ of its cause of lebensraum.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/01/13/the-vulnerability-of-french-jewry/

I don't see this as so simple that there would be a single motivation that is the driving force. I think there are multiple interests that benefit from the situation.

Durrutix wrote:

The issue of "islamic terrorists" in the West cannot be solved without removing the motivation for terrorism, ie ending imperialism and creating tolerant and equitable environments for Muslims living in countries like France.

Oligarchs and their overlords will not give up imperialism until they are forced to. It is amazing the punishment Greeks have suffered under without revolting. It's inhumane. It is taking "a pound of flesh" from a country instead of a man.

Durrutix wrote:

“If I call you a conspiracy theorist, it matters little whether you have actually claimed that a conspiracy exists or whether you have simply raised an issue that I would rather avoid… By labelling you, I strategically exclude you from the sphere where public speech, debate, and conflict occur.”

Oligarchs, through the right, have done an amazing job of manipulating language to undermine the left and make their policies seem righteous. Cutting taxes is letting people keep the money they earned. Union busting is "right to work" legislation. The Fair Elections Act does not make elections more fair. To some extent everyone does that but it has been taken to a whole new level of expertise. The ideas of the left are also manipulated to support right-wing ideology.

NDPP wrote:

Durrutix wrote:

"Conspiracy-phobia" is an excellent example of self-censorship.  

Some of you may be interested in my documentary "Counter-Intelligence," in which I discuss these issues in depth (it's 5 hours long, but each part can be viewed in isolation).   I also released a short film (the end of Part III) titled "The Politics of Conspiracy Theory."  

Counter-Intelligence: 

http://metanoia-films.org/counter-intelligence/

The Politics of Conspiracy theory: 

http://vimeo.com/67967592

 

 

I strongly recommend viewing the above. Very impressive Durrutix. Thanks!

ps empire is always conspiracy. Or as an old lawyer friend used to say  'parties of aligned interests'.

Thanks.  Glad you enjoyed the films :)

P.S. Your posts on this thread have been superb.  

@ Durrutix.

No problem. As I said, despite the strong feelings we all have, it isn't a competition, and covering up the truth serves no one.

I actually wrote something - not entirely negative, actually - when I thought he had drawn it himself. Because despite (or because of) the racist element, it does say openly what a lot of the commentators hint at but don't say directly.

Unrelated, but Latuff's cartoon showing a burning U.S. tank stopped by a giant Koran is also telling.

And a passing that is relevant to this conversation - Al Bendich, who defended Lenny Bruce and Allan Ginsberg.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/14/us/al-bendich-defender-of-howl-and-len...

Hey alan,

It's not just a cartoon - far from it - but no.

And how about this, in the Sunday Times? Sure it caused a stir, but it was published, and no one got shot for it. More importantly, it tells the truth.

https://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/2013/01/30/gerald-scarfe-anti-semitism-...

Actually, I just saw a copy of the latest edition (wish my French was better). One thing that is clear is that it calls out the straw argument that the hijacking of "Je Suis Charlie" by politcians and bandwagon jumpers has anything to do with the paper.

Or that it is right that it should be eclipsing other real world problems.

The cartoon of sweatshop workers in Bangladesh, sewing "Je Suis Charlie" shirts and saying "We're with you with all our hearts" is an indication.

And a pic of some of the politicians: "A family of clowns decimated... plenty more fish in the sea".

I don't either, though it being run on Holocaust remembrance day, and the image of grinding people into mortar probably made a difference for some.

But you asked for an example; there it is. Yes, I agree that uncomfortable, irreverant and shocking things should be allowed, that there should not be double standards, and that freedom of speech is very important.

Deaths in Anti-Terror Raid in Belgium: Reports

http://news.sky.com/story/1408633/deaths-in-anti-terror-raid-in-belgium-...

BREAKING/UPDATES: "At least two people have died and a third was seriously hurt in an anti-terror raid in eastern Belgium, according to reports. At the website of La Meuse newspaper quoted an unidentified police officer as saying, 'We've averted a Belgian Charlie Hebdo."

CNN is reporting this as an 'anti-ISIS' operation,

alan smithee wrote:

I see nothing anti-semitic about that cartoon.

Again,freedom of speech includes the criticism of the state of Israel.

And depicting Netanyahoo as a butcher reflects reality.

I didn't see the so-called offensive CH cartoon that caused the shooting but my guess is it depicts a grain of truth.

Of course,from what I've read about CH,it was probably offensive for the sake of being offensive.

If we can't criticize Israel or recognize Netanyahoo as a mass murdering maniac or that the Likuds are just as extreme (possibly MORE extreme) than Hamas,there is no freedom of speech.

@DaveW

The Sydney Morning Herald retracted and issued an apology for the cartoon showing the star of David & a settler watching the bombardment of Gaza from a hill top

Intl press first reported on it and it was picked up by CNN and others

 @Lagatta & Unionist

I agree, cartoonists should stay away from anti-semitc tropes like including the star of David but I think that including the Israeli flag in poliitical cartoons does not cross the line

France Arrests A Comedian For His Facebook Comments, Showing the Sham of the West's 'Free Speech' Celebration - by Glenn Greenwald

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/28050-focus-france-arrest...

"The vast bulk of the stirring 'free speech' tributes over the last week have been little more than an attempt to protect and venerate speech that degrades disfavored groups while rendering off-limits speech that does the same to favored groups...

In response to my article containing anti-Jewish cartoons on Monday - which I posted to demonstrate the utter selectivity and inauthenticity of this newfound adoration of offensive speech - I was subjected to endless contortions justifying why anti-Muslim speech is perfectly great and noble while anti-Jewish speech is hideously offensive and evil...'