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 Free speech: South Park vs. Islam
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| derF |
Posted on 05/01/2010 22:56
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 Major Member  Posts: 1143 Joined: 08/04/2008 |
The following is an article I found in, of all places, 'The Week' magazine. Some of you may be familiar with the publication and recognize it's tendency to lean far to the right. But the article, itself, is fairly evenly dispositioned and I offer it here for your perusal and commentary. Free speech: South Park vs. Islam This might be “the lowest point in the history of American TV,” said Margaret Wente in the Toronto Globe and Mail. After veiled threats were published on a U.S. Islamist website, the cable network Comedy Central last week altered an episode of South Park to remove references to the Prophet Mohammed, and is now refusing to rebroadcast the episode--ever. The threats against creators trey Parker and Matt Stone actually came in response to the previous week’s episode, which had poked fun at the Islamic prohibition against depicting the Prophet. Mohammed was shown hiding inside a giant bear costume, with a character explaining, “We cannot risk violence from the people!” With no evident sense of irony, said David Harsany in The Denver Post, the humorless Islamists at RevolutionMuslim.com warned that Parker and Stone had “outright insulted” the Prophet and might pay for it with their lives. Instead of standing up for free speech, the appeasers at “Cowardly Central” caved in. We’ve seen this kind of cowardice before, said Ross Douthat in The New York Times. The West’s cultural institutions have been “cowering before the threat of Islamist violence” ever since the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh in 2004. But the South Park case is “particularly illuminating.” In the show’s 14 years on the air, “there’s no icon South Park hasn’t trampled” with its signature blend of toilet humor and blasphemous nastiness: fro the Virgin Mary profusely menstruating to the Buddha snorting cocaine and Jesus Christ downloading Internet pron. Yet only reference to Momhammed get censored. Through threats of violent retaliation, it seems, Islam has carved out the unique right not to be insulted. Nothing unique about it, said Glenn Greenwald in Salon.com. This very month in Texas, a college production of Terrence McNally’s Corpus Christi, which depicts Jesus as a gay man, had to be canceled after threats of violence. A Manhattan theater club had to cancel the same play a decade ago, after threats to “burn down the theater, kill the staff and ‘exterminate’ McNally.” Clearly, Christians also threaten to kill people for blasphemy. The truth, said Ahmet Rehab inChicageTribune.com, is that the threats against South Park’s creators came from a fringe group “of literally 5 - 10 people” who are “widely reviled” by mainstream Muslims. Most Muslims have responded to South Park’s puerile “satire” with the “silence and indifference” it deserves. P.S. I notice that my rating is now 'Major Member'. Does that refer to my body as a whole or just to a particular part of it? Edited by derF on 05/02/2010 12:25 |
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| catman |
Posted on 05/02/2010 00:14
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  Posts: 3621 Joined: 08/03/2008 |
It means you've been promoted from Captain. I think it sucks that the Comedy Channel 'caved', too, although that's easy for me to say. The bastards haven't singled me out by name yet, although I'm sure that being an atheist would get me tortued and killed if they had their way. |
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| Skeeve |
Posted on 05/02/2010 08:32
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  Posts: 2741 Joined: 08/01/2008 |
derF wrote: P.S. I notice that my rating is now 'Major Member'. Does that refer to my body as a whole or just to a particular part of it? Heh, I reworked the rank system some. You could have been a "Big Member", but I didn't go that route.  |
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