Cynical Nation

CNN only shows fanny cartoons about jews.

Well Barry, it is not only CNN. It is all stations and newspapers in the US. Not one (1) has dared to show them.

In any case, I want to also link my blog to a site with the cartoons, but I dont like the Reagan t-shirt and the picture of Ann Coulter in the link you provided. I will try to find a cleaner link. The cartoons are kind of cool by the way.

Memo
To: Muslims

Lighten up, ya backwards bastards!

Blue, sorry you didn't like the Human Events link. Someone e-mailed me that when I realized the cartoons were getting hard to find. You know what's bizarre? A few weeks ago, it was trivial to find these images online. Now it's much harder. I find this disturbing.

Barry,
Well, I just linked it to my blog anyway (with a disclaimer lol). I could not find any other web site that had them. I have been trying to locate them the last 2 days. I agree with you. The whole thing is very disturbing.

Let me try to understand this:

It seems perfectly fine to air a beheading of Daniel Pearl but to show a cartoon showing Mohammed with a stick of dynamite in his turban is outrageous.

Is that about it?

Amazing.

You sure do expect a lot from CNN. I kind of have to let certain kinds of gutlessness pass, though I agree it was gutless of them. CNN decided not to engage in risky behavior. I am not sure what showing the actual cartoons would have added to their reporting. They reported the story and the nature of the story. Did Fox show the actual cartoons?

I am even less concerned with the French position on this. They had massive riots that were terrible this past year. Would you want to be the newspaper or TV station that set those off again?

Since CNN and those French media are corporations, I can't see why you are being critical of them. They made corporate decisions to minimize risk and maximize profit. Isn't that what being a conservative is all about? In fact, aren't those the two most important core principles of conservatism: minimize risk and maximize profit? Isn't profit at the heart of family values? One thing I know is for certain, those corporations are not dedicated to taking risks. Corporations are notoriously risk averse. What is it that they would gain, in terms of profit, by showing those cartoons and thus increasing the risk of an attack on them from some fanatical nincompoop?

The more I think about it, the more I think I would have done the same thing as CNN and the French media and if any of you say differently then I wouldn't hire you to run a company. One has a fiduciary responsibility to one's stockholders when running a company. The media is not run by the state here, you know (well, supposedly it isn't run by the state, but I'm not up for getting into all that right now). Whoever decided not to air the actual cartoons but to cover the story without them made a perfectly correct decision. If I owned CNN stock, or whatever the parent company is, and they ran those commercials and then a bomb went off and killed a bunch of CNN people I would not merely mourn their passing, but also the cost to my stock value.

And that is another thing. There is conceivably a risk of death or injury involved in showing those cartoons. Do you want to make that decision and put at risk the lives of dozens or hundreds of other people who signed up to edit video and sound or to work in the subscription department at the paper or whatever? They didn't sign on as soldiers in a great crusade.

Maybe, when all is said and done, we all need to turn the outrage down from 11 and save our anger for the ones who deserve it. Wanna be outraged? Save it for the people who would blow up a news station if the station displayed those cartoons.

For me, it's very simple. I don't think we should be sending these fanatics the message that threats of violence will get them their desired results, especially when the desired result is a lessening of our own freedom of speech.

Can't you just imagine what would happen if the West said to the moslems "Kill that female reporter and we'll commence blowing up mosques!"

Neither can I but it sure does sound good!

I understand your point there and I agree with it in principle, but when I look at a corporate entity I find myself unable to ask it to put the lives of the poor shnooks who walk into the building every day in order to earn their weekly paycheck on the line. They didn't sign up for hazardous duty and I don't think I can put them in the way of the risk without their consent. I also, again thinking like a businessperson with fiduciary responsibilities, wonder about the lawsuits. Lawsuits? Yes, lawsuits. CNN shows the cartoons, a bomb is planted in the CNN lobby that kills ten people, a message is relayed that Al Qaeda takes responsibility for the bomb, the authorities agree that it was an Al Qaeda operation, and the families of the victims sure the corporation because they should have realized that the result of their publication had such dangerous consequences and put the lives of others at risk.

From every angle, when I look at this thing, I don't see how a corporate entity could publish those cartoons without creating an unacceptable level of risk. Publishing would add nothing to the bottom line but would take large risks. Taking those risks is not good corporate practice. CNN, Fox, MSNBC, ABC News, CBS News, etc., are not really that interested in fulfilling their responsibilities to inform as they are in being paid advertiser dollars. I mean, I wish I could tell you that they are all of them so darned noble and full of good will to passing out information, but they are about money first and foremost (in my humble opinion).

Like I said, I see your point, and on that point, governments are in the business of taking risks and of doing things that upset terrorists when it is in the interest of their citizens. Corporations serve the stockholders, not the public. It is capitalism and that's how it works. I may be a progressive and a frequent voter for Democrats, but I am just as much a capitalist as anyone in this forum and I like to earn a good living as much as anyone. If I owned stock in CNN's parent company and CNN published those photos, I would be an unhappy stockholder. The risk is unacceptable.

That should be "the families of the victims SUE the corporation", not "SURE the corporation". Darned typos.

Merci mon cher! ;-)

here is another website that has them all.

I would just like to ask everyone here, do you think this free speech fight is going to help advance the greater war on terror, or hinder it? Sure the 1st Amend is sacrosanct to us in America, but do you think the Muslim world is really able to comprehend/digest the public insult and ridicule of their deity?

I mean.....is this the way to win?