The furor sparked by Iraqi artist Wafaa Bilal's controversial video game exhibit has seemingly taken on a life of its own.
In the latest news, officials of the New York Civil Liberties Union said that the organization may file suit against the city of Troy. As GamePolitics reported yesterday, city officials used local building codes to shut down Bilal's exhibit at a local studio. Executive Director Melanie Trimble of the Capital Region chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union told the Schenectady Daily Gazette:
The city is suppressing free speech, and they will face consequences. You cannot prevent people from assembling. It is an infringement of their First Amendment rights.
At the heart of the issue is the role of political figure Bob Mirch (left), a Republican with deep political connections in local and state politics. As reported by the Daily Gazette:
Mirch is head of [Troy's] Department of Public Works, works for [Republican] state Sen. Joseph Bruno as a constituent liaison and is Republican majority leader on the Rensselaer County Legislature.
Steve Pierce, director of the Sanctuary for Independent Media, which was shut down by Troy less than 24 hours after Bilal's exhibit opened, said:
We have [Mirch] on video saying, ‘I am the director of public works, and I am organizing this protest.’ The next day they shut us down. It is an issue of selective enforcement.
http://www.youtube.com/v/O87DtGSo_NY&hl=en
Comments
They tend at times to file lawsuits that are pointless and frivoulse, but yes there thends to be a great bais, mostly from neoconservatives.
But they don't file frivously as the media would like people to think.
Also, the more I look at the picture, I get the feeling that he reminds me of one of those characters in an english movie of the 60s or 70s and say things like "That adolph hitler, he had some good ideas". Not saything he is even remotely connected to the nazi thing (and isn't an application of that internet+nazi=irrelevant argument law) but he just kinda reminds me of that kind of character.
The government had no right to shut down that exhibit...
"Maybe a lawyer could correct me on this, but wouldn’t the ACLU have to demonstrate intent in order to win?"
IANAL, but they could show a pattern of "selective" enforcement of the building codes. That the Sanctuary has only been targeted for violations when it suited the city politically. That and the fact that the prior to the exhibit, the building was cleared for use, and only after the Public Works Commissioner's protest does the department reverse itself? That and they've got him on record stating that the show is not worthy of free speech protection... I think that clearly demonstrates that he allowed the abuse to happen, even if he wasn't directly responsible. And that's usually good enough for a civil suit.
Fortunately, you don't have to. Even if it isn't art, it's still clearly and unequivocally political speech, and is entitled to First Amendment protection. Indeed, the fact that art is protected in the first place seems to me to be a kind of "accident", or at least an indirect consequence of the protection of political speech - since whether or not a work of art is "political", censoring it is inevitably a political act.
"On one hand, I wholeheartedly support free speech and the elimination of censorship, but on the other hand, I really don’t agree with calling Bilal’s exhibit “art”…"
As Konrad_arflane said, political speech is protected too.
I find the "it's not art" defense to be, well, lame. When Madison first proposed the 1st Amendment, he wanted to protect the right to speak, to write, or to publish your sentiments. Clearly he was thinking of the expression of ideas, probably not just those confined by writing or oral communication. But at the time, that's really all he had. You either had a newspaper, or you stood on a soapbox. Art itself wasn't really understood as a "conveyor" of ideas...
In Canada, our constitution uses the line "freedom of expression", mostly because it was written in 1982, so we understood that conveying of ideas could be done by more than just a mouth or a pen...
IMO, YMMV.
The Canadian constitution is only 26 years old? Does this mean I'm older than Canada?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_Act%2C_1982
"The Canadian constitution is only 26 years old? Does this mean I’m older than Canada?"
Heh, no. We were created by the British North America Act of 1867. I meant the current form of the constitution, which was re-written in 1982 to include both the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (sort of like your amendments, only the whole document was re-written to include them), and to formalize our complete independence from the UK (since the 30's though it's pretty much been a given anyway).
@Joke
"Free speech my ass. The ACLU wouldn’t be shaking any trees if it were a CAUCASIAN spouting similar nastiness towards a different ethnic group"
Uh, yes they have. They've defended the Westboro Baptist Church's right to be arseholes at funerals, they've defended SPAM. Heck didn't you watch The Blues Brothers, they defended Illinois Nazis! ;)
"Hell hath no scorn like an angry gamer"
At the risk of being painted as partially evil myself, I will point out that his comments about muslims having a history of violence isn't COMPLETELY off-base. There is a long historical record of such, the problem with that logic is that just about every religion in the world, short of maybe hindu and some of the more peaceful forms of eastern religions have a long historical record of violence, so picking on the muslims for it, hardly serves a purpose.
That said, it's obvious that somebody needs to shut this guy up. Maybe the ACLU, maybe someone over him in the chain of command needs to have him fired. Maybe just somebody who cares about him needs to sit down with and say, "dude...LISTEN TO WHAT YOU ARE SAYING". Doesn't really matter, I'm not going to judge him, the bottom line is he needs to stop talking. QUICKLY.
His comments about Muslims being violent may not be COMPLETELY off base, but like you pointed out, many other religions have a similar history. Let's face facts, they say prostitution is the oldest profession, but I'd say killer is even older. Humans have been fighting and killing each other since pre-history. It's in our nature. Yes, some Muslim clerics promote violence on "infidels," but so do many world leaders and random people on the street (in their own ways).
If we're going to censor people based on whether they're ancestors were violent, we might as well shut down all communication. About the only person who MIGHT pass would be the Dali Lama.
Samething chould be said about christianity, also which Dala Lama? Some I would say some are as close to white on humanity as you could get.
It's one thing to imply the ACLU is too ivory tower for your taste, but I think your accusation of racism is out of line. Opinion or not, that's pretty heavy accusation to lay down without any support or examples.
I question that you are as familiar with the organization's work as you think you are.
I guess is some cases you can judge a book by the cover.
That was my point. Every religion, country, even the individual people have said or done things that are wrong. Look at the United States. We've held slaves, denied people the right to vote, stolen lands from native peoples, we're the only country to ever use a nuclear bomb (and we did it twice). If someone wants to deny a Muslim (or a Christian for that matter) a public forum, why shouldn't we Americans be denied the same? Why shouldn't we deny the French a forum? Hindu?
The Dali Lama is the head of the Tibetan Buddhist monks. At one time the Dali Lama was the leader of the Tibetan government. Today, he resides in India after being deposed by the Chinese government.
(Since the comment ended up here, I'll respond here, even if the article it relates to was removed)
Hinduism certainly has its share of violent adherents. Hindu nationalists in India, for example (though they don't get much attention in the Western press, possibly because they're mainly attacking Muslims...). Or Hindu fundamentalists attacking people who break the rules of the caste system.
The only world religion, AFAIK, that doesn't get much violence in its name is Buddhism. But maybe someone will enlighten me (pardon the pun).
Free speech my ass. The ACLU wouldn’t be shaking any trees if it were a CAUCASIAN spouting similar nastiness towards a different ethnic group
Nice rant, too bad you have no clue what you're talking about. The ACLU has assisted Neo-Nazi groups protect their right to speech and assembly in the past. They don't care what kind of unpopular speech it is, they care that it's protected.
I'm sick of the word "un-American" being used to keep Bilal's exibit from being shown. It's "Un-American" to keep Bilal's exibit from being shown.
Check out the next post. I think it's got intent pretty well covered.
...I'll just be going now.
Every culture and religion in history have a violent past (and present).
They've got a video of the Sanctuary intro presentation.
@Ebonheart: "Un-American" is a simple poisoning of the well. It's used frequently because, sadly, it's extremely effective. Just look at Joe McCarthy's reign of terror in the 50s. In post-9/11 USA, the term is heavily used by the Right to silence any views they disagree with.
Huh, I thought it was the phrase you with us, or you agianst us.
@ Jabrwock
Many thanks for the link to watch the exibit.