BF2S Forums censorship due to fear of violent reaction

lowing wrote:

You all deny appeasement to Islam yet here it is again.

There's that word again.


She getting amply compensated and the book is likely to go ahead with publication anyway. And who's appeasing Muslims, a book publisher? So fucking what. They have the right to refuse publication of any works they deem offensive.

Jones said Random House will pay her a $100,000 advance, and that it will allow her to seek another publisher for the book.

Yeah - so that's appeasement, lowing....?

Muslims who get worked up over this shite are stoopid, imo.

lowing wrote:

read the article and tell me it is not.

This book is being pulled SPECIFICALLY over DEMANDS and FEARS of Islam and its reaction. THAT is appeasement. Free Speech has yielded to FEAR of Islam.

Geez, it's a very long bow your pulling if you want us to believe that this is "appeasment" - the simple fact of the matter is that any book publisher has the right to withdraw it's support from any body of work which is deems will not sell, is offensive, or may cause negative publicity towards the company.

One Muslim scholar who was given advanced copies of the book said Jewel of Medina turned the "sacred story" of Aisha's life into "soft core pornography."

Denise Spellberg, an expert on Aisha's life and associate professor of history and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, told the Wall Street Journal she was "invited to comment on the book" and described it as a "very ugly, stupid piece of work."

The above sounds like more than enough reason to pull out of a book deal imo.

Where do you stand on the rights of the book publisher, should they be forced to print this text because not doing so is appeasment?

lowing wrote:

I would agree if the reason for its REMOVAL was not stated as fear over Islamic reraction. The notion that it was pulled because it sucked is simply not the case, so stop trying to make that the argument.

John Voll, associate director of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, has spoken with Spellberg about Jones' book.

"What you have then is a clearly controversial highly emotional writing. The author has taken liberties with historical framework, she tried to present a historical novel, but it's a harlequin thing," Voll said. "Denise's position is that the manuscript takes liberties and is historically inaccurate," he said.

Gee, sounds like nothing but a sexed up, in-accurate, non-factual, poorly researched, ill-written piece of work by anyone's standards.

And you wonder why Muslims would be upset by such a work?

The book publisher, Random House, is well within it's own right to not publish such a ludicrous piece of text, not only that, but they made sure to compensate the author, to the tune of $100,000 to help her find another publisher.

462nd NSP653 wrote:

Well...it was the word quoted by an expert in the article....

Don't just dismiss lowing's threads...read them first.  Half of you dismiss him before ever reading or thinking about it. Some of his stuff is really out there but dismissing all of his posts as nonsense makes you as guilty of stereotyping/generalizing as you accuse him of being.

I wonder what it takes to be a "terrorism expert"?

Steven Emerson, described by some Muslims as an "an agenda-driven demagogue"

Source

A closer look at Emerson's career suggests his priority is not so much news as it is an unrelenting attack against Arabs and Muslims.

Source


This is coming from the author herself:

"I'm going to tell you there are no terrorist threats against Random House. There was never received any terrorist threat," she told FOXNews.com.

"By saying that Muslims will be violent, that they can't intelligently discuss this book, it's disrespectful to Muslims," Jones said. "To me, it feels racist for them to say that someone will try to attack them, that someone will try to go after me."

The author herself states that there was no threat from Muslims. That believing such a threat is present when it clearly was not is disrepectful and that it is racist to consider that any Muslim would try to attack Random House or her personally.

I don't just dismiss lowing's many appeasement threads, at least not until I look into them carefully. I look at each one of them and try to find as much information about the background of stakeholders in whatever appeasement story caught his eye that day and try to understand the different motives each of them have.

Maybe it's lowing who should follow up his claims a little better.

Last edited by TheAussieReaper (2008-10-03 20:31:33)

462nd NSP653 wrote:

I agree Emerson's motives may be suspect but of course the Muslims find he has an anti-muslim agenda, he's criticizing them. You don't think they'd say..."yup, he got us on that one".

Damn right he is criticising them. What he should be doing is criticising the extremists. Not every single Muslim - which he clearly has, and is, time and time again.

Emerson has been accused of exaggerating the threats posed by Islamists and of creating fictitious or unverifiable sources. Examples of allegations that have been ridiculed by the mainstream media include an alleged plot by Pakistan to launch a nuclear first strike against India and the accusation that Yugoslavians were behind the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York.

In its criticism of his coverage of the Pan Am 103 bombing, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting also accused Emerson of plagiarism:

Emerson's book, The Fall of Pan Am 103, was chastised by the Columbia Journalism Review, which noted in July 1990 that passages "bear a striking resemblance, in both substance and style" to reports in the Post-Standard of Syracuse, N.Y. Reporters from the Syracuse newspaper told this writer that they cornered Emerson at an Investigative Reporters and Editors conference and forced an apology.

The New York Times also criticized Emerson's accusation that Iran was behind the bombing.

But instead of weaving these revelations into the day-to-day story of the investigation, they drop them almost casually at the end, without much substantiation.

Emerson has also accused Muslims of being behind the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995.
Again I'll quote this source

462nd NSP653 wrote:

Random House admitted they pulled the book for fear of violence.  I think that is a very poignant statement.  Juxtapose this for example, to the Danish publishers whom did NOT take that stance as they felt the freedom of expression was more important.

Random House are well within their right to not endorse any publication they deem will cause negative publicity to the company. The author has said there is no threat made of violence against Random House.

462nd NSP653 wrote:

I guess what I read is that Random House made a conscious decision to not publish this book in order to avoid a backlash from a certain group.

lowing is calling that appeasement.  I'm having a hard time being able to flat out reject that claim.

Random House can choose not to publish this book in order to avoid a backlash from a certain group, whether the threat is real or not. The author has been amply compensated to the amount of $100,000US.

She is well within her rights to go find another publisher. There is no censorship or freedom of speech issue here AT ALL. The publisher Random House has acted in it's own best interests. I've quoted 4 or 5 different comments from experts dismissing the book as a sexed up, in-accurate, non-factual, poorly researched, ill-written piece of work.

A book like this has not been prevented from being written, bought\sold, copied only published. And that will be likely to change in the near future when the author uses her $100,000 compensation to find ANOTHER PUBLISHER.

If there's any appeasment here I fail to see it.

Random House have simply decided not to go forward with printing this incredibly bad piece of work.

One Muslim scholar who was given advanced copies of the book said Jewel of Medina turned the "sacred story" of Aisha's life into "soft core pornography."

Denise Spellberg, an expert on Aisha's life and associate professor of history and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, told the Wall Street Journal she was "invited to comment on the book" and described it as a "very ugly, stupid piece of work."

John Voll, associate director of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, has spoken with Spellberg about Jones' book.

"What you have then is a clearly controversial highly emotional writing. The author has taken liberties with historical framework, she tried to present a historical novel, but it's a harlequin thing," Voll said. "Denise's position is that the manuscript takes liberties and is historically inaccurate," he said.

462nd NSP653 wrote:

Also, how do you know $100,000 is amply compensated?  Maybe it would be a best seller and garnered her millions.  In fact, it may still because as you correctly pointed out, she may now shop it to another publisher...if they'll risk publishing it.

Well clearly this thing isn't going to sell millions. And I consider it ample compensation because, as you said, she may now shop it to another publisher. I'm sure both she and a representative from Random House would have signed a contract with regard to all of this, anyway.

And as for your definition of appeasement, we all know what appeasement means. But it's lowing who always invariably considers even the slightest suggestion of the word, such as in this foxnews article, that it is heading towards total appeasement.

His definition of any form of appeasement leads to an illogical outcome, but that he thinks will actually result:

lowing wrote:

We are going to do away with free speech because we are afraid of what Islam will think AND DO.

Last edited by TheAussieReaper (2008-10-03 21:55:57)

I think he'd be less pissed off if he stopped trying to pin everything marginally wrong in his eyes on liberals or muslims.

Reading multiple other sources on this story lowing it seems that the FOX story has read in and emphasised the 'violence' angle  - surprise fucking surprise. They also got someone from the Investigative Project on Terrorism (which has seemingly nothing to do with this - I mean the only angle you could really argue is freedom of speech, but even then that's not really an issue here), a completely unrelated body that has absolutely nothing to do with this issue to provide a damning criticism of RH's decision.

I'm not sure how familiar you are with the workings of publishing houses lowing but works are rejected all the time, and at all the different stages of the creative process. Two of the reasons that a book may be pulled is if it is grossly factually inaccurate (which does play a role in the realm of historical fiction), or if it was disenchanting to a large part of their market. Both were applicable here. Also, it should be pointed out that the criticism of the book was started by a non Muslim professor of Middle Eastern studies, who is one of the most knowledgeable sources on the subject matter of the book in America.

So in summary, FOX beat this entire thing up by reading in a prospective Islam violent outburst, RH dropped the book for legitimate reasons, the book is getting published by someone else anyway, and lowing fails another thread.

Last edited by SharkyMcshark (2008-10-04 02:01:32)

Here you are, blaming Islam instead of the people that are pulling it from the shelves. That's quite stupid if you ask me. Shouldn't you be yelling at the publishers instead? Why are they so scared? Why are you so scared? The problem here is with them, and you, because you're all so scared, not Islam.

And this is what pisses me off the most. You're always yelling at Europe/UK for appeasing Islam. You always yell at us, not Islam. Or both. But here you have something quite the same, in the US, yet you choose to only blame Islam and write off the Publishers as poor defenceless Christians. Pretty lame.

JahManRed wrote:

They are a vocal minority, like Muslim extremists.

Or right-wing extremists these days...thank God, Al'hahm du'Allah...

Next question...with a progressive party in charge of the USA, will Lowing's head finally explode like a frag grenade?