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Monday, September 12, 2022

Truth vs. Illiberal Murderers; Salman Rushdie and Jeff German

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - They never forget. Why should you?

I don't know what appetite there is on a September 11-related article, but this is actually a sequel to two articles: Never Forget: Muslims around Earth actually rioted and killed over "Innocence of Muslims" (from September 11, 2021); and Humour Under Assault and Battery (my take on Will Smith slapping Chris Rock from earlier this year).

I'm writing about the relatively recent attempted murder of fiction author and speaker Salman Rushdie, as well as the murder of investigative journalist Jeff German. Both men tried to use their powers of free speech to tell the truth... and both were victims of brutal and vicious attempts to silence them.

Splatoon 3 Salmon Rush Run Salmonid employee handbook Grizzco
I knew I was going to write about Salman Rushdie the instant he got stabbed.
The fact that his name sounds similar to the Salmon Rush event in Splatoon is a total coincidence.
Also, this is the only non-text media you're getting in this article.


Some background on Salman Rushdie: He's a fiction writer and a citizen of the United Kingdom, but born in India to a Muslim family. He wrote a 1988 fiction book called The Satanic Verses with several references to Islamic lore. As usual, many Muslims got upset over it. However, this extended to the highest levels of the Iranian revolutionary government, and their leadership and many followers called for the murder of Salman Rushdie on the basis of blasphemy, and have extended millions of dollars in a bounty that continues to this day. As you... might expect, that's a powerful incentive, and for the past several decades, Salman has had a rather secluded life. (Though sales of The Satanic Verses skyrocket whenever angry Muslims raise their voice against him.)

A month ago, on August 12, 2022, Mr. Rushdie headed over to make a speech at Chautauqua in New York. It should be safe territory—it's an institution supposedly dedicated to exploring human values and philosophy and such, including debate. They have speakers all the time. As Mr. Rushdie was about to give a speech on “the United States as a safe haven for exiled writers”, 24-year old Hadi Matar allegedly ran on stage to stab him 10 times before being apprehended. You'd think that Mr. Rushdie would have an irony barrier to protect him from being attacked as he's about to give a speech about how the country he's in is a safe place from being attacked, but unfortunately, the Big Bubbler wasn't released at the time, and I guess the ten stabbings broke through his Ink Armor, which didn't end up protecting the three other members on his original four-member squad:
“In July 1991, Hitoshi Igarashi, the novel’s Japanese translator, was stabbed to death and its Italian translator, Ettore Capriolo, was badly wounded. In October 1993, William Nygaard, the novel’s Norwegian publisher, was shot three times outside his home in Oslo and seriously injured.”

Using your free speech rights isn't just (allegedly) under literal attack by intolerant Muslims, however. Earlier this month, Las Vegas investigative journalist Jeff German was fatally stabbed, and the prime suspect is Democrat Clark County Public Administrator Rob Telles. The motive is because Mr. German wrote this investigative report on how Mr. Telles (allegedly) fostered a hostile work environment in the public administrator's office, and he was continuing to investigate the matter even further. This report caused Mr. Telles to lose an election to Assistant Public Administrator Rita Reid, who was a primary source in the investigation as one of the main victims of the hostile work environment. The article is seen as the main reason why Rob Telles lost the election.

The public administrator mostly deals with the families of dead people—they seize the deceased's estates until the family or other right recipient of those assets can come in and have those things for themselves. That's already a stressful job dealing with emotional people—having a toxic and hostile work environment full of favouritism and scary rules doesn't help. For his part, Mr. Telles denies everything as “false claims” and “allegations made in the article by the local rightwing paper.” (I'm not sure if the Review Journal is, in fact, a right-wing publication, though Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson owned it before he died in 2021.) I think the whole thing could make for an interesting Ace Attorney case, though. And (alleged) props to Rob Telles for (allegedly) killing Jeff German all by himself, which is uncharacteristic for a politician. Usually, politicians don't get their hands dirty and they get minions to do that dirty work, but they actually found Telles's DNA under the fingernails of Jeff German, which implies a very up-close-and-personal interaction.


I guess in both cases, these victims are a victim of very illiberal forces that claim to be nice and liberal. Rob Telles considers Rita Reid to be a #DINO (or Democrat In Name Only) and questions her party loyalty for running against and trying to fix his (alleged) hostile work environment. You know, and then (allegedly) murdering someone who tries to expose that and speak truth to his power. And Salman Rushdie isn't being supported by progressive people due to their sick love with intolerant and anti-Western Muslims—he was one of the signatories of the A Letter on Justice and Open Debate, which notes (among other things) how the political left is increasingly hostile to freedom of speech, on top of some long-existing right-wing authoritarian and anti-speech tendencies.

It's a dangerous combination and alliance, and scary for free speech. Journalists are being murdered, authors are being murdered (or attempted to be murdered). All for speaking what they see as truths. It's up to the rest of society to condemn that barbaric behaviour, and reject new ideas such as that free speech is violence and evil and must be stopped. Or else you won't be able to live in a society with truth OR levity.



Did Ludwig do a good job avoiding writing “Salmon Rush died” or something like that? A quick CTRL + F indicates yes. More importantly, what did you think about the article? Will truth get to stick around as an important value? Is it already lost? What do you think of the idea of (allegedly) Salman Rushdie's Islamic stabber (and his party's previous Islamic attackers) and Jeff German's (presumably non-Muslim) stabber having similar, illiberal philosophical outlooks?

7 comments :

  1. Not really sure *why* you took such great pains not to write "salmon rush died."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 'cause Salmon Rush lives, even if it's very similar to the dead guy's name.

      In fact, the Rush event is probably the scariest one in both Splatoon 2 and Splatoon 3 with the biggest chance of a team wipeout.

      Delete
  2. I personally celebrated 9/11 by buying splatoon and a new keyboard!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's Tokyo themed, very nice. Needed one since my X and spacebar barely work on my current keyboard. Excited to receive Monday

      Delete
    2. Tokyo themed keyboard? ...I'm interested in seeing a picture of that.

      Delete
    3. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/628038273150877700/1020534086131003503/unknown.png

      Delete

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