Episode 128: The Salman Rushdie Attack Holds a Mirror To The West And The Opera Finally Bans Slavery

Episode description

Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses, has spent decades in hiding as radical Muslims have hunted and killed many others involved with the controversial novel. Recently, he reemerged in New York, only to be stabbed near-fatally as he took the stage. But are others wrong to draw parallels between the rhetoric used by his attackers and the rhetoric we see increasingly in the West?

Plus, Substack writer Sam Thielman had his contract unfairly terminated, but Jesse uncovers events in his past that suggest he may not be quite as fair to others. Then, enjoy the chaos as internet insanity bleeds over into the opera scene once again, this time with an abolitionist twist.

Salman Rushdie

The attack on Rushdie

https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/15/us/salman-rushdie-attack-monday/index.html

Bari Weiss’s history of the fatwa against him

Jesse’s review of Helen Joyce’s book

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/07/books/review/trans-helen-joyce.html

The MacLachlan assault

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2017/09/trans-rights-terfs-and-a-bruised-60-year-old-what-happened-at-speakers-corner

The outcome of the case

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5613057/Model-punched-feminist-smashed-120-camera-violent-brawl-walks-free-court.html

The Julie Bindel case

https://www.scotsman.com/news/scottish-news/feminist-speaker-julie-bindel-attacked-transgender-person-edinburgh-university-after-talk-545841

Sam Thielman

Ackerman’s post mildly criticizing Substack (note Thielman credit)

https://foreverwars.ghost.io/forever-wars-off-substack-on-ghost/

Thielman details how Substack punished him for editing the post

https://foreverwars.ghost.io/substack-retaliates-against-forever-wars-editor/

Substack backpedals

Our episode on the Gist controversy

Pesca’s suspension

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/22/business/media/slate-mike-pesca-suspended.html

Thielman isn’t happy how things turned out

Jesse’s response

Thielman digs himself deeper re: Donald MacNeil Jr.

Sam’s devastating response, a masterpiece of polemics thoroughly discrediting Jesse and dishonoring his descendants for centuries to come

Theater Blowup

Playwrights Ensemble resigns collectively

https://medium.com/@ofvictorygardensplaywrights/letter-from-the-playwrights-of-victory-gardens-theater-fcbd3e1d1840

A list of demands for white american theater, invoking, of all things, the 13th Amendment

https://www.weseeyouwat.com/

The results of the protest outside the theater

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/18/theater/ken-matt-martin-victory-gardens.html

The internal conflict at Victory Gardens

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/01/theater/victory-gardens-theater-chicago.html?smtyp=cur

Ken-Matt’s statement

http://www.kenmatt.com/blog/2022/7/18/for-those-doing-the-work

Image: People listen as writers gather to read selected works of British author Salman Rushdie, one week after he was stabbed while on stage, during a rally to show solidarity for free expression outside the New York Public Library in New York City on August 19, 2022. - Hadi Matar has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder charges after being accused of stabbing British author Salman Rushdie multiple times on stage during a literary event at the Chautauqua Institution. The severely injured author is recovering well according to family and friends, after the assault left him with multiple stab wounds on August 12, 2022. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP) (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images)