Charlie Hebdo Massacre

[thebin]

Oh we need you back more than ever Hitch.

www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2006/02/cartoon_debate.html?wpisrc=burger_bar

"....Islam makes very large claims for itself. In its art, there is a prejudice against representing the human form at all. The prohibition on picturing the prophet—who was only another male mammal—is apparently absolute. So is the prohibition on pork or alcohol or, in some Muslim societies, music or dancing. Very well then, let a good Muslim abstain rigorously from all these. But if he claims the right to make me abstain as well, he offers the clearest possible warning and proof of an aggressive intent. This current uneasy coexistence is only an interlude, he seems to say. For the moment, all I can do is claim to possess absolute truth and demand absolute immunity from criticism. But in the future, you will do what I say and you will do it on pain of death.

I refuse to be spoken to in that tone of voice, which as it happens I chance to find "offensive." (By the way, hasn't the word "offensive" become really offensive lately?) The innate human revulsion against desecration is much older than any monotheism: Its most powerful expression is in the Antigone of Sophocles. It belongs to civilization. I am not asking for the right to slaughter a pig in a synagogue or mosque or to relieve myself on a "holy" book. But I will not be told I can't eat pork, and I will not respect those who burn books on a regular basis. I, too, have strong convictions and beliefs and value the Enlightenment above any priesthood or any sacred fetish-object. It is revolting to me to breathe the same air as wafts from the exhalations of the madrasahs, or the reeking fumes of the suicide-murderers, or the sermons of Billy Graham and Joseph Ratzinger. But these same principles of mine also prevent me from wreaking random violence on the nearest church, or kidnapping a Muslim at random and holding him hostage, or violating diplomatic immunity by attacking the embassy or the envoys of even the most despotic Islamic state, or making a moronic spectacle of myself threatening blood and fire to faraway individuals who may have hurt my feelings. The babyish rumor-fueled tantrums that erupt all the time, especially in the Islamic world, show yet again that faith belongs to the spoiled and selfish childhood of our species.

..... Is it not clear, then, that those who are determined to be "offended" will discover a provocation somewhere? We cannot possibly adjust enough to please the fanatics, and it is degrading to make the attempt...."

[hoyawatcher]

I was floored to see USATODAY publish the editorial from the radical sharia cleric justifying the murder in Paris and blaming the French government for allowing the insult to muhammed. I never thought I would see that kind of drivel given a national stage like he got. Maybe it was just their way of pointing out the ridiculousness of his position but they don't make it obvious

www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/01/07/islam-allah-muslims-shariah-anjem-choudary-editorials-debates/21417461/

[thebin]

This guy rules.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2907941/Moroccan-born-mayor-Rotterdam-tells-fellow-Muslims-not-appreciate-freedoms-living-West-pack-bags-f-live-TV.html

[Elvado]

Maybe he could have represented the US in Paris...

[thebin]

Jan 13, 2015 12:21:39 GMT -5 Elvado said:

Maybe he could have represented the US in Paris...

Example #1879 of policy complaints you wouldnt have given 2 $hits about if your team was occupying the White House in 2015.

I will just never understand why some people choose the get worked up about non-issues that have zero impact on their lives.

Smash the two party system into smithereens. For it has made us a nation of bickering children. Looks like George Washington was right about that too.

[Elvado]

Right again.

My motivation for pointing out this Administration's failures is, of course, a competent excuse for those failures.

All partisan sniping aside, should someone higher up the US food chain have been there?

I await your non-partisan, even handed reply.

[strummer8526]

Jan 14, 2015 8:41:03 GMT -5 Elvado said:

Right again.

My motivation for pointing out this Administration's failures is, of course, a competent excuse for those failures.

All partisan sniping aside, should someone higher up the US food chain have been there?

I await your non-partisan, even handed reply.

I agree with you 100% on the issue, and yet I find your posts on matters like these to be aggressively annoying. How's that for bipartisanship?

[Elvado]

Perfect.

You hit it right on the head.

[thebin]

This is so true, and I kept thinking about it with all of these left wing actors at the Globes and their Je Sui Charlie signs: they would never tolerate the existence of a satirical publication as offensive as Charlie Hebdoe. (emphasis mine)

“…. Until last week, precious few of us had ever heard of Charlie Hebdo, much less had any notion of the crass and impious journalistic tradition it belongs to. Anticlericalism is virtually France’s other religion — and has been since the Enlightenment, thanks to the Catholic Church’s once state-sanctioned leverage in public life — and the rude mockery known as gouaille, which exults in obscene caricature and take-no-prisoners toilet humor, is to French political and religious satire what guacamole is to the Super Bowl. It doesn’t affect the game’s outcome, but at least you won’t starve.

Indeed, one French blogger made the point that — First Amendment or no First Amendment — a publication like Charlie Hebdo would never be tolerated in the U.S. Not only would Fox News burst a gasket at its blasphemous takes on Christianity, but liberals ready to defend kicking Mike Huckabee in the teeth would change their tune as soon as Judaism or Islam came in for the same treatment. Just imagine the reaction on Stateside college campuses, which can be as hostile to free speech that trespasses on anyone’s sensibilities as any fundamentalist backwater.

(Another measure of the cultural gulf between Paris and New York is a quote from the martyred Charbonnier about Charlie Hebdo’s ambitions as an equal-opportunity offender: “We have to carry on until Islam has been rendered as banal as Catholicism.” Whatever you think of that goal, just try to imagine any U.S. editor choosing that particular adjective to define it. Do you feel uncivilized yet?)….”
grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/charlie-hebdo-france-satire-terrorism-understanding/

[tashoya]

Jan 7, 2015 12:16:40 GMT -5 thebin said:

Oh we need you back more than ever Hitch.

www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2006/02/cartoon_debate.html?wpisrc=burger_bar

"....Islam makes very large claims for itself. In its art, there is a prejudice against representing the human form at all. The prohibition on picturing the prophet—who was only another male mammal—is apparently absolute. So is the prohibition on pork or alcohol or, in some Muslim societies, music or dancing. Very well then, let a good Muslim abstain rigorously from all these. But if he claims the right to make me abstain as well, he offers the clearest possible warning and proof of an aggressive intent. This current uneasy coexistence is only an interlude, he seems to say. For the moment, all I can do is claim to possess absolute truth and demand absolute immunity from criticism. But in the future, you will do what I say and you will do it on pain of death.

I refuse to be spoken to in that tone of voice, which as it happens I chance to find "offensive." (By the way, hasn't the word "offensive" become really offensive lately?) The innate human revulsion against desecration is much older than any monotheism: Its most powerful expression is in the Antigone of Sophocles. It belongs to civilization. I am not asking for the right to slaughter a pig in a synagogue or mosque or to relieve myself on a "holy" book. But I will not be told I can't eat pork, and I will not respect those who burn books on a regular basis. I, too, have strong convictions and beliefs and value the Enlightenment above any priesthood or any sacred fetish-object. It is revolting to me to breathe the same air as wafts from the exhalations of the madrasahs, or the reeking fumes of the suicide-murderers, or the sermons of Billy Graham and Joseph Ratzinger. But these same principles of mine also prevent me from wreaking random violence on the nearest church, or kidnapping a Muslim at random and holding him hostage, or violating diplomatic immunity by attacking the embassy or the envoys of even the most despotic Islamic state, or making a moronic spectacle of myself threatening blood and fire to faraway individuals who may have hurt my feelings. The babyish rumor-fueled tantrums that erupt all the time, especially in the Islamic world, show yet again that faith belongs to the spoiled and selfish childhood of our species.

..... Is it not clear, then, that those who are determined to be "offended" will discover a provocation somewhere? We cannot possibly adjust enough to please the fanatics, and it is degrading to make the attempt...."

Always thought provoking. I don't agree with all of what he wrote but I always appreciated the ways in which he framed his perspective as they were often ones I hadn't considered partially due to my upbringing and partly due to my general lack of knowledge in areas.

[tashoya]

Jan 14, 2015 8:41:03 GMT -5 Elvado said:

Right again.

My motivation for pointing out this Administration's failures is, of course, a competent excuse for those failures.

All partisan sniping aside, should someone higher up the US food chain have been there?

I await your non-partisan, even handed reply.

I would agree that someone should have been there if, in fact, there wasn't a higher threat level associated with a high ranking US official being involved. Solidarity and unity are important against moral atrocities but safety is a concern that I wouldn't understate either. I don't know if such a threat (either real or imagined) existed but I can't say that it didn't either. Of course, that seems unlikely considering some that did attend, particularly PM Netanyahu. But I certainly wouldn't want the attendance of a high profile US attendee to be the cause for more violence.

[RusskyHoya]

With regard to the "should someone more senior have been there" brouhaha, I think there's a number of tradeoffs and considerations that go on that many are unaware of (sometimes blissfully, sometimes intentionally). One is the enormous security footprint that the U.S. president has, which absolutely dwarfs anyone else's on the planet. The USSS, besieged as it is, was probably not about to make exceptions to their standard protocol. This is why having the President (any President) visit, say, active disaster areas is frequently a bad idea.

Another consideration is the fact that, globally speaking, putting a prominent American face on things often does more to shatter unity than cement it. The U.S. is a lighting rod, and sometimes it's better for Americans to let others be in the spotlight.

In this particular instance, though, I don't think either of these quite hold up. When you have that many world leaders in one place, I think the aggregate security effect was already just about as high as it was going to get. Meanwhile, with people like Netanyahu, Putin, and Abbas there, an American wasn't going to engender any sharper feelings than one of those three would've stirred. So... definitely a mistake, and I'm glad they admitted it as such.

As to the attacks themselves, as well as their critical context, here's the two best takes I've come across:

Charlie Hebdo and the Right to Be Offended by London-based Lebanese satirist Karl Sharro

and

The Time of the Assassins by the Washington bureau chief of Al-Arabiya, Hisham Melhem

[thebin]

Largely agree with Russky.

I would say for both security and political reasons the president going on such short notice is a non-starter. But Kerry, well known francophone that he is, should have been there.

But more importantly this was a misstep. Poor judgement call. A treasonous catastrophe it most certainly was not.

[Elvado]

Wow the bin and I agree. Bad form, lousy visual but no catastrophe.

It does speak to a certain time deaf element in the White House and/or State Department.

[SSHoya]

Jan 16, 2015 10:33:23 GMT -5 Elvado said:

Wow the bin and I agree. Bad form, lousy visual but no catastrophe.

It does speak to a certain time deaf element in the White House and/or State Department.

Assume you meant "tone" deaf (autocorrect?). Anyway, no excuse for Holder who was already in Paris not to attend. Don't get it. Really, really stupid. Lousy optics but better to get substantive CT matters right. To me, it reflects very poor staffing, i.e., prinicipals not served well by their respective staffs, whether AG or Pres or SOS. I worked for Holder for the last years of my career and can attest to smaller scale poor staff work.

[Elvado]

Correct. Among my many flaws is horrendous proof reading, exacerbated by auto correct on my phone.

[RusskyHoya]

Jan 16, 2015 9:43:45 GMT -5 thebin said:

Largely agree with Russky.

I would say for both security and political reasons the president going on such short notice is a non-starter. But Kerry, well known francophone that he is, should have been there.

But more importantly this was a misstep. Poor judgement call. A treasonous catastrophe it most certainly was not.

Kerry or Biden or, hell, Holder - who was already in Paris!

Personally, from a slightly more devious perspective, I would've asked Boehner. He wouldn't say no and would enjoy the moment in the spotlight, fresh off of his squashing of rebellious elements in the House Republican caucus. Meanwhile, the administration gets to avoid having one of its people be the face of America in all those photos of world leaders... the vast majority of whom preside over - and support - legal systems that place far greater restrictions on free speech than the United States does. And I'm not just talking about Russia and other illiberal states. France, for instance, has already managed to lose a fair bit of the unity sheen with L'affaire Dieudonné.

[EasyEd]

The President should have been there in person.

[bmartin]

It was a government sponsored march. We don't need national leaders to march to prove that they oppose terrorism and support free expression and stand with whichever nation or group suffered the most recent attack. We need them to do the hard work of leading the policies and managing the balance between heightened security demands and civil liberties. Judge them on their performance - not on whether they participated in a march.

[quickplay]

Good to see the focus on the serious issue here.