I'm not sure that last bit is true. Is there a single sane person on this planet that would argue that it is entirely acceptable if some nation should decide that they will round up some group X within their midst and put them all to death in a systemized, callous and utterly barbaric fashion? I would argue that there *are* absolute values. There may not be a whole lot of them but there are a few. I would say that no people, no matter how powerful, have leave to enslave another person. If it is not forbidden, even if that is simply in the sense that it's just one of those things you don't do , then it is permitted. We should be extraordinarily cautious around the idea that there are no absolute values.

Before I ask you some questions to show the point I'm making, please understand that I am assuming that every single person reading these words is entirely opposed to racism, violence, slavery, sexism, bigotry of all kinds, oppression of all sorts. In fact, I'm counting on everyone reading this being a humane and compassionate person who is operating out of goodwill. The throat clearing is simply so there can be no possibility of misunderstanding here.

Now, is there anyone who would argue that if a people decided to practice slavery that it would be acceptable? Is there anyone who would argue that it is okay for a society to have laws that take whole populations and put them outside normal legal protections? Is there anyone here who would argue that if a society says that the word of a woman in a rape case is worthless unless multiple men also back up her story that that is simply their choice? Anyone want to argue *in favor* of laws making homosexuality punishable by death?

These are not matters of simple prejudice. Would anyone argue that Jim Crow in the United States was simply a matter of preference in Dixie and we cannot say whether it was a bad thing? An unjust thing? Again, not simply matters of national, cultural or personal preference. If there are no absolute values, no places where either people or cultures should not go then we have no basis upon which to judge whether or not society today is better than society, say, 100 years ago. Anyone think that society was better off when women couldn't vote?

I'm sorry but enslaving other people is wrong. It wasn't evil because it happened in my nation, to my people. It was evil because it happened and had it been people from Africa who had sailed up north, grabbed a bunch of people from Scotland and taken them to North America where they sold them to the Native Americans, it would *still* be evil. It was evil because people were treated as mere property, tools, means to an end and not ends into themselves. Any culture that thinks it is acceptable to enslave people--*enslave them*--is doing something wrong. I emphasize slavery because I'm not talking about things that get called slavery. I'm talking about actual taken by force, held by force, transferrable to another person as property, right to slay you on the spot because the sky is blue, can take your children and sell them off, slavery. I'm not talking about horrible working conditions. Slavery.

I would say that what happened in Russia under Stalin when millions died in purges and gulags, that Russia was doing something wrong. It is wrong to kill people because of political disagreements. It doesn't matter if in so doing you are going to bring about a proletarian utopia, you can't slaughter your fellow citizens because they disagree with you politically. I don't think the state has the right to do so on behalf of the citizenry and I don't think the citizenry has a *normal* right to do this. If the citizenry is being slaughtered by their government, they have the right to defend itself. If a *legitimate* state (consent of the governed, minority rights, rule of law) is threatened it may use what measures are necessary to put down those who would overthrow it. States, like people, should be able to defend themselves. But the state doesn't have the right to arbitrarily take measures against its citizenry. For that matter, I would argue that majorities should not have the right to vote on the rights of minorities.

To say that slavery, bigotry, legal exclusion of minority, genocide are simply matters of cultural taste is to give up the ability to speak intelligibly about why we should prefer our own societies to be as they are now over as they were 400 years ago. Anyone want to go back to a time when witch burnings were a commonplace?

I'm sorry but I would say that any society that does not *allow* or *encourage* the burnings of witches is to be preferred over any society that does. A society that allows witch trials and witch burnings is likely to have a whole lot of cultural habits that will make life *very* unpleasant. Witch trials only work if there are no rules of evidence and if the accused must prove their innocence against accusers who need prove nothing but speak their testimony. They only work if torture is considered morally acceptable. Anyone want to argue that if a society chooses to torture that is acceptable? If you're willing to argue that, then what's the problem with the United States torturing?

A world without any kind of absolute values--and you did say categorically that values are not absolute--is a nihilistic world. In such a world, we cannot speak of justice or injustice for there is no measurement to give which any other person or people, who wish to get on with oppressing others, are bound to respect. This means there is precious little upon which to build a consensus to act upon.

I'm not defending either American or British imperialism. Rather, I'm arguing against a certain kind of nihilism.

Cheers
Aj

I will be back tomorrow........

interesting dialogue could happen

You have done a great job at taking a sentence and twisting it for your own ends in your rather long reply.

Values are not absolute. That does not, by definition, make society nihilistic. Rather, it means that values, and what's commonly accepted as right and wrong, changes over time. For example, what's most commonly referenced as an intrinsic value is the right to life. However, scratch under the surface and you'll find that sort of value means very different things to different people and, in fact, for some, their right to life means a right to end the lives of others i.e. death penalty states for prevention / punishment of serious crimes.

Much of what is accepted as "good" today will, no doubt, be viewed very differently by subsequent generations. Values are partly cultural - hence, your example to slavery. Most of us (not all of us) may be sickened by the idea of slavery today but, centuries ago, some of our forefathers and foremothers clearly thought otherwise.

Similarly, your reference to torture. You may believe that torture is wrong but clearly not everyone does - include many in senior positions in US society. As for racism? It's actually enshrined in law in some way or another in most countries that I've been to.

I have my values - they are strongly held and I am, in the original meaning of the word, a bigot. However, my value system is complex and, no doubt, impacted by many aspects. They are not absolute and we know that peoples' values systems change when their circumstances do (hence the rise of Nazism in post WWI Europe).

Values not being absolute doesn't equal a nihilistic world. Rather, it equals the world we live in for all the good and bad that it is.

From Juan Cole's blog:

I didn't twist anything you said. In fact, I took the most limited reading possible and assume that the statement 'values are not absolute' means just that. Values are not absolute. That means that there is no way to argue that we should prefer, if given a choice, value set A over value set B.

That would be a nonsensical reading of a right to life. It's one of the reasons why many on the American Left (such as it is) rightly object to the characterization of anti-choice partisans as being 'pro-life' because they are not 'pro-life'. What they are is anti-abortion. A consistent pro-life stance can't square itself with support of the death penalty.

Yes, and they were wrong. Not just expressing a different but equally valid set of values. Their values were wrong. In the mid 1930s one of my mother's brothers was lynched. The people who did so *genuinely* believed that my uncle, his father and mother, all his siblings, all his nieces and nephews who had not yet been born, and every single member of his line stretching up and down through the eons, was not *actually* human. Because they were not fully human, their lives were not particularly valuable. Because their lives were not valuable, it was no crime to take his life because a white woman accused him of attacking her because he bumped into her. That wasn't just a cultural peccadillo but a sign of a culture with a bad set of values. Not different bad. Jim Crow was an evil system. Not a regrettable one, not one that I should be glad mostly had only secondary effects on me but an actually evil one. What we have now, imperfect equality as it is, is far and away better than the one my parents were living in from the 1920s until pretty much the time of my birth in the mid-1960s.

Torture *is* wrong. It is wrong on moral grounds, it is wrong on utilitarian grounds and it is wrong on ethical grounds. I'm not opposed to torture because it was my government doing the torturing. I'm not opposed to torture because it was poor and middle-class whites torturing poor non-whites. I'm opposed to torture because it is morally indefensible.

You appear to be conflating the violation of intrinsic values with their not being intrinsic. Are you prepared to argue that because racism is enshrined in the laws of many nations that racism isn't wrong? If you aren't, and it is vanishingly improbable that you are prepared to do so, then by what do you justify preferring to live in a society that is not explicitly racist than one is? By what argument are you prepared to state that American society circa 2012 is a better society than America circa 1942. I *am* prepared to make that argument because there are things that are intrinsically wrong and to violate them means that your society is behaving wrongly. Just because societies break the rules and take some action that is intrinsically wrong doesn't mean that it isn't wrong.

Just because someone breaks into a house to steal the stuff inside and, discovering that the owners are home, kills them, doesn't mean that neither murder nor theft are wrong. In the same way just because Germany slaughtered millions of innocents in adherence to a racially eliminationist philosophy doesn't mean that genocide isn't wrong. What the German people allowed themselves to become was evil. What the German people did during the period of 1932 to 1945 was evil. It wasn't just a cultural practice that we cannot and should not try to judge because trying not to say that the Germans shouldn't have done what they did puts us in very ugly and vile moral territory.

If there are not intrinsic rights and wrongs, things that under almost no (if not absolutely no) circumstances a people should not be allowed to get away with, how do you argue that Britain is a better nation without the Empire or that America is better without Jim Crow? Personal preference? It's better today because now we recognize it is better but it was better then because they thought it was better back then? I knew a whole generation, all deceased now, that would argue strenuously that the America their grandchildren or great-grandchildren live in now is far and away a better one than the one they were born to, all self-interest put aside.

Cheers
Aj

Item no. 8 in the article Martina submitted above is covered in this recent press release of former President Jimmy Carter's speech, as delivered, at Drake University.


http://qctimes.com/news/state-and-re...a4bcf887a.html


Carter: U.S. drone attacks violate human rights

Former President delivers speech at Drake University


September 14, 2012 10:38 am • Rod Boshart


DES MOINES – Former President Jimmy Carter said Thursday that America is engaging in — and its citizens are accepting — human rights violations that “would never have been dreamed of” before the terrorist attacks that occurred in this country 11 years ago.

The nation’s 39th president said the U.S. government under both Republican and Democratic administrations has violated 10 of 30 provisions set out in a universal declaration of human rights that was forged after World War II, including perpetually detaining people in prison without informing them of any charges, providing them access to legal counsel or bringing them to trial and, more recently, by killing people via the use of unmanned drones.

“We have now decided as a nation that it’s OK to kill people without a trial with our drones, and this includes former American citizens who are looked upon as dangerous to us,” Carter told a group of Drake University students involved in a social-justice learning program.

“Not just terrorists, but innocent participants in weddings and so forth that happen to be there. I think this is acting in a way that turns people against us unnecessarily because there is a great deal of animosity about the United States that is unnecessary, in my opinion, because our drones are performing these things” in places like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and even in the Philippines, he said.

“These are the kinds of actions that would never have been dreamed of before 9/11,” Carter noted, referencing the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

“I think we need to go back to the purity of the guarantees of basic human rights,” he added. “Most Americans either don’t know about it or accept it. I’m not criticizing one leader compared to another because both Democratic and Republican leaders are participating in these violations. We should all look upon human rights as something that is precious to us because we need to get back and be the champion of human rights and I believe the champion of peace as well.”

Carter, a Georgia Democrat who served as U.S. president from 1977-81, and his wife, Rosalynn – founders of The Carter Center – delivered the 29th Martin Bucksbaum Distinguished Lecture on Thursday evening at Drake’s Knapp Center. Before that event, the former president and 2002 Nobel Peace Prize recipient and his wife heard students discuss a wide range of social justice they are involved in, descriptions that the Carters found emotionally moving.

During a question-and-answer session, the former president addressed a number of international topics.

Carter disagreed with delegates to his Democratic Party’s national convention who restored a platform position that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, saying the same thing happened when he was running for president in the 1970s and he made a public announcement in opposition to it. He said the best hope for peace in the Middle East is a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine with Jerusalem as a shared capital.

“I personally think that’s a mistake for the Democratic and Republican parties to call for Jerusalem to be the capital just for the Jews,” he said.

Carter did not discuss the heightened security at American embassies and consulates around the world after an attack this week that killed the U.S. ambassador in Libya, but he parted ways with President Obama on the question of whether Egypt is an American ally after Obama told an interviewer that “I don’t think that we would consider them an ally, but we don’t consider them an enemy” after protesters attacked the U.S. embassy in Cairo this week.

Carter, who knows Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi personally and monitored recent elections in Egypt and Libya, said Egypt is an ally of the United States and “we ought to make sure that we continue the long-standing friendship we’ve had” by encouraging efforts to forge a democratic Egyptian government.

He noted that after the U.S. independence in 1776, it took a dozen years to finalize the constitution and solidify the government, “so we can’t expect the Egyptians to do it in less than one year. I think we have to be patient with them and let them find their own way, but give them support so they won’t go in the wrong direction,” Carter said.

On the civil strife in Syria, Carter said it would not be appropriate for the United States to intervene militarily, but he would like to see the United Nations call for free elections that would allow the people to choose the nation’s future direction.

“But if that’s not possible, then I think we just have wait and see how much of a tragedy is going to develop,” he said. “There’s no way to predict what is going to happen in the next few months.”

I love Juan Cole.

Several of the points he makes seem to me to be the kind of tragic death spiral I hate to see people get themselves into. For reasons that may seem like good ones, certainly at the time, people are protesting at American embassies. This is going to draw press because large protests at any embassy probably should get our attention. People, seeing these protests, become justifiably concerned about traveling to those nations. So plans are changed, money goes elsewhere. Which leads to more economic pain. Which just makes things worse in those nations, which creates more justification for protests, which leads to people changing their plans etc. The people protesting are doing what they think is correct. The people who are avoiding traveling to places where protests have erupted are justifiable in doing so, particularly if it is their nation's embassy being protested. The protests has led to a heightened presence of Marines at those embassies which will almost certainly be demagogued as aggression on the part of the Americans. However, the American officials have no choice *but* to have a more formidable security presence in those embassies. If the nation can do something to prevent diplomatic staff from being taken hostage as they were in 1979, then they are obliged to do so.

Cheers
Aj

(Newser) – Egypt wants Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, who is allegedly behind the anti-Muslim film that sparked protests across the Islamic world, behind bars—or worse. Cairo authorities ordered the arrest of Nakoula and six other Egyptian Coptic Christians living in the US, all of whom they say were involved with the Innocence of Muslims. They also issued an arrest warrant for Koran-burning pastor Terry Jones, the BBC reports, accusing him and the Coptic Christians of "insulting the Islamic religion." Egypt says all of the above, if convicted, could face the death penalty; it will notify Interpol and US authorities of the warrants. Iran also wants the movie-makers to face justice.


I'm not sure how this all ties in with what happened in Libya but lots of people are blaming it all on this. I think the attack would have happened regardless and this is just something to put the blame on. . however, Egypt now wants their heads.

I think one of the issues around this film has to do with free speech and what that means in different cultures. I heard an interesting explanation for the differences. This is in the context of non-secular governments where it is flatly illegal to insult, demean, disrespect any prophet...whether it be Mohammed or Moses or Jesus. Folks go to jail for that.

In the US version of free speech, we are free to insult whoever we want. In most of these Muslim countries, their free speech is to be free from insult. That help explain why Muslim countries do NOT understand why those asshats are not in jail. Since most of these countries do not have free press (not that our corporate media is free...we just like to delude ourselves), it is also difficult for them to understand our government had nothing to do with disgusting film.

Cultural awareness helps understand many things.

There was an article in Al Jazeera by an American academic describing the U.S. as an outlier where protection of speech is concerned. LINK

I don't know. I firmly believe in free speech. I am grateful for it. Remember Mappelthorpe? If we didn't have these protections, we would always be fighting with fundamentalists of all stripes to be able express ourselves.

I still can't get past the fact that in the case of this film, it was made by members of an oppressed minority of a Muslim country. We are asked to look at the consequences of our bad actions in the region. I think it's only fair to ask others to do the same.

I guess this isn't rational. But it has tested me a little. One thing that helped was a story on NPR about a twitter thread called #MuslimRage. It reminded me how small these protests really are and how unrepresentative. LINK

Anyway, the green on blue attacks are hard to process. As I hear and read more about them, I still just don't understand. It is a cultural gulf too wide for me to reach across. How can a soldier showing you pictures of his wife or blowing his nose in front of you enrage you to the point of shooting him? But of course there's more to it. One of our drones killed how many women and children this week?

One commentator today was saying that there is a lot of conflict within the Afghan security forces also, so their folks are already on edge.

What a mess.

Here is our quandary. We cannot and should not allow ourselves to be maneuvered into backing off from a commitment, a strenuous commitment at that. Yes, other nations may have blasphemy and regardless of my feelings about them (and, for the record, I think they make about as much sense as laws against interracial or interfaith marriages and for much the reason) they are entirely entitled to have whatever laws their culture may dream up. That said, what we should not do is turn over the filmmaker or try to muzzle him or ourselves in order to appease the people turning out into the streets.

It would be one thing, perhaps, if he traveled to Pakistan or some other nation with blasphemy laws, did something in country that violated their laws, and then was turned over to the authorities for trial. He'd be in that nation as a guest and while I'm not comfortable with the idea of an American citizen being tried for something that isn't a crime in the States, so be it. But whether or not others like the idea, he *does* have the right to make any film he wishes and we should not be shy about defending the principles of free speech even while we condemn the xenophobia of this movie.

Toughy, how is 'freedom of speech' a right to be 'free from insult'? Aren't those two things fundamentally incompatible? If you have a right to not be insulted doesn't that mean that you can say what you wish provided that no one is insulted? Wouldn't that preclude any speech that might give insult to someone? I can't see how it could do otherwise. Certainly, a society might choose that it is better that the majority never have to be exposed to memes which they find disagreeable but such a society cannot be said to have a right to free speech.

Protester: "The elites of our nation line their pockets while the poor starve! Is this justice?"

Judge: "You have insulted the elites of our country who care about the poor as much as anyone. I know, I'm an elite. Guilty!"

Protester: "The homosexuals of our great nation are arrested and for what? For loving another person? Why is this a crime? Because a holy book says it should be?"

Judge: "You have insulted the religious sensibilities of many pious people in our nation who believe that the holy book is perfect to its very last letter. Guilty!"

Can we say that people in such a nation have free speech? In all nations, people have the right to praise the government, lionize the rich, express their piety and respect for the traditions of women staying home and having babies. In other words, you don't need free speech to support the status quo or lift up the powerful for praise and adulation. What you need free speech for is to do the opposite and I just don't see how *any* country can be said to have free speech if you cannot say things that would be offensive to the majority and/or those in power without fear of punishment.


Cheers
Aj

What a beautiful post Aj.

In particular, I like how you developed the idea of what free speech, as a tool that is used in a democratic society, can be understood as fully as possible. I think it is so important to internalize the concept of what free speech means and the responsibility that comes with it. The ability to address offensive issues without fear of reprisal and punishment for bringing to attention the very items that affect humans in social, cultural, political, educational situations (to name just a few).

Based on that Al Jazeera article I cited, I think it is more common even in western countries to police speech than not to.

I think what Toughy was quoting was a play on words illustrating the difference of emphasis in values. It is probably true that more people in the world value a public sphere in which speech can be regulated than one in which it is not.

I am with Dreadgeek on this. I am a strong proponent of free speech, but I think that the Al Jazeera article is probably factually correct. I disagree with the author's intent -- that we (the U.S.) as outliers ought to move more toward the middle.

As far as I am concerned, that would end up in interminable legal battles with the religious right who would take any opportunity to start limiting people's opportunities to express ideas and experiences that conflict with what they believe is "right."

I do believe that in voluntary communities -- like butchfemmeplanet.com, for example -- that people can police away. We just have to live with the consequences.

I don't think that we have had serious problems differentiating between harrassment and freedom of speech, but I would have to ask a lawyer. But people are protected in the U.S. from being harrassed on the job. If we could not have freedom of speech and the right not to be harrassed in public space, then I would have to rethink. But we seem to be succeeding in making that distinction.

I'm actually rather concerned that in the US there is so much sympathy for the viewpoint that we should have laws that protect people from hearing things they might find offensive. I say that because as a minority of a minority of a minority the chances that I will say something offensive to *someone* in the majority is very high. If I write about atheism or, for that matter, evolutionary biology I will offend many religious people who would just as soon not have to be reminded that there are atheists. If I write about queer things then I am in danger of offending people for whom the very statement "I'm here, I'm queer, I refuse to apologize for either" is an attack on the very foundations of their most dearly held religious beliefs. If I write about racism, I'm in danger of offending the white majority. So operating *simply* from self-interest, I am opposed to almost all forms of censorship including the most subtle and insidious of them which is self-censorship.

If, one day, we should listen to the siren songs of censorship which will tell us that there will be peace, justice and harmony if only people can't say things which might give offense, we queer people will quickly find ourselves in an untenable position. Such laws--or social codes--will never be such that it would be the case that as a minority I can say "<insert slur against whites here> hate black people and live only to oppress us" but a white person couldn't say "<insert slur against blacks here> hate white people and live only to <insert anti-black stereotype here>". Never. Majorities simply don't do that to themselves. Rather, what would be more likely is that if I spoke out against racism I might quickly find myself in the dock. Why? Because, as the many threads about white privilege here amply demonstrate, whenever you start pointing out racism or privilege someone is going to get offended. Should *offense* be the touchstone we use to decide what goes to far or should it be something else? I would submit that it should be something *other* than offense.

Yes, I understand that other cultures look at the issue differently but my own reading of history leads me to not trust human beings in large groups and to hold majorities suspect. I fear not for the person who wants to praise Jesus loudly and long but for the person who does not believe in Jesus. I do not fear for the person who wants to wave the flag and shout USA! USA! at the top of their lungs. Rather, I fear for the person who wants to talk about the people who are 'faces at the bottom of the well'. They need free speech and they need to be able to speak out without fear of governmental retribution.

Speech that gives succor to the majority and those in power will never need protection, it is the minority report, the lonely voice, the voice of the outsider and the free thinker that need protection. All the protests at all the embassies in all the world doesn't change that.

Cheers
Aj

One other point I wanted to make. In his 2012 book, "You Can't Read This Book" British author Nick Cohen (a man with as sterling left-wing credentials as you can find in the West) takes the reader on a tour of how speech is constrained in the UK. Now, this might sound weird to Americans but one thing Cohen pilloried was that in the UK something can be prevented from being published by prior restraint. Let's say that someone wanted to publish a book about Rupert Murdoch or David Cameron or Tony Blair. Those men could set their pet lawyers loose upon the hapless author and her publisher and have them sued so that they couldn't publish their book even if every word in it was true and sourced to the heavens. Simply the fact that the subject of the book might be offended by it is enough for a UK court to shut down publication. Chilling? Yes, as a matter of fact, it *has* had a chilling effect and one effect of this is that the powerful in Britain need not worry overly much about articles or books coming out that put them in a bad light. This goes from MPs to the banks to Murdoch media octopus.

Censorship favors the powerful, not the powerless.

Cheers
Aj

One of the things I appreciate, especially in Higher Education institutions, are efforts to diversify campus populations and incorporate curriculum involving other cultures. The university where I earned my masters degree is equipped with an International Student Affairs Office. I think most college/university campuses have these nowadays.

At the time I was earning my masters in Communication, the director and his assistant were also peers in my cohort. We worked on issues just like the interviewee spoke about on the Chris Matthews show. What many might not be completely in the know about is that the process is slow in building specialized curriculum at a higher ed institutional level. It's an intracate dance of power between governing agency and those who oversee the regulatory arm of education. To give an example of how arduous this process is, university settings must meet criteria in construction of curriculum by department and simultaneously, if possible, be able to meet funding requirements so that a class can be constructed within particular departments with a professor who is adept in creating syllabae designed specifically for this cultural education need. I was fortunate to attend to unversities in Oregon (a public one for my bachelors; a private one for my masters) where both universities had staff in strategic departments (sociology, communication, business and mathematics) who had professors who incorporated a deeper cultural understanding of these types of ideas expressed by the Chris Matthews' interviewee.

As of late, even though I graduated from my masters programme, it appears that International Studies is still a project that is not fully expanded enough in terms of cross-cultural studies, which I think is very important in an orchestrated attempt to not only meet a need for International students but to provide an education for those who do not fall under the rubric within International Studies. That's the unfortunate part of the process of higher education issues that most American universities face nowadays and certainly is deserving of a more focused attempt at creating access to this particular type of education, overall.

First I did not think up the 'to insult' vs 'from insult'. I heard it on, I think, the Randi Rhodes show (progressive talk radio syndicated)

Your argument and questions are a perfect example of the problem. You view free speech from a USA cultural perspective and they don't. You define free speech from that perspective and others do not.......hell France does not agree with our ideas around free speech. As Martina pointed out lots of folks define free speech from a different cultural perspective and narrative. There are few 'hard line in the sand' concepts that all cultures can agree on...or should.... such as slavery, child porn, child sex workers, don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal to name a few.

And as I said earlier and Corkey has repeated: The response to an insult (free speech) should not be one of violence in any culture. I think no violence belongs in the 'hard line in the sand' category.....but humans are not there yet. Non-violent protest should be the response and the large majority of the response to that obnoxious crap has been non-violent.

And we should all remember the terrorist attack that killed Ambassador Stevens and the ex-seals security folks is not connected to the film.

The protests (mostly non-violent) occurring in many Islamic countries are about that film. A 15 minutes Arabic translation of the film was shown on (right wing) Egyptian TV and that is when the protests began.

I did a lot of nodding my head yes when reading your posts.

Toughy;

I don't have any issue with non-violent protests. I *do* have issues with violent protests and blasphemy laws. And I'm not looking at this issue from the point of view of the USA and that we are right. I'm looking at it from three points of view, two of them not my own. I look at it from a writer. That is *my* point of view and I want to be able to write a story about what it might look like to live in a Christianist Theocracy without fear of losing my liberty or my life. I'm not saying we live in such a society but the distance between that society and us now is the boundary between having the right to free speech and not.

No, I'm looking at this from the point of view of Salman Rushdie who wrote a book a quarter century ago and had a fatwa placed against him calling for his death. As it turns out, I had thought the fatwa had been lifted and then it turns out that three days ago, Ayatollah Hassan Sanei of Iran, reissued the bounty on Rushdie's head to the tune of 320,000 pounds. I'm looking at it from the point of view of the person burning the American flag, an action I disagree with but think should be protected. I'm looking at it from the point of Pussy Riot, locked up on a charge that comes down to blasphemy. I'm looking at it from the point of view of ACT-UP and Queer Nation back in 1992. I'm looking at it from the point of view of my parents in Birmingham in the 1960s. I'm looking at it from the point of view of every time anyone stood up and spoke truth to power when power would rather they shut up. Power would rather the powerless shut the hell up and if they think they can get away with it, the rich and the orthodox will use the power of the state to make sure that the powerless don't say uncomfortable things.

Peaceful protests outside embassies do not concern me. They are exercising their right to give vent to their anger and, as such, I might contemplate it but does not concern me.

Saying that people should be put to death or imprisoned because of what they write or speak or film concerns me. That Vladimir Putin had Pussy Riot locked up on a charge that comes down to blasphemy concerns me. Bounties on the heads of writers concern me. The detention of Bradley Manning concerns me. These are all attempts to silence voices that are inconvenient for power. Pharmaceutical companies being able to slap of writ of prior restraint on a journalist because they've written an article that shows fixing of results in trials concerns me.

Like I said before, I don't trust majorities, I don't trust mobs, I don't trust the rich, I don't trust the church, I don't trust the state and I don't trust the powerful. Majorities gravitate toward tyrannies, a democracy can be as tyrannical as a totalitarian state. Mobs are just the crowd at the lynching, the people at the witch burning, whenever bullying gets social sanction. The rich will gravitate toward plutocracy and the church will implement theocracy if they can get away with it. The only thing that stands between us and those various flavors of dystopia is the ability to write against it, march against it, rail against it and convince others of the rightness of our warnings. If that means risking that some people might be offended at the rantings of some fool then so be it.

Cheers
Aj

I believe we are in agreement Aj............

I love this.

This is a diatribe and clearly written for an audience.

I don't understand your words or theories so won't try to give them an answer and I thank my God for that.

Charming. Really charming. *shakes head*

This from an article in the Times today:

Surely he knows better.

Hate speech is defined in terms of inciting violence AGAINST the party being maligned. The people causing violence in this case are the folks who are the targets of the offensive speech.

Speaking as a high school teacher, there is an element of immaturity to this that boggles my mind. Someone hurt me deeply, so I beat them up. Please put them in jail, not me. What someone said made me feel a really strong feeling. A REALLY strong one. My behavior after that is no longer my responsibility, but theirs.

A young (tres hip) Muslim man was on NPR yesterday talking about how he couldn't believe people were taking the bait. He understood the video as bait. And he was upset at the naivete of folks who just grabbed it.

Bait or not. Intended to offend not. It did not incite violence AGAINST Muslims.

GOD, this makes me grateful for the Constitution.

HEAR me, Ciaran and others whose comments make ME feel labeled as a jingoistic American. I am so god damned proud of my Constitution. SO GRATEFUL for the U.S. Constitution.

Understand that?

Edited to add: I know that a lot of the anger with the U.S. and other western countries stems from the historical relationships we have imposed on the region -- as subaltern states. They have not had the power to affect us, and our decisions have had ruinous effects on some of the nations there -- for generations.

I would argue that your post is clearly designed and written for a specific audience too.

However, I don't buy the justification you give for not understanding the value of Aj's message or postulations or theoretical application. You then go on and say that you 'thank your God for that'.

In the very arrogance you prize for the perception you percieve about your own brand of aristocracy, I do believe that sets of behaviors like yours deserve a closer inspection.

To me, your set of views illustrate the time immemorial struggle for power.


I do not find your brand of engagement useful; however, sets of behaviors exemplified in your approach seemingly share a type of relationship that are present in local, regional, national and international disputes over resources and percieved power.

I was thinking about this walking the dog this morning. Imagine, if you will, if black people in America had spent *just* the years between 1900 and 1990 going on a rampage and breaking things every time something offensive was said to us or about us. Just in the last 90 years and *just* in the USA. Can you imagine? Black people have had to develop a pretty hard outer shell because I am here to tell you that the first *half* of my life incredibly racist things were just part of everyday American discourse. From the restaurant chain Sambo to the the rantings of Rush Limbaugh, hardly a day would go by when I wouldn't hear something or see some imagine denigrating of blacks.

By my mid-twenties, I had learned two things: 1) I can't make people not look down upon me because of the color of my skin and 2) I can't stop people who hold racist sentiments from speaking their mind.

From there, I recognized that to save my sanity and to give my son a fighting chance to save his sanity, I had to learn to hold my head up high and not give racists the satisfaction of responding how they expect me to respond. The expected response from me, as a black woman, is to freak out, start moving my head back and forth, yelling and carrying on. That way the racist can look at me and say "see, this is how 'they' always act. No self-control." I confound them because I don't lose my temper and I outsmart them and nothing--no thing--makes a racist squirm more than to be bested by someone who he or she thinks they are superior to. Perhaps I shouldn't enjoy their discomfort as much as I do but I do and so be it.

This is why I have taken the stand I have about this issue. First, we say "well, you know what, we'll do that. You can't say anything against the Prophet or portray him in any manner that would not be acceptable to the *most* restrictive Islamic sects". The next day the demand will be that you can't show any art, play any music or publish any book that might give offense to this or that sectarian group. So suddenly, at the behest of this or that religious group that nude sculptures or women in diaphanous gowns be covered up in the name of modesty. The day after that, it will be that you can't speak out against religiously inspired bigotry be that against racial, ethnic, religious or sexual minorities.

Once you start to give in on this matter, you tend to have to continue to give in on it. How could you not? If I can't say X because it might offend the sectarians of this or that religion, then by what justification can I say Y because it might *also* give offense? I can't see how. "Well, in the case of X you are saying something offensive to a religious group that was born of out disdain for this group but in the case of Y you are defending an oppressed group against bigotry" seems a fairly weak place upon which to stand. If I've learned nothing else about bigotry (not just racism but bigotry) is that the vast majority of bigots likely do not see themselves as bigots.

If I had a dollar for each time I've heard some variant of "I'm not racist but..." or "I'm not sexist but..." or "I'm not anti-gay but..." I'd have enough money that I would only have to pay in taxes what Mittens has to pay. The people who are posting pictures of the White House lawn covered in watermelons, or Obama's face on the body of a chimp, or now hanging chairs in effigy don't think they are racists. Todd Akin doesn't think his 'legitimate rape' comments are sexist. Fred Phelps doesn't think he's a bigot for being anti-gay. Terry Jones doesn't think he's being a bigot in his rabid anti-Muslim tirades. Rush Limbaugh doesn't think he was being sexist calling Sandra Fluke a slut.

So when we stand up and speak out against Akin, or Phelps or Jones or Limbaugh or any one else who is advocating bigotry, we are unlikely to hear them say "oh well, that's different". Instead, they will argue that we are on the wrong side of the issue from God, or they will argue that we are being anti-American, or anti-Christian, or anti-straight but they will *not* agree that they are in the wrong. So if we decide that a mob in Pakistan should dictate what is acceptable and unacceptable public utterance is in London or San Francisco or anywhere else, what do we say when the *next* thing some other mob, perhaps closer to home, demands that no longer should it be spoken that being against gay rights is bigotry? That we will heed the words of an angry crowd on the other side of the globe but ignore the words of those closer to home even though, truth be told, the positions of the crowd outside the embassy in Islamabad and that of customers outside of Chik-fil-a are pretty close at least as far as it concerns homosexuals.



Cheers
Aj

All writing that isn't in a diary or journal is written for an audience. As a now long-deceased English scientist once observed "How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must be for or against some view to be of any service." I would amend that for these circumstances to say that it is very odd that someone would not see that all public writing must be intended for an audience if it is to be of any service.

Are you saying that when you post on a thread you aren't writing to communicate something to the other participants? That seems a very strange way to write. You speak as if writing in order that one's words would be read is a bad thing.

Cheers
Aj

Ads criticizing "Jihad" bound for New York City subway stations
 

This is not good news.


NEW YORK (Reuters) - As Muslim countries reverberate with fierce protests over a film mocking the Prophet Mohammad, an ad equating Islamic jihad with savagery is due to appear next week in 10 New York City subway stations despite transit officials' efforts to block it.

The city's Metropolitan Transportation Authority had refused the ads, citing a policy against demeaning language. The American Freedom Defense Initiative, which is behind the ad campaign, then sued and won a favorable ruling from a U.S. judge in Manhattan.

According to court documents, the ad reads: "In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel/Defeat Jihad."

MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan said the ads would be displayed starting on Monday, but he could not say at which stations.

"Our hands are tied. The MTA is subject to a court ordered injunction that prohibits application of the MTA's existing no-demeaning ad standard," said Donovan.

In July, U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer ruled that the ad was protected speech. While agreeing with the MTA that the ad was "demeaning a group of people based on religion," Engelmayer ruled that the group was entitled to the "highest level of protection under the First Amendment."

The American Freedom Defense Initiative gained notoriety when it opposed creation of a Muslim community center near the site of the Twin Towers, which were destroyed in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/ads-critici...232906064.html

Cartoons in French weekly fuel Mohammad furor
 

Could you wish a little harder? Im beginning to believe the Mayan calender coming to an end on Dec 21st.


PARIS (Reuters) - A French magazine ridiculed the Prophet Mohammad on Wednesday by portraying him naked in cartoons, threatening to fuel the anger of Muslims around the world who are already incensed by a California-made video depicting him as a lecherous fool.

The drawings in the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo risked exacerbating a crisis that has seen the storming of U.S. and other Western embassies, the killing of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and a deadly suicide bombing in Afghanistan.

Riot police were deployed to protect the paper's Paris offices after the issue hit news stands.

It featured several caricatures of the Prophet showing him naked in what the publishers said was an attempt to poke fun at the furor over the film. One, entitled "Mohammad: a star is born", depicted a bearded figure crouching over to display his buttocks and genitals.

The French government, which had urged the weekly not to print the cartoons, said it was shutting embassies and schools in 20 countries as a precaution on Friday, when protests sometimes break out after Muslim prayers.

Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby called the drawings outrageous but said those who were offended by them should "use peaceful means to express their firm rejection".

Tunisia's ruling Islamist party, Ennahda, condemned what it called an act of "aggression" against Mohammad but urged Muslims not to fall into a trap intended to "derail the Arab Spring and turn it into a conflict with the West".

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/french-week...075449808.html

good commentary in the Times
 

Here is "The Satanic Video" by BILL KELLER

I was just gonna take out quotes, but I like the whole thing. I highlighted points that I thought were especially good.

The whole thing, in all of its magnificence, is posted here:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...red-value.html

The parts I wanted to highlight, largely without comment excepting that all emphasis is mine, are below but the whole thing is worth reading.

It is solipsistic, if not narcissistic, to imagine that—because the culturally-specific features of contemporary American liberalism (that, after all, in our own history was long in the making and is still not fully accomplished) derive from certain Protestant Western European traditions—this is therefore the only context in which such values can be firmly rooted. By pretending to "understand" the illiberal attitude of what he imagines the protesters' mindset must be, Fish simultaneously privileges the American, Protestant and Western traditions (in that order) and implicitly dismisses all others as belonging to different experiences that cannot produce an adherence to values such as free speech.

Modernity may have originated in the West, but it no longer belongs exclusively to the West. Almost all existing societies participate in and help shape it. A few decades ago, Partha Chatterjee suggested that for the postcolonial world, modernity was always and inevitably "a derivative discourse," that would invariably be defined in the West. With the rise of numerous postcolonial powers, that argument looks harder to defend.

Obviously there are going to be significant differences in the ways in which modernity and liberalism take root in different societies. Even among societies emerging from the Protestant Western tradition, American free-speech rights are uniquely permissive. Canada bans hate speech. Britain has official secrets, prior restraint, anti-blasphemy and notoriously lax libel laws. Numerous countries in Western Europe have made it a serious crime to question the historicity of the Holocaust.

Given these variations within societies emerging directly from the Western Protestant Reformation—all of which can still be called liberal societies that value and protect free speech—it should be obvious that globally there will be even greater variations. It's wrong to think that the essential values embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: freedom of conscience, freedom of expression, freedom of religion and so forth, only be grounded in Western traditions. These are universal values because there is something innate to modern humanity that strives to realize the essence of these freedoms, whatever culturally-specific variations may occur.

Here I'm going to make a brief comment. The things we term *human* rights really are universal. These are not 'Western' rights and while I am not as well-traveled or well-read as I might otherwise like to be, I have a hard time believing that too many people, given the choice, would prefer to have to look over their shoulder lest some secret police come knocking at the door because of an overheard remark. To take one example, the flow of people appears to be *out* of North Korea and not *into* it. I suspect that part of why people aren't bursting down the gates to get in to the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) is that, alongside the lack of food, is the lack of freedom where the least overheard word might spell the camp for oneself and one's family as well as tainting one's lineage down two or three generations.

In an effort to be open-minded gone terribly wrong, Fish forecloses the idea that other cultures and traditions, specifically the Islamic and Arab ones, can inform and secure freedom of speech and, implicitly, other liberal values. A quick survey of freedom of speech around the world suggests he is wrong about the unique ability societies rooted in the Protestant Reformation to embody these values. They have already spread far and wide. There is no reason to think that the Arab or Islamic worlds, or any other major cultural block in the modern world, is somehow uniquely immune them.

Cheers
Aj

Minor points
 

I was reading an article cited in the article Dreadgeek is quoting from. Not Stanley Fish's, but one they describe as admirably summing up the psychology of the protesters.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting that that writer agreed with Rushdie's point about how the protesters construct their identity:

On the way home I was listening on the radio to the PBS news broadcast and was so happy to hear that Syrians are using these events to disarm some of the militias. And to bring them more under the rule of law. That is a wonderful turn of events. I wish the press were covering more of that story. Maybe Newsweek will be forced to after the twitter responders showed them up re their Muslim Rage cover. :)

I am going to go read the Fish article. I shudder after that review of it.

One of my college professors had Fish as his dissertation advisor at Johns Hopkins back in the day. We all read Surprised by Sin (about Milton), Self-Consuming Artifacts, and Is There a Text in this Class. Even then, before he was a college administrator and later a public intellectual, it was clear Fish was carried away with the idea of the community of interpreters creating reality. Great literary theory. Interesting philosophy. Not a world view.

I agree with Dreadgeek and the article she cites. There are universal values based on what is good and healthy for human beings. For example, torture is bad, and eating nutritious food is good. Those are pretty universal.

Freedom of speech and freedom of the press may not be the most essential values, but they protect us from us from having to endure serious human rights violations. Iran today has used the youtube video as an excuse to limit its people's access to google. Exactly what some people are saying is the motivation behind the protests. The film is an excuse to clamp down on secular influences.

I was thinking of Foxconn thing -- the workers rioting in the Chinese factory that makes, among other things, Apple products. It's just INSANE that we don't know what is happening on a day to day basis in those factories. This stuff could happen in a second in the United States. In a second -- if we didn't have our First Amendment rights. Did anyone see that report about the Microsoft data barns in Quincy, Oregon. Also in the Times.

I guess one could argue that Western Europe is still free enough and safe enough (safer even) with some limitations on speech. But it's still hard to speak back to power in Europe. It's harder than it is here. The EU has regulation to protect folks (as should the U.S.), but if something is wrong that is in the best interest of the elites, good luck with that. Also, EU privacy laws may protect ordinary people from data mining using facial recognition software, but they also keep the halls of power pretty private and unapproachable.

In any case, we AREN'T Europe. As the article from the Daily Beast points out, the West is not monolithic. And freedom of speech and the press protect us from abuses like the ones attempted by Microsoft. They weren't that afraid of the regulators, I'd bet, but they sure are afraid of public opinion. Anyway, sorry for the rambling. I am getting to be an old crank. I can hear it in my tone.

Actually, not done yet. Also from that Daily Beast article Dreadgeek cited -- Fish should know that. Anyway, if Fish's article is correctly characterized, then it is just a more sophisticated instance of throwing up one's hands and saying, "Oh, it’s just the Muslims, nothing to be done."

So typical of a literary critic to create some unnecessary construct and treat it as if it were real. I am talking about this:

People have been writing that kind of crap about modernity, well, since modernity. We are not bifurcated entities. Dual identities. *RME* Stanley, there is a discipline out there called psychology -- and I don't mean Freud. You might check into it. People in the modern world are people -- primates. To the extent that we are more disconnected from ourselves and each other, it's because our lives under Capitalism make it harder for us to live in the kinds of groups that we do best in. Why can't he -- and others -- talk about behavior and history and not create these ridiculous constructs out of thin air?

I liked this from one of the readers' comments after the article:

And this reader's comment on Fish goes well with the Daily Beast article:

I guess Fish was being arrogant about Western Civilization, but it was a backhanded kind of arrogance. And it was patronizing to Muslims, I agree.

He is romanticizing religious Muslims AND treating them as if they were less complex than we are, a point made in the Daily Beast article.

Here's Fish:

and his last paragraph -- about people in the West:

Is he not saying that we Capitalists are placing the marketplace of ideas and the wealth that has created for us above truth? Is he saying that if we prioritize freedom of speech, we almost stop caring whether truth or falsehood prevails? The current Pope cold have said that.

From a comment:

These tensions in other countries have been fueled by the U.S. weaking the Islamic revolution. I can't help but think it's only gonna get worse and not better. We have Iran now testing their missles and wanting to aim them at Israel and wipe them out. Iran claims to have long range drones that will sink Israel and other mideastern countries and they are telling everyone about it. God help us all.

"Iran has warned that if its nuclear facilities are attacked, it would plant as many as 5,000 mines in the strategic Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf and cut off the flow of one-fifth of the world’s oil.

But the United States has vowed to keep the Gulf open — and is now conducting a massive ship mine-sweeping exercise there through tomorrow. The Gulf is a few hundred miles from where Iran test-fired its anti-ship missiles.

Gen. Ali Fadavi of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard said yesterday that the test proved Iran could sink a “big target” in less than a minute, according to Iran’s official Fars news agency.

He also said Iran is closely monitoring 64 US vessels in the region, including 20 engaged in the mine-sweeping exercise, along with British, French, Japanese and Emirates ships.

Another Revolutionary Guard official, Amir Ali Hajizadeh, said the new “Shahed 129” drone could be armed with “bombs and missiles” and has a range of 1,250 miles.

Hajizadeh said on Sunday that if war broke out between Iran and Israel, “it will turn into World War III” as other nations are drawn into it. He said Iran would target US bases in the event of an Israeli attack.

Obama alluded to the threatened cutoff of oil when he told the United Nations, “Make no mistake: a nuclear-armed Iran is not a challenge that can be contained. It would threaten the elimination of Israel, the security of Gulf nations and the stability of the global economy.”

War jitters helped drive up the price of oil on the world market about 1 percent yesterday before falling back.

Obama blasted Iran for helping to keep Syria’s bloody regime in power and refusing to cooperate fully with UN arms inspectors.

“Time and again, it has failed to take the opportunity to demonstrate that its nuclear program is peaceful, and to meet its obligations to the United Nations,’’ he said.

The remarks set the stage for Ahmadinejad’s annual anti-US, anti-Israel UN tirade today.

Outside the Warwick hotel, where he’s staying, about 50 protesters chanted “Ahmadinejad is a terrorist” and “we want Ahmadinejad out of the US now, now, now.” "

http://www.nypost.com