Tuesday, September 30, 2008
'We can't let thugs censor Britain'
The heading sums up the UK Daily Mail comments on the firebombing of the publisher of a new novel about the life of Mohammed.
IMO: I do not wish to read such a novel, described by the publisher as 'soft pornography'. Obviously by today's standards some might describe the prophet Mohammed as some kind of earlier days Gary Glitter. Indeed it has even been suggested that all the litter bins in London should be renamed in case they are defaced with the letter "G", leading to an avoidable cost as has actually happened at public expense to "Turl Street" in Oxford for 100 years. For all I know we can see further such defacement in Turl Street on this very day. However I find even more objectionable the following view by the UK Times, which according to the Times is the 'liberal' view : "In the past, free speech was viewed as an inherent good, to be restricted only in exceptional cases. Today it is seen as an inherent problem, because it can offend as well as harm, and so has to be restrained by custom, especially in diverse societies. These days not only do publishers drop books deemed offensive, but theatres mutilate plays, opera houses cut productions, art galleries censor shows, all in the name of cultural sensitivity". Fortunately they then go on and say: "Shabir Akhtar was right: what Salman Rushdie or Sherry Jones says is everybody's business. It is everybody's business to ensure that no one is deprived of their right to say what they wish, even if it is deemed by some to be offensive. In a plural society it is both inevitable and important that people offend others."
IMO: If only the newpapers could be this fair about Muslim related Barack Obama's UK press censorship. I suppose I might vote for a next Democrat president but I do not approve of the methods, apparently used by the Democrats at least in the UK, to stifle comments about his funding by Nadhmi Auchi, referred to several times in this blog, which are presumably just the tip of the iceberg for US suppression of the truth, probably in the criminal way we have become used to from Greenspan, Palin and McCain. Well we know some of the consequences. The fat cats profit by part of the $700 billion US politicians seem to want to pay out and the poor just pay and pay. It is becoming futile to refer to the US as a democracy, perhaps far better if the UK had held it from the US rednecks at the time of the war of independence. USA might have been more fortunate today.
The heading sums up the UK Daily Mail comments on the firebombing of the publisher of a new novel about the life of Mohammed.
IMO: I do not wish to read such a novel, described by the publisher as 'soft pornography'. Obviously by today's standards some might describe the prophet Mohammed as some kind of earlier days Gary Glitter. Indeed it has even been suggested that all the litter bins in London should be renamed in case they are defaced with the letter "G", leading to an avoidable cost as has actually happened at public expense to "Turl Street" in Oxford for 100 years. For all I know we can see further such defacement in Turl Street on this very day. However I find even more objectionable the following view by the UK Times, which according to the Times is the 'liberal' view : "In the past, free speech was viewed as an inherent good, to be restricted only in exceptional cases. Today it is seen as an inherent problem, because it can offend as well as harm, and so has to be restrained by custom, especially in diverse societies. These days not only do publishers drop books deemed offensive, but theatres mutilate plays, opera houses cut productions, art galleries censor shows, all in the name of cultural sensitivity". Fortunately they then go on and say: "Shabir Akhtar was right: what Salman Rushdie or Sherry Jones says is everybody's business. It is everybody's business to ensure that no one is deprived of their right to say what they wish, even if it is deemed by some to be offensive. In a plural society it is both inevitable and important that people offend others."
IMO: If only the newpapers could be this fair about Muslim related Barack Obama's UK press censorship. I suppose I might vote for a next Democrat president but I do not approve of the methods, apparently used by the Democrats at least in the UK, to stifle comments about his funding by Nadhmi Auchi, referred to several times in this blog, which are presumably just the tip of the iceberg for US suppression of the truth, probably in the criminal way we have become used to from Greenspan, Palin and McCain. Well we know some of the consequences. The fat cats profit by part of the $700 billion US politicians seem to want to pay out and the poor just pay and pay. It is becoming futile to refer to the US as a democracy, perhaps far better if the UK had held it from the US rednecks at the time of the war of independence. USA might have been more fortunate today.
# posted by uv : 4:29 AM
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
