Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Paris doesn’t need your hashtag ‘heroics’
NY POST ^ | November 16, 2015 | 8:00pm | By Rich Lowry

Posted on 11/17/2015 6:17:33 AM PST by Red Badger

The instant online symbol of global support for Paris after last week’s attacks was a roughly rendered peace symbol with an Eiffel Tower in the middle of it.

The French designer Jean Jullien sketched it as soon as he heard the news of the atrocity. He called it “Peace for Paris,” and it immediately became a sensation on social media.

Its success is a sign of the times.

We have become experts at treacly online mourning. We take grotesque atrocities and launder them into trite symbols and slogans that are usually self-congratulatory and, of course, wholly ineffectual.

The 19th-century author William Dean Howells once said, “Yes, what the American public wants is a tragedy with a happy ending.”

On social media, the happy ending is the widely shared and tweeted image or hashtag.

After the slaughter at the offices of the satirical French magazine Charlie Hedbo earlier this year, it was “Je suis Charlie,” or “I am Charlie.”

It was a well-intentioned expression of solidarity, so long as you overlooked the absurd presumption of it.

You are Charlie? Oh, OK. Then draw a sketch of Muhammad and post it online. Better yet, do it over and over again, until you get constant threats and your office is firebombed, just as a warm-up.

No, you aren’t Charlie. (For that matter, Charlie isn’t even Charlie anymore — it’s given up on mocking Islam for understandable safety reasons.)

Last year, when the Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram kidnapped 200 schoolgirls, Twitter exploded with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. First lady Michelle Obama held up a sign with the phrase on it. If Boko Haram was shamed by its Twitter feed, it showed no signs of it. The only girls who were brought back escaped on their own. ...

(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: feelgood; france; hashtag; wot
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-58 last
To: Red Badger

Meaningless, ephemeral symbolism. What value is a flag or any other symbol if no one rallies to it? And what good is a rally without some subsequent action?

Talk is cheap. Symbols are a dime to the dozen. But islime won’t be defeated by gestures, rhetoric, or symbols. They’ll be defeated when we blow their stinking heads off and send their tattered souls to hell.


41 posted on 11/17/2015 7:13:35 AM PST by IronJack
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: bluejean
Infidels await the next shocking, horrible "tragedy."

You are seriously underestimating the infidels. As we write, creative types are at their drawing boards dreaming up new empty symbols and meaningless slogans. They will be prepared for the next time.

42 posted on 11/17/2015 7:18:55 AM PST by ProtectOurFreedom (For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not, no explanation is possible)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 37 | View Replies]

To: St_Thomas_Aquinas
The truth about Islam is hard to face, so a lot of people react with denial, rationalization (the moral eqivalency in your example) or attack the messenger.

I agree, but as I noted, these posters have exceedingly high posting numbers, like they are the paid ones we hear about and see here from time to time.

43 posted on 11/17/2015 7:21:09 AM PST by Las Vegas Ron ("Medicine is the keystone in the arch of Socialism" Vladimir Lenin)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 39 | View Replies]

To: N. Theknow

I saw that last night at the end of Bret Baer’s news hour. Holy cow! What a disgrace of the highest order! Like that’s supposed to make everybody feel oh so much better! Gag me with a spoon! Disgusting!


44 posted on 11/17/2015 7:22:15 AM PST by nfldgirl
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger
These idiotic gestures make liberal elites feel good about themselves and their great ‘compassion’...

Their role model in this silliness is the overindulged 10 year old girl... who gets attention and luv for her itty bitty little tears.

45 posted on 11/17/2015 7:24:46 AM PST by GOPJ (NOT ONE THIN DIME TO INFLATE 'INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY' IF DING DONGS IN DC BRING IN 100,000 SYRIANS)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: maggief

46 posted on 11/17/2015 7:30:01 AM PST by joethedrummer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: GOPJ

ala Madonna. Saw clip of her yesterday, having decided that her “show must go on” ... for the good of the people, of course! Gag me!


47 posted on 11/17/2015 7:30:18 AM PST by nfldgirl
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 45 | View Replies]

To: maggief

All of “our girls” are back, right? /s

Unfortunately, liberals think that if they feel sad, that should solve the problem. Mental/emotional disorder.


48 posted on 11/17/2015 7:30:55 AM PST by DennisR (Look around - God gives countless, indisputable clues that He does, indeed, exist.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

Or #BringBackOurGuns .

I like #PistolsForParis

But would they use them to defend Liberte? Seems like the fight has been bred out of them, having seen a mourning herd fleeing the sound of a few firecrackers.


49 posted on 11/17/2015 8:17:12 AM PST by Moira Davidson
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: TomGuy

Like piles of rotting dead flowers and rain soaked teddy bears at a site of a tragedy, they have no effect except to make the scene more tragic than it already is....................


50 posted on 11/17/2015 8:55:56 AM PST by Red Badger (READ MY LIPS: NO MORE BUSHES!...............)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 40 | View Replies]

To: DennisR
All of “our girls” are back, right? /s Unfortunately, liberals think that if they feel sad, that should solve the problem. Mental/emotional disorder.

Witness: #BlackLivesMatter..................

51 posted on 11/17/2015 8:56:53 AM PST by Red Badger (READ MY LIPS: NO MORE BUSHES!...............)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 48 | View Replies]

To: camle

The Soviet Union defined ‘peace’ as ‘Absence of dissent to communism”
The muslims define it the same way............


52 posted on 11/17/2015 9:00:03 AM PST by Red Badger (READ MY LIPS: NO MORE BUSHES!...............)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 38 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

the communists and the muslims are the aggressors - peace will always be only the absence of resistance to their agenda


53 posted on 11/17/2015 9:20:42 AM PST by camle (keep an open mind and someone will fill it full of something for you)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 52 | View Replies]

To: camle

IOW, Peace is the absence of WAR.......................


54 posted on 11/17/2015 9:48:41 AM PST by Red Badger (READ MY LIPS: NO MORE BUSHES!...............)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 53 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

IOW if you want peace,. don’t stand up for yourself, become the slave of the other guy


55 posted on 11/17/2015 10:12:07 AM PST by camle (keep an open mind and someone will fill it full of something for you)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 54 | View Replies]

To: camle

.....or destroy him completely so you have ‘peace’ on your terms.....................


56 posted on 11/17/2015 10:16:41 AM PST by Red Badger (READ MY LIPS: NO MORE BUSHES!...............)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 55 | View Replies]

To: pgkdan

I wouldn’t give that little punk Lowry any props, he lifted the entire meme from Mark Steyn who spoke these exact words back in September. I don’t have the link handy, but you can find the youtube of his speech.


57 posted on 11/17/2015 10:37:23 AM PST by AllAmericanGirl44
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

BTTT.

Still waiting for the French to do something different than they were doing when they woke up last Friday morning before the attacks.


58 posted on 11/18/2015 8:57:40 AM PST by Dr. Pritchett
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-58 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson