[shakespear1]

The Danes are great

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The Dilemma of Armed Struggle in the Global South

by Garry Leech

A Danish fashion company called Fighters and Lovers is selling T-shirts promoting two armed groups in the global South: the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Not only is the company producing clothing emblazoned with the acronyms of these two armed organizations, they are donating $6.00 from the sale of each shirt to the groups. Proceeds from the FARC-labeled shirts will be used to fund rebel radio stations while the PFLP-labeled shirts will support a graphics studio in the Palestinian territories. Both of these groups are on the U.S. and European Union lists of terrorist organizations. Consequently, both the company and its customers have been accused of supporting terrorist groups. The company’s actions, however, raise broader questions about who decides who is a terrorist and the methods people should employ in their struggle to achieve social justice.

Article

[Revi]

The Danes are easy to pick on with their liberal democracy. The whole situation has spun out of control. I agree with the Danes. What difference does it make if a small newspaper in Jutland prints something? That's like us saying that a small newspaper in Pakistan has no right to write anything anti-western. It's about freedom of the press. We shouldn't let their theocracy tell us what to do.

[jaws]

This whole thing is a set up. The cartoons were published in September. All of a sudden people start rioting? Someone stands to gain from this.

[Luckystars]

Of course it is a set up, those people in the Middle East don't read some little obscure Danish newspaper. It was distributed and the flames were fanned. Protests don't just happen, they are planned. This is the excuse USA/Israel needs to do the dirty deed. And I think the president in Iran maybe a CIA, he could slip away with millions in the next few months. He seems to be their best excuse. Its all fake, the news is fake, the government is fake, the democracy is fake.

[merecat]

This whole thing is a set up. The cartoons were published in September. All of a sudden people start rioting? Someone stands to gain from this.

I agree, this whole thing reeks of propoganda. Propoganda so diabolical that it is unbelievable.

The telivision is the PERFECT propoganda tool for guiding people and recalibrating their moral compasses.

Maybe WW3 has already begun!

[LadyRuby]

I think some Muslims were offended by the cartoons, but more than that they are looking for something to unite them in their indignity against "the west."

[Keith_McClary]

That is not true the US has invaded Iraq so that they can now have free elections so democracy can spread and blossom in the region.

The international community also worked very hard to establish free elections in West Bank and Gaza.

Too bad they didn't have free elections in 1947 before the Zionists ethnically cleansed the natives.

[Keith_McClary]

How about if we post cartoons of Jesus with a bottle of wine and a couple of whores on his arms? I think there is some Biblical basis for this.

Jesus would be a dark skinned Semetic with a hooked nose and the whores would be white and black (to offend the Southern Baptist segregationist fundies).

[GoIllini]

How about if we post cartoons of Jesus with a bottle of wine and a couple of whores on his arms? I think there is some Biblical basis for this.

Jesus would be a dark skinned Semetic with a hooked nose and the whores would be white and black (to offend the Southern Baptist segregationist fundies).

Oh, it's true- Jesus associated with prostitutes and tax collectors, and the Pharisees got mad at him for it. And Jesus probably looked much like a Palestinian or someone from the Middle East would have looked like.

And Pat Robertson and many members of the SBC would be angry (Being a Methodist, I'd like to think I can laugh at myself). But mark my words, we probably wouldn't be calling for assassinations or boycotts, and we definately wouldn't be rioting.

The difference is that most of us Westerners can actually take a joke. And those of us who can't hardly resort to rioting.

Oh, and by the way, at least Christianity keeps even its fundy members mostly in line. Unlike Islam's losers, Christianity's losers aren't actually brainwashing people in terrorist training camps and training them to attack innocent women and children.

Too bad they didn't have free elections in 1947 before the Zionists ethnically cleansed the natives.

I respect your right to free speech, but If I'm hearing what I suspect I'm hearing, I find it hateful and despicable that you would compare what the Israelis did to the ethnic cleansing that happened in Europe as a result of Nazi hatred. Unlike the Nazis, even if we look at it from your perspective, the Jews let the Palestinians mostly survive. They simply ran them off their land. Israel might have been a mistake, but that doesn't justify a second round of holocaust against the Jews.

[thor]

This whole thing is a set up. The cartoons were published in September. All of a sudden people start rioting? Someone stands to gain from this.

Plus that additional cartoons were added to the collection that did NOT appear in the newspaper. So the problems surrounding the original cartoons and "free speech" is ludicrous and grotesque at best. The mass hysteria is purely political.

But then again, it is so easy to play the "rascism" and "discrimination" cards, and that "ethnic Danes" are the problem, while most bloody anti-Semitic and anti-Western imagery is being pubished on a daily basis in the Arab press. Fair enough, that is their right, but we do no issue death treats, boycot products, and burn embassies and mosques because of those offending cartoons. And we certainly do not ask to limit the "freedom of speech" of Arabs, now do we?

[shakespear1]

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The difference is that most of us Westerners can actually take a joke. And those of us who can't hardly resort to rioting.

Well hold on there. Would you not entertain the possibility the jokes have a way of engraining stereotypes when related to people?

If I am not wrong this is an Indian saying "Don't judge a man until you have walked in his moccasins ". Well I have walked in them while in the US. I emigrated to the US when I was 10 yrs. old. Spoke no English but I was lucky that I was white. Why? Because the fact that I could not speak English caused me to have a hard time with some boys in grade school who had all kinds of ethnic jokes to tell me. Luckily only one was jokes and a bit of violence to make his point more forecefully.

HOWEVER once I spoke perfect English and moved on to High School all these problems disappeared. Why? I was one of the TRIBE. Now I could listen as others were the butt of the joke. Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Negroes etc.

That is the sad part of Ethnic Jokes. In my opinion they are not as innocent as we would like to think !!!!

[Daryl]

Oh, it's true- Jesus associated with prostitutes

Correction, Jesus associated with ex-prostitutes. Part of his purpose was to free the Jews from Jewish Law. Under Jewish Law a prostitute could never be forgiven and reenter Judaism. In Christianity, you can rejoin the Father through Christ. Prostitution is a sin in Christianity, therefore it is wrong to say the Jesus associated with prostitutes. You must forsake and repent sin in order to join Christ.

[Eli]

The absurd nature of all this would be funny if it were not so said. A cartoon that shows Mohammed wearing a bomb illustrating that Mohammed and the faith he created is violent. Then Muslims around the world show how wrong that is with numerous violent acts and threats.

Rowan Atkinson made a good point when he wrote

It is absolutely right and reasonable that religions should be protected from threatening language, behaviour and written material but I support the amendment to retain the right to abuse and insult, because of the essentially irrational nature of religious beliefs. That is not to dismiss them: indeed, I'm a great believer that the most important and most sustaining things in life are essentially irrational. Love, beauty, art, friendship, music, spirituality of whatever form, these things make no rational sense yet they are more important than any qualities that are rationally measurable.

There is a long tradition of making fun of religion in Western civilization. If, just by the printing of rather tame images of Mohammed that inspires Muslims to want to kill us , well they need to know right now that killing us goes against some of our deepest and most cherished beliefs.

[jaws]

It was those nefarious mullahs and dictators all along!

Syria and Iran fuel the riots, Rice says
By Brian Knowlton International Herald Tribune

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2006
WASHINGTON Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday accused Iran and Syria of deliberately seizing on the dispute over cartoons lampooning the Prophet Muhammad to incite violence, and a U.S. military official said several countries were trying to determine whether Islamic radicals were orchestrating anti-Western demonstrations.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/02/08/news/policy.php

[GoIllini]

Oh, it's true- Jesus associated with prostitutes

Correction, Jesus associated with ex-prostitutes. Part of his purpose was to free the Jews from Jewish Law. Under Jewish Law a prostitute could never be forgiven and reenter Judaism. In Christianity, you can rejoin the Father through Christ. Prostitution is a sin in Christianity, therefore it is wrong to say the Jesus associated with prostitutes. You must forsake and repent sin in order to join Christ.

Well, if we're getting into verbal syntax, he did call them "prostitutes":

I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.

Only Jesus knew whether they were practicing or not (I believe that they probably weren't- though that wouldn't have necessarily stopped him from hanging out with whoever wanted to be around him), so what I think matters is what the rest of the world saw about them. The Pharisees saw them as sinners; Jesus saw them as the people who knew they were "blind" and needed a savior (John 9).

[Daryl]

I appreciate your reply Gollini, as I do your nuclear energy posts. I think you make a great point that it is very important how the prostitutes were seen. In the Judea of the time, it wouldn't have mattered whether they were practicing their profession anymore or not. They would have been equally condemned. The new covenant that Jesus brought was meant to bring redemption to all sinners and the Gentiles as well.

It is enlightening also to quote all of Mathew 21:32

"Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him."

This clearly indicates that the prostitutes and tax collectors had seen the path of righteousness and repented their sins. Therefore, the prostitutes he refers to (or hung out with, as you say) are people we would call ex-prostitutes. This is an important point because these verses are often (partially) referred to by liberal Christians to argue that Jesus is tolerant of sinners. Jesus accepts all sinners, but he doesn't accept their sin. Sin is rejected by God.

[rogerhb]

That is not true the US has invaded Iraq so that they can now have free elections so democracy can spread and blossom in the region.

I don't see the problem, you have democracy in the ME and they elect Hamas, you have democracy in the US and you elect a fuckwit.

Sounds like appropriate representation of the masses to me.

[rogerhb]

Well, if we're getting into verbal syntax, he did call them "prostitutes"

I thought he spoke either Aramaic or Hebrew.

[Luckystars]

Maybe Jesus didn't have a problem with sex, maybe just his followers do. You know you have to put women in chains, that is the Patriarchy. They even put him and his Mother in chains..LOL

No wonder we have to many sexual perverts running around this globe, age of Pisces=Sexually Guilty.

[Ludi]

Part of his purpose was to free the Jews from Jewish Law.

Not according to his own words.