The Capitol rampage turns the media world upside down
Were the mass 'We are Charlie' demonstrations in France in support of 'We are France,' in the best republican tradition or a shot against Muslim immigrants signifying that 'You are not?' Polymath Emmanuel Todd argues that the demonstrations, like much of Charlie Hebdo's satire, were not so much attacks on toxic religious ideology as broadly anti-Muslim and anti-Arab, indicating that the vaunted French secularism has lost its solidaristic component, 'equality.'
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Announcements - Malcolm X; Spain; Cuba Embargo; Labor and the Police; Black Men Speak; Debra E. Bernhardt Labor Journalism Prize
To combat violence you must look at the concrete inequities and practices that breed it. To protect expression that's endangered you have to engage with the substance of what was said, not deny it. That means attempting dialogue with those who peacefully condemn or disagree, not trying to shame them into silence. Nothing is quick, nothing is easy. I support free speech. I oppose all censors. I abhor the killings. I mourn the dead. I am not Charlie.
Today Portside is publishing two different perspectives on the response to the horrific murders at Charlie Hebdo. The first from India takes on the factual mistakes and subsequent gross distortions that were published in English after the Charlie Hebdo massacre. It shows who were the assassinated cartoonists and what was Charlie Hebdo.
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Announcements- Forums- Ending the Embargo of Cuba; After The Greek Elections; March Delegation to Venezuela
In the wake of the brutal assault upon ... Charlie Hebdo we should be reflecting, not as ... world leaders advise us to, on the attack on free speech, but on .. which spaces and kinds of resistance have been foreclosed to a generation of young working class men and women facing a post 9/11 world of poverty, unemployment and repeated attacks of the West upon predominantly Muslim countries; and ... how the attack ... is being used to serve .. existing imperial narrative.
Is the enemy of my enemy necessarily my friend? Or is this a situation not of righteous heroes and evil enemies, but bad jokes and even worse policies? Murder is murder. The attacks on the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris were murder. We should all grieve the twelve people whose lives were stolen, as well as the four people who were taken hostage and killed at the kosher market. We should also stand against the Islamophobic reaction from Western governments and media.
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Announcements - Cuba Five Book Signing;
New Resource - Greece, Golden Dawn and Fascism
It is bitterly ironic that Muslims are being asked to prove that they believe in the same values from which they were historically excluded. The Republic has always had a darker side, and the civil liberties that are now idealized emerged in a colonial context where they excluded the Republic’s Muslim subjects.
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