We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Let’s have a Danish Buycott In order to show some solidarity with Denmark, who are facing remarkable pressure over the Jyllands-Posten ‘Satanic Cartoons’ incident, I for one will be stocking up with Danish products at every opportunity. I find it offensive that they are being threatened by Islamist thugs and pissant Muslim governments for daring to be a tolerant western nation.
So, what recipes can liberty lovers think up that use Lurpak butter, Danish bacon (lots of yummy Danish bacon), Havarti cheese, Carlsberg & Tuborg beer and smoked herring?
And as every campaign needs a ‘face’…
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
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http://skender.be/supportdenmark/
http://www.madeindenmark.org/
Every morning I have a slice of Havarti cheese on my toasted bagel. It comes in lots of yummy flavors. We prefer caraway.
haaaaaa! I protest – the “face of the campaign” is not kosher”!
As father of 3, I buy an awful lot of Lego.
Will try harder though.
Skol!
I had a Danish pastry for breakfast this morning
does reading Hans Christian Andersen qualify as a part of the action?
ummm….Bacon
Mr Schwarz. you beat me to it.
Nothing like melted havarti on a toasted bagel ( I prefer onion ). MMMmmmm.
Have you thought of baptising the pig yet?
Now what could we call it?
I’m no expert in Danish history but was told once by a Danish friend that during WW2, the King largely circumvented persecution of Jews by himself wearing a Star of David. Soon, nearly everyone wore one. The Germans knew they couldn’t take the whole population, so the Danish Jews were much better protected than Jews in comparable occupied territories.
I wonder if this is a lesson for our strategy now.
What if a major media outlet (e.g. BBC, Sydney Morning Herald, New York Times) of every freedom-loving country published the cartoons? The PM/President of each country could then take the ‘we don’t interfere with the media’ line used admirably by the Danish PM. I’m sure GWB would do it, so would John Howard. Maybe Blair.
Soon the Middle East would be forced to boycott imports from every Western country – something the local population would lose interest in very quickly, especially if they need something only made in the West (e.g. a new car).
Harry has a list of Danish products
http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/2006/02/01/buy_danish.php
See here for the balanced view of letters received and published by Dubai’s Gulf News.
Here’s a taste:
Just as long as I don’t have to watch any movies by Lars Von Triers …
Adrian
What if a major media outlet (e.g. BBC, Sydney Morning Herald, New York Times) of every freedom-loving country published the cartoons?
Hah! They’ll more likely campaign for Jyllands-Postern’s Editor to be dragged up in front of a sharia court than do anything so reactionary as take the side of free expression. BBC Radio 5 Live was doing contortions this morning in discussing the issue whilst trying to avoid bringing attention to the widespread, infantile and intolerant reaction of the islamic world. And it is a reaction seen across the islamic world and reaching up to the highest levels.
Frankly I’ve long had enough of these whining losers. When Newsweek (erroniously, but so what) reports that a koran was pissed on in Gitmo, dozens die in the subsequent riots from the middle east to Indonesia. A Danish paper prints some lines and shapes and there gors the islamic rattle out the pram again. When this latest storm blows over they’ll be another one, you just know it.
So, when aren’t muslims ever bloody offended? In the words of Stephen Fry – You’re offended? So fucking what?
Whoops, I forgot the point of the thread. Put me down for three inch thick bacon sarnies and a “fuck yeah!” for Danish tottie, amongst the finest around.
I’m no expert in Danish history but was told once by a Danish friend that during WW2, the King largely circumvented persecution of Jews by himself wearing a Star of David.
This is in fact an urban myth…however it is one that has a kernal of truth in it. Danes smuggled Jews to Sweden away from Nazi hands. A large number of Danish Jews managed to survive as a result of this.
NB: I had Danish salami for lunch yesterday and plan to do so again tomorrow.
Maybe we need to wheel out the Python boys for another Muslim version of Life of Brian? He’s not Allah’s prophet, he’s just a very naughty boy.
Brendan Halfweeg – We could call it The Life of Allan.
Re King Christian of Denmark, it is not exactly a myth, urban or otherwise. It is true that he did not wear a yellow star of David, but neither did anyone else. When the commander of the German occupying forces in Denmark had an audience with the King, he told him he was going to order every Danish Jew to wear a yellow star of David. The King replied, “Then I will be the first one in the country to wear it!”
The German commander recognised immediately, of course, that if the King were wearing a star of David, it would become a mark of prestige and everyone would want one, so he dropped the idea and it was never implemented.
Re that sweet little pig, I love pigs and don’t know how anyone could eat one. They are as intelligent and fun loving and affectionate as dogs. Sadly, there is probably no more delicious smell in the universe than that of frying bacon, though.
“This is in fact an urban myth…however it is one that has a kernal of truth in it. Danes smuggled Jews to Sweden away from Nazi hands.”
No, that’s another urban myth. The much trumpeted ‘rescue’ of Danish Jews was the result of a deliberate tip-off to the community by the Reichsprotektor, Dr Werner Best, who was probably acting with the approval of Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler. The true story is now sufficiently well accepted to be conceded in the Imperial War Museum’s Holocaust exhbition.
Why would Himmler okay such a plan? He had begun to put out peace feelers via Sweden to the western Allies, intending to overthrow Hitler and continue the war on the Eastern Front only. Part of his strategy was to be more overtly conciliatory towards the Jews– hence also his reluctance to deport the large Hungarian Jewish population and his talks with Zionists. A short sea evacuation of only 7,000 highly assimilated Jews from Denmark to southern Sweden was a cheap way of impressing the Swedes with his bona fides.
On the night, the only problem was that some Danish fishermen demanded large sums for running the (non-existent) risk of the crossing.
Werner Best, a most intriguing figure, was a legal draftsman who had previously spent months booby-trapping the Nuremberg Laws with exceptions and loopholes.
Denmark barely lifted a finger in resistance to its Germanic cousins and occupiers: it was a model protectorate, like the Channel Islands. Jews from such quiet countries were much likelier to survive than those in war zones– cf Bulgaria, Italy, Vichy France.
And can you cite your sources? David Irving perhaps?
This pig is like the anti-pork-busters logo!
Less pork in government, and more Danish bacon in my belly!
Adrian-
I’ve never heard of that story before-what a cool idea! I think that your idea is a neat one!
Verity, Winston Churchill was fond of pigs, which he regarded as amiable and intelligent animals. We had them on our family farm and I was always a bit upset on the day they got taken away. They can be very funny animals.
But they taste sooo good, alas.
It’s not halal either…..
I would buy Danish bacon if it wasn’t the water-injected gelatinous crap that it largely is. Sometimes one feels like one is boiling the stuff rather than frying it because of the amount of watery white pus that seeps out in the cooking process. Sometimes, when it’s the only bacon on the shelf in my local convenience store, it makes feel like issuing a fatwa!
Now that a French paper has reprinted them, I’m looking forward to seeing a right-wing campaign to buy French products in America. That should be amusing.
put me down for a bagel with Havarti… I like the dill flavored version, so I may need some cucumber slices to go with that…
The Washington Post is having a similar dust-up with a cartoon also. The Post’s Tom Toles (who has his moments) portrayed a wounded soldier, having lost all his limbs, to skewer Rumsfield(Link). The American Warlords (Joint Chiefs of Staff) were offended and using their vast destructive power, bombed the Post and crushed Toles under their tanks … er, not really. They sent a letter(Link) to the editor.
Now that a French paper has reprinted them, I’m looking forward to seeing a right-wing campaign to buy French products in America. That should be amusing.
Yes and the editor who did so promptly got fired. I don’t hear the French goverment getting all hot and bothered defending the Danes.
I don’t hear the British government, either. The cowardly Blair is keeping his head below the parapet. He is scared shitless.
Perry de Havilland: “And can you cite your sources? David Irving perhaps?”
No, Mr Irving has not written about this. You will find the story, as I mentioned, in the Imperial War Museum exhibition, which was curated by Prof. David Cesarani.
Truth is often in shades of gray, and comforting myths seldom stand up to scrutiny intact.
London, Friday afternoon (Feb 3rd)- some Islamic group called Al Ghurabaa at http://www.alghurabaa.co.uk/index.html
is planning a protest outside the Danish embassy between 2pm and 4pm.
Nice bunch – they say on their website ‘Kill those who insult Muhammad’. Damn Kuffars eh! Oh thats us!
More 4 just reported that a Jordanian newspaper just reprinted the cartoons, and that all UK papers they asked said they wouldn’t publish them, except the Daily Mail which was having a quiet think about it in a dark room.
And can you cite your sources? David Irving perhaps?
Well, I remember that point being talked about on the BBC documentary series ‘Auschwitz, The Nazis, and the Final Solution’ (which was excellent, by the way, if you’ve never seen it).
I don’t view Islam as ever having an enlightened period. The odd strongman would have some kept scholars and poets, but there wasn’t ever the free flow of ideas which has been common in the West really since the time of ancient Greece. Even in the so-called Dark Ages of the West, there was more scientific method and rationality than at the height of Islam. The Crusades are considered this, that and the other thing by people who comment about them, but one very telling thing is that it was the supposedly barbarous Europeans who managed to march and sail an entire army of tens of thousands of men and horses to the Arab World at a time when Arab armies couldn’t even make it to Constantinople, right at their front door. The ability to move large bodies of people and their material over long distances indicates a great deal of practical intellectual ability…something Islam lacked even then.
It is my view that Islam’s problem has been its intellectual stultification enforced by a hidebound clerisy not at all interested in competing for adherents. The Islamic world has been so determined to protect virtue that they have forgotten that there is no virtue in enforced morality.
Who respects Islam?
Who respects Mohammed? Do the US Marines respect Islam or Mohammed.?
Remember the video of the US Marine shooting that Moslem inside the Mosque?
In Mosul right now the Mosque there is completely riddled with machine gun pock marks and two TOW missile hits on the Minaret. Fallujah has holes in every Mosque there. One has a five hundred pound bomb crater in the floor and the Dome blown off.
We know the EUroweenies are generally a bunch of gutless cowards, what else is new. We also know the Paris magazine in question retracting its article and firing the editor is owned by a Moslem Egyptian. Does it surprise you that a rich Egyptian owns the French mag? It shouldnt.
We also realize the Danes and the Dutch are wimps. They are Europeans, people. We EXPECT Europeans to be spineless wimps. Europeans are a nice little collection of people who run tourist stands and sell souvenirs. They say things like “Merci” and “Merde” and “Suave kaput”. But they run for the hills when you wave a featherduster at them.
Islam has a bigger image problem than a few pictures of Mohammed taking a piss and his dick is too small.
Islams problem is personified by Saddam in his underwear folding his pants in a cell with American guards looking on. Islam is hiding in a hole willing to “negotiate”. That’s not only Osama, it’s the entire Republican Guard. Islam is a bunch of Egyptian mummies out there creaking in the sand at Mitla Pass. Islam is 90 out of 90 Syrian aircraft shot down in a single day by Israeli fighters and they never lost a single plane doing it. Islam is 23 smoking and burning Syrian Tanks in the Golan and not a single Israeli Tank destroyed.
Islam is in the sights of a Predator Drone while it eats boiled goat at a party at two in the morning in Damadola just before they get vapourized. Islam is Libya selling out and coming over to the Americans.
Islam is an al Qaeda biggie in his undershirt and his pants unzipped being handcuffed and kicked down the stairs and into the waiting police van. Islam is resting at Guantanamo and they will all die down there of old age. Islam is naked in its own piss at Abu Grabass jacking off while the women guards watch on. Islam is the Palestinians voting in a bunch of fanatical terrorist murder bombers and expecting YOU in the West to pay for their bills.
Islam is a Koran floating in a toilet, people. Islam has serious problems. But NOBODY respects Islam. Not even the French respect Islam. Not enough to give one a job that doesn’t involve pushing a broom around.
NATO has accepted Israel and held combined war manuevers in Turkey looking down on Syria prepatory to a combined strike on Iran. You do know Iran is next don’t you. Afghanistan is no longer quite the haven for Islamists that it used to be. Neither is Iraq. The Americans are NEVER going to leave and all those bases from Quatar to Tikrit are just waiting for the orders to move on Teheran.
The whole world is just waiting for the War with Iran to cook off like a smoking mortar shell still in the tube.
And when will it end? It will end when Mecca is made to play Musical Chairs and everybody takes a turn and Allah gets a Jordanian one year and an Algerian the next and then a turn for Indonesia and the Morrocco. The Holy Places will go on a Merry Go Round and the Saudis will have two flags (at least) one for the Protectorate and one for the Kebab (or something like that). And Islam will be something scratched on a toilet door on a dirt street in Goombah Booga Booga.
(Link) Cartoons
If I can download this stuff so can you.
I like the one where Mohammeds Turban is a bomb with a fuse in it.
I also like the one of the camel he is riding and all the flies.
The Life of Mohammed in comic books.
(Link) islamcomicbook.com
…oh yeah, and following on from my previous comment, the cold-filtered shite they call “Carlsberg” here in the UK bears no relation to the stuff they sell in Denmark and is brewed in Northhampton or somewhere. Yes that includes the so called “Export” brand. Infidels!
The clash of civilisations is upon us. Three cheers for the bacon country. Makes me feel like cooking up a babette’s feast for those doughty danes.
So the Spanish, Italian, even the cheese-eating surrender-monkey French press have published. And the fearless defenders of press freedom in the United Kingdom ? You have to search just to find a mention of the story. The Thunderer hasn’t even managed as much as a wet fart.
No, the famous bulldog British press has had its balls cut off by Tony Blair’s Incitement to Religious Hatred Bill.
Why be surprised? This was the intention. Blair wants to neuter the British press on the road to giving a short back and sides to traditional British freedom of speech. In fact, it’s already gone.
Let’s see what anodyne shit the BBC publishes tomorrow.
P Helms: The full story of Denmark’s wartime Jews is even more interesting than the toytown Manichaeism of historical ignoramuses allows. Under 500 of the 7,500-strong community missed the ‘rescue’ to Sweden, but these were mostly sent to Theresienstadt (aka Terezin), the so-called paradise camp where Jewish VIPs were housed to reassure visitors such as the Swiss Red Cross. Some went to the notorious women’s camp at Ravensbruck, but all survived.
“Danish officials convinced Adolf Eichmann via Werner Best to keep the Jews from Denmark away from Poland and the extermination camps. Best was interested in improving relations with the Danish authorities in light of the events in October [i.e., the phoney rescue he had initiated]. Eichmann was presumably hoping to present an idealized propaganda image to conceal the fact of mass genocide, which by 1943 had cost the lives of 3 million Jews.” (Louis Bulow)
Before Mr de Havilland snorts that I have been reading David Irving again, I should point out that this is from a conformist German website, auschwitz.dk.
In line with the usual ‘good German’ fence-mending efforts after WW2, when it was no longer politic for NATO members to caluminate Germans indiscriminately, the credit for tipping off the Danish Jews that a Gestapo round-up was imminent was given to a non-Nazi naval attache, Georg Duckwitz, who was expediently nominated as ambassador to Denmark by Adenauer’s government. The real instigator of the rescue, Werner Best, had used Duckwitz as an intermediary more likely to be trusted by the Danish politicians to whom the warning was delivered. However, the ’round-up’ was ostentatiously advertised– two days were to elapse between Duckwitz’s meeting with Hedtoft, the local social democratic leader, and the time for the action. So there was no element of surprise, and the Wehrmacht soldeirs deputed to aid the Gestapo in the task wandered about Copenhagen telling the locals why they were there.
Best had been sentenced to death in 1945 but this was mysteriously commuted to a few years’ jail, although the same Supreme Court ordered 46 Danes executed as collaborators. Best emerged to rebuild his career and was not further bothered till his death in 1989.
One day Werner Best will no doubt take his place among the ‘Righteous Among the Nations’ in Israel, once the idea that a Nazi functionary has to be a devil incarnate is grown out of.
A couple of cheers for Monsieur Nicolas Sarkozy who has said free speech and caricature are essential to democracy.
Not sure about the exact phraseology but you have to give him credit for standing up for freedom of speech in a way our own dear leaders have failed to do. Blair has been busy trying to get the Religious Oppression Bill through Parliament (well, not so busy as he went home early, but point made) and one can imagine David Cameron meeting the mullahs half way – on the centre ground – (we’ll allow flogging of rape victims but execution is a bit harsh!) – In Britain it has been left to the odious Nick Griffin to become the poster boy of free speech. What have we come to?
Do not lob tomatoes and chocolate oranges at me, but why is someone who stands up for free speech “odious”? Have you read the craven editorial in The Telegrah today, to explain, with great sensitivity, why they weren’t joining in the outing of the cartoons? They say anyone who wants to see them can find them a couple of clicks away and nuffink to do with me, guv!
If I read the print issue, I would have cancelled my subscription in a fit of fury.
Oh, and I’ve just seen The Times.
Thank god I had a strong drive to get out when tony blair got in.
British freedom of the press is dead and gone and once freedom of the press is gone, there is no defence against a dictatorship. Which you people have got.
Have any of your concerns about anything been addressed over the last five years or so? At any level? Do you just get letters saying “I have looked into your complaint and have found you to be a waste of oxygen. Whatever it was you asked for – yawn – no, due to …[fill in your own].”?
Your MP, “I’ll certainly look into this for you (snigger) and hope I can depend on your support for the next 25 general elections.”
The Times and The Telegraph doesn’t support the Danes for reasons of “not offending” people who cut other people’s heads off and video it for their later viewing pleasure?
Oh, Wellington! Oh, Nelson! Oh, Churchill!
why is someone who stands up for free speech “odious”
It is formulaic. When one speaks of Griffin one must use the qualifier “odious”. When one speaks of the BNP one must use the qualifier “poisonous”. It is rather like having to cross your fingers when you see a magpie: not to do so will bring you bad luck.
😉
Andy
No, it is because Griffin and the BNP are odious, that is why. Just because they are ‘on side’ on this issue does not change the fact they are neo-fascist creeps.
No, it is because Griffin and the BNP are odious, that is why. Just because they are ‘on side’ on this issue does not change the fact they are neo-fascist creeps.
Perhaps you are right: it’s your blog, you can call him what you like. Having accepted that he’s an odious neo-fascist creep though, I have a question. If one wishes to vote for a party that has correctly and publicly identified Islam as a threat to European culture and values, and moreover, is prepared to take severe flak from all and sundry in a quest to oppose it, for whom can one vote?
Conservatives? Nope, don’t think so. Cameroonians
seem to value all cultures equally. Duh!
UKIP? Slightly more promising, but not a peep out of them on the subject: not really with mass appeal either.
Liberals? Not a chance of them criticising Islam. It wouldn’t be liberal.
NewLabour? They rely on Muslim votes.
Respect UAF? Ditto.
Greens? Not on their radar.
You see the problem. People can write scathing articles on blogs but noone important takes any notice.
Hoping for the best isn’t an option. I’d vote for the devil himself rather than see Britain become Islamified.
I take it I get thrown off your blog at this point?!
🙂
Andy
No, you have to try much harder than that to get thrown off this blog.
This issue is just now starting to make the news in the US, albeit at the margins. Some smatterings on CNN and now on Fox (if it’s in the NY Times “the paper of record” nobody really bothers to read it outside NY and the Left Coast). From the Fox coverage, most Americans will probably only be confirmed in their beliefs that most Muslims “just don’t get it” when it comes to free speech;e.g. Fox has on one Danish imam saying that there needs to be a spearate set of laws for Muslims in Denmark, or rather, a veto power for Muslims on conduct unbecoming Mohammad. This was followed by a story on the completely vapid ideas of ex-Pres. Carter on the democratic legitimacy of the Hamas gov’t in Palestine against Isreali oppression, yada yada yada…
Firmly ensconsced here in the US, one must wonder why, even though Muslims are offended, this situation is such a big deal. I know, I know, the right of free speech needs to be vigorously defended, but why the continuous uproar about the Danes?
Here’s the ultimate irony: the same Danish imam that was calling for a separate law for Muslims was going around the mideast making calls for boycotts and, through the use of cartoons that weren’t even published by Jyllands Posten, inciting populations there against Denmark, which could be (emphasis on could) construed as a form of traitorship and insurrection, but is still allowed to live freely and securely within Denmark! Yet, there is no appreciation (although I suspect that there may be a more cynical manipulation of the laws along the lines of “freedom for me, but not for thee” going on) for the fact that the same right to freedom of speech that protects him, also protects the cartoonists and editors of Danish newspapers.
Oh, yeah. One more thing that’s totally off topic, but was on one of the associated threads regarding this issue: Verity’s name and the geographic associations of familial names to places or regions.
As to Verity, I always assumed it really was her name, and a very English sort of name at that. British women often have similar sorts of names: Chastity, Hope, etc. Verity seems very much in line with this, although it does have the double entendre effect going for it.
Feel free to delete this if it’s taking up needed space. It’s just an aside.
Quiet day in the market so i have summarised the lead editorials from today’s papers
The Times
This newspaper has had anguish of its own over whether to reproduce the pictures at the centre of this saga. At one level, their appearance might be seen as an appropriate response to the fanatics who have demanded their prohibition and could help the reader to understand both their character and the impact that they might have on believers. But to duplicate these cartoons several months after they were originally printed also has an element of exhibitionism to it. To present them in front of the public for debate is not a value-neutral exercise. The offence destined to be caused to moderate Muslims should not be discounted..On balance, we have chosen not to publish the cartoons but to provide weblinks to those who wish to see them.
Translation – our get-out clause is that the cartoons were published a long time ago and are old news. Phew, do you think we can get away with this?
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph has chosen not to publish the cartoons. We prefer not to cause gratuitous offence to some of our readers, a policy we also apply, for example, to pictures of graphic nudity or violence. We are equally in no doubt that a small minority of Muslims would be offended by such a publication to an extent where they would threaten, and perhaps even use, violence. This is a problem that the whole of the Western world needs to confront frankly, and not sidestep.
Translation – we don’t want to offend Muslims because we fear reprisals. We’re shit scared and we don’t mind admitting it.
The Independent
There is an important distinction to be made between having a right and choosing to exercise it. The editor of France Soir had the right to reprint the offending cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that first caused a stir in the Danish press. But in doing so he was throwing petrol on the flames of a fire that shows every sign of turning into an international conflagration.
Translation – we don’t report world events that might be inflammatory
The Guardian
The right to freedom of speech which allows newspapers to publish such provocative cartoons has been hard won, is inextricably essential to liberty, must be robustly defended and has sometimes to be controversially asserted. If free speech is to be meaningful, moreover, the right to it cannot shirk from embracing views that a majority – or a minority – finds distasteful, even on occasions bitterly so. All those considerations point towards a case for wider publication of cartoons which, even though offensive and provocative, say something about uncomfortable issues that are central to the modern world and have triggered an anguished debate in Europe and elsewhere
a wonderful paragraph…but here come the ‘buts’
But newspapers are not obliged to republish offensive material merely because it is controversial..It is one thing to assert the right to publish an image of the prophet. As long as that is not illegal – and not even the government’s amended religious hatred bill makes it so – then that right undoubtedly exists. But it is another thing to put that right to the test, especially when to do so inevitably causes offence to many Muslims
Translation – We are very confused. One the one hand we do not want to ‘shirk from embracing views that a minority find distasteful’ but more importantly we don’t want to offend Muslims.
Fucking spineless bastards
It’s not really being spineless. We have a Mulism population in the UK that tends to be a lot larger than in many other countries, except in France where their economy remains healthy by encouraging this sort of behaviour (Muslims riot > 10,000 cars get burned > insurance pays up > Renault/Citroen/Peugot make more money). I fail to see why we should publish these cartoons at all here, they’re not very good ones as it happens anyway and the point has now been clearly made. Perry writes in The Satanic Cartoons post that,
Julian
Yes, the point has already been made, but not by our media.
But you miss the central point. These cartoons are not not being published because “they are not very good”. They are not being published because the press believe that not causing offence is more important than speaking freely.
This is why they are spineless.
Julian, you might want to reread Hazlitt´s “Economics in one Lesson”. Burned cars, like broken windows do not raise the output.
Andy: “It is formulaic. When one speaks of Griffin one must use the qualifier “odious”. When one speaks of the BNP one must use the qualifier “poisonous”. It is rather like having to cross your fingers when you see a magpie: not to do so will bring you bad luck.”
There are other rituals of denuciation peculiar to the underworld of people who indulge in the hermetic quasi-politics of the internet.
Those who disagree with one are ‘loathsome’ and possessed of ‘vile memes’. When they state their disagreement they can safely be ignored as they have been ‘discredited’ (by whom, when and how need not be stated). Nobody who disagrees with you is ever honest about his motives for doing so, but your telepathic powers enable you to extrude ad-hominems and tu-quoques at the click of a mouse. Occasional references to defunct German and Italian movements of the Thirties and Forties are obligatory. Language that would have you evicted from a public meeting, directed at someone you have never met, shows how tough and grown-up you are.
The litmus test of weirdness and irrelevance is ‘Do the ordinary apolitical majority ever speak or act like this? Do even career politicians?’ A comparison soon yields an impression of how odd the frequenters of such sites as this are– and a clue as to why they seldom make a blip on the radar of real politics, where civility, muddle, compromise and equivocation make the wheels go round.
The internet has replaced Speakers’ Corner, that’s all.
All very articulate, Matt. Except that changes nothing. People like Griffin really are vile and despicable and trying to lose that central fact amongst the verbiage usually suggests to me an ulterior motive.
But this has strayed quite far enough off-topic. The main reason I ban so many racists is that their particular psychosis compels them to turn almost every conversation into something about race.
It didn’t take much to neuter the bold, rowdy, disrespectful, universally admired British press, did it? Tony Blair and his incitement to religious hatred. What a bunch of cowards. The Spaniards and the French have more bottle.
The Telegraph has even taken to referring to “the prophet Mohammed”. They are not yet adding “peace be upon him”, but they will; they will.
If Charles Moore had still been editor, they would have run the cartoons – not that there’s anyone in Britain who hasn’t already seen them.
Perry got the point immediately. It is because Griffin is odious. I would much rather be cheering for someone else’s defence of free speech. If that nice Mr Cameron got off his backside and championed free speech I would be cheering him to the rafters. Monsieur Sarkozy provided exactly such a political lead but, not being French, I can’t vote for him.
It is the moral vacuum at the centre (middle ground) of British politics that leads to the only people in politics defending free speech being the BNP.
Mohammed sells…
(Link) retecool.com http://retecool.com/comments.php?id=13539_0_1_0_C
It’s mostly in Danish and Dutch but I particularly like the picture of Mohammed as a butcher selling goat heads, and the pic of Mohammed as The Godfather, and the one of Mohammed selling Dutch Reefer and Good Danish Cheese.
Oh and I forgot… the Mohammed toiletpaper is good too. And the urinal with Mohammed’s pic in the Bowl.
All of Europe is laughing at Mohammed. Lot of love in Europe for Islam right now.
Mike refers above to this as a ‘clash of civilsations’. I beg to differ. Such a thing requires the involvement of two or more civilisations. There’s only one in this and it ain’t the bunch of folks that bow to Mecca.
I’d love to know in what way multilating the genitals of little girls, judicial amputations, sanctioning sexual intercourse with 9 year old girls on the basis that a 7th century pederast claimed he had divine approval for such a practice, or execution for apostasy qualifies as ‘civilsed’.
I view this a clash of civilisation against medieval barbarism.
I’m a libertarian and it pains me to say it, but I’m starting to view the global extirpation of Islam (at least in many of its current forms) as a moral imperative.
Just a thought…
Ed
INGREDIENTS TWO SLICES OF FRESHLY CUT BREAD, TWO SLICES OF DANISH BACON,HP SAUCE
Very good idea. I love Denmark and I eat pork.
Sitting on my Jacobsen chair made by Hansen; I am sipping peacefully of my pint of Tuborg. Listening to Outlandish coming out of my Jamo speakers and K.I.S.S. dvd player.
As a danish citicen reading all your comments of this
issue, i feel good.
Thanks for the solidarity.
You must not blame the muslims, i wounder what we in
the western world would react, if someone were trying
to drag us out of the 16 century.