Its over for Palestine..

Originally posted by GigaShadow
Islam is in desperate need of a Renaissance, much like what Europe had back at the end of the middle ages.

Not gonna happen.  And I say fine.  Let them live in perpetual dark ages if they want to.  I don\'t particularly care.  In general I would say "don\'t mess with us and we won\'t mess with you."  Whether that is possible NOW, I don\'t know, but I think it could be possible to adopt that stance toward the muslim theocracies.

The problem is that it won\'t hold for the long term.  Eventually when the quality of life in South Asia and Latin America starts rising to the point where the labor force in those countries cannot be completely exploited, and pay rates begin to rise above poverty levels, the corporations will start looking elsewhere for exploitable labor.  They will look at the middle east and say to themselves "maybe it\'s time we brought THEM into the  global economy!"  Corporations have already started to explore them as a market for consumer goods.  When they begin to encroach on them as a source of cheap labor, then the backlash is really going to catch fire.

I think we need to ignore the middle east in every way.  Develop alternate fuels so we don\'t have to buy their oil.  Don\'t sell them products that clash with their cultural beliefs.  Don\'t expoit their workforce.  Don\'t take any interest in them whatsoever.  They can do whatever they want as far as I care.

Wow.. its getting worse.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/religion_cartoons_dc;_ylt=AhPexQII1N01rkshqWftZJus0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--

Up to 300 militant Indonesian Muslims went on a rampage in the lobby of a building housing the Danish embassy in Jakarta.

Shouting "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greatest), they smashed lamps with bamboo sticks, threw chairs, lobbed rotten eggs and tomatoes and tore up a Danish flag. No one was hurt.

The drawings have touched off international fury as well as a debate on the clash between freedom of speech and respect for religion.

[...]

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy condemned the protests.

"I am totally shocked and find it unacceptable that -- because there have been caricatures in the West -- extremists can burn flags or take fundamentalist or extremist positions which would prove the cartoonists right," he told LCI television.

Danish companies have reported sales falling in the Middle East after protests in the Arab world and calls for boycotts.

Palestinian gunmen seized and later released a German on Thursday, and a hand grenade was thrown into the compound of the French Cultural Center in the
Gaza Strip.

[...]

MEDIA FREEDOM

European newspapers said the publication of the cartoons was an expression of media freedom.

"Liberation defends the freedom of expression," French daily Liberation said in a headline introducing two of the cartoons, one of which depicted an imam telling suicide bombers to stop because Heaven had run out of virgins with which to reward them.

Belgian newspaper De Standaard reproduced the pictures along with letters from readers in favor of publication.

"Two values are in conflict here. One is respect for religion and the other is freedom of speech," Editor-in-Chief Peter Vandermeersch told Reuters.

In Italy, at least two papers published the cartoons on their front pages on Friday.

Bulgarian daily Novinar also reprinted them and Spain\'s El Pais reprinted a drawing that had appeared in France\'s Le Monde newspaper portraying the head of the prophet, formed by lines which read "I must not draw Mohammad."

The Sun tabloid, Britain\'s biggest-selling daily, reprinted the front pages of French daily France Soir and the Danish paper but obscured images of Mohammad with red boxes marked

This is getting trivial. Go back to humping camels you stupid fuckers.

Launch the longships, this shit has got to end.

[GmanJoe]

I hope the stars re-align so that it looks like one of those caricatures.

[clips]

i don\'t know what to make of this....i mean when you\'re dealing with things of this nature,..you have to be careful of who you offend. i haven\'t seen the comic,..but i just saw a quick report about it on tv. I DO think they are overreacting tho..s**t all religions get picked on from time to time...but i guess in this instance the comic was really bad in taste, and if that is the case..i can understand them being upset, but not to the point to where they are yellin jihad and such...:rolleyes:

they need to redirect some of that energy to some of those fanatics that are delivering suicide bombers to it\'s own people....yea some of those terrorists like to be called freedom fighters, but let\'s be real here..some of them don\'t want peace and only want to cause death and destruction as long as they can implement it....

Longships, stars realigning - funny shit.

Now the US State Department has deemed the comic "offensive" - good grief.  Political correctness has to end, but I would bet if we didn\'t have troops in Iraq the government would have taken a different stance.

Hehe, I have noticed that people have started adding Danish and EU flags to their avatars on different forums to show support. I read that the Swedish-Danish company Arla (dairy provider) is losing about 10 million SEK ($1.3 million) per day because of the boycott, they had to lay off 200 people in Denmark and 800 people in Saudi-Arabia.

Today the Danish and Norwegian embassy’s in Syria was attacked and burned, the Swedish and Chilean embassy’s were also burned down (they were housed in the same building as the Danish).

These people cant be thinking clearly. They aren’t making the situation for their Muslim brothers in Europe any easier. Expect a rise in anti-islamistic crimes and a less tolerant view towards Islam in the general public in some countries.

Some or most.  

When are people going to realize that freedom is fundemantally incompatible with oppression (yes, it SEEMS obvious).

Pick one.  These people burning danish flags and embassies obviously have, and this will continue till the rest of the world accepts it or picks the other.

[GmanJoe]

I guess the cartoons were spot on.

here are the cartoons:

http://forums.zgeek.com/images/thosecartoons.jpg

[CHIZZY]

oh the horror!

[Viper_Fujax]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/02/06/cartoon.protests/index.html

and these arent the extremists im presuming? people always say islam is like christianity but...whatever..sad group of people.

and why are they protesting on a U.S. base?

[Cerberus]

it\'s funny how they can rip the piss out of jesus, but we can\'t rip the piss out of mohammed

[clips]

Originally posted by Cerberus
it\'s funny how they can rip the piss out of jesus, but we can\'t rip the piss out of mohammed

well from i understand, muslims do believe in jesus. And sittin back and reflecting on this as a whole...yea it\'s freedom of speech and all,...but if if any cartoon was printed in any mainstream american newspaper,..depicting muslims, african americans,..or jews in any distateful manner..s**t would hit the fan....and while some of the cartoons weren\'t that bad, you just can\'t do stuff like that.

Again i do agree they overreacted, but when it comes to any religion, to some degree you have to be sensitivitely (spel) responsible...not sayin that you have to be careful like you\'re walkin\' on eggshells, but you have to respect each religion...whatever it may be...