Saturday, January 31, 2015

Charlie Hebdo....What's the Score?

"What's your take on Charlie Hebdo, Rosemary?"

It was a fair game and it ended in a tie.

The artists and writers at CH were by no means heroes.  They were bullies, may they rest in peace.  They were very sophisticated, I will give you that...but they were bullies nonetheless.  Their insistence on picking on certain groups was not motivated by some idea that by doing so the world would be a better place. They chose their targets by identifying where they would touch on the most nerves.  Get the biggest reaction.  The biggest adrenaline rush.  If there were no extremist Muslim groups and no death threats, etc. the taunting would have ceased long ago.  The fun would have ended and they'd have been shopping their portfolios and manuscripts around a long time ago, in fact, most of them made their real bread and butter through other publications anyway.

Afterall...it's fashionable to hate the Middle East, and just as delicious to worship French artists and liberals.  It was trendy to idealize the Hebdo victims.  But let's not forget that they were fighting bankruptcy for years.  The French, who aren't as easily romanticized by all things French (for obvious reasons), were not supporting this magazine before the attack.  They were largely ignoring it and it was dying a slow death. 

"But they stood up for their rights, I'd rather die standing up than live kneeling down."  Fine.  Then make cartoons about things like human trafficking and texting while driving, things that really do damage peoples lives irreparably.  Push the limits.  Call out big time criminals by name and their mindless devotees by their shame.   Don't worry...they will probably want to kill you too, if that's what twists your skirt.

"So  are you condoning violence and cold-blooded murder?"  Of course not; no hitting...that's always been my rule.  So the blood-thirsty bullies finally hit the mean-hearted bullies back.  What did you think was going to happen?  It's a tie now.  All's fair play in my book when it's bully vs. bully.

Poking at someone's sore spot until they explode, does not make you a hero. It takes no strength to do that.  Showing kindness, respecting differences and uniting people, on the other hand,  is heroic, SO INCREDIBLY heroic that it takes super-human powers to pull it off most of the time. 


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