I have no words

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I really should have saved some for this. I mean, in the past I've escalated my snark and my flabbergasted outrage when I thought it was necessary, but it turns out that I wasted it all on trifles.

When the person who made her career defending widespread internment of a race of people - and advocating the same for another - invokes Pastor Niemoller about an overreaction to some blasphemous cartoons, well...

...I'm already numb.

There is no doubt that there has been violence committed on "behalf" of "Islam." There is no doubt that the current round of threatened reprisals is, as I said, an overreaction and unacceptable. Violence is always unacceptable.

But when a person in Maryland, a citizen of the most powerful nation in the world, looks at street riots thousands of miles away, riots perpetrated by people who have spent most of the last thousand years feeling - quite often correctly - oppressed by the West, a West who in the past four years has killed thousands of Middle Easterners in retaliation for something which the majority of them didn't even approve of at the time, let alone have a hand in, and that person in Maryland plays the victim card...well.

"Look how violent those people are," this clip is saying. "They shoot guns and they burn flags and they kill people. They are not like us. We don't shoot guns - in the street, anyway - and we don't burn flags and we don't kill people. We are not like them."

We're not? Read this. Then read LGF. Then find me a qualitative difference.

"But Auguste," you say. "LGF is just rhetoric, ugly but just rhetoric nonetheless. There's power behind the Muslims' words. No LGFer ever killed someone like Theo Van Gogh. No LGFer ever flew a plane into a building."

That's true. But just because we convinced our government to do our righteous angry killing for us doesn't mean it's any less linked to the rhetoric.

Call this "moral equivalence" if you want, I don't care. Call this "excusing terrorism" if you want, but you're wrong. Violence begets violence begets violence. Don't be fooled into thinking that the new Leni Riefenstahl over there is really horrified by the Muslim world's made-for-TV reaction, which allows her to peddle this "Arabs are savages" line with video! evidence!

She's not horrified, she's salivating.

Friday Poetry Blogging - Take a lesson from Bignose edition

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The first 'great literature' I read - or, to be precise, devoured, since I'm sure I was forced to sit through something in Junior High - was an old volume of Cyrano de Bergerac I bought at Powell's Books for $3.50, back when you could still find a below-market bargain at Powell's. Stupid internet, stupid bookfinder.com.

I always loved this speech, and I read it again just last night. It seems to carry new weight every time I read it.

From Cyrano de Bergerac - Rostand, transl. Hooker

I carry my adornments on my soul,
I do not dress up like a popinjay;
But inwardly, I keep my daintiness.
I do not bear with me, by any chance,
An insult not yet washed away -- a conscience
Yellow with unpurged bile -- an honor frayed
To rags, a set of scruples badly worn.
I go caparisoned in gems unseen,
Trailing white plumes of freedom, garlanded
With my good name -- no figure of a man,
But a soul clothed in shining armor, hung
With deeds for decorations, twirling -- thus --
A bristling wit, and swinging at my side
Courage, and on the stones of this old town
Making the sharp truth ring, like golden spurs!

Ooooh, Malkin's gonna be maaaad

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Reuters:

Washington on Friday condemned caricatures in European newspapers of the Prophet Mohammad, siding with Muslims who are outraged that the publications put press freedom over respect for religion...

"These cartoons are indeed offensive to the belief of Muslims," State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper said in answer to a question. "We all fully recognize and respect freedom of the press and expression but it must be coupled with press responsibility. Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable."

Update: Yep.

By the way, am I hallucinating, or did this post, now titled "FOLLOWERS OF THE RELIGION OF PEACE", used to be simply titled "RELIGION OF PEACE"? I was struck by the original title, but I didn't think to get a screenshot, since this is from someone who previously titled a post "RELIGION OF THROAT-SLITTING"; I didn't think Malkin shied away from connections to LGF.

Am I crazy, or did others notice this too?

I'll say it, if no one else will

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The majority of the "Muhammed cartoons" are some of the worst, small-college-or-even-high-school, poorly drawn, idiotic, unfunny and unpoignant political cartoons ever produced.

This should not be construed to mean that I approve of the ridiculous overreaction and despicable death threats; it's just to point out that Chris Muir obviously isn't the only sign that the righties love them some second-rate cartooning.

If I were American newspapers, I'd refuse to print them not because of the risk of fatwas but because of their ridiculously low production values.

That said, if the LA Times does decide to print them, more power to them. Speech is protected, even if it sucks. As skippy says in earlier comments,

One wonders how the ever-opportunistic Malkin(s) responded to "Piss Christ" (you know the crucifix in a bottle of urine) or Sinead O'Connor's tearing up a photograph of the Pope.