An Orgy of Democratic Hypocrisy “Free Speech” in the Aftermath of the Attack on Charlie Hebdo
The attack on the editorial offices of Charlie Hebdo has shocked the public, which is horrified by the violent deaths of 12 people in the center of Paris. The video images, viewed by millions, of the gunmen firing their weapons and killing an already-wounded policeman have imparted to Wednesday’s events an extraordinary actuality.
In the immediate aftermath of the shootings, the state and media are seeking to exploit the fear and the confusion of the public. Once again, the political bankruptcy and essentially reactionary character of terrorism is exposed. It serves the interests of the state, which utilizes the opportunity provided by the terrorists to whip up support for authoritarianism and militarism.
In 2003, when the Bush administration invaded Iraq, French popular opposition was so overwhelming that the government led by President Jacques Chirac was compelled to oppose the war, even in the face of massive political pressure from the United States.
Now, 12 years later, as President François Hollande is striving to transform France into the United States’ principal ally in the “war on terror,” the attack in Paris plays into his hands.
In these efforts Hollande can rely on the media, which in such circumstances directs all its energies toward the emotional manipulation and political disorientation of the public.
The capitalist media, skillfully combining the suppression of information with half-truths and outright lies, devises a narrative that is calculated to appeal not only to the basest instincts of the broad public, but also to its democratic and idealistic sentiments.
Throughout Europe and the United States, the claim is being made that the attack on the magazine Charlie Hebdo was an assault on the freedom of the press and the unalienable right of journalists in a democratic society to express themselves without loss of freedom or fear for their lives.
The killing of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists and editors is being proclaimed an assault on the principles of free speech that are, supposedly, held so dear in Europe and the United States.
The attack on Charlie Hebdo is, thus, presented as another outrage by Muslims who cannot tolerate Western “freedoms.” From this the conclusion must be drawn that the “war on terror”—i.e., the imperialist onslaught on the Middle East, Central Asia and North and Central Africa—is an unavoidable necessity.
In the midst of this orgy of democratic hypocrisy, no reference is made to the fact that the American military, in the course of its wars in the Middle East, is responsible for the deaths of at least 15 journalists.
In the on-going narrative of “Freedom of Speech Under Attack,” there is no place for any mention of the 2003 air-to-surface missile attack on the offices of Al Jazeera in Baghdad that left three journalists dead and four wounded.
Nor is anything being written or said about the July 2007 murder of two Reuters journalists working in Baghdad, staff photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen and driver Saeed Chmagh. Both men were deliberately targeted by US Apache gunships while on assignment in East Baghdad.
The American and international public was first able to view a video of the cold-blooded murder of the two journalists as well as a group of Iraqis—taken from one of the gunships—as the result of WikiLeaks’ release of classified material that it had obtained from an American soldier, Corporal Bradley Chelsea Manning.
And how has the United States and Europe acted to protect WikiLeaks’ exercise of free speech? Julian Assange, the founder and publisher of WikiLeaks, has been subjected to relentless persecution. Leading political and media figures in the United States and Canada have denounced him as a “terrorist” and demanded his arrest, with some even calling publicly for his murder.
Assange is being pursued on fraudulent “rape” allegations concocted by American and Swedish intelligence services. He has been compelled to seek sanctuary in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, which is under constant guard by British police who will seize Assange if he steps out of the embassy.
As for Chelsea Manning, she is presently in prison, serving out a 35-year sentence for treason. That is how the great capitalist “democracies” of North America and Europe have demonstrated their commitment to free speech and the safety of journalists!
The dishonest and hypocritical narrative spun out by the state and the media requires that Charlie Hebdo and its murdered cartoonists and journalists be upheld as martyrs to free speech and representatives of a revered democratic tradition of hard-hitting iconoclastic journalism.
In a column published Wednesday in the Financial Times, the liberal historian Simon Schama places Charlie Hebdo in a glorious tradition of journalistic irreverence that “is the lifeblood of freedom.” He recalls the great European satirists between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries who subjected the great and powerful to their withering scorn.
Among their illustrious targets, Schama reminds us, were the brutal Duke of Alba, who in the 1500s drowned the Dutch struggle for freedom in blood; the French “Sun King,” Louis XIV; the British Prime Minister William Pitt; and the Prince of Wales.
“Satire,” writes Schama, “became the oxygen of politics, ventilating healthy howls of derision in coffee houses and taverns where caricatures circulated every day and every week.”
Schama places Charlie Hebdo in a tradition to which it does not belong. All the great satirists to whom Schama refers were representatives of a democratic Enlightenment who directed their scorn against the powerful and corrupt defenders of aristocratic privilege. In its relentlessly degrading portrayals of Muslims, Charlie Hebdo has mocked the poor and the powerless.
To speak bluntly and honestly about the sordid, cynical and degraded character of Charlie Hebdo is not to condone the killing of its personnel.
But when the slogan “I am Charlie” is adopted and heavily promoted by the media as the slogan of protest demonstrations, those who have not been overwhelmed by state and media propaganda are obligated to reply: “We oppose the violent assault on the magazine, but we are not—and have nothing in common with—‘Charlie.’”
Marxists are no strangers to the struggle to overcome the influence of religion among the masses. But they conduct this struggle with the understanding that religious faith is sustained by conditions of adversity and desperate hardship. Religion is not to be mocked, but understood and criticized as Karl Marx understood and criticized it:
“Religious distress is … the expression of real distress and also the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of spiritless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
“To abolish religion as the illusory happiness of the people is to demand their real happiness. The demand to give up illusions about the existing affairs is the demand to give up a state of affairs that needs illusions. The criticism of religion is therefore in embryo the criticism of the vale of tears, the halo of which is religion.” [Contribution to Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law, in Marx and Engels Collected Works, Volume 3 (New York, 1975), pp. 175-76]
One has only to read these words to see the intellectual and moral chasm that separates Marxism from the unhealthy milieu of the ex-left political cynicism that has found expression in Charlie Hebdo. There has been nothing enlightening, let alone edifying, in their puerile and often obscene denigration of the Muslim religion and its traditions.
The cynically provocative anti-Muslim caricatures that have appeared on so many covers of Charlie Hebdo have pandered to and facilitated the growth of right-wing chauvinist movements in France. It is absurd to claim, by way of defense of Charlie Hebdo, that its cartoons are all “in good fun” and have no political consequences.
Aside from the fact that the French government is desperate to rally support for its growing military agenda in Africa and the Middle East, France is a country where the influence of the neo-fascist National Front is growing rapidly.
In this political context, Charlie Hebdo has facilitated the growth of a form of politicized anti-Muslim sentiment that bears a disturbing resemblance to the politicized anti-Semitism that emerged as a mass movement in France in the 1890s.
In its use of crude and vulgar caricatures that purvey a sinister and stereotyped image of Muslims, Charlie Hebdo recalls the cheap racist publications that played a significant role in fostering the anti-Semitic agitation that swept France during the famous Dreyfus Affair, which erupted in 1894 after a Jewish officer was accused and falsely convicted of espionage on behalf of Germany.
In whipping up popular hatred of Jews, La Libre Parole [“Free Speech”], published by the infamous Edoard Adolfe Drumont, made highly effective use of cartoons that employed the familiar anti-Semitic devices. The caricatures served to inflame public opinion, inciting mobs against Dreyfus and his defenders, such as Emile Zola, the great novelist and author of J’Accuse.
The World Socialist Web Site, on the basis of long-standing political principles, opposes and unequivocally condemns the terrorist assault on Charlie Hebdo. But we refuse to join in the portrayal of Charlie Hebdo as a martyr to the cause of democracy and free speech, and we warn our readers to be wary of the reactionary agenda that motivates this hypocritical and dishonest campaign.
David North, WSWS
Evidence That Sheds Doubt on the Official Story Regarding the Charlie Hebdo Shootings
![](http://libertycrier.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/charlie-hebdo-video.jpg)
http://stormcloudsgathering.com/charlie-hebdo-shootings-censored-video
I’m going to show you some footage of the Charlie Hebdo shootings which has been restricted or taken down from a number of websites. As you will see it contains no blood, gore or graphic violence. It does however punch a major hole in the official story.
You can draw your own conclusions.
The following clip was played on France 24. You’ll notice in the middle that a section is edited out.
Let’s look at the clip that was edited out.
Now if we zoom in and slow it down you’ll see that the officer isn’t actually hit by a bullet. There is a blast that hits the sidewalk just in front of him, but he is clearly not hit in the head as the corporate media is claiming.
Let’s watch it again. Notice that the head isn’t rocked by the blast as it would be if he was actually hit. Notice the plume of dust about a foot in front of him as the shot hits the ground. This is a AK-47. A hit to the head would splatter blood and brains all over the sidewalk.
Anyone who claims that this footage shows someone being hit in the head by a 7.62×39mm round either has no experience with guns, or is lying. This is a big bullet that does massive damage and makes a bloody mess. This officer was NOT killed by a gunshot to the head.
My first thought here was “ok, they missed”. Just one problem. Every single mainstream media outlet is claiming that he was finished off with a shot to the head, and that’s blatantly false.
So then you have to ask, what else are they lying about?
Funny thing is, these guys went to the trouble to put on ski masks, but for some reason, according to the authorities, they decided to leave their identity cards laying in the get away car. That’s how the perpetrators were identified. Really? Come on.
The other funny thing, the suspects wound up dead, so case closed.
Now I’m not going to claim to know what really happened here, but we are being lied to, and lies like this mean trouble is coming.
March of the Hypocrites: In Paris They March for “Free Speech” AND They’ll SOON Be Marching off to WAR
![](https://aeuddotme1.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/rtr4kx60.jpg?w=672&h=372&crop=1)
It was only natural that “world leaders” would place themselves at the head of the Paris “unity” demonstration held to express outrage at the vicious Charlie Hebdo murders. Daniel Wickham, a student at the London School of Economics, compiled a list of the enemies of free speech who elbowed their way to the head of the march.
Most hypocritical of all are the French themselves, who have laws against “hate speech” which are only selectively enforced and which have been used against the editors of Charlie Hebdo in the past.
This cognitive dissonance was eloquently expressed by one Frenchman who carried a sign saying: “I’m marching but I’m conscious of the confusion and hypocrisy of the situation.”
That politicians would steal the spotlight and turn the sincere outrage of millions into an opportunity for self-advertisement is hardly surprising. Sincerity has its uses, however, and these will become apparent in the days and weeks to come.
Those marchers will soon be cheering their soldiers as they go marching off to war, with “Je suis Charlie” inscribed on their banners.
The target? Syria, where “links” have been found between the Paris attacks and the self-proclaimed “Caliphate”of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The New York Times reports:
“Amedy Coulibaly, one of the three gunman responsible for the terrorist attacks in France last week, produced a video that appeared online on Sunday, two days after his death, showing him sitting below the flag of the Islamic State militant group and pledging allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the organization’s leader.”
If you read the transcript of the video it reads almost like a script prepared by our biggest warmongers. It takes the form of an interview, with the invisible interviewer represented by words on a screen and Coulibaly answering:
“Which group are you linked to and do you have an Emir?
Coulibaly: ‘I am pledging my allegiance to the Caliph of the Muslims, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. I have made a declaration of allegiance to the Caliph and the declaration of a Caliphate.’”
The Islamic State has been trying to provoke a major military response from the Western powers for months now, executing American journalists and aid workers and posting videos of the executions on the Internet, but so far the US has reacted with caution.
So they resorted to attacking the West on its own soil, and now the chorus of voices calling for an all-out invasion of Syria will become deafening, drowning out all reason. And Coulibaly dots all the i’s and crosses the t’s:
“Are you linked to the brothers who attacked Charlie Hebdo?”
“Coulibaly: ‘We are a team, in league together. I am with the team who did Charlie Hebdo. I went out a little against the police too. So that’s that. We did some things together, some things separately to have most impact. [Sound of TV news in the background in which newsreader can be clearly heard talking about the attacks].
‘We have managed to be synchronized together, to come out at the same time, because we are close in the same business.’”
It’s all so pat, an engraved invitation: Come and get us!
From his permanent pulpit on the Sunday morning TV talk-fest, Senator John McCain declared his intention to oblige them. Railing against the failure of the United States to defeat ISIS, McCain is asked by journalist Gloria Borger what exactly he has in mind, and his response is a preview of things to come:
“ISIS right now is winning. And we need to go after them, and we need to have more boots on the ground. We need to understand that Syria and Iraq are the same. We need to arm the Free Syrian Army. We need a no-fly zone, which many of us have been calling for, for years, and a coherent strategy that can be presented to the Congress, because they’re going to be wanting an authorization for the use of military force.”
There’s something more than a little counterintuitive about McCain’s call for a no-fly zone: after all, ISIS doesn’t have an air force, while the most effective counterweight to them – the Syrian government – does indeed. If McCain’s concern is ISIS, then why go after Bashar al-Assad? And as for arming the Syrian Free Army: those arms are more than likely to show up in the hands of ISIS. As Debka File reports:
“The Syrian rebel militia Al Yarmouk Shuhada Brigades, backed and trained for two years by US officers, mostly CIA experts, in Jordan, and supported by the Israeli army, has abruptly dumped these sponsors and joined up with the Islamic State in Iraq.”
If McCain has his way, the next terrorist attackers who show up in the streets of a Western city are more than likely to have been trained by our very own CIA. A purer form of “blowback” could hardly be imagined.
In a more general sense, the principle of “blowback” operates in the terrorists’ favor as the US and its allies get more deeply involved in Syria and Iraq: if the Western powers follow McCain’s advice, jihadists will stream from Europe to the region in even greater numbers and the legitimacy of the “Caliphate” in the eyes of Muslims everywhere is increased.
McCain and his fellow interventionists have a symbiotic relationship with the terrorists: both are legitimized on the home front by the actions of the other.
ISIS was itself birthed in the chaos that accompanied our invasion and conquest of Iraq, and McCain and the War Party are intent on duplicating that Orc factory in the territory of Syria.
So how does this policy of creating and succoring the very threats they rail against benefit the leaders of the West?
Without the threat of terrorism, our foreign policy of perpetual war would have zero public support. Without the excuse of having to monitor the ever-escalating activities of the Coulibalys of this world, the very idea that the government has the “right” to scoop up our communications and store them in a giant facility out in the Utah desert would be dismissed as a dystopian fantasy.
But then again, that’s the world we live in, in the year 2015: a dystopia so absurd that no writer, prior to September 11, 2001, would have dared put it into print, either as fiction or speculative nonfiction.
And so the hypocrites march on, right over a cliff and into an abyss of their own making.
Justin Raimondo is the editorial director of Antiwar.com, and a senior fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute. He is a contributing editor at The American Conservative, and writes a monthly column for Chronicles. He is the author of Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement [Center for Libertarian Studies, 1993; Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2000], and An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard [Prometheus Books, 2000].