Heretofore this weekend, I haven't covered the Great Cartoon Crisis of 2006, but here's a whirlwind tour of the action. Charles Johnson spots French retailer Carrefour advertising the removal of Danish products from their shelves, all the while denying that they're removing Danish products from their shelves. (Duplicitous French...grocers?)

Elsewhere, Michelle Malkin links to video of two staggeringly brave Protest Warrior-style counter-demonstrators flying the Danish flag in the midst of a babillian Muslims marching in Paris. (Note the "You--The Homosexuals!!!" epithet shouted by one fellow when he spots the two counter-protestors, which The Anchoress also spotted. As in the case of the Soviet Union, the western left are supporting an ideology that bans the very freedoms tolerated in Europe and America.)

Which is something that Michael Kinsey picks up on:

“The bewildered prime minister of Denmark, trying to calm the whirlwind that has descended on his innocent, unsuspecting country, gets it spectacularly wrong when he reassures disgruntled Muslims that Denmark supports "freedom of religion" and is "one of the world's most tolerant and open societies." Tolerance, openness, and freedom of religion are not what they have in mind. A lively debate is going on about whether Islam really does forbid any portrayal of the prophet, however benign, or whether that is a recent innovation of some subset of the faithful with possible ulterior motives. This debate misses the point. Some Christians believe they are required to wear particular sorts of clothing. Some Jews and Muslims don't eat pork. They don't claim that their religion requires other people to wear special clothing or avoid eating pork. Tolerance and ecumenism can only do so much. They have nothing to offer a Muslim in Afghanistan who is personally insulted and enraged about an image that appears in a newspaper in Denmark."

Or as Glenn Reynolds writes, "Like race riots in the early 20th Century, this is a case of ignorant yahoos being exploited by elites in order to protect the elites' power against civilizing influences."

Update: Via Betsy Newmark, Theodore Dalrymple has some thoughts on last year's Clash of Civilizations, or as we once dubbed it, the Great Burning Citroen Crisis of 2005.

Another Update: Tammy Bruce writes that Sweden is the first western nation to censor The Cartoons That Dare Not Be Shown:

In an absolutely outrageous decision for any democratic Western country, the government of Sweden has shut down a website that was showing the Mohammad cartoons.

Sweden views itself, as leftist governments usually do, as progressive, tolerant, and flame-holders for personal liberty. With this act, they expose the ultimate nature of socialism and leftists--the willingness to smash freedom of expression and personal liberty in the name of 'security.'

While Sweden is the first Western nation to officially censor (Islamic nations have done so, but fascism and Islamic theocracies go hand in hand), let us hope it is the last. But this does not bode well when it comes to whether or not the West has the wherewithall to stand up for itself and its values. What could crush western European values now is the same thing that crushed it in the first half of the last century--when leftist socialism infects government, fascism is not far behind. Fascist control of media is the first act, always in the name of 'safety' or 'for the best of everyone,' or to ostensibly maintain 'social control.'

Swedes everywhere should be appalled and up in arms. So far, though, we've heard virtually nothing from the people of that 'progressive' country as it essentially abandons its neighbors Denmark and Norway, and the basic tenets and values that keep the Western world free.

The values of freedom are lovely and nice when one does not have to defend them.When we are challenged is when we find out who we really are. The Germans learned what was at their core in the last century. Sweden, are you to be the first Western nation in the 21st century to surrender to fascism?