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Showing posts with the label "red scare"

The Netherlands

The Islamophobe Dutch politician Geert Wilders is organising a cartoon competition to depict the prophet Mohammed. Here is what Alain Badiou wrote in the aftermath of the attack on Charlie Hebdo : "Here and there, people say that  Charlie Hebdo ’s cartoons aren’t attacking Muslims as such, but rather the fundamentalists’ terrorist activity. That is objectively false. Let’s take a typical example of their cartoons: we see two naked buttocks and the caption ‘Et le cul de Mahomet, on a le droit?’ (‘And what about Mohammed’s arse – can we use that?’). So is the Muslim faithful’s Prophet, a constant target for such stupidity, a contemporary terrorist? No, that’s not any kind of politics. It’s got nothing to do with the solemn defence of ‘freedom of expression’. It is a ridiculous, provocative obscenity targeting Islam itself – and that’s all. And it’s nothing more than third-rate cultural racism, a ‘joke’ to amuse the local pissed-up Front National supporter.  It may be amusing f
" We may not be able to live a wrong life rightly, but we can stop living wrongly altogether. To do that requires a depth of social imagination, the courage of collective struggle and a wellspring of political desire that seems all but evaporated in the present moment." The spurious scandal of "Communism for Kids" (NYT)

Indonesia: the 1965-66 Mass Killings

Indonesia Gotta Catch all the Communists "A red scare is sweeping Indonesia, digging up the ghosts of the 1965-1966 mass killings, and threatening a fragile democracy." Looks interesting, but access requires subscription