Cartoon protests turn deadly (surprise surprise?)

[SpeedRacer 1]

what's really frustrating for the Muslim protesters is that you can't kill a cartoon.

If you try to use a suicide bomber to blow up, say, Daffy Duck, the best you can manage is to blow his feathers off & make his beak turn sidways. Then he's just turn to you and say "You're dethpicable!"

Speed Racer
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[happythoughts 0]

Ever notice how the comedian is funny when he is talking about the other audience members? It is all, "Hey, they're just jokes" until he is pointing to you.

However much that Americans say they love freedom of the press or "they're just jokes", it doesn't really happen. The reaction could be (and has been) the same.

Americans generally are ok with freedom of speech for anyone who agrees with their viewpoint.

clicky

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The Miami Herald decides it no longer has the stomach for nationally syndicated cartoonist John Callahan following a recent mix-up. It seems a production error at the paper's Sunday magazine, Tropic , resulted in the printing of a Callahan cartoon that the magazine's executive editor, Tom Schroder , had rejected as "spectacularly offensive." The cartoon depicted Martin Luther King Jr. at age 13, pointing to a puddle on his bed. The young King explains to his mother, "I had a dream."

Making fun of MLK isn't allowed in Miami and he isn't even a religious icon.

The Danish cartoons weren't supposed to be informative or thought-provoking, just provoking. I guess we'll call this success.

Several cartoonists rejected the original request for an offensive cartoon.

When someone put a crucifix in urine and called it art, the American religious groups called for a reduction in the funding for the National Endowment for the Arts.

clicky

Making fun of the Holocaust would also provide an endless supply of vitriol.

[Michele 1]

HT, I get what you're saying. I don't think there are any dead people because of those cartoons, though...are there? Any embassies burned out? Any rioting?

It's not like someone put a price on Callahan's head...like they did to Salmon Rushdie.

Shoot, recently they published a cartoon of Condi Rice as a "mammy," and while I found that offensive, I really can't get all worked up over it...the urine and crucifix was abhorrent to some, and a good comparison. And yet, geez, I just can't get worked up over it. The young muslim who painted the Madonna with exposed breasts? Why, he's being funded by the country he lives in (iirc, Belgium) to continue to paint and "express" himself. Does that mean I'll even go so far as to boycott belgian chocolate? Nope.

The difference in response is huge. There are people dying because someone decided these cartoons were the latest flashpoint...there is property being destroyed because of the same thing. Here, a group or two petitioned the NEA funding committee, but the petition was denied (again, iirc), and people went on to the next thing.

Huge, huge difference from where I sit.

Ciels-
Michele

~Do Angels keep the dreams we seek
While our hearts lie bleeding?~

[happythoughts 0]

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Huge, huge difference from where I sit.

I totally agree. The response is different by an order of magnitude.

I was just noting that there was a response. That Americans aren't that benign when freedom of speech is used to offend them.

[tbrown 26]

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what's really frustrating for the Muslim protesters is that you can't kill a cartoon.

Yeah, you can't slit his throat in front of a video cam the way you can with a helpless girl.

The next time those shits send their el Fatwah or whatever the fuck their TV network is called another video of a hostage being murdered, we should protest by dropping napalm on one of their fucking mosques during Friday prayers.

Kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out.

Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !