There is no question to which the answer is to wander round killing people. It takes a few words or keystrokes for any right thinking person to condemn the killings in Paris today. But that really doesn’t take us very far.
It is impossible to stop evil from happening. Simple low tech attacks by individuals, a kind of DIY terrorism, cannot always be pre-empted. If you try to do so universally, you will end up even further down the line we have gone down in the UK, where people are continually arrested and harassed who have no connection to terrorism at all, often for bragging on websites. These non-existent foiled terrorist plots are a risible feature of British politics nowadays. Every now and then one hits the headlines, like the arrests just before Remembrance Day. Their defining characteristic is that none of those arrested have any means of terrorism – 99% of those arrested for terrorism in the UK in the last decade – possessed no weapon and no viable explosive device.
In fact the only terrorist in the last year convicted in the UK, who possessed an actual bomb – a very viable explosive device indeed, was not charged with terrorism. He was a fascist named Ryan McGee who had a swastika on his wall and hated Muslims. Hundreds of Muslims with no weapons are locked up for terrorism. A fanatical anti-Muslim with a bomb is by definition not a terrorist.
I am assuming that the narrative that Charlie Hebdo was attacked by Islamists is correct, though that remains to be proved. For argument, let us assume the official narrative is true and the killings were by Muslims outraged at the magazine’s depictions of the Prophet Mohammed.
It is essential to free speech that it includes the freedom to offend. That must include the freedom to offend religious belief. Without such freedoms, the values of societies would freeze. Much social progress has caused real anguish and offence to some people. To have stopped Charlie Hebdo by law would have been wrong. To stop them by bullets is beyond any mitigation.
But that doesn’t make the unfortunate deceased heroes, and President Hollande was wrong to characterise them as such. Being murdered does not make you a hero. And being offensive is not necessarily noble. People who are persistently and vociferously offensive are often neither noble nor well-motivated. Much of Charlie Hebdo‘s taunting of Muslims was really unpleasant. That they also had Christian and other targets did not make this any better. It is not Private Eye – it is a magazine with a much nastier edge. I defend the right of Charlie Hebdo to publish whatever it wants. But once the shock dies off, I do hope a more realistic assessment of whether Charlie Hebdo was entirely admirable or not may be possible. This in no way excuses the dreadful murders.
The ability to say things that offend is an important attribute of a free society. Richard Dawkins may offend believers. Peter Tatchell may offend homophobes. Pussy Riot offended Putin and the Orthodox Church. This must not be stopped.
But that must cut both ways. Abu Qatada broke no British laws in his lengthy stay in the UK, but was demonised for things he said (or even things newspapers invented he had said). Most of the French who are today in solidarity for freedom of expression, are against people being able to express themselves freely in what they wear. The security industry who are all over TV today want to respond to this attack on freedom of expression by more controls on the internet!
I condemn, you condemn, we all condemn, and so we should. But the amount of nuanced thought in the mainstream media is almost non-existent. What will now happen is that conservative commentators will rip individual phrases from this article and tweet them to show I support terrorism. The lack of nuanced thought is a reflection of a general atmosphere of anti-intellectualism which has poisoned public life in modern western society.
Goodnight Macky, please don’t scare any children or innocents while I’m asleep – you do know what a questionmark looks like?
As a fan of the works of Kipling I am not in the least offended by the Kim John Goss references, because that was a novel which brought together the poor of two cultures: east and west.
It is typical that one individual tries to create antipathy by selectively choosing an observation that the Air Asia passenger jet registered in Malaysia, one of three to go down in the last twelve months, may have been the target of the secret US military base on the stolen island of Garcia. The other two, the first two in fact, were also Malaysian airliners. One vanished without a trace, not an iota of flotsam or jetsam, not a bloated floating body, not an item of clothing, absolutely nothing. You need to question things like this. I did. I do. I still haven’t got an answer. In the duplicitous mind of RD that makes me a conspiracy theorist. It was the MSM conspiracy theorists who first made the connection between the pilot of this plane and Diego Garcia and those who read between the lines ask why.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2584123/Revealed-Malaysian-Airlines-pilot-high-security-US-base-Diego-Garcia-programmed-homemade-flight-simulator-deleted-data-just-taking-control-missing-plane.html
Likewise, the second Malaysian passenger plane, the one shot down by the Ukrainian Air Force (I think there is enough evidence to claim this despite the countless MSM conspiracy theories that it was the Russians, the Donbass freedom fighters, a BUK missile fired from Eastern Ukraine, etc., etc.) on 17 July 2014. Is it then not natural when another Malaysian passenger plane goes down in the same region to assume it could be the same allies who brought it down? Especially since control is not in the pilot’s hand but in the hands of those with overriding control.
Even though the third tragedy (for passengers and crew) seems likely to have been caused by bad weather conditions if there was not a third hand in this, it is the right thing to do to question. When the boxes are lifted and analysed we may be nearer to the truth.
As I got attacked by my arch-enemy (of his making not mine) I thought it right to explain why my first reaction over the third passenger plane was to suspect the Yanks having had a hand in this as in the others, though not just the Yanks. The Malaysian court of Human Rights has already found Tony Blair guilty of war-crimes. It has already found Israel guilty of war crimes. Any country like the USA (pressurised by Israel) to bring down the twin towers to start wars of aggression all over the world are capable of anything. I know you are a Blairite, Bairist, or whatever the word is for New Labour (Old Conservative) Resident Dissident, and understand where you’re coming from.
I’ve recently come back from a Left Unity meeting. We are heartened that Syriza look likely to take charge of Greece at the next election at the end of this month, because Left Unity is Syriza. They appear not to be like the Labour neocons. They intend to give back to the people what belongs to them, railways, education, social services, public utilities, everything the likes of Resident Dissident despise. For the people. Up with Kim.
Should have been ‘Diego Garcia’ not ‘Garcia’.
Resident Dissident: “you do know what a questionmark looks like?”
Sure do, & I know what a fraudulent fraud caller on the run looks like too !
There is no need for any proof – as malcolm rifkind is keeping his head well below the parapet on this one.
“And it’s predominantly the case that Icke types are long on assertion and short on data.”
I think you’ll find that’s precisely the way that official accounts are presented.
You’ll have seen this when Russia is blamed for this and that. When N Korea is blamed for this and that etc etc.
No data at all, AT ALL, but very very long on assertion.
That’s a good enough reason to doubt official accounts, as you suggest we do with Icke, and look at what normally happens in war.
You know, first casualty, deception, false flag etc etc. The usual.
Perhaps your experience of military matters ended with French tactics at Agincourt.
They were so civilised they lost.
Now the propaganda comes together.
Yes, it’s Yemen in the crosshairs, the very problematic assassination of Anwar Al Awlaki put to rights and a deathbed confession by god knows whom. Brilliant stuff.
No corroboration possible..
And off we go to war, again:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/world/middleeast/in-new-era-of-terrorism-voice-from-yemen-echoes-as-france-declares-war.html?_r=0
That’s a wrap, guys.
Molten and resolidified granite?
Geology of New York 101 here.
http://www.newyorknature.net/Geology.html
(A bit OTT – metamorphic rocks don’t ‘erupt to the surface’, but he’s got his work cut out making the topic cool for da dudes, I suppose)
Manhatten schist, East Side Access Tunnel
http://www.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/img_5687-schist.jpg
DATA.
I think you’ll find that’s precisely the way that official accounts are presented.
Did I suggest otherwise? But I think you’re confusing official accounts with press handouts. Which are all most people see of official accounts. And I think you’ll find most journalists look no further before misinforming the public. And the public can’t be arsed checking even the available data for itself. Not my fault it reads the Sun, is it?
That’s a good enough reason to doubt official accounts, as you suggest we do with Icke,
Possibly – OTOH, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I’d say an even better reason to doubt official accounts would be if they were written by someone who thinks we are ruled by extraterrestrial lizards, but that’s just me, I guess.
I’m not sure what Agincourt has to do with it*, but the statement that history is written by the victors isn’t so far off the mark. Half “our” victories in the Napoleonic wars are also claimed by the French, and memorialised on the Arc de Triomphe for all to see. Governments lie? I know. I expect it. You’re telling me nothing new.
*apart from being a gratuitous ad hominem, that is. Not up to your usual standard, if so.
“Not my fault it reads the Sun, is it?”
No. But it’s in such places the narrative is constructed, and that’s what people are responding to.
Most people don’t know about false flags. They don’t know that their govts and agencies actually engage in terrorism themselves, blaming others, but that’s what history shows. They assume that their govt is there to protect them. They assume all sorts of nonsense that just isn’t true, and media appeal to that ignorance.
But you know better. You know about cui bono. You know that the US govt funded Al Quaeda, and up until recently were paying the salaries of ISIS and are currently training further ISIS-lite types. You know how they operated in South America.
Why, with that knowledge, would you assume what’s less likely over what’s more likely?
You know how it works. You’ve read about pseudo gangs. You’ve read the US version, publicly available online.
Mass media presents a tale of goodies and baddies, and the ill-informed buy it because they know no better.
But you know better. You know how the game works.
You know that these alleged assailants were known to the spooks. You know that they all are.
You know that of 100 alleged terrorist plots in the US which the FBI are supposed to have stopped, they were all entrapment of dimwits.
You know that there’s so little real terrorism emanating from real enemies that the agencies spend most of their time inventing it.
You know that the US and other states are running most of the terrorists worldwide. You know that we’re in a faux war with Islam to further out own interests.
Why would you accept the Sun’s narrative that we’re under attack, when you know we’re not.
What’s more likely.
I’m not sure what you’re saying Ba’al. Are you suggesting those photos show naturally occurring formations in the rock. This is far below even the lowest known levels of the buildings tube stations, basements, sub-basements etc. I’m sure though if you searched the earth, you’d maybe find something similar, might even have seen something similar. If they were there originally, to such depth however, don’t you think they’d have filled them in, or chosen somewhere else, anywhere else but there to build? They are down to the bare bedrock and still hosing it down, what can there possibly be to burn and produce heat, steam; in the vivid contrast of dark areas and light areas, the dark are wet, the almost white areas dry from heat still emanating from below, they haven’t dried from the wind at that depth and it is not exposed high peaks which are drying, they are not in direct sunlight and it wouldn’t produce such weirdly shaped patterns. Larry Silverstein released these photos, for whatever reasons, but the press buried them, used only the more innocuous far less revealing ones.
Aussie racists attack peace-loving muslims at protest (~3 minutes) –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCfwcd_Ajg4
“That’s from a fascist site, Jemand.”
The site is irrelevant, Herbie. What you are implying is that everything that appears on websites of which you disapprove, is false. That is an absurd idea. If this video is that of a cricketing victory celebration, then embarrass me with evidence that it is, not made up speculation that it might be.
Actually the site was youtube, not a fascist site. And I stand corrected, it was falsely posted by someone claiming it was in response to the French attacks. Although celebrations by muslims in response to incidents such as the 9/11 attacks are well established as genuine and indicative of their sentiments. To claim that I was inciting hatred of muslims, rather than Islam, is a cheap lie.
Repeat – the video I linked to, that purported to be a celebration by UK Pakistani’s of the France attacks was false.
With egg on my face, I’m gonna cry myself to sleep tonight.
Res Diss — “Macky .. If Jemand’s link is a forgery then of course it should be removed – hopefully you would same the same about links you posted to a cartoon that you argue is offensive, if only to clear yourself of the charge of gross hypocrisy.”
No need to delete anything, RD. I have acknowledged that the video was a mischievous post on youtube. We need to keep a record of these things so people can see that amongst those of us who post to links in good faith, there are others who wish to muddy the waters.
Before Herbie, or Macky get too smug over their minor victory (and cocky like those Pakistanis in the video) I should remind them that they have embarrassed themselves in the past and we can revisit those incidents if they wish.
I apologise, without reservation, to all the Libturds who were offended by my post.
Now please visit the link I posted to just above and let me know if it is a forgery/misrepresentation of moderate Islam.
Thanks
John Did you know this? The founder of Air Asia.
‘In March 2012, Tony Fernandes served on the International Advisory Board of Global March to Jerusalem, which aims to “mobilize the international community in solidarity with Palestinians and to protect Jerusalem.”[20] A Joint Statement was issued, signed by the various members of the Board, including Fernandes.[21]’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Fernandes
‘Fernandes estimates about 50 per cent of the travellers on Asia’s budget airlines are first-time flyers.[citation needed] Before the advent of AirAsia, he estimated that only six per cent of Malaysians had ever travelled by air.[17]
Fernandes’ biggest achievement was to open up countries within the region to new budget carriers, which previously did not have open-skies agreements.[16] As a result of Fernandes’ lobbying in mid-2003, Dr Mahathir brought up the idea with leaders from neighbouring countries. Those nations subsequently granted landing rights to AirAsia and other discount carriers.[16]
In Thailand and Indonesia, AirAsia holds a minority stake in the respective local companies. Thai AirAsia, a joint venture with Shin Corporation, Thailand’s largest telecommunication conglomerate, took to the skies in Feb 2004 and has to date carried over 1 million passengers in its first year of operations. PT Awair, re-launched as a low fare airline on 8 December 2004 and subsequently renamed Indonesia AirAsia, presently serves 5 domestic destinations in Indonesia.’
Food for thought.
Don’t Shoot the Messenger
People often rip into Imam Anjem Choudary. Not me. Why should this guy be abused for saying what he believes to be true? Are all his views supported by all muslims? Probably not. So what? He speaks from a position of authority as an Islamic cleric and he has a large following. I think that says a whole lot more than some Libturd parroting Islamic PR.
Choudary: “The difference between divine law and man-made law—in other words liberal democracy and [inaudible] moralities and liberties—is that divine law can’t be changed. We can’t change the Koran, we can’t change the sayings of the Prophet, which include insulting the Prophet and the consequences. But you can change your laws … If the West’s laws are not change, we’ll have a blood bath.”
http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/imam-choudary-obama-lying-about-true-nature-islam
Je sui Choudary? Non.
“Food for thought.”
Food for conspiracy theorists, you dope.
“They intend to give back to the people what belongs to them, railways, education, social services, public utilities, everything the likes of Resident Dissident despise.”
About as accurate as your Geography I’m afraid.
Ref the slur on Mary Hughes Thompson above. She is a fine human who knows a great deal about Israeli atrocities and outrages which she has seen up close and personal. They are capable of any deceits imaginable.
She was in the Mavi Marmara convoy.
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2010/06/03/mary-hughes-thompson-free-gaza-co-founder-flotilla-update-from-cyprus/
A brave lady indeed.
‘Mary Hughes-Thompson is a screenwriter who worked with Norman Lear on All in the Family as well as on many path-breaking documentaries, films and television programs. She is also a grandmother, licensed pilot and knitting teacher and a co-founder of the Free Gaza Movement who was on FG’s successful first trip to Gaza in August of 2008. She has been seven times to Palestine where she has been tear gassed, shot and beaten up by Israeli soldiers and settlers as she helped families harvest their olives and stood with nonviolent Palestinian villagers demonstrating against Israeli’s separation wall.’
~~~
Mavi Marmara survivors speak out against Israeli “whitewash”
https://fr-fr.facebook.com/notes/george-galloway-mp/mavi-marmara-survivors-speak-out-against-israeli-whitewash/135624886501589
The mash up of a favourite song. Wait for Regev’s grin to disappear.
Gaza flotilla video mashup: Internet Killed Israeli PR
https://www.youtube.com/verify_controversy?next_url=/watch%3Fv%3DME_NpnH7jDc
“Food for thought.”
And of course his football team were beaten yesterday by Burnley – making it a record breaking sequence of 10 Premiership away defeats. And we all know that the evil Murdoch pays for (and therefore controls) the Premiership. Quite spooky.
On the other hand perhaps QPR and their manager (who was evicted from that well known Zionist outfit Tottenham Hotspurs in mysterious circumstances) are just rubbish.
In the vain hope of kindling an interest in geology rather than conspiracy theories
http://www.nycgovparks.org/about/history/geology
Here’s the thing. All those people holding up their ‘Je Suis Charlie’ placards in defence of freedom of speech are playing straight into the hands of those political masters who are going to use this atrocity as a pretext to curb freedom of speech.
I’ve been looking at the images of the crowds everywhere holding up their placards – British MPs, NBC news staff etc. I have to say, if this wasn’t a staged event designed to herd us into yet more oppressive legislation, it couldn’t have more perfectly achieved those ends if it were. Those placards should read ‘Look how easy it is to press my buttons.’
Spinning this as an attack on freedom of speech is a masterstroke, but it isn’t really one. It’s a one-off lunatic assault. No one seriously thinks this is some sort of ‘thin end of the wedge’ in the ‘first they came for the cartoonists, then they came for the bloggers’ mould.
Inevitably now our political masters will talk of dire threats that must be countered, and more legislation that needs to be put in place to ‘defend’ us. And all for what? Because a handful of people have been murdered? More people die on the roads in a week. Even if there was an attack like this every week it would still be statistically trivial in the grand scheme of things, no way any sort of existential threat to our way of life, no way anything that could justify the curbing of yet more of our freedom. The po-faced pretence by the likes of Theresa May & Co. that it is, that this is some sort of unimaginable horror that requires desperate measures, is pure bollocks, the ultimate end of which will be yet more surveillance and control.
Meanwhile I will walk out this Sunday morning and experience the creepy cognitive dissonance of living in a world that looks—despite the endless terror porn of Theresa May–totally normal and in which I know the real threats to me come from drivers, and sickness and accidents. Things I don’t bother to think about, because there’s no point. Statistically I’m more likely to choke to death on a peanut. But I prefer to recognise that life is an inherently dangerous activity form which no one gets out alive. I will live with courage and enjoy my life free of fear. Do your worst peanuts, and I will do my best.
“Here’s the thing. All those people holding up their ‘Je Suis Charlie’ placards in defence of freedom of speech are playing straight into the hands of those political masters who are going to use this atrocity as a pretext to curb freedom of speech.”
And there was me thinking that they were just showing sympathy and support for the murdered and defending free speech at the same time.
“Spinning this as an attack on freedom of speech is a masterstroke, but it isn’t really one. It’s a one-off lunatic assault. No one seriously thinks this is some sort of ‘thin end of the wedge’ in the ‘first they came for the cartoonists, then they came for the bloggers’ mould. ”
No they came for the novelists – remember Salman Rushdie and many others, not that I suspect you read their books. Perhaps you might wish to show them some solidarity at least – I shall be moving your book to the appeasers section in Waterstones.
Je suis Charlie
Mary
“Ref the slur on Mary Hughes Thompson above. She is a fine human who knows a great deal about Israeli atrocities and outrages which she has seen up close and personal. They are capable of any deceits imaginable.”
You might think that, Mary, but there is no slur or deceit. SHE tweeted:
“#Hebdo killings indefensible. Can’t help thinking #JSIL Mossad false flag though.”
And for good measure, let’s see what the other co-founder of tbe Free Gaza Movement, Greta Berlin, had to say:
“MOSSAD just hit the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo in a clumsy false flag designed to damage the accord between Palestine and France…Here’s hoping the French police will be able to tell a well executed hit by a well trained Israeli intelligence service and not assume the Muslims would be likely to attack France when France is their freind.”.
I see now that a senior police officer involved in the shootings investigation has apparently committed suicide by shooting himself.
Hmmmm….
To all you proudly tinfoil hat free people out there – what do they have to do – rub your faces in it!
I see a senior police officer involved in the investigation into the shootings has apparently committed suicide by shooting himself.
Hmmmmmm….
To all you proudly tinfoil hat free people out there – what do they have to do – rub your faces in it!?
KOWN
I don’t think Anglosaxon Freedom of speech is the same as French Liberté. Our freedom was a religiously inspired one against the corrupt censorship of the Roman Catholic religion which refused to allow the Gospels to be read in the vernacular. Their freedom was anti-Roman Catholicism but also anti-takfirism by the zealots of the French revolution, which allowed a small group of people to assassinate anyone who did not subscribe to their revolutionary theories.
That’s why I use the word takfirism, because the minority group classed everybody else as not proper believers in their mad ideas. This French Liberté protests against the narrow vindictiveness of Al Qaida takfirism while M. Hollande pays and trains Al Qaida takfirism to achieve neo-colonial objectives.
The irony of this French Liberté is the master stroke, and it doesn’t really translate into English Freedom of Speech in my opinion. Hollande gets quedos for condemning with his right hand the very thing he tirelessly funds and supports with his left hand. It beggars belief.
J Galt
“I see now that a senior police officer involved in the shootings investigation has apparently committed suicide by shooting himself.”
Hmmmm….”
He was a depressive. Depressives quite often take their own lives.
But here’s how uprootedpalestinians.com reported it:
“Another Mossad victim? Police Chief, Helric Fredou, investigating Charlie Hebdo Commits Suicide”