Is the 'Cartoon Crisis' Spiralling out of Control?

[XT]

@ElvisL1ves

Essentially, yes. Good cartoons do have points. Do you disagree?

Certainly. The rub though is ‘good’. ‘Good’ is in the eye of the beholder. What I might find funny you might find offensive…and vice versa.

@ElvisL1ves

I’ll ask you too, then - what do you think was the point, if it was in fact more than gleeful ethnic/religious bashing?

Well, figuring out what someone else’s ‘point’ is can be tricky. To ME it seemed the ‘point’ was to show the contrast between the whole ‘religion of peace’ thing and the reality of folks who would blow themselves up…all in the name of ‘peace’. Whether the author meant it that way, or whether he had a different ‘point’…or no ‘point’ at all…is beyond me. To me though it doesn’t matter…freedom of speech means that whether or not he has a point he should be able to write what he wants. If its ethnic bashing or hate speech…well, folks write that all the time. I can choose not to read it if I find it offensive…though I’m pretty thick skinned (you have to be…lots of hispanic cartoons in my area ).

@ElvisL1ves

If there’s a point other than mindless bashing, I don’t see it. The best you’ve come up with is deriding Islam as, in quotation marks, a “religion of peace” (in inevitable contrast to Christianity, a pretty shaky point even on its good days). That’s why I think they’re “pointless”. Why does it matter? Because mindless bashing creates hard feelings, and hard feelings can beget violence. That isn’t a subtle notion.

Well, we are getting into the pesky problem of goring oxes and interperatation again. YOU may not see the point…that doesn’t mean there isn’t one though. BTW, its not ‘deriding Islam’ to point out that folks willing to kill innocents (and themselves) in the name of ‘peace’ is a bit, um, ironic. Is it? I mean, I put it on par with fools willing to slaughter thousands in ridiculous sectarian disputes all in the name of Christ. Or blow up abortion clinics and kill people…in the name of preventing abortions. Irony…its pretty ironic sometimes. LOTS of cartoons about this kind of thing…even today.

I don’t see it as ‘mindless bashing’, but of making a cutting point. YMMV and obviously does. But it shows that whats one persons ‘mindless bashing’ is anothers cutting point…and maybe anothers something vastly different.

@ElvisL1ves

I’m not. I’m deploring the notion that the rioting, to whatever degree it really exists, is the fundamental problem, that everything is always entirely the other guys’ fault, and that all required changes in behavior lie on them.

Thats why I asked the question I did…which you were good enough to answer. So…all cleared up.

@ElvisL1ves

Yep. Many of us, including some posters, are quite adept at pointing out others’ behavioral shortcomings without considering the possibility that we have our own, and that those can be in large part at the source of the problem. You know the joke about the kid crying “He hit me back first!”, right? A little self-restraint goes a long way.

Well, I agree. I can count numerous issues or times when I felt that someone should have shown restraint rather than publish some tripe or other. I certainly have no patients with folks who deny, say, the Holocaust, or who excuse monsters like Stalin or Mao…etc etc. Thick skinned though I be I’ve been offended by some art works I’ve seen throughout my years…and yes, even by some real ethnic bashing cartoons. But…I believe in freedom of speech. I believe that if you find something offensive then…you should basically not look at it. If its REALLY offensive (and frankly I don’t put these cartoons in that category myself…though of course not being a muslim my ox isn’t being gored) then one should protest…peacefully. But artists, writers, authors, ect should be free to make whatever statements they choose to make…even if they are mindless (to you or me or Joe down the street), and even if they are offensive. There is too fine a line (IMHO) drawn otherwise…because what may be a funny joke or a political statement to me could certainly be ‘mindless bashing’ to someone else. And once we start down the path of censorship we find that said path is a bit slick under our feet…

YMMV and all that.

-XT

[C_K_Dexter_Haven]

I’m sitting here in a Muslim country, and I’ve got another few days to go. There haven’t been riots, but I did see a Danish flag and an American flag painted on the sidewalk by a mosque so that people can step on them or spit on them. And I was asked to sign a petition to send to the Danish government in protest (I didn’t sign, of course, but at least it was a peaceful demonstration.)

The fact is that, in the Arab world, these riots are probably government-sponsored, and certainly government inflamed. Remember that in many Muslim countries, there is no difference between mosque and state: these are theocracies. The heaviest rioting is happening in countries that are ruled by dictators, who know that they hold power tenuously. It’s better to keep the mobs enraged at foreign devils than to let the people start thinking about jobs, health, housing, etc.

The front page of the English-language newspaper reports today that the Danish cartoonist has apologized. I bet it won’t stop the riots, the government-controlled press won’t print it.

[alaricthegoth]

@ElvisL1ves

Was it that, or a realization that the cartoons were profoundly offensive to many people and that reprinting them would serve no journalistic purpose?

Too, a contributing factor might be their profound lameness as cartoons, as anyone who’s seen them on the Web knows.

now waaiiiit jus a minute–I thought the turban bomb was not at all bad…

I think the dispute, to the extent that it is really about cartoons, has its roots in the existence of laws punishing some speech (qua speech) and the refusal, in the face of complaint from the offended, to charge the newspaper.

Of course, the ulema seem not to have pursued (however one might do so in denmark) the appeal of the aforesaid refusal through whatever channels exist for the same.

Here one would bring on an action for administative mandate, if aggrieved by the refusal of an agency to give satisfaction.

[alaricthegoth]

Where we are in a bind is that our transportation system is almost 100% fueled by oil and oil products and alternative energy doesn’t do anything about that. Virtually all of our manufactured products are moved by oil and that includes the coal that generates our electricity.

Our problem is exacerbated by our failure to be serious about energy independence.
To borrow from Peter Ouspensky, referencing a different sort of problem,

“What does it mean to be serious? A man who is in prison for life, is serious about trying to break out. That;s being serious…”

applying that standard, one might say that people who were serious about beginning to eliminate the vulnerabilities that make us the punks we are, might think about mass transit in a different light–our profound committment to the RIGHT of every american with five dollars in his pocket for gas to haul two tons of metal around with him everytime he (and solo, to boot0 feels the urge to go down to the seven eleven is really biting us in the ass here.

We could, with relatively obvious land use and transit changes pretty much cut loose of the oil pusher, but, as they say in other recovery contexts, first you have to want to quit…

[Evil_One]

I agree that many radical muslims and totalitarian muslim governments feel that it’s in their best interest to keep these fires stoked.

What happens if the rioters start killing westerners instead of setting fires and throwing rocks? Unfortunately, I feel like open warfare between the west and Islam is on the horizon.

[gum]

ElvisL1ves:

“Fuck off, we can say whatever we want about you, now just get the hell over it”

Hey.
That’s their line, you know.

Say that non-muslims ought to be killed. Say that you can never be friends with a non-muslim.
Call us unbelieving dogs, or pigs.
Call our women whores.
Call our homo-sexuals ‘sick’ and say that they ought to get thrown - head first - from high buildings. - Or just kick the shit out of them.
Call the jewish …oh…anything. Or paint a swastika on a Jew’s house and set it afire.
Forbid us to sing certain songs, play certain plays, show certain movies.

All in our own, non-muslim, country.

The fact that muslims made anti-semitic cartoons [and I mean anti-semitic, NOT anti-Zionists] for decades would, imho, be a very good reason to print the Mohammed cartoons in every paper available.
Even if - as you claim - there was no reason to print the cartoons.

[There was, indeed, a very good reason. Read Rune’s posts]

I’m sorry the US got dragged into this.
And Israël as well.
It’s a European problem, but apparently the neanderthalers don’t understand that.

[kezami]

@Evil One

Unfortunately, I feel like open warfare between the west and Islam is on the horizon.

I agree, it really is the only solution that makes complete sense. Dhimmitude doesn’t cut it in my books. Militant Islam has a ‘take no prisoners’ approach as you can see from this article.

[Declan]

@Evil One

I agree that many radical muslims and totalitarian muslim governments feel that it’s in their best interest to keep these fires stoked.

What happens if the rioters start killing westerners instead of setting fires and throwing rocks? Unfortunately, I feel like open warfare between the west and Islam is on the horizon.

No , islam is not capable of a military solution to the cartoon crisis , otherwise they would have exercised it already.

Since the eighties , they have always been out classed by The west and Israel militarily.

Some examples

Osirak nuclear plant , not online: Israeli airforce units flying long distance , destroyed the complex

Israeli invasion of lebannon , 17,000 and change arabs dead vs 675 Israelis
Syria loses almost its entire airforce for an exchange of zero Israeli airforce planes

1986 operation el dorado canyon, combined american naval and airforce raid on libya kills among others Gadaffis daughter, only one F-111 fails to make it back to England , no naval air units lost.

1988 operation praying mantis , American surface naval units raid Iranian oil facilities with no losses

1991 desert storm , nuff said

1998 desert fox

2001 Operation Enduring Freedom, removal of the Taliban

2003 Operation Iraqi Freedom , nuff said.

On the other side of the coin

Iraq/Iran took 8 years to reach a ceasefire

Removing soviet forces in Afganistan took close to ten years

In short, these people have had their heads kicked in so many times ,by a variety of people that they are no longer capable of believing they can win in a stand up fight.

It (Islam) is a warrior culture thats imploding from lack of release, and thats the scary thing about Iran getting the bomb, it tends to even the odds in a stand up fight.

Declan

[Uzi]

@ElvisL1ves

Essentially, yes. Good cartoons do have points. Do you disagree?

Yes, but should people only expected to print ‘good’ cartoons? I saw some of the cartoons. None of them were anywhere near as offensive as some of the stuff I’ve had to delete from my network regarding Jews and Indians (East) in Yemen. Placed there by people who have worked, trained, and and travelled outside of their own country, I might add, and should know better.

I’ll ask you too, then - what do you think *was * the point, if it was in fact more than gleeful ethnic/religious bashing?

It doesn’t matter even if it was just gleeful religious bashing. It happened in a foreign country where the laws of that country allowed it to be published.

Because mindless bashing creates hard feelings, and hard feelings can beget violence. That isn’t a subtle notion.

You are right. Still, suck it up, Sunshine. The religion you follow pertains to you. I don’t have to follow those rules, nor does anyone else.

I’m not. I’m deploring the notion that the rioting, to whatever degree it really exists, is the fundamental problem, that everything is always entirely the other guys’ fault, and that all required changes in behavior lie on them.

A few of us: Publish debatebly offensive cartoons in a foreign land.
Many more of them: riot, protest countries not involved, burn and destroy property, and murder hundreds.

Put that on a scale and, yes, there might be some miniscule fault in the actions of those who published the cartoons. I think it would take an electron microscope to find it, though.

A little self-restraint goes a long way.

While I agree that just because you can publish something doesn’t mean you should, I also think that by legally publishing something that is for consumption in your own country doesn’t place any responsibility on you because some nutjobs in a foreign country get all bent out of shape about it and start murdering people.

This really bugs me. I work in the ME. People aren’t stupid here (well no more than anywhere else). No one should get a pass on doing violent things, no matter where they are from. These people know better. At least the ones I work with do. I think it is insulting to excuse their actions just because someone in a foreign land does something that they may find offensive. I remember discussing a movie that was on TV the night before with one of my employees. He said he didn’t like the movie (I can’t remember which one, some horror flick) shown on TV. I said, yeah, I didn’t like it, either, so I turned it off. He nodded, stating he did the same thing and we continued working. At no point did either of us think it was appropriate to find the embassy of wherever this movie originated from and try to burn it down. Yes, I know it is hard to imagine that that wasn’t our first response to being offended :rolleyes:

[Uzi]

@alaricthegoth

Our problem is exacerbated by our failure to be serious about energy independence.

Yes, I’ve been walking the line when I comes to the Iraq war. Getting rid of Saddam is a good thing in my opinion, but I always think about the money involved. I think it would have been far better if they had taken the amount spent on the war and spent it on developing alternative energy sources. If they had spent the money on developing fusion, I think we’d either be installing plants by now or in the very near future. I always thought what made America truly great was that ‘Let’s put a man on the moon’ attitude. It’s when they try to do the ‘Team America’ crap and try to spread democracy that they get into trouble. The problem with democracy is no one wants it if it’s given to them. [/soapbox]

[Alessan]

Just in case you were wondering how my country would respond to the Iranian Holocaust Cartoon Contest… check this out:

“We’ll show the world we can do the best, sharpest, most offensive Jew hating cartoons ever published!” said Sandy “No Iranian will beat us on our home turf!”

(This, I believe, is what’s known as the Cyrano de Bergerac Defense).

Rarely have I been as proud to be an Israeli.

[markdiscordia]

@alaricthegoth

[I The same cannnot be said of Iran*
HUH??

I’m pretty sure that we are threatening Iran on a daily basis, and have been ever since we murdered their elected prime minister to install our stooge in 1953.

Mossadegh was appointed, not elected, he died of cancer, not murder, and that happened 14 years after his overthrow, not as a part of it. Maybe you should do more reading and less left-wing raging.

[tagos]

@markdiscordia

Mossadegh was appointed, not elected, he died of cancer, not murder, and that happened 14 years after his overthrow, not as a part of it. Maybe you should do more reading and less left-wing raging.

Prime Ministers are always appointed one way or another. In the UK, by the Queen by virtue of them being the leader of the biggest party. In other democracies by a variety of other means.

The fact remains - the US and UK overthrew a democratically elected govt and installed and supported a murderous dictator.

[Rune]

@ElvisL1ves

The idiot publisher and cartoonist in Denmark need to make a public apology, if they haven’t already, for a deliberately-insulting act that they knew would be seen as blasphemous, and for no useful purpose whatsoever. The defenses of their actions need to stop as well.

I don’t (or rather didn’t) agree with the publishing of the original Muhammed Cartoons. Like I don’t like the (far worse) ridicule and insult Christianity (and Judaism and most everything else) - and flag burning for that matter - is often subjected to. Islam. Like all the great world religions, is a poetic mystery. There’s no need to debase and take down every poetic thing.

That said, then there were good reasons to publish the original drawings beyond merely a fuck-you. The newspaper was worried about a fear of and an insidious self-censure had spread in Danish society regarding all things Islam. And that is bad. Islam, while not ridiculed, then it need to be put up for discussion and critique like any other organisation or religion in Denmark. The cartoons were meant for a Danish audience in a Danish cultural context - and in that they were part of a century and a half of Danish newspaper tradition. And within that tradition they were fairly innocent and in no way even near what Christians has had to endure over the years. It was not the Danish newspaper which took the cartoons and injected them into a Middle Eastern culture completely incapable to understand them or put them in context. And I think it’s safe to assume that no-one on the newspaper five months ago in their wildest nightmare would ever have thought how this would turn out.

I can’t for the world imagine why you’d think the “defenses of their actions need to stop as well”? If people think their actions are defensible, then they shouldn’t be hindered in their defense of them. Do you agree that religion need to be questioned? If so, you yourself are defending them.

And of course when the protest turned vicious, then there’s just no way back. Now we’ll have to stand by freedom of speech. I will in no way be bullied into silence or into laying under somebody’s religious laws. If it comes to it, then I’ll start reprinting the cartoons myself and put them up all over Copenhagen. And when it comes down to it, then I in retrospect think the cartoons, while very bad for Denmark, then they did us all an invaluable service, in bringing to the surface some issues we need to address seriously - the sooner the better. The cartoons didn’t create the tension. It was already there just waiting for some random spark. It could have been anything.

And when they started to burn Danish flags, hold Holocaust Contest, burn crosses and Christian churches - and Christians, in response. Then they can just all go fuck themselves.

btw. The newspaper already apologised and the Danish PM back in December in a public speech said he thought them wrong and ill-advised - but this is way beyond some cartoons in a marginal newspaper, only a small percentage of the protesters ever saw.

I don’t think it’s spiraling out of hands. It’ll die down in a few months.

[Stratocaster]

@ElvisL1ves

Was it that, or a realization that the cartoons were profoundly offensive to many people and that reprinting them would serve no journalistic purpose?

Signe Wilkinson, the editorial cartoonist for the Philadelphia Daily News, was interviewed on the Michael Smerkonish radio show shortly after all this savagery began. Signe said that, no, it would never have occurred to her to create such a cartoon, and even if it had, her paper would probably not have printed it.

Michael pointed out cartoons she did come up with and get by her editors–for example, a shotgun-wielding Jesus labelled “Pro-Life Jesus,” or something like that. She stammered and hemmed and hawed and never really came up with an explanation as to why these are really different scenarios, other than the predictable outcome of those offended.

My point is not to defend Christian values, but to point out that in some instances–perhaps most–there is a double standard that suggests not a sensitivity but a cowardice. The Daily News, as a specific example, seems to have no such compunctions regarding the offense of Christian sensibilities. Why would I assume its refusal to print the Muslim cartoons was reflective of their courteous deference to religious values?

I would not have printed the Mohammed cartoons initially for the same reason I wouldn’t have printed the shotgun Jesus cartoon: they severely offend people, they profane deeply held beliefs, and it is simple courtesy to make one’s point in a way that avoids this. That being said, it is within the papers’ rights to print these, and it is most CERTAINLY news now, not a simple editorial point. I think it’s inarguable that fear is a factor in not printing these now, and to the extent that’s the case, then the savages who are torching embassies and calling for the beheading of cartoonists and editors can claim a certain victory.

[MrDibble]

@Alessan

Just in case you were wondering how my country would respond to the Iranian Holocaust Cartoon Contest… check this out:
(This, I believe, is what’s known as the Cyrano de Bergerac Defense).
Rarely have I been as proud to be an Israeli.

…and well you should be. Such, what’s the word, chutzpah! That’s the best response possible, I love it.

[ElvisL1ves]

@Rune

Islam, while not ridiculed, then it need to be put up for discussion and critique like any other organisation or religion in Denmark. The cartoons were meant for a Danish audience in a Danish cultural context - and in that they were part of a century and a half of Danish newspaper tradition.

Thanks for the view from Denmark - but I’m having a great trouble understanding how this tradition works, admittedly based only on this sample. The cartoons didn’t appear to be “questioning” but simply mocking. If they were meant to provoke a thought other than "fuck them, Christians get shit too but we don’t dismiss *that * as ‘questioning’ ", I just don’t see it. Could you expound, please?

I can’t for the world imagine why you’d think the “defenses of their actions need to stop as well”? If people think their actions are defensible, then they shouldn’t be hindered in their defense of them.

Because I haven’t yet seen anything that’s a real defense, as opposed to an excuse. Perhaps I should have said instead that “Excuses of their actions need to stop as well.”

Do you agree that religion need to be questioned? If so, you yourself are defending them.

Questioned and explored, certainly. Mocked and bashed, no. Again, this looks like the latter.

Now we’ll have to stand by freedom of speech.

I don’t think that was ever in question. But, as I’ve already said, freedoms entail responsibilities.

I in retrospect think the cartoons, while very bad for Denmark, then they did us all an invaluable service, in bringing to the surface some issues we need to address seriously - the sooner the better. The cartoons didn’t create the tension. It was already there just waiting for some random spark. It could have been anything.

Well put, and certainly right. The only cure to bigotry, of any form, is of course exposure and discussion, and if Denmark needed to do some of that, then it’s certainly good that it’s being done.

And when they started to burn Danish flags, hold Holocaust Contest, burn crosses and Christian churches - and Christians, in response. Then they can just all go fuck themselves.

*All * of them? Who are “they”, exactly? Is it useful or appropriate or excusable to lump all of some “them” into some undifferentiated and even undefined mass who can nevertheless all go fuck themselves? If you only mean rioters and killers, then certainly. If it’s some larger group of “them”, then we have a problem.

btw. The newspaper already apologised and the Danish PM back in December in a public speech said he thought them wrong and ill-advised - but this is way beyond some cartoons in a marginal newspaper, only a small percentage of the protesters ever saw.

I didn’t know that. Thanks for the information.

I don’t think it’s spiraling out of hands. It’ll die down in a few months.

The direct actions will, sure, but the ill will is going to fester for quite a bit longer without some strong gestures of good will in return.

[Pope_Bob_The_Pious]

@ElvisL1ves

The direct actions will, sure, but the ill will is going to fester for quite a bit longer without some strong gestures of good will in return.

That is very true, and I am at a loss as to what the Islamic world is going to do as that gesture of good will. Burned and attacked embassies, attacking an effigy of Ronald Mcdonald (PBUH), Christian churches attacked, a Catholic priest was shot…quite a list of ill-will for the Islamic world to try to overcome.

[HeelB4Zod]

@ElvisL1ves

The direct actions will, sure, but the ill will is going to fester for quite a bit longer without some strong gestures of good will in return.

What gestures of good will do you think the Muslim world ought to offer the West?

[ElvisL1ves]

Good will goes both directions, folks. I know who represents the Danish newspaper, but I don’t know who represents “the Muslim world” and can produce such an act, though - can you tell me?