SteynOnline - A NEW FRONT IN THE WAR ON TERROR
Faced with this explicit threat of violence, what did Comedy Central do?
Why, they folded like a Bedouin tent. They censored "South Park,"...
The essay is about more than South Park, it is about fecklessness that has shown up as mendacious tough talk, then faced with principals of truth and honor to the Country they claim they're defend, they shrivel and wither away in the face of Muslim Terror. Leftists did the same in the 1930s, Hell, many in the New Deal just plain worked for Stalin.
More from Mark Steyn on South Park-
Meanwhile, Comedy Central – you know, the "hip" "edgy" network with Jon Stewart from whom "young" Americans under 53 supposedly get most of their news – just caved in to death threats. From a hateful 83-year-old widow who doesn't like Obamacare? Why, no! It was a chap called Abu Talhah al Amrikee, who put up a video on the Internet explaining why a "South Park" episode with a rather tame Mohammed joke was likely to lead to the deaths of the show's creators. Just to underline the point, he showed some pictures of Theo van Gogh, the Dutch film director brutally murdered by (oh, my, talk about unfortunate coincidences) a fellow called Mohammed. Mr. al Amrikee helpfully explained that his video incitement of the murder of Matt Stone and Trey Parker wasn't really "a threat but just the likely outcome." All he was doing, he added, was "raising awareness" – you know, like folks do on Earth Day. On Earth Day, lame politicians dig a hole and stick a tree in it. But aggrieved Muslims dig a hole and stick a couple of comedy writers in it. Celebrate diversity!
Faced with this explicit threat of violence, what did Comedy Central do?
Why, they folded like a Bedouin tent. They censored "South Park," not only cutting all the references to Mohammed but, in an exquisitely post-modern touch, also removing the final speech about the need to stand up to intimidation. Stone & Parker get what was at stake in the Danish cartoons crisis, and many other ostensibly footling concessions: Imperceptibly, incrementally, remorselessly, the free world is sending the message that it is happy to trade core liberties for the transitory security of a quiet life. That is a dangerous signal to give freedom's enemies. So the "South Park" episode is an important cultural pushback.
Yet in the end, in a craven culture, even big Hollywood A-listers can't get their message over. So the brave, transgressive comedy network was intimidated into caving in and censoring a speech about not being intimidated into caving in. That's what I call "hip" "edgy" "cutting-edge" comedy: They're so edgy they're curled up in the fetal position, whimpering at the guy with the cutting edge, "Please. Behead me last. And don't use the rusty scimitar where you have to saw away for 20 minutes to find the spinal column."
Terrific. You can see why young, urban, post-modern Americans under 57 get most of their news from Comedy Central. What a shame 1930s Fascist Europe was so lacking in cable.
In an ironic twist after Comedy Central caved:
You Can Feed the Crocodile... [Mark Steyn]
...but sometimes he'll still eat you first. While the initial US reports on the Times Square car bomb concentrated on the by now traditional denials that this was anything to do with terrorism and, even if it was, it was "amateurish", the Telegraph in Britain was the first to note the parking space:
The dark green Nissan Pathfinder with tinted windows was parked near the junction of 45th Street and Broadway.
The location is also adjacent to the Viacom building, fuelling speculation that it might be linked to the company's controversial South Park cartoon which recently depicted Prophet Muhammad in a bear suit.
The important thing to remember about Iraq and Afghanistan is that, from the jihad's point of view, they're sideshows: The real battlefield is New York and Chicago and London and Paris.
05/02 09:25 AM nro the corner
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