Cartoonist Joe Sacco on the Charlie Hebdo attacks

[Ken Burch]

(warning: some of the images Sacco uses to make his point here are going to seem inflammatory and offensive...but he needs to use those images to make the point)

[NYC_SKP]

1. Finally, some truth. Painful but honest and sincere.

This part says it all, yet seems to be lost on 99% of us.

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?”

~snip~

And what is it about Muslims in this time and place that makes them unable to laugh off a mere image. And if we answer, "Because something is deeply wrong with them" -certainly something that was deeply wrong with the killers- then let us drive them from their homes and into the sea...

For that is going to be far easier than sorting out how we fit in each other's world.

http://yournz.org/2015/01/10/satirical-cartoons-where-should-the-line-be-drawn/

There's a better way to win this war than with guns and with insults.

Thank you Ken Burch.

[oberliner]

2. Jeez how many times in this guy's crap going to be posted here

This is like the 5th I've seen.

Absolute garbage.

Interesting that he finds "tweaking Muslims" to be a "vapid way to use the pen" but does not extend that to "tweaking Zionists".

[NYC_SKP]

3. You might be missing the point. Here's another article about the matter:

http://tinyurl.com/StarboardTackArticle

Read though it, and read the cartoon again.

It's speaking truth to the power of satire, and the differential responses to it.

Well worth the read and review.

[cwydro]

4. An article this week by Nicholas Kristof

pointed out that most terrorist attacks by Muslims are AGAINST other Muslims.

That recent Pakistan attack with all the children?

The recent Yemen attack? All you have to do is look it up.

There is a lot of violence in the Muslim world. We hear about it on the front page when it happens to the West.

But it happens every single day.

[NYC_SKP]

5. Yes, even this attack this week had a Muslim victim.

But of course that's the nature of all extremism, not exclusively an Islamic phenomenon.

I don't doubt that Christian Fundies don't take out the occasional Christian, either as "collateral damage: or out of disagreement on some detail of their beliefs.

[cwydro]

6. Yes it did.

But there are far more attacks under the "cause of Islam" every day in this world.

I know those murderous scum are not true Muslims. But that religion sure does seem to attract a lot of disenchanted, undereducated, lowlife wanna-be martyr types.

I don't care for a religion that considers gays worthy of only death, and which subjugates women.

I just don't.

If that makes me bigoted, so be it.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

8. "I don't care for a religion that considers gays worthy of only death, and which subjugates women."

Go back a hundred years or so and that describes the Western "Enlightened" world.

[cwydro]

9. That was then R. Daneel.

This is now.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

11. Respectfully I have to disagree.

That was then for the West. Not all cultures move at the same pace or are enlightened-ish at the same time.

There was a time when the Arab world was enlightened-ish while Europe wallowed in the Dark Ages.


What would you say about that?

[cwydro]

12. I would say that if the Arab world was enlightened in the middle ages...

they've not progressed much since then.

Not sure if they are in the 7th century or the 14th, but it isn't the 21st.

There was a reason back in the day when cultures did not catch up.

Pretty much everyone has the internet now (except N.Korea lol).

If you think it is fine and dandy for women to be treated as second class citizens, and for gays to be murdered...well, we have nothing more to say to each other. No doubt you are male and not gay.

Things look different depending on which angle you're looking at them.

I'm heading to bed anyway. G'night now.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

14. "Not sure if they are in the 7th century or the 14th, but it isn't the 21st."

Does America torture?

Does America kill civilians overseas with hellfire missals?

Does America turn it's backs on the poor and dispossessed?

Does America continue to reelect Republicans intent on destroying America?


How many wars has America been in that they have started in the last 70 years?

How many civilians has America fucked over in those wars?

How many countries has America fucked with and installed corporate-backed dictators?

I'm not sure what century America is in sometimes myself, but it appears to be slipping backward.


If you want to comment on the evil Arab world then please remove the plank from your eye.

After that learn the history of the Western world, but when you do please realize that they are world class fuckers.

[cwydro]

15. Heh.

Go read what has happened in the Muslim world in the last months, much less years.

I hate what Bush and co did. This country has hit a bad patch. Things will swing around again. I believe in that. Sooo...

I'll stick with the west, where I'm a free woman.

Keep up with your disillusionment.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

16. It has nothing to do with disillusionment. It's just reality, and we own it.

Those hellfire missal casualties come under President Obama's watch.

My point being that you can argue who is or who isn't in this or that century, but when the cards are down America, and the West, is by far the bigger murderer(s)...no matter how dignified or how many democratic elections we hold. No matter how many times we pat ourselves on the back for it.

Yes, you're free. It's good to be free. It's also good to learn how the West screwed the Arab world with it's dictators. So their populations aren't free, and now we are getting the blowback from it.

In no way do I justify what has taken place in France. I abhor violence on any person.


It has nothing to do with disillusionment. It's just reality, and we own it.

[cwydro]

18. I agree we have a ton of blame to shoulder.

But I will never care for a religion that subjugates women.

Period.

How lucky I was to be born of liberal parents from England, yet born in the USA.

Screw those who think males are somehow superior to women.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

19. I'm not really defending any religion here. My original statement was that

enlightenment really comes and goes, and is never there forever. What is pure today will be corrupted tomorrow.

It's not really disillusionment or fatalism. I's just how things have worked out: rises and falls, growth and decay. Brief enlightenment then ages of darkness.


The Arab/Persian/Muslim world is in its age of darkness: fueled in great part by the West. The West is racing right along besides it in a different and sometimes more lethal way. Nobody wins that race if they are smart.


Peace.

[cwydro]

20. I'll re read this tomorrow

I think I might agree with part of it.

Last glass of wine putting me to bed.

Long week.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

7. Jeeze, ober. Give it up with the kvetching.

Take it standing up.

[cwydro]

10. Yup.

[grossproffit]

13. Indeed.

[oneview]

17. "because something is deeply wrong with them" --

Yes, something is deeply wrong with them, not due to any fault of their own, but due to the accidents of history.

Islam is not uniquely violent because evil white people did colonialism on the Middle East a hundred years ago. Islam is uniquely violent because its FOUNDATIONAL TEXTS are uniquely violent. Why are they uniquely violent? Again, due to the accidents of history. When Islam came up in the nomadic anarchy of 6th century Arabia, you just couldn't successfully spread a new religion by preaching a new gospel to the world -- there was no safety in travel, and certainly no safety for a stranger in the territories of this tribe or that one. The only way a religion could be safely spread in 6th century Arabia was through CONQUEST. And so the command to conquer IS in the Quran.

We cannot blame Muhammad or his followers; he brought unity to Arabia's chaos, and the conjoinment of politics and religion was standard in his time! -- to the east, the Arabs faced the Sassanian Persian Empire, where Zoroastrianism was the state religion, and to the west, the Arabs faced the Byzantine Empire, whose caesaropapism had welded Christianity to the state also.

But now, in the 21st century, it is nonsense to deny that Islam is as much an ideology bent on world conquest as Stalinist Communism was. It's in the texts people. It's in the texts!

[Avalux]

21. Profound. I have no other words. n/t