The Cartoon protests megathread

[AtticusFinch]

But what kind of a deterrant is it if it's not publicised.

 

I'd have said it was good sense, so that any people they were (hypothetically) going to arrest didn't know they were coming. Isn't that more important than pleasing tabloid readers?

[Norbert]

Man apologises for bomber protest:

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4686410.stm

 

I do hope all the offending protestors including this guy are arrested though.

[scoop]

I heard an interview on Radio Sheffield earlier, I didn't get names, but this chap had been involved in organising these protests as well as similar previous protests.

He said the police usually worked well with the protest organisers and told them what placards were acceptable and which weren't. On this occasion the police had not told them that there placards were unacceptable, and the reason was because they wanted the demonstrators to look bad. Incredibly, it seemed he was blaming the police for the banners that they had written themselves!

[Norbert]

For those who believe the "PC brigade are ruining the country" and that there is "one law for them, another law for us" have a look at this from the Institute for Public Policy Research:

 

 

On 27 March 2003 that the Sunday Telegraph, normally regarded as an unsensationalist, somewhat straight-laced paper, ran a story across the top of a page headlined ‘Hot cross banned: councils decree buns could be ‘offensive’ to non-Christians’. A subheading stated: ‘For some children, naan breads will replace the traditional Easter treat as town halls try to avoid complaints’. It was illustrated by a picture of three girls at a West London school eating hot cross buns.

 

The story alleged that six councils had ordered schools in their areas not to serve hot cross buns at Easter lest they offend Jewish, Hindu and Muslim people. To support this allegation, three spokespeople for the councils were quoted but, significantly, none were named. After eight paragraphs, the bulk of the story dealt with the very predictable reactions of individuals and organisations who were responding to the reporters telling them that such bans had been imposed. After publication, several papers at national and regional level (and some broadcasting outlets) repeated the story.

 

Among the follow-ups were stories in The Times, the Daily Express and the London Evening Standard (all 17 March) which accepted the truth of the Sunday Telegraph story at face value, as did columnists in the Manchester Evening News, the Sunday Times and The Sun (Richard Littlejohn). The leading Roman Catholic newspaper, the Catholic Herald, joined the chorus of disapproval and the tale also appeared on several internet sites. So the audience for the story expanded from the couple of million Sunday Telegraph readers into an audience of at least 21 million people across Britain.

 

Yet the Sunday Telegraph story was wholly untrue. As the official spokespeople for all six councils made clear, there had never been a question of banning hot cross buns because their schools do not serve them anyway. Even the photograph was a stunt: the Telegraph photographer had provided schoolgirls with buns in order to take his picture. Liverpool City Council later made a formal complaint to the Press Complaints Commission about four newspapers: the Sunday Telegraph, The Sun, the Daily Express and the Blackpool Evening Gazette. The Sunday Telegraph published an apology four weeks after its offending article (13 April) which conceded that its story was fictitious. It stated that none of the councils ‘has an official policy of banning hot cross buns and that their councillors have never discussed banning hot cross buns, nor have they ever instructed council caterers not to serve hot cross buns in schools’. It did not apologise for the falsity of the story, only for the ‘confusion’ it caused. Later, the Sunday Times ran a correction (27 April), as did the Daily Express (23 April) and the Blackpool Evening Gazette. Not until 8 May did The Sun run an apology though not within Littlejohn’s column.

 

 

The article has similar findings for stories about asylum seekers eating swans, poaching our fish, stealing the royal donkeys etc.

 

See here: http://www.cre.gov.uk/downloads/ippr_scapegoats.pdf

 

Thanks to a poster in another thread for this btw.

[wendygs]

Come again ?

What are you on about ?

 

 

Have you thought of becoming a solicitor. I am beginning to think you may have mastered the tecnique of willful rudeness in an increasingly unbecoming and unatttractive manner.

 

For the avoidance of doubt I quoted you and felt you might appreciate some suggestions to avoid entering in to an area which you have admitted you do not understand.

 

Where a person admits to lack of knowledge it is often considered prudent to avoid entering further discussions on such matters to avoid demonstrating one's total ignorance. Cheers chuck

[TeaFan]

Have you thought of becoming a solicitor. I am beginning to think you may have mastered the tecnique of willful rudeness in an increasingly unbecoming and unatttractive manner.

 

For the avoidance of doubt I quoted you and felt you might appreciate some suggestions to avoid entering in to an area which you have admitted you do not understand.

 

Where a person admits to lack of knowledge it is often considered prudent to avoid entering further discussions on such matters to avoid demonstrating one's total ignorance. Cheers chuck

 

I would have thought that when someone is not so crass as to pretend to know exactly what they are talking about (and how many of us can say that), it might be good form to give them a and carry on a discussion so that (hopefully) we can enlighten each other. Rather than suggest that because someone doesn't have every answer, that they bow out of a discussion. When I'm on this forum, I am pretty much making it up as I go along, because I lost all my dogma years ago, and never got it back. So I never really know what I think about anything, but value contributions from all sorts of people to try and help me make my mind up, lost cause though it probably is.

[wendygs]

I would have thought that when someone is not so crass as to pretend to know exactly what they are talking about (and how many of us can say that), it might be good form to give them a and carry on a discussion so that (hopefully) we can enlighten each other. Rather than suggest that because someone doesn't have every answer, that they bow out of a discussion. When I'm on this forum, I am pretty much making it up as I go along, because I lost all my dogma years ago, and never got it back. So I never really know what I think about anything, but value contributions from all sorts of people to try and help me make my mind up, lost cause though it probably is.

 

 

I would normally entirely agree with you on all the points you've just raised with the caveat that if one is providing false and misleading information based on ignorance that it serves no useful purpose. As this gentleman has freely and fully admitted that he does not understand the Old Testament I remain at a complete loss as to how he can shed any meaning on the matter and will only serve to obfuscate by his own previously self-confessed ignorance.

 

If you consider that wisdom you are welcome to it and although you seem to think you have lost all of your dogma years ago, I feel that in the process you may have acquired a completely new set of dogma which is so deeply entrenched that it is difficult to see the wood for the trees.

 

Cheers mate.

[wendygs]

The only other point I could usefully add here is that if he doesnt know or understand then he could usefully ask the people who do. I think these would be priests and Rabbi's respectively.

 

BUT I have the distinct impression from his carefully veiled insinuations, this gentleman does not like Jews at all and I rather suspect he is too self-opinionated to ask those who are qualified to discuss these matters with him in a full and properly informed manner to ensure he does not mislead others.

 

Despite some interesting points, I am increasingly of the view that this is a self-appointed mission to undertake a full scale damage limitation exercise for the Muslim World (dare I say community) after the most disasterous week in the media to date.

 

Should you wish to raise any other queries I am sure you will not hesitate to post. With all good wishes,

[TeaFan]

If dogma is a fixed set of beliefs, which one then attempts to fit the world into, which I believe it is, then I can assure you I lost mine years ago, when my partner suggested I look beyond my own belief system, which I duly did. Ever since, I have been in the frustrating situation of being able to see several sides to most arguments, and unable to choose one above the other for very long before changing my mind again. This is what comes of listening to others with an open mind. (I draw the line at fascism, mind).

[youwhatref]

Man apologises for bomber protest:

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4686410.stm

 

I do hope all the offending protestors including this guy are arrested though.

 

The guy apoligises! So he flamin should, he deserves arresting and booting out of the country. Insensitive is a big understatement IMO.

 

I'm sure it wont be the last time he demonstrates in a controversail way and i hope his mosque mad it's intentions clear well before the guy apologised.