My Statue of Liberty postcard went missing overnight, 3 days after I put it up. Any suggestions for the next step? I would of course never dream of pulling down the annan världsbild poster in retribution; that would be stooping to the same level and contradict the whole point of the exercise. Shall I try putting up a pro-WTO stickerI’m out of Statue of Liberty postcards.? Or shall I do a control experiment and put up something everybody agrees with, like End hunger now! just to check that it is really the content of my speech that is being objected to, not the delivery?
Interestingly, the ad for the real estate agent also disappeared. This leads me to believe that the censor must have had a small pang of conscience; something along the lines of: “Well, we really can’t let that misguided response continue to sit alongside the poster, but taking down just the postcard might look a bit too targeted, so I will also take down some of the ads to make it look like I did a regular clean-up of the bulletin board.”
In an apparently unrelated movevia Erik, via Manhus Beta., the Swedish chapter of Indymedia decided to start censoring contributed articles on its website as well as appended comments [Swedish]. The reason seems to be that articles were being posted [Swedish] criticizing the human rights abuses of regimes in the Middle East other that Israel. American Indymedia chapters, to their credit, are up in arms on the move by the Swedish chapter:
Readers say the editors have started to act like the fascists they claim to oppose, and to use tactics aimed to stymie free debate. Others have complained about the apparent racism of the editors, since censorship has been particularly harsh regarding comments or articles from specific ethnic groups.
Maybe the editors live in my building.
It looks as though your postcard was deliberately removed, Stefan. Putting up another one is not a bad idea, although you’re out of stock. Putting up something like ‘end hunger now’ is pointless. Why don’t you put up a poster announcing the fact that someone is attacking a diverse opinion; that apparently they cannot tolerate a postcard of the Statue of Liberty? Maybe ask residents of the building to sign the poster in support of diverse opinion – since after all the original poster of the flag/world picture took it upon himself/herself to use the bulletin board for political posturing. If their picture is to be tolerated by the community, surely yours deserves to be tolerated as well. Conclude by requesting the person who took down your postcard kindly pin it back up.
no no, rip theirs down, or deface it. shocking. i think it was charles, it’s typical of lefty gits like him.
or, carefully tear out the picture of the planet, leaving only the sky and a hole, and underneath insert a copy of the swedish flag so it appears in the hole as a swedish world. leave the words underneath.
It was me. I admit it. But it was only because I needed something to write a shopping list on and the poster was to big, the flyer about not lighting matches in the building was too important, and the two cards advertising massage services were both too important and too small.
OK, it was also because you only put it up there to annoy, and claiming it was some big exercise in freedom of speech is just silly, and me taking it down saved some nice Swedish type who lives in your building from (1) being annoyed by your obvious attempt to annoy but (2) being bound by their decent liberal natures from acting and so (3) having a bad day. You know me, I’m all about happiness.
Anyway, its hardly a new thought to say that liberalism only really works if everyone already believes in it, and ‘it’ happens to mean pretty much the same thing for all of them, and so we have to weed out the Stefan-y (as opposed to Stefanie, who seemed very nice, soon may she come back and comment) people before we can start building utopia. And you, too, Eurof. I’m not sharing my perfect state with a devotee of himalayan bovines.
PS, here’s the truth: the poster board turns out to be peer-reviewed, and at the request of the editors, I took a look at your ‘commentary.’ As I told them:
“I am afraid I view the submission as below the standards expected of a poster board with a circulation of one, aimed at a general readership.
“I thought, not least, that the statement the author was trying to make in this commentary was based on a contradictory and inadequate reading of the initial article. I should also note that the material has been presented elsewhere, and the information contained in it is commonplace.”
So your postcard was rejected for publication.
I am sorry to have to disappoint you with this news, and wish you luck if you consider revising and resubmitting the postcard elsewhere. I should also remind you that it is the policy of the poster-board not to return unsolicited manuscripts.
ok, i’ll bite. whatthefuck have i got to do with himalayan bovines? a yak, i suppose. these are possible interpretations, none of which are remotely amusing:
i like to yak, as in yakkity-yak.
i worship yaks.
i have sex with yaks.
i only ask because i am interested in you as a clinical case, and am curious as to the depths of joke crapness you can sink to.
Much like Stefan’s original post, you appear to have drawn three interpretations at random and uselessly commented upon them.
Let me give you a fourth, authorial, interpretation. Although having placed my comment in the public domain, it is of course not privileged for that reason alone:
The Himalayas are not only home to bovines of the Yakic persuasion, but also altitudenous. Thus they host high yaks.
High yaks. Freed, rich high yaks. What level of hell are we on? Can I get off here?
Those Himalayan Bovines can often be found hanging out with people made of ice, who were once prisioners, hence: Melting Freed Man.
To be honest, the Indymedias need to stop with this open publishing policy; it attracts trolls and results in their genuine opinions getting misrepresented.
This happens especially when an open published article (ie. one that doesn’t get past the moderation onto the front page) gets the full “official”-looking template; as a result, it’s easy for anti-Indymedia people to point at a URL, which when loaded, announces that “Hitler was right” or some such shite, looking like an official IM article.
fuckoffuckoffuckoff.
not you justin, although i have no idea what you’re talking about
i am not your straight man, charles.
Is this the sort of response we can expect from Europe in our future multipolar world?
Charles you are nothing but a lover of hedonistic bubbly guzzlers.
I can think of several reasons why you should be compared to a yak, John. None of them very flattering though.
hung like a yak? that wouldn’t be too bad. hardy like a yak? that’s true too. noble creatures, yaks. where would himalayans be without them, protecting them from marauding yetis.
OK, Jame, my turn to bite. “A lover of hedonistic bubbly guzzlers”?
Yes, Charles, you obviously love a Krug man.
eeeuuuww. cooties. no I do not.
Yes you do. You’ve grown a Krugmanesque beard too, I bet. Don’t deny it just because you shaved it off Monday morning.
Clean shaven as a baby’s bottom. Although I’m not in ther habit of shaving baby’s bottoms.