In the wake of today’s massacre in Paris, there has already been a lot of preening about journalistic bravery. Much of it has come from people who, it can be shown, don’t have the guts to work in Charlie Hebdo’s newsroom. Preening about free speech may be reassuring at times like this, but what we need are apologies from those who haven’t done enough to defend free speech, as well as a real desire to hold those journalists and politicians who have undermined free speech accountable. As a smart academic on Twitter put it, “Today, as journalists ‘bravely’ voice support for Charlie Hebdo, ask them for their piece calling on Yale to publish the Muhammad cartoons.”
From Endeavour Hills to the 11th arrondissement, terrorism is presented as so many baffling dots in a pattern that defies connection. The real enemy we are told, and the persistent theme, is that Islamic fanaticism’s greatest evil is that it abets the villainous cause of “the right”. Best not get too fussed, in other words
The gruesome massacre of Charlie Hebdo journalists and policemen in Paris has shocked the world. In a world of unrelenting terror, people still find it in themselves to be shocked, brutalised and terrorised anew. We are not yet inured to the violence and death that surrounds us.
But in the midst of the collective mourning and outrage that acts of terrorism and barbarity evoke, we also have a few discernible trends in media reporting that deserve close attention because they reflect increasingly common ways of conceptualising the problem. Instead of dealing with the issues at hand head-on, some journalists and writers engage in a kind of a prevarication and obfuscation that most readers would find difficult to recognise and from which it would be difficult to disengage. Further, such reporting usually involves to some degree a strategy that I will discuss in the rest of this essay: the shifting of focus onto a demonised right-wing conceived of as being perpetually threatening and on the verge of eruption. As Islamist outrages proliferate, it is this phantom army of the right that is offered, ultimately, as the real threat that needs to be confronted.
By positing the generalised “right” as the real problem, discussion of the crisis at hand is pre-empted and public outrage defused (or channeled in another direction). A close reading of instances of such reporting is necessary because the extent of manipulation of public discourse we find today is so great that it is difficult to challenge. This affects political consciousness in ways whose impact we cannot yet fully understand.
It is not as if the West hasn’t known for some time that a considerable body of Islamic thought endorses the slaughter of innocents to achieve its ends. But it has been much easier to ignore the grim reality — and so much safer, too. Don’t expect the Paris massacre to change that.
The mass murder of Stephane “Charb” Charbonnier, editor of Charlie Hebdo, and so many of his editorial staff by heavily armed Islamists will no doubt be described as “senseless” and/or “cowardly” by political leaders and most of the mainstream media. It was neither. If they were cowards, they would have stayed home and continued to receive French social security like so many of their fellow Muslims. The mere preparedness to kill unarmed infidels does not prove cowardice. Typical of jihadis the world over, they were prepared to fight to the death.
Why Do the Media Refer to ‘the Prophet Mohammed’?The title implies a particular view of a historical figure. By Ian Tuttle
The occasion of California senator Barbara Boxer’s announcing her retirement offers an opportunity to reflect on the strange life of titles. Mrs. Boxer — I mean “Senator Boxer” — was a stickler for her own, famously chiding a brigadier general for calling her “ma’am” while testifying before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee: “You know, do me a favor, could you say ‘senator’ instead of ‘ma’am’? I worked so hard to get that title, so I’d appreciate it.”
One suspects that Boxer would be thrilled if her name were never uncoupled from “Senator.” That is unlikely to happen, Boxer’s political accomplishments being something less than world-historical, but the sharp distinction obvious here between the woman and her honorific is not made in another title-name combination in the news of late: “the Prophet Mohammed.” It has become routine to refer to the central figure of Islam with his title attached. But why?
Perhaps it is a simple conflation. That has happened throughout history. Consider “Caesar Augustus” and “Tiberius Caesar,” both of whose titles — “Caesar,” from the great Julius — have come down to us affixed to their names.
The same happened to Samuel Johnson, the great literary critic and subject of James Boswell’s unsurpassed biography, who is often just the illustrious “Dr. Johnson.”
For a more recent example, there is Tiger Woods — that is, Eldrick Tont Woods, who was quickly recognized to be a “tiger,” or outstanding golfer.
And, of course, there are religious examples in abundance: Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Saint Augustine.
Perhaps “the Prophet Mohammed” is no different from any of these – “prophet,” like “mahatma,” a sort of meaningless but customary adjective.
Then again, there is the syntactically identical formulation “Jesus the Christ” — but when was the last time one heard that combination employed (non-ironically) on cable news? No, “Jesus” is just another single-namer — like Shakespeare or Churchill or Cher. (And, on more vulgar occasions, a perfectly common oath.)
The communist government in Laos uses the holiday season to pursue a violent crackdown on Christians of the Hmong ethnic minority.
Christmas festivities, religious and secular, are enjoyed across East Asia. But not in Laos. This year the communist government used the holiday season to pursue a violent crackdown on Christians of the Hmong ethnic minority.
In November Radio Free Asia reported village leaders kicking out families who refused to renounce Christianity. Recent Hmong converts were jailed until they reverted to traditional animist practices.
A Christmas Day press release from the Center for Public Policy Analysis in Washington painted an even more dire picture. Not only did the authorities prohibit public observances of Christmas, they carried out torture and killings of Christians. According to the CPPA’s executive director, the Laotian government coordinated the crackdown with neighboring Vietnam.
“Today is the day to stand full square behind the French people after this appalling outrage and simply to say that we will do everything we can to help them hunt down and find the people who did this,” Mr. Cameron told news media. “The cause of this terrorism is the terrorists themselves.”
Another dumb bashing of Europe’s Conservatives…..Unlimited and unprofiled immigration is certainly to blame for the attack…..rsk
Europe’s Ascendant Anti-Immigration Movements Try to Capitalize on Deadly Paris Attack
Europe’s ascendant anti-immigration and nationalist movements tried to capitalize on a deadly attack in Paris this week to trumpet a theme they have pressed for years, but rarely before with this much urgency: a loss of cultural identity.
“This bloodshed shows that anyone who ignored or laughed off the concerns about the threat Islamism poses is a fool,” said Alexander Gauland, a leader of Alternative for Germany, an upstart party that wants to limit immigration and take Germany out of the euro.
It’s time to break, finally, from Leninist reasoning about the sociology of poverty and frustration behind terrorism.
Twelve faces. Twelve names, some of which the killers specifically called out, as the name of a condemned prisoner is called out before his execution. Twelve symbols mourned around the globe, symbols of the assassination of freedom of laughter and of thought. The least that we owe to these dozen dead is to rise to their level of commitment and courage—and, today, to prove worthy of their legacy.
It is incumbent upon the leaders of France, of the West, and of the world to take the measure of a war they did not want to see, one in which the journalists of Charlie Hebdo, its writers and caricaturists, long ago put themselves on the front line. They were war reporters of a sort, as we now know, Robert Capas with a sketch pad and pencil.
This is the Churchillian moment of France’s Fifth Republic, the moment to face the implacable truth about a test that promises to be long and trying.
Barbara Boxer will not run for re-election in 2016.
Barbara Boxer — Too Stupid for California? By Clarice Feldman
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/05/barbara_boxer_too_stupid_for_c.html
In a stunning development the LA Times has declined to endorse Barbara (Senator, not ma’am, please) Boxer for re-election on the ground that she’s failed to exhibit intellectual leadership.
Who knew? Maybe anyone who paid attention to her babbling over the years:
Senator Barbara Boxer Attempts to “Out-Stupid” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Which Isn’t Easy To Do!
http://www.just-a-regular-guy.com/2009/02/27/senator-barbara-boxer-attempts-to-out-stupid-house-speaker-nancy-pelosi-which-isnt-easy-to-do/
Uber liberal California Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer has decided the time has come for the U.S. to succumb to United Nations dictated children’s rights in this country. Apparently, for far too many years, we have gotten away with some pretty serious atrocities aimed at the most vulnerable segment of our society, our little munchkins, and Boxer thinks it’s high time we get on board with the rest of the world so some nitwits in Switzerland can dictate how we raise our kids in this country.
Stunning ignorance on display from Senator Barbara Boxer over Oklahoma tornado outbreak
Anthony Watts / May 21, 2013
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/21/stunning-ignorance-on-display-from-barbara-boxer-over-tornado-outbreak/
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif. – Chair of Senate Environment & Public Works Committee) took to the Senate floor and invoked the Oklahoma tornadoes in her speech on global warming.
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“This is climate change. We were warned about extreme weather. Not just hot weather. But extreme weather. When I had my hearings, when I had the gavel years ago. -It’s been a while – the scientists all agreed that what we’d start to see was extreme weather. And people looked at one another and said ‘what do you mean? It’s gonna get hot?’ Yeah, it’s gonna get hot. But you’re also going to see snow in the summer in some places. You’re gonna have terrible storms. You’re going to have tornados and all the rest. We need to protect our people. That’s our number one obligation and we have to deal with this threat that is upon us and that is gonna get worse and worse though the years.”
[Boxer] also plugged her own bill, cosponsored with Sen. Bernie Sanders that would put a tax on carbon. “Carbon could cost us the planet,” she said. “The least we could do is put a little charge on it so people move to clean energy.”
Horrific reports are coming out of Nigeria about a Boko Haram attack on the town of Baga in Borno State following their seizure of a neighboring military base on Saturday.
BBC is reporting:
Nigeria’s militant Islamists have carried out a second attack on the key north-eastern town of Baga, an official has told the BBC.
Boko Haram fighters burnt down almost the entire town on Wednesday, after over-running a military base on Saturday, Musa Alhaji Bukar said.
Bodies lay strewn on Baga’s streets, amid fears that some 2,000 people had been killed in the raids, he added.
Boko Haram launched a military campaign in 2009 to create an Islamic state.
It has taken control of many towns and villages in north-eastern Nigeria in the last year.
