well. part of the point is that one isn’t supposed to “look on him”, as the iconoclasts were against icons,various Protestants against images, and Moses down from Sinai mad about the golden calf.(Orthodox monastery at base has huge bush they claim was from a cutting of original burning one, along with icons spared due to location, thousands of monk skulls behind chicken wire lining chapels, and the “Achtiname”, Document of Privileges to Sinai Monastery, supposed to have been ordered by the Prophet himself).
My own feeling is that religion’s purpose is to stimulate ruckuses, in particular that the Incarnation was meant not to save but to marinate, confuse the mind and flavors, that Christianity’s major function is the generation of anti-Semitism, over and over and over, though the execution is clearly Roman in method and in timing, and the plan Divine -and for the eternal happiness of Man! How could anybody be mad about any of it, and against the wrong group too?
Takes help, education, and our own “as built” blueprints to be angry idiots.
If function doesn’t give clues to purpose, what does?

Posted by: plushtown | Jun 2 2008 15:37 utc | 4

Fat Lady Vows Grudge Match to Death

Posted by: Clarence Thomas | Jun 2 2008 16:19 utc | 6

But we did nothing about a clear assault on our basic principles of free speech and expression.
“OUR” basic principles may just not be “THEIRS”. So you want to impose “OUR” principles on “THEM” with force?
We also don’t take these principles so very honest. We have assults on free speech here too. The judgement on them is usually not death. But it happens too. Look up why Rudy Dutschke was killed.
The UK broke off diplomatic relations with Iran over Rushdie. So I don’t know what you think “we” should have done? Bomb Teheran? Qom?

Posted by: b | Jun 2 2008 17:25 utc | 8

Don’t worry, the end is in sight. Step 1: die flucht nach vorne. Step 2: Retire to the bunker. Step 3: Blow your hübsche office wife’s brains out. Step 4: Eat the gun (or just go home and drink yourself to death.)

Posted by: …—… | Jun 2 2008 18:03 utc | 10

Thanks, b.
I still remember the flame wars I participated in when the cartoons were published the first time. Even if the newspapers had the right to publish, that does not mean it was appropriate or wise. The cartoons were pure provocation, simply. The goal was not to exercise free speech but to destroy it.
If the Danes were serious about free speech, they would have investigated who was promoting these cartoons and why. There was, already at the time, plenty of evidence that it was part of a neo-con movement to disrupt legitimate democratic process.

Posted by: Gaianne | Jun 2 2008 19:31 utc | 12

Regarding the Danes.

ISHOJ , Denmark, May 30 (UPI) — Organizers of Denmark’s first “Masturbate-a-thon,” set to be held at a suburban Ishoj nightclub, say more than 60 men and women are registered to compete.
The organizers said participants will masturbate in front of the assembled crowd and will then be judged in several categories — including farthest ejaculation and longest orgasm — the Copenhagen Post reported Friday.
Pia Struck, the organizer of the competition, said she studied under renowned author and sexologist Betty Dodson.

A nation of wankers?

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jun 2 2008 20:03 utc | 14

b: are you suggesting the responsibility for the dead Brazilians and Pakistanis lies with cartoonists?

Posted by: jeremiah | Jun 2 2008 21:13 utc | 16

sorry, linkage error again. am i linkage challenged?

Posted by: Lizard | Jun 2 2008 21:32 utc | 18

Was recycling the uneaten half of a business lunch into a dinner rice bowl for the kids, unabashedly stretching our food budget which last year ran $212 a month and this year is running $243 and the cart’s no longer full, crying bullshit on 5% CPI.
In the background Casey Kassem was live on C-Span talking about the bravery of the Israeli people and … what? … that’s not Casey Kassem, he’s Lebanese, that’s his auditory doppleganger … John “Raging Bull” McCain, dredging up Holocaust survivor stories handed up to him by “Fighting Joe” Lieberman, raptly listening in the senior white crowd, eyes dimmed with tears, as our next president said Tehran represents the greatest threat in history, against the last best hope for mankind, America, and her steadfast ally Israel. How Iran’s evil nuclear weapons program must not be allowed to terrorize the world, and must be destroyed. I mean, it’s obvious. They’re darkies!
And destroyed soon, judging from recent political polls. So it’s either a false flag in New York again, but that’s tough with Bloomberg and Paulson trying to keep America from financial implosion that would hurt our steadfast ally’s $3B in grift, so we’d better aim for Miami. Yupp, somewhere south of Fort Lauderdale, don’t want to kill too many of America’s steadfast allies, but far enough north of South Miami, so we’re not wasting the moment on a bunch of right-wing mafia reactionary Cubans, who might get blamed for the attack, drag up that old Castro meme, might get confused for what were ‘obviously’ a secret terror cell of Iranians, after all, they left a Koran in the taxi, a passport, and a picture of the Ayatollah, signed ‘Salamoona, ya! Syed’.
So there you go, fire up the F-16’s and let’s roll on those motherstoners! We can’t let Obama reach the convention floor in August with another stirring speech uniting Americans behind a dark banner of true speaking and fair play! He might forget our steadfast allies in Israel are the true kingmakers, he might forget who liberated the slaves 150 years ago, and liberated the holocaust camps a century later. White men.
White heroes. White demi-gods, golly gosh heck … Great White Gods(c).
As Great White God’s with a tough job to do, let’s get to work and put those bunker busters to good use, and damn the nuclear fallout, there’s only so much you can do with a rogue regime to prevent crimes against humanity, yeah, a million died horrible radioactive deaths, ‘but on balance, it was worth it’.
America and Israel secure, whites in power, fascism in control, G-d in his heavens.
A little soft shoe, a little schnapps, a little spiral swastika jig around the flag.
Isn’t that how the Neo-Zi’s always take us out?
Freuhliche Spuren, Fuehrer McCain! Wir lieber dich!!

Posted by: Dapple Mared | Jun 3 2008 3:23 utc | 20

Well, since I been living in the Happy Little Kingdom longer than most Danes, I ought to chip in here with my own two bits.
However, there really isn’t all that much to say. Yeah, Jyllands Posten (JP)is a right-wing rag — you might even say, the Right-wing Rag of Record. On the other hand, you might say nobody would have known those were cartoons of Mr. M. unless you told them. Also, they weren’t pictures of the fellow, but satiric spoofs — that is they weren’t intended to show his face.
Still, I thought at the time, knowing the position if JP, why now, at this time? I suspected, on grounds of general paranoia that there was some kind of psy-ops going on here.
Finally, as some wag once quipped, the freedom of the press only applies to those who have a press.
One more finally, knowing the way the Iranian Prez’s pronouncements about Israel have been mis-translated and blown up The Great Jihad, it might be something to dig into — what was the actual fatwa against Rushdie?

Posted by: Chuck Cliff | Jun 3 2008 4:02 utc | 22

An Orwellian re-write of Khomeni’s death fatwah against Rushdie? Maybe some one should just ask Rushdie (as a matter of confirmation) just what happened to years of his life lived in hiding. I simply find it incredible that a writer must disappear for years, and go completely underground, only to have someone speculate later as to whether a religious fanatic really meant it when he put a price on the artist’s head.
What revisionism. And no b, this is not a matter of imposing ‘”OUR” principles upon “THEM” with force’…but of capitulation when someone draws a line in the sand against freedom of speech. We don’t have to betray such a fundamental value because we worry about offending them, or anyone, with words or with cartoons.
The freedom to express ideas without hindrance or repression exists as a bedrock of our own culture and I personally don’t care who may like it or who doesn’t like it. To say that the cartoonist’s are responsible for the mayhem of intolerant people who set fires and kill bystanders in front of an embassy, is a silly argument.

Posted by: Copeland | Jun 3 2008 4:50 utc | 24

The argument that we “provoked” violence by publishing cartoons sounds to me like the rapist’s argument that “she provoked me by wearing a short skirt”.

Posted by: ralphieboy | Jun 3 2008 8:35 utc | 26

“‘Kick ass!’ […]Our will is being tested, but we are resolute. We have a better way. Stay strong! Stay the course! Kill them! Be confident! Prevail!

Its nice to see that the leader of the free world is making the most of his education as a cheerleader.

Posted by: tr | Jun 3 2008 11:38 utc | 28

If you re-print for no other reason then proving that you can and you know that the re-print might result in deaths in other parts of the world, then I would consider you bearing a bit of the responsibility for those deaths. If they truly wanted to do a service for free speach why not publish something that is illegal to publish in Denmark today?
To re-iterate what I wrote when it started:

This is what has been bugging me with this whole story. Jyllandsposten was forced to back down by a boycott against danish dairy-products. But economic weapons are something that is considered an acceptable weapon in western debate. When adds are pulled or subsriptions cancelled other papers rarely rally to the defense of free speech by re-publishing the offensive material. Sure they had to attack an indirect target (Arla) to get to their real target (Jyllandsposten). But that is also nothing new. Companies are boycotted for placing adds in (and thus supporting) different papers or events. What is new is that it was the muslem world ralling their consumer power in defense of their danish brethren of the faith and they are not supposed to do that!
Then you get re-publishings, high-and-mighty cries about free speach, demonstrations and bomb-threaths from the bloody Al-Quaeda juvenile squad punk division in charge of cartoons in northern europe. All in a reinforcing circle of events.
So what happened there in the space between the paragraphs? Somehow this was turned from a question of economic power where a western paper was loosing to a question of free speach, were a western paper can hardly loose if fighting muslems (there is always going to be the Al-Quaeda juvenile squad punk division in charge of cartoons in northern europe to issue some threaths if you need to prove you are right). ‘Why’ is easy. ‘How’ is little bit harder, depending on the level of details you want.

Checking it up, I got the timeline right, but I missed one crucial detail:
Economic and social consequences of the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

While many Muslims and supporters took part in protests throughout the world, many more took part in one of the single biggest boycotts of all time. Consumers, especially Arab nations, began a process of boycotting all Danish goods.

The biggest boycott of all times! Muslems wielding the consumer weapon with more force then it has ever been used before. Naturally it can not be accepted, it is important to force this conflict back into its established forms of freedom-hating others versus enlightened westerners.

Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Jun 3 2008 14:54 utc | 30

rgiap, hope health better, also that cojones brit list includes the one with sniper bullet to throat that wrote Homage to Catalonia and died of tb in ’49.

Posted by: plushtown | Jun 3 2008 18:47 utc | 32

To follow-up on the wankathon, yes b, we are wankers, but as a public spectacle?
Let’s return to the great William Shakespeare:
Horatio:
He waxes desperate with imagination.
Marcellus:
Let’s follow. ‘Tis not fit thus to obey him.
Horatio:
Have after. To what issue will this come?
Marcellus:
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Horatio:
Heaven will direct it.
Marcellus:
Nay, let’s follow him. [Exeunt.]
Hamlet Act 1, scene 4, 87–91

Posted by: Cloned_Poster | Jun 3 2008 18:57 utc | 34

this speaks more about the Danes than it does about the Muslims. Because having admitted them into Denmark, the Danes might try to treat them better than they would expect themselves (the Danes) to be treated by any other.
it takes a little arrogance to treat another better than you would expect them to treat you but it really works.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Jun 4 2008 2:04 utc | 36

ralphie, just how do you know these things about how muslims reacted to the danish cartoons? I understand you are interpreter, are you fluent in arabic and persian?
if not, then the only thing you know about this reaction is what the western press told you.
as such, it needs to be weighed for bias and carefully considered.
anyone can cherrypick facts and build a case on the most outrageous of accusations. certainly you have seen that happen before with the runup to the war in Iraq, just where are all those weapons of mass destruction, those chemical and biological weapons that could have been launched within 15 minutes, the nuclear program a mere year away from creating a bomb?
how many times can you be fooled?

Posted by: dan of steele | Jun 4 2008 7:54 utc | 38

ralphieboy
i’ll give you an example
not onje writer not one artist has felt in their power to transgress free speech – to speak of the question of liquidity of a rupert murdoch, indeed not only him but a generation of entrepeneurs – have direct lionks with criminal accumulation & there are no brave artists prepared to speak of that
america, england & australia – do not mention their bombed out, gutted & deserted cities – like detroit, sheffield or newcastle – that have been left to waste because of criminal economic policies
there are so many real topics that the ‘free press’ doesn’t touch with a barge pole” – their constant demonisation of islam & its criminal caricaturing of muslims – i find morally repulsive
salman rushdie isn’t a pimple on walter benjamin’s ass. writers have to be reconciled with history & rushdie’s petit bourgeois provocation will not make him any the more memorable – there can be no comparison with this gilded grandée & the writers & artists who fell under the fascists boots
we know each other in a certain sense ralphiboy – so you know that a fatwa from any theologue or ideologue is not acceptable but at the same time i will not reïify a medicore talent such as he – i have always found his melting of fiction & history, sophomoric

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 4 2008 20:06 utc | 40

monthly review: The Danish Disease

In trying to comprehend the virus of Islamophobia now infecting Europe, the small country of Denmark offers powerful insights. Shakespeare’s phrase that “something is rotten in the state of Denmark” seems appropriate to describe the transformation taking place in this former bastion of tolerance and conviviality.
In the course of one generation, beginning in the 1980s, a process has altered the ideal picture that many informed people throughout the world had of Danish society. The transition has been dramatic and the end point of the process difficult to fathom. Even politically aware Danes are somewhat at a loss to explain what exactly has been happening to the Danish political culture.
…

long, interesting analysis

Posted by: b real | Jun 11 2008 18:52 utc | 42

Copeland, riiigght…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 11 2008 20:19 utc | 44

The “riots” did not start weeks after, they started months after. Actually, they started pretty much at the same time as the re-publishings. And the re-publishings started after economic pressure had succeeded. Yes, there where people intentionally inciting a conflict. Those can be parted into two troups: Right-wing newspapers pushing the narrative of the evil muslems, and muslem fundie groups / governments pushing the narrative of the evil christians.
By the way, lets look at the so called riots. Most of them were rather peaceful demonstrations where the only ones killed where protesters when police or US troops was “dispersing” the demonstration. What was often called violence was the destruction of empty danish embassies and burning of danish flags. In effect, symbols of the danish state.
I still maintain that the really interesting aspect of it was the muslem world using an economic weapon successfully.
(The main exception to peaceful demonstrations was northern Nigeria, where violence against christian minorities was widespread resulting in over 100 deaths. I would say it had more to do with the complex conflicts of Nigeria.)

Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Jun 11 2008 23:51 utc | 46

someone poking fun at a sacred cow in no way legitimizes a violent response, not now, not ever and is far, far from yelling fire
if you start posting cartoons depicting my mother being fucked in the ass by Dick Cheney, I can bomb the German Embassy (if I knew where it was)and rightly so?
I respect their right to hold their own beliefs, but I do not have to respect the belief itself and in fact, have every right to think and say it is silly because that is what the facts show.
If I want to draw and publish a volume of funny pictures of Mo depicting the hypocrisy of that particular superstition, that is my right as their religious rules do not extend beyond their faithful to encompass anything else and most certainly not anyone else’s right to self expression.
They don’t have to look at them.
Joke them if they can’t take a fuck.
Their god must be pretty weak not to handle a few cartoons and obviously too busy watching Euro08 to smite the authors herself.
I’m so happy I was raised by godless socialists that taught
sticks and stones
may break my bones
but names will never hurt me
Oh and that violence is never a legitimate response, unless of course, you are being physically attacked

Posted by: jcairo | Jun 13 2008 11:28 utc | 48