Must-watch
discussion of the events in Paris, How journalists are "stenographers
to Power" and how the left-wing have abrogated their
responsibilities and adopted the same racism over the Right.
The most disgusting English-langauage publication (apart from the likes of the deranged Fox News is the Guardian which is bankrolling Charlie Hebdo in its racist outrage and reflecting its "liberal fascist" views on its pages
France clamours for Charlie Hebdo as news kiosks sell out
Seven
days after massacre of staff at the satirical weekly, millions queue
to snap up copy of special ‘survivors’ edition
It even goes so far as to point out to readers where they can buy a copy
CrossTalk:
Extremists Incorporated
The
terror act waged on the city of Paris again demonstrates how the
West's so-called war on terror works – or doesn't work. The
extremists on both sides of this divide claim Paris a victory. For
the innocent, it is another senseless and painful tragedy.
CrossTalking
with Gearoid Ó Colmáin and Hafsa Kara Mustapha.
France
arrests a comedian for his Facebook comments, showing the sham of the
West’s “Free Speech” celebration
Glenn
Greenwald
14
January, 2014
Forty-eight
hours after hosting a massive march under the banner of free
expression, France opened
a criminal investigation of a
controversial French comedian for a Facebook post he wrote about the
Charlie Hebdo attack, and then this morning, arrested
him for
that post on charges of “defending terrorism.” The
comedian, Dieudonné (above), previously sought elective office
in France on what he called an “anti-Zionist” platform, has had
his show banned by numerous government officials in cities throughout
France, and has been criminally prosecuted several times before
for expressing ideas banned in that country.
The
apparently criminal viewpoint he posted on Facebook
declared: “Tonight, as far as I’m concerned, I feel like
Charlie Coulibaly.” Investigators concluded that this was intended
to mock the “Je Suis Charlie” slogan and express support for
the perpetrator of the Paris supermarket killings (whose last
name was “Coulibaly”). Expressing that opinion is evidently a
crime in the Republic of Liberté, which prides itself on a line
of 20th Century intellectuals – from Sartre and Genet to Foucault
and Derrida – whose hallmark was leaving no orthodoxy or convention
unmolested, no matter how sacred.
Since
that glorious “free speech” march, France has reportedly
opened 54
criminal cases for “condoning terrorism.” AP reported this
morning that “France ordered prosecutors around the country to
crack down on hate speech, anti-Semitism and glorifying terrorism.”
As
pernicious as this arrest and related “crackdown” on some speech
obviously is, it provides a critical value: namely, it underscores
the utter scam that was this week’s celebration of
free speech in the west. The day before the Charlie Hebdo attack, I
coincidentally documented the
multiple cases in the west – including in the U.S. – where
Muslims have been prosecuted and even imprisoned for their political
speech. Vanishingly few of this week’s bold free expression mavens
have ever uttered a peep of protest about any of those cases –
either before the Charlie Hebdo attack or since. That’s because
“free speech,” in the hands of many westerners, actually means:
it is
vital that the ideas I like be protected, and the right to offend
groups I dislike be cherished; anything else is fair game.
It
is certainly true that many of Dieudonné’s views and
statements are
noxious,
although he and his supporters insist that they are “satire” and
all in good humor. In that regard, the controversy they provoke is
similar to the now-much-beloved Charlie Hebdo cartoons (one French
leftist insists the
cartoonists were mocking rather than adopting racism and bigotry, but
Olivier Cyran, a former writer at the magazine who resigned in 2001,
wrote a
powerful 2013 letter with
ample documentation condemning Charlie Hebdo for descending in
the post-9/11 era into full-scale, obsessive anti-Muslim bigotry).
Despite
the obvious threat to free speech posed by this arrest, it is
inconceivable that any mainstream western media figures would start
tweeting “#JeSuisDieudonné” or would upload photographs of
themselves performing his ugly
Nazi-evoking arm gesture in
“solidarity” with his free speech rights. That’s true even
if he were murdered for his ideas rather than “merely” arrested
and prosecuted for them. That’s because last week’s
celebration of the Hebdo cartoonists (well beyond mourning
their horrifically unjust murders) was at least as much about
approval for their anti-Muslim messages as it was about the free
speech rights that were invoked in their support - at
least as
much.
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, all
deceitfully masquerading as lofty principles of liberty. 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 (the most frequently
invoked distinction
– “Jews are a race/ethnicity while Muslims aren’t” – would
come as a huge surprise to the world’s Asian, black, Latino and
white Jews, as well as to those who identify as “Muslim” as part
of their cultural identity even though they don’t pray five
times a day). As always: it’s
free speech if it involves ideas I like or attacks groups I dislike,
but it’s something different when I’m the one who is offended.
Think
about the “defending terrorism” criminal offense for which
Dieudonné has been arrested. Should it really be a criminal
offense –
causing someone to be arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned – to say
something along these lines: western
countries like France have been bringing violence for so long to
Muslims in their countries that I now believe it’s justifiable to
bring violence to France as a means of making them stop?
If you want “terrorism defenses” like that to be criminally
prosecuted (as opposed to societally shunned), how about those who
justify, cheer for and glorify the invasion and destruction of Iraq,
with its “Shock
and Awe” slogan signifying
an intent to terrorize the civilian population into submission and
its monstrous
tactics in Fallujah?
Or how about the psychotic
calls from
a Fox News host, when discussing Muslims radicals, to “kill them
ALL.” Why is one view permissible and the other criminally barred –
other than because the force of law is being used to control
political discourse and one form of terrorism (violence in the Muslim
world) is done by, rather than to, the west?
For
those interested, my comprehensive argument against all “hate
speech” laws and other attempts to exploit the law to police
political discourse ishere.
That essay, notably, was written to denounce a proposal by a French
minister, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, to force Twitter to work with the
French government to delete tweets which officials like this minister
(and future unknown ministers) deem “hateful.” France is about as
legitimate a symbol of free expression as Charlie Hebdo,
which fired one
of its writers in 2009 for a single supposedly anti-Semitic
sentence in the midst of publishing an orgy of anti-Muslim (not just
anti-Islam) content. This week’s celebration of France – and the
gaggle of tyrannical leaders who joined it – had little to do with
free speech and much to do with suppressing ideas they dislike while
venerating ideas they prefer.
Perhaps
the most intellectually corrupted figure in this regard is,
unsurprisingly, France’s most celebrated (and easily the world’s
most overrated) public intellectual, the philosopher
Bernard-Henri Lévy. He demands criminal suppression
of anything smacking of anti-Jewish views (he called
for Dieudonné’s
shows to be banned (“I don’t understand why anyone even sees the
need for debate”) and supported the 2009 firing of the Charlie
Hebdo writer for a speech offense against Jews), while
shamelessly parading
around all
last week as the Churchillian champion of free expression when it
comes to anti-Muslim cartoons.
But
that, inevitably,
is precisely the goal, and the effect, of laws that criminalize
certain ideas and those who support such laws: to codify a system
where the views they like are sanctified and the groups to
which they belong protected. The views and groups they most dislike –
and only them – are fair game for oppression and degradation.
The
arrest of this French comedian so soon after the epic Paris free
speech march underscores this point more powerfully than anything I
could have written about the selectivity and fraud of this week’s
“free speech” parade. It also shows – yet again – why those
who want to criminalize the ideas they most dislike are at least as
dangerous and tyrannical as the ideas they target: at
least.
Photo:
Chesnot/Getty Images
Correction:
This post originally identified Dieudonné as Muslim. That was
in error, and the article has been edited to reflect that correction.
Anissa
Naouai is back on RT
Charlie Hebdo memorial edition makes a profit off The Prophet
Extra!
Extra! The new Charlie Hebdo is on sale.
You can't buy it it's sold out hot off the press. Lines circled blocks of the French Capital before dawn as people tried to get their hands on the memorial issue of the magazine the first since the terror attack last week. 5,000,000 to be printed! The initial 3 million are already sold out at- 3 euros a piece. On Ebay you can bid for over 10 thousand euros. The French government supported the magazine with 1.2 million euros after the attack.
But just a couple of months ago Charlie Hebdo was appealing for public donations and only 60,000 copies were printed, merely half of them sold.
You can't buy it it's sold out hot off the press. Lines circled blocks of the French Capital before dawn as people tried to get their hands on the memorial issue of the magazine the first since the terror attack last week. 5,000,000 to be printed! The initial 3 million are already sold out at- 3 euros a piece. On Ebay you can bid for over 10 thousand euros. The French government supported the magazine with 1.2 million euros after the attack.
But just a couple of months ago Charlie Hebdo was appealing for public donations and only 60,000 copies were printed, merely half of them sold.
And from the unhinged Fox News
Fox News Judge Jeanine Pirro sparks outrage with ‘unhinged’ rant about ‘Muslim terrorists’
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