Are all Muslims to be condemned for this? I support their right to publish their cartoons, but I also have the right to call them juvenile crap that they didn't deserve to die for. If you support this, then of course unflattering and juvenile cartoons of every stripe are okay.

there may be protests, letter writing campaigns, a few grumpy letters to the editor, IF the satire isn't largely ignored. No one died when 'Piss Christ' was unveiled. People were angry, but no one died as a result of that anger.
When Islamic religious figures are satired, there are bombings, deaths, threats, ect. They need to either get over it like other religions do, or they show themselves to be a dangerous cult.

the status quo and satire that provokes mainly just for the sake of provocation.

So when you say "brutal all out satire" which are you referring to? All satire?

Cause I could post some seriously ugly, racist stuff. And while we both will fight to defend the right of someone to post ugly, racist satire I know I am most certainly not going to support the message contained.

And it's interesting in your use of the word "brutal" you tacitly admit that satire is about provocation.

I believe the OP is talking about the all the posts beginning with "this is horrible, but". There is no but, there is no excuse, there are no reasons other than hatred. And yes, I'm a first amendment purist. I see antisemitic shit all over the internet but somehow I manage not to kill a bunch of people over it.

I have made no excuses for this, because there are none. I did ask in my post if ALL Muslims should be condemned - I got no answer. Nobody should die because of their shitheaded bigotry.

Are you sure you're in the right place?

And agree with the OP. Definitely in the "but" category. Sorry. What part of no excuses is too difficult to understand?

You did use "but".

but I was making ZERO excuses for the vermin that did this. I wasn't blaming US behavior in Iraq or French colonialism or whatever the latest excuse is. My but was a reminder that everybody gets offended - only some kill over it. Surely you see the difference.

How is that excusing anything? Trying to pretend that these crimes are somehow devoid of motive isn't going to make matters better.

People were offended, and they reacted in 100% the most wrong way imaginable. Saying "I know why they were offended" doesn't bring that 100% down at all.

This kind of black-and-white absolutism only stifles discussion. It's akin to "they hate us for our freedoms."

Or worse.

Would you be talking about the importance of understanding how people could get angry at such images?

Why is motive off-limits if the victim is a cartoonist? We're not allowed to mention why the Bush fanatic did his vile deed? We'll be accused of supporting the murder if we even so much as bring it up? Are we required to like the cartoon?

I don't get it. I can understand being against people saying "they should've known better" because that is fucking ignorant. But we needn't pretend to agree 100% with the victim either. I hate country music, but I'm not going to start liking it just because a country singer gets killed for their music.

It's a bizarre form of attempted censorship that I've never seen on DU whenever other tragedies like this happen.

It's not censorship at all. I'm not saying someone CAN'T do all the things you're talking about (which would be censorship). I'm saying that while the bodies are still warm, it's in terrible taste.

They say it is wrong, period, as far as I can tell

My point was the bodies are still warm, the shock is still fresh - would it have been so terrible for people here to wait one day to try and minimize (because that's all they're doing) the blame of the people who did this. They were (and are for the woman who is still on the loose - considered armed and dangerous so this could very well not be over yet) murderous scum. PERIOD.

you would be equally sanguine?

Here it is not allowed. What they do with their own resources is their business. Orthodox Judiasm is ridiculous and very deserving of satire.

you don't think me seeing the Israeli flag with a swastica instead of the Star of David is offensive? Comparing Israelis to the same people who threw us (and millions of others) into ovens is offensive? So the answer is yes and I manage to suck it up and not murder anyone.

That being said Showing MLK, or Jesus, or Einstein, or Elizabeth Warren, or Obama, or......skewered from mouth to nether regions and carried on two peoples shoulders I think is stupid and inappropriate.

Our actions and expression should be better than that.

and

THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR THE VIOLENCE!

All were victims and I hope that in the future people who wish to challenge and enlighten oppressors can find more effective tools to use.

There's a lot of hate going around, and it doesn't seem that meeting hate with insult is an effective strategy.

I'm sad for all the victims, all of them, and nobody will tell me that their indignation is more righteous than your or mine.

Peace.

You've been hating all over the victims of this latest jihadist massacre for two days now.

I'll put you in the butt category too.

For such an ASSumption, you are in the "butt' category.

He was referring to NYSKP, who has posted quite a bit of criticism of the victims.

The OP considers me a "butt" though. As if I am making excuses for this horror.

Except in the case of food or a competitive sporting event, I suppose.

That is what satire is, you know. PROVOCATION.

Does someone who engages in provocation "deserve" to be assassinated? No.

Are they "guilty" of something? No.

But don't diminish what satire actually is and what it does in your effort to be somehow righteous.

intellectual comfort zone. I don't think you really know what satire is nor what it does.

Many DU'ers want to defang satire when it suits them and ignore its intent.

I think for many there's a need to boil things down to a neat little something that can be used to bludgeon anything else that makes for ambiguity.

I am going to repost this cartoon right here (I also put it at the bottom of your post).

It is victim blaming, rank victim blaming. It stinks. Al Qaeda however agrees that it was a vile provocation, and has taught us a lesson about the limits of free speech.

It doesn't mean they were guilty of doing something they deserved to die for.

So no, it's not victim blaming.

Have you ever actually read the definition of the word "satire"? I don't see the word provocation in there anywhere... which you say is LITERALLY what satire is.

the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.

The slaughter of Pearl Harbor, of course, was infamous.

The bombing of Hiroshima, which killed many more, especially many more children, is not considered as infamous by some people.

And even if those two atomic bombs are remembered, I believe Vonnegut mentions a conventional bombing of Tokyo which killed a few hundred thousand people. Many mass slaughters are kinda considered "business as usual".

But there really is no way to get Hitler's wehrmacht to surrender without a fair amount of mass slaughtering.

Just as killing is wrong, but killing someone about to kill you or your family, well that might be an exception.

Since you bring it up, it's sad, isn't it, how with the introduction of aircraft humans seem to become more indiscriminate in the use of offensive weapons.

It never struck me until I visited Cologne and saw the damage to the cathedral and images of before and after mass bombings.

War is just so terrible.

After all, in 1688 "Mannheim was left (by the French) in ruins."

Holborn writes

"The French Troops were too weak to accept battle and had to retreat behind the Rhine. Louvois sent orders that in their retreat the French forces were to devastate and burn the Palatinate to the ground so that it could not serve as a base for an offensive by the enemy. From a strictly miltary point of view, this was an unnecessary step. As long as the Mainz was in French hands, the Germans could not well cross the Rhine. The destruction of fortifications, the removal of stores, even the burning of places that resisted the imposition of contributions was considered permissable under the contemporary customs of war. But the systematic destruction by the French army of towns, villages, fields, and vineyards was outrageous, and there were signs that a good many French officers felt repelled by such cruelty. In Heidelberg the work of demolition was done hurridely, and French officers closed their eyes when people fought the flames. Mannheim, however, was left an uninhabitable heap of ruins. Worms, Oppenheim, Frankenthal, and Speyer were burned. The graves of the medieval emperors in the crypt of the cathedral of Speyer were desecrated and destroyed, while all over the country towns and villages were left in ashes. Inevitably, soldiers driven to such brutal actions lost all sense of discipline and committed excesses of the worst type." History of Modern Germany p, 94

There's no shortage in history of examples of mass slaughter, although probably not in the hundreds of thousands which the aeroplane and increased populations allowed in WWII.

But the technology sure makes it easy to grow the numbers and feel remote from the murder.

These days it's drones, apparently.

You can do it from the other side of the planet.

Take care, hfojvt.

So, I have question for you, NYC_SKP

How many INNOCENT victims were slaughtered yesterday: 3 or 11? In your earlier post, you specifically claimed 3 (ignoring the cartoonists). If so, what do you mean by that?
Please don't dance around the question. 3 or 11?

The killings of twelve victims is nothing short of an atrocity, and part of an attempted genocide by a handful of whackos, IMHO.

Violent acts against speech are not new, especially in matters of religious extremism, so it's very sad that the very controversial cartoons provoked this kind of response, so far out of proportion that words can not describe it.

What I say or feel is of little consequence.

What nobody has been able to explain to me is what good was accomplished by these murders and the cartoons that preceded them.

How can murder and insult advance the discussion?

Once again you are avoiding this question like a plague. Why?

I'll make it simpler for you: Do you consider 8 slain cartoonists innocent victims of this tragedy. Yes or No. Don't dance around. Don't say "it hardly matters"

Yes or No. Its that simple.

I'm a bit undecided about how to express my feelings, I'm in mourning for them but also wonder if theirs was a good strategy.

To be sure, they were undeserving their deaths, let there be NO QUESTION about that, they did NOT deserve to die.

And, to be sure, the people around them who weren't involved in provoking religious extremists, well I might be a little more sad about their loss and pain because they were truly uninvolved.

But all were victims of violent extremism and were undeserving. Is that clear enough for you?

All of the deaths were a tragedy, don't you think, R3druM?

I didn't know them, I didn't know these people.

Is it all black and white for you, every victim has to be equally innocent or none are at all?

You want an answer from me?

Here's my answer: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6064766


What do you think?

genocide: the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group. -- Dictionary.com


Genocide has a very specific and terrible meaning. Please don't belittle actual attempted genocides by calling the multiple murders and assaults which took place in Paris a few days ago an attempted genocide. It was sufficiently horrible without erroneously inflating the terms which you use to describe it.

you are either with us or against us?

simple declarative sentence without qualification? Accusing the OP of sounding like pres bush is a low blow and what I would normally consider beneath a member of DU.

Well, okay, in what way was my "low blow" wrong? The OP is very dogmatic and absolute - just like Bush, and almost on the same topic. You are either with us, or with the terrorists.

Here's an example I happen to be working with

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

page 218

"several settlers had come to their camp and started shooting at them. These white men shot a baby out of its mother's arms, killed an old woman and wounded some of the men."

"On their way to the Lava Beds, Hooker Jim and his people decided to avenge the deaths of their people. Stopping briefly at isolated ranch houses along the way, they had killed twelve settlers."

Now. Unqualified condemnation of Hooker Jim, or not?

However yes, either your opposition to the slaughter at Charlie Hedbo is unqualified, or your opposition to that slaughter is qualified. Which is it with you?

Maybe out time would be better spent looking at root causes from more than one side than in looking for a lockstep nod of agreement.

You are never going to get that, I don't know why you'd even want it.

Innocent people died, let's honor their loss by solving some problems, shall we?

[font style="font-family:papyrus,'Brush Script MT','Infindel B',fantasy;" size=5 color=teal]Including the cartoonists?

Looking for a simple "yes" or "no."[/font]

And only the dogmatic are capable holding one idea at a time.

(Insert 'butt' below to rationalize otherwise)

I can dislike two or more things simultaneously.

I refuse to march lockstep with the brigade.

I have questions, I am not about to throw away my critical thinking skills and jump on a bandwagon, much less insult people who disagree.

I can be every bit as sympathetic toward the losses to everyone here, families and the dead, and the countless others who are going to suffer, and still carry on a discussion asking if there might not be better ways to bring people together than to use denigrating and graphic cartoons.

Peace.

blaming the editors of Charlie explicitly in some misguided belief that after this week it is Poor Islam that needs to be defended.

You know who else thinks they are always correct and never reexamine their beliefs?

Far right Conservatives and other fundamentalists.

my consciousness and by the last frame has expressed something about human society that is deeply disturbing.

it is a very hard one to read to the end but is necessary, imo.



These words are expressing my thoughts:

"Though tweaking the noses of Muslims might be as permissible as it is now believed to be dangerous it has never struck me as anything other than a vapid way to use a pen."

In fact, when we draw a line we are often crossing one too, because lines on paper are a weapon and satire is meant to cut to the bone. But whose bone? What exactly is the target? And why?

What YOU said!

If anything provoked it, it was the backwards hateful bullshit generated from religion, not those rightly observing that religion generates backwards hateful bullshit by design.

others here.
There is another question involved here that the OP does not
consider, imo.
What about safety? The muslim policeman was shot, not because
of his provocations, but to help protect those, who did provoke.

The 1st amendment is like all the others somewhat restricted.
How would the SCOTUS judge this case?

I am sorry, but OReilly's condemnation of Dr. Tiller was also a
provocation. So where do you draw the line between incitement
and provocation?

I carry the same sentiment as you, really does surprise me that people here are defending the actions of these cowards.

Are you actually saying that there are posts on DU that say these killings were justified? Seriously?

Your hyperbole is on overdrive.