OFF: Freeedom of Speech

[Paul Mather]

On Tue, 2006-02-14 at 23:50 +0000, trev wrote:
> paul, i own the real festival music website and i feel solidarity with those
> who have published. whats holocaust denial got to do with anything? this is
> a crisis which is happening now. its real. people are being killed now and
> others will be killed.

Sorry, Trev, I grossly misread your original message!  Specifically, I
somehow read "they have not done so" rather than "I have not done so,"
which, you'll agree, alters the meaning a lot and does make what I wrote
a bit puzzling. :-)

Still, Holocaust denial has everything to do with it.  You can't stand
up for the principle of free speech and "feel solidarity with those who
have published" under those pristine auspices and conveniently ignore
legal European bans that do the same as those you are shaking your fist
at (not to mention blasphemy laws that apply only to Christians, etc.).
(Though there's a slight difference.  The would-be cartoon banners are
only calling for outlaw and recrimination whereas the Germans currently
have real laws in place, so the German prohibition is actual rather than
hypothetical.)  So, my meaning was "show solidarity with Holocaust
deniers by publishing their spew on the Real Festival Music Web site if
you want to defend free speech as much as you say."  After all, this is
a matter of defending freedom of speech, no matter how tasteless, in the
face of those who would dare tell you what you can't publish, isn't it?
(Or, does it just matter when it's Arabs, not Germans, trying to limit
what you can say?)

Personally, I disagree this is a crisis.  It's just another incident in
the long propaganda war.  There are real crises taking place all around
us, but this one doesn't rank up with them, IMO.  Your mileage may vary.

BTW, you must have noticed this, but people have been killed before;
embassies attacked/burned; hostages taken; journalists beheaded; etc.:
they will be again when it suits the Masters of War and the Spewers of
Hate.  The Taliban were killing men and women left, right and centre for
all manner of what would be considered "exercising freedom of speech"
issues.  Our countries kowtow to the landlords of Chop Chop Square in
Saudi Arabia because they permit Western military bases and certain oil
concessions whilst openly financing and promoting dissent against us.
I'm interested: why express outrage now and not then?  Why is it
suddenly a crisis now?

> the more these cartoons are published, the less each
> brave publisher is liable to be attacked.

I disagree with that, too, because I believe this cartoon flap is just
another pawn in a larger chess game, and no matter how many of our
"brave publishers" decide to publish these, those that are fomenting the
outrage will continue along their merry way.  Personally, I don't think
it would make much of a difference one way or another.

As I said before, there are numerous occasions on which our "brave
publishers" choose not to print something, usually because it is
politically or economically expedient not to.  Oftentimes, these "brave
publishers" will be informing us instead of the latest celebrity
shenanigans, or alerting us to the sweeping "flood" of sponging asylum
seekers out to steal all our jobs and bleed our welfare system dry, and
all manner of fluff and lies and distorted statistics.  So, before I go
get my crying towel for the "brave publishers," I'd rather they
exercised a whole lot less self-censorship on a whole raft of topics
they keep their traps shut on than to have them act all self-righteous
about some abstract principle that is cool to defend under certain
convenient circumstances.

Note that the "brave publishers" at the Jyllands-Posten refused to run
drawings lampooning Jesus Christ back in 2003 on the grounds that they
might be offensive to readers and were not funny.  The editor stated in
his rejection letter, "I don't think Jyllands-Posten's readers will
enjoy the drawings.  As a matter of fact, I think that they will provoke
an outcry.  Therefore, I will not use them."  So, I guess he figures not
many muslims read his newspaper. :-)

The "brave publishers" at the Jyllands-Posten also recently made a
U-turn on their intention to run Holocaust cartoons from an Iranian
newspaper which had planned to do so.  I guess the Jyllands-Posten
fifteen minutes of fame is almost up.  Still, they say there's no such
thing as bad publicity.

Colour me cynical.

Cheers,

Paul.
--
e-mail: paul at gromit.dlib.vt.edu

"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production
 deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid."
        --- Frank Vincent Zappa