Keeping it civil instead of returning to our dark ways

[SlaveNoMore]

A Hush Over Hollywood

by Pat Sajak
Posted Nov 30, 2004

Picture this:

Somewhere in the world, a filmmaker creates a short documentary that chronicles what he perceives as the excesses of anti-abortion activists. An anti-abortion zealot reacts to the film by killing the filmmaker in broad daylight and stabbing anti-abortion tracts onto his body. How does the Hollywood community react to this atrocity? Would there be angry protests? Candlelight vigils? Outraged letters and columns and articles? Awards named in honor of their fallen comrade? Demands for justice? Calls for protection of artistic freedom? It’s a pretty safe bet that there would be all of the above and much more. And all of the anger would be absolutely justified.

So I’m trying to understand the nearly universal lack of outrage coming from Hollywood over the brutal murder of Dutch director, Theo van Gogh, who was shot on the morning of November 2, while bicycling through the streets of Amsterdam. The killer then stabbed his chest with one knife and slit his throat with another.

The presumed murderer, a Dutch-born dual Moroccan-Dutch citizen, attached a 5-page note to van Gogh's body with a knife. In it, he threatened jihad against the West in general, and specifically against five prominent Dutch political figures. Van Gogh’s crime? He created a short film highly critical of the treatment of women in Islamic societies. So, again I ask, where is the outrage from Hollywood’s creative community? I mean, talk about a violation of the right of free speech!

Perhaps they are afraid that their protests would put them in danger. That, at least, is a defensible position. If I were Michael Moore, I would much rather rail against George W. Bush, who is much less likely to have me killed, than van Gogh’s murderer and the threat to creative freedom he brings. Besides, a man of Moore’s size would provide a great deal of “bulletin board” space.

Maybe they think it would be intolerant of them to criticize the murder, because it would put them on the side of someone who criticized a segment of the Arab world. And, after all, we are often reminded that we need to be more tolerant of others, especially if they’re not Christians or Jews.

There’s another possibility; one that seems crazy on the surface, but does provide an explanation for the silence, and is also in keeping with the political climate in Hollywood. Is it just possible that there are those who are reluctant to criticize an act of terror because that might somehow align them with President Bush, who stubbornly clings to the notion that these are evil people who need to be defeated? Could the level of hatred for this President be so great that some people are against anything he is for, and for anything he is against?

As nutty as it sounds, how else can you explain such a muted reaction to an act that so directly impacts creative people everywhere? Can you conceive of a filmmaker being assassinated because of any other subject matter without seeing a resulting explosion of reaction from his fellow artists in America and around the world?

As I said, it’s a nutty-sounding explanation, but we live in nutty times.

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
A Hush Over Hollywood

by Pat Sajak

With due respect to Pat Sajek, I think he overestimates the reaction the world would have to the murder of an abortion activist, and underestimates the local reaction in Northern Europe.

Alternatively, if van Gogh had been killed for exposing the seedy underbelly of the tulip industry, for example, would Sajek care?

I'm not saying we shouldn't be outraged at van Gogh's murder; we should be. I just am not sure that we aren't.

ETA: I reserve the right to hold over your head your choice to quote at length something written by Pat Sajek

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by baltassoc
The Geneva Convention does not have to apply to combatants from non-signatory countries, but that doesn't mean that we should not still apply it.

I wasn't really distinguishing between signatories and non-signatories. I meant that the Geneva Conventions apply to, but offer no protection for, spies or combatants otherwise failing to advertise their partisan status (such as by not wearing uniforms or other insignia identifying them from a distance as combatants), combatants taking refuge among civilian populations, combatants for non-governmental entities, and combatants of countries that do not abide by the Geneva Conventions (whether signatories or not). We are a signatory, and I agree that we should therefore apply the conventions to other combatants even if they fight for a non-signatory country. My point (and Sidd's, I think) was that applying the conventions does not in fact offer much protection for most of these guys.

As for the rest, criminal law is perfectly capable of taking care of these actions.

I disagree. In fact, I think this is a pretty silly position.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
A Hush Over Hollywood

by Pat Sajak
Posted Nov 30, 2004

Picture this:

Somewhere in the world, a filmmaker creates a short documentary that chronicles what he perceives as the excesses of anti-abortion activists. An anti-abortion zealot reacts to the film by killing the filmmaker in broad daylight and stabbing anti-abortion tracts onto his body. How does the Hollywood community react to this atrocity? Would there be angry protests? Candlelight vigils? Outraged letters and columns and articles? Awards named in honor of their fallen comrade? Demands for justice? Calls for protection of artistic freedom? It’s a pretty safe bet that there would be all of the above and much more. And all of the anger would be absolutely justified.

So I’m trying to understand the nearly universal lack of outrage coming from Hollywood over the brutal murder of Dutch director, Theo van Gogh, who was shot on the morning of November 2, while bicycling through the streets of Amsterdam. The killer then stabbed his chest with one knife and slit his throat with another.

The presumed murderer, a Dutch-born dual Moroccan-Dutch citizen, attached a 5-page note to van Gogh's body with a knife. In it, he threatened jihad against the West in general, and specifically against five prominent Dutch political figures. Van Gogh’s crime? He created a short film highly critical of the treatment of women in Islamic societies. So, again I ask, where is the outrage from Hollywood’s creative community? I mean, talk about a violation of the right of free speech!

Perhaps they are afraid that their protests would put them in danger. That, at least, is a defensible position. If I were Michael Moore, I would much rather rail against George W. Bush, who is much less likely to have me killed, than van Gogh’s murderer and the threat to creative freedom he brings. Besides, a man of Moore’s size would provide a great deal of “bulletin board” space.

Maybe they think it would be intolerant of them to criticize the murder, because it would put them on the side of someone who criticized a segment of the Arab world. And, after all, we are often reminded that we need to be more tolerant of others, especially if they’re not Christians or Jews.

There’s another possibility; one that seems crazy on the surface, but does provide an explanation for the silence, and is also in keeping with the political climate in Hollywood. Is it just possible that there are those who are reluctant to criticize an act of terror because that might somehow align them with President Bush, who stubbornly clings to the notion that these are evil people who need to be defeated? Could the level of hatred for this President be so great that some people are against anything he is for, and for anything he is against?

As nutty as it sounds, how else can you explain such a muted reaction to an act that so directly impacts creative people everywhere? Can you conceive of a filmmaker being assassinated because of any other subject matter without seeing a resulting explosion of reaction from his fellow artists in America and around the world?

As I said, it’s a nutty-sounding explanation, but we live in nutty times.

This was a hate crime. It should be treated like any other crime in Holland, right?

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by baltassoc
With due respect to Pat Sajek, I think he overestimates the reaction the world would have to the murder of an abortion activist, and underestimates the local reaction in Northern Europe.

2. Or: I think Pat needs to get himself some better resources about what is going on internationally before commenting on it. I can't believe he even bothered to try. I've gathered, from reading a not-very comprehensive sampling of non-US news sources, that the murder is in fact freaking out a lot of Europeans (not just the Dutch), and also sparking some serious (and broad-based) reconsideration in "old europe" of their general hostility toward the US's prosecution of the WOT.

eta: to the extent that his complaint is about the US reaction to the murder, I'm not sure what he's looking for - Hollywood to condemn it in a way they wouldn't other murders just because he's "one of them?" It might be better considered evidence of Hollywood's myopia and general inability to notice much of anything going on in the real world at large.

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic

I disagree. In fact, I think this is a pretty silly position.

Why? Where does it fail? How does a terrorist plot differ from any other criminal conspiracy? It's political motivation? Doesn't acknowledging that as a defining difference merely validate the terrorist? Al Q (like the IRA before it) wants to be fighting a war. Like the IRA before it, they are merely a band of criminals.

Before we wander down a random path, however, let me clarify: we're (or I'm) talking about the treatment of prisoners, not intellegence gathering and/or law enforcement. I definitely see a distinction where intellegence gathering groups maybe should not be limited by the constraints of law enforcement. And to a certain extent, I may even be willing to agree that applies to the holding of certain people by those intellegence services in ways that are extra-legal. But such holdings are not something to be proud of, and those who engage in such acts do so at their own risk (we may attempt to get them out of a jam with another government, but ultimately, we don't have much to say if the other government decides that it would rather execute our spy than deal with us). Such is the nature of spying.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
This was a hate crime. It should be treated like any other crime in Holland, right?

A crime is a crime is a crime. Pass the doobage.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
This was a hate crime. It should be treated like any other crime in Holland, right?

Actually, it was an act of war. Quick, someone get all the hookers out of the redlight district and hashish out of Amsterdam! The Glass Maker is coming.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Gattigap
Actually, it was an act of war. Quick, someone get all the hookers out of the redlight district and hashish out of Amsterdam! The Glass Maker is coming.

Mr Sajak's point had to do with a lack of outrage, and a question as to why there was no outrage. The Dutch police have arrested the man. He will be treated as a murderer.

To the extent someone kills here because of, say, the victims race, no one said that separate protests or calls for education or whatever would be improper. The only point made was that a separate crime hadn't been committed.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Do you remember when we blew up a car in Yeman because a guy from the cole bombing was in the car? Was that okay? Does it depend on whether he was a criminal or an enemy combatant? Because we need to be able to just kill them when we know where they are.

If Tim McVeigh had gotten to Canada, would it have been OK to kill him there with a missile? What if we thought it was him, but weren't certain? And how do we know that the dead people in those cars in Yemen were who we thought they were?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
A Hush Over Hollywood

by Pat Sajak
Posted Nov 30, 2004

Picture this:

Somewhere in the world, a filmmaker creates a short documentary that chronicles what he perceives as the excesses of anti-abortion activists. An anti-abortion zealot reacts to the film by killing the filmmaker in broad daylight and stabbing anti-abortion tracts onto his body. How does the Hollywood community react to this atrocity? Would there be angry protests? Candlelight vigils? Outraged letters and columns and articles? Awards named in honor of their fallen comrade? Demands for justice? Calls for protection of artistic freedom? It’s a pretty safe bet that there would be all of the above and much more. And all of the anger would be absolutely justified.

So I’m trying to understand the nearly universal lack of outrage coming from Hollywood over the brutal murder of Dutch director, Theo van Gogh, who was shot on the morning of November 2, while bicycling through the streets of Amsterdam. The killer then stabbed his chest with one knife and slit his throat with another.

The presumed murderer, a Dutch-born dual Moroccan-Dutch citizen, attached a 5-page note to van Gogh's body with a knife. In it, he threatened jihad against the West in general, and specifically against five prominent Dutch political figures. Van Gogh’s crime? He created a short film highly critical of the treatment of women in Islamic societies. So, again I ask, where is the outrage from Hollywood’s creative community? I mean, talk about a violation of the right of free speech!

Perhaps they are afraid that their protests would put them in danger. That, at least, is a defensible position. If I were Michael Moore, I would much rather rail against George W. Bush, who is much less likely to have me killed, than van Gogh’s murderer and the threat to creative freedom he brings. Besides, a man of Moore’s size would provide a great deal of “bulletin board” space.

Maybe they think it would be intolerant of them to criticize the murder, because it would put them on the side of someone who criticized a segment of the Arab world. And, after all, we are often reminded that we need to be more tolerant of others, especially if they’re not Christians or Jews.

There’s another possibility; one that seems crazy on the surface, but does provide an explanation for the silence, and is also in keeping with the political climate in Hollywood. Is it just possible that there are those who are reluctant to criticize an act of terror because that might somehow align them with President Bush, who stubbornly clings to the notion that these are evil people who need to be defeated? Could the level of hatred for this President be so great that some people are against anything he is for, and for anything he is against?

As nutty as it sounds, how else can you explain such a muted reaction to an act that so directly impacts creative people everywhere? Can you conceive of a filmmaker being assassinated because of any other subject matter without seeing a resulting explosion of reaction from his fellow artists in America and around the world?

As I said, it’s a nutty-sounding explanation, but we live in nutty times.

Why can't Pat Sajak simply be outraged at the murder of Van Gogh? Why does he also need to be outraged at his fellow Hollywood residents? The latter leads me to tend to suspect his motives re the former.

[Gattigap]

First story I've seen that discusses the extent of security in Baghdad, and its attendant costs. And to think I felt bad about my last reimbursement request for that deposition in New York!

• You think getting into New York is a hassle? This is what it takes to get to Baghdad these days. First, there's the $630, 80-mile flight from Jordan. Dodging surface-to-air missiles, the pilot zigzags the plane into a heart-pounding landing. A convoy of armored vehicles awaits the traveler who has made prior arrangements. Thus begins the trip into town, a trip that James Hider of The Times of London describes as "the most expensive, dangerous taxi ride in the world.... Your driver is more likely to ask your blood type than if you had a pleasant landing."
  
  The cars set off on the 15-mile ride from the airport, southwest of central Baghdad, to the coalition's Green Zone at 100 m.p.h. The highway, which used to be lined with palm trees, is now barren. The trees were cut down by U.S. forces to eliminate sniper posts. The wide-eyed passenger runs a gauntlet of roadside bombs, suicide car bombers, and charred Humvees and trucks, as well as hidden insurgents wielding rocket-propelled-grenade launchers. According to Hider, the 10-plus-minute ride will set the intrepid traveler back about $5,000.
  
  The driver will likely avoid the Hamra district-where armed gangs prowl the streets looking for Westerners to kidnap, whom they then sell to one of the Islamist groups for some $250,000-and make a beeline for the Green Zone, the walled district of former palaces turned government buildings that is the coalition's redoubt in Baghdad. The area is a protected, isolated bubble within Iraq, but even here journalists and contractors arrange for a couple of cars and a handful of bodyguards, generally former soldiers from the U.S., Britain, or South Africa, who come armed with assault rifles and submachine guns. Two cars and four men can run upwards of $10,000 a day. It's getting so expensive to get people in and out of Iraq that it's estimated between 10 and 20 percent of the Iraq-reconstruction budget is going toward this sort of security.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
If Tim McVeigh had gotten to Canada, would it have been OK to kill him there with a missile? What if we thought it was him, but weren't certain? And how do we know that the dead people in those cars in Yemen were who we thought they were?

Right. Those are all problems that point to not blowing the guy up. I'll put you down for a No.

But how come you wanted us to blow up some people in a camp in Iraq and kill some guy we saw in Afghanistan just because he was tall?

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Right. Those are all problems that point to not blowing the guy up. I'll put you down for a No.

But how come you wanted us to blow up some people in a camp in Iraq and kill some guy we saw in Afghanistan just because he was tall?

From a distance, he looked like OBL. Mistakes happen.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Right. Those are all problems that point to not blowing the guy up. I'll put you down for a No.

But how come you wanted us to blow up some people in a camp in Iraq and kill some guy we saw in Afghanistan just because he was tall?

I'm just trying to figure out where your commitment to the rule of law ends.

Afghanistan and Iraq are not hard cases, because neither government was going to help us bring someone to justice. As I recall, Yemen was not so clear-cut -- the government was on our side, at least to some degree, but the cars were in a tribal area not really under the government's control.