Chomsky video on Charlie Hedbo and "defense of free speech"

[politicus]

this is from 2 years ago, after the mag was in the news for publishing cartoon depictions of Mohammed and other Muslims:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x-FD6leCKU&feature=youtu.be

it's hard to hear him... his point is that Hedbo is being congratulated as a beacon for "free speech" as they published caricatures of Muslims, but if they had published a caricature of a Jew they'd be prosecuted under the anti-anti-Semitism laws. rendering French "self-congratulation" over their defense of "free speech" "fakery" and "fraud".

No offence, but why should that be interesting ?

[politicus]

Comparing all Jews to Mohammed is a ridiculous comparison. If They drew Moses, no one would care. If they drew Moses getting sexed in the butt, people would complain but nowhere near what Muslims do.

Hedbo drew caricatures.   caricatures are by definition drawn to exaggerate (usually) physical characteristics.  

publishing a drawing of a Jew w/ a scraggly beard, hook nose, eagerly clutching bag of gold would likely be prosecuted as the equivalent of hate speech in France and much of Europe.

Caricatures are not evaluated in the way you think in Europe (there may be a couple of exceptions, but France is not one of them). There are much wider limits for what you can draw than write.

[politicus]

I do have to mention that a lot of the caricatures drawn by Charlie Hebdo are pretty damn disturbing. It was quite hard to view, actually. I thought stuff like that ended in the 1950's, but I was mistaken. I am all for free speech, but the guy was a dick.

It is a magazine, not the name of a guy.

[politicus]

I do have to mention that a lot of the caricatures drawn by Charlie Hebdo are pretty damn disturbing. It was quite hard to view, actually. I thought stuff like that ended in the 1950's, but I was mistaken. I am all for free speech, but the guy was a dick.

It is a magazine, not the name of a guy.

Huh, for whatever reason I thought the editor's name was Charlie and I assumed that was his last name. I am aware the name of the magazine is Charlie Hebdo.

In any case, I obviously don't get their art because they call themselves anti-racist, but print extremely racist caricatures.

It just means Weekly Charlie. I think Americans have a tendency to evaluate whether something is racist by formal criteria, like certain words and stereotypes are racist by definition, whereas Europeans judge by the intention and context.

[politicus]

In most European countries going after individuals who have the means to sue you unsurprisingly is a lot riskier than dealing in dubious ethnical or religious stereotypes.

EDIT: Case in point, the following cover was banned by a court  of law:

http://miniurl.be/r-pr3

That link refers to a whole page with pics. Which one?

[politicus]

Knowing that Chomsky is highly intelligent actually makes it harder to tolerate his political hackery and narrowmindedness.

[politicus]

One of the problems with Chomsky as a public figure is that he is an "opinion machine" as we say in Danish. He is a guy that feels the need to produce opinions on an very wide range of subjects - most of which he knows little or nothing about - and he is doing it by inserting a limit range of standard raw materials (like anti-Americansm and Israel hate) in one end and spewing a standardized ouput out in the other. It often produces strikingly crude, foolish and inadequate answers to highly complex and complicated issues.