> http://www.cagle.com/news/Muhammad/main.asp

> Pods

> /M

> Martha Bridegam wrote:

> > If you ever spend extended time with a person who cannot
> > walk, or if, God forbid, such a disability ever happens to
> > you yourself, you will understand how foolish religious
> > indignation can seem from the perspective of a person who
> > cannot get to a faucet for a drink of water.

> > /M

> Breathtaking.

> > Pods

> Pods, I gather you're talking about what I said in the
> comments at
> http://horizon.bloghouse.net/archives/000760.html . Maybe
> you want to read it again: you assume I'm refusing to accept
> the seriousness of the conflict and/or denying the validity
> of the various parties' indignation. Actually, no, you're
> quite right that the conflict is serious, and the various
> parties have reason to be indignant, and there wouldn't be a
> conflict over the cartoons if they had not brought
> preexisting repressed political tensions into the open.

> HOWEVER, this whole cartoon conflict is nevertheless a
> distraction, a luxury -- something that leaders *on all
> sides* are conveniently finding important in order to evade
> the greater difficulty of genuinely unavoidable problems
> such as hunger and sickness.

> If you ever spend extended time with a person who cannot
> walk, or if, God forbid, such a disability ever happens to
> you yourself, you will understand how foolish religious
> indignation can seem from the perspective of a person who
> cannot get to a faucet for a drink of water.

>>> Pods

>> Pods, I gather you're talking about what I said in the
>> comments at
>> http://horizon.bloghouse.net/archives/000760.html . Maybe
>> you want to read it again: you assume I'm refusing to accept
>> the seriousness of the conflict and/or denying the validity
>> of the various parties' indignation. Actually, no, you're
>> quite right that the conflict is serious, and the various
>> parties have reason to be indignant, and there wouldn't be a
>> conflict over the cartoons if they had not brought
>> preexisting repressed political tensions into the open.

>> HOWEVER, this whole cartoon conflict is nevertheless a
>> distraction, a luxury -- something that leaders *on all
>> sides* are conveniently finding important in order to evade
>> the greater difficulty of genuinely unavoidable problems
>> such as hunger and sickness.

>> If you ever spend extended time with a person who cannot
>> walk, or if, God forbid, such a disability ever happens to
>> you yourself, you will understand how foolish religious
>> indignation can seem from the perspective of a person who
>> cannot get to a faucet for a drink of water.

> LAUGH OUT FUCKING LOUD!! OH GOD, OH CHRIST, OH ALLAH, OH BUDDAH! OH CRIKEY
> LEAVE OFF, YOU FUCKING ROTTER YOU'RE KILLING ME! oh god rot me I'm seeing
> things! NO! I really am! It's just *us* left with the spitwater beer at the
> party, the last the people on thorazine in the day room, with the last three
> Napoleon hats on! MARTHA *A* BRIDEGAM HAS TURNED INTO THE SINGING FUCKING
> *NUN*!! ALL OF A SUDDEN NOTHING MATTERS! THE BIG STUFF DON'T MATTER
> ANYMORE!! LET'S GET MACRO*BIOTIC*!! NOTHING MATTERS BUT THE SUFFERING BEFORE
> MY EYES!! I *AM* MOTHER MILLETT OF CALCUTTA!!!

> Oh fuck off fer chrise sake, willya? Or I'll become a Muggletonian.

> ROBBIE - gotta love those *brown* fascists, maaaaaaaaaaaaaan

> Unequal physical suffering *is* "the big stuff." It's the
> central injustice that egalitarian political principles
> oppose. Volunteer nurse-work in the absence of a decent
> health care system is a slow, literal, inefficient way to
> oppose injustice, but it's one way. Campaigning politically
> for greater fairness -- e.g. for the aforementioned decent
> health care system -- is another way to oppose injustice.
> They're on a continuum.

> Whereas a politics of religious indignation (or indignation
> against religious indignation, for that matter) doesn't help
> anyone except a few leaders.

> /M

> > Unequal physical suffering *is* "the big stuff." It's the
> > central injustice that egalitarian political principles
> > oppose. Volunteer nurse-work in the absence of a decent
> > health care system is a slow, literal, inefficient way to
> > oppose injustice, but it's one way. Campaigning politically
> > for greater fairness -- e.g. for the aforementioned decent
> > health care system -- is another way to oppose injustice.
> > They're on a continuum.

> > Whereas a politics of religious indignation (or indignation
> > against religious indignation, for that matter) doesn't help
> > anyone except a few leaders.

> > /M

> One of the great tricks of Cultural Marxism (Political Correctness as it
> used to be called) is what I call Abstract Emotionalism. To explain this I
> would like you to imagine the pair of us out on the campaign trail. I make a
> perfectly reasonable speech - based in reason, saying something like: the
> implications of the cartoon furore, Islamic terrorism, murder (theo van
> gogh) and the vandalism of Jewish cemetaries are alarming; Islam + the
> Left's obstinate belief in multiculturalism will lead to sectarianism in the
> cities and, where the authorities are committed to multiculturalism, a
> creeping in of de facto sharia law. In short, free speech and liberty are
> under threat.'
>  Then you make your speech: 'I saw a man dying in the street this morning.
> Nothing much matters when you've seen that. You need a health care system
> and don't sweat the racism of my colleague here.'

> And you would get whoops and screeching applause and I would be called a
> 'fascist, man'.  And that's why Latte Marxism has taken off so big: reason
> out, emotion in. And in the USA you have the luxury of that outlook. I
> laughed out loud sardonically at your religious indignation comments:
> specious evasion, as usual.

> ROBBIE