The homepage of the French satirical paper Charlie Hebdo, whose Paris offices were attacked by gunmen on Wednesday, now displays only the banner “Je Suis Charlie,” or, “I Am Charlie.”
The website was updated some time after the shooting, in which 12 people were killed, two of them police officers. Charlie Hebdo’s editor Charb and another cartoonist known as Cabu were reportedly killed in the attack, according to the Associated Press.
The publication had seen violent threats in recent years after it published illustrations of the Prophet Mohammed. Assailants firebombed the paper’s headquarters in 2011 after it ran one of the cartoons.
Perhaps American sites should show some solidarity.
As some politician will be inclined to say…We are all Charlies now. Vive la France!
If you’re talking about news sites, I have to disagree. Its not their job to tout patriotism here or in France. Seems to me religious (in this case, possibly Muslim) extremism is how this country was led so erroneously on a set of false assumptions in the lead up to a long devised war in Iraq, with all the bells and whistles of a patriotic fervor for revenge, with the added bullshit of looking for WMDs to get the ball rolling. The pliant media went along, hook, line and sinker…and to this day hasn’t taken much stock of itself.
You wouldn’t see rightwing Christian extremism in this country or any other form of extremism leading to the same patriotic solidarity rallied by news sites to mobilize for an all out assault on the perpetrators, or to rally a country to war. And that’s probably a good thing even if it is a double standard.
Its like John Kerry stated a long time ago, which he probably has forgotten about or buried deep inside him, but we need to treat this like any other criminal enterprise run amok, and put the best law enforcement and intelligence services to work to deal with this problem imo. Solidarity…yeah, I feel for the families and citizens of France at this moment, especially at that magazine…but news sites should not be in the business of propagandizing to us with their sentiments one way or the other. Just the facts…that’s all I ask of them. Let the government do their job and leave the media manipulation out of it.
Well, when people are being killed over :words:, I think that America, ostensibly the bastion of free speech in the world, should stand with them.
Certainly the natural defenders of free speech, the press (and I consider TPM to at least be marginally part of the Press), should stand with those attacked.
Except when you consider the only one that doesn’t understand that basic principle of free speech is Kirby DeLauter, who was recently mocked mercilessly…I get that. But again…its not just a press thing. Its a democratic principle for all of us, whether we’re protesting in the streets, choosing to wear hoodies, or exercising our 1st Amendment rights. And governments around the world, particularly those that believe in democracy, need to step up to the plate to address that basic principle. These extremists are pariahs and the entire world needs to treat them as such.
Added: I guarantee you some of our biggest allies like Saudi Arabia or China won’t be saying shit on what’s happened or the exercise of free speech, and we all know the obvious reasons why…but it won’t stop us from doing business as usual with them all the same.