“Rather than posit that the Paris attacks are the moment of crisis in free speech—as so many commentators have done—it is necessary to understand that free speech and other expressions of liberté are already in crisis in Western societies; the crisis was not precipitated by three deranged gunmen. The U.S., for example, has consolidated its traditional monopoly on extreme violence, and, in the era of big data, has also hoarded information about its deployment of that violence. There are harsh consequences for those who interrogate this monopoly. The only person in prison for the C.I.A.’s abominable torture regime is John Kiriakou, the whistle-blower. Edward Snowden is a hunted man for divulging information about mass surveillance. Chelsea Manning is serving a thirty-five-year sentence for her role in WikiLeaks. They, too, are blasphemers, but they have not been universally valorized, as have the cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo.”
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Unmournable Bodies [x]
More of this sort of reasoned response to Hebdo in the press please. The conflation with the attacks in Paris with the instantaneous positioning of Western leaders as defenders of the right to publish racist caricatures free expression is beyond ludicrous, sickening bilge. I mean the article isn’t completely on point, but at least it isn’t eating its own vomit.
(via ceborgia)
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1wV2fCE