Yes, I was speaking in hyperbole. I knew you’d point that out I’m trained as a rape crisis counsellor as well. Rape is pretty much the worst crime in my book, so fear of rape is, as you said, far worse than censorship (although you’re at risk of getting a little more than just censored, no?)

Yes,your excerpt refers to the Bologna train station bombings. But just because the group that planted those bombs was fascist doesn’t mean that Bolognesi are Fascists. In fact, Bologna has been known for “La Rossa” because it is a historically Communist city. Many of the Bolognese civic administrations have been staunchly Communist. Not to deny that Fascists may not exist, though. And not to denounce the possibility that Bolognesi administrations cannot be anything but Communitst. The mayor prior to Coferatti (the current mayor) was actually not so lefty (but he wasn’t Fascist, at least not that I know of).

Fascism began in Bologna. It still has traces left:

Bologna, August 2, 1980. It was a hot Saturday morning, the first weekend of Italy’s traditional holiday month, and thousands of vacationers jostled their way to and from the trains in Bologna’s central railroad station. In the midst of that noisy crowd someone … put down a heavy suitcase, and quickly left the station. The suitcase contained over forty pounds of explosives… At exactly 10:25 AM it exploded, ripping through the crowd, tearing apart the reinforced concrete walls, and bringing the roof crashing down on hundreds of bodies and parts of bodies. In the bloody aftermath, rescue squads worked for over twelve hours to pull the dead and maimed from the rubble. As they labored, a young neofascist entered a telephone booth across town and dialed Bologna’s leading newspaper. “This is the Armed Revolutionary Nuclei,” he said. “We claim responsibility for the explosion in the railway station.” The final toll: eighty-five dead—the eldest an eighty-six-year-old man, the youngest a three-year-old child—and more than two hundred wounded. [Link]

Shruti, I know you’re speaking in hyperbole, but … no, fear of rape is a lot worse than self-censorship in public places. I trained as a rape crisis counsellor when I was in college b/c the issue is so important.

I, like many others, including the relatives of the victims of Sept. 11, still would like to know exactly what and who was behind this atrocity. How is that tantamount to denying the Holocaust? We know who acted act out the Holocaust, and we know it took place. I did not say that September 11th never took place. Dipsh*t.