Sunday, February 19, 2006
Jeff Jacoby addresses the craven posture of the American media, beginning with an honest admission by the Boston Phoenix.
Jeff Jacoby: When fear cows the media
But the Phoenix isn't publishing the Mohammed drawings, and in a brutally candid editorial it explained why.
''Our primary reason," the editors confessed, is ''fear of retaliation from . . . bloodthirsty Islamists who seek to impose their will on those who do not believe as they do . . . Simply stated, we are being terrorized, and . . . could not in good conscience place the men and women who work at the Phoenix and its related companies in physical jeopardy. As we feel forced, literally, to bend to maniacal pressure, this may be the darkest moment in our 40-year-publishing history."
The vast majority of US media outlets have shied away from reproducing the drawings, but to my knowledge only the Phoenix has been honest enough to admit that it is capitulating to fear...
And the end, the crux of it:
And worse than that: You betray as well the dissidents and reformers within the Islamic world, the Muslim Sakharovs and Sharanskys and Havels who yearn for the free, tolerant, and democratic culture that we in the West take for granted. What they want to see from America is not appeasement and apologies and a dread of giving offense. They want to see us face down the fanatics, be unintimidated by bullies. They want to know that in the global struggle against Islamist extremism, we won't let them down.
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European journalist have been more courageous than American journalist. There is something very wrong with this picture! We are all afraid. We are afraid because we know these threats are real, very real. We know this enemy is very real and determine... Read More
Jeff Jacoby's op-ed in todays Boston Globe hits the nail on the head. The media are afraid to discuss the Danish cartoon matter for fear of reprisal and retribution. If we are afraid to speak for fear of death, then Read More
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Thank goodness for Jacoby.
Two related items to this: 1) There was a story last night on the network evening news about the Italian minister who wore a T-shirt with a Mohammed cartoon on it. The network (forget which one) showed footage of the Italian minister on Italian TV unbuttoning his shirt to reveal the T-shirt. Alas, the network news blurred a circle around the T-shirt. Cowards! Just give us the damned news, not your sanitized version. 2) One of the letters to the editor in today's Sunday Globe was by a self-identified Muslim who said "Imagine a cartoon ...depicting Ariel Sharon in Nazi garb with a Star of David replacing the swastika ordering the execution of a Palestinian girl." As if such a cartoon would result in violent protests from extremist Jews. Can it be that the writer is unaware that such cartoons are practically daily fare in the Middle East?
What I'd like to know is where are all these Muslim Sakharovs, Scharanskys and Havels he talks about. If they're around in any numbers, they must be cowed, too. In the darkest days of the Soviet Union, one heard of the dissidents. Who exactly are the dissidents here?
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But the Phoenix isn't publishing the Mohammed drawings, and in a brutally candid editorial it explained why.
''Our primary reason," the editors confessed, is ''fear of retaliation from . . . bloodthirsty Islamists who seek to impose their will on those who do not believe as they do . . . Simply stated, we are being terrorized, and . . . could not in good conscience place the men and women who work at the Phoenix and its related companies in physical jeopardy. As we feel forced, literally, to bend to maniacal pressure, this may be the darkest moment in our 40-year-publishing history."
The vast majority of US media outlets have shied away from reproducing the drawings, but to my knowledge only the Phoenix has been honest enough to admit that it is capitulating to fear...
And the end, the crux of it:
...Like the Nazis in the 1930s and the Soviet communists in the Cold War, the Islamofascists are emboldened by appeasement and submissiveness. Give the rampagers and book-burners a veto over artistic and editorial decisions, and you end up not with heightened sensitivity and cultural respect, but with more rampages and more books burned. You betray ideals that generations of Americans have died to defend.
And worse than that: You betray as well the dissidents and reformers within the Islamic world, the Muslim Sakharovs and Sharanskys and Havels who yearn for the free, tolerant, and democratic culture that we in the West take for granted. What they want to see from America is not appeasement and apologies and a dread of giving offense. They want to see us face down the fanatics, be unintimidated by bullies. They want to know that in the global struggle against Islamist extremism, we won't let them down.
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Interesting comments and observations. Amazing how bold and unafraid and all for free speech and free press in a free democracy Americans are not:
When it comes to observing the Chimp-in-Chief's diktat barring the publication of any photographs of American war dead and wounded arriving from Iraq.
When it comes to travelling to Cuba as a free citizen with a free will.
More examples of hypocrisy in a free democracy where free speech is supposed to rule: - From SmirkingChimp.com I just read the following:
Leonard Pitts Jr., The Baltimore Sun
"The enemies of freedom will be defeated."
- President Bush, 2005
"We have met the enemy and he is us."
- Pogo, 1971
The following happened in the United States of America on Feb. 9 of this year.
The scene is the Little Falls branch of the Montgomery County Public Library in Bethesda. Business is going on as usual when two men in uniform stride into the main reading room and call for attention. Then they make an announcement: It is forbidden to use the library's computers to view Internet pornography.
As people are absorbing this, one of the men challenges a patron about a Web site he is visiting and asks the man to step outside. At this point, a librarian intervenes and calls the uniformed men aside. A police officer is summoned. The men leave. It turns out they are employees of the county's Department of Homeland Security and were operating way outside their authority.
We are indebted to reporter Cameron W. Barr of The Washington Post for the account of this incident, which, I feel constrained to repeat, did not happen in China, Cuba or North Korea. Rather, it happened a few days ago in this country. Right here in freedom's land.
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The fear of retaliation against any citizen who publishes what the fascist State of The Smirking Chimp does not approve of is real and ongoing.
And you really wonder why "The vast majority of US media outlets have shied away from reproducing the drawings" in relation to the Mohammed cartoons?
Your Great Leader and Weapon of Mass Distortion is simply another form of a terrorist leader using and practicing fear tactics, aided and abbetted by the Christo-fascist wingnuts who spearheaded his election campaigns and approved of the Jewish slaughter of Arabs and the continued occupation of Arab lands.
The Book of Daniel - from NBC - a television show about an Episcopal priest who's a devoted husband and loving father is gone from the airwaves, simply because a bunch of closet cases at the American Family Association couldn't deal with the show's depiction of a man not hating his gay son and talking to a friendly, helpful, tolerant Jesus:was taken off the air as a result of the sustained pressure and threats of products boycott received from advertizers and sponsors of the TV show by thousands of Christo-fascists. Free bleeding speech. Muslims are not alone then.
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And the end, the crux of it:
...Like the Nazis in the 1930s and the Soviet communists in the Cold War, the Christofascists and Jewofascists are emboldened by appeasement and submissiveness. Give the rampagers and book-burners a veto over artistic and editorial decisions, and you end up not with heightened sensitivity and cultural respect, but with more rampages, more books burned and more TV shows being taken off the air and substituted for the 700 Club and PTL (Pass the Loot) type of shows. You betray ideals that generations of Americans and allies have died to defend.