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i think this cretin gasbag poses an interesting problem of limits to freedom of speech. the communications environment in which we now operate allows cretin gasbag statements and actions to have repercussions that far outstrip the scale of the cretin gasbags themselves. it's happened that making cretin gasbag noises about burning a koran sparked demonstrations in afghanistan in which people were killed. those noises prompted a warning from interpol about "terrorism"---though you kinda have to wonder in this case who the "terrorist" is. but perhaps if a cretin gasbag is enough of one--and white---such questions do not arise.
cretin gasbags in florida stage allegories of allegorical actions that come to stand in for aspects of ongoing united states policy....the "war on terror" and the racist marketing staged for it under the bush regime and its continuing role in neo-fascist identity politics...the united states can easily be seen as waging an informal war against an entire religion because cretin gasbags can access global communication networks and get their cretin viewpoints out into the world.
are the political consequences of this sort of thing internationally such that limitations on ultra-rightwing speech should be fashioned?
is racism protected speech?
how is this cretin gasbag not arrested for a hate crime? how is this not one?
the question of shouting fire in a crowded theater is not so easy to dismiss. if the interpol warning is taken at all seriously, the cretins in florida were attempting to incite a riot, to incite violence by committing symbolic violence. they endangered others. this endangering is the place where the analogy kicks in.
personally, i would have hoped that jones and his tiny cadre of ultra-rightwing christian zealots would find themselves arrested had they tried to go forward.
i don't see this as a freedom of speech issue. this is incitement. and it is a hate crime.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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