For all your supposed interest in getting rid of onerous censorship, there seems to be some of it taking place on BoingBoing itself.
I created an account for the purpose of posting a comment on the BoingBoing article having to do with what was purportedly a kid’s lingerie line being sold by Noah Cyrus (but was actually no such thing). I roundly criticized BoingBoing for having run what I deemed to be a hysterically-worded and error-riddled article in the first place. I used NO vulgar language, NO bigoted comments, NO threats, NO libelous accusations, nothing that should have gotten me banned from your site.
My comment was posted for maybe half an hour or so. Then the comment vanished. I saw a notice that my logon had expired, so I tried to log on again to see what had happened. I simply got a message saying “Permission denied.” Then I went to check my email. There was NO notification that my comment had been taken down or that I had been banned from BoingBoing. But apparently that is what happened.
It seems awfully hypocritical that someone at BoingBoing is banning people, WITHOUT notice or explanation, simply for criticizing BoingBoing itself.
It looks as though I need to go back to blogging about censorship issues, as tired of that topic as I am by now, simply because sites such as BoingBoing are failing to do their job. Obviously, just because a site CLAIMS to be in favor of free expression of ideas, does not mean that it actually IS. And in my experience, no site that employs, or is run by, persons of a left-wing bent, ever truly goes to bat for free expression for anybody who DISAGREES with material on the site itself. In other words…it’s always free speech for me, but not for thee!
For obvious reasons, I see no reason to identify myself to you any further. If you don’t trust me to comment on your site, why should I trust you with my personal information?
1389AD
“Hey, it’s their site, and they can do what they want!”
That’s true.
It’s also completely irrelevant.
“Why?”
Here’s why:
If BoingBoing and Mark Frauenfelder want to posture as defenders of free expression on the Internet and everywhere else, that’s their privilege.
If BoingBoing and Mark Frauenfelder want to ban me for making a comment that criticizes them for having run a deeply flawed article on their own website, that’s also their privilege.
But if they choose to do both at once, they’re going to look like a bunch of fools, and it’s MY privilege to point that out!
Oh, and by the way, whether you agree with me or not, you can contact Mark Frauenfelder at mark@boingboing.net and let him know what you think!
Dutch PM Geert Wilders’ movie, Fitna, is finally out!
However, actually being able to see the video is another matter. We will be tracking availability of the video, and censorship issues regarding the video, in this article.
Pulled from main and backup hosting sites…
Fitna has been pulled from the main site, http://www.fitnathemovie.com, on account of complaints. It has also been pulled from LiveLeak on account of threats against the staff.
fitna is available as bittorrent quite easily from various providers. I downloaded it in about 10 minutes. Try searching on “fitna bittorrent”
From EuropeNews:
Gates of Vienna keeps a list of alternative sites, torrent sites and translations. It is available at Google Video and many other places. The LiveLeak link will remain here, as the takedown message is instructive. This is what happens if our politicians do not stand up against intimidation. They’ve been rather frail this time, not least at the EU level.
So far, March 28, 2008 has been our best day ever for traffic on 1389 Blog. Is one of our stories “cutting-edge”? Heck no! Do we have some great piece of analytical work that our readers have been waiting for? Sorry, not that either. In fact, we must apologize about having been so slow at getting out some articles that our readership has been expecting.
No, people have been flocking to 1389 Blog to read two articles that are both over a month old. In fact, one of them is over two months old. But these old articles have suddenly become timely. How could that be?
Know the Truth and the Truth Shall Set You Free
1389 Blog exists for two purposes, to provide information to combat the current Islamic jihad against not only the US, but of all respectable civilization; and to provide technical help, tips, and assistance to the online counterjihad community. This does make us a bit unpopular in some circles.
We Are Not Politically Correct
There is a current fad of relativism and egalitarianism. Men and women must be equal, to the extent of being the same except for outward appearance. (But, for some strange reason, we are still using separate public restrooms!) All cultures are of equal value. (Of course, some cultures, like Southerners, Slavs and “Rednecks” of any kind, just are not quite as equal as the rest!) And all religions are more or less the same.
That last claim is the most puzzling. Contrary to what you might hear on the History Channel, the Mayan culture of Central America is still alive and well. True, they may no longer be in the pyramid building business, but take a trip to Guatemala and you should have little trouble finding someone who knows a priest in the Mayan religion. Now, it is a lucky thing for us that the Mayans are not demanding their religious rights to conduct human sacrifices. But that was once part of their religion.
I wonder what those who preach the modern gospel of political correctness would say if the Mayans were to return to their practices of human sacrifice. Would they scream that such a practice was “murder” and condemn the Mayan religious leaders for wanting to revert to it? Would they say that they personally opposed to human sacrifice, but consider human sacrifice to be a private matter within the Mayan community and oppose any government interference? Or would they finally realize that their own philosophy of political correctness is both illogical and morally bankrupt?
(Disclaimer! Present-day Mayan Indians do NOT want to return to this practice! This is merely a hypothetical example.)
We at 1389 Blog have consistently opposed the equally disgusting practices of jihadism to which many modern Muslims adhere. Yes, we get a lot of flack. However, these practices of jihad are every bit as disgusting as a rebirth of Mayan human sacrifice would be.
Geert Wilders Has the Platform
1389 Blog is just a small blog with about ten authors. Several of us have other works published. Most of those works are under names other than those used here. At present, we have no substantial platform that we can use to drive our point home.
The Price Paid by Theo Van Gogh
But then, having such a platform can be deadly proposition. Consider the fate of Theo Van Gogh. This is the movie, Submission, for which he gave his life:
Note: The above video was pulled from YouTube and is being hosted directly at 1389Blog.com.
Geert Wilders Refuses to be Silenced
The anti-jihad community has a new hero in the intrepid Dutch MP Geert Wilders. He has made a film, Fitna, that exposes modern-day Islam for the savage, cruel and barbaric death cult that it really is.
For obvious reasons, the crme against Theo Van Gogh figures prominently in Fitna.
Geert Wilders is so prominent that old articles bearing his name are drawing new readers out of the woodwork. We must selfishly thank Geert Wilders for the collateral benefit he has brought to 1389 Blog. However, we must wholeheartedly give him an altruistic thank you for helping to do more to spread the truth about radical Islam to the world than, in my opinion, 1389 Blog will ever be capable of doing.
The Jihadists’ Allies
Speaking hypothetically once again, if the Mayan Indians ever wanted to return to human sacrifice, or even to demand their right to do so, the would get little traction. I have been to Central America several times and have met a number of Mayan Indians. Yet, I know few people from the US, Canada, Europe, or even Israel who can say the same. Most of the people whom I encounter in the US do not even know that Mayan Indians still exist and still have solid communities.
So, the Mayan Indians would have few allies in their “struggles” to return to human sacrifice. Very few people would know of some wonderful Mayan Indians who they felt the need to stick up for in that regard.
(Disclaimer! The Mayan Indians in real life do NOT want to return to this practice! This is merely a hypothetical example.)
However, it is different with Muslims. Everyone knows and likes some Muslims. We all seemed to learn in school that Islam was one of those acceptable “Western” or “Abrahamic” religions, almost like Christianity and Judaism. We have all heard someone tell us that Allah must be the same God whom the Jews worship, or that Allah is equivalent to God the Father of the Christian Trinity.
What is at the root of this? We all want cheaper oil, and it seems logical to many that appeasing Muslims worldwide, and especially in the Middle East, would be a good way of guaranteeing our supply. We all have heard misguided people tell us that if Israel were not our “ally,” that the Muslims would all love us.
But the truth is far different. Islamic doctrine requires never-ending expansion so as to put the entire world under Sharia law. There is no room in Islam for anything other than itself. That’s what mainstream Islam is all about.
Thank You and Thank You
First of all, I would like to thank the Mayan Indians for helping me to make my point. I will be buying some of your shirts (a/k/a camisas tipicas) as soon as I see them for sale. Those shirts are a pleasant reminder of how the people of your culture do so well co-existing with the peoples of other cultures around you. True, there have been some failures in that regard, as we are all only human. However, I fully respect your culture, as I know you respect mine.
And thanks again to Geert Wilders for taking such a bold stand.
“So where can I see this Fitna movie?”
Note: Fitna has been pulled from the main site, http://www.fitnathemovie.com. It has also been pulled from LiveLeak on account of threats against the staff. This is frustrating, big time.
For this reason, we are hosting the video ourselves at 1389 Blog:
Updated 3/14/08: Nope…the problem’s back. Further research shows that this screen is a common 403 error screen on Drupal, an open source developer famous for creating Digg clones. Hmmm….
Updated 3/13/08: Looks like the problem’s been corrected.
Previously on FHK and on the 1389blog, we have discussed at length that companies that allow public internet access use filterware, which has, at times, exercised odd behavior in choosing which sites to block. At that time, we knew Panera Bread was using SonicWALL.
Today, I’m on the road, however, and stopped at Panera to catch up on my blogging I tried to Digg a story for a friend and got a screen I hadn’t seen before. It didn’t look like the old familiar SonicWALL censhorship page, and a check of SonicWALL shows that it has Digg.com rated as “News and Media [and] Information Technology/Computers“. Instead. Instead, the screen looked like this: Continue reading →
Dutch parliamentary member Geert Wilders has announced that his Islam critical film named “Fitna” will be ready at the end of this week. The film, he announced, will soon have its own website:
Revealing fact is that the Dutch parliamentary member choose to host the website not from a server in The Netherlands, but from a server located in North America. Presumably to hold it out of reach of the Dutch government.
Next week, says Wilders, he will start negotiating with Dutch broadcasters to get his 15 minute film broadcasted in The Netherlands. A process that, according to him, can take up to several weeks. This could be sign that the movie will not be released the end of this week. But it could also be a way to put pressure on the Dutch broadcasters who don’t want to broadcast the whole movie, because they all politically oppose Wilders, but who at the same time would even sell their own mother for a scoop.
We keep you posted about the developments around the film Fitna. In the meantime, if people like to provide some free PR to the movie, they should create as many back links as possible to the website “fitna the movie”. This can be done by simply placing links to www.fitnathemovie.com. This can be done on you’re personal blog, other people’s blog comments, discussion forums, websites, etc.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani authorities on Tuesday lifted a ban on popular video-sharing website YouTube after it removed “objectionable content” insulting Islam.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) had ordered about 70 internet service providers last week to block the website because it had hosted a trailer for a “blasphemous film” by Dutch politician Geert Wilders that portrays Islam in a negative light.
The move by Pakistani authorities to block access to the website caused an accidental near global blackout of YouTube on Sunday.
YouTube , which is owned by Google, said on Monday that an ISP complying with Pakistan’s ban had caused a blackout of the website on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s Senate or upper house of Parliament strongly condemned the republication in Denmark of the blasphemous cartoons caricaturing Prophet Mohammed that were also posted on YouTube.
A resolution passed unanimously by the Senate said “serious tensions” are also brewing because of a “sacrilegious film against Islam” made by Wilders.
(Emphasis is ours.)
That’s right… the controversy even brought down YouTube!
These crude and heavy-handed efforts to stop people from watching Fitna will eventually backfire. The harder our foes work to censor vital political speech, the more attention it will get, and the more curiosity will be aroused. That’s just human nature; after all, if the movie warrants that much consternation, then what it contains must be very important indeed.
But even though totalitarian censorship fails in the long run, before that happens it always does enormous damage to human societies and to the human spirit. Geert Wilders’ movie is going to be huge – and it deserves every opportunity to reach its eagerly-awaiting audience.
Here’s where YOU come in:
Cross-post the Fitna movie announcement on your own blog.
Wikileaks, a website that has brought to light many scandalous acts by giving whistleblowers a forum to expose wrong doing anonomously, has been ordered by US District Judge Jeffrey White of the Northern District of California to display blank pages and goes even further by barring them from redirecting traffic to offshore servers. It also bars them from transfering ownership of the domain name wikileaks.org. Once again, a Bush appointed judge has over-extended the government’s conrtrol over our essential freedoms. If ever there were any doubt about our Constitution being under attack, this would be a shining example.
Wikileaks was founded in 2006 by people from a host of countries, including the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa. It has generated headlines by hosting documents exposing several high-profile scandals, including those related to the collapse of the UK’s Northern Rock bank and to prisons in Iraq and and Guantanamo Bay. The site says it has posted more than 1.2 million documents.
In the case in dispute, Wikileaks claimed a bank located in the Cayman Islands engaged in money laundering and tax evasion. The latest agreement came in a lawsuit brought by Bank Julius Baer, the parent company of the accused Cayman bank. After trying unsuccessfully to get Wikileaks to remove the documents, Swiss-based Julius Baer went after Dynadot, the California web hosting company, which according to this copy of the court order [PDF], agreed to roll over in exchange for the suit against it being dismissed. Dynadot also agreed to turn over records related to Wikileaks, including “IP addresses and associated data used by any person, other than Dynadot, who accessed the account for the domain name”. Wikileaks claims that it is an “uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis”. But this is true only if its webhosts can be trusted not to pull the plug on its customers or divulge sensitive client information.
Wikileaks lawyers were given only a few hours notice of this latest hearing, and amazingly the judge allowed the hearing to proceed and issued the injunction without hearing any counter-claim from Wikileaks lawyers. One would hope that this type of shotgun injunction will be overturned on appeal based on the patent unfairness of the proceedings. It would also appear that the court is engaging in what amounts to Government sanctioned censorship. It all is a fascinating story to follow.
Wikileaks has also been banned in China and Thailand. Apparently they have pissed off many rich and powerful people around the world. It will be interesting how this plays out in the U.S. courts, as I’m sure this is only round number one. Stay tuned for more on this one…..
