Roger’s Rules

February 17th, 2008 7:08 am

“That Root,” “youths,” and why Reuters is a disgrace

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In “Portrait of an Age,” G. M. Young’s classic overview of early Victorian England, there are a few melancholy pages devoted to the devastating Irish potato famine of the mid 1840s. Young notes in an aside that Sir Robert Peel, the Prime Minister, followed polite opinion in referring to the disappointing tuber as “That Root” instead calling it by its common name. “[I]n all the prayers offered up for our Irish brethern,” Young observes, “potatoes were never mentioned.”

Young describes this policy of politesse as “characteristic of Early Victorian manners,” and perhaps it was. It is also characteristic of a certain perennial timidity that refuses to call untoward realities by their correct names. Consider the opening of this story from Reuters about the latest rash of rioting in Copenhagen:

Danish youths riot for sixth night [Update: make that the seventh straight night]

Gangs of rioters set fire to cars and garbage trucks in northern Copenhagen on Friday, the sixth night of rioting and vandalism that has spread from the capital to other Danish cities, police said on Saturday.

Five youths were arrested in the capital on Friday after 28 cars and 35 garbage trucks were burned, Copenhagen police duty officer Jakob Kristensen told Reuters.

Danish media said arrests in other towns brought to 29 the number of people police were holding.

Scores of cars and several schools have been vandalized or burned in the past week. Police could give no reason, but said that unusually mild weather and the closure of schools for a winter break might have contributed.

That odd odor you smell is the aroma of politically correct mendacity wafting through the hallway. Danish youths torching cars for six nights running because spring is coming? What’s wrong with this carcass? You can’t tell from the first four paragraphs, but the cat peeks out of the Burka in the paragraphs that follow.

Police arrested two Tunisians and a Dane of Moroccan descent on Tuesday . . .

“Ah Ha!,” you say, “that sort of ‘youth’ is out there with the gasoline and lighted matches.”

Exactly.

And why were the “two Tunisians and a Dane of Moroccan descent” arrested? Why, “for planning to kill a cartoonist who drew one of the cartoons printed in a Danish newspaper two years ago that roused a storm of protest in Muslim countries.”

You remember the Danish cartoon contretemps: that was when (it was one time when) some adherents of the Religion of Peace went postal and started baying for blood, organizing boycots, setting fire to various Danish embassies around the world.

The Reuters story goes on to note that 15 Danish papers reprinted the drawing by the poor bastard of a cartoonist who is now shuttling from safe house to safe house to escape the Wrath of Khan. “Several hundred Muslims gathered in central Copenhagen on Friday to protest against publication of the cartoon. Most Muslims consider depictions of the founder of Islam offensive.”

Two points: 1. Where is the connection between the “youths” of the opening paragraphs and the “several hundred Muslims” who gathered to protest that slip into the story at the end? Why does Reuters take advantage of the Peel option, referring to “youths” (”That Root”) instead of “Muslim youths” (the “plain potato”)? It’s not “manners,” as Young suggested was the motivation for Sir Robert, but a desire to avoid reality, aka cravenness. Reuters, remember, was the news service that, following the bombings of September 11, cashiered the word “terrorist” because, Steven Jukes, Reuter’s global head of news, wrote “We all know that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” Do we really?

2. One thing we all do know is that Muslims are “offended” by depictions of the Muhammad. In fact, the list of the things Muslims are offended by would take over a culture. They don’t like ice-cream that (used to be) distributed by Burger King because a decoration on the lid looked like (sort of) the Arabic script for “Allah.” They are offended by “pig-related items, including toys, porcelain figures, calendars and even a tissue box featuring Winnie the Pooh and Piglet” appearing in the workplace. They take umbrage at describing Islamic terrorism as, well, Islamic terrorism and have managed to persuade Gordon Brown to rename it “anti-Islamic activity.” But here’s the thing: one of the features of living in a modern, secular democracy is that there is always plenty of offense to go around. No Muslim is more offended by cartoons of their Prophet than I am by their barbaric reaction to the cartoons. But their reaction when offended is to torch an embassy, shoot a nun , or knife a filmmaker. I write a column deploring such behavior. You see the difference.

Final moronic comment from Reuters: “Social workers said the arrests, the reprinting of the cartoon and protests against its appearance might have fuelled the riots.” You don’t say? How many social workers did it take to figure that out?

Fortunately, organizations like Reuters do not–not yet, anyway–have a monopoly on the news. For them, “youths” are rampaging in Denmark because, after all, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Thank God, then, for outlets like GatewayPundit, which has the wit to publish accurate headlines: RIOTS IN DENMARK! Muslim Youths Go On Torching Rampage. I think of intrepid Cecily Cardew, who in The Importance of Being Earnest has this illuminating exchange with her rival Gwendolen Fairfax:

Cecily. Do you suggest, Miss Fairfax, that I entrapped Ernest into an engagement? How dare you? This is no time for wearing the shallow mask of manners. When I see a spade I call it a spade.

Gwendolen. [Satirically.] I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different.

What would it take to convince the Steven Jukeses of the world that they had actually seen a spade?

Read bullet | (44) Comments bullet

44 Comments

John Frary:

“One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”

Well, sure. And one man’s Nazi is another man’s German patriot. One man’s Reuter’s editor is another man’s moron. One man’s mass murderer is another man’ social hygienist. One man’s hydrophobic Moslem is another man’s youth.

Distinctions are so difficult. Better to avoid them.

Feb 17, 2008 - 8:59 am Blog-o-Fascists:

A dangerous warming trend in Copenhagen

Power Line

Could it be that global warming has given rise to six straight nights of rioting by the mysterious “Danish youth” spotted in this Reuters report? Could …

Feb 17, 2008 - 9:30 am Julian:

In response to John Frary, you are incorrect to draw that comparison. A muslim youth will be a muslim youth regardless of who you are.

Feb 17, 2008 - 9:40 am David:

And, following John Frary, “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” imlpies that Martin Luther King is no better than the Ku Klux Klan.

Feb 17, 2008 - 9:40 am Daniel:

The Palestinian Intifada.

The French Intifada.

Now the Denmark Intifada.

How many more Intifadas need to pile up before the West wakes up to this threat?

Feb 17, 2008 - 10:43 am JFP:

“And one man’s Nazi is another man’s German patriot.”

John Frary, that made my day!

Now I’ve got a question, one I’ve been asking for some time now with respect to France. Whose cars are being torched?

Feb 17, 2008 - 10:44 am Will Conway:

No Julian and David, John is right.

Obviously someone supports the terrorists. They don’t see themselves as terrorists, but more as, well… freedom fighters.

It’s the angle you take, that’s why comparing Martin Luther King to the KKK has nothing to do with this.

Feb 17, 2008 - 10:49 am Arthur:

re: Wrath of Khan - I don’t think the Mongols were Muslim.

Feb 17, 2008 - 11:00 am Insufficiently Sensitive:

“One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”

And one man’s “news agency” is his reader’s propagandist.

Feb 17, 2008 - 11:04 am Tim in TX:

“[i]But their reaction when offended is to torch an embassy, shoot a nun , or knife a filmmaker. I write a column deploring such behavior. You see the difference.[/i] ”

If they keep it up, more people will decide the difference is that knifing, torching, and killing is more effective than publishing. And when that happens, they’re screwed - western civ being so much better at it.

Feb 17, 2008 - 11:11 am Curly Smith:

“Social workers said the arrests, the reprinting of the cartoon and protests against its appearance might have fueled the riots.”

Odd, I thought that rabble-rousing Imams hankering for more political power fueled the riots with hyperventilated non-grievances. Oh well, one man’s non-grievance is another man’s campaign slogan.

Feb 17, 2008 - 11:22 am Sam Hall:

A Freedom fighter may or may not be a terrorist. If he uses terror acts to advance his cause then he is.

The “youths” in Europe don’t appear to be using terror to make their point (yet), but they certainly are Muslims and they should be called that.

Feb 17, 2008 - 11:40 am Halo's re/Feeds:

A dangerous warming trend in Copenhagen

Could it be that global warming has given rise to six straight nights of rioting by the mysterious "Danish youth" spotted in this Reuters report? Could be: Gangs of rioters set fire to cars and garbage trucks in northern Copenhagen on Friday

Feb 17, 2008 - 11:49 am Spartee:

“western civ being so much better at it”

Well, better at organizing large numbers of trained soldiers for employing violence as a means of pursuing policy goals, certainly. I say that not in a sniffy way either. I am *glad* we are better at it!

For the last few centuries at least, we in the West have just been much better at waging a certain sort of “total war”. That looks likely to continue for the next few decades at least. If it wasn’t, I am 100% certain that in no time my child would be required to attend Wahhabi schools and I would not be able to buy Bud Light see women in movies.

The proverbial “Muslim Street’s” (aka the too-large chunk of the Islamic world that would hit us with clubs if given the chance) response to our warmaking skills has been to go all leftist guerilla on us. Much like the baby boomer radicals of yore, the Muslim Street sends the stupidest among their lot to blow innocent people to bits. Once they have our attention, they send out the rhetorically gifted among them, who then claim it is *our* fault they are killing innocent people. (Imperialism and all that you know, old chaps.)

God help us, some of the morons in the West actually buy into the Muslim Street’s tactics. Some things never change.

Our civilization will end when enough people think that by becoming more like Europe, we will get the Muslim Street to stop killing innocent people.

The grimmest part of this very grim joke is the very people who will die first if the Muslim Street ever takes over are the same “alternative lifestyle” folks most willing to accept rhetoric blaming the West for the Muslim Street’s bloodshed.

Feb 17, 2008 - 11:53 am Steevo:

Having enough experience with the likes of Steven Jukes and his Reuters, the AP, NY Times, BBC etc., its easy for me to call a spade a spade. Its not that they don’t want to offend, it is that they want to excuse and/or justify even if they do know better. Muslim fanaticism and its easy extreme Islamofascism is against George W. Bush, American military power backed by conservatives, and Israel.

Like the old saying “The enemy of my enemy…”.

Feb 17, 2008 - 12:22 pm Dr. Kenneth Noisewater:

For the last few centuries at least, we in the West have just been much better at waging a certain sort of “total war”

Well you know what they say, Practice makes Perfect…

Feb 17, 2008 - 1:09 pm Arizonan:

Writing a column is a good response to terrorist, but killing them on their own ground is even better. President Bush tried to awake the West up to the reality but over half of the people in America are too frightened to see what needs to be seen. Keep publishing cartoons keep insulting that is the only way you Europeans will ever force Muslims to assimilate into your culture.

Feb 17, 2008 - 1:10 pm Leclerc:

Problem is that the riots started 2 days before the arrests and that is by no menas eksclusively muslim youths by that are rioting.

But then again let’s not ruin a good story with facts.

This week was the winter holydays in Denmark and during the weekend several schools were firebombed. I’m quite sure that tonight will be more quiet and nohing will happen tomorrow when the schools start.

I think the real reason is that polticians has given into other rioting youths from last year who demanded that taxpayers should buy a house for them - recently the poleticians did. However no demands has been made from the rioters this time perhaps because they are not organized in any meaningfull way.

Feb 17, 2008 - 1:12 pm RH Potfry:

Let him amongst us who did not celebrate the advent of warm weather with a spree of gentle mischief be the first to cast a stone.

Feb 17, 2008 - 1:16 pm Tom Jackson:

At the risk of revealing latent Trekkiness, the Khan (memorably rendered by Ricardo Montelban) referred to in the “Wrath of” was described as a magnificent Shiite warrior of the late 20th (?) Century when he debuted in the original series. Remember, this would have been in the middle 1960s, when our view of Muslim “warriors” could afford to be more romantic than it has sense become. Star Trek’s Khan never laid eyes on the Gobian wilderness.

Feb 17, 2008 - 2:19 pm Tom Jackson:

Feb 17, 2008 - 2:20 pm skylights:

Arthur:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_%28title%29

Feb 17, 2008 - 4:56 pm Anonymous:

RH Potfry said :
Let him amongst us who did not celebrate the advent of warm weather with a spree of gentle mischief be the first to cast a stone.

BRILLIANT SATIRE!

Last night I broke all the windows in a neighbor’s house and, after the family spilled out the front door in fear, I then torched the place. And then I quietly melted away into the dark, for my spree of gentle mischief on this night was done.

Perhaps a spree of gentle forced sex, or even gentle forced cessation of others’ lives, will be in my future. Once I get bored with my current gentle gateway activity.

Feb 17, 2008 - 5:27 pm Richard Landes:

also, the Mongols converted to Islam once they had conquered large swaths of empire because Islam offered an imperial ideology and administrative apparatus that permitted them to control the land they had conquered.

Feb 17, 2008 - 6:33 pm Yaakov Watkins:

What we learn from this is that violence against western governments intimidates bureaucrats and the press. They give in to violence. That is an not a wise message to send. I wonder when the anti-Islamic fanatics will notice and start using violence to pursue their goals.

Feb 17, 2008 - 7:00 pm cfbleachers:

“The USA has not proven that it has anything to give to the world, neither in scientific developments nor with respect to the intellectual leadership of the American people. The best proof of that is the lack of political instinct that the parties display in abusing the broad masses of the United States. Those masses are further betrayed and lied to by its President and his Jewish Brain Trust.”

“We thus reject stupid phrases that reach us and the European public about a coming American Century. The Europeans alone will determine what happens in Europe, and Germany, with its inexhaustible culture, civilization, and achievement, will have the major role.”

(from the Goebbels propaganda ministry referring to Roosevelt and America)

When you are a propaganda arm for building a New Worldview, of the new EuroSocialist state, you need not bother with terms such as “terrorist” nor correctly identify the “multi-cultural” melange who advance the principles of that New Socialist Worldview.

You must simply adhere to its tenets. America is bad/evil/greedy/warmongering, its ties to the “Jewish Brain Trust” is
based upon crass and lowly mercenary gains, and each and every goodness is brought upon the world by the glistening flower petals of the adherents to the New Worldview.

Our own media, our own film industry and one of our own major parties are alreadys subscribers to the New Worldview. EuroSocialism is coming soon to a dinner/theater hall near you. And “truth” is not on the menu. The New Worldview’s train is making a whistle stop in your neighborhood. It is momentarily delayed in Denmark. The “youth” will be there to sing songs for you and we’re sure you will enjoy their programming.

One man’s Paul Julius Reuters is another man’s Josef Goebbels.

Feb 17, 2008 - 7:13 pm Tom W.:

One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s target of 30mm high-explosive cannon shells fired from an Apache helicopter.

As seen on YouTube and LiveLeak.

Feb 17, 2008 - 10:40 pm Casey Tompkins:

Well, gee, Leclerc, I guess it’s too darn inconvenient to discuss the fact that Muslims, and not Europeans, have been rioting.

You certainly don’t demonstrate the valor of your namesake.

And -just to maintain the high geek-level here- Khan was not a Muslim; he was a Sikh. Mmmkay? Sikhs would chew up Islamofascist terrorists, crap out the pieces, urinate on them, then laugh derisively.

Feb 17, 2008 - 11:22 pm cthulhu:

“But their reaction when offended is to torch an embassy, shoot a nun , or knife a filmmaker. I write a column deploring such behavior. You see the difference.”

Yep, I see the difference: you don’t get results.

Feb 18, 2008 - 12:01 am Mary Jackson:

“Youths” isn’t the only euphemism for Muslims. The BBC is particularly fond of “Asians”.

I have written a short article on the contortions our politically correct media must go through to avoid the M-word:

Don’t Mention the Muslims

Feb 18, 2008 - 3:36 am stealthpundit:

“One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”? What freedom, pray tell, are the Muslims fighting for?

Virtually everwhere in the West they are free to associate, practice their religion, follow their customs. The only place that Muslims really aren’t free is in their home countries.

What they want to be free from is seeing the rest of us free to associate, free to practice our religion and free to follow our customs. Using violence to achieve that end makes them terrorists - not freedom fighters.

Feb 18, 2008 - 4:58 am cfbleachers:

As fate would have it, our own CBS prime time EuroSocialist spinfest,
“60 Mendacious Minutes” just last evening promoted a propaganda special about “happiness” and why it is missing in America and the reason that four EuroSocialist “youth” have it.

The premise, is based upon four very Aryan-looking, healthy, vibrant happy late teen, early twenties youngsters sitting in chairs and chatting with Morely about the evils of the “American Dream”. You see, we (read, capitalist pigs) Americans want more, more, more. (I guess Morely and CBS have given their salaries and profits to charity).

That doesn’t buy “happiness”. What buys happiness, we are instructed by these four EuroSocialist children, without hesitation or irony…is to love to give that 50% tax theft to the state’s smiling pickpockets…and to “want less”.

I couldn’t make this up. The timing was perfect propagandizing, perfect prostelytizing, perfect pandering to the New Worldview masses.

You can’t possibly guess where the four youths, (one with his Brad Pitt at 20 face, smiling at the camera and the “I’m invoking wisdom, so that our children will lead us” posture and inflection so practiced and masterful) came from.

Why Denmark, of course.

So, there you have it. Who needs Reuters, BBC, AP, UPI and their false and often wholly fabricated anti-Israel and anti-America propaganda? We simply need to turn on CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN nightly news programs or flip open the pages of the NY Times, LA Times, WaPo, and the like and we can get our daily dose of New Worldview, EuroSocialist propaganda from our very own leftists.

First they tell you your dreams are the “wrong” ones, then they take your money, then the state takes away your ability to decide at all, then they make you recite why you are so lucky to live in a Socialist State. It’s a beautiful thing. If you like being a mindless lemming, that is.

Feb 18, 2008 - 6:52 am thud:

Denmark shows again why no muslim can be trusted…finally we do have a real enemy within.

Feb 18, 2008 - 8:15 am bandit:

Wouldn’t freedom fighters be fighting for freedom and not submission?

Feb 18, 2008 - 9:02 am Blog-o-Fascists:

Reuters: Danish Rioters Merely ‘Youths’

NewsBusters.org - Exposing Liberal Media Bias

The British newswire that strenuously The British newswire that strenuously <a href=”http://newsbusters.org/blogs/ken-shepherd/2008/02/13/hezbollah-commander-killed-reuters-careful-avoid-terrorist-label” target=”_blank” rel=”nofollow nofoll…

Feb 18, 2008 - 9:30 am Ray:

“And, following John Frary, “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” imlpies that Martin Luther King is no better than the Ku Klux Klan.

Your analogy is false as Martin Luther King never fought for freedom, he advocated for it. He believed in passive resistance and not violent confrontation.

“Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.”
Martin Luther King

Here’s his beliefs on rioting:

“The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility. “

Feb 18, 2008 - 9:35 am Ray:

“Well, gee, Leclerc, I guess it’s too darn inconvenient to discuss the fact that Muslims, and not Europeans, have been rioting.”

That’s funny, I didn’t know that Islam was a nation. Or that Europe was, for that matter. I thought that the citizens of Denmark were, well, Danish.

What difference does their religion make? Danish citizens are rioting, it doesn’t matter if their Danish Muslims, Danish Christians, or any other Danish religion. They’re still citizens of Denmark and that makes them Danish!

Feb 18, 2008 - 10:11 am mickey:

One man’s burning dump truck is another man’s weinie roast.

Spring break Muslim style or
Muslims gone wild.

Okay libs, lets all pretend that this isn’t a Muslim thing.

Feb 18, 2008 - 11:58 am P. Ami:

I read the introduction to this article and need to get a word in on its premise.

Perhaps Mr. Kimball mistakes Victorian Britain for Pre-Sharia England. While the British used various euphemisms for the “unseemly” aspects of life, they were anything but timid. Have a look at any number of Victorian hot spots (Boer War, India, North Africa, the list goes on) and there you will find British subjects behaving with courage, brutality and effectively. The culture of the day required a glossy veneer but the world’s reality, and the ability of the British people to face it, were admirable. One might even gain some depth of character if we were to understand the value of the veneer rather then insist that our explanation of every activity under the sun in purely crude and direct manners and terms is the only effective one. Euphemism can go too far but one can also be too direct.

Feb 18, 2008 - 12:00 pm mikek:

Its funny that you dont mention it, but even in another quote you give, there is more of those manners.
“Several hundred Muslims gathered in central Copenhagen on Friday to protest against publication of the cartoon. Most Muslims consider depictions of the founder of Islam offensive.”

The “founder of Islam”??? Why not say his name? Could it be that they know that everybody will get a laugh when they see them write things like “the holy prophet mohhamet” instead of just “mohhamet” like all the normal infidels of the world write it?

Feb 18, 2008 - 12:20 pm OBloodyHell:

> One man’s Reuter’s editor is another man’s moron.

No, Reuters’ editors are morons for Everyman.

Not Everyman *realizes* it, but it’s true, nonetheless.

Feb 18, 2008 - 4:07 pm Oligonicella:

Ray –

“They’re still citizens of Denmark and that makes them Danish!”

Um, no. They may have moved there, but they have steadfastly refused to assimilate, learn the language, obey the laws or any other damned thing that would make them Danish.

Feb 19, 2008 - 6:12 pm Zhombre:

Whole new subsets of Everyman suggest themselves. Everymoron. Everydhimmi. Everyappeaser. Everyusefulidiot. EveryEurowienie.

Feb 20, 2008 - 3:27 pm Vivek Iyer:

Dear Sir,
The background to the Danish ‘intifada’ was corrupt, boondogle ridden, municipal politics in which immigrant ‘community leaders’- who conducted vendettas against each other back in their home country- adopted more and more extreme positions so as to create a constituency (or sustain the impression of possessing one) amongst lumpen, second generation immigrant, youth. The nexus between petty criminal adolescent gangs and militant chauvinism is pretty much a universal phenomenon. The fact is, if you live in a big city, chances are some of your tax money is going to nutters of various descriptions recruiting amongst gormless youth.
The notion that Scandinavian youth aint as utterly irresponsible as kids closer to home is, I’m afraid, a pipe-dream. Random violence and vast nomadic biker gangs preserve the ancient berserker tradition whose contribution to World Culture has been so signal.
The fact is, tax funded extremism nursed along by our own local politicians comes back and bites us in the ass no matter whom it corrupts- Muslims or Presbyterians.
Vote-bank manipulation, the inflammation of tensions between communities and ‘interest groups’, is how you get your snout into the municipal trough and get to make a lot of money in Real Estate.
I think, Reuters not wanting to call it ‘Muslim’ violence or “Islamic protest”- though, as you pointed out, this made their story misleading and informationally inefficient, nevertheless was a responsible decision on their part. After all, to dignify bored, petty criminal, lumpen trash as agents of a World Religion would lead them- adolescent narcissists that they are- to identify with that role and up the ante next time round.
Still, you have a valid point- the editing wasn’t up to par- but then which lowly sub-editor at Reuters has your command of the English language?

Feb 22, 2008 - 11:03 am