Posted on 02/07/2006 10:21:07 AM PST by Millee
Well that didn't take long.
While Muslim religious extremists are rioting in the streets of Beirut, Gaza City and Kabul, Scandinavian embassies are being torched and Jordanians are deprived of their Danish feta over cartoons that were never actually published in any legitimate newspaper, the right-wing blogosphere has been staging its own "blogburst": the act of reproducing the offending depictions of the Prophet Muhammad.
It's a "simultaneous, co-ordinated posting by a large group of webmasters and bloggers on a given topic," says Israpundit who, along with Michelle Malkin, who is like Ann Coulter but not as funny and not so skinny, are leading the cartoon crusade.
Follow their politics and you'll understand why they're on this particular blogwagon: they hate Muslims. In fact, if they were to write about Jews the way they sometimes do about followers of the Prophet Muhammad, they'd be denounced as anti-Semites or Holocaust deniers.
So it isn't surprising that some of their more eager acolytes have gone far beyond denigrating the fanatical rioting, which has, at deadline, claimed six lives and left hundreds of wounded.
No doubt, the Kartoon Karnage Kapers are inexcusable, and threaten to escalate into even more senseless death and destruction. That's why the absolute glee with which this has been received by the online cons strikes me as so puzzling. Do they enjoy the blood sport of watching out-of-control Muslim mobs in the streets?
It's also bemusing to see how they have suddenly declared solidarity with the heretofore "appeasers" of Europe for republishing the cartoons.
(Interestingly, one explanation for the sudden resurgence of these offending drawings after their initial appearance last September was that a so-called Christian magazine in Norway republished them. Why it chose to do so is unclear.)
In issuing their fatwa on the Muslims who are calling for the heads of people whose mightiest weapon is the pen, the North American pyjamahadeen have gone too far, using the incident as another reason to bash Muslims and sow further divisions between what are already "clashing civilizations."
It's like they have been waiting for just this opportunity.
Case in point: Toronto-based blogger Kathy Shaidle (a.k.a. Relapsed Catholic) whose religious politics would have easily qualified her as chief judge and bonfire builder during the Spanish Inquisition. The woman never misses an opportunity to insult Islam. And so, it was hardly surprising that, not only did she publish the offending cartoons, she giddily took up the torch and ran with it.
On Sunday she posted a Tom McMahon cartoon claiming that when it comes to skyscrapers Muslims "destroy" them, and when it comes to cartoons Muslims "riot about them" — as if this applies to every single Muslim every single minute.
Why she doesn't call her blog the Daily Auto Da Fe — for the public burning of heretics in Spain — is beyond me.
The cartoon uproar has merely added fuel to her fire, one she and others of her ilk had been hoping for ever since the calls for Muslim blood over the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 calmed down.
In terms of the North American corporate media, only a few dailies, including Montreal's Le Devoir, have republished the cartoons, which are not particularly good, not very funny and not necessary to understanding the story. As many editors have explained, merely describing the cartoons is sufficient for making the point.
I hope that's the real reason for their reticence. I would hate to think that newspapers are backing away to avoid angry protests, to prevent ad boycotts, out of political correctness or a sense that some communities should get special treatment or, most of all, because they fear violent reprisals.
If you're in the news business, sometimes you just have to take major risks in order to defend freedom of the press.
To be honest, I think that, here in Canada anyway, our Muslim communities are too diverse and too embedded in our culture and society for any kind of concerted reaction.
As for violence, I would guess that Muslims are more victims than perpetrators.
After all, when Irshad Manji published her controversial The Trouble With Islam: A Wake Up Call for Honesty and Change in 2003, no harm ever came to her despite so many — again right-wing — bloggers' musings that it would. That said, their fears helped Manji move a lot of books around the world.
Frankly, we're a lot more tolerant society than our own intolerant right would like to believe.
Which makes me wonder who the real hate-mongers are: those who are cut off from modern communications technology and are more easily subject to the machinations of ignorant clerics — or those that should know better and who claim to be morally superior.
Hahaha. I love it. Islam deserves a little ridicule at a time like this.
Just like France, in fact.
More terrorism appeasing, anti-right wing crap from the Toronto (Red)Star.
I have to look this Kathy Shaidle up now and give her site a few hits.
Just remember that in the last Canadian election Toronto was for keeping the Liberals in power by an overwhelming number.
From the If You Think Jesse Jackson Is a Jiver, It Must Be Because You're a Racist line of reasoning.
"As for violence, I would guess that Muslims are more victims than perpetrators."
Maybe we should ask all the Christians in Bethlehem about that.
My goodness. And there are people who claim I am mean spitited.
In other words, a major metro area's liberally-slanted paper.
The author is crazy. Evidently bombings and beheadings, not to mention flying planes into tall buildings don't count as violence.
We really need to look into this - we might find that the right-wing bloggers caused the whole 9-11 thing and put out the misinformation on WMD. This could be a series hugh story.
Gee, a leftie trying to shame people into silence? Imagine that. At least she isn't burning embassies, though.
(I'll let y'all guess whether I misspelled that on purpose.)
Unless you have photos of panties on the heads of POWs.
I guess this liberal clinton butt kissing hack should ask Salman Rushdie(sp?) about insulting the ROP.
Wow! Full blown case of dhimmitude there.
Case in point: Toronto-based blogger Kathy Shaidle (a.k.a. Relapsed Catholic) whose religious politics would have easily qualified her as chief judge and bonfire builder during the Spanish Inquisition.
Case in point: More people were murdered by muslims in the name of islam in 2005 than those murdered during the entire Spanish Inquisition.
Ah yes....the VRWBC. Who really thinks that bloggers "co-ordinate[d]" the blog-posting of this?
Mayhaps they did it all INDEPENDENTLY and at the same time.....ummmm...because it just happens to be "news" and the People may just wanna know what the hubbub is?
Nope....it's the Vast RightWing Bloggers Consortium.
Has to be....
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