Where are the socialists?? They used to have basketball sized cajones when it came to defending free speech. The Brooklyn Museum, in 1999, had an exhibit entitled Sensation. This exhibit had on display a picture of a black Virgin Mary, partial created with elephant dung. The picture was then surrounded by pictures of female genitalia. (Note: I had thought this was male genitalia, originally, but was wrong and stand corrected.). But in light of the recent Muslim caricatures, the biggest defenders of free speech have gone silent. They have traded in their basket’balls’ for ping pong ‘balls’.
Where is the National Coalition Against Censorship? There is NOTHING on their website about this whole cartoon affair. This is a site that prides itself on defending free speech. Their Executive Director, Joan Bertin, clearly felt a news release defending this “art” at the Brooklyn Museum was warranted. What sucks is that author Judy Blume sits on their Board. I think I am going upstairs and take the Judy Blume books off my kids bookshelves and toss em in the recycle bin. Maybe they will come out the other end of a recycling plant as toilet paper I happen to buy. Wouldn’t that be a stroke of luck.
| “The entire arts community should be grateful to Director Arnold Lehman and the BMA’s Board of Directors for standing firm on the right of artists and museum-goers to make their own decisions without interference from the government,” said Joan Bertin, Executive Director of the National Coalition Against Censorship. “If the city chooses to fund the arts, it simply cannot pick and choose what art is ‘offensive’ and what is not.”
“That judgment varies so widely and is so subjective that, if it were the test, publicly funded art institutions would likely have little of interest to offer beyond the most inoffensive and conventional art,” according to Michelle Coffey, Program Director of the National Campaign for Freedom of Expression. “Every major art collection contains something that someone will find offensive.” In this case, the Mayor and other critics may simply be revealing their own misinterpretation of the varied cultural and artistic traditions on which artists draw |
Where are you now Joan? Or how about you Michelle? Not only did you defend the rights of this artist, but you defended the right for tax payers who were offended to continue to pay for displaying this art.
Then we have the World Socialist Web Site. This group also defended the Brooklyn Museum exhibit here, and then turnaround and blast the newspapers who showed the cartoon caricatures of Mohammad.
| The World Socialist Web Site unequivocally condemns the publication by a series of European newspapers of defamatory cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist and killer. These crude caricatures, intended to insult and incite Muslim sensibilities, are a political provocation. Their publication, initially by a right-wing Danish newspaper with historical ties to German and Italian fascism, was calculated to fuel anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiment. |
This site lists 12 members on their Editorial Board.
I am sure there are dozens and dozens of other socialist oriented sites that would defend free speech one way but not the other. I urge commenters to point out these sights in the comments section.
I also encourage you to contact both these organizations and straighten them out. The WSWS can be contacted via their website Feedback Form here, and the NCAC can be reached by emailing them.