“But speech is sacred in this country, even speech that can be weaponized. And there is a price to be paid.”
Mr. Macdonald, it is more than free speech. It is an extreme hate propaganda and hate crime. Ask the family and the loved ones of the Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other embassy members who lost their lives because of this film. Those who killed these innocent folks and those who produced this hateful propaganda film both are guilty and both are criminals.
He also defends Romney's position on this tragedy.
"Romney, facing mounting blowback for politicizing the crisis, stuck to his line Wednesday. The anti-Muslim video, he said, is speech, and free speech is a constitutionally protected American value, and under no circumstances should the American government ever apologize for it.
You can debate that position all you like, but Romney is correct about the status of Innocence of Muslims as protected speech."
UPDATE: Here is the picture of Nakoula Basseley Nakoula ,
the moviemaker, with the authorities.
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I can't believe LeDaro. It is amazing how quickly Freedom of Speech is dropped at the threat of violence. But that is the essence of so much of the Muslim religion. Threats of violence over attire, threats of violence over lifestyle, threats of violence over cartoons, threats of violence over changing religions, the list goes on but for LeDaro the fault is this freedom to speak!!!
ReplyDeleteMan who made this movie is a convicted criminal. He is convicted of many crimes including financial fraud. Now his actions resulted in loss of lives.
ReplyDeleteMy first and foremost concern is the loss of lives of innocent people. I don't condone killing and violence no matter who commits it.
When international geo-political situation is so delicate you want to avoid inflammatory tactics. As a matter of fact Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, said something similar. She strongly condemned the movie and their producers and called them and the movie despicable. I am saying nothing more.
So your position is that if someone can be hurt, democracies should ban the freedoms that made them democracies. It would appear that such "freedoms" such as freedom of speech are a very little importance. One would think that the focus should be on a religion that denies such freedoms and forcibly constrains with threats of violence their own adherents and "infidels" which are all others, even other Muslims from a different sect.
ReplyDeleteYou're totally misguided. It is a small number of people who committed the crime. Lot of Libyans demonstrated against them but you blame all Muslims.
ReplyDeleteLibyans government has so far arrested 4 suspects.
I can agree that this film is extreme hate propaganda. I don't know if producing it is a hate crime as I would need to know what the crime was in producing this crappy film.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that this film is responsible for the deaths of the US ambassador and the other diplomats. Those who actually killed them should be held responsible for their deaths.
SD, you write:
ReplyDelete“I can agree that this film is extreme hate propaganda.”
That is a very reasonable statement. Unfortunately it has led to deadly results in whole of the Middle East and elsewhere. So far one ambassador and three diplomats have been killed and at least 6-10 demonstrators killed. This movie provided momentum to killers who attacked embassy in Libya. When extreme hate propaganda leads to this kind of violence then it does have criminal intent and hence crime. The film-maker has been taken into custody by FBI and is being investigated.
This man knew what he was up to. Some 50+ actors and actresses were involved and they all were told that the movie was about "Master George". Voices were dubbed later on. Some of these actors and actresses appeared on CNN and said that they were totally deceived and they did not have a clue about the intention of this man. They said if they knew they would have never participated in this hate propaganda. Moreover movie-maker lived in Egypt before coming to America and knew what the reaction would be.
Another example of spreading hatred was soon after Obama was elected President. It infuriated some White supremacist. A spree of killing of minorities followed. Last month a Sikh temple, in Colorado, was targeted and six worshipers were murdered including woman and children. Many Democratic leaders spoke out and said that hate propagandists had criminal intentions to spread hatred which resulted in so many killings. So SD that is how hate propaganda becomes crime itself.
As far as Neil MacDonald is concerned he is a bit of xenophobic. I watched his reports from the Whitehouse and quite often he seems to blame Obama for problems in U.S. and justifies the actions of Republicans. I watched his reports from Lebanon and it was obvious that he was a bit of Islamophobia too. I think this man is indefensible. Only people like Oldekanuck defend him – maybe it is MacDonald himself.
Have you seen this film/video? It is so poorly done that is far worse than the vast majority of U Tube videos and the sound is so poor that I could not understand most of it. It is a poor satire or spoof at the Muslim religion. We see the same aimed at Moses, Jesus, Buddha, God, every day. This would normally have gotten zero circulation. Muslim extremists took this and gave it an Arabic translation and then stirred trouble.
ReplyDeleteWhat amazes me is that you condemn doing a spoof on this religion, which is one of our fundamental freedoms. Is Salman Rushdie also to blame for the killings for taking the courageous step of challenging some aspects of Islam. Violence you see is used to enforce submission to a brand of religion that feels women do not need to be educated, must be fully covered and totally submissive. Can Westerners like myself not question a religion that relies on intimidation and violence. Indeed today, filmmakers, actors and distributors are afraid to be part of any film that might be interpreted as knocking Islam or Mohammad. You could not purchase Rushdie's Satanic Verses in any bookstore, newspapers were afraid to show the Danish cartoons and that is how this intimidating religion works. And you support this and blame some rather pathetic filmmaker for the killings by these Islamic rioters. It strikes me that you should be asking, what is wrong with a religion, when any criticism of it, results in rioting and killing? But this is why democracy and Islam do not usually co-exist. Hopefully Turkey may prove to be the exception.
ReplyDelete"Muslim extremists took this and gave it an Arabic translation and then stirred trouble."
Here I agree with you about the extremists. Don't blame the whole Muslim world.
I never defend extremists no matter what religion or region of the world they belong to.
Problem lies with the extremists. It is true of any religion. Remember the killings of 6 innocent Sikh worshipers in Colorado – women and children. There are extremists in every religion. If you will defend this moron like Nakoula Basseley Nakoula then you add fuel to the already burning fire.
Even Obama is very careful. There was a top headline on NBC website:
"Obama says US has 'profound respect' for people of all faiths as protests spread" By distancing itself from morons like Nakoula Basseley Nakoula U.S administration is trying to minimize the damage. Now that is the major issue you don’t seem to understand.
Oldekanuck,
ReplyDeleteHere is a good example of tolerance of free speech by Republicans.
“Hecklers dragged from Ryan speech: ‘Corporations are not people!’”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/09/14/hecklers-dragged-from-ryan-speech-corporations-are-not-people/
And here you miss the point. Not all Muslims are extremists but whole societies of Muslims are intimidated by extremists and it then becomes impossible to separate one from another. Indeed, western society has also become intimidated, which shows how effective such violence and threats of violence can be. As a result Muslim governments will say one thing to Washington to ensure continued aid from the West but act in quite another manner, fearful of their own people. We quite correctly hold accountable the killer at the Sikh temple, not some journal he may or may not have read. The embassy rioters, did their killings after attending prayers at the mosque not individual nut cases. Obama, who I rather like for many issues, has been a complete failure in his efforts to seek rapprochement with Muslim countries. These countries do not believe in democracy, despite Arab spring and certainly do not believe in freedom of speech and choice. It is a central tenet of Islam that the Quran is perfect, so criticism of the Quran is considered criticism of Islam. All the more reason that we have to defend freedom of speech and choice in western countries. You use the terms "Islamophobia" and "anti-Muslim bigotry", terms often used in response to legitimate criticism of fundamentalist Islam and problems within Muslim culture. I do not know Neil Macdonald but he is quite right to defend the basic freedom to spoof or criticize any religion. I will be making no further comments.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments anyway.
ReplyDeleteDoes the violence matter when Bush invaded Iraq on false pretences? Over one million innocent Iraqi civilians died in that atrocity to spread "democracy"? Some called it genocide. Bush was on a crusade. I suppose the hypocrisy is the main dogma of the right-wingers.
Iraq war is part of the reason that there is so much unrest in the Middle East.