WHY DO RELIGIONS GET SO HUNG UP ON CRAPPY CARTOONS ?

Posted by Caledonian Jim in Daily Posts

In the US a Jewish human rights group has denounced a political cartoon as anti-Semitic, comparing it to Nazi imagery of the 1930s that led up to the Holocaust. The syndicated cartoon published by Pat Oliphant recently (reproduced above) in newspapers across the US depicts a goose-stepping uniformed figure wheeling a fanged Star of David that menaces a small female figure labelled “Gaza.” The Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish rights group with more than 400,000 members in America, said the cartoon is meant to denigrate and demonise Israel. “The imagery in this cartoon mimics the venomous anti-Semitic propaganda of the Nazi and Soviet eras,” Wiesenthal Center officials said in a statement. “It is cartoons like this that inspired millions of people to hate in the 1930s and help set the stage for the Nazi genocide.” The centre called on the New York Times and other online outlets to remove the cartoon from their websites.

Now this blog has no truck with Hamas or Islamic fundamentalism. But the Simon Wiesenthal Center can’t have it both ways. If a similar cartoon was produced depicting Islamofascists victimising Jews, would they be demanding its removal from newspapers and websites ? I doubt it very much, so Caledonian Comment won’t be removing the above cartoon any time soon as a result of any burst of selective outrage. Perhaps a well placed protest from the Simon Wiesenthal Center to the Israeli Army about the uncontrolled use of phosphorous bombs against Gazan civilians might be a constructive way of ensuring that Nazi techniques aren’t emulated in 21st century Israel. And in order to maintain balance and to complete the circle of hypocrisy that seems to surround all these religiously-inspired conflicts, I don’t hear any Muslims protesting about the use of THIS cartoon either, as opposed to their inane bleatings about some obscure Danish effort a couple of years back. They’re all as bad as each other, seeking justifications for ongoing bigotted atrocities and mutually assured destruction rather than any real joint push for sanity and peace. It seems they all pray to their God for licences to kill, not humanity.

Globetrotting “save the planet” UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s efforts to broker an £80 billion bailout for world trade while on a trip to Brazil hit a stumbling block yesterday when the country’s President lashed out at “white, blue-eyed” bankers for bringing the world economy to its knees. Mr Brown watched on uneasily as his host, President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva (both pictured above), launched what was effectively a racist tirade in which he warned that next week’s G20 summit in London would be a “‘spicy”’ affair. President Lula said it was completely unfair that the poorest people in the world were suffering most for the mistakes of wealthy, Western financiers.

“This is a crisis that has been fostered and boosted by the irrational behaviour of people that are white, blue-eyed, that before the crisis looked like they knew everything about economics,” he declared. “Now they have demonstrated that they don’t know anything about economics.” He could be talking about Gordon! He went on : ”No black man or woman, no indigenous person, no poor person” had been in any way culpable for the global banking crisis. He sounds like a bit of a nutcase. Then he lavished praise on Mr Brown’s role in trying to rebuild world economies. He IS a nutcase.

In the UK condom (multi-coloured examples above) manufacturers will soon be permitted to broadcast advertisements at any time of the day or night. In addition, abortion clinics are to be allowed to advertise on TV and radio for the first time. At present they are banned from advertising before the 9 pm watershed except on Channel 4, where the cut-off is 7.30 pm. The proposals by the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP) will give Britain among the world’s most liberal broadcasting regimes on sexual health services. The watchdog claims it is responding to Government calls for action to combat rising teenage pregnancy. Now whether such a scheme will work, I don’t know – perhaps encouraging parents to take responsibility for the sexual awareness and welfare of their adolescent kids might be a start.

But predictably of course, the plans have been condemned by the usual dreary retinue of (Roman Catholic) family campaigners and MPs. In a display of perverted logic equalled only by the recent insane blatherings of former Hitler Youth and Nazi anti-aircraft gunner Pope Benedict XVI during his recent tour of Africa, they claim TV adverts for abortion clinics and condoms will lead to greater levels of promiscuity among young people – that’s if there COULD be greater levels of promiscuity among young people . So once again we have the Roman Catholic church directly and indirectly attempting to interfere with UK domestic policy, advocating nonsensical, bigotted “solutions” to pressing problems. We had all the parliamentary debates about abortion and contraception (and stem cell research) last year – and the Vatican’s views were decisively dismissed in our democratically elected parliament. So all the deluded luddite Roman Catholics who want to waste more time and public money debating such issues yet AGAIN should be told to sod off.

In the UK the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has accused the government of wanting to “undermine its independence” by demanding one of its leaders be removed from office. The accusation is the strongest public attack yet by the MCB in its ongoing row with ministers after the authorities broke off relations earlier this month. Hazel Blears, the Communities and Local Government minister, wrote to the MCB demanding the resignation of Daud Abdullah, its deputy secretary general, after he reportedly called for violence against Israel. Yesterday MCB spokesman Inayat Bunglawala (pictured above) said that the government only wanted to deal with Muslim groups who were “stooges” and “spineless”, and vowed the MCB would resist attempts to interfere in how it was run. Refreshing to hear that a Muslim organisation wants to foster free thinking, independence and protest – let’s hope they advocate the extension of those freedoms to women and gays within their own community. If the MCB wants independence, so be it. But if it’s going to start inciting violence abroad and/or at home let’s hope this normally spineless Islam-appeasing government doesn’t cave in. If the MCB goes down this path, there should be no taxpayer support for it and if its officials break the law they must be prosecuted. But don’t hold your breath – too many inner-city Muslim votes at stake I suspect.